Disclaimer: I do not own 10 Things! I wish I did, it would be on air still...oh and I'm only putting a disclaimer in this chapter. I still won't own the show by the time I finish this story so I see no point in the repetition.
A/N: This story starts on the botched attempt at sleeping together in 1.18 and then jumps to a few short things about Nepal, then it will have the end of 1.20 and then it will continue with what happened after that. I've read a few stories and am surprised that no one else has thought of this idea. So here it is. R&R :)
CHAPTER ONE!
Staring into her eyes after sharing another kiss, Patrick Verona couldn't help himself; he had to tell the girl of his dreams how long he'd really been in love with her.
"You know how long I've wanted to do this?" He paused to see if she would say anything, but her only response was to smile a bit more and move a tiny bit closer to him. "Since that first day I saw you at school." He smiled at her, he just couldn't help it when she was around, it really killed his bad boy image at school.
"You mean that creepy stare-off?" She sounded disbelieving, but still smiled away.
"It wasn't creepy it was sexy!" He admonished! Of course his view of sexy was probably a lot different than hers was but he didn't care. He found there were a lot of things that he didn't see eye to eye with his girlfriend, he liked to call her that in his head because it fit her better than anyone he'd ever attempted a relationship with before, Katarina "Kat" Stratford on, but he really didn't care.
"Don't forget who won that stare-off buddy, me!" His girlfriend retorted in jest. He smiled again.
"Hey, I let you win. I only walked away because I knew it would drive you nuts!" This time he smirked instead of smiling. He knew he loved her, and he was going to get to show her any moment.
"Don't flatter yourself." She was still smiling, probably caught up in the news that he had wanted her just as long as she wanted him.
"I knew I'd get you eventually." As soon as he said it out loud he knew it sounded wrong. He meant get her like as his girlfriend, not get her like sleep with her. If it were any other girl it wouldn't matter but this was Kat and she had a habit of misconstruing the true meaning behind his words and then not letting him explain.
"You'd get me?" He winced a little bit as she said that. It was too late to take it back, and he didn't know how to fix it, so he tried to use humor, of course his particular brand of humor wasn't the best choice for this particular moment.
"Well I'm about to aren't I?" Again he knew this was the wrong thing to say but sometimes he just didn't know when to cut his losses and apologize. Damn his parents for never teaching him the real important things in life!
"Is that what this is? Part of your master plan to get me to sleep with you? Am I just a sex object to you?" She knew that she was probably blowing this way out of proportion but after what happened with Josh, and Bianca asking her how things with Patrick were any different, she knew she couldn't sleep with him this night. Not after he made that comment even if he had meant different than how she took it.
"What, No! You talk way too much to be just a sex object." He leaned in to try and kiss her but she pulled back. She knew that he meant she was also his girlfriend, and that if she were a sex object only he wouldn't put up with all the long talks she makes them have, but her defenses were already up again and it was too late to try to salvage the night. She sat up and started putting her shirt on, he knew the chances of being with her this night were slim now, and he wasn't going to force himself on her but he had to know why she was so defensive all of a sudden. "Come on, what just happened? Weren't we having fun?" The problem with putting two people with sharing issues in a relationship is that they tend to close each other out and fight..a lot!
"Oh, I'm sorry, did you want me to answer? I thought I talk to much!"
"You're overreacting." Another problem with the sharing issues in their relationship was one of them usually said the worst possible thing they could as a defensive mechanism, and that part of the conversation was about to go down.
"You're right, I should just be happy to be girl number three-hundred-and-twelve!" She looked at him and he could see they were on the verge of breaking up but they were both past caring now that their defenses were securely back in place.
"Is that what this is about? You know I haven't slept with that many girls, I'm in high school, not the NBA!" He hadn't told her the true number he'd been with because he'd seen her write a one in the place next to the question about how many partners you've had. His number was smaller and so when she asked he made up some huge number, surely she knew it was a joke, she had even joked back!
"Do you bring them in here too? Do you and Keith run a little brothel on wheels?" And with that, the worst possible thing that could have been said was said and there was no taking it back now. Especially because Patrick now had a blood lust look in his eye and his victim was Kat. He couldn't believe she would even suggest such a thing.
