The lovely breeze was cool against Drew's skin. He could feel the after effects of being in a pool cooling his body down with the wind.

The P.E. coach watched from the sidelines, making sure nobody was drowning or pushing people into the water. When he had noticed something, he gave a shrill call on his whistle and called the students out, gave them a stern warning, and sent them back to the pool.

Drew had nearly hesitated into changing into the school's uniform swim trunks. Staring down at his non-existent belly, he could see the scar forming, still stitched up, which was left from Leaf's blanks.

He glared inwardly because he knew that when Leaf saw it, she would hold it high as a trophy. She would then point out the happy trail that was from his belly button, down, and laugh because it was green. She would show May, and she would blush, and to cover it up, she would laugh and mock him.

And he would end up teasing her about their little jokes the laughed together in the morning.

But after giving a really good shove to his pride, he managed to put them on and exited to the pools. As predicted, Leaf pointed out both the scar and happy trail, but stopped short when she saw it was only the two of them in the large room.

With a hushed voice, she pulled him in closer by his chin and whispered in his ear, "We need to talk about the plan at lunch."

They pulled away from each other, and Drew gave her a look of confusion and she returned with a look of urgency.

"Aw, come on Leafy," the two turned towards the booming voice exiting from the boy's locker room, "You're not leaving me for Drew, are you?"

Leaf turned her whole body to him and crossed her arms at him. "I wouldn't be with you in the first place, Gary."

Gary gave a chuckle as he walked up to the two. He put an arm around Leaf's bare back and pulled her in as close as she had with Drew, if not, closer.

"I love the bathing suit, doll." He smirked and she fumed, "You sure it's uniform?" He gave her and ups-and-downs as he took in the bikini top and unmatching boy shorts.

She pulled away from Gary, and snarled the words at him, "Screw off, Gary." He gave a laugh at her words, "I have a reason."

The two looked at each other for what seemed like a long while. Gary had given her an amused smirk against her unfaltering glare.

Drew gave a fake cough to Gary, who turned away from Leaf with the same expression.

"Company." The green-haired male said. He nodded his head to the two girls coming from the locker room. The two were in the school's uniform one piece suit and playfully pushed each other around as they neared the pool.

Leaf looked at the pair longingly, wondering how much longer she was allowed to keep her façade up and stay in the same school as them. May was being much happier than what she usually was, clearly to make Misty laugh and smile at her antics and jokes.

Her body stiffened as she felt hands snake around her waist that ended up becoming arms enveloping her in an embrace. She felt Gary's hair tickle her face as he buried his head in her neck to whisper in her ear.

"I told them we were in a relationship," he told her softly, "Play along for May."

With those final words, she nuzzled her head back with Gary and called up the blush that could come to her on command. She wrapped her hands around his arms. It was a sight to see to all but Drew—he knew of his plans, and though Gary didn't quite go out with her, faking it was a close second to him.

"Careful Leaf," May called as she got closer, "he might do more than hug you in that swimsuit."

Misty watched the two with suspicion. Soon, all the students began to file out of the locker rooms and into the area. Some watched and pointed at Gary and Leaf, whispering gossip to one another.

A loud and shrill whistle came from the bleachers. Everyone turned away from the odd couple and to the gym teacher, who held a clipboard, ready to do roll call.

He called each name by one, getting either a "Here!" or an obnoxious "Absent!" from the students. He however, looking by the glare on his face, marked the jokers absent.

Drew whispered to Gary quietly as people began to dive into the pool, "You're acting too good." He said, "It looks like you've never bickered before."

Gary then gave a slight nod, whispered in Leaf's ear a quick and soft, "Surprise, doll," and picked her up and jumped into the pool. Leaf gave a small shriek from the sudden change of muttering threats to another while holding each other in a tender hold, to a sudden splash from the cool water.

Gary gave his laugh as Leaf came out of the water, furious for the surprise dive. Seeing her face, he dove back underwater and swam to avoid her, only to be chased by a faster Leaf. When she caught him, many pairs of eyes were on the two, and to keep up with the act, he pulled her in for a kiss, and took her back underwater.

