Disclaimer : I totally own Lost and Michael Emerson, therefore I'm the happiest girl in the whole world.
No, seriously.
Author's note: No Ben is going to be hurt in this story, although I cannot say the same for my dear little O.C., Lila.
(I do not promote self-harm at all, I just longed to read a fiction with someone I could relate to, so that I could be with Ben for five minutes of my literary life; since the man has obviously subscribed to sexy bold heroines in the world of fan fiction, I had to create a young weirdo specially for him. This weirdo and I are much alike, as you may have gathered, so I do hope you will like her.)
By the way, English is not my native language, so please be indulgent in your reviews, and PM me if you think some sentences need to be changed! I will take your remarks into account of course. This is my first time writing in English and I only wish to improve :)
Dr Benjamin Linus hated grading papers.
Not because it awoke in him hatred of pupils like it did with his German colleague; no, he did not despise his students. But reading senseless and empty words about Napoleon's retreat forced him to see what a failure he was, as a teacher. Not to mention that becoming a teacher had been the biggest failure in his life.
Alexandra Rousseau's brilliant dissertations were far behind now; he had lost track of her progression a few months after her graduation (she was obviously too busy with college life to keep on sending him some news), and he could only suppose that she had gotten her license at the end of the past year.
Yet, after a few days on this new term, he discovered that students' essays could still light a smile on his face.
How he had missed it.
They were not perfect papers actually; the main script of the period studied in class appeared to be magically transfigured, and he could not remember reading any single precise date in them. What he was given to read was a mixture of various little details he had briefly tackled in class; nothing really accurate or even less historical… Still, he had learnt to save her paper to grade for last: reading his own words about trivial details, mixed up with the strangest fantasies, instead of pale clones of the 7th grade History book, was actually delightful. Moreover, she had a way to put it that he found most amusing:
"[…] Then Napoleon was exiled to Elba where he spent his time bent over his stomach, cursing himself for using too much vinegar in his daily salad, and contemplating the fact that without power, he might as well have been dead. Alas, the writer of this outstanding paper cannot communicate the date of this sad event, or she may suffer the same gastrological torments as the character himself: this date is cursed, Dr Linus. Not to mention that opening a History book gets tougher and tougher recently."
She was for sure one of a kind.
Lila.
As her form teacher, he had been enabled to discreetly enquire among his coworkers whether she dared them too, with this bright boldness of hers. But he soon discovered that she reserved this treatment for History only, which he felt honored by in a way. Unlike all her other classes in which she showed no interest whatsoever (and which she yet passed, to the utter annoyance of the teachers), in his class, he felt that she actually cared.
Not for European History of course, but for some kind of interaction; she knew he would eventually read her paper and grade it with the most original annotation he could allow himself to write, and still she kept joking in her essays, maybe about herself, but for him only to read – he felt privileged.
She did not fit in high school, he sometimes mused.
She was one year older than all of them. He read in her file that a severe pneumonia had kept her from school for nearly a whole year, and that she had returned at the beginning of this term. Yet, he was convinced that if it had not been for this long interruption, she still would not care about the students or teachers. Being a marginal suited her so well that he thought this as belonging to her character.
Indeed, she did not have friends.
He could actually swear he had never seen her talking to anyone on her own initiative.
Yet, she did not seem to be the depressive type. He thought that she was simply…loony. Whenever he looked at her, he found her seemingly absorbed in something highly captivating, such as the mapa mundi on the wall, a hairclip on some girl's head, a little spider crawling on her table (once he believed he had witnessed an adoption), her inner thoughts, or simply his very own shoes.
Sometimes in class, their eyes locked, and then he had to hold on the thread of his speech as if for dear life, or else he would easily get lost into her gaze.
She had wide, unsettling dark eyes.
The most disconcerting eyes he had ever seen.
They were surrounded by a constellation of freckles, and the auburn hair that came with it fell down to her shoulders - when she did not arrange it into a bizarre hairdo. Her dressing fashion, as well eccentric, sometimes allowed an attentive eye to make out a rather slender body with sweet feminine curves. He could tell the way most of the boys looked at her when she was not aware of them… But he had soon understood that she scared them, which explained why they preferred to simply bully her; that, at least, was familiar ground.
Had he not been their teacher, he would have beaten them to a pulp.
After writing a sincere 'Most amusing' in the left margin, facing her conclusion about the East India Company, he flipped the copy back and traced a reluctant 'C minus' on the front.
And for the first time that day, he smiled.
Why can't I have a teacher like him?
Anyway, all I've got for now is loads of notes about what's supposed to happen next, so please tell me whether it's worth typing or not!