Authors Note: Kind of a short chapter here but I've got a pretty busy week ahead and I wanted to get something posted.
Chapter 4
Carson arrived in the cafeteria dressed for a night on the town. He hadn't been a big fan of nights like this before he came to Pegasus, it had never really been his scene but he found he rather enjoyed them here. He figured it probably had something to do with the company, the friends he had made here always made it a good night out, they all stuck together which his friends back home hadn't always done.
Everyone but Vala and Sam were there but he was fairly certain he'd just heard Vala's voice coming from behind him as he walked through the door so they were probably not far behind. He moved to stand with Marcus and Laura, the two of them bickering about something but he couldn't quite figure out what.
"Alright, everyone's here, let's go," Vala said excitedly as she and Sam joined the group. Everyone began to move, leaving the school campus and making their way along the road through the forest to town. They were a little later going out than they usually were so there was already a lot of students around, many of the clubs had queues forming outside them including their favourite club, it was probably the longest queue of them all.
"We can queue for who knows how long or we can go somewhere else," Cameron stated and the group decided to go somewhere else. There was another club around the corner that they often went to and there was only a small queue of people there. They got in the line and were at the front within minutes. Carson pulled his ID card out of his wallet to prove he was over 18 and then paid the entry fee, recieving a blue ink stamp on the back of his hand to show he had paid for his entry. Once everyone was inside they headed through to the club, the loud music and flashing lights assaulting their senses before they were even through the door.
Vala and Teyla were heading for the dance floor before everyone was even inside, Teyla dragging a groaning Ronon along with her. Carson smiled at the sight, Ronon and Teyla were so different, he never would have put them together when they'd first met but here they were, almost a year later, still together.
The two other couples in the group were clearly still trying to find their feet. Jack and Sam were quickly getting comfortable with their new relationship but Carson could tell they were still getting used to having less boundaries between them. John and Elizabeth weren't acting much different to the way they had before but that was probably because they had already been very close before thay had become an official item. They seemed to keep looking at each other for permission though, before they would hold hands or even stand together.
"Carson, dance with me?" Laura questioned jolting Carson from his thoughts. "Marcus and Cameron are both trying to spoil my fun."
Carson looked over at the two men who shrugged as they joined the mass of people trying to get to the bar. He turned back to Laura who looked at him pleadingly and he sighed and nodded, not bothering to shout his answer over the music. She grinned and grabbed his hand, pulling him along to the dance floor behind her. They reached where Teyla was dancing with Ronon, the big guy looking uncomfortable as he always did in these situations but grinning and bearing it for Teyla. Vala was dancing with someone he didn't recognise and he figured she'd just grabbed the poor guy from whatever he'd been doing before, not that he looked unwilling in the least.
It was less than an hour before Rodney fell over, he was standing at the bar one second and on the floor looking annoyed the next. Carson and Radek helped him to his feet but he quickly shrugged them off and wondered off in the direction of the toilets, Teal'c following to make sure he didn't get himself in trouble. Carson and Radek joined the rest of the group around one of the tables the girls had grabbed earlier in the night and the guys had guarded since then.
"Come on you guys, we're playing I never," Janet announced and Carson groaned as he sat down, he hated this game.
"My turn, I never..." Daniel paused as he tried to think of something. "Have been in a public place naked."
There was laughing around the table as Jack, John, Vala and Laura drank shots of whatever was being poured out of the bottle Jack was holding.
"There are some stories in there," Janet laughed.
"I was fifteen and my friends dared me to run naked through the school," Jack told them. "I got caught before I made it back to the locker room. It took my dad an hour to smooth things over with the principal and keep the whole thing off my permanent record. It took him a lot longer than that to stop yelling at me every time we were in the same room."
"I lost a bet," Laura stated. "When I was seventeen."
"Same here," Vala told them.
"Prank," John confessed. "Me and a few other guys, it was a rivalry we were having with another school."
"I never..." Kate began but was interrupted by Rodney returning to the table, loudly announcing that he might actually be drunk after all and grabbing one of the shots that were in the middle of the table. "Maybe you've had enough to drink Rodney."
"I know my limits thank you very much," Rodney slurred.
"Which is evidenced by the way you're swaying in your chair," Cameron laughed as he put a hand on Rodney's shoulder to steady him. "Couldn't take it easy for the first night back could you?"
"Where's the fun in that?" Rodney exclaimed throwing his hands up in the air.
"He's going to feel that hangover in the morning."
Kate woke up gradually, opening her eyes to see her bedroom ceiling. She smiled as she remembered last night, it had been a great night out and they'd all stumbled back onto campus sometime in the early hours of the morning, it was a miracle they'd made it back to the girl's dorms without being seeing by the guard patrols. She hoped everyone had been so lucky but she supposed they'd become experts at it throughout their first year.
