Author's Note: Hello. Thank-you for reading my story. Please note that I have changed the title and first chapter names as it seems more catchy that way. Also, please bear in mind that this first chapter is between Jimmy and Cindy alone and that in the series, they have been known to be much kinder without an audience.

In retrospect, Cindy's reluctance to leave the deserted island full of creepy crawlies should have been Jimmy's first clue that things weren't so great for her at home. But hindsight is 20/20.

It was the second to last day of sixth grade when things became abundantly clear. Jimmy sat in his lab fiddling with a new invention: The Moodective 500. A small gun-shaped toy with a display screen. He turned the device around and aimed at himself.

'PROUD' the screen read and underneath it, in smaller letters was 'excited.' Beneath that, unbolded but there nonetheless was 'smug.' Jimmy frowned at that last one. Perhaps it needed some tinkering and more testing. As if one cue, his friendly rival/crush, Cindy could be seen on the security camera ahead.

He pushed a red lever to his right before she could even knock, opening a tunnel below her. She let out a yelp as she flew down, landing unceremoniously on her bottom.

"NEUTRON!"

"Vortex," he said devilishly, "perfect timing. Did you come here to properly congratulate me on our little bet?"

And, without so much as offering her a hand up, Jimmy turned the moodective on his friend and pulled the trigger.

TERRIFIED AFRAID ANXIOUS Upset Nervous sad

Jimmy scratched his head. He had expected 'embarrassed' and maybe even 'humiliated.' 'Angry' was almost a given somewhere on the list, knowing Cindy, but certainly none of those heavy feelings - The moodective definitely needed some tinkering.

"J-jimmy," Cindy said, getting to her feet, "I know you won but, I can't say the things you wanted me to say at the assembly tomorrow…." She was conspicuously avoiding eye contact.

"Well then you shouldn't have made tha- did you just call me Jimmy?"

"Please," she said, her voice still shaky. Jimmy felt uneasy now. A closer inspection of the girl indicated that she really did look terrified. Her nose was red like she had been crying and her hair was a bit disheveled, with her ponytail barley still together. He remembered her fake tears during their sales contest and thought better. This was a ploy to get out of the bet.

"Cindy - a deal's a deal. I got the best grade on our term paper so you have to admit to the whole school that I'm smarter and all around better than you. And you have to wear the Neutron shirt!"

She was visibly shaking now, "If I do anything - and I mean ANYTHING - to embarrass my mom at that stupid assembly, she'll beat my ass!" The fake tears looked like they would be coming any minute.

"Oh please, Vortex. You made a bet and if you don't do it, I'll make things much worse and you know I can because as you're going to tell everyone, ~I ~ am ~ smarter ~ than ~ you," He teased her with an unflattering sing-songy voice.

"I'm not joking. She'll beat my ass."

"So you might get grounded. You should have thought of that when you made the bet."

"Grounded? You don't understand…." She scrunched her face in pain as she slipped her heavy backpack from her shoulders to the ground. It made a small thud.

Jimmy's eyes were immediately drawn to hand-shaped bruises on her arms. When he looked closer at her face, it seemed as if she'd put some eye-shadow underneath her left eye to mimic a black eye. A new low, even for her. Maybe the bet had gone too far if she was this desperate to weasel out of it. They were getting older and maybe she would get in considerable trouble for interrupting the awards ceremony just to sing his praises. But still pretending to be beaten? Annoyed, he stepped forward and pressed on the bruise to wipe it away. Cindy winced hard and stepped back.

"Ooh your acting skills have improved," he mocked but the look she gave him made him immediately regret it.

"You're smarter than me a-and cooler than me and all around better than me in every possible way. Everyone already knows you're the smartest kid in the country, let alone the school," she paraphrased the speech that was expected of her tomorrow and then gulped in some air and steadied herself. Her voice got very small as she bartered with him. "Look I'll do whatever horrible, awful, humiliating things you want, just please don't make it something my parents can find out about. . . . I'll ... I'll be your test subject for all your stupid experiments. I'll do all your art projects for the next year. Hell, YOU can beat me up if you want."

"You're serious."

"Please," she said again, this time bracing herself for him to hit her.

