It was exactly 0730 hours on Monday, March 8, 1886, otherwise known as the his first day of observing the hybrid seraph.
Most likely, she would be at the college, as the school year was still upon the English. St. Verlyn's college to be exact. Traveling the rooftops with enough ease to represent leisure, he arrived unnoticed. Meticulously searching for that sepia head of hair, he found her in one of the many large, faded-white brick buildings. An older gentleman with pronounced grey sideburns had some sort of metal stick in his possession and was proceeding to poke and prod every inch of a dead frog and its bloody guts, awful English pun fully intended. Most of the younger riffraff, aka the students, were lightly cringing in disgust. Maybe, lightly was too much of an understatement...
He spotted the half-angel eagerly scribbling down notes about the what the old man, aka the teacher, was saying, constantly glancing back up to scrutinize more amphibian guts.
What sadistic being appeared so genuinely enraptured while examining such a poor, little frog?
'Everyone has their quirks.' he supposed. Her medicine classes started at 0700 hours, dissimilar to what the file stated. Today could have just been a simple withdrawal from schedule. He monitored her with the icy, discerning eyes of a hawk throughout the rest of the class and, when the class dismissed, silently followed her like a shadow to the other buildings, carefully scrutinizing the rare subject's every move. Surveillance wasn't the most dignified way to gather information, but, in the end, it accomplished its intended purpose.
The students partook of their midday meal at precisely 1130 hours. Miss Simmons sat in the corner of the large cafeteria, her books and documents spread out liberally, occupying approximately half of the total counter-space. She bit off large chunks of her sandwich and, during the duration of time it took to swallow, fervently absorbed the information from the various, thick, dog-eared textbooks. He mentally noted that none of the other pupils had made any kind of attempt to visit the medicine enthusiast in all her glory.
The only other noteworthy finding of that school day was that she had been so distracted by munching sloppily on a over-ripen pear and simultaneously indulging her eyes in the classic, faded pages of the an original edition of Hamlet, lent to her by her friend, the librarian, that she had strode directly into the white wall.
Falling unceremoniously on the cold, hard ground, her spine-breaking backpack did the exact opposite of cushioning her awkward landing. Grunting in unadulterated misery, she positioned her hands in a push-up fashion, her skinny elbows shaking like chicken wings, and proceeded to fail comically. Not one to throw in the towel easily, she tried again and success was achieved... but not with making little moaning noises throughout the entire process.
Glancing around with a clawing frustration at the chaos that was her painstakingly completed homework, she knelt down and started hastily cleaning, with no care for establishing an order for the mess that had been caused by her own carelessness.
Some of the the passing students had laughed at the brunette's predicament, but no one stopped to offer the least bit of help. William could catch some of the low, garbled, self-reprimanding speech she was vivaciously giving herself.
Now, William was nothing if not a high-class gentleman.
After arranging his glasses out of habit, he causally ambled over to the distressed half-human's papers and stooped down to aid her in stacking the now crinkled homework. The papers had flown haphazardly to both sides of the dirt-smudged hallway; thankfully, all of the students had exited the building by now, so there was no one to trample on the defenseless pages. She was picking up the mess on the left side of the room, which influenced his decision of cleaning the right side of the deceptively wide hallway.
Apologizing out of habit, she began,"Oh, I'm sorry. You don't have t-." Realizing that he was openly ignoring her, she halted her speech and began assembling the papers with a new fever, a hot blush across her face, appropriately expressing her embarrassment from having a complete stranger take such pity on her. 'A complete hottie.' she corrected herself. Finally aware that she had been blatantly gawking at the stranger instead of picking up the documents, she sharply turned her head to look fixedly at the object(s) of actual importance and sheepishly gathered the papers in her arms.
Completing the mundane chore at approximately the same time that he did, she meekly trudged to the stranger. After the blushing, little female earnestly tried to stutter out some declaration of gratitude, he only gave a nod of recognition.
"I am William T. Spears." he offered to break some of the awkwardness that he knew she was suffering from.
"Grace Simmons." she replied shakily after a few attempts, even though, unknown to her, he was already familiar with her name, among other things. He had already removed one of his glove-clad hands from under the stack of papers in a cordial offering; she followed his example, albeit more timidly.
Their hands clasped together in an almost business-like fashion, her small hand heating against the black fabric of his gloves. In the background, a villainous bell chimed obnoxiously, reminding her for the third time that she was over-staying her welcome in the school grounds. None of the students stayed this long on a Monday; they were only too eager to return to their warm homes and recuperate from the weekend, as college kids are infamous for their hardcore parties. The professors always left early on Monday too, as they still had homework to correct from the week before. With that thought, she abruptly realized that she was alone with this stranger, William, as he had just informed her.
He didn't appear to have any desire to withdraw from the old building, and she was much too busy organizing the documents and pointedly keeping her eyes from roving toward the attractive gentleman, for fear that she would have no reign on removing them. After deeming the crinkled, messy papers a working process for later, she gazed up a the kind stranger with a curious blush.
"Um... Thank you for your help, Mr. Spears." The feminine British accent wafted to his ears lightly, not as shakily as it had before. Nodding in an added motion of thanks, she began treading lightly out of the school building, using the same circuit to the ancient library that she had memorized by heart early in the semester.
She wondered why that man had been in the school. He couldn't have been a transfer student; the sweet librarian always told her of the new transfer scholars, and he wasn't dressed in the men's uniform. Narrowing jade eyes, she contemplated why he had been there. Maybe, for an interview? 'Whatever it is,' she mused nonchalantly, 'It probably has nothing to do with me.'
She didn't even realize how wrong she was.