Well, I've sat on the chapter for quite a while now, partly because I was feeling stuck on how to move the plot forward (I've always had a definite direction, I was just maddeningly lost on how to get there) and lacking inspiration for writing in general. But, I put this story aside, worked on a few other projects, and now I'm feeling fresh and rearing to go.

There was a lot to cover in this chapter so it's ended up being quite a long one. This is the second to last update and, as such, a sort of final letting down of the action. Next chapter will close everything out and tie up a few loose ends. I hope you enjoy it.

I'd like to send out a heart-felt thanks to everyone who took the time to review this story. Thank you, especially, for those reviewers who took such a comprehensive look at the plot, the characters, and even at me as a writer. Being an aspiring authoress as I am, having that kind of reaction to my work is incredibly flattering and encouraging. Thank you.

May

"What do you know about James Warner?"

Mr. Johnson sat in the teacher's lounge, a stack of papers that needed grading lying on the table in front of him. He usually went to his office to grade papers, or waited until he could return to the privacy of his own home, but this afternoon he found himself in the lounge, sitting across from Mr. Wilson, who had a similar stack of papers in front of him.

"Hmmm," said Mr. Wilson contemplatively, "Mr. Warner. Well, his father works on the wharf. His mother has a laundry service."

"Yes, but how is he in the school? What kind of a student is he?"

"Well, he passed my class in the middle of the pack." Mr. Wilson added shrewdly, "This isn't about that fight he had with Hawkeye Pierce, is it?"

Johnson stifled a sigh. Any bit of gossip seemed to spread through the school like wildfire. It was the same way with the town, in which everyone knew everyone's name and just what they had gotten up to last Friday night – even if it was just to put the cat out.

Mr. Wilson laughed, "Don't trouble over it, Rob."

Johnson had not become overtly friendly with many of the staff members over the past year, but Mr. Wilson, whom called Johnson "Rob" with such genuine cordiality and shared a mutual interest in science, was Johnson's first pick if ever he had to discuss something with a colleague.

"I was only trying to gain a little insight on what might have happened," Johnson proceeded hesitantly. "After all, Pierce and Warner must have been especially incensed in order to go at one another like they did."

Mr. Wilson chuckled. "Not necessarily. You know teenage boys. Surely you yourself didn't go through high school without one or two good fights."

Johnson smiled tightly, even though, of course, he really hadn't. As an adolescent, he had always been one to spend any recreational time in the library. He had moved into wrestling as a more…sophisticated, not to mention monitored, way in which to get out his rousing teenage aggressions.

"Yes well," Johnson prodded the conversation along. "I was wondering if, perhaps, Pierce and Warner might have had something of a history in fighting with one another."

Wilson shrugged, "Warner's had a row with just about every student his size…even some who weren't. Hawkeye though – I can't say Hawkeye has been in many fights. He's such a good natured boy."

"Yes…so it would seem," Johnson muttered.

"Hey, Rob," said Wilson, "if you were curious, why didn't you just ask them? I'm sure one of them would have told you why they were fighting."

"I did," said Johnson, conscious that he sounded a bit too indignant. "Pierce wouldn't tell me."

Mr. Wilson smiled knowledgeably. "You haven't broken up many fights before, have you?"

"Not many, no." Johnson tried to remind himself that that was probably a good thing. At least nothing to be ashamed of. But the past year seemed to have raised some of Johnson's previously hidden competitive instincts. "Honestly, I wasn't expecting to have to. This is such a small school."

Mr. Wilson shrugged. "We get one every few months. Where'd you work before you came here?"

"Eliot High. It was even smaller than this. In fact, it joined with York. I was laid-off due to the economy and subsequently came here."

Wilson nodded. "Well, Rob, I wouldn't worry about Hawkeye and Warner. Probably just one of those things." Wilson bowed his head over his stack of papers.

Johnson tried to set the matter out of his mind and turned to his own papers, a quiz he had given his students that morning. He was beginning to think that he'd never discover what Pierce and Warner had been fighting about. Inwardly he still wondered why it seemed to matter so much to him.

Johnson had found, despite what the other teachers thought of the boy, that Pierce was certainly capable of entering a fight if his own pride was being infringed upon. The boy was stubborn, hot-headed, and – in all honesty – a touch too aware of his own attributes, and would certainly never sit still if anyone ever challenged the power that he assumed he held in the school. After all, he hadn't where Johnson was concerned.

