"Hey, this seat taken?"
Jack looked over to the other seat at his table. It had been empty the whole year. He shook his head.
A Latina girl sat down next to him. She had the most gorgeous curtain of dark hair.
"Jack, right?" she asked.
"Yes. You're…um…"
"Ana Lucia," she prompted.
"Right. Sorry," Jack said. He smiled briefly and went back to read his book, something John Grisham, but found it wasn't all that interesting.
"John Grisham?" Ana asked, looking at his book. Jack nodded at her.
"He's good. One of my favorites."
"Oh," Jack replied.
Jack tried to absorb a few more words on the page. He looked around the class, observing his many classmates. No one he knew real well. Ben was really smart; he and Jack had been competing for the highest grade in the class. Claire was as sweet as could be, but Jack knew nothing about her. And now he knew Ana. He knew Ana liked John Grisham books and that she had really nice hair, but nothing else.
Jack took a deep breath and tried to break the silence between him and his future lab partner. "So, how come you're in here?"
"I was in a different period, but I had to get my classes switched around," Ana replied. She shifted her chair so it was further away from him. She looked up to see him watching her. She shrugged and nodded her head toward the girl in front of her. "Her head's in the way."
Jack nodded and turned away again. At that moment, the teacher walked in and called everyone's attention.
"Jack," she called.
"Yes, Ms. Davis?" Jack answered, shutting his book immediately. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack could see Ana smirking.
"Pass out papers, will you?" Ms. Davis dropped a stack of papers on Jack's desk. Ana had to cover her mouth with her hand to stop from laughing. So apparently she wasn't as nice as Claire. "Everyone, we have a new student in our class. This is Heather."
"Ana," Ana corrected immediately, smirk gone from her face. The teacher looked blankly back at her. "Ana, my name's Ana."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, darling. It's just I have so many students…." Ms. Davis said with a laugh. She had barely finished her sentence before walking to the chalkboard to write out a chemical equation. "Now, who would like to balance this equation for me?"
-xXx-
"Hey."
Kate ignored everyone around her and made sure to cover up her test.
"Hey, Kate."
"What?" Kate hissed without looking up.
"What's the answer to number two?"
Kate slowly turned her head to look at the boy next her. He was an idiot. She almost didn't have any idea why so many girls liked this guy. Almost. There he was, with his blonde hair, somehow managing to look sexy while cheating on his algebra II test. She turned her eyes back to her own paper, annoyed.
"Shut up, Sawyer."
There was silence for the next few minutes.
"Hey. Hey Kate."
Now, not only Kate groaned, but so did the boy in front of her, Boone, and the boy in front of Sawyer, Sayid. Sawyer looked around innocently.
"Seven. The answer is seven," Boone hissed, looking annoyed.
"The answer is twelve," Sayid muttered in his thick accent.
"What?" Boone asked.
"Shh," Kate hushed.
"Twelve is the correct answer," Sayid said slowly.
"Thanks, Mohammad," Sawyer whispered, scribbling furiously on his paper.
"Twelve?" Boone mumbled to himself, flipping back a few pages. He turned halfway to look at Kate.
She nodded at him. "Twelve."
"Damn it," Boone responded. He tried to erase something on his paper, but found that the one on top of his pencil was used up. "Hey, Sayid, can I borrow-"
"What's goin' on here?" the teacher had walked up.
"Oh- Mr. Grant- I just needed an- an eraser-" Boone stuttered.
Mr. Grant sighed. "Anybody got an eraser Boone can use?"
Sayid wordlessly handed him one.
Mr. Grant looked at Sayid suspiciously. "Fine, then. And no more talkin', you four. Some people might start to get suspicious." He walked away.
Kate traded grins with Sayid and Boone. When she looked over at Sawyer, she found him watching her. He winked at her, and went back to his test.
-xXx-
"Hey, Jack," Sawyer called. He quickly caught up and fell into step with the slightly taller guy.
"Sawyer," Jack said by way of greeting.
"How was English this morning?" Sawyer asked.
"Fine," Jack answered vaguely.
"And how is Sarah?" Sawyer asked, a smirk evident on his face.
"She's good," Jack said. He stared ahead of him.
Sawyer laughed outright. "Seriously, Jack-o. You need to make a move, or someone else will."
Jack gave a short awkward laugh, but didn't respond to Sawyer's remark.
"Ok, then," Sawyer said. He and Jack walked another lap around the gym in silence. "How are your other classes?" Sawyer's voice was flat and bored sounding.
"Fine," Jack said. He wasn't really in the mood to talk to Sawyer, but Sawyer just couldn't take a hint.
"Hey, Jack," Sawyer said, his voice suddenly full of interest. "Who's that?"
"Who?" Jack looked to where Sawyer was pointing. Ahead of them a girl was walking all by herself. Jack didn't recognize her from his previous PE classes, but she looked familiar.
"That's Ana Lucia," Jack said. "She's my partner in Chemistry."
"Damn, she has a nice ass," Sawyer said. "Well, what are you waiting for Jack-o? Introduce me!"
Jack shrugged. "Hey Ana!"
Ana looked over her shoulder to see who had called her. Jack motioned to her to join them. She slowed her pace and waited for them to catch up.
"Hi, Ana. I'm terribly sorry about this; it's just my friend…" Jack gave Sawyer a look that implied the blonde was a hopeless basket case. Sawyer glared at Jack, but managed to turn back to Ana smiling.
"Sawyer," Sawyer said, holding out his hand.
Ana took it cautiously. "Ana."