She sat up in bed and a wave of nausea and pain hit her so fast she physically flinched. She jumped up from the bed and ran into the bathroom; she only just made it to the toilet before vomiting. She was never drinking that much again, she thought to herself as she sat back against the cool tiled walls of the bathroom a few minutes later. In addition to the headache and the nausea her stomach muscles were now hurting too.
"Well, you brought that on yourself," her roommate said from the doorway with a small smile. She handed Kate a glass of water and some painkillers which she took gratefully. "At least you came back in more or less quietly."
"Did I wake you up?" Kate asked and Carolyn shrugged.
"Just barely, I was back to sleep again within minutes," she told her. "You look like hell."
"Thanks," Kate groaned as she finished the glass of water and dragged herself off the bathroom floor. "I'm going to take a shower."
Twenty minutes later she was showered and dressed, convincing her body she wasn't going to be sick again. "What time is it?"
"A little after noon," her roommate told her from where she sat at her desk writing. "I know you don't like sleeping in but I figured you were better off sleeping through the worst of the hangover."
Kate fought back another wave of nausea. "I think you were probably right, never again."
"You always say that," Carolyn stated.
"I mean it this time," Kate replied.
Carolyn smirked. "You always say that too."
"I'm going to see if I can manage to stomach some food," Kate told her but even just saying it made her stomach roll. "I'll see you later."
It was far too bright outside, Kate decided as she left the girls dorms and made her way to the cafeteria. It was packed with people and way too noisy but she forced herself to make her way through the crowds, spotting some of her friends at one of the tables. She walked over and dropped into one of the empty chairs, taking a deep breath in an effort to settle her rebelling body.
"How are you feeling today Kate?" Teyla questioned looking unusually pale and tired.
"Like hell," Kate told them.
"Join the club," Jack's muffled voice came from where he had his head buried in his arms on the table.
"I dread to think how Rodney feels today," Cameron said as he took several drinks from his bottle of water. "He was completely wasted, he'll be lucky if he even remembers half the night."
"I doubt we'll be seeing him today," John said, he and Elizabeth were sat at the other end of the table, neither of them looked particularly healthy though Elizabeth looked better than most of them. Ronon sat down at the table then, obviously returning from the cafeteria queue. He had a plate full of food and the smell hit Kate straight away, she knew then she wasn't going to be able to stomach eating any time soon. There were several moans and disgusted groans around the table.
"What?" Ronon questioned as he looked at them all. "There's nothing better than some good greasy food after a night out."
That did it, Kate jumped up from the table and headed for the nearest toilets.
The weekend had come and gone and they were back in classes for their second week. Their second year was already proving much harder than their first, now that the introduction stuff was over with the teachers were diving right in with the work. It was only Monday afternoon but they already had two assignments and several new books to carry around with them. Vala was already bored, World of Magic hadn't been of much interest to her last year and it seemed this year was going to be the same.
She wrote a few words, summarising most of what Professor Niya had said and then continued with her doodle of a smiley face in the margin. She gave the face hair and then decided that it was no longer a guy, it was a girl and so she made the hair longer. She drew in some earings, some nice ones that dangled from her ears and, if doodles could sparkle, they would be sparkly earings too.
"Miss Malduran," Niya said and Vala looked up at the teachers questioning expression and realised that not only had she missed whatever Niya had said but the teacher had singled her out to answer a question.
"No," Vala tried not knowing what the question had been but giving it shot anyway.
"No what?" Niya asked, so that had been the wrong answer.
"Green?" she tried again only for Niya to sigh dramatically.
"Miss Malduran perhaps if you paid as much attention to the class as you did to the picture in your margin you would not only know the answer but the question as well," Niya told her and Vala looked down at her doodle in surprise. There were two rows of people in between her and Niya, how did she know she was drawing? Niya went back to teaching the class, Vala eyeing her warily for a moment before going back to the doodle.
The class finally ended with another reading assignment being handed out and Vala quickly packed her things into her bag. She was glad she had a free period next, she needed to copy Cameron's notes for the parts of the class she's apparently completely zoned out of.
"Green?" Cameron asked her as they sat in the cafeteria and he handed her the notes he'd made. "You really thought that was going to be the answer?"
"Well I figured 'I don't know' was far more likely to be the wrong answer, it was worth a try," Vala replied. "I can't believe she picked that moment to ask me a question, I pay attention for most of the class and as soon as I zone out she ask me question."
"Maybe she asked you a question because she knew you weren't paying attention," Ronon suggested and Vala raised an eyebrow at him.
"And how did she know I was doodling, she couldn't have seen my paper from the front of the class?" Vala asked.
"You really weren't paying attention were you?" Ronon questioned. "She walked around the classroom, went right passed us."
"Well, that explains it," Vala shrugged and made a start on copying the parts of Cameron's notes she'd missed, which was more than she thought.
"You require a better attention span," Teal'c stated.
TBC