Drew watched the exchange where they pretended to be in the love-hate relationship with curiosity. It had been going well, and eventually Misty had stopped watching it go on and continued to swim in the pool for all it was worth.

A beefy hand suddenly grabbed Drew from the shoulder, and by instinctit was slapped away almost immediately and stepped back as quickly as possible. He met the eyes of his surprised gym teacher.

"Sorry," he muttered, "Force of habit."

The teacher shrugged it off. "Get in the pool, or give me a note so that you don't." Drew looked at the bleachers, seeing May sit in them by herself, watching everyone in the pool.

Drew returned to the teacher, and pointed to the wound on his stomach. The stitches that were still there, making it seem much worse than it really was. The teacher looked at it, his lip curling up at the sight.

"Never mind." He said, pointing to the bleachers behind him with his thumb, "Go sit out for the day." He returned to watching the pool, going back to the top step of the bleachers.

Drew walked to the bleachers victoriously, and gave his hair a flip as May noticed his presence. She gave a smile as he sat down.

"Why aren't you swimming, April?" he asked, "On your period?"

May blushed furiously at his comment, making him smirk at the possibility.

"No!" she replied, quite loudly, but not loud enough for other people to hear. She calmed down seeing the questioning look on his face. "I'm just obliged not to swim."

He scoffed, "Yeah, you're on your period." She blushed again, "Just wear a tampon."

"Yeah, well, why aren't you swimming?" she turned the tables, crossing her arms and facing him.

Drew leaned back against the bleachers, pointing at the forming scar. He observed May flinch at the sight.

"How'd you get that?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

He remembered the night when he got shot. He remembered how Leaf glared at him angrily through her mask and looked right through him the second he spoke. He remembered how they had threatened each other. How he ignored Gary's warnings to flee the area or kill her. He remembered threatening Leaf with her.

When Drew didn't answer, a mistake on his part, she spoke again. "I had a dream that you got shot there. So it kind of freaks me out." She asked again, "How'd you get it?"

Drew understood something—he scared her. Not scared up to the point where she would freeze at the sight of him—but maybe just suspicious. Like Leaf had most likely been all this time.

He wanted to get some part in on spooking the young gypsy.

He held out his hand, palm up. May looked from the palm to his eyes, seeming lost in them as he spoke.

"You tell me."

Steven Stone was back, bitches.

Talking with Paul, the man who knew it all for some reason or another, Steven knew that Paul would get his answers.

"I mean," he said, shaking his head and looking at the ceiling. "We're supposed to be assassinating assassins. Not civilians."

Paul gave him his scowl as he typed things in his computer.

"Well they can't just be civilians if they want someone to kill them." Paul said, turning the monitor at him. "Everyone except my assigned assassin gets people who aren't assassins." He narrowed his eyes at his boss, "Why?"

Paul didn't mean for it to sound like a question—but he really wanted this answer. It had left him stumbled as he looked through files. Steven scrolled through the contents of the laptop quickly and sighed.

"I don't assign the people to the assassins. I have a tech do that." Steven explained. "I told him to assign it based on the best fit—"

"Leaf isn't one to just kill unless the person deserves to die." Paul said, "I've searched up her tasks, and none of them match the portfolio given."

"What are you suggesting, Shinji?"

"Either the tech you assigned for this wants a lot of people to die, or our databases are wrong."

Steven sighed, "I'll look into it, okay?" He tried to give a smile, "How's the information on Berlitz coming along?"

Paul stared long into the eyes of his boss before turning the monitor back towards him and speaking. Steven was used to the treatment. At first, it used to make him nervous, unknown to Paul's cold ways.

But now, he knew Paul's pauses were just testing Steven to see if he wasn't afraid of him.

The genius bastard, Steven thought, he could control the whole damned world if he had the motive.

"She's at the bottom of the food chain in high school." He answered.

Steven raised an eyebrow and turned slightly to his left, waking up his desktop computer. He quickly enable the monitor sharing between the two computers and opened the file on Dawn's statuses.

