A/N: Here we go! Woo hoo! :D
Enjoy!
The next day, she sought him out for lunch. She tossed him a sandwich and plopped down on the grass beside him, in the middle of the quad. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, and that she didn't notice the stares her fellow students sent her way. And every day after that, they had lunch together.
Somehow, she always found him, and sometimes they ate where they could spend the hour ignoring the strange looks they garnered from her peers. Other times they found someplace more private, like in the shade provided by the greenskeeper's shed. He didn't truly realize how Pavlovian he'd become until that one afternoon came that she didn't come to him.
When she remained absent long after she usually managed to find him, he went in search of her instead. He got lucky—the petite brunette he'd spotted with Sam the day at the café recognized him, and was able to point him to a less-frequented courtyard on the south end of the campus. The apologetic look she gave him did nothing to quell the dread that was growing in the pit of his stomach.
When Jack finally found her, ignoring the ache in his knee, Sam was bent low over a textbook, writing furiously in a spiral bound notebook. Geordie stood at the edge of the courtyard, and an unfamiliar watchman had taken the outer perimeter. Must be Ronica's day off, Jack mused. The new guy tried to stop Jack from coming closer, but Geordie came to his rescue by waving him through.
And again, an apologetic look—one that wished him luck, perhaps—dogged Jack's steps as he closed the remaining distance to the picnic table she'd taken over. He made a point to flop onto the bench seat opposite her, with enough noise to startle her out of her concentration. Momentarily.
"Oh, hi," she greeted. Her voice was distracted, and already her gaze drifted back down to her book.
"Oh, hi?" he mimicked, feigning insult. "You blow me off for lunch and oh, hi is the most you can give me?"
She blinked. "Is it lunch time already?" She scribbled something onto her spiral, then crossed it out with vicious strokes of her pen. "Sorry. I'm…" Her voice trailed off, and she didn't continue despite his pointed waiting.
"You're busy," he supplied, filling the silence. She didn't respond immediately, flipping through the pages of text.
She nodded eventually. "Mmm…" she concurred. "I don't have time, right now—"
"Hey, all work and no play makes Sam a dull girl. You've earned a break by now, haven't you?"
"No!" she cried, her voice breaking. "No, I haven't! This isn't working…"
Jack blinked, trying to shove his instinctive panic aside. "What isn't working?" Please don't say this. Don't say us.
"My final thesis!" she growled. "It's just… It's not coming together right."
Oh. That was all right then. "Then lunch is the perfect way to take a step back and then look at it later with fresh eyes." He moved to sweep her papers into a pile and off to the side, but only got as far as the textbook before her hands clutched at her notes, desperately keeping them in place.
"Stop it, Jack! I don't have time for this, it's due in three days and I—"
"Say that again."
She looked at him, startled at the sudden gravitas in his voice. She met his gaze, and returned his heavy look with a wide-eyed one of her own.
"It—It's due in three days…" she stammered. The touch of his hand on hers had shaken her from her headspace, and he could see her wheels spinning trying to catch up.
"Say my name." His tone was dark, and rich. In that moment, he realized he had never heard her say his name before. Circumstances hadn't required it, their time spent mostly one-on-one and without the need for names, but just now, it had sent an electric tingle down his spine.
"Jack." It came out as a half-whisper, her own voice almost breathless.
Slowly he grinned. "I like it when you say that." His thumb began to trace light circles over the back of her hand, slowly drawing her away from her notes. "Come on," he enticed. "Just for a few minutes. We won't go far." Still she hesitated. "Please?"
That one little word did her in. She relented, allowing him to pull her from her seat. He drew her out into the grass, where they curled up cross-legged, pulling the pre-packaged sandwiches from the bag Jack had brought with him. They ate studiously, as Jack simply looked at her, and Sam seemed unfocused and distracted. Finally, he straightened, pulling her attention back to him.
"All right," he declared stoutly. "Talk to me. What's your thesis in?"
"Jack, I don't know if—"
He grinned. "Come on, Sam, I completed high school y'know. Who knows? I might even be able to shed some light on it for you."
At that, her brow lifted. Then she smiled nervously. "Um, I don't really think—"
"Come on," he wheedled. "What could it hurt?" She sighed, but it was acquiescence he accepted. "What class is it in?"
"Physics 312."
Jack blinked. "Three-twelve? Isn't that a college-level course?" She nodded. "I thought this was a high school?"
"It is," she assured him. "But every semester we get a few visiting professors. A lot of the students don't have the luxury of remaining safe on a different campus, so they offer college-level courses to the students who qualify."
"And how many of your classes this term are college-level?" he asked, already sensing he knew the answer. All of a sudden, he wondered just how smart she really was. This place wasn't known for churning out the world's brightest minds, but he should've known better than to assume anything with her.