"Yeah, but don't worry the first one's free." He said it and knew he had to have an answer for why she was like this now. What had he done, surely she wasn't this upset over the "get you" comment. "Why are you freaking out? I thought we both wanted to do this?"
"Just because I want to have sex, doesn't mean I should. Certainly not with you." That last bit stung as he watched her still. "God, I've been fooled by guys like you before, but not this time." There he had it. The guy she had given her virginity to had been a douche and that's why she was all defensive. However, even with the truth being known now, he didn't know the story and so wasn't ready to forgive her. So when she said, "Take me home." He jumped at the chance and said, with venom in his voice, "With Pleasure!"
There were some rumors that were true about Patrick Verona, even if most were false. The first one that was true about him, was that he was a tough guy because when he was little his parents beat the hell out of him every day. His dad wasn't so bad unless he came home drunk, but his mom was always blaming him for something, so when his dad left, and told him he couldn't take Patrick with him because his new lover was pregnant with their child and she didn't want any reminders of his past life around, the young man was devastated. Of course, then his mom met Joe. Joe was your typical "beat your woman into submission" guy and he had no problems throwing Patrick around too, but Patrick, no matter how much he wanted to hate his mother, wasn't going to let anyone hurt her. So he started working out and he made sure he was able to lay Joe out if he started getting rough with his mom. The only good thing that came from his mom meeting the bastard was that she no longer beat him, or even tried to. In fact she was almost loving towards him.
"Sweetie, Joe won't be here tonight, why don't you come and talk with me?" His mother said through his bedroom door that he had slammed moments before.
"Mom I really, don't want to talk about it. I messed up, again, big deal, so what if I fucking love the girl, she doesn't realize that no one is perfect and that she has to let her guard down if she wants to be around other people. I didn't mean it to sound like she was a sex object, I just meant that I knew from the moment I met her that I wanted to be with her, even if we never had sex I would still wanna be with her, but oh now she had to go and take it all out of context like she always does!" He said through the door, still lying face down on his bed. His mom smiled, she loved when her son pretended not to want to talk to her, and then opened up and shared with her. She knew she had messed up big when he was younger and that this was her punishment she barely knew her son. In fact, she didn't even know the name of the girl who had him so open and care free lately.
"I'm sure you can work it out sweetie. I know you love her, and I'm sure that if you just tell her that she'll understand what you meant. Why not write something for her, you always were good at putting your feelings down on paper. What is it your father use to call you? His little writer?" She smiled at the memory of when her son use to read them his poetry and songs. "Honey I have some news for you, it's really important news and I think it may even cheer you up!" Patrick knew that he wasn't getting rid of his mom until she got to see him at this point so he stood and unlocked the door.
"What's this big news then? I want to get back to my teenage angst moment!" His mother smiled, despite herself.
"I'm divorcing Joe." This caught his attention, of course the next words out of her mouth sickened him. "I met someone new, he's a wonderful man, he's a gynecologist and his name is Walter." Patrick couldn't believe his ears, Mr. S was cheating on Ms. Tharpp? "He and I have been talking and he is going to break up with his girlfriend soon and I'm going to divorce Joe and we're all going to live together, you, me, him, and his two daughters." This time Patrick fell back on his bed and couldn't believe his ears.
"Mom, you can't be with Dr. S. You definitely can't move in with him. I'm all for you kicking the douche out of my fathers' house but I will not sit by and watch you be in love with the father of the girl I am in love with. This has family therapy written all over it. No, I will not watch you make things worse. I want to win Kat back not give up so you can be with her dad!" He got up and grabbed his jacket. He needed to hit the beach and think things through.
"Oh sweetie, I had no idea he was your girlfriends father. Of course I'll tell him that I don't think we should be together anymore." She then followed him out of his room but instead went to her own to make a call, presumably to Walter. After talking to Walter, Lauryn walked back to her son's room and waited for him to return. She knew it would be hard for her and Walter to remain objective about letting the kids date, but she knew they could work it out. In a year they'd both be off at college or out of the house at the least and then no one would know that his mom was in love with her dad. She'd heard of weirder families than that. She loved Walter and he made her feel alive again, like Ricky, Patrick's father had made her feel.
