Purple Paper
"Come on, people, move it! Our deadline's tomorrow morning at five and I'll be damned if any of us have to pull another all-nighter!" Elizabeth Webber, undergraduate junior and editor-in-chief of the Yale Herald, was ready to put her fist through the wall. It was not a good day to be a journalist.
"Almost done, almost done…" Sitting almost up to his eyeballs in loose sheets of notebook paper and several critical analysis books, Sonny Corinthos' fingers flew over his keyboard as he edited the last paragraph of the text he had already place on his page. "We're as good as done, Webbie."
She was behind him in one long step, her small hands on his shoulders as she squinted down at the screen. "Wrap the text – and put a border around the picture; I want it to stand out more." Sonny's mouse clicked a quick beat as he followed her instructions, trying to ignore the warm tingles shooting through his body at the feel of her hands on his broad shoulders. "Are you sure that's the right font? Where's the style guide?"
Her staff remained silent, clicking away at their computers, and Elizabeth's hands landed humorlessly on her hips. "What does a person have to do to get a frickin' style guide around here? Don't tell me we don't have anymore – after what happened last month, I purposely ran off 200 and put them-"
"Here." With an abrupt huff, feature writer Jason Morgan shoved the thick packet of slightly wrinkled paper into her hands and stomped back to his computer a few paces away, the scowl not leaving his face as he stared hard at the monitor.
Elizabeth's lips pinched into a frown, troubled by his surly attitude, but she ignored him as she usually did and thumbed her way through the style guide. "Here – main review, Avante Garde, size 10, 12.5 leading. Is that what you have?"
"It is now," Sonny replied with a flourish. "What's the kerning supposed to be, again?"
"No set requirement," Elizabeth replied, missing the way the Cuban's shoulders slumped when she removed her hands and walked away to see to the rest of the staff. "Lucky – what's taking so long with the pictures? Skye can't just sit here all night!"
"Yeah, Spencer," Sonny chimed in, fiddling around with his placement. "You've been there for twenty minutes!" He looked over to his left when he thought he heard Jason snort, but as usual, the tall Features editor was cloaked in stony silence. Shaking his head, Sonny returned to adjusting the force-justify. Jason Morgan was one strange son of a bitch.
Unable to concentrate on the work before him, Jason's piercing blue eyes strayed to the young man at his right. Sonny Corinthos – God, he hated even saying his name. The boy was an arrogant, pseudo-intellectual, swaggering peacock that coasted through his first two years on a smarmy smile and his father's sizable donations. It made him sick to have to associate with such scum day in and day out.
"Does anyone know Dr. Lewis' extension?" Skye Cummings couldn't wait around for her photographer anymore and set about accomplishing the rest of the things on her task list for deadline. "I need one more damn quote for that science lab article-"
"Too bad Sammy Call-Girl isn't here," came a deep chuckle from across the room. Both Sonny and Jason looked up to see Sports editor Andrew Rafaelle Capelli III cross his ankles atop his desk and flip through his weathered and worn copy of Crime and Punishment. Skye laughed, rummaging through her desk drawer, and Katie Bell abandoned her game of darts to join in on the ribbing. It was well-known among certain circles of the student body that Samantha McCall had been sleeping with the Orgo-Chem teacher for about two months, and since Katie had the buxom brunette on her shit-list for a long time, no one expected her to give up the opportunity for some Sam-bashing.
"Interesting choice of words, Andy," the leggy blonde teased, crinkling her nose suggestively. "I'm sure Sammy knows Dr. Lewis' 'extension' very well."
Sonny snorted and Andrew grinned, shaking his head at his girlfriend. "Thanks for the visual, Katie. I'm never going to be able to go into Orgo again."
"Well, hey, you know, there's a reason that Dr. Lewis' subject is called Orgo," Elizabeth tossed in, and Jason looked up to get a perfect view of her bottom underneath a pair of tan khakis as she stretched over the delinquent scanner, trying to find the loosened plug. "And it's got nothing to do with the short form of organic."
Sonny laughed aloud, and Jason rolled his eyes. Everyone and God knew that the oily Cuban carried a torch for the Perfect Miss Webber – except the object of his unwanted affection. Normally, Jason detested the long hours they had to put in at the Paper Office right before deadline, but Sonny's constant fawning and Elizabeth's utter disregard were actually quite entertaining.
