Title: …Et Encore Une Fois…

Summary: There was a sickness that was drifting over Lakewood. One that our Troop members hadn't seen since they were freshmen in high school. Seeing as they were in command when this sickness initially began, our favorite members must re-enlist and take down this virus once and for all. After all, they were getting far too old for this, far too fast…Jake X Hayley

Rating: M
Genre: Romance, Drama
Series: The Troop

Pairing: Hayley X Jake

Chapter 1

He could sense her there, standing along the water's edge admiring her reflection before he even saw her silhouette against the inky blackness of the forest.

She turned to approach him, her creamy complexion and perfect features taking on an air of playfulness that he hadn't seen adorn her face in over 9 years. Where had she been all that time; he honestly didn't know and he could tell that she wasn't quite sure of that answer either.

She was before him in an instant, clouding his senses and intoxicating his air with her scent like she use to all those years before. She was toying with him and he was letting her; after all, they'd always loved the temptation of being so close to one another, seeing who would bend first and act on their desires. The last time they had played this game, he had been the first to blink, the first to launch into that unyielding, burning touch that sent them into a tizzy and ultimately pushed her away. Years of separation had made him desperate and he felt himself yielding to her beauty again.

She would always win. That was an absolute.

The kiss was searing. If she was a flame, he would have been engulfed in her uncompromising fire, his insides fried and his lips charcoal on her tongue. He sank into that kiss and realized just how long he had been craving it.

It ended too quickly for him as she pulled away and ran off into the foliage, her laughter floating to his ears.

She was always so elegant in the way that she slipped for his overprotective fingertips.

He chased her of course, losing sight of her for just a second, just long enough to blink, but that was all that was needed. She had disappeared before and she had done it again right under his nose.

He panicked.

This didn't feel right, something didn't feel right. Suddenly he was rushing to find her, to hold her to him, willing to shield her from the danger that he felt was coming. He turned a corner and came face to face with her. Only she wasn't alone anymore.

"Hello, Jake."

Jake shot up in his sleep, his face covered in a thin layer of sweat as he placed his head in his hands.

He had to stop this bizarre mixed dreaming about Hayley. It had been nearly a decade since they had broken up. Nearly a decade since she had just abruptly disappeared only leaving behind a 2-page long note about how much of her future she had sacrificed for him and the Troop and how she needed to live for herself and how she hoped he would take care of himself and not hold back just because of her.

And he hadn't held back.

He went to art school, drowning himself in oils and pastels and Indian ink in a desperate attempt to turn his heartache into something useful. He'd graduated with top honors and went on to work at an animation studio. Around the time of his 23th birthday he had decided to create the comic book of his dreams, Nightshield and Honey Ricochet. It was somewhat of a homage to his star-crossed love for Hayley that he had never really taken the time to slow down and accept.

The first issue was an instant success and had landed him on the map in the super heroic world of comic book heroes. All of the succeeding issues had been just as successful, 2 of which had been turned into full length, live action movies. No one understood just how emotional it made him feel to see his work turned into something that everyone wanted a part of.

Nightshield and Honey Ricochet was as much a part of him as his body was. They depicted a relatively accurate (albeit, over exaggerated) impersonation of his past and that made the acceptance of them in society all the more touching for him.

People loved the fantasy of monster-hunting and saving the world as it slept. And even though he had been criticized repeatedly over the unrealistic ideas that people would actual do something as altruistic as he depicted, Jake still admired his work and enjoyed it.

After all, that had been his life at one point in time. It was just nice to get it out into the open, even though no one—sans those who were involved in the Troop—knew it.

It was only nights like these, where he was absorbed by a sinking loneliness, that he actually let the truths he tried to hide from himself resurface.

He wanted to be loved.

To actually be loved for him, not just his money or his fame, but for him.

And the only person that would ever satisfy this need was Hayley Steele. And she had disappeared to some far off place that he would never know of.

He missed her. He yearned for her. He ached so badly for her that it hurt, and yet she was able to dismiss him so easily.

It stung so much that he could barely stand it even with all of the distractions…

And, as of late, he had been getting that terrible instinctual ache in the pit of his stomach that something was happening. Something that should have been dead and buried years ago. He just didn't know what yet…

Jake grabbed his clock, the electronic red of the numbers screaming a disconcerting 5:37 am. Jake turned, letting his feet hit the plush of his carpet as he got out of bed. There was no point in him trying to go back to sleep just yet.

He entered his bathroom and looked at himself long and hard. His long, angular features were looking a little more rugged this morning than most. He opted to shave.

He hadn't even lathered the shaving cream on his face before his cell began to screech its high-pitched battle cry.

"Who in the hell—"

Jake raced over to his bedside table, flipping his phone open without giving it a second thought.

"I swear to the Lord in heaven, if this is Brian, you're fired."

"No, Jake. It's me." The voice was very familiar in its smooth pronunciation of his name.

Jake still.

"Felix?"

He hadn't spoken to his dear friend in a couple of months thanks to the debut of his first graphic novel depicting the life of his famous heroes before they were heroes. Even so, his friend turned Lakewood Troop Assistant Advisor had to have known what time it was.

"Jake, we have a serious problem."

Hayley was not particularly happy.

Hell, she hadn't been really happy in nearly a decade, but this was a whole new form of unhappiness.

She looked down upon her desk, picking up one of the less edited analysis essays from one of the many failing essays her students turned in before standing up and taking a spot at the front of the room. She could feel the tension rolling off of her 2 dozen or so attending scholars as she looked up from the angrily graded paper in her hands.

Good. She had their attention.

"Last time I checked, I was supposed to be teaching a class of dedicated graduates."