"All of them," she said softly. She ducked her chin, suddenly self-conscious. She met his gaze through her lashes. "Credits-wise, I'm a sophomore."
Jack tried to not let his surprise be so obvious. But if the reddening in her cheeks was any indication, he'd failed to some degree. "Wow." He cleared his throat. "Well, in that case, maybe I won't be able to help you." When she lifted her head, he caught her with a roguish grin. "But maybe explaining it to the stupid guy might help lay it out for you."
She huffed a small laugh, but she turned towards him, brushing the sandwich crumbs from her fingers as she did so. "The current school of thought presumes that most dark matter in the universe is nonbaryonic, which means that it couldn't have influenced the model of Big Bang nucelosynthesis, but—"
"Ack!" Jack waved her off. "Too many big words." He stuck his tongue out at her, dispelling the shadow that was beginning to creep over her features. "Start with the basics. What's the subject?"
"I told you—"
"For a stupid guy, remember?"
Blue eyes rolled, but a smile pulled at her lips. "Astrophysics."
Jack held back a low whistle. "For the record, I never would have pegged you for a geek."
"Why?" Her eyes narrowed. "Because I'm a girl?"
"Because you're hot."
Heh. She hadn't been expecting that. In fact, she even looked a little sheepish, having been caught jumping the gun. He nudged her playfully. "Which part is giving you a problem? Hypothesis or evidence?"
He remembered his high school Experimental Design Diagrams, if only in a vague, resentful sort of sense.
"Conclusion," she responded. "It's not right."
"I thought the conclusion was what you got out of the data you collect."
"It is."
"Well, you seem to understand the data all right, so…"
"It's not as simple as all that," she countered. "I know the data is correct, but it just… It doesn't match the conclusion."
Jack eyed her. "You know, I might just be a dumb flyboy, but aren't you supposed to go into an experiment without having a pre-formed conclusion?"
She looked at him, mildly surprised. He'd caught her off-guard, and in her eyes he could see her rising to the challenge. "There's a balance in science," she explained, squaring her shoulders. "There's the data collection, which is the majority of the work. The experimentation, and simulations. But the only thing that comes of it is a whole bunch of jigsaw pieces. It's the theory that shows you how all the different pieces fit together. It determines what kind of picture the pieces make."
Jack nodded. That he could understand. "And the pieces aren't coming together for you?"
She shook her head, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. "It's like a kid just started mashing them together, putting two wrong ends together and pressing 'til they stayed together. It makes a whole picture, but it's not right."
Jack's fingers combed the grass, considering it. "So what do you need to put them in the right order?"
She shrugged, her gaze falling to where he'd started to shred the manicured lawn. A pinch of grass was caught by the wind, drifting towards the right until it came to rest next to the toe of his boot. "A piece is missing," she murmured. "And I don't know if I'll have time to find it before I present…"
Her voice trailed off, as the next handful of grass was lifted higher, carried farther. It got as far as his knee before it softly lit on the grass. He snapped off another pinch, and lifted his hand, but before he could release it her hand closed on his, making him still.
He glanced at her, then back at their hands as she lifted his higher. "Let go," she murmured. He obeyed, and the grass blew past his knee and halfway across her pleated lap. She didn't say anything, nor did she release him.
"It's just grass," he told her, his voice low.
A beat. "No. No it's not."
"What else could it be?" He looked at her, starting to seriously doubt her sanity. This place must really do a number on the students' psyches. All that stress. Too many exams—
"The Lambda-CDM model." Her voice almost quivered with excitement, and that communicated itself to Jack more clearly than whatever lamb-chop she was referring to.
"What's a—" His question was silenced by the kiss she planted on his lips, her hands suddenly cupping his cheeks. It was brisk and abrupt, and left him slightly reeling.
He opened his eyes to find blue eyes shining back at him, grinning broadly. And what a grin it was. That full-blown toothy grin that lit her entire face like it was Christmas in July. "You're brilliant."
A self-effacing half-scoff, half-laugh answered her. "Oh, well, I—"
"I've gotta go," she interrupted, cutting him short. She started to get to her feet. "I've gotta get back to the lab, I have to…" She paused, on her knees, and then leaned back in to kiss him one more time, still grinning that grin. He was glad he was sitting; his knees would have gone weak otherwise, he was sure of it. "I'll make it up to you, I promise."
"You better," he grinned back. "You owe me one."
"I'll owe you twenty for this." She climbed the rest of the way to her feet, nearly breathless as her hand trailed over his shoulder. "I gotta go!"
She made short work of her scattered notes, sweeping them into a messy stack before shoving them into the pages of her text book and shoving the whole thing into her bookbag. She shot him a wave and another smile before taking off, almost making her escort run to keep up with her.
If Jack didn't know any better, he would've sworn that he saw Geordie grinning as the man trotted along after her.