Pierce was more than capable of initializing a fight, or perhaps retaliating had it been Warner who fired the first bullet, as it were.

Johnson really should have been able to lay the matter aside. However, it was much harder to put out of his mind the way Pierce was now acting toward Johnson in his classroom. Wise cracks and shenanigans completely forgotten, the boy would sit in the back seat with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Johnson, and refusing to participate in the class. Johnson had not realized how much he'd valued Pierce's previous sprightly and intelligent class participation, and now that it was gone the rest of the students seemed to be faltering from its absence, as well.

Johnson sighed, feeling irritated, but more than that, clueless.

He peeled back another quiz that needed marking and did a double take. He scanned the questions, and then the neatly written answers beneath, and then read them again, thinking he had made some sort of mistake.

"Something wrong?" said Mr. Wilson from across the table.

"What?" said Johnson, looking up sharply. "No…no, everything's quite alright." He frowned, looking back down at the quiz. He'd never spoken something so far from the truth.

Another two weeks swept by and Johnson became very aware that finals were swiftly approaching. Conscious of the clock ticking away the end of the semester, he bucked up his courage and decided it was high time he confronted this new, but equally troubling matter that had cropped up between him and Mr. Pierce.

"Mr. Pierce, please stay after class."

Johnson wondered if the other students were getting tired of hearing that, or if they were so used to it by now that they hardly gave it a second thought.

"Sir?" The boy's voice was level, but snide. Johnson tried to count from one to ten. He did not relish another hostile match like the ones sprinkled across the past year.

Johnson took out a stack of papers from his briefcase, carefully straightening them by letting them fall against the top of the desk and tucking them into a neat pile.

"I've noticed a very troubling pattern in the quality of your work recently, Mr. Pierce."

"Have you?"

Johnson frowned but pushed on, "Yes. I have –"

"Well, I offer you my heart-felt congratulations, sir."

Pierce's eyes were gleaming with simmering anger, slowly reaching boiling point, Johnson knew.

"I've noticed that you seem to be getting poorer marks than you usually do, and, frankly, I'm baffled –" It was true, even on the more advanced curriculum that Johnson had been handing Pierce, the boy had begun to pick up on the subject matter. Until recently.

It was three consecutive quizzes and worksheets now in which Pierce's work seemed to have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. A turn that Johnson would almost describe as deliberate. But Johnson was unwilling to take such a direct approach…yet.

"I'm wondering what about these questions seem to have you stumped – if perhaps you're confused about a certain concept…."

Pierce laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "You're asking me if I need any help? You honestly think I would need your help? The only problem with my work, sir, is you. You seemed determined to fail me, anyway, so I figured I'd make it an easier job of it."

"You thought – Mr. Pierce, that is honestly what you thought I was intending?" Johnson sputtered, utterly taken aback at Pierce's accusations and astounded because Pierce had never given Johnson the impression of someone who would give up on anything, even for spite. "By giving you the marks I did I only ever wished to convey to you that life is not something that will be handed to you on a silver platter. People have to work to get to where they want to go. It seems like you've been given an easy avenue at in the school for most of your duration here and I aimed to change that –"

"What do you want me to do?" Pierce exploded. "Thank you? Give you a medal? And what is this sob story about getting places you want to go from a washed-up, second-hand teacher? You don't know the first thing about where I want to go – or how much work it'll take to get me there –"

Johnson had just about had enough.

"I don't know what you planned on gaining, Mr. Pierce, but the only person you've managed to hurt with this little stunt of yours is yourself."

"I already told you that what you have to say to me has about as much interest as a dusty, old bank. I don't intend to sit here and listen to this –"

Pierce's quizzes and worksheets in question, riddled in red-marks and Xs, scattered across the desk as they slipped from Johnson's hands.

"I refuse to take your impudence, Mr. Pierce!"

"I refuse to take yours!"

"You are in no position to speak to me this way, Pierce! I'm warning you –"

"What are you going to do? Take me to the principal again? Discipline me for failing your class on purpose?"

"So am I to take it that this recent show of disregard means you no longer want to be part of my class?" Johnson demanded.

