AN: Just a quick note to say that if any of the experiments in class are different to how they would happen in your grade/school, that's just because it's how it worked in England and well, that's the only experience I have to write about.
DeadWitchReading - Your reviews are always ego-inflating (and hilarious), you realise this, yes? All the same, thank you very much :D. I haven't watched South in forever either, but yes, it's basically a "what if" story. I've never been offered anyone's virgin blood before, but(!), I'm going to have to tell you to keep your blood and just keep leaving your lovely reviews instead. That works for you too, right?
Conscious - You couldn't possibly need help in getting the ladies. Really, I don't believe that for a second. Yeah, I've always had an eye for the finer things in life. Even now, I manage to drop the most expensive wine glasses. Really, it isn't my fault! What could you possible have to "get away with"? You seem like such an angel *coughs*. Yes, we should! I'll leave the scheming up to you because you seem like you'd be better at it than me :P.
xxMaNdYxx - Thank you :).
Coachkimm - You'll find out as the story progresses, promise.
RUlov3r - Yeah, this version of Paula isn't the nicest I've written. *feeds your addiction with the next update*
idrinktogetdrunk - Who doesn't? Lol, you think so? We shoulda taken bets!
ashnspence4eva - That's what I said, "Claim her". You claim her! You won't want to murder Spencer by the end of this fic, I can promise you that. :]
snowdrop1026 - It's on the Spashley forum, yeah.
EveryVilliansLemons44 - Thank you muchly =D.
kaila5705 - She was threatening to kick her out of the house and cut her out of her life. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
lulubirdy - And one of my favourite reviewers is back! It's better for me than it is for you, trust. Your ramblings are like, 90% of the fun when I'm reading your reviews, so take back that slap request. Well see, you've figured it all out. There's no need for me to post the remaining chapters now. Thank you muchly for the review :D.
eve80 - Nah, just the regular kind of flashback's for me. I don't really do prophetic...well, anything. Lol! well, no, I promise this one wasn't at all creepy. Exactly. I think it's more accepting than ever, but there's still a way to go. A long, long way. Ha, no, I don't think they'll be reading this either. Such a shame though, there are some really good writers for this fandom. Really, I think I get spoiled with them because when I even attempt to read for another fandom, I feel like such a snob because I think most of it is just...well, not my kind of thing. Thank you for reading :D.
xxNotxxWhatxxItxxSeems - *covers eyes* Take that back! I can't be responsible for a student's poor grades! On a more serious note: It's lovely to see you 'round these parts again :). Glad you're enjoying this so far.
KITTYKAT - Aw, thank you very much :).
angelperry7 - You're too kind. Thanks a lot :D.
jazziejazz94 - God, I love Paula. It was so difficult writing her like this. Still, I'm glad it's somewhat believable :P. Being English, I don't celebrate lol, but Happy Turkey Day to you, too!
"Do you think Mr Moore is hot?"
"No."
"Mr Henderson?"
"No."
"Mr Tompkins?"
"No."
"Mrs Allen?"
Ashley smirks. "Totally."
"You're such a lesbian, Ashley. It's sickening," Lyssa replies jokingly, pushing her thumb nail into the skin of an orange she'd swiped from someone's tray on her way through the cafeteria.
She smiles, delivering a rough shoulder check to the girl she'd known a month and would almost call a friend, but not quite. "And your obsession with fat balding men isn't?"
"I like a bit of meat, so what?"
Ashley chuckles. "You're disgusting."
"So is the way that blonde girl is looking at me."
Ashley pauses for a second before swallowing a mouthful of actual water from her bottle of Evian. "What blonde girl?" She knew where Spencer was. She had felt her staring for the past fifteen minutes and had to fight with herself not to look in her direction.
"The one sitting with the rest of those bible worshipping losers and who's been throwing me the mother of all glares ever since I sat down next to you," she replies, not having a clue who Spencer really is. She put her half peeled orange on the table.
Ashley didn't talk about Spencer to anybody.
