As Fiona ushered out a couple from her mother's bedroom and firmly shut the door behind herself, she wondered for what seemed like the millionth time that night why, exactly, she had let Eli talk her into letting him host Clare's birthday party at her loft. Probably something to do with the fact that he possessed enough charisma for ten men and that he knew well enough to bribe her with her favorite kind of cheesecake.

Bastard.

Now there she was, with what seemed like hundreds of students milling around her loft, drinking cheap beer, sitting on every available surface, and making a general mess out of things. Not to mention she had caught no less than three couples trying to sneak into either her room or her mom's to do more than just make out, and she was ready to find Eli and strangle him.

She groaned a little as she saw two sophomores - how did they even get into this party? Wasn't this supposed to be juniors and seniors only? - slip by her and race down the hall, holding an item that she was ninety-nine percent sure was something her grandmother had given her mother as a birthday present. Her head met the door to her mother's room with a thunk, her eyes slipping closed, and she tried to block out the general din of the party that was going on around her for just a few minutes.

A warm hand slipped into hers and Fiona didn't even have to open her eyes to know it was Imogen. She didn't protest when her girlfriend led her down the hall, through a throng of people, and into Fiona's own bedroom, closing the door softly behind them. "Not in the party mood?" she asked sympathetically, reaching up with her free hand to brush a curl away from Fiona's face.

Fiona shook her head. "I didn't know Eli was going to invite this many people! Do you know how bad the cleanup is going to be? I mean, I've already seen two vases broken, God only knows how many cups of beer spilled, and there are people making out everywhere! And I can feel a migraine coming on. It's absolute torture and it's only eight. They'll be here for hours more before they actually go home and we can go to sleep." Imogen cocked her head to the side, a smile briefly playing on her lips as she recalled the fact that she was sleeping over that night. Her first official sleepover since the two of them had begun dating, actually. Her dad didn't technically know she was at Fiona's, but that was beside the point.

"Well, do you want to stay in here for a little while? Just to make sure your headache doesn't get worse?" She could see Fiona's eyes flickering towards the door and she used her hand to get her to look back down at her. "I'm sure nothing bad will happen. You know Clare won't let the party get too out of hand," she soothed.

Fiona took that in, eyebrows furrowed, before her shoulders relaxed. "You're right about that. I'm surprised she hasn't had a conniption yet about the fact that there's alcohol here."

Imogen made a disgusted face. "Who even brought the alcohol? Not Eli, he knows not to bring it to your loft, of all places. I thought he would have made sure not to let anyone do that." Fiona shrugged her shoulders; she hadn't seen anyone bring it in, so she had just assumed that someone she didn't know had snuck it in while she was off doing something at some point during the night. Eli probably thought that Imogen was a good enough babysitter to watch over her to make sure she didn't do anything she would regret.

Imogen didn't press the matter and just tugged Fiona over to her bed, the two of them simultaneously kicking off their heels and crawling on top of the sheets together. Barely a minute had gone by before there was some kind of a crash outside and Fiona whined, rolling over and pressing her face against Imogen's shoulder. Part of her wanted to smirk and part of her wanted to sigh, but she settled for stroking Fiona's hair and telling her to just relax. No one would miss them if they were gone for a little while.

—

Maybe twenty minutes or so had gone by when a sudden shouting woke Fiona up with a start. Her jolt back into consciousness caused her to roll right over and off of the bed with a little scream, and Imogen's face soon appeared above her. "Fi? Are you okay?"

Fiona nodded, blushing a little, and pulled herself to her feet. "I'm fine. What on earth is going on out there?" The noise that was going on out there hadn't sounded quite like that when she had fallen asleep, that was for sure. Imogen looked a little sheepish, swinging her legs over the end of the bed and following Fiona to the door.

"Um, well, it started a few minutes ago, and I didn't want to wake you up, but I think - "

Fiona opened the door and peered out into the living room of her loft, her jaw dropping open at what she saw in front of her. It appeared that some kind of all-out brawl between the hockey players (when had they gotten there?) and Eli, Jake, and Katie (Katie?) had broken out. Clare was standing off to the side and looking understandably horrified, and some of the other students were egging on the people fighting.

