A/N: I'm so sorry for missing the upload day yesterday! I'm currently working a series of night shifts so all I'm doing is sleeping. It's not an excuse of course, but it's the truth. Here's the new chapter!
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
'Dismissed'
Chapter 7
Mr. Jane joined her as their groups moved ahead of them. He merely smiled at her, not even really focusing on the road.
"You knew that Dwayne has a crush on Shelby."
He nodded.
"How did you know?"
"Well, I could see it in his eyes. Beside that, he would look in her direction only to then look away when she turned to him. It was quite obvious."
Lisbon eyed him suspiciously, keeping her eyes on the road just enough.
"He told you, didn't he?"
"Yep."
She couldn't help but smile, which of course elicited a smile from him as well.
"Though in my defense, it was quite obvious."
"Do you dislike being proven wrong, Mr. Jane?"
"I'm hardly wrong, just Lisbon, so I am not used to this feeling."
She huffed and rolled her eyes, but she wasn't surprised that he thought this way. Judging by the way his mind had worked during the few weeks they had known each other now, he was undoubtedly always the smartest person in the room. 'Smart', however, did not usually equal 'nice', and she had to let him know somehow.
She looked sideways at him, noticing he was trying to get her attention back.
"Just Lisbon, I would like to apologize for not always minding my own business."
She swallowed her previous opinion. Perhaps another time.
"I don't think this is the right moment for this."
"No, you're right. I do want to get back on this topic later, however. I am aware I behave like an ass sometimes and I would not want you to be mad at me."
"And why is that, exactly?"
He didn't get to answer her question, as they heard a loud crash followed by some screams and gasps. Lisbon's head shot right to the source of the sounds, and found a couple of the students on the ground, their bikes and limbs tangled up.
"Oh no," she breathed, then got off her bike, rushing toward them. "Are you alright?"
The fallen students looked around at each other, not necessarily showing any signs that they were in pain, then all just lowered themselves to the ground and started laughing at the top of their lungs. Well, all except Alice, who was clutching her wrist, simply staring at it.
Lisbon crouched down beside the girl and took her arm in her hands, closely observing. Mr. Jane soon joined. As soon as Lisbon touched her, tears formed on her cheeks, first just a couple, then an amount more or less resembling a waterfall, accompanied by loud sobs.
Lisbon studied the wrist, not seeing an obvious deformity, but she did see that the area was starting to swell.
Mr. Jane was both rubbing soothing circles on the girl's back and making sure the others didn't do anything they would regret later.
"Can you move your wrist for me carefully, Alice?"
She saw the girl tried, but in the end she visibly refused to cause herself more pain. Lisbon knew a lot of the pain might also be brought on by shock, but considering the swelling she didn't want to take any risks.
"I'm gonna call Abbott," she told Mr. Jane, who nodded. He told the other students some other things as he sat down next to Alice with his legs crossed.
She explained the situation, and she heard him groan on the other side.
"Why can these things never go well?"
"Will you join her or do you want me to go?" This situation was not entirely Alice's fault, even though she knew that Abbott would want to blame someone and experience told them it was usually the students. If Lisbon hadn't been so caught up in the conversation with Mr. Jane, she would have been able to prevent it from happening.
"Can you go, Teresa? The nearest First Aid Office is close to the lake, so it might be best to continue and then go further from there."
"Is it possible to pick her up in a car?"
"You're with Mr. Jane, right? I can't allow one teacher to monitor, what, sixteen students? No, I'm sorry, Teresa, but you'll have to continue. We'll pick up her bike later."
"Alright, see you later, then."
She returned to the group, noticing that Alice's tears had disappeared but the pain remained. Not only was Mr. Jane trying to cheer her up, the other students had joined too, keeping her distracted from her injury.
"We need to continue," Lisbon said, drawing all the attention to her. She knew they would protest, she had too, but unfortunately this was all they could do at the moment. "So I suggest Alice to sit on the back while someone drives, does anybody volunteer?"
Several hands were raised, and Lisbon pointed at the first student she saw, which turned out to be Taylah. Said girl, together with Mr. Jane, got Alice back on her feet and they tried to figure out the best way for her to sit. Lisbon instructed Shelby to drive beside Taylah and help Alice should they fall again. With everyone instructed and slightly calmed down, they continued their way to the lake.
This time, all Lisbon did was pay attention to her students.
~...~
Lisbon knew she spoke on behalf of all of them that she was glad to be at the camp. Abbott was awaiting them once again, taking care of Alice while they put away their bikes.