"Anyway," Elizabeth ground out as her slender fingers searched the back panel of the malfunctioning scanner. "Skye, check the bulletin board – I had a list of the extension numbers of all faculty members on there."
"Gee, you mean under the Sports Illustrated rip-outs?" the tall brunette drawled, scowling at the pages that Andrew and Sonny had ripped out of their favorite magazine and tacked onto the cork.
"I swear, I take them down every month but somehow they wind back up on there," Elizabeth muttered, moving to the side so Lucky could try to get the switch. "Damn this – oh! I got it!" The scanner emitted a mechanic gurgle and then beeped, and Elizabeth hopped away triumphantly. "Ah, one crisis averted – ninety-nine to go. Sonny, how're the reviews coming?"
"Almost there," came the reply as the editor scooted forward so that Katie could slip a CD into their office stereo. "You finally ready to get to work, Kate?"
"Hey, lay off, Corinthos," the blonde answered defensively. "I've been here since noon, trying to get Adobe Pagemaker to stop sucking. It didn't work – it still sucks."
"She's been here longer than I have, Sonny," Elizabeth agreed, shooting her staff member a sympathetic look. "Let her be. And I don't want you threatening to break her CDs anymore, you got me?"
The Cuban muttered something under his breath and resumed working, only to jump up from his seat abruptly as the stereo emitted the first notes of the CD Katie had inserted. The blonde glared at him when he pushed the eject button, roughly shoving him away from the boom box.
"What the hell is your problem, Corinthos?"
"There is no way you can listen to Beethoven's ninth – no fucking way!"
Both Elizabeth and Katie stared back at him, utterly confused and aghast. "And why the hell not?" Elizabeth demanded. "I like that symphony."
"Do you happen to know what DVD I reviewed this month?" Sonny interrogated the two clueless women before him. "Hm? Clockwork Freakin' Orange!"
Katie wasn't following. "So?"
"So! So the ninth is used as the fricking theme – it scares the shit out of me every time I hear it now!"
Elizabeth thought she heard Jason snort and mutter, "Pansy" under his breath, and she shook her head. "Whatever. Settle this between yourselves. Andy – how's the Sports section coming?"
"Just waiting for you to proof," the Italian replied amicably, sliding away so that Elizabeth could sit at his computer. After checking through alignment, spacing and font along with the other mechanics, Elizabeth was satisfied.
"Here," she said, extending a blue flash drive to her editor. "Save it to the folder and you're outta here."
"Sweet," he muttered, making quick work of saving the page and its advertisements to the disk and placing it on Elizabeth's desk. "I'm gone, guys – catch you later. Don't stay here too late, Webbie." Elizabeth was with Lucky again, deleting old pictures from the boy's camera to free up space, and waved as he made his way to the door. "Katie, I'll see you tonight."
"Hopefully," the blonde muttered, sliding in her Rosemary Clooney CD and sitting down at her computer to finish her page. "If I make it that long."
"Let's speed this up, folks!" Elizabeth called, clapping her hands as she hopped over books and backpacks on her way to her desk. "Let's go!"
Jason glowered at his computer screen, willing it to all come together in something that even remotely resembled a front page just so that he could get the hell out of the office. Just being there was giving him a headache.
His headache only grew when Sonny let out a loud whoop. "Done!"
"About time," Elizabeth beamed, skirting piles of textbooks and crumpled wads of paper to get back to his desk. It was no wonder she was so slim, she mused as she pulled one of the sliding chairs up to Sonny's desk – she burned enough calories from all the running around she did in the office. "Let's see…you didn't change the font."
"Oh, shit, sorry," Sonny mumbled, cursing under his breath. If Jason wasn't feeling so ill, he'd have laughed at the guilty look on the boy's face when he saw Elizabeth's full lips curl in disapproval. She finished looking it over and then rose from her seat.
"Fine," she replied, making her way over to Skye's desk to help the frustrated redhead out. "Save it to the disk and you're good to go."
"Great." It didn't take Sonny long to do as she asked and when he had, he hung around by Skye's desk in an almost comical fashion. "Hey, Webbie…"
She looked up, one slender eyebrow quirked just so. "Yeah."
"You comin' to the pancake breakfast tonight in the Dining Hall?" Pancake breakfasts had become a tradition at Yale – right before finals, the school would host a free 'breakfast' for all students at midnight. Kids would bring their books and notes and eat waffles and guzzle chocolate milk as they prepared for upcoming exams.
