Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry updates have been sporadic-I apparently felt the need to do a few one shots instead of updating my WIPs. :) Hopefully it'll get better.

Anyway, this chapter, as always, is only what it is because of my wonderful beta and friend, Pati.

Hope you guys enjoy. Reviews, yes?

Chapter Nine:

She didn't want to go to school the next day; she was afraid of what Gil would say. Would he still be angry? Would he even speak to her? What would become of their tentative friendship? Their personal lunches in their Latin classroom every day? She'd worked with Grissom for six years, known him for eight, and the last time she'd had a meal with just the two of them, prior to waking up a teenager, had been in San Francisco, nearly eight years previous. She didn't want to give that time up.

She thought about playing sick, especially when Amanda commented over the breakfast table that she looked "pale and a little peaky" and pressed her hand to Sara's head. But putting it off today would only make it worse tomorrow, and it wasn't like she could drop out of school. She'd shaken her head and said that she just hadn't slept very well.

Which was absolutely true, actually.

She dragged her feet on the way to their Chem. Lab, and was unsurprised to find him there before her, as usual, looking pointedly at his anatomy book; a tactic he hadn't employed since the first week of school. She swallowed heavily and moved back to take her seat beside him. "…Hi."

He glanced up at her, and then back at his book. She swallowed again, cringing at the bruising over his nose and feeling tears prick the back of tired eyes. She turned her face away from him while she reined them in. Biting her lip, she sighed and murmured under her breath, "I never meant for… for you to get in trouble, Gil. I just hated to see the way they were treating you."

At that, he did set his book down. Well, dropped it to the desktop with a smack! actually. Sara jumped, and he turned his gaze on her. She realized somewhat belatedly that he wasn't wearing his glasses—of course—and that he looked…different… without them. "This is high school, Sara. Of course I was being treated like shit. And for the record, it didn't start until they noticed you were worried about it… because they don't hate me, they hate you. Because of your misguided belief that outrunning them every day proves anything, rather than just pissing them off. I warned you about this, you didn't listen, and because of that my glasses are broken, I'm covered in bruises, I'm grounded, my mom's mad at me, I don't have a driver's license, and I went from being invisible to having a bright red target on my forehead!"

Sara was… dumbfounded. Partly at how much he'd said—had she ever heard him utter so much without a baby or the FBI involved?—But also at just how much anger he had. How truly and utterly he believed she'd shattered his entire world. And maybe she had, at that. She knew he'd get over it, but for a teenager… well, she had kind of systematically altered most of his life in one fell swoop, apparently.

She looked down at the table. "I'm sorry, Gil."

He turned away from her and, for once, it was a very quiet lab.

She was late to English because she started crying the minute Gil had moved out of her sight, on his way to his next class, and she'd gone to hide in a bathroom stall until she could calm herself. She blamed it on raging hormones, and her teenage emotions making her think everything little thing was the end of the world—hadn't she and Grissom fought before?—and on the fact that she could finally admit that she was tired of this wish. Her attempts to "save" Gil and make him happier had only succeeded in harming him and making him unhappy. She'd wanted him to love her and instead he hated her.

And truth be told, she hated sharing a room and sharing a bathroom and eating what other people decided she would eat each day. She missed her calm, cozy apartment with its sunlight and bright colors, its heavy tomes and black and white photographs, its plush furniture and lingering aroma of Blue Hawaiian, thanks to Greg's last birthday gift. She missed Greg slumped on her couch with his dirty socks on her coffee table books and Nick's frequent invitations to eat or drink or go dancing, just to get her out of the house. She missed Warrick's quiet presence, laughing at Nick's failed attempts to get Sara to two-step and giving calm reassurance and understanding with just his eyes. She missed Catherine's hair flips and the way she always ordered a salad and then ate off of everyone else's plate and she missed processing crime scenes and going to autopsies and dusting for prints.

She even missed Sophia and her fake accent and her too-long hair and her constant, inappropriate flirting.

Mostly, though, she missed Grissom. Grissom who, unlike Gil, would have been proud of her for standing up to the bullies and being a strong, defiant female in a world that didn't know what to do with that. Grissom, who would have seen where her heart was coming from, and who would have defended her against Halstead and Rick and his asshole friends long before this. She missed his beard and the wrinkles near his eyes and the gray in his curls. She missed his slightly overweight physique and his court suits and the way he flirted with Catherine to get her to do what he wanted.

