This dedication is split three ways.

To Vesh.

To Jackson.

And to Ella...my real life Lane.


Rory tossed and turned in her bed. She couldn't sleep. She threw off the doona and twisted to another position. Ten seconds later she dragged it back over her, pulling it up to her head and lying on her back. Then she pulled it off again and stared at the ceiling. Thoughts, emotions and feelings ran unchecked through her mind. Dean's face came into her head, and she smiled slightly, remembering the other night. Then she frowned into the darkness, remembering that she still hadn't sorted all that out. Unbidden, Tristan's face surfaced in her thoughts. That English class…it was all a bit of a blur to her at the moment, but what she could discern from her swirling pool of emotions spelt out one word. Trouble.


"Hey, baby," Dean had said when he had stuck his head around the front door. Ignoring her mother's immature whistle, she had taken his outstretched hand and walked into the darkness.

"Hey," she whispered, when they were clear of her house. Then, struck by a sudden bout of mischief, she lead him to the secluded shed behind Babette's house. Not far away from the shed wall, she placed both hands on his face and pulled his face towards hers. Kissing him hungrily, she barely noticed that his hands gripped her shoulders rather harder than they normally would have. What she did notice, thought, was that he gently pushed her up against the wall of the shed. Back to wall, she pulled Dean to her again, loving the way his whole body pressed up against hers. Gently, his hands began to slide from their usual position on her waist to higher up on her stomach. His fingers slowly pressed into her ribs. Breaking their lip contact for the briefest of seconds, she whispered in her ear.

"Can I …touch…" He never finished his sentence, but it was clear from the fact that the backs of his hands stroked the sides of her breasts what he wanted. Rory hesitated for a moment, then nodded. He just caught the gesture through the darkness. His fingers, trembling, Rory noticed, undid the top two buttons on her blouse, sliding under it to stroke the very edges of her bra. Noticing his breathing growing a little heavier every time he touched her, Rory began to worry slightly. Gently tugging his hands away, she did up her buttons again and, ignoring Dean's puzzled face, turned her head away. Then she felt his hands on her waist, and had to turn back and face him.

"Hey, baby…it's fine. Anything you want…" he emphasised, before pulling her into a hug and letting her lie her head on his shoulder. Lips near her ear, Dean whispered something that made Rory completely speechless.

"I love you."


Rory stared at the ceiling now, at – she guessed – three in the morning. She had pulled her lips back to his mouth and kissed him again, and that had been that. As well as being glad that she had successfully distracted him, she couldn't help feeling terribly worried about what to do. He was sweet, and gentle, and so, so nice to her. But she didn't love him. She liked him – a whole lot – but she wasn't in love with him. Not yet, anyway. It had only been a month and a half…what was she supposed to do?

Rolling onto her other side, a ray of moonlight slanted across her copy of Macbeth. Which reminded her of her other pressing problem. And this problem's name was Tristan.


In Rory's English classroom, the desks were all in a square around the room, save for three. Those three were in a row at the front of the classroom, facing the side. Mr Medina always sat at the one on the far right. Tristan had come into class late, swearing at a freshman just outside the door on the way in. He had consequently been banished to the desk on the far left. So he sat there, staring around the classroom, running his hands through his hair and generally not doing any work. A few minutes into the class, Mr Medina stood up and handed back the class' essays on 'Macbeth is responsible for his own downfall. Discuss.'

After an embarrassing speech about the quality of the work, in which Rory's name was mentioned as an example of a 'model essay writer', their work was delivered back to them. A huge red A+ decorated the top of her paper. A secret smile to herself, and Rory picked up her pen to start on today's assignment.

"Rory! Couldn't give us a sec, could you?"

"Of course, Mr Medina," Rory made her way to the front of the class and stood in front of his desk.

"Come, Rory, sit!" Mr Medina patted the chair in front of the desk next to him. Feeling distinctly sandwiched between Mr Medina and Tristan, Rory leant over her paper as Mr Medina began to reread her essay. His finger stopped at the second paragraph.

"Now, Rory, this is fascinating. Explain this to me, can you? This here, where you've paraphrased the Macbeth's reaction to the prophecies. Can you tell me why you've done that?"

"Well, the whole scene was too vital to the play to just use quotes, so I thought I …" Rory was just about to add the 'would give the overview of the scene' to the end of her sentence when she felt the last possible feeling she thought she would feel at two in the afternoon and in an English classroom. Long, lean fingers were sliding up her skirt! For one, wild, insane moment, Rory thought that Mr Medina was trying to feel her up. Shaking that off, she realised that the hand on her leg was coming from the other side. Tristan.

She couldn't do anything. Mr Medina would notice if she punched him, or pushed him off his chair, or slapped his hand, and get him into further trouble. Much as she was shocked at him, she didn't want to get him into trouble. Meanwhile, Mr Medina was waiting for her to finish her sentence. She finished it, with difficulty and a distinct feeling that the words hadn't quite come out the way she had meant them to, and not in the order she had intended them either.

"Fascinating…that's a very mature approach for a person of your age," Mr Medina was saying, but Rory was having trouble concentrating. As she told Lane on the phone later, you try concentrating when some guy's hand is up under you skirt doing God-knows-what. Mr Medina was just telling her exactly what he liked about 

the way she had structured her second paragraph when Tristan's fingers started tracing small circles on the inside of her thigh. She shivered involuntarily as waves of – was it desire? Surely not! – began to shoot up higher than his hand was. She shook her leg ever so slightly to try and dislodge her hand, but a second later wished she hadn't, because his hand crept even higher to brush across the edges of her underwear. An involuntary sharp intake of breath brought Mr Medina's eyes from her paper to her face in concern.

"Rory? Are you alright?" Struggling not to cry out in pleasure, she shook her head, trying to catch her breath.

"No…it's just…I just realised that I should have structured the third paragraph the same way, with the quotes after the –" Tristan's hand continued its mesmerising progress – " – explanation, because that would have made my contention clearer." It had taken all of Rory's concentration to get that sentence out of her mouth in a logical way. Sighing relief, she leant back as Mr Medina continued to comment on her paper and she concentrated all of her energy on not crying out. Ten minutes later, Mr Medina thanked her for her input, and Rory stood up to walk back to her desk in wobbly legs. She couldn't believe what had just happened. Picking up her pen, she made notes on her next paper from the play. Lady Macbeth proved ambition to be a dangerous quality when she slowly goes insane … "Out damn spot," … Macbeth is driven to murder Macduff's family … Tristan's hand doing wonderful things to her legs …

God! She grabbed her hair. She couldn't concentrate, she couldn't do anything, she couldn't even think straight. What was wrong with her? The one time she looked up, Tristan's eyes were fixed directly on hers. Shaking her head slightly, a small smile crept to her lips before she could stop it.


And the worst thing was, Rory reflected in the darkness of three in the morning, that she liked it. It had felt wonderful. She wished she didn't have to get up and go back to her desk. She wanted to sit there and let him do fantastic things to her with his fingers, and she wanted to do them back to him. Rory wanted Tristan. She did, even if she would never admit it anywhere other than in her head. What was she going to do? Dean loved her, but she wasn't sure she loved him back. Tristan had all but felt her up in English class. What was wrong with the world?