"I'll take her," Lisbon started as she joined them. Abbott nodded. He reached into his pockets and got out car keys.
"Take my car. And some other students too."
"Will do. I'll keep you updated."
She guided Alice to the car and Taylah and Shelby joined, both girls putting a hand on her shoulder. They set off quickly, also wanting to get this over with.
"Ms. Lisbon, does this happen often?"
"What does, Taylah?"
"Well, us messing up and everything."
Lisbon smiled faintly and looked in the rearview mirror, observing how Alice had carefully put her wrist on her leg, trying to dampen the movements of the car as much as possible.
"To be honest, yes. Although we haven't had a lot of broken bones so far."
A smile appeared on Alice's lips. "I'm so honored to be special."
All of them giggled at her comment.
The ride turned out to be relatively short, them arriving within fifteen minutes or so. The girls helped out Alice while Lisbon gathered most of their personal belongings. She signed them in at the desk and joined the girls, sitting down in a corner in the waiting room. Lisbon noticed the girls were whispering but they stopped when she sat down.
"Please, feel free to continue your small talk, ladies."
They giggled. "It's sort of personal, Ms. Lisbon."
She nodded. "Fair enough."
The girls looked at each other, silently discussing their options, then nodded as well.
"Alright. We were just talking about how Dwayne has a crush on Shelby."
Shelby hit Taylah's arm.
"T! He does not have a crush on me!"
"He so does, Shelby. Whatever, if you don't want to see that, idec."
"Whatevs."
Shelby and Taylah both rolled their eyes, but Lisbon could tell that they were not fighting. After all, they had been very good friends since their freshman year and they wouldn't let such a useless argument spoil that.
"Do you have a boyfriend, Ms. Lisbon?" Alice seemingly blurted out. All heads turned her way, and Taylah and Shelby looked at each other questioning what their friend had just said.
"OMFG, Alice, you can't just ask our teachers these things."
Lisbon was caught off guard, and normally she wouldn't indulge in questions this personal, but these girls were different. In any case, it was just them, and she needed to find a way to distract them from Alice's predicament.
"As a matter of fact, I do not have a boyfriend."
Alice frowned. "A girlfriend then?" When her friends gasped, she shrugged. "I ain't judging, Ms. Lisbon."
Perhaps a different distraction would be better.
~...~
Abbott had planned a lot of activities during this entire trip, but what with Alice's accident, none of the students were paying attention to his explanations. Nevertheless, Abbott desperately tried to get them to do what he wanted, and if it hadn't been Cho interrupting him and temporarily dismissing the students, their director would probably still be talking about all the mandatory team building exercises they had to do.
The students hurried off to find their cabins and no doubt leave a complete mess in their wake. The teachers gathered their own items from the cars too and went to their cabins, deciding to meet up ten minutes from then to discuss the trip.
Wylie practically lost his shit upon entering his and Cho's space, his jaw dropping to the floor.
The cabins were not quite spacious but despite their size, they lacked nothing in luxury - whilst, of course, staying true to the true camper spirit. Which meant that even though everything was there, it was at a relatively basic level.
"I like this. A lot."
"Yeah. I figured."
Wylie dropped his bags and fell face-first onto one of the beds.
"Very retro," he murmured but the bed stopped most of the sounds from reaching Cho's ears. Thankfully. If he would have to spend an entire week with Jason Wylie there would be a big chance that they would both grow insane.
Cho didn't spend a lot of time on organizing his items; he simply put his duffel bag on one of the chairs and spread his jacket over it. He glanced into Wylie's direction. The younger man seemed asleep.
Cho shook his head and stepped outside, taking a deep breath of fresh air.
He was worried about his young friend, which was a strange occurrence considering he would never let his friends' drama into his head. If he would, it would probably explode.
Yet this was different, Cho knew. Or perhaps he was different this time around. Whatever the reason was, he wanted the drama to be dealt with so he could go back to work.
He saw another drama exiting one of the more distant cabins in much the same fashion as he had, no doubt glad to be in the great outdoors as well.
The blond man interested him, but why he did not know. Cho knew there was a story behind that 1000-watt smile that was probably too dark for anyone to find out, he could see it in his eyes. He was able to fool a lot of people, but not Cho.
Mr. Jane waved at him, that blinding smile greeting Cho even from this distance. Cho wondered how he managed to flash it at everybody the entire day, but then realized he probably had a lot of years of experience faking it.
"Mr. Cho," he stated as they approached each other.
"Mr. Jane."
They fell into a short silence, both looking at the beautiful scenery of Lake Travis.
"I am looking-"
"If you hurt her, I'll hurt you."
