Chemical Ignition:

The action of setting something on fire.

Amy was not a fan of Jake, she decided, as she sat down with her friends. He seemed like trouble, picking arguments with Wuntch, and had he been sleeping during maths, her favourite class? She was also pretty sure she'd seen him being told off by Captain Holt and Amy could not afford to be associated with someone like that. Not when she was hoping to get a recommendation from him at the end of the year. She already had Valedictorian in the bag, but this recommendation would fast-track her progress into her future career path as a Captain herself. Her older brothers Liam and Noah were already in med school, and she had to remain a role model for her younger five brothers. She pulled out a pen and notepad to begin drafting her Music Captaincy speech when a peanut landed in her hair.
"Seriously, Santiago? It's morning tea. Take a break," Jake said. Amy's not sure how he even figured out her last name.
"You should take a break from being such a child," she retorted, before chucking the peanut back at him. To her dismay he caught it in his mouth, which earned a hi-five from Rosa and Boyle.
"You're just mad you don't have these skillz."
Before long, the bell had rung and there were dozens of peanuts scattered on the floor.
"You gotta stop trying to catch it in your nose" Jake quipped, before they packed up for their classes. Amy's notepad remained empty.

"You take Chemistry?" Amy asked Jake, before mentally kicking herself for sounding so surprised. "Sorry, that came out wrong."
Rosa bursted into laughter. "Smooth."
Luckily, Jake didn't seem phased. "An opportunity to blow stuff up? Wouldn't miss it for the world."
Amy rolled her eyes.
"Oooh, you'll love this class then," Boyle gushed. "Mr. Stentley - though everyone calls him CJ, just lets us choose our own projects. It's so much fun. Last year Rosa was paired with Pimento and they just dropped francium in water. They're not sure if Pimento's thumb will ever grow back." Rosa looked chuffed with herself.
"Awesome!"
"Alright class, you're free to choose your projects as usual, but after Pimento's incident last semester, the school board has instructed me to choose your pairs to minimise risk." CJ announced. "Ashley & Brian,..., Rosa & Boyle..."
"Aww, I was really hoping to be with you, Jake!" Boyle sighed, which earned a punch from Rosa. "But we'll still have fun, I'm sure," he quickly added, as Rosa dragged him by the ear over to their bench.
"Hitchcock and Scully" was the next pair. Amy let out a snort. Those two were the most incompetent bunch. They were actually repeating the grade for the third time, the teachers had running bets on when they would finally graduate. Her stifled laughter was completely stopped by CJ's next words, "Jake and Amy".
Great, Amy had thought. I'm stuck with this childish clown.
Jake seemed to pick up on her discomfort, grin widening. "Oh Amy," he said in a singsong voice. "Don't be sad. We'll have a great time. I'll be the proton to your neutron. Or is it electron?"

Amy sighed. She had expected at least a half-decent partner to help complete this project, not to babysit some newbie who didn't even know the difference between a neutron and electron. Oh my God, what if I fail. I've never failed a project before, I'll fail Chemistry, I won't graduate. It won't even matter if Captain Holt doesn't write me a recommendation letter because I've already fucked this up for myself. I've disgraced all Latina women. Mami and Papi will be so disappointed - I've let my family down. My life calendar is all screwed up, I won't meet my future husband and then I'll die alon-
"Amy?" Jake asked cautiously, as his eyes flicked from her notepad to her eyes, which had glazed over a few moments ago.
Amy followed his gaze to her notepad, which had a huge hole from the ink pen she'd stabbed into the paper. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, you must think I'm a psycho".
She'd struggled to bring her breathing back to normal.
"Hey, it's okay," he said reassuringly. "We're gonna ace this project. Just let me know what you need me to do."
Amy didn't hide her excitement as she pulled out the binder, and she kept an eye on Jake for his reaction, maybe laughter of some sort.
"You know how oil and water separate?" she asked, to which she received a nod. "Well, it's because oil is hydrophobic - hudōr which is Greek for water, and φόβος meaning fear, that is, because of its non-polarity, oil molecules are more attracted to each other than to water molecules, which are polar." He doesn't seem bored yet, so she pulled out a piece of paper. "See what happens if you put some water on it."
Jake returned a few moments later with a water dropper and squeezed a drop onto the paper. Nothing happened. He squeezed a few more drops, but the water doesn't soak through. "Okay, what did you do?"
"I made this over the Christmas break with my brother. It's just a regular piece of paper coated with PNIPAm, which is a superhydrophobic polymer. That's how it's able to repel the water droplets. It does, however change properties depending on temperature, which is what I'd like to explore. It could have some really critical implications in the medical field."
"That's really cool," Jake admitted with a grin on his face. His smile was infectious, and after Amy noted that he genuinely seemed impressed, she began to smile herself.
"This is the list of equipment we need, I've done the risk assessment already, we just need to sign it."
"Man, how long does your signature take?"
"Shouldn't you be getting some of the chemicals we need?" she snapped. This was the signature that all the Santiagos had, and she was sick of his criticism, let alone bringing her family into it. Nonetheless, the reply had shut Jake up, and he went to retrieve the compounds listed in her binder. He'd come back with the last of the compounds, and Amy had collected all the equipment when there was a large shout.
"Fire! Fire! Omg what do we do!" Hitchcock shouted.
"Here buddy, I got you," Scully yelled back, as he ran towards Hitchcock. He grabbed the styrofoam cup, which was on fire, and tossed it between his hands as he raced to the sink. "Hot hot hot hot hot!" Despite being 30 seconds late, CJ had grabbed the fire extinguisher and doused the two in foam.
"That's gonna leave a mark," CJ stated.
"Idiots, those two," Amy muttered.
"Make us seem like Einstein" Jake agreed.
"Class is practically over, thanks to them" Rosa said as she strolled over.
"What's your project on?" asked Boyle. "Ours is on slime, but it'd be so much cooler if I was working with yo-" Rosa stopped him with an elbow to his gut.
"We're looking at the dependence of temperature on the hydrophobicity of PNIPAm. It's actually pretty neat," Jake explained.
Amy paused in the middle of packing her things, surprised he'd understood so thoroughly. Chemistry hadn't been too bad, she decided.


Author's Note

Hopefully this story's getting a little more interesting now. Please leave a review letting me know either way. FYI, the chemistry experiments are based on real experiments I had to do during my studies. Yes, a friend and I did accidentally light our bomb calorimeter on fire, though we didn't require a fire extinguisher.

Just a note, the next chapter is going to be split into four perspectives - just because it follows each of the main characters' chosen electives. It should be out by the end of the day (note: it's currently 2 a.m. so I mean within the next 22 hours). I'm trying to get this story written and posted as quickly as I can as I really loathe reading stories that are never completed and I fear losing motivation if I don't get the story out fast enough, and I'd hate to leave readers on a cliffhanger.