A/N: Sudden inspiration struck me when I was sitting in bed, and here I present to you my first "Children of the Red King" fic. Written because Gabriel truly needs more love.
Summary: Walking along a corridor, Gabriel bumps into someone carrying an awful lot of books.
Hastily, Gabriel made his way along the corridor. Mr. Pilgrim had been in a particularly lucid state today, and all his rambling had made Gabriel out late. Not that he really minded, but if he was late for his next lesson he would probably get detention and that meant another night spent away from his beloved gerbils.
In all of his haste, and his constant day-dreaming state, Gabriel forgot to look where he was going. He often did that, but usually he was with Charlie or someone who would make sure that he didn't bump into someone. Or people just avoided the strange endowed boy.
Not this person however. Gabriel walked straight into her and she walked straight into him. The force of the impact made him drop the sheets of music he was carrying, as well as his books for his next lesson. She seemed much worse of however, as it seemed she had been carting around an entire library when Gabriel had walked into her (or had it been her who walked into Gabriel?)
When Gabriel had recovered, he set about recovering the various sheets of music Mr. Pilgrim had given him to practice. There was no obvious damage to any of the music, though his geography book was looking a little the worse for wear. The girl seemed to be having a worse time of it than him... maybe she hadn't got a whole library there but there were more books on the floor than Gabriel knew it was physically possible to carry.
Resigning himself to the fact that he was going to be late and get detention and not see his gerbils until Saturday, Gabriel bent down and proceeded to help the girl pick up the books. It took her a while to notice, so absorbed was she in picking up her entire collection, but when she did, she looked up at Gabriel and gave him a smile.
"I'm sorry about all this" she whispered.
It took Gabriel a while to respond. "It doesn't matter. I should have been looking where I was going,"
"Gabriel Silk, the boy with his head in the clouds," she replied, half jokingly, but still keeping her voice down, as if she was scared someone might hear them.
Gabriel just gave her weird look, before returning to picking up the last of the books.
"You're part of Charlie Bone's gang right? One of the endowed?" she asked.
"Is that what you normal kids are saying about the endowed? I've never heard that one before. Different. Charlie might be interested, but I don't know who else would be. And yes, to answer your questions," Gabriel replied.
The pair sat in silence for a few minutes. Gabriel returned the books back to the girl, who stacked them up in neat piles, which was apparently how she carried them. Both stood up and prepared to take their leave, when Gabriel turned around and asked "What's your name?"
"Anna" the girl replied with a sparkling smile, before wandering off with all those books of hers in her arms. Which left Gabriel to get to class, where he would probably get detention and not get to see his beloved gerbils for another day. But now, he wasn't particularly fussed about it.
A few weeks passed, and Gabriel thought absolutely nothing of the incident. He hadn't go detention (somehow, despite being 30 minutes late, an offence which most people would have punished by detention), so had managed to go and see his beloved gerbils as usual.
It was break, and Gabriel was in the cloakroom, hanging up his cape. Everyone else was already outside, but Gabriel had stayed behind to do some extra exercises on the piano with Mr. Pilgrim. He exited the cloakroom, but before he could get very far outside he found himself colliding with someone.
Gabriel picked himself up fairly quickly, but upon seeing the state of the floor, he sighed. That was the second time he had collided with her in just three weeks. There was no mistaking it – only one person carried that many books around.
Anna.
"I really am sorry this time. That one was completely my fault," she said, brushing herself down.
Gabriel extended a hand to help her up. "Can you even see over all those books?"
"No", Anna admitted.
"Well no wonder you keep bumping into things," Gabriel had a look round, to see if anyone had noticed the collision. It seemed the only people who had were Tancred and Lysander who were coming over there right now.
"Hey Gabriel. Any reason you're standing with a pile of books around your feet?" Tancred asked, his trademark grin on his face.
Before Gabriel could think up an answer (or indeed say anything at all), Anna piped up with, "It was all my fault. I wasn't looking were I was going and bashed into Gabriel by accident,".
"Hey, aren't you the girl who collided with Gabriel before?" Lysander asked, looking at her and the multitude of books on the floor.
"The one that made him 30 minutes late that he surprisingly didn't get detention for?" Tancred added.
Both Gabriel and Anna were silent. "I'll take that as a yes then," Lysander said. "Now, do you want a hand picking up all these books or not?"
"Sure do," Anna replied, and all four of them set to work picking up Anna's massive library of books. With all of them helping, it took no time at all.
They parted ways, Anna going one way, Gabe, Lysander and Tancred going another.
And despite what Gabriel had first thought, neither of these encounters earned Gabriel detention, which meant he could go and see all 52 of his beloved gerbils.