"That's actually really interesting," Steven said, "Because he mother was at the top."

Paul watched his monitor as pictures of Dawn's mother came on—pictures of her at graduation, of shopping at the mall, of winning beauty pageants—and for a moment, Paul was suspicious of Steven being a stalker, which is why he had to go observe Dawn.

Steven disabled the monitor sharing and turned back to Paul. Paul kept his hard gaze on Steven as he intertwined his fingers together on the table. Slowly, Steven slid his arms up so the weight was dependent on his elbows, and rested his head on his hands.

"Paul is such a bland name," Steven said, "Did you pick it, because you knew if you ever get caught, they would forget such a bland name for something as equally bland, like Peter?"

Paul leaned in closer to Steven, snarling the next words from his mouth.

"No."

In an instant, Paul shot out of his chair, picked up his laptop and stormed out of the room.

Steven called after him, "That's alright too," he said, "We just need Dawn's information."

Dawn was officially not going to have kids.

She had the garage door half open, letting in both the morning breeze and sunrise as she did her best to hide the bags under her eyes with the concealer.

She could see the empty driveway, meaning her mother had either left straight to work, or left early enough to go drop off her aunt at the bus station.

"Mrowr."

Dawn looked up from the mirror, seeing her cat watching her, with what seemed like an amused smile. The cat's tail swished this way and that, making it seem much more mischievous than what it portrayed.

Dawn put down the brush and reached over to pet the cat.

"Oh, gosh, Glam," Dawn laughed, "You seem happier than I do now that—"

Dawn was cut off, hearing someone pull into the driveway. Glam turned away from the hand and towards the door, which Dawn opened all the way with the push of a button. As the door slid up, she could see her aunt get out of the car, with two stilettos in hand. She laughed as she stumbled inside the house. Her mother followed after, only turning to the back seat to retrieve the baby. She gave an apologetic smile at Dawn as she hurried inside.

In that instant, Glam had sprung up from the table and towards the shelf. Dawn followed the cat as she saw it gracefully jump from the shelves on the wall, only stopping to the shelf that had her aunt's phone charging, and few bottles of liquor that her aunt had somehow managed to get.

Glam looked at Dawn, and the realization hit her as she saw her cat's face seem upset.

"No!" Dawn sprung from the seat and towards the shelf, hoping to stop anything before her cat had the chance to shove it off the shelf and break it. "Glam, no!"

Dawn could hear the front door open and close as she heard her aunt's giggling. The cat, obviously hearing it too, knocked the phone off the shelf, effectively breaking the screen, and two vodka bottles next to it. The glass shattered, and the contents splattered everywhere, effectively spraying Dawn as she salvaged another bottle from dropping.

She could hear the shriek from her aunt as she saw Dawn drenched in her prized alcohol.

"Dawn Platinum Berlitz!" he aunt screamed. Dawn flinched at the usage of her full name and the volume of the tone, and watched as her aunt grew red in the face, and her mother running outside to see the noise.

"I'm—"

"No!" her aunt pointed a finger at her, "You are so lucky you're your mom's daughter otherwise I'd kick you out!"

Dawn looked at her mother for reassurance, her mother gave her a sympathetic look as Dawn put the bottle back on the shelf.

"What are you even doing in here?!" Her aunt stomped into the garage, and looked at the glass, alcohol, and her broken phone on the floor. The alcohol had indeed killed the phone, drenching it with the pungent smell. "Shouldn't you be in school already?! God, now you owe me a new phone!"

Her aunt stomped back into the house, and slammed the door behind her. The noises had accumulated into scaring the baby, making him cry. There was a groan of frustration from inside the house.

"Mom, I'm sorry—"

"—Dawn, it's okay."

"—It wasn't me, I thought she was leaving!"

Johanna stepped closer to her daughter, careful not to step on the glass or alcohol. Dawn looked down at the floor, realizing what a mess had been caused. What was worse was that now she smelled like alcohol, and she was going to reek of it all day if she didn't change her clothes. She didn't want to go inside and face the witch she was forced to call her aunt.

