Aftermath

Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to NBC.

It's Ian's first day back at Ballard.

He walks in the front door, and everything looks just like it did the day they got on that bus journey to hell. He has to stop and shake his head to fight the sudden vertigo he feels.

Students are passing by around him, completely oblivious to him standing still in the main entry foyer.

That is, until she bumps into him.

Startled, he turns around and he takes in the bright red outfit – the long blonde hair – her perfect lips and face.

He looks into Amber Fitch's eyes and he recoils, backing off hurriedly. He barely notices she's extended her hand out, but he has no wish to find out if she wants to slap him or not.

In his first class of the day, the teacher hesitates as she briefly frowns at the last-minute straggler coming in just after the warning bell. She's not sure how to welcome back the kids who used to be hostages, but Luke just snorts. "We get it. We won't break if you want to 'extend your condolences', Mrs. Terry."

Flustered, she glances at the floor, then back up at the students. She clears her throat and says, "Very well. I, for one, do hope you feel you can come to me or any of the other teachers if you want to talk about what has happened to you, or if you want to talk about your fellow student, Beth Ann Gibson."

Ian zones out for the rest of the class. He keeps remembering that time the masked guard yanked him into the room with Amber.

He doesn't even care that she was having a thing with Mr. Nash. What he cares about happened between him and her.

"That you're not even good enough."

He knows the guard made her say it.

But it still hurts.

And then what he did afterwards—

His stomach twists as he remembers the look on her face after he put his hands on her, on parts boys normally don't touch girls on without permission.

He made me, Ian whines to himself.

His cheeks flush at the thought of trying to throw the blame onto anyone else but him, Ian Martinez.

He didn't want to enjoy touching her body. He can put most of it out of his mind, but remembering brushing his hand across her ass can still set his heart going.

He feels so gross inside because his dick twitches just a bit at that memory.

She should hate him for it. She should've run after him, smacked him one across the face for being such a—

Is he a pervert? Or is he just an all-around asshole?

It doesn't help that Beth Ann's still missing and he should be thinking about his best friend, not about his moral dilemma over Amber.

/\/\/\/\

Ian manages to avoid Amber for the rest of the day and the day after.

But he can't quit shaking the feeling she's trying to follow him.

He was the last to leave the gym change rooms at the end of the day. He noticed Amber standing in the door of the girls' change room down the hall, almost as though she'd closed the door and was waiting for him. He didn't waste any time dropping his gaze and hurrying down the hall in the opposite direction.

He wonders if the slight click he heard as he scurried away was her walking towards him.

But the inevitable happens at lunch hour the day after he and the other ex-hostage students return to Ballard.

Somehow he's ended up running late for an errand for the drama teacher and he's trying to get out of the maze of corridors in the barely-used upper floor near the AV control room for the auditorium.

"Shit!" he barks as he realizes he hit a dead-end.

"Language, mister," chides Amber as she smoothly glides out past a disused file cabinet near a cross corridor about fifty feet back from where he is.

There's no way out.

He wants to whimper, but steadies himself, willing his legs to not shake as Amber walks up to him. She's not scowling in hatred, so what could she want?

Ian tries not to look at her, but she keeps trying to catch his eye.

She sighs. "Ian? We need to talk."

He grinds out the answer between his teeth. "Why?"

"Beth Ann's missing, and there are things I want to say to her and should have. So since you are here, I need to say this, okay?"

He relents, lets her keep talking.

"Ian, I did a terrible thing to you."

"Me?" he gasps in disbelief. "What about you? I… I—" His mouth moves but no words come out.

"I know," she says in a small voice. "I was there."

"Why don't you hate me?!"

Amber slowly steps toward him, reaching for his trembling hand. She clasps it in her own, the softness of her skin warm in his hand.

"Because, Ian," she says heavily, looking into his eyes. "Because what I said – it's a gross thing to say, but it was kind of, well, true. I wouldn't look at you or anyone else because I figured only Mr. Nash was good enough for me. I might not've sneered down at you, but I might as well have, being too stuck-up to consider boys my own age."

"But…" Ian trails off helplessly. He stammers, "I touched you! I shouldn't be here, with you saying sorry to me."

The world feels like it's spiralling off its axis as Amber barks a short laugh. She covers her mouth with her free hand and giggles as she tries to recover herself. She finally takes a deep breath, stands tall and straight and replies, "I think you're being far harder on yourself than you should be. I, Amber Fitch, am allowed to decide for myself how to deal with a boy touching me under duress and possible threat of injury. I am allowed to decide that while it was scary and uncomfortable, it's not the end of the world.

"And Ian, I know how you felt about it. You weren't practically panting at the thought of getting your hands on me. I saw you. You were flustered and embarrassed over it. I even told you 'Okay', remember?"

He doesn't even realize he's squeezing her hand, albeit not painfully, when he mutters, "I didn't want to."

Amber seems to know there's something more. "But?"

Now Ian gulps. And hard. "I… sometimes think about when I touched your butt. I try not to, but—"

He drops her hand. His hands shake as he covers his eyes and admits the awful truth. "I sometimes get hard thinking about it."

Now maybe she'll slap him and call him a sick pervert who ought to be locked up.

But that's not what happens.

Gentle hands on his wrists pull his hands away. Her eyes are wet and she's blinking rapidly. She whispers, "Ian, just let it out. Okay?"

She pulls him into a gentle hug and he can't stop sniffling like a little kid as he quietly sobs into her shoulder. She rubs his back in slow circles, letting him release the terrible weight of his sins as he slowly subsides.

She senses he's feeling a bit better and grasps his shoulders, pulling back to look at his face. She shakes him just a bit. "Now you, Ian Martinez, stop wallowing in your own self-pity over what happened in that house." Her lips quiver, but she soldiers on. "I saw Mr. Nash die in front of me. I saw other men die in front of me. Compared to that I think I can live with being felt up by a teenage boy who is going to have a teenage boy reaction to it!"

Ian's mind boggles. He gasps, "You saw—"

She nods, her jaw set, her nostrils flaring. "I saw. So if I can get my shit together, you can too. Beth Ann needs to be where our heads are at right now, all right?"

She lets go and marches back down the hallway. Ian blurts, "Why?"

Amber just tosses her hair, looks back at him and smiles. "I'll answer that later."

/\/\/\/\

Ian sort of gets his answer as they drive in his car, wildly hoping they can find Beth Ann from the mysterious texts being sent to their phones. She has an echo of the expression she wore in that hallway: she's determined to keep anyone else from going through what she went through.

And in the car, even though the tension is thick in the air, Ian allows himself a small smile as he thinks, Amber Fitch doesn't hate me, and I'm okay with that.