Mr. Jane turned towards him. Cho expected the man to be confused at his blunt statement, but the blonde merely sighed.
"I have no intentions of courting her, Mr. Cho."
"Okay."
"Even if I did, I would tell her directly. I would not turn around the issue." Somehow, Cho doubted that but he was willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt. Not because he liked him, but because he was not quite fond of an argument that involved even more drama.
"Fair enough."
Mr. Jane smiled. "Although I do have to say, your intention to keep Ms. Lisbon from being hurt touches me."
He stared at Mr. Jane. What did he expect now, a full explanation of just why he protected her like this, and of how much he cares about her?
"She matters."
"That she does." Mr. Jane paused. "To me or to you?"
"It shouldn't matter. Look, Mr. Jane, she's damaged. If you're interested, tell her. If not, leave her alone."
Mr. Jane nodded. "Obviously."
As Mr. Jane walked away, Cho had more doubts than he had before. In the end, though, he wouldn't dive into the matter. He had enough drama left not to be dealt with.
~...~
A swarm of curious teenagers met up at the park's entrance, ready to see what state Alice was in. Or, more like, her arm, because as it turns out these teenagers were more than willing to see their fair share of blood and gore. Like an episode of Game of Thrones, but then right in front of their eyes. To say that they were disappointed when Alice stepped out of the parked car on her own, with a simple cast from her wrist to her elbow, was a gross understatement.
Ms. Lisbon waved at the group, semi enthusiastically, and the teenagers went back to their previous occupations.
Abbott greeted the four of them with a smile, yet it was noticeable that he wanted a quick update on what had happened.
"It's broken, she needs rest but she may assist us with babysitting if she wants to."
"And I do," Alice said with a smile, as though she was glad she didn't have to do these dull teambuilding exercises. On second thought, that was probably the reason she was smiling so much.
Abbott raised his eyebrows but nodded all the same.
"Fair enough."
He clapped with his hands and got most of the students' attention. Lisbon got the rest when she merely looked around.
"I thank you all for waiting for Alice to return. We will continue our initial program and see where we end up, considering we now have less time to finish the activities." Abbott stretched out his arm to look at his watch when Lisbon interrupted.
"When we're done with the activities, you get to do whatever you want except leave the camp grounds."
All students cheered, of course. Oddly enough, Jason Wylie joined too. Was he happy not to be doing anything of significance?
"We have several team building exercises around the field here, all accompanied by a piece of paper with instructions. All groups will face each other at least once, but for logistic reasons we couldn't avoid some facing each other twice. The teachers have a form with all the times in it." Abbott looked around at the teachers, then nodded. "All right. Enjoy!"
The students weren't quite interested in joining but they did nonetheless, some of them almost dragged out by their hyperactive counterparts. The teachers also tried to motivate their groups as much as possible.
Lisbon, after being asked by her girls, joined in on some games, if only to even out the number of students considering their group was with one student less after Alice's injury. She had to admit, she liked spending time like this, even though the games itself were tedious and only designed to make people hate each other. She'd had to do them when training for her current job as well and hadn't liked a single part of it. For these teens however it seemed like it was a lot of fun, most likely because they had already known each other for a while.
After about three rounds, having beat Wylie with twice as many points, she came face to face with Mr. Jane's group.
"Just Lisbon. What a pleasure."
"I hope you brought tissues because we're going to make you cry for your mommies."
Where did that come from? Heat of the moment, she supposed.
Mr. Jane raised his eyebrows, an amused glint in his eyes.
"Oh, are you, Ms. Lisbon?" He looked over his shoulder to his boys. "Because we were about to say the same thing."
"We haven't lost a single match."
"It's not about winning, it's participating that matters."
She huffed. "That's something only losers would say."
"I guess we will see, Ms. Lisbon."
She raised her chin in defiance and turned around to her girls. She had no idea what had just happened but she supposed she liked it, if the smile on her face was anything to go by.
Of course she beat him fair and square, which wasn't a surprise, to her at least. Mr. Jane looked like he had a hurt ego now but she wasn't going to tend to it. He would just have to suck it up. He likely had never experienced losing anything so there was a first to anything.
He passed her by when they moved to the next exercise, but he stepped just a bit closer so he could whisper in her ear.
"You're wrong about that."
With that, he walked away once again. This time, she was done with his secretive words and annoying shenanigans. She had to give him an ultimatum and quickly at that. If she wouldn't, she might actually cut his head off.
A/N: Also, shout out to Robin for having the most beautiful baby boy! And shout out to you for reading this story still!