"She's not a loser," she says quietly.
"Let me try something," Lyssa replies, having not heard Ashley's response and slides closer to her, putting her arm around Ashley's neck.
Across the quad Spencer is sitting with people she'd rather not sit with and watching—in her opinion—some bimbo fling herself at Ashley. And despite her best efforts, her eyes narrowed.
Lyssa chuckles and nuzzles her face into the brunettes neck, purely for show. "You see her face just then?"
"No," she replies indifferently. She hadn't been looking and was pre-occupied with the strong scent of the orange coming from the other girl's hand.
"I think virgin Mary has a little crush on you."
Ashley turns her head down toward Lyssa in case a certain someone has perfected the art of lip reading like she had done. "Don't."
"Whatever," Lyssa responds, smiling at the way she had seen the blonde's jaw clench when Ashley leaned her head down. "Look for yourself," she whispers, beginning to kiss Ashley's neck.
Instinctively, Ashley's hand found her way into Lyssa's hair, originally intending to gently push her away until her curiosity got the better of her and she turned her head until she was looking directly at Spencer. Their eyes locked.
It had been two weeks since Spencer had been lulled to sleep with the sound of Ashley's steady breaths across the phone and they'd barely spoken in class, each just tired. Ashley answered each call from Spencer and each time neither of them dared to speak. Each time Ashley heard the other girl's breath hitch across the line as though she was going to say something, she stopped breathing.
The mindless chatter of people Spencer would never call friends is drowned out by the sound of her thunderous heartbeat.
As Lyssa is trailing kisses across her jaw line, Ashley searches Spencer's eyes and her stomach lurches when she sees the indifference in them.
She quickly turns her head in the direction of the girl who's mouth is currently attached to her face and the action causes their connection to break. "Stop," she says firmly, her head lowered for the same reason as before.
Just because she was bored and she hadn't pissed anyone off all day, Lyssa reached both hands up to Ashley's face and quickly sealed her lips over the brunettes, instantly closing her eyes in case she saw Spencer's reaction and laughed.
It takes a second for Ashley's brain to register what's happening and her lips part slightly in shock.
Lyssa's tongue flicks over her bottom lip before taking it inside her mouth.
Her hand shot out to firmly push Lyssa away and her head turns so fast in Spencer's direction she was lucky her neck hadn't broke. Spencer was walking off in the opposite direction with an impressive speed.
The sound of laughter causes Ashley to re-face the girl she was sitting next to. "Shit. You see that? I wonder if she was crying."
Ashley casually wipes her mouth. "Yeah, whatever," she murmurs quietly. The thought of Spencer crying troubling her.
"Okay whatever, lesbo. I'm horny. I'm gonna find me some man candy," Lyssa announces, standing from the table she shared with the brunette.
"You mean the man with the candy?" Ashley asks, pre-occupied.
She smirked. "That's exactly what I mean."
Ashley stumbles through the door of her biology class with a hard shove from Lyssa who was at the peak of her sugar high and was laughing hysterically.
Clearing her throat, Ashley looks toward Mrs Allen— a thirty two year old hottie in Ashley's humble opinion—and then turned back to face Lyssa who was opening one of the three lollipops her older boyfriend had given to her over a brief lunch.
"Alyssa, out of my class," Allen points a slender finger to the door the girl was standing next to.
She held a hand to her chest. "Ouch."
"You didn't sign up for biology this year, Alyssa," Mrs Allen replies patiently.
"But I'm blood-thirsty this afternoon. Can't I sit at the back with Ashley? We'll be quiet."
They were about to dissect sheep hearts in that particular class.
Not born yesterday, the teacher shook her head gently. "Sorry, no. I don't want you to be causing trouble."
Lyssa frowns in disappointment. "Whatever." She sighs and looks around, spotting Spencer staring at her. With a slight smirk, she turns back to Ashley. "Call me later, babe."
Ashley had to fight not to roll her eyes.
With a parting smack to the brunette's ass, Lyssa left the room.
