AU Dean is a tutor at university and he notices something wrong with a girl in his class, will he be able to help her and what is she hiding?
AN: Just something that wrote itself when I found a paragraph I'd scribbled weeks ago. Let me know if you're interested, not sure if I'll bother to continue it with uni at the moment but it could be interesting…
Hope you enjoy :)
He saw her from his seat at the front of the room sat amongst the 20 students in his tutorial. She'd said a bit in previous weeks showing she knew plenty and did the readings but probably wasn't real keen on talking or taking away from other students talking. Last week and today though she'd been silent. Sat with head down mostly and probably only here because tutorials were mandatory. He called her name and she looked up, he saw it straight away - a light blue tint to her left cheekbone. She answered the question quickly and looked down again. He felt a pit in his stomach, he quickly looked back to the rest of the class when he realized his gaze had lingered a second too long and continued talking. His mind however was on the girl, what had happened, who would hurt her, was she in danger, why did she seem so sad. Above all he was worried and had an unexplainable desire to help her, whatever the problem may be.
When the tutorial finished the students got up to leave. The girl had come in slightly late and the only seat left had been farthest from the door so she was the last be able to leave. Once most of them had left and she was nearing the door he called her name. With her back to him he saw her tense and freeze for a second before composing herself and turning around, attempting to keep her bruised cheek turned from him. He was leaning on a desk trying to look casual and non-threatening. He was surprised this girl had stirred such strong feelings in him and wasn't quite sure where to go from here.
"How are you finding the topic… Alessa, right?"
She nodded "Yea it's pretty good." She said, trying to speak normally and seem nonchalant.
"No problems?" He tried.
"Nope." was her quick reply.
Crap, what do I do now? He thought to himself. Anything more and am I crossing a line? He could see in her eyes an uncertainty that was hiding a subtle fear, of what he wasn't sure but he knew if he just let this go something bad could happen and he couldn't live with that.
"I uh, I saw the mark on your face…" He ventured.
Her eyes slightly widened and he got a clearer look at that fear. When she didn't say anything he pressed on.
"…What happened?"
She'd gathered her rarely scrambled thoughts and was almost back on the ball.
"Oh it's nothing, I play soccer for the university team and just caught a stray ball before I could get out the way." She lied smoothly, managing to tack on an embarrassed laugh in memory of the whole incident.
Dean just gave an apprehensive nod, not believing her for a second. He'd perfected the art of picking out lies in his earlier days, and though she might think she was good and would probably fool the average person, she had no chance with him. He knew though that he had no way to get the truth if she wasn't willing (or was too scared) to tell him.
She made a quick retreat with a "See you next week" thrown over her shoulder.
His worry had notched up a level, he just had a really bad feeling about this and that fear he'd seen in her was a dead giveaway that something nasty was going on in her life.
He'd been around enough bad to pick it out nowadays. Back when he'd lived a life on the road travelling with his conman father from town to town, trouble had come his way more frequently than it did for most. Dean had been too young at first to know what his dad was doing, when he'd dropped Dean at school, he'd thought he was going to work like anyone else, thought everything was normal, except that he didn't have a mother, his dad had said she'd died but nothing else, he didn't remember her at all. When Dean walked home from school in grade 4 to find two men waiting at his home of the month and his dad nowhere to be seen, he'd had his first encounter with bad.
Yes, he could pick it, and there was something about this girl that screamed at him to help, to protect her from whatever she was afraid of. But he didn't know how right now, chances are he wouldn't see her again in the thousands of people who attended the university. He let her go and now if something happened to her it would be on him, he'd had the chance to help and let her walk away. What was he supposed to do though, force her to tell him what was happening? Follow her all day? He was at a loss for an answer, then it came to him, stalkerish as it may be he could look up her timetable on the university's database, just to check in on her, maybe get a clue as to what was going on. Hopefully she went to all her classes and lectures, not like half the other kids.
With his plan in motion he sat in the back of the last lecture Alessa had for the day, as it finished he watched as she put her things away and hefted her bag onto her shoulder, he caught the wince as the full weight pulled down on her, adding further concern and confirmation. He looked down to gather his things as she passed then subtly followed her outside.
It was almost dark outside which gave him plenty of cover as he followed at quite a distance. She walked out to the main road and down towards a bus stop many people caught rides home from. As he stood in the shadow of a tree waiting for her to put some more distance between them, a dark car suddenly flew past him and screeched to a stop beside her. A man jumped out and grabbed her, pulling her into the back seat before speeding off again.
