A/N: HELLO EVERYONE! I feel like this week is taking to long, but it's also slow...

A/NN: Hello, Char! Thank you for reviewing! I loved writing the scene between Rachel and Lanie. (I also may or not elaborate on her dream in the other story I'm currently writing). I have plans for Abby.

ENJOY ~Shay


It was about week before Belle called me, the same night I was going with the the Gallagher Girls to town. I was putting some clothes on for class when I heard it go off. Just one sharp ring.
"Yes?" My answer was just as sharp.
"Hey, it's Belle."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I was expecting someone else." I lied, trying to play off how angry my voice was.
"That's okay! I was afraid I had called at a bad time."
"Well, I'm getting ready for lessons but I still have about ten minutes. What's up?"
"I'll be quick then. Do you maybe want to go out for drinks?"
She sounded hopeful, and I felt bad to be the one to break her hope... but maybe. I could use her as surveillance. Keep tabs on which people are frequent and which are new.
"I'm not sure if I can tonight... how about we make it early dinner? I promised to help one of my fellow teachers with an activity."
"That's even better!" She exclaimed, and I could imagine her smiling, which made me grin.
"I have class until 2 and I have to be back before 6."
"Great. Meet at the diner at 3?"
"Sounds like a date." I said, and tried to stop myself from verbally cursing.
"Sounds like a date." She echoed, and hung up.
I couldn't fight the smile from my face as I wiggled into my jeans. They were tight but still breathable. Then I slipped a- nearly backless- top over my head and checked to make sure it didn't show what was left of the wound. It was nearly invisible now, but I still kept a bandage over it until it was fully healed. I looked toward the shoes I was going to wear. Sensible converse, but Belle had me feeling like it was a heels kind of day.
The day dragged on from that point. I didn't know why I was so pumped to see her again, but I was definitely excited. It didn't pick up until lunch time when Joe dropped by. Quite literally.
"Joseph Solomon, what the hell!" I shrieked as I viewed him lying on the only desk in the room- exactly his luck.
"I'm trying to find out how Cammie travels."
"Certainly not through Air ducts. She takes passageways. She's a young lady, Joseph."
"You're 'joseph'-ing me a lot. What's going on." He asked with those laser eyes of his.
"I won't be here to board the girls in the van with you." I said, coming right out with it.
"Oh right, because of your date. I can pick you up on the way." He sounded nonchalant, but I blanched.
"Its not a date, Joe. I'm straight, but I haven't even told Rachel yet. How did you know?" I asked, jabbing his hip bone and he smiled sheepishly before looking up from where he fell.
"You were in my vents? Joseph!" I snarled and shoved him off the desk.
I knew my anger was overkill, buy I couldn't help flashing back to Venice. It was his snooping that nearly brought the mission down, nearly killing everyone involved.
"I wasn't trying to spy on you, I swear-
I didn't give him time to finish before I turned and swung my foot at his head. He deflected, but didn't retaliate.
"Don't you dare lie to my face, Solomon," I was practically spitting venom, "you may be a good spy, but you'll never be a good liar. You memorized those floor plans before you went up in the vents."
The feint blush appeared on his face. His tale sign of being caught. It only made me angrier, and I took a cheap shot. He deflected again. I was about to hit him again, but I heard the warning of my senior class approaching. I pulled my face from anger to neutral.
"Get out." I said monotonouslly, and he gave me a pathetic look before slinking out.
He could've talked himself out of my anger, but he let himself be shamed. Probably so he could use it to his advantage once I began to feel bad about it.
My bad mood survived my senior class, but their essays didn't survive my bad mood. My feet were propped up on my desk as I skimmed through them, waiting for the girls to finish the pop quiz. I always kept pop quizzes in a password protected suitcase. For moments like this, when I wanted to do anything but teacher a lesson.
I was getting more and more frustrated with each passing essay, until I finally threw the stack back onto the table. The top sheet labeled "love in the workplace." I wasn't ready to implode, but I had it up to my heels with their ignorance.
As soon as the sheets made a noise, every head snapped up to meet my eyes.
"Did any of you take the essay seriously? Every single one of you wrote something along the lines of being superior to love. So I ask you again. Not on a sheet of paper, but from me to you. How do you compartmentalize your emotions for a coworker or civilian during an assignment?"
There was a moment of silence before the, almost certain, to-be valedictorian spoke out.
"Ms. Solomon, we are Gallagher Girls. We haven't been subjected to relationships with men, so we wouldn't know until we came face to face with the issue. Although, I believe I could personally abstain from emotions that could compromise a mission." She was ever the put together child, but still had so much to learn before graduation.