"I don't care what you take from it! But I'll tell you this – no college transcript is worth this rubbish. I can get into Medical School without a passing grade from you –"

"Then I suggest you bring some bandages because you'll need them after the beating your ego will take from college professors who will be as unwilling to take your attitude as I was."

"My ego!" Pierce yelled, sputtering, his face turning purple as though the words were blocking oxygen coming up his throat. "My ego?"

Johnson had just about had enough.

"Perhaps I misjudged you, Mr. Pierce, but up until now, I had been under the impression that you withheld at least a smidgeon of a sense of honor. I had thought you wished to make your parents proud, to follow in the footsteps of your father. I had assumed that you had sense and preservation enough to put aside your pride –"

"Well, I always have been one to defy expectations, haven't I, sir?" There was no hint of humor in Pierce's voice, no ghost of a smile on his lips, mocking or otherwise.

"And was it not you to previously begged me to allow you to remain in my class? Was it not I who graciously granted you that privilege, only after you had defied my authority –"

"My one and only mistake, I think, looking back on it –" said Pierce.

Johnson had had enough.

He slammed his fist on the top of his desk. His cup full of pens rattled and tipped over.

"Darn it, Pierce! You're better than this! I know it and you know it!"

"You're nothing but a self-satisfied, slimy chump – wait what?" Pierce's mouth was left hanging open. He was practically trembling from rage and shock at this unprecedented outburst of Johnson's.

Johnson, however, hardly paused to contemplate the words that had suddenly and uncontrollably leapt from his mouth. He found the dam burst open and, like water gushing from a hole blasted in the side of a mountain, sounds and syllables constructed into words continue to pour off his tongue.

"I do not care how you feel about me, Mr. Pierce!" he shouted, relishing how the boy actually faltered a step backward. "I do not care how you feel toward the other students in the school. I do not care if your father is the renowned doctor of this town. I do not care if you think you can do this course work with your eyes closed and both hands tied behind your back. I do not care about your personal struggles. And I do not care if your mother is dead and if you think that affords you some kind of lenience –"

Pierce's eyes were shining with anger. His face went white. He began to shake. Johnson half expected to see steam spout from the boy's ears.

"I do not care how hard you try to irk me and to cause disturbances in my class. I do not care how much you seem to crave attention. I do not care about your ego. I do not care how much effort you put into undermining my authority. I do not care how indifferent you are to the course work! But gosh-darn-it, Pierce, you are passing this class whether you like it or not!"

Johnson choked and gasped for breath, finding his heart was pattering rather quickly in his chest. Pierce blinked. His mouth opened and closed several times, looking like a fish floating in a tank of water.

"Do I make myself clear?" Johnson demanded.

Pierce didn't say anything. Johnson couldn't tell whether or not the boy was still livid or merely shocked.

Finally Pierce spoke, his voice stiff, his eyes flashing "I don't know what game you're playing, Mr. Johnson –"

"This is no game, Mr. Pierce," said Johnson. "I am sick of games. This is your last chance. Take it or leave it. But know that whether you leave or stay is by your own decision."

"What could I possibly gain by staying?" Pierce scoffed.

"Perhaps nothing, Mr. Pierce," Johnson snapped. "But perhaps more than you realize. You have – potential – Mr. Pierce, and it seems to me misdirected potential. I would greatly wish for you to learn things from me now, in this class, where you still have time to rectify yourself, rather than for you to learn them later in life – perhaps in university where the same mistakes you've made here will have more dire circumstances."

"Mistakes?" the boy jeered. "There isn't anything worth learning in this class that I couldn't learn from reading a text book."

"I am not talking about academics!" Johnson had not meant to yell. Rage churned in his stomach and he fought to keep it down. He knew what he wished to say and had not planned on losing his temper. Pierce dangled precariously in front of him; Johnson knew that a wrong move might shatter his chances of retrieving the boy.

Pierce blinked at Johnson's outburst and perhaps he paused to think for a moment.

Johnson took a deep, shuddering breath. "Yes, it is true that your academic needs far surpassed the scope of this class. Perhaps that is partly the reason why you paid my authority so little attention. However, there was not much I could do about that. I was paid to teach this class and had many other students that it was my responsibility to instruct. I have tried to be patient with you, Mr. Pierce. I have tried even – if not to respect you – than to understand you and deal with you as well as I could. I have tried to teach you – hard as it will be for you to hear – that life is not a bed of roses. You will not find easygoing teachers like you've found at this high school later on in college or your career. You will not find the classes in medical school a breeze to get through –"

"So now you're making it out that you're the good guy?" Pierce demanded.