"Pleasure to meet you," Sawyer said in a low, sexy voice. He shook her hand very slowly as if he was concentrating on it, and yet managing to look deep in her eyes. Ana broke the eye contact, and tried to pry her hand out of Sawyer's grasp.
"Um…so, Jack" Ana managed to take her hand out of Sawyer's grasp. "What do you need?"
"Well, um-Saw-"
"We were just wondering if you'd like to hang with us today, you being new and all to this class," Sawyer covered. Inwardly, he cringed at Jack's lack of communication skills around girls.
Ana surveyed the rest of the gym before nodding slowly. "Yeah, all right."
"Ok, everyone. Divide yourselves up into groups of ten," the teacher, Coach Weaver had walked into the gym. "This station is for push-ups, this one for dips, jump rope, and so on. You know the drill. Fifteen minutes per station. Don't slack on me." He went right back into his office.
Jack, Sawyer, and Ana walked to the nearest station: elastic bands. They each picked one up and pretended to be doing stretches.
"So, Ana," Sawyer began, "what other classes are you in now?"
Ana shrugged. "This, chemistry, algebra II, history, English. The usual."
"Right. The usual," Sawyer echoed.
"And what classes are you in?" Ana said. She was smiling slightly and there was a strange gleam in her eyes.
"Physics, algebra II, English, you know, the usual," Sawyer retorted.
Jack rolled his eyes. If he knew Sawyer, he knew where this was headed.
"Huh. That's interesting," Ana said. Her offhand tone of voice annoyed Sawyer. His shoulder muscles almost visibly tightened.
"And why's that?"
"You just don't seem like the…brilliant genius who takes all the usual classes," Ana paused and grinned wickedly. "Like Jack, here."
"Sweetheart, sweetheart," Sawyer quipped. "There's no need to hide your feelings for Jack. I'm sure he'll hear you out and let you down easy."
"Do you try to be a dumb ass, or does it just come naturally?" Ana asked.
Jack rolled his eyes again and began ignoring them. He even tried to chat up some of the other girls in their group, but they all blew him off.
Jack began to listen to the conversation again when the buzzer sounded, signaling the time to switch stations.
"So, what are you doing Friday?" Sawyer was asking.
"Why?" Ana said.
Sawyer scoffed. He looked genuinely surprised when Ana actually seemed to be waiting for an answer. "Because I wanna know."
Ana stared at him, barely hiding the mockery in her smile. She looked him up and down before smirking for real. "I don't think so."
"Why not?" Sawyer seemed outraged.
"Because I don't think you're worth it," Ana answered with a shrug.
"What?" Sawyer snapped.
"Right, I'm gonna…go…" Jack sighed and walked over to another girl he knew, Cindy.
"Hey, Cindy. Mind if I talk with you awhile?"
-xXx-
"So you get your classes changed one day, and suddenly you have two prospective boyfriends? Where's the guidance counselor, I think I need to be in your classes," Libby joked.
"That's not what I said," Ana muttered. "I said that there were two guys-"
"That you like, yeah," Libby said. "It's the same thing, trust me."
Ana didn't respond. She followed Libby into the lunch line and grabbed a tray.
"So who're these guys again?" Libby asked.
"Jack and Sawyer," Ana said.
"Right. You're going to have to introduce me to them," Libby commented. She flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder. "It's not fair that you have boys, plural."
"You're so overdramatic," Ana huffed. "Besides, I don't have boys, I just know them."
"Same thing," Libby said as she handed the cashier money. Ana paid for her own lunch and helped Libby to locate some empty seats.
"Well, it's just that Jack is really smart," Ana began as they sat down. "He's like genius smart. He's the ultimate geek."
"So? What's the problem? You're brilliant in history!" Libby said.
Ana sighed and continued talking as if Libby hadn't interuppted. "And Sawyer is just…Sawyer. He's really into verbal wars. I swear we didn't say one peaceful word to each other."
"Ana, I'm failing to see the problem. You never have anything good to say to anyone either," Libby said.
"Fine, fine. Let's just talk about something else," Ana snapped.
-xXx-
Kate rushed onto the bus only to find that there weren't any open seats. She walked along slowly, trying to remember faces so she could find someone to sit with. She sighed with relief when she came across a familiar face.
"Jack, hey," Kate said, plopping down in the seat with the dark haired boy.
"Oh, Kate-h-hi," Jack stammered.
"Oh, is it all right if I sit here?" Kate asked uncertainly.
"No, that's fine," Jack said. He looked out the window as the bus started to drive away. He had to concentrate on breathing if he was going to make it through this bus ride.
"So, how've you been? I'm sorry that we haven't talked in awhile, it's just hard when we don't sit next to each other anymore in English," Kate said.
"Yeah, me too," Jack said, when he was finally able to look at Kate without feeling nervous. "Everything's great on my end. How about you? How're things?"
"No complaints," Kate said. She and Jack shared a smile as they fell into silence.
"So how did-"
"Did we-"
Jack smiled at Kate again. "Sorry. You go first."
"I was just gonna ask if we had English homework," Kate said bashfully.
"No we didn't," Jack replied. He glanced briefly out the window again when the bus pulled to a stop.
"Well, hey, listen. This is my stop, but we should get together this weekend, or something," Kate said standing up. She flashed him that radiant smile of hers and dashed off the bus.
"Yeah, ok," Jack agreed. He was suddenly dazzled by Kate's smile.
ok, so reviews are much appreciated...not to mention if you have any pairing ideas for me please :)