She noticed how half of her class paled at the calmness of her words.

"I'm also pretty sure that we just spent nearly, I don't know…two weeks or so covering the very basic idea of themes, motifs, and symbols. I thought you all understood the basic identifying factors of each. I assumed you all could handle the simple task of identifying one of each of those said literary devices in the beautifully written word of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights…"

She looked down at the paper in her hands, the red marks blinding to her eyes. Professor Hayley Steele looked back over the paper, a good majority of her class flinching at her gaze.

This was why she had an 80% truancy rate for a majority of her classes. She held such high expectations from her students, the type of expectations that she expected from herself at that age. A lot of people cracked under that pressure.

But that was also why she had a 98% success rate for those few who could handle her coursework. She didn't accept slackers and she sure as hell didn't give them room to pass. She had even said such on the first day. She could still remember the bright-eyed looks and potential that she had snuffed out…

"I'm Professor Hayley Steele and I will be your British Literary Analysis and Composition professor." She had said.

She quickly changed her tune as she set down her briefcase.

"Enough of the pleasantries. This is not high school; I'm not here to baby you or to help guild you to your degree. If you fail, you won't be able to make it up; I don't offer extra credit and I don't believe in favoritism. Even if I do like you, I'll expect more from you."

That destroyed over half of the smiles in the room. Now they knew the seriousness of this course.

"For a good chunk of you, this class stands between you and your Master's in British Literature. Well, here are my statistics. By the end of the week, half of you—which are about one hundred and thirty of you—will still be enrolled in this class. By the end of the semester, only a quarter of that half will still be attending. By the end of the year only about a third of that quarter will pass and walk away with a respectable degree. That's roughly twelve or thirteen of the two hundred and seventy-five of you in here.

"I am not kind in my judgment and I expect nothing less of perfection. If that bothers you, if that makes you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable or insecure, then don't bother showing up for class."

She remembered how frightened the group of students had looked after her little opening speech, the same one she gave to every year of incoming graduates. Right now, the remaining of her original students held that same look of terror.

"I'm going to flat out tell you that every last one of these essays has a failing grade or damn near and here is why. A theme is a fundamental, universal idea that is explored throughout a piece of literature. A motif is a recurring literary device, structure, and so forth, that reinforces a theme. A symbol is a character, object, figure, etcetera, that represents abstract concepts and-slash-or ideas. Not a single one of you seemed to understand the difference between the three.

"Unfortunately, we will not waste any more time on a subject that you all obviously do not comprehend. Instead we will be moving forward and into the concepts of the abuse and manipulation of language as well as the danger of naivety within the working class through the dissection of George Orwell's Animal Farm. I'm sure that you all will be able to dig deep into your freshmen year of high school and do a little better this time."

Hayley turned her back to her class, picking up a piece of chalk and beginning to scribble down the main characters that the class would be focusing on across the board. She faintly heard the door next to the second row of seats opening behind her and the tale-tell scuffling of a chair as she continued to write across the board.

"I do not forgive tardiness."

A deep laugh sounded behind her as the person answered.

"It appears that three degrees and a doctorate have yet to tarnish the perfect, polished, ever overachieving façade that is Hayley Steele. Nice to see that the real world hasn't sucked the desire for greatness out of you."

Hayley froze at the sound of that voice.

It may have been 9 years and the last time she may have heard that voice was during a very confession filled…vigorous act, but she could never forget it.

She turned and faced the curly headed devil in disguise. His feet were propped up upon one of the many table tops of the isle seating, his chair balancing hazardously under his weight, that silly boyish grin engulfing his angular adult face. Just seeing him sent tingles down her spine and out her toes.

She resisted the urge to delve into that feeling.

"And hello to you, too, Jake."

Tai's Territorial Tirade:

This little section will contain all of my little bits and pieces of commentary at the end of each chapter, so enjoy it.

Anyways, this is the first chapter of a new storyline that I have been thinking up for a while. One day I was simply cruising through the Troop fanfiction section and noticed that there weren't any M rated stories. Now, I wasn't looking particularly for smut, just something more adult themed. So, I decided that I might as well try my hand at an M rated, adult fanfiction for The Troop. I mean, if I was wondering where the adult material was, then there had be at least one other person wondering the same thing. Thus, Et Encore Une Fois was born!

Now, it's not the most amazing fanfiction ever, but it's decent. I like to at least imagine that it satisfies ones desire for something more mature and romantic than the K+ material that's in the Troop archives (not that the K+ stuff is bad, it just gets a little redundant after a while).

The storyline isn't the most original (especially when held against the other fanfiction I'm working on uploading for the Troop), but I wanted to add in some other twists that a lot of the Troop fanfiction writers don't really add. One being the idea that maybe Jake and Hayley didn't initially make it as a couple. Another being that they have to put their lives on hold to fix past mistakes. There was a lot that I decided to throw in there, but it won't be particularly revealed until later on.

Also, I just wanted to say the Professor version of Hayley behaved the exact same way that a teacher I had in high school use to behave. She would rant and rave and everyone who failed her class hated her, but she was one of my favorite teachers. She had a ridiculously high standard and held her favorite students above that standard (I was one of those students ). Unfortunately, she got a better job at another school district halfway into my senior year, but it was difficult to not want to use a personification of her in this fanfiction. I could just imagine Hayley being so adamant about the subject she teaches that she kind of has a very "well isn't obvious?" sort of approach to the subject, just like my old British Literature teacher (she actually looked at the class crazy when we couldn't read The Canterbury Tales in its original text. I love her XD). :)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. I already have the next 4 chapters done and accounted for, so don't be afraid to pressure me if I decide to take forever to update.

Please R&R!