"Not if I want to be alive tomorrow," Elizabeth replied, commandeering Skye's mouse and clicking away at the stubborn placement box. "I've gotten no sleep this week – as soon as we finish this, I'm going to my room and passing out."
"Oh, okay," Sonny nodding, shuffling his feet and trying not to sound comical. Still trapped behind his computer, Jason didn't even bother to conceal his malicious smirk. "Sounds like a plan. I'll see you in Mech tomorrow."
She barely nodded, turning her attention to Skye and explaining a shortcut that would easily cut the redhead's work in half. Jason sneered at Sonny's back as the boy left the room, thoroughly dreading the task before him.
Elizabeth was shutting down Sonny's computer – which the boy had foolishly left running – when their advisor, a tall white-haired professor with a bulging belly – wandered into the room. "Elizabeth, may I have a word?"
Plastering a respectful smile on her face, Elizabeth rose from Sonny's desk and walked over to Edward Quartermaine. He was the head of Undergraduate English at Yale and was thus given the task of managing the student-run paper. Of course, being the important, blustering old windbag he was, Professor Quartermaine simply didn't have the time, energy, or interest to oversee a bunch of kids and their silly little publication, so he had turned over all responsibility to Elizabeth when she assumed the role of editor-in-chief. The old man was rarely seen in the office, and only came when he needed the students to drop everything and attend to whatever task he set forth for them.
"Yes, Dr. Quartermaine?"
"I don't know if you kids have heard or not," the old windbag began with a flourish of his aged and wrinkled hand. "But we have the head of the ASA – Autism Society of America, of course – coming in to Yale at the beginning of next week for a lecture in the Grand Hall. I thought it would be a splendid gesture if the Herald were to do a sort of cover-piece on it. Something exalting, advocating awareness and commending the society for its tremendous efforts."
Jason watched his editor's hands clench into fists, but she resumed smiling brightly. He knew that she would have given anything to be able to strangle the old goat for having the nerve to come in the night before the paper was going out and suggest – or demand, rather – widespread changes to the material. But as usual, Elizabeth upheld her reputation and maintained that infamous polite façade even though she was fuming underneath.
"Actually, Dr. Quartermaine, we already knew about Dr. Sullivan and have already made Autism Awareness a key theme in this month's Herald," she informed him, her words clipped and terse and her smile never fading. "In fact, that's the entire front page. I'm sure both of you will be very pleased with it when the paper comes out."
"Ah, splendid," Edward sighed contentedly, patting his stomach and turning on his heel. "Carry on, then, Elizabeth."
As soon as he was gone, Elizabeth spun around on her heel and kicked the corner of Sonny's desk. She then reared back and kicked it again. Skye laughed, still hunched behind her computer, and Elizabeth resumed pacing the office, muttering under her breath about windbags and God complexes.
It wasn't long before Skye was done, thanks to Elizabeth's help, and she and Lucky ducked out after saving everything to the appropriate folder on Elizabeth's disk. Katie finally managed to wrangle her section together and jumped up and down with joy when Elizabeth informed her she could head on back to her dorm to meet Andy for an early dinner.
The hours passed and the other editors managed to finish up and trudge wearily out the door. Finally, only Elizabeth and Jason remained. Elizabeth lay curled up in one of Andy's beanbag chairs, the moonlight from the big windows dancing over her porcelain skin like a gleeful child, and Jason sat at his computer, contemplating putting his own head through the monitor.
"Damn it, Morgan…" her voice trailed off on a yawn. Jason sighed with frustration. Elizabeth had been offering to help him for the past two hours, but he always shrugged her away and pointed out some other editor that was in dire need of her assistance. That was impossible now – they were the only two left. He had tried to tell her to just go home, and that he'd lock up when he finished, but he had known from the beginning that it wouldn't work. Elizabeth proofed every page when the editor finished, and then when everyone was done she checked ad placement and saving, and proofed the entire paper over again before saving it, making a back-up copy, printing off the pages on typing paper, sealing it all up in a large envelope, and dropping it off at the Student Affairs office for pick-up by Chuck in the morning. So suggesting that she just go home was in essence like suggesting to Coppola that he go enjoy a cannoli while someone else finished shooting the Godfather. It just wasn't going to happen.
