Open Arms – Part 1-
Well,
this is my latest fic—and it stars Caitie and Jaime and possibly a little match
up/romance with them, plus Tyler and Val…and it does happen to be about high
school drugs, because I always want to hit an important point because I don't
think people should be messing their lives up this early (or not at all,
preferably)…so…on that note. I don't own the characters…and this (as all my
fics will probably be) follows from the last ones ("Romeo and Juliet", "Trust")
Val Lanier shifted the weight of her backpack on her
shoulder, hoping that the notebook that was poking her would move to a more
comfortable position for her. The February sunshine, cool but at the same time
soothing, settled over her and Tyler as they walked the short way from school
to the EMS station. They fell into step shoulder to shoulder as Tyler told her.
"I wouldn't worry too much. Val, since when have you failed a test?"
She gave him a weak smile. "Well,
never, but I've come pretty close. But that's not the point. This is
chemistry!"
"So?" He was trying to make her feel
more comfortable about the test she had taken last period, on which she had
left many blank…or so she said. Val tended to over exaggerate things when she
was stressed.
"Tyler, we're EMTs…all these bonds
and different formulas…we should know these. Half of them are in meds we give
daily and I can hardly remember them for this tiny test!" She cried,
exasperated with herself.
He laughed so hard that Val had to
smack him lightly on the shoulder to get him to look at her. "What is it?" She
pleaded, although he continued to laugh.
"I…I…" Slowly, he brought himself
under control, although he had to wipe the tears away from his eyes to clear
them up. "I remember you saying the exact same thing after you took the EMT
test… 'ooh, I failed, I failed!'" He imitated, forcing Val to have to smack him
again.
"It's not all that funny." She
muttered as they meandered into the station, the warmth and business of the
place enveloping them as usual.
Their shoes, damp from the drying
ground since the last of the tiny blasts of snow, squeaked on the linoleum and
they wandered into the common room, where Hank and Jaime were sitting, Jaime
deeply—well, not quite deeply—involved in his homework, and Hank sorting
through computer files on the laptop on the desk. Faint chords of music played
in the background from the radio, and Val immediately recognized the song as
one of her favourites; Back Here, by BBMak.
"Hey," Jaime muttered
unenthusiastically, not looking up from his literature book as Val hung up her
coat and Tyler's on the rack so that Tyler could go tell Alex something.
"Hey," She waved lightly to Hank and
then turned around to face Jaime again. "What's wrong? You don't sound like
you're enjoying yourself." But then again, she thought to herself, he
never sounds like he's enjoying himself.
Val leaned on the desk he was
working on and waited for his answer. "I hate this," He answered. "How come
when we read stuff for English, it's never in English?"
She smiled. "I know. They love to do
that to us. If it makes any difference, I didn't understand one bit of the
reading."
Jaime sat back in the chair and sighed, his features marred by confusion. "Half the time I don't understand the questions either."
"Believe me," Hank put in. "We've
all been there."
Tyler came back into the room and
touched Val lightly enough on the arm that she turned around with a start,
although calmed down once she saw who it was. "Did you want something to
drink?" He asked and headed for the refrigerator.
"Uh, yeah, sure. A soda's fine." She
glanced up at the clock with apprehension. 3:30. Brooke should have been there
by then, but she shrugged it off. Sometimes she walked a little slower.
Tyler gave her a soda and she opened
it with a pop, sitting down on the couch with Tyler trailing right
behind her with a clipboard in his free hand. "Okay. Inventory." He raised his
eyebrows and sighed. "Fun, fun."
"Here, I'll help." Val offered, but looked
up quickly when the door slammed, hoping to see Brooke coming in from school.
But instead, she saw Caitie walking in with a darker look than usual. For all
Val could tell, she looked fairly normal—or as normal as Caitie got, but when
she walked right past Jaime without a word, she knew that something was up.
"Hey, what's with you?" She asked in
a friendly way.
"Nothing," Caitie muttered and
quickly asked. "I just…I was wondering if you'd come outside for a sec."
"Uh, yeah, sure. What's wrong?"
The other girl didn't answer that question
until they got outside in the crisp afternoon air. "It's Brianne. She's at it
again. But this time it's worse. It's Ecstasy…and dumb stuff like that." Val
saw a tear slide down her friend's face. "And she won't listen to me."
"Doesn't Jaime know?" She asked,
surprised.
Caitie shook her head and wiped the
tear. "He hasn't been spending as much time with us lately…I mean, we're not in
the same science, English, math, or language class…just history. And then
Brianne's not in that—even when she is…all here."
"He should know. So should all of
us. There must be something we can do."
"No." She said firmly. "Just Jaime,
if anyone at all. I don't want this to become a big thing."
"But Caitie, it is a big
thing!" I should know. The thought popped up. After having close to
the same problem with Tyler, I really don't want something like that to happen
again.
"Please. Don't tell anyone. I want
to be the one who tells Jaime…just please don't tell Tyler or Hank."
"But, why?"
"Just, don't, okay?" Caitie was
really pleading now so Val shut up.
"I promise. Hey, come inside and
have a snack or something. I'm sure we must have something in that fridge you
can eat."
They both smiled at this one,
weakly, but they smiled, and walked back in to the station, just as Brooke
popped up from her hiding place in the bushes. She'd walked in about halfway
through the conversation, and, not wanting them to see her interrupting them,
hunkered down behind a bush. Boy, had she been in the wrong place at the wrong
time.
"Val?" The sound of the teacher
saying her name snapped her out of her short daydream in chemistry class. There
was a paper being held out at her for her to take, so she just smiled quickly
and took it, knowing it was the test they had taken two days before. Ever since
her talk with Caitie she'd been so zoned out that she forgot her cheerleading
cheer, forgot what time her date had been with Tyler, and put the files in the
wrong place at the EMS station.
She placed the test face down on the
desk and willed in all her heart that despite the ones she knew she got wrong,
she had done everything else perfectly and there was a proud A on the
front. There was a hole at the pit of her stomach, because she knew that this
had not been a good test. Even though she understood the material thoroughly,
Mr. Olson had a way of making up questions on the tests that somehow did not
appear in the reading or the lecture notes. She always studied forever for his
tests, and ended up usually getting a good grade.
Val closed her eyes and turned the
paper over as if it were a land mine that was going to explode if she moved it
too quickly. Once the papers were all the way flipped, she burst open her eyes,
only to find her heart dropping to her feet at the sight of a large, and evil
looking C- that had a way in itself that made her feel bad. She'd blown
it. Not that a C- was bad for some people, but Val Lanier did not
get them. And her parents thought that, too, which was the worst. Besides, she
needed to get a good grade in science to go on to a good med school.
"All right." Mr. Olson's voice
penetrated her again. "I'll see you all tomorrow. Get ready to do a lab."
As the class slowly filed out of the
room, the chemistry teacher gave her a disappointed look, and although he didn't
say anything as he wasn't generally very comforting, she knew he was not happy
with her performance.
Val met Tyler halfway down the
hallway since it was lunch time and he immediately asked. "Wasn't good, was it?"
She shook her head. "C-."
He jumped in quickly to try and
comfort her. "That's not all that bad. Come on, at least I know you're
perfect." He clasped her hand and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"Humph. That's not enough for my
parents. I'm going to be dead by tomorrow." She muttered.
"Don't worry…we still haven't gotten
a call where a kid was dying because of a test grade."
Val
smiled and wrapped her arm in his. "Not yet."
End
of part one! Well, this is a little longer than the others but it's got a few
more stories intertwined in it than the others. Hope you enjoyed it!