"No…" Johnson said slowly, "I admit that I made some mistakes on the way. Perhaps at times I allowed my emotions to overcome common sense and subsequently was too harsh –"

"Too harsh?" said Pierce. "You were a lying, cheating, unfair, and biased old man who didn't give a darn about what I was feeling! Did it ever cross your mind once what it would feel like to always be singled out when something went wrong in the class, to always be blamed for pranks or disorder that some of the other kids were responsible for, to be given tests that were harder than the other kids so that I would have to put in more hours of study, running even further into my already limited free time –"

"I believe I've told you before that you cannot expect life to be fair, Mr. Pierce," said Johnson. "But I believe you have still yet to learn all I have attempted to teach you this year –"

"– And now you expect me to be grateful?" Pierce exclaimed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Johnson, but you can't just cover up all you've done this year by telling me you did it all deliberately to teach me a few life lessons. I don't buy that. Like swollen cans of peaches, I don't buy that."

Johnson frowned, "Neither will I buy you're pretending to be the righteously slighted student just because of the affair in April with Warner. I seem to remember you were plenty at fault during the past year as well, Mr. Pierce."

Pierce stiffened a bit. Johnson could tell his comment began to sink into the boy's brain. Pierce's own words, however, nagged uncomfortably at the corner of Johnson's mind.

What the boy said had some uncomfortable candor to it. It was true that Johnson had conjured the story of him trying to "help" Pierce learn a few lessons throughout the school year in order to save face during this confrontation, and also partly fabricated in order to convince Johnson, himself. But it was also true that Johnson hoped Pierce might be able to take something, anything, out of the past year and apply it to some bigger conflict later in life.

Life was challenging and Pierce would have to learn, someday, that there were bigger fish in the sea.

Johnson had no idea how he was supposed to voice that all to the boy, let alone make Pierce understand it.

"Fine," the boy spat. "Fine. That's true. But I thought we covered all that in the winter. I thought we'd come to an understanding, and then you had to go tattle to the principal about me and Warner –"

"Mr. Pierce, you must understand that I had no choice," Johnson said flatly. "I did my duty to the school –"

"Don't give me that," Pierce snapped. "Teachers let fights slide all the time. You could have just asked us what the problem was –"

"Yes, and of course neither of you would have been at any fault nor in need of any reprimanding," Johnson scoffed.

Pierce frowned, but Johnson knew by the boy's silence that Johnson had struck a chord.

"What were you fighting about?" he said.

"None of your business," Pierce insisted angrily.

"Yes, of course," said Johnson, "you needn't tell me because certainly you aren't hiding anything, or secretly believe yourself to be in the wrong –"

"I just don't like him, okay?" Pierce exclaimed.

"And that warrants throwing yourself bodily on the boy, of course."

"Sure! Sure, why not! James Warner is a bully and a jerk - he makes Clyde Barrow look like Bing Crosby - and has bugged me since first grade. And I'm perfectly happy that I threw the first punch because he's had it coming to him for years!"

"And I suppose he simply passed you in the hallway and all of this rushed through your mind at once –"

"If you must know he said some pretty nasty things about my family and then about me and a girl I happened to be with the night before."

"Ah, yes, defending a woman's honor. Haven't I seen that somewhere before?"

"You can take it or leave it," Pierce said angrily, "but that's why I hit him, and I'm not sorry one bit."

Johnson found himself frowning. Pierce glared at him from across the desk. The clock hanging on the back wall of the classroom ticked in the sudden silence. Johnson had not realized it had gotten so late. He and Pierce had been standing there arguing for close to a half an hour.

Johnson did not know if he was satisfied with the explanation or not. In all honesty, it seemed a boorishly common excuse to fight. But he supposed all things like that always sounded more worthy of retaliation when they were directed at you or those you cared about. Even so, he had half hoped that Pierce might either be purely in the right or purely in the wrong; finding out the boy had thrown the first punch, albeit provoked, still made things horridly double sided.

"It appears as though we've gone a bit off-topic," Johnson said finally, pushing through his thoughts and trying to remember just what the purpose for this conversation had originally been. "I'll ask you one last time, do you intend to finish the year in my class or not?"