"I'm working on it, okay?" he responded angrily, clicking the mouse extra hard just to emphasize his words. Of all the topics out there, he had to get stuck with this one. They sat in silence for a long time, and Jason thought that Elizabeth had fallen asleep. He didn't blame her one bit – she always ran herself ragged during the week before deadline. She put in crazy hours for the Herald, tutored and proofread at the Writing Center every other afternoon, and studied during every available minute. She was a whirlwind of activity, and he was never surprised to see her with a giant bucket of coffee in one hand and a stack of books equal to her own body weight in the other hand.
She was a tough editor, that was for sure. They had worked together on the paper for a full year, since she had been named the Chief, and he knew her to be austere but helpful. His eyes strayed to her nymph-like form, curled innocently away in Andy's black beanbag chair, and leaned back in his seat.
"Why aren't you typing?"
Jason scowled at the sound of her voice. "I thought you were asleep, Webber."
"I'm not," she murmured, brushing lacy wisps of her chocolate-colored hair out of her face. "Work, Morgan."
"Work, Morgan," he mimicked, his lips curling into a grimace. "Jawohl, mein Fuhrer."
"Morgan?"
"What?"
"You suck."
The minute hand marched on, and still Jason was no closer to the end. The page just wasn't working. Normally, Katie had the front page of the newspaper – after all, she was the News editor. He was the Features man, tucked away between pages 2 and 5, a nice safe place for a double-spread to be. And he liked it just fine – he proofed his articles, made Lucky choose and place the pictures, and arranged everything symmetrically so there was no room for complaint. In all honesty, aesthetics weren't his things. An accident his second year of high school had changed his entire life, and along with all his memories, had taken away his artistic perception. So although he could plainly see the smiling trustees or self-righteous protestors in the pictures that Lucky shot for him, he couldn't tell something that was aesthetically pleasing from a rubber skid on the floor.
He sighed and looked at the clock. It was late. Very late. And he was still here. Cursing under his breath, Jason brought both hands up to rub at his tired and strained eyes. Sitting in front of a computer for a whole day was not the way to go.
When he opened his eyes again, Jason was surprised to find Elizabeth at his side. He hadn't even heard her move – but when she leaned closer and grabbed the mouse, her scent of faint jasmine washing over him, Jason wondered why he hadn't smelled her presence.
"What are you doing?"
"Why is this taking you so long?" she volleyed back, shaking the mouse when it stuck.
"No reason."
"Come on, Morgan, level with me here." Her cool blue eyes, twinkling sapphire in the light of the lone lamp shining in the office, met his. "You're almost always the first one out the door. Why is this so hard?"
He raked a hand through his wild spikes, growling with frustration. "I don't like my article. And I hate the page."
Her eyes were already darting from line to line, skimming the text of the article he wrote. Normally, Jason abstained from writing in the paper himself. But they were on shortage this week after several writers called to say that they were sick with the flu bug that was making its way through the university, and so he had no choice but to go speak to one of the professors that was already an autism specialist and start writing the article.
"It's very…informative," Elizabeth drawled, arriving at the last word. "You, uh, definitely know what you're talking about." Jason remained silent, waiting for the but that was sure to follow. With Elizabeth, Perfection's poster child, there was always a but. "But I kinda…I think we should do more of a human interest on this. I mean, the ASA chairman is coming in and…" She swallowed once, fiddling with the mouse. "And Prof. Davis' daughter was just diagnosed with a-autism, and…"
"It should be more personal." Jason linked his fingers behind his head, leaning back and stretching his long legs.
"Yeah," Elizabeth nodded with a soft sigh. "Yeah. More personal."
Jason inhaled sharply and pushed himself away from the desk. Elizabeth watched, surprised, as he stood and walked over to the window, leaning against the frame. The moonlight struck his strong, angular features, hiding part of his face in shadow. "I can't do that."
Her brows furrowed. "Why?"
A muscle in his jaw ticked. "I can't."
"I don't understand." Her eyes flew back to his justified and wrapped text. "The article's good – I wouldn't even make any changes. You've covered it very well, presented all the facts and relevant studies. All it needs is a personal touch, a more humanistic take-"
"Elizabeth. I. Can't."
"Why not?"
She didn't even have time to blink before he was in his seat again, his jaw set as he reached for the mouse and highlighted part of the article. "Look at this."