It was around ten when Patrick finally got back to his house and he noticed the only light in the house that was on, was his own. He sighed, his mother must be waiting for him. He didn't hate his mother, thought other people may think he did; he simply hated how his step-father treated her and him and how she just let him do it. If he were honest with himself, he didn't really even have a problem with his mom loving Dr. Stratford. He just wanted his mom to be happy, and if that meant that his mom ended up in a third marriage, and married to the father of the girl he loved, he'd deal with it, and figure it out as they went along.
"Mom, what are you doing up here?" He asked her as he tossed his jacket on the desk chair and walked over to sit by her. She turned to face him and held his hands in hers.
"Pat, I know you asked me to break up with Walter, but I explained to him the situation and we talked. Walter and I both know this is real. We also know that what is going on between you and Kat is real, even if you're fighting right now. So, we've decided that to make everyone happy, we will only date for now, and in a couple months you and I will move in with him and his girls. We will both in the mean time end our current relationships. Walter and I know that we want to get married in the future, but we're willing to wait until you an Kat move out to stop any rumors and rude comments from others. It's not ideal but Pat, I haven't been this happy since your father left us. Please understand that I don't want to upset you, and I don't want you to think that we're doing this to keep you guys apart. We want all of you kids to be happy too." When she was done speaking, Lauryn looked into her sons eyes and tried to let her eyes show all the emotions that she had hidden over the last four years. Patrick, took only a second to see the happiness in his mothers eyes, and only another second to see how much she wanted this to work for everyone.
"Alright mom, if he's that important to you, then I'll find a way to make it work. But if he starts trying to control me the way he does Kat and Bianca, I'm out, I'll live with Keith before I let anyone control me like he does." He gave his mom a half smile to show he was only half serious. She gave him a bright smile in return and hugged her son tightly. "Now we just have to figure out how to keep all our stuff safe from the douchemeister when you tell him that you're filing divorce." He whispered into her ear as they heard the front door slam shut and her soon to be ex-husband yell up the stairs for them to meet him in the den.
"We'll get a storage unit over the weekend and slowly start moving stuff to it. In a couple weeks we'll move everything when I serve him the papers. He already told me if I ever left him he'd torch the house." She whispered quickly to her son as he walked slightly ahead of her to shield her from his jack-ass of a step-father. The only sign that he heard her was a single inclination of the head before his mask was back up and he descended the stairs. Upon seeing Joe, Patrick immediately knew that the man was drunk and that he had no intention of leaving his mom alone this night.
"What do you want duckweed." The 17 year old demanded of his step-father.
"I wanna tell you two a story. This is the story of how a mother and her son lose everything." The two Verona's were slightly alarmed. There was no way he could know everything, or anything for that matter. Maybe he was bluffing, no he had to be bluffing.
"Whatever, we don't have time for your drunken babble!" Patrick said making a show of pushing his mom toward the stairs again.
"Not so fast, I'm your dad and you will listen when I speak to you! God, I give you a roof over your head and this is how you repay me?" Patrick saw red. This jerkoff had the audacity to call himself his dad? Hell no.
"You are not now, nor have you ever been my dad. I had one dad, and I may one day have another when I marry and then I MIGHT consider her father my dad but you, you couldn't parent a turtle let alone a human being!" He almost went back to his room, but he remained for his mother's safety.
"Don't make me knock you out, you ungrateful brat!" Joe shot back, and Patrick scoffed.
"You forget, you haven't been able to lay me out in years. Go ahead and try, I'll call the cops if you even think of touching me or my mom." This wasn't a complete lie either. With the knowledge that they would soon be done with this douche's bullshit Patrick was willing to press charges if it would keep them safe.
"Just listen to the story. So one day a tramp married a man, and this man married her even though she had a son from another marriage. The tramp, her son, and the man lived together for years in a happy family. One day the man decided he wanted his own son so he went and found a nice young girl to bore him a son. Now the man is leaving the tramp and her stupid son for he side bit and his own child. The papers will be in the mail tomorrow. Bye losers!" Patrick and his mom stared at the door where Joe had just exited. Apparently, they weren't the only ones with a secret or two.
