Chapter Thirteen

Despite her troubled state of mind and the remnants of an uneasy feeling in her stomach, Zatanna was out of bed the next morning like any other day, showering and eating something before her fist class. She's a big girl, and while she had never really been through this type of sickness, Zatanna knew she could take of her herself. Her dad taught her to be strong, and that's what she was going to do.

After sleeping the previous day away, she had pushed back all thoughts of Conner and persists on forgetting all about it. It was a freak thing, just