"What-"
"Look. These are the symptoms for autism." He steeled his voice and began to read, the words rapidly tumbling out of his mouth. "Resistance to change, aloof manner, difficulty mixing with others, apparent over or under-sensitivity to pain, no real fears of danger…"
Jason's voice broke off abruptly, and his fingers tightened in a vice-like grip on the mouse. Elizabeth, still thoroughly confused, skimmed numbly over the section he had highlighted, trying to understand what had one of her editors so upset.
Jason almost couldn't bear to meet her gaze when she snapped around to gape at him, her wide eyes catching the moonlight and glittering like jewels.
"Oh, Jason, you can't think-" She could barely form the words. "Oh, Jason, no. You're nothing-"
"That is me, Elizabeth," he ground out, pointing his hand angrily at the monitor that was glaring brightly back at him. "No matter how low-key I play it, it's still there. And don't tell me you don't notice it, because it's fucking obvious to anyone that gets close. I'm not like other people, Elizabeth – I don't talk much, I don't tell jokes, I don't have any favorite CDs, I don't dance, I don't do anything and-"
He was getting more and more agitated, standing up and making frantic, desperate gestures as each word grew angrier and more pronounced, and before Elizabeth knew what she was doing, she was standing up and taking his larger hands in hers to calm him down.
"Jason," she said softly, her eyes searching for his. "Hey. Hi. Listen to me, Jason – I…Oh, man, I…Jason, I never thought of you as any different from anyone else in this office. I mean, sure, you're different, and that's good because if everyone was the same…it would suck." She let out a frustrated breath, clearly unhappy with the way she was handling the situation. "Jason, I've never thought of you as different."
He let out a disgusted growl, covering his eyes with the heels of his hands. "It's not even about that, Elizabeth. It's…" Shit. He was so appalled by his own weakness at that moment; what the hell made him say those things to her?
"Is it the accident?" Her soft words were like gunshots in the silent office.
Jason snapped up to look at her, and she could see the terrified look in his eyes. As if of its own volition, her hand reached out and closed around his knee. Her thumb swept gently across the denim, and Jason struggled to find some words – any words.
"How much do you know about my accident?"
She averted her gaze, finding it suddenly locked on her thumb which was currently insisting on continuing its leisurely sweep over his denim-covered kneecap. "Not much. Just that it happened a couple of years ago in high school and that you lost your memory."
"And moved out as soon as I hit eighteen," he murmured. "I couldn't remember anything – and my parents just couldn't come to terms with that. They kept pushing me to remember, kept pushing me to be the old Jason Morgan. And the more they pushed, the more I started reading and studying just to drown them out. That's the only reason I even made it here."
Elizabeth turned in her seat so that she was facing him and drew her legs up under her. Jason tented his fingers, his gaze on her thumb that was still sitting casually on his knee. "I didn't know any of my old friends or teachers or relatives…I used to be on the debate team before it happened. Afterwards, my philosophy was that everyone should just shut up." The corner of his mouth hooked up when she chuckled. "My parents were doctors back in our little town. They dragged me off to as many of their friends as they could – I had to go through testing like no tomorrow."
Torn between an urge to show her sympathy and concern without making him think she was pitying him, Elizabeth settled on scooting her chair closer as he spoke. He steeled his jaw and she watched that same muscle tick.
"They made me feel like I was mentally…deranged. Like somehow, having my head rammed into a tree made me less of a human being. I didn't get much of that humanistic touch, Elizabeth."
"Jason, I'm-"
"Don't." In an instant, his piercing cerulean eyes hardened and turned to ice. "Don't say you're sorry. I don't want you sorry."
"And I don't want you hurting like this," she replied gently, winning over her hesitation and rubbing a hand up and down his bicep soothingly.
He relaxed at her touch but soon pulled away, standing up and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Elizabeth, look…I can't do the article. I could barely go through and do the factual shit – describing the illness, its causes, its characteristics. It's a terrible disease." He turned to face her, and she could see the pain in his eyes. "It happens to children. And those children have to deal with it every single day of their lives – they have to go to school and go to the park and everywhere else knowing that they're different from everybody else, thinking that there's something wrong with them. Thinking that somehow, they're less than everyone else out there. So I can't sit at that computer and add a fricking personal touch to the article. I-I can't."
