Friendship Forgotten

Chapter Seven
Teris Xenite

Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. The actors certainly are not mine. The storyline and events they're in are mine, however if you are in anyway involved with DOOL and want to borrow...Feel free to at no charge. This story is unbeated at this time.



"Sami relax, I'm sure that if he was hurt they would have told us over the phone. It's probably some minor thing, like oh setting the clocks forward an hour to get out of school early."

"Have you been telling him stories about when we were young and stupid again?"

"Who me?" He said trying to pull off wide eyed innocence but ruining it with a smirk.

"Yes you." She pinned him with her patented glare and he crumbled.

"Ok ok, so I told him one or two. He was asking about when we used to be friends."

"Which ones did you tell him?"

"I told him about going to the Spring Fling, and Halloween."

"Well with some minor editing those shouldn't be too bad."

"Well it wasn't like I was going to tell him any of the bad stuff. He's seen too much of that as is."

"He's lucky you have a long memory, things have been bad for a pretty good while."

"But when they were good they were very good."

"But when they were bad they were horrid. Let me guess, Will made you read that ten thousand times too. "

"Yeah…I never thought I could get so tired of a book in my life. I was seeing the words in my sleep." Sami mummered something that sounded like a cross between agreement and sympathy. The whole while they'd been talking Lucas had been subtly breaking-or as he preferred to think of it bending, speeding laws. So it was their arrival at the school that precluded further conversation.

"Well now that we're here, are you ready to face the Dragon?"

"The Dragon?"

"Did I forget to mention that both Will's teacher and principal are my former teachers."

Lucas groaned. "May god help us…we're gonna need it."

"Mr. Roberts, Miss Brady I'm so glad you could join us today." Lucas shook her hand and nodded, and Sami looked offended at the implication that they wouldn't come when their son needed them. The principal motioned them to sit before continuing, and Lucas winced as he saw Sami's hands. She was clenching the arms of the chair so tightly that they were a ghostly white.

"Of course we came Mrs. Alexander. Will needed us. Now what happened? Is he alright?"

"Yes, he's sporting a swollen lip and facing at least a three day suspension, but other than that he's fine."

"What happened?"

"Well Mr. Roberts, it seems that William got into a fight with another student. For that he faces an automatic three day suspension. There isn't anything I can do to avoid that. However, since this is his first major offense, I'd like to get to the bottom of what's going on and see if we can limit the repercussions to that. The only problem is, he won't tell us what happened, and Timmy, the other boy, has claimed that your son attacked him. Now I don't need to tell either of you that William is an excellent student, he's never been in trouble before, aside from minor childhood pranks. I'd be inclined to take his word over the other boys based on past history…"

"But you can't get him to say anything one way or another."

"Exactly."

"Could we see him?"

"Of course Miss Brady. I'll send him in, you all can talk in my office."

They sat waiting for Will in silence. The sound of reluctant stomping could be heard coming down the hall towards them, then the door opened to reveal a grungy, slightly bruised and scraped version of their son. Sami immediately wanted to hug him to her and never let go, she wanted to protect him from every thing as she had when he was small, but that wouldn't solve anything, and she wasn't sure that he would welcome her attentions.

The principal left them alone, and the silence lingered painfully and she decided that the worst he could do would be to push her away. She walked over to where he stood and knelt down to his eye level. "Are you ok sweetie? Where does it hurt?" She was met by stoney silence.

"Will, why don't you tell us what happened?" And Lucas was stunned to receive the same silent treatment as Sami. What are we gonna do if neither of us can get through to him?

"Will, no matter what it is you can tell us, and we'll still love you. No matter what we're here for you, and we'll take care of you."

"She's right buddy, but you have to let us know what's going on before we can help you fix it."

"Tim called me a bad name, and the he started talking about you and mom. I got mad, so I punched him, then he punched me back."

"What did he call you sweetie?" Sami's voice would have appeared even to anyone else, but Lucas could detect a bit of pain and sorrow in it.

"He called me a bastard, and then he called you a whore, and you" He looked at Lucas. "and he called you a worthless drunk. And he said that his mom said that I was a mistake, and that mom should have gotten rid of me when she had the chance."

Will didn't miss the look that passed between his parents. Thankfully he couldn't quite interpret it as what it truly was, murderous rage for the one who had hurt their beloved child so deeply. They knew enough to realize that the boy was probably just repeating what he'd heard his parents say, but both made mental notes to research this later. Lucas knelt down with Sami, as they shared a family hug. She felt the warmth of Will's tears on her shoulder, and her heart broke. What could she do to make this better? What could she do to make the pain go away?

She pulled away slightly, and brushed the tears from his face. "Will, look at me sweetie?" Reluctantly he did so, and the pain that she felt grew a little worse as she saw the haunted look in his eyes. "Will, you were not a mistake. Never. Not for one minute were you a mistake. Your daddy and I love you, and wouldn't trade you for anything in the world."

"Not even for Uncle Austin or Nicole."

"No baby not even for Uncle Austin,"

"And not for Nicole either." Lucas fought the lump in his throat, and placed a hand on Will's shoulder. How could his son not know that he loved him more than anything in the world? "You remember that herd of elephants we saw in Africa?"

Will looked confused. "Well yeah dad. It'd be kinda hard not to, I mean they were huge."

"Well you take every single elephant in Africa, in the whole world, and you multiply that by about a billion times, and then you might…might be somewhere close to how much your mommy and I love you."

"Really?"

"Yes really." Will smiled. "But you still can't have a pet elephant."

"Awww dad!"

"No!" Lucas shot Sami a look as he saw her trying not to laugh. Finally she got her self pulled together.

"I think Daddy's right on this one sweetie. Where would he live if you got one?"

Will thought for a minute, then exclaimed proudly: "He could live in Dad's bathtub!"

The image of Lucas sharing his bathtub with an elephant proved too humorous for Sami to resist, and coupled with the relief that came with the knowledge that her son was safe and relatively unharmed, she lost the battle with the laughter she'd been fighting back to spare Will's feelings.
"I'm sorry honey…that's a good idea…but can't you just imagine Mr. Krample's face if he saw an elephant in daddy's apartment?"

Will grinned and it was apparent that he could easily imagine the florid, easily annoyed landlord upon sight of an elephant. "If I can get him to say it's ok then can I have one?"

"Tell you what buddy, you convince Krample the crabby to let you have a pet, and we'll get you one. But I don't think he's gonna go for an elephant, there just too big."

"Well if I can convince him can I have one?"

Lucas shot a questioning look over Will's head at Sami, and she sent him a 'what the hell' look back. After all it wasn't like Will was going to be able to convince him, let Crabby be the bad guy instead of one of us. Both were pleasantly suprised to find that they still communicated quite well without words. "Alright Will, if you can convince Mr. Krample to let you have an elephant in our apartment, then you can have one."

If they hadn't been too busy looking at each other, then they would have been alarmed at the look on Will's face. Sami would have said it was Lucas' 'I'm too sexy for my shirt, you know you want me smirk', and Lucas would have claimed that it was Sami's 'scheming, manipulating, troubles brewing, get down on your knees and worship me like the goddess that I am smirk'. But from which ever parent the expression hailed, the fact remained William Roberts had a smirk on his face. Trouble would soon follow.

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