I never thought the day would come when I would be writing Fletchyrie fanfiction :L
Sorry in advance for the crap characterization and everything. I'll continue this if you want me to :)

It had been two months since Skulduggery had been dragged through the portal, and Valkyrie had been thinking of little else. At first, she'd been in the depths of despair - she'd just cried in her room, unable to talk to anybody - but now her determination was the only thing keeping her going. She ate, slept and washed when necessary. The rest of her time was consumed by skull-hunting. She was convinced they were going to get him back. She wouldn't allow herself to even think otherwise.

But there were a few distractions.

For instance, at one point Tanith got it into her head that Valkyrie needed to keep up with her education and forced her to do some maths homework while she was resting at Gordon's.

'My reflection is there for a reason, you know,' Valkyrie pointed out grumpily.

'Yeah, it's there for one reason,' Tanith reminded her. 'To pretend to be you in front of your parents. It's not there to do your homework.'

'Why are you coming over all authority-figure all of a sudden?'

'I'm just looking out for you, that's all,' said Tanith innocently. 'And also I think this will be funny.'

Valkyrie threw a cushion at her, which she dodged.

'Anyway, reflections creep me out,' Tanith called over her shoulder as she left the room. 'I think the less you use it, the better. Is Fletcher still here?'

Valkyrie made a face. 'Yeah. He's upstairs.'

'Get him to help you if it's going to be so torturous.'

'You think he can count?'

'Oi,' said Fletcher, stepping out of thin air in front of her. 'Of course I can count. I'll have you know I got an A in my last maths exam.'

Valkyrie visibly brightened. 'Then will you do my homework for me?'

He smirked. 'Ahh, the little girl has homework to do.'

She threw another cushion at him. This one hit the mark. 'Ow,' he said absentmindedly, rubbing his head. 'Oh, look, you've gone and messed up my hair. That was unnecessary.'

'Oh, I'm sooo sorry,' she said sulkily.

'What is it, anyway?' he asked, sitting down beside her. 'Maths?'

'Algebra. Quadratic equations.'

'Oh, is that all?' he said, taking the book from her. 'I could do these in my sleep.'

'Excellent. Do them.'

He looked at her. 'Er, no. Then how will you learn?'

She rolled her eyes. 'Don't you start. C'mon, do you really care about my education that much?'

'Of course,' he said in mock indignation.

'Well then can you do my homework for me so that my reflection can hand it in tomorrow and get an A?' she asked innocently.

He tutted. 'What are you going to do for your exams? Hide me under your desk?'

She laughed.

He looked back at the book. 'I know what I'll do,' he announced. 'I'll teach you how to do them. Because it is my duty to pass on my knowledge to the less fortunate. And because I care.'

She groaned. 'Seriously? It would be so much quicker if you'd just do them for me... Anyway, I bet you're a crap teacher.'

'I'm amazing, actually. It was always my dream to be a teacher before I realised I was a Teleporter and, erm, dropped out of school. Now... do you have a calculator?'

'Eh, no.'

He shook his head. 'You're not even trying, are you? It's okay though. I think I have a calculator on my phone.'

'Great,' she said without enthusiasm.

He flipped a few pages. 'Which questions are you supposed to be doing?'

Valkyrie sighed. 'Are you just doing this to annoy me?'

'I already told you why I'm doing it. It's because I care so much. What page?'

She sighed again. 'Ninety-three.'

He turned to page ninety-three. 'The whole page?'

'Yep.'

'Okay,' he said. 'Pen and paper please.'

She snorted and handed him her maths copy and a pen. He tapped the first question with the pen. 'Do you know how to do this?'

'Er, we've already established that I don't know how to do them, Mr Mathematical Genius.'

'Okay, well, first of all, you have to simplify it... I think. Hang on a sec.' He started scribbling in her maths copy. Valkyrie peered over his shoulder.

'You have really terrible handwriting,' she remarked.

'Shut up. Okay, now you have to add the x's and the y's...'

Valkyrie's concentration drifted and she found her attention on him rather than what he was writing. Since she spent most of her time trying to ignore him, she'd never really had a chance to look at him closely, but now that he wasn't paying attention she had the opportunity to stare. She let her eyes roam over his face. She had to admit, he was good-looking. He had surprisingly long eyelashes, smooth, tanned skin and his lips - no, she wasn't going to think about his lips. Still, now that she'd noticed them it was hard to tear her eyes away. There was something strangely hypnotic about them.

He looked up, caught her staring and smirked. 'Something on my face?'

She looked away quickly. 'Yes, actually,' she retorted. 'Oh, no, wait... it's just your nose.'

'What an excellent comeback,' he said, looking back at the paper. 'I really don't know how you think of them. Okay, does this make sense to you?' He gave her the copybook.

She stared at the illegible mess of letters and numbers on the page. 'What is this? Ancient Greek?'

'No, child, it's algebra.'

She hit him half-heartedly with the book. 'Don't call me child, you're only three years older than me. And how is this supposed to make sense?'

He gave an exaggerated sigh and took the book again. 'Okay, I'll explain it again. That's a constant and that's a variable...'

He launched into another algebra lecture and Valkyrie immediately zoned out again. He had a nice voice, she found herself thinking dreamily. She liked his accent. Pity she couldn't understand a word of what he was saying.

'So what's the answer?'

She was jolted back to planet earth. 'What?'

'The answer,' he said patiently. 'What is it?'

She blinked. 'Why are you asking me?'

He rolled his eyes and put the book back in her lap. 'Try and work it out.'

'How am I supposed to do that?' she whined. 'I don't even know how to do these bloody things.'

'I've simplified it out for you and everything, all you need to do is add that and that,' he said, his finger moving across the page. 'And then you add that and that, and then you add the two numbers together. See?'

'Umm...' Valkyrie forced herself to concentrate. 'Okay. Wait, what number's that?'

He blinked. 'Er, that's an eight.'

'It doesn't look anything like an eight. It looks like... what would happen if a three and a five had a baby.'

He laughed. She forced herself not to think about his laugh.

'I told you your handwriting was crap,' she muttered.

'It does look like an eight,' he insisted. 'You're just being... contrary.'

'Contrary,' she snorted. 'Now you really do sound like a teacher.'

He beamed. 'See, I told you I'd be amazing at this!'

She had to laugh. 'Seriously, though, I can't read your handwriting.'

'You can,' he said stubbornly. 'You're just pretending.'

'No, I swear... will you please just do it for me?' she asked, pouting up at him.

'I could half do it for you,' he said thoughtfully.

'How?'

He reached over and wrapped his fingers around her hand, which was holding the pen, and embarrassingly, she felt her face heat up. His hand guided her across the page and she found herself writing "12x + -3y."

'There,' he said, letting go of her hand. It was all tingly from his touch. 'That's the answer.'

She frowned. 'What was the point of that?'

'Well, I didn't want to completely do it for you,' he said nonchalantly, 'so I thought maybe I should let you hold the pen.'

She laughed. 'How thoughtful of you. Can we stop now?'

'No way,' he said, grinning. 'There's still forty-two questions to go.'

She groaned.