At lunch, she was quite certain that Gil would not meet her in their Latin classroom, but she went there anyway. Some of it was just that she couldn't handle the questions of Tina and her friends, and some of it was that she wanted to be alone. Some of it was blind, foolish hope that he would have calmed down, forgiven her, and come up, and some of it was a selfish desire for him to see that she was not at Tina's table and feel guilty enough to come up, even if he hadn't forgiven her.

Whatever her reasons, she ate her cheese sandwich alone.

Gil didn't sit next to her either—wouldn't meet her eyes when he stepped into the room and she looked up at him—but instead went to his old seat, in the back. Sara frowned and looked down at her desk, and their teacher frowned too and looked between the pair, visibly wondering at the change.

Sara was dreading gym more than anything, however. His continued cold shoulder hurt, but she wasn't afraid of it the way she was afraid of another confrontation with Halstead. She hoped he would just ignore her, but she knew that it was a foolish, unrealistic hope. On her way to gym, however, the intercom called both her and Gil down to the principal's office. She frowned uncertainly and changed direction, heading to the office instead of the gym. She beat Gil there, which gave the principal time to introduce himself.

"Hello, Sara. We've never met. I'm Dr. Stevens, your principal. Why don't you take a seat?"

She slid into one of the two chairs before his desk, looking at him cautiously. He must have sensed her nervousness, because he started reassuring her. "Nothing to worry about; you're not in trouble here. We'll just wait until Mr. Grissom arrives and then we'll have a discussion, okay?"

She nodded, her stomach churning. The combined stress of being in this office—and what it would mean later, at home—and of knowing Gil would be arriving shortly were making her feel dizzy. Nothing good could come of this, whatever it was.

Gil appeared in the doorway. "You wanted to see me, Dr. St—" He paused, catching sight of Sara sitting there. His gaze flickered between her and his principal, who was nodding.

"Absolutely, Gil. Come in and have a seat. Grab the door on your way in."

With another wary glance between them, he hitched his backpack up higher on his back and pulled the door closed, taking the seat beside Sara but looking only at Dr. Stevens, who smiled again. "I hardly recognized you without the glasses, Gil. It's a sharp look."

Gil raised his eyebrows, and then shrugged. "Thank you." Clearly, he didn't know what this was about any more than Sara did.

"Now, this business in gym yesterday. It struck me as strange when I saw your detention slips on my desk this morning. Gil, you've always been a good kid and a good student, and I've known your mother since we were in Sunday School together. And Sara—I don't know you all that well yet, but your record shows that you've always been a good student and any disciplinary issues were minor." Sara frowned at this. She'd gotten in trouble for smarting off to one teacher in San Francisco and had been sent to the principal's office. She'd hardly call that a "disciplinary issue". And she had a serious problem with him stating it in front of Gil as if she had no right to privacy. Stupid '70's.

"So when both your mother, Gil, and your guardian, Sara, spoke to me today about the issue… you can imagine I was quite concerned. I figured the best way to deal with this would be to talk to the pair of you—get your side of the story—and then we'll call in Rick and Mr. Halstead in a little while to address this whole situation, okay?"

Sara wondered herself whether Dr. Stevens was always this fair to students, or whether Gil's mom and Frank calling him had scared the hell out of him. Despite this, they both nodded, and Dr. Stevens invited Sara to speak. With a hesitant glance at Gil, she sat forward and began her story—first with the way Rick and his friends had spoken to her and the way Hal—Mr. Halstead—had reacted to it, and then to the way he'd snorted when she said she'd been trying to prove she wasn't a piece of meat, and to the way he'd made her play with the boys to embarrass her. She felt she'd properly built up to the issue, explaining how she'd been worried that Rick would be mean to her… she stumbled over the word friend, and drew a deep breath to keep going. She repeated what Halstead had said to her about worrying about her boyfriend, and how he'd allowed Rick to hit Gil twice without doing anything.

Dr. Stevens interrupted here. "Is that how you got that shiner, Gil?" He asked, referring to his black and blue nose. Gil nodded. "They broke my glasses too, sir."

"Your mother mentioned another bruise. I assume you got the one on your stomach first. May I see it?"

Gil looked at Sara in alarm, and she cleared her throat. "I can step out, for a second, Dr. Stevens."