Jason moved to stand, thoroughly disgusted with himself for revealing so much of himself to her in a completely random emotional outburst, but Elizabeth's small hand reached out and grabbed his, anchoring him to the spot. Slowly, he turned around to face her, and the brunette used the opportunity to slowly tug him back into his seat.
Ignoring her own doubts and what hesitation she had, she slid her chair closer to his and reached for the mouse, wrapping one arm around his back and resting her hand on his shoulder. "We'll fix it, Jason."
He swallowed noisily, wondering why he was suddenly having such a hard time breathing. But Elizabeth didn't give him too long to wallow in those thoughts, and switched into editor-mode almost immediately. Jason could only blink as she pointed out different things in the article that he hadn't even noticed. She wanted his opinion on everything, and only made changes if they both agreed. The minutes ticked by as they both worked diligently to accomplish in half an hour what Jason had been trying to do on his own all afternoon.
"Well?" Elizabeth leaned back, satisfied with the results, and rested her chin on Jason's shoulder without even thinking twice. And if the young man was surprised, he certainly knew better than to show it. "What do you think?"
"I like it," Jason replied slowly, nodding once. "Yeah. I think it's good."
"I think so, too," she beamed, her arm still around his shoulder. Jason's lips curved upward when her fingers skittered over the folds of his cranberry t-shirt, playing with the fabric. "It's definitely got a more humanistic aspect to it now. Well, the only thing left is graphic stuff."
She could feel him tense under her hand. His hand, loosely clasped over the mouse, tightened. "Um, Jason…?"
He cursed under his breath, something that sounded suspiciously like, "Why the hell did Spencer have to leave?"
Curious, Elizabeth poked his shoulder. "Hey, Morgan, quit zoning out on me. What's the deal?"
If she wasn't mistaken, his cheeks seemed to bloom with color. "I, um, I'm not too good at graphics."
"What do you – Ohhh."
"Yeah." His long fingers tapped a slow beat on the sleek white mouse. "I can't really see pictures and art that well…so I'm not the best guy to ask if the page looks good or not."
"That's not a problem," Elizabeth answered brightly, reaching for the mouse before something occurred to her. In his rare emotional outburst, Jason had talked about people making him feel like he was less than what he used to be…like they could fix him. Maybe the last thing he needed was for her to fix his page, make it look all pretty and visually pleasing. The article was different – maybe he needed to do this himself. "Hmmm…"
He quirked a sandy brow at her. "What?"
She shook her head, stifling a yawn as she glanced at the clock. Lord, it was late. "Nothing, just thinking." There was a long pause, during which both of them just stared at the slowly-forming front page. "What do you think it should look like?"
He remained silent, and for a moment she thought that he wasn't going to say anything. But then his hand closed over hers, which was still on the mouse, and he selected one of the smaller articles. "I think this should go here."
Letting herself enjoy the warmth of his hand over hers, Elizabeth rested her cheek on his shoulder. "Why?"
"More symmetrical."
He could feel her smile against his shirt. "Good thinking."
"The pull-quote needs to go at the side, not the middle," he state aloud, dragging the little box to the margin. "Too distracting if it's in the middle of the column." After fiddling around with the placement for a few minutes, Jason turned reluctantly to the part he hated most and almost never did, thanks to Lucky Spencer, Photographer Extraordinaire. "I don't know what pictures to use."
"See, I'm having trouble with that, too," Elizabeth frowned. "For one thing, we usually have news here, so it's easy to take current event pictures from around campus and slack them on there. But with this whole ASA thing, we moved Features to the front this time, and I don't know what to use. We don't even have any decent pictures of the lady…"
They both stared at the monitor for a few seconds before Jason quickly grabbed the mouse again. "Hold on…" Elizabeth blinked at the screen he had pulled up – the home page of the ASA. "Look at this – the ribbon for autism is purple. We can do something like that."
"Hey, yeah," Elizabeth grinned. "Pull up the graphic-art screen." Before too long, they had selected the ribbon image they wanted, and Jason quickly set it up in a neat box, making sure to wrap the text around the image the way he knew Elizabeth wanted.
"It needs something more, though, don't you think?" Missing Elizabeth's amused smile, Jason clicked away and finally found another purple bow-and-ribbon image. The brunette at his side watched as he placed it on the page, fiddled with the length, and finally released the mouse.