Fiona Coyne was not having this bullshit going down in her loft, that was for sure.

"Hey! You guys!" When her shouting proved to be not that effective, she found herself marching over to Eli and Dallas (and passing Katie, who was clinging to the back of a hockey player and winning, from where Fiona was standing) and managing to situate herself right in the middle of the two of them. Eli stopped swinging immediately, and Dallas struggled for another few seconds until he caught sight of Fiona standing before him, arms crossed, looking livid. Jake and his hockey player - Luke, Fiona thought his name was - and Katie and hers kept struggling, although Jake and Luke stopped after a while to stare at Fiona.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Call off your idiots and get out of my apartment right now before I call the cops! This is a private function and, if I remember correctly, you weren't invited. I won't hesitate to press charges for assault," she warned. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Imogen try to sidle up to her, and at the same time she saw the hockey player that Katie had been clinging to finally throw her over his shoulders - he literally bent double at the waist and let her land flat on her back, effectively knocking the wind out of her. When he did so, his arms went wide and his elbow went directly into Imogen's face, making her squeal.

He straightened up, smirking at the look of pain on Katie's face, and Imogen went down to the floor, glasses skittering away, hands just above her eye. She registered a faint, "Oh, fuck," from Dallas, and then Jake was pushing past her and Eli to get to Katie. Her first instinct was to get to Imogen, but she didn't have to since Clare materialized from somewhere to her left with an entire roll of paper towels to stem the bleeding and crouched on the ground next to Imogen, talking softly to her.

She didn't even have to look at Eli to feel the waves of anger rolling off of him, and she knew that he must have felt the same about her. The entire night she had felt like a bowstring wound too tightly, ready to snap at the tiniest thing. This? This was most definitely that thing.

The guy still looked entirely too cocky for his own good, probably thinking that he was a big man for throwing one girl on the ground and injuring the other, and it was all too much for her. Eli was toe-to-toe with Dallas again, telling him to keep his hockey assholes in line, to get the fuck out of Fiona's apartment. Adam was hovering just in case Eli got out of control again.

It was probably Fiona he should have been worried about.

It took two large strides for her to be right in front of the boy who had done the damage to Imogen, and it wasn't until she was standing before him that she put a name to his face. Zach. He was in her history class, she thought dimly, before she drew her fist back and punched him square in the nose. With a yelp he stumbled back, hands flying up to cover his own face, and he glared at Fiona as she shook out her hand. "You crazy bitch!"

She narrowed her eyes and stepped forward again, only to find her arms restrained by Adam. "Easy, Fi," he warned, voice low in her ear. She glanced over at Imogen, who was still be tended to by Clare, and the fight bled out of her slowly.

"All of you, out of my apartment now," she demanded, shrugging Adam off and pointing to her door. People were quick to begin filing out, not wanting to be on the receiving end of her anger now, and Eli and Jake (who left Katie with Clare just for a moment) made sure that the hockey players left. Fiona allowed herself a pleased smirk when Zach flinched away from her as she moved toward him in order to get to Imogen, and she could only hope that his nose was broken. She was sure the hockey team wouldn't let him forget that a girl had beaten him up anytime soon.

Fiona crouched down next to Imogen, who was holding a folded paper towel over her eyebrow. She gave her a weak smile. "My hero," she joked. Fiona smiled back, taking the paper towel and applying pressure for her. Next to them, Jake had Katie sitting up next to him and was asking her if she felt okay, if she needed to go to the hospital, and she denied everything until she finally had to shut him up with a kiss because he wasn't stopping for anything else.

Fiona's eyes were dragged back to Imogen when she touched Fiona's chin lightly, brown eyes still watery from the pain. "You just punched a guy in the face," she said, awestruck.

"I totally did," Fiona muttered, flexing her hand experimentally, glad to see that it was all in working order. Imogen pushed her hand away and leaned forward to kiss her, finding it to be a better way to thank her just then.

Clare cleared her throat, still kneeling on the floor between the two couples, looking incredibly uncomfortable. "Does this mean my party's over?"