He looked like he was about to dismiss this idea as unnecessary but thought better of it, taking a second glance at how uncomfortable Gil looked. He nodded, and Sara slipped out of the room, closing the door and smiling awkwardly at Mrs. Caya, the secretary with the sick husband who Gil's mother had made a casserole for the first day of school. After a brief moment, Dr. Stevens' voice sounded through the door, calling her back in. Gil was sitting, and his face had turned red. Dr. Stevens looked… more serious than he had when they'd started this meeting. Sara sat down, and he cleared his throat.

"So, you saw the second hit, to Mr. Grissom here's nose, and that's when you hit Mr. Davis?"

Sara nodded. "Ha—Mr. Halstead was laughing, and so was Rick, and no one was doing anything. So I punched Rick in the nose. Mr. Halstead sent him to the nurse, gave me detention—which is fine—but he didn't punish Rick at all. And he gave Gil detention, when he didn't hit him or yell at him at all!" Her voice had risen a little, but she had managed to stay mostly calm. Dr. Stevens watched her for a second, and then nodded.

"When did you yell at Mr. Halstead? After he gave you detention?"

She shook her head. "No. After he was going to yell at me for hitting Rick."

"Is there anything else you'd like to add, Sara?"

She thought for a moment, and then shook her head. "No, sir."

He turned to Gil. "What about you? Is that the story as you know it? Anything you'd like to add?"

He swallowed. "Just that… that the way we were punished wasn't fair. I should have gone to the nurse, Rick should have gotten detention too, and… and Sara wouldn't have done what she did if she'd believed Mr. Halstead would have stopped them from hitting me. She knew that I wouldn't hit them back myself, and I already had a bloody nose and…" He trailed off, but after a moment, looked up again. "Oh, no, there is something she left out."

Dr. Stevens nodded, and Gil chanced a glance at Sara before sitting up. "For a first offense, detention cannot exceed half an hour. He had us cleaning through the last half hour of gym, plus more than half an hour after school. He didn't stay to make sure we'd done our detention, and he had Sara in the football locker room while the guys were using the gym one. They were… harassing her. Yelling inappropriate things and…"

Dr. Stevens looked between them. "…And?"

Gil's face burned bright red, but seeing that Sara was not going to continue, forged on. "And Rick came in and… grabbed her… inappropriately. It was… not a good situation to put a girl in."

Sara sat watching him, open-mouthed, uncertain whether she should bristle at his implication that the reverse—Gil in the girl's locker room—would somehow be less inappropriate, or whether she should embrace him for turning into a knight in shining armor before her very eyes. Dr. Stevens was looking at her, the question of whether this was true in his eyes, and she blushed and looked down, nodding. The blush was more that she was discussing Rick grabbing her ass with this stranger than it was embarrassment over what had happened, but either way it seemed effective.

With a heavy sigh, he nodded. "Well, your story seems consistent between the two of you, and the story you gave your parents. I don't think you need to be here when I speak to Mr. Halstead and Mr. Davis. Sara, we'll discuss your detention after I've spoken to them—go ahead and go home right after school today. Oh, and ask Mrs. Caya to mark both of your tardies as excused." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "Actually, make that your absences. There's only a few minutes left of class anyway. Okay?"

Both teenagers looked vaguely surprised, but nodded, gathering up their backpacks and moving out of his office and to the front desk. Mrs. Caya marked down their absences and smiled sadly at the bruise on Gil's nose. The two of them left the office together, Mrs. Caya's voice calling Rick and Halstead down to the office after class filtering out the open doorway. Simultaneously, they sped up their pace to avoid both people, and Sara turned to Gil when they were far enough away to feel safe.

"…Thank you, for in there. Defending me, I mean. It was…" The correct word for exactly what it was—how surprising and how gratifying and how meaningful—escaped her. He nodded.

"You're welcome."

She wondered if this meant he forgave her. She didn't feel like she could ask him outright, so she searched for something to say that might clue her in. "…What do you think's gonna happen with Rick and Halstead?"

His sigh was impatient. Irritated. "I don't know, Sara."

When he caught sight of the hurt look in her eyes, he looked simultaneously guilty and resentful, and shook his head. "Look, I just… I need to get home, okay?" And he turned down a hallway she knew for a fact would take him further away from his bike, just to get away from her. With her own heavy sigh, she turned the parking lot and Ryan's car. Sure, today could have been worse, but it also could have been a lot better.