"I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you need to know that you can trust your emotions when you see your first Adonis or Aphroditie during a mission."
"Look, no one knows the circumstances that led you and Mr Solomon to get married but that doesn't mean we-
I cut into the girl with more vehemence than I meant to, and my anger wasn't tempered by her fear- but more so fueled.
"Joseph Solomon is not my husband."
Looks like I was causing more trouble than I was worth today. If this was any sign, I should probably cancel the dinner with Belle. I felt bad as soon as I seen the face of the senior I had senselessly mowed into. She was the tiniest, and bullying her would get me nothing but resistance from her peers. I took a deep breath and reshuffled the essays to regain my thoughts before speaking.
"When you truly fall in love, you become blind. You become blind to their faults, their lies and eventually you grow blind to anything they do that would be otherwise alarming to others. I fell in love once. It was... ages ago..." I paused and took notice of the girls waiting on baited breath for their first bit of gossip on me and possibly Joe, "next lesson will be psychology. Be prepared. Tell your secrets now, because we will uncover everything about each, and every, one of you. Class dismissed."
After the final girl filed out, I began pacing back and forth in the class, hoping the familiar activity could burn away the overwhelming amount of emotions I was receiving at once. Then I did something I had never done, on a solid floor, before in my life. I tripped.
I didn't even try to stand. It was the final straw that broke my back. I was cursing up a storm as the pain I had been holding back exploded inside me. Cursing myself, cursing Warren for making me hurt like I had never hurt before, and cursing love for even having an equation in all of my turmoil. I was once like that girl. Sure of myself and emotions, but I never would have guessed I'd be here... on the floor of Gallagher Academy, curled in a tight circle like a wounded child.
The deadbolt sliding was enough to make me look up from my emotional breakdown, but it just hurt even more when I realized it was Joe who had entered the room. I didn't care anymore about the earlier events, I blindly reached my arms out to him.
Joe pulled me into a hug as he sat down on the floor beside me. I wasn't crying, but I was as close as I would willingly go.
"It hurts so much to miss him, Joe." I whimpered, knowing I sounded like a pathetic mess.
"I know." His voice hadn't cracked, but I knew he was just seconds away from falling into my chasm of despair.
I was angry with him, and I wanted him to be miserable, but I refused to be a poisonous person. I wallowed in my own self guilt, and Joe had enough of his own to pass around. I wouldn't give him any of mine.
Joe helped me stand, and I immediately fixed my makeup and hair.
"Help me get ready?" I asked and he grinned, back to his normal self as soon as I was... we had a lot of practice, pretending, in our profession.
Rachel walked into the room as I was fitting a flowing wig onto Joe's head. She had come in with amazing stealth, so I made no movement to acknowledge her but Joe was better than we gave him credit for and stripped the wig immediately before facing Ray.
She huffed and plopped down on the long couch the separated the large closet. Joe and I gave each other one look before we both jumped onto the couch on either side of her, her body jumping at our force.
"Long day, Rach?" Joe asked and I scrunched my eyebrows at the name, but he shrugged. Just trying it out, he mouthed.
"Macey." She groaned, tossing an arm over her face.
"Oh yes. I hear she's been causing trouble." Joe said
"Oh yes. I've seen her causing trouble." I replied to that with a grin.
She had only been in one of my skill ops classes and had already asked to go shopping with me- which is a good ego booster.
"She knocked out a a 7th grade with one kick and she nearly started a fight with a seventh and twelfth grader within thirty minutes of each other and then she told Patricia that she should try control-top panty hose."
"I think she's my favorite student." I said with a grin and Rachel kicked at me but missed (probably on purpose because I had seen her personally kick an apple out of mid-air.)
"She's going to give me grey hairs, and you missed what happened at lunch today." Rachel groaned into a pillow.
"What happened?" I asked, instead of commenting on our age (which was nowhere near old enough for grey hairs, in my opinion).
Rachel kicked at me again and Joe tried to stifle his snickering.
"Bex grabbed ahold of Macey after she insulted Liz."
"Holy shit, no way. And she didn't get jumped for it?"
"No, I broke it up. Macey was laughing her head off, but that put the trio in the lead of my op." Joe said and I barley contain my glee, this was the perfect opportunity to see Bex and Cam's skills.
"So what are you getting dressed up for?"
To go out with a fantastic woman in an outfit comfortable enough to run an op in.
"Going into town." Joe supplied and I nodded in thanks when I noticed Rachel still wasn't look.
"Just be back in time for the op," She said, her voice muffled before she looked up, "and be careful. The observer tell me that someone with no allegiance is hanging around."