"Okay," Mrs Allen breathes out. "Honey," she addresses Ashley, "you have a different partner today, Robert is sick."
"Great," she mumbles, hoping she didn't have to sit next to the girl who smelled like bad cheese. She looked around, spotting only one space available.
"Miss Carlin's partner Marcus is also sick. Food poisoning, I believe."
"Of course he is," she sighs out. Spencer wouldn't look at her.
Ashley slowly makes her way to the desk she had to share with the girl who smelled like heaven and took her messenger bag off her shoulder before she sits down, not wanting to hit it off Spencer's head again. She had a hard folder in there, unlike the soft hoodie last time.
Ashley looks at the contents of the table with disgust. A heart sat inside a metal tray between her and the blonde. Not wanting to smell the unpleasant scent of blood, Ashley began breathing through her mouth.
"It's not red," Spencer says suddenly and a little harshly.
Ashley turns her head and frowns, confused.
"The heart. It's like, almost grey. The only thing you'll smell is the preservative that they've put over it," Spencer carries on.
"Oh…."
The class begins and Mrs Allen passes around a diagram of the procedure each student had to carry out. "Read the diagram properly, guys. We only have one spare heart. You have questions? Ask me."
"Yeah," the blonde answers. "It's dead."
"Good," Ashley answers a little nervously. "Great. I…I love dead sheep hearts."
Clenching her teeth together through anger, Spencer picks up the scissors next to the tray and stabs them deep inside the dead muscle. The strange squelch makes Ashley's stomach turn.
"A stab to the heart and it makes that tiny noise. You'd think it'd be a lot louder."
With a quick glance to Spencer's hand that was white knuckling the scissors, Ashley swallowed thickly and nodded slowly, knowing what Spencer was talking about. She didn't reply, her own heart beating steadily.
"You're not doing it properly," Ashley says quietly. Spencer had returned to their desk with a new heart and wasn't even looking at the diagram.
She sighs loudly, dropping the scissors onto the table and turning to glare at Ashley.
"Well, then." She slammed a white gloved hand to the table. "Master of cutting hearts, why don't you take over?"
Ashley frowns and presses her teeth together momentarily. "Me?" She nearly laughs. "Right."
"What was that?"
"I said move your big ass out of the way," the brunette replies harshly, not liking Spencer's accusation one bit.
They both reluctantly switched places and Ashley made sure the sleeves of her lab coat was well past her wrists. She didn't want anything nasty potentially touching her skin. Looking carefully at the diagram and using the instruments laid out in front of her, Ashley —after some serious elbow grease—successfully cut the heart in half.
Spencer had watched her intently, not paying the slightest bit of attention to the task the other girl was carrying out. She liked watching the disgusted look on her face as she cut deeper and actually hand to put her hand on the cold muscle through a particularly tough part she couldn't cut through.
"That was a trip," Ashley said sarcastically, throwing the scalpel back into the metal tray and wondering why they'd even been given them. Her nails were sharper.
"Yeah…." Spencer replies.
They both went silent, no need to talk to each other anymore.
"Fuck me, I'm gonna hurl," Ashley chokes out, sitting next to Spencer dissecting an owl pellet.
The blonde laughs loudly. "You're green."
"I love how you're sitting there doing nothing."
"I love how you're sitting there doing everything."
Ashley gives Spencer a look through the corner of her eye, smiling despite herself. "You're fucking lazy, get over here and help me with this shit. Literally."
"Oh, no. I think you have it covered."
"I'll cover you with it if you don't do something," Ashley replies with a small laugh.
"I'm *concluding*, god."
She purses her lips together from Spencer's teasing tone. "Oh, yeah? And what's the conclusion, pretty girl?" Ashley asks softly, meeting Spencer's eyes.
"Uh…." Spencer shakes her head, feeling her face burn and takes a second to recover. "That you're going to be dissecting the heart next year."
"And who said I'm going to actually *take* bio next year? I could drop it."
"Because I'm taking it and you'd follow me to Accounting if I asked you to."