Her eyes swept over the page. The content box was scrolled across the bottom, the template for the title, volume, and date was placed at the top as usual, and underneath the bold letters of The Yale Herald sat a long purple ribbon tied at a bow. "I like it."
"Good," Jason nodded once. He glanced quickly at the clock and moved to save his page. "Let's get out of here – you're falling asleep with your eyes open."
"That's physically impossible," she informed him, yawning against his shoulder. "Hold on – I'll get Gatsby."
Jason watched curiously as she rose from her seat next to him and shuffled toward her desk. "Gatsby?"
"This," she answered, holding up a blue flash drive that matched her eyes. "Here. Save it in the folder for the month – remember to export the graphics."
Jason took the slim disk from her and studied it. "You name your flash drives?"
"Sure," Elizabeth replied defensively, snatching it from his hand and inserting it into the USB port. "Why not?"
"But, Gatsby?"
"The Great Gatsby," she informed him patiently. "Only the greatest book ever written. My Gram's cat back home is named Gatsby."
Jason remained silent, watching her with amusement as she quickly transferred the files. He half-expected her to proof his page over, but instead she skipped it and went straight to the others. After fixing two minor mistakes that had escaped her attention earlier, Elizabeth went through her proper ritual and before long, everything was in the tan envelope and ready to be placed in Chuck's capable hands.
"Done and done," she sighed with relief as they left the office. "Let's get home."
"You know," Jason interrupted, leaning against the threshold as Elizabeth tried to find the right key to close up. "I don't think that my page looks that great. Let's go back in and fix it up – I'll put on a pot of coffee, you can get out the thesaurus-"
She jammed the key into the lock, locked it, and yanked it out, spinning on her heel to look up at him. "Morgan?"
"What?"
"You suck."
He saw her before she saw him. Standing outside the dining hall dressed in a pleated black miniskirt, tall leather boots, and a short, tan leather jacket, Elizabeth Webber was wearing her ever-popular Polite mask and fuming underneath it. The object of her displeasure, of course, was one Windbag Quartermaine.
"Oh, yes, Dr. Quartermaine, I agree," Jason heard her say, smiling coolly up at the professor. "Of course, very much so."
It was the first time he'd seen her since that night in the Paper Office, and it was Wednesday which meant that the newest issue had just come back from the printers and was sitting in the dispensers. Nodding away with thinly-veiled ennui as Dr. Quartermaine blathered on about something.
He was planning to just walk by without attracting too much attention since she was obviously otherwise engaged, but as Jason stepped by, Elizabeth caught his eye and grinned. Seeing the sudden display of emotion, Professor Quartermaine turned as well, and the old man's beady green eyes fell on Jason as well.
"Jason, my boy, there you are," the old man crowed with a flourish of his hand as he beckoned Jason closer. Reluctantly and with just a touch of suspicion, Jason obliged, quirking a brow discreetly at Elizabeth who just smirked in return. "I just wanted to say that you did an excellent job on this month's paper – both Ruth Sullivan and I are very pleased. She was quite impressed, you know – even said that the article was informative without reading like a technical manual, but wasn't one of the sappy, overdone pieces that offers little in the way of effectiveness. You should be very proud – Elizabeth here can't stop singing your praises." Jason glanced at Elizabeth, who immediately averted her gaze, and was mildly pleased to see her cheeks alight with color. "Well done, both of you. Now, if you'll excuse me…"
Elizabeth tipped her head as the old man left, narrowing her eyes at him as soon as his back was turned, which the tall editor at her side found alarmingly cute. "So, yeah, I should be going, too – I promised Skye I'd edit her Sartre paper."
"Okay, yeah, me, too," Jason agreed awkwardly, switching his books from one hand to the other. "Thanks for, um, what you said. And your help."
Her face relaxed into a smile. "No problem – anytime, in fact. And for the record, I guess you're going to make me say that I agree with Windbag Q: That issue was definitely one of our best."
Jason's grin was crooked as Elizabeth backed away, adjusting her messenger bag over her leather jacket and absently smoothing away an invisible wrinkle on her miniskirt. "Thanks."
She turned, looking over her shoulder at him, and quirked one perfectly plucked brow. Her eyes, bold and daring, twinkled and Jason could have sworn she gave him the once-over. "Yup – definitely one of our best." And with that, she turned and walked briskly away, smiling to herself.
The End.