Johanna lifted her daughter's chin to meet eye contact with her. Dawn's cheeks became red and blotchy, the way the always did when she wanted to cry.

"I'll deal with her while you're at school, okay?" she said, "Okay?"

"Okay." Came the daughter's pathetic reply.

"Now go change, or you'll be late for school." Her mother smiled at her, "I'll pick it up when you leave."

Dawn nodded, walking back to the table, and began to put the make up things away. Johanna walked back inside the house, leaving Dawn alone with the cat.

The sliding door from the back of the garage was opened and shut. Dawn turned around to meet Paul. She gave a smile to him.

"I'm not ready to leave right now, but I just need to change clothes." She quickly grabbed the box and ran inside, leaving the cat with Paul, or rather, Paul, with the cat.

Paul and Dawn had made a deal—rather, she made the deal with him, which was perfect really—that he would pick her up on his way to school by coming in through the garage door, and together they'd walk to school. He'd test her on material from the previous lesson, and that was her tutoring. Their teacher had recommended it, but because of both their schedules, mainly his, nothing would work except before school. She had studied before the day ended, and finally had a tutor that made sense. She would pay him at the end of the week, or right after a test. It had worked, and it was probably three weeks into the investigation, or rather, the tutoring.

Paul inspected the mess the cat made, and looked at the cat.

He scoffed, "You're getting her into some trouble, you know that?"

The cat meowed in response and jumped to the empty shelf closest to him. Paul looked carefully at the cat. He squinted at it, looking at the texture of the fur, recognizing it.

"You're the cat that Caroline Maple gave to Johanna," Paul said. The cat's tail swished this way and that, and the smirk appeared on its face. It meowed again.

Slowly, the puzzle pieces began to fit in. The cat was a prize cat, winning millions, which is why it wouldn't have been given away unless of personal reasons. Quickly, he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the cat.

"You're the perfect reason to kill somebody over." He said, "You're the perfect fucking reason."

Glam meowed again—Paul put his phone back in to his pocket and looked around. There was a silence, suddenly disturbed by yelling from inside the house. A voice yelled back at it, and a third intervened, stopping the yellers. Silence came again, then a door slammed closed, and a baby began to cry. Dawn left the house and walked into the garage, fuming.

"God! I wish I could kick her out already!" Dawn groaned. She grabbed the backpack on the chair and put it over her shoulder. "I just want to kill her!"

Dawn obviously didn't mean what she said, but she didn't bother fixing the comment as she was livid at her aunt.

Paul hesitated on his next move. He watched Dawn as she shooed the cat out of the garage. She turned to Paul, ready to leave.

"Would you?" Paul asked. His voice came out too sincere, and he didn't like it. Her face turned confused as she racked her brain for what he meant. When it hit her, she opened her mouth to respond, only to be cut off.

"Don't answer that," his voice went back to normal. "But if you need help with it," he pulled out a business card and handed it to her, "here"

Dawn turned down to look at the card's description, but Paul covered it with his hands. She looked up, seeing him shaking his head.

"When you need help with it."

A/N:

Guys, I'm very sorry that there have been no updates for nearly a year. I truly am.

So here's a recap for those who are mad at me:

-My mother has tumors in her head.

-My dog was taken away from me, and she was the only friend I had in the neighborhood I live in.

-Writer's block didn't leave my mind for anything.

SO here it is. The filler chapter that begins this story.

Oh, it all gets juicy from here, guys.

Sorry for any typos. I just finished re-watching Code Geass and Rolo's death still pains me terribly. I didn't bother doing the look over I usually do, so it's hot off the oven.

It's officially tomorrow for me, because it just turned midnight.

Thank you, and please bear with me for my updates. I will do this as quickly as I can, but in between doctor visits and taking care of my little brother (he's just going into the "Bitch if you don't give me what I want I will cry so loud." and the "I don't really want it, but I'm asking for it anyway" phases).

I think I'll be posting a few songfics though, in the mean time. Any requests, feel free to PM me about it.

So, from here on, I must go. And the next time this is continued, it will be serious.

Think you know what Paul realized?
Review your thoughts x3