"That's very presumptuous of you, Miss Carlin," Ashley replies, knowing she would indeed take any class with Spencer in it. She made all her classes suck less.
"I don't think so," the blonde replies self-assuredly.
They both have private smiles on their faces and Ashley is the first one to break eye-contact. "Come on, you have a bone to pick with me."
Spencer leans closer, her elbows resting on the table while she casually toys with one of the unused dissection probes. "I have a very big bone to pick with you," she replies, spying the various bones in the pellet.
They both peered intently at the lump of owl shit on the table.
Ashley was the first to crack. "This is fucking gross," she laughs out.
Ashley removes her white latex gloves and throws them into the tray holding the heart before drumming her fingers onto the desk, knowing it annoys Spencer. "Got a conclusion this time, Spencer?" Ashley asks sarcastically, looking in the opposite direction.
"Shut up, Ashley," she spat out, also facing the other way.
"You're not a good partner, you know. You just fucking sit there."
Her jaw clenches. "At least I'm loyal. I don't go around looking for other peoples pellets or hearts when things get rough."
Ashley finally turns to face her and stares at the side of her face. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Just…shut your mouth. I think your tongue has been active enough for one day, don't you?"
Her face hardens. "You don't know shit, Spencer."
"I know that bimbo you were sucking face with is cheating on you," Spencer replies, not caring if it hurt Ashley.
Ashley smiles faintly. "Lyssa's like, really into middle-aged, fat men. She's not a lesbian," she emphasises the last word to Spencer.
"Like I care," she says hotly.
Ashley's heart rate increases with a small rush of adrenalin. "Like I care if you care."
"Like I care if you care I care."
"What?" Ashley frowns. "God, you have your own language sometimes. I never know what the hell you're babbling on about."
"I thought sleep equalled 'no Spencer'," she breathes out mockingly. "Make up your mind."
"Oh, take your own advice, Spencer," Ashley spat out, her face flushing in anger. When she didn't receive a response, Ashley moves off the stool and leans down, picking up her bag and walks through the middle aisle to the front of the class. As she gets near the door she undid the buttons to her lab jacket.
"What the hell is she doing?" she hears a female voice ask. "She's crazy!"
Turning around, Ashley's eyes widen when she sees Spencer's arm drawn back with half a heart in her still gloved hand and opens her mouth to say something when the dead muscle is hurled her way.
"For god's sake, Spencer!" she yells from her position on the floor, her hands covering her head. She turned around and saw it laying limply by the door. She had missed.
"What's going on?" Mrs Allen asked. She had been consumed in her notes for her next class.
"She threw her heart at me!" Ashley exclaims.
Spencer was still standing there, now glaring at Ashley.
Without a word Ashley hurries over to the heart and hurls it right back at Spencer.
Ducking before it made contact with her, Spencer heard the girl behind her squeal and burst into tears. It had hit her in the face. She faces the brunette and they both stand there with screaming eyes.
"Heart fight!" some guy at the back hollers, lobbing two halves across the room. One at the girl who gave him herpes last year and the other at the one who had dumped him a week prior.
Ashley grabs a clean and empty metal tray and holds it in front of her, not wanting to be hit.
"Stop that this instant!" Mrs Allen screams.
Ashley stares at Spencer in a look-what-you-started kind of way until she's forced forward with a door opening harshly.
Lyssa stands there with blue lips from her lollipop and looks at Mrs Allen incredulously. "This is your idea of a 'trouble free' class?"
Ashley lay in bed with the phone pressed against her ear. It had rang almost thirty minutes ago and all she had heard was the calming sound of Spencer breathing. Her eyes were closed, imagining, just for a second, that she was there next to her.
"I miss you," she heard Spencer whisper, finally.
Ashley took a quiet deep breath to relieve the pressure in her chest. "I miss you, too," she replies almost inaudibly.
Miles away, Spencer lay in her bed and set her jaw, not wanting to cry over the phone.
Ashley hung up first.