"I …. stop wincing like that! It's not cute and it's not funny. What would you do if I actually hit you instead of feeling guilty like you want me to?" He was irritated by the charade but she persisted.

"If it means tomorrow goes fine, you can hit me as hard as you want. I won't even try to block it…." She grabbed her both her arms and made an effort to hold them down but despite her best effort, she still pulled her face back in anticipation and took a step away from him.

Jimmy's heart fell into his stomach. Maybe this wasn't an act.

"Cindy, I'm not going to hit you." He stepped closer again. She tried to step back even further but hit the wall of his lab. He started examining her eye and she held her breath, avoiding eye contact as best she could. He gently grabbed her chin, making her face him. She squeezed her eyes shut. Upon closer inspection, he realized that the bad "costume makeup" was actually a poorly-done cover up. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the makeup clean, revealing a rather nasty black eye. Despite his best efforts to be gentle, he could tell that rubbing the makeup off caused the bruise to hurt. She wriggled back against the wall, causing the loose ponytail holder to fall out of her hair and onto the ground, letting blond strands fall around her face.

"Cindy…." He brushed her hair carefully behind her ears and she had no choice but to look at him as her eyes fluttered open.

"I…. um. So no hitting me but maybe one of the other things so I don't get in trouble?"

"Forget the bet. This is serious." It was then that he realized that he had her cornered against the wall. Their chests were pressed against each others now and he could feel that her heart was racing. She looked only slightly less frightened now that he'd forgiven the bet and she was holding back tears with so much effort now, it was visibly painful. He was forcibly holding her face toward him still - a great way to calm the poor girl down. He let her go and watched as she finally fully released her breath, clenching both hands to her chest, which heaved up and down as her body attempted to slow her heart down.

"Jimmy, I am serious. I really can't-" Jimmy cut her off with an aggravated sigh.

"I'm not going to make you do anything. But … hold on," Jimmy instructed as he searched. Cindy watched nervously as he pulled out another invention. This one was a simple tube. It looked kind of like the concealer stick Cindy had in her bag.

At the time, he had foolishly assumed that she wagered him crafting this invention as a way to become some sort of better bully without repercussion. It was clear now that the invention was for herself, as a way of hiding any 'incidents' at home.

Jimmy popped the lid off the concealer. "This won't hurt," he assured her, bringing the tube up to her eye and carefully applying a laser-like light over her bruise. It rapidly faded from black to yellow to pink to gone.

"There. Does your eye hurt at all anymore?"

"No. It feels better." Cindy checked her reflection in a compact mirror she withdrew from her bag. Her delicate fingers rubbed over the recently sore spot repeatedly. She couldn't believe it. In fact, she couldn't believe he had even bothered with her invention request at all. "I thought you knew you were going to win. Why did you make my invention anyway?"

"It was a good idea."

"Oh."

"And … you know I was only like 90% sure I'd win."

"Oh." It was uncomfortably silent again. Jimmy looked around, avoiding eye contact. What was he supposed to say to her when all he wanted to do was hold her? Looking at her now, she seemed less like his infuriating neighbor and more like someone he wanted to protect. It was a new feeling for him.

After what felt like forever, he cleared his throat and calmly asked, "Cindy, are you going to be okay?"

"Y-yeah. It's not like I'm some after school special. It . . . it was an accident."

"It doesn't look like it was an accident."

Cindy let out a heavy sigh, "she meant to hurt me, yeah. But she was a little drunk and -"

"Cindy - that's - " he couldn't finish the sentence because everything that came to mind sounded like scolding and that just seemed like a really mean thing to do right now.

"It was an accident," She insisted, "I kept backing away and I… I fell down the stairs. She tried to help me back up but she was drunk and she accidentally body checked me into the hall closet. The box was eye-level."

"If you go home now, is she going to be drunk?"

"No."

Jimmy raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe. But I have to go home or I'll be in trouble."

He couldn't think of a way to stop her, so he moved to let her out of the lab. He'd let her take the stairs instead of the funnel this time. It was the least he could do.

"Jimmy?"

"Yes?"

"Thank-you." She hugged him, catching him off guard. She squeezed him very tight, forcing him to inhale strands of hair that crashed into his face. She smelled nice.

He felt guilty for focusing on that.