Pierce looked stony and Johnson felt a horrible misgiving that the boy was going to simply walk out.

"Before you make your decision –" Johnson added hastily, "let me tell you one last thing: I am deeply sorry for all the time we have lost this year on childish antics. I am sorry that I could not have stimulated you more when it came to academics. I am sorry, also, if you feel I have wronged you in any way. I am sorry it has taken us this long, to perhaps the brink of a disaster, to come to this turning point in our relationship – that could have become, had things begun on a different note, one of mutually respect." Johnson said all this very quickly, watching as Pierce's eyebrows almost unwillingly rose on his forehead.

"Yes, it is true you can learn everything in my class by reading a text book, and whether or not you pass or fail will not matter very much in the greater course of your college education," Johnson continued, still speaking quickly, afraid he might stumble if he overthought what he was saying, feeling his ego crumble beneath the weight of each added word. "But I fear that, if you should walk away now, you will be throwing away something you might never have another opportunity to retrieve. I am not talking about anything I can teach you – for I have long ago resigned myself that you are a student who far outshines me as a teacher – but rather, some inner resolve of your own. If you walk out now you will be abandoning a determination I sense within you to never give up, no matter what the adversary. You have great possibility in you, Mr. Pierce. I would be sorely disappointed to see you throw it all away on a whim."

The end of Johnson's speech was met with silence, meandering, lingering silence and the clock on the wall continued to tick.

"So I'm supposed to smile, nod, and thank you for your generous offer now, am I?" said Pierce.

Johnson felt his fingernails bite into his palms as he clenched his fists, trying to control his temper. "If your gratitude is still truly what you think I wish to gained through this conversation than, I assure you, you are grievously mistaken."

"Oh, am I?" said Pierce, "Well, fine then, I'm not grateful."

"Good," said Johnson.

"Then I guess you're expecting me to apologize as well."

Johnson frowned, "I think we've already covered that you're a terrible one at apologies, so perhaps we can just take this one for granted."

"You're not exactly the mountain of remorse, yourself, Mr. Johnson," said Pierce stiffly. "But – because your little speech has left me feeling like I'm about half the size of a toothpick – I guess I'd better say I'm sorry, too. Otherwise I'd probably look like a real jerk."

"You've done a very good impression anyway, Mr. Pierce."

"Yeah, well, likewise," said Pierce, but, much to Johnson's astonishment, the boy half-way grinned. "Look at us two, bickering like an old married couple."

"Heaven forbid, Mr. Pierce," said Johnson, frowning, but feeling incongruent relief fall in his stomach. "I believe you are dismissed."

"I believe I'm Hawkeye Pierce, but you can believe what you'd like," said Pierce, grinning in full and moving toward the door. "I'm glad we've cleared this up, Mr. Johnson. Life's too short to waste time on petty disagreements."

"Indeed," said Johnson.

"Well, you know what they say," Pierce added, familiar humor glimmering in his eyes, "Don't waste time, for that is the fabric of life. Further, do not waste fabric, for that is what shorts are made of."

"They say that, do they?"

"All the time," said Pierce. "I'll see you bright and early Monday morning, then, sir."

"Or more likely late as usual."

"Never could fool you." Pierce winked. "See you around, Mr. Johnson – or can I call you Rob?"

Johnson felt his eyebrows pull against his forehead as they rose toward his receding hairline.

Pierce faltered, "Or – you know – or not."

"Good-bye, Mr. Pierce," Johnson said firmly. The door swung shut.

Johnson began pulling together the papers scattered across the desk, tucking them back into his briefcase. He breathed deeply, letting the tension hanging about his shoulder dissipate.

He was utterly perplexed on how all that had actually managed to fall into place. He could hear Pierce's footsteps receding down the hallway. He closed his briefcase, marveling at how, at the beginning of the year, he'd have given anything to be rid of Pierce, and now – even given all he had had to put up with from the boy – he'd realized that he really didn't want to be.

At least until June. The next September he was looking forward to a nice, relaxing, Pierce-free year.

Author's Note: Sorry for the butchering of the Benjamin Franklin quote.

I was going to have Pierce say, at one point, "I have the feeling this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Mr. Johnson." but then I realized - darn it - that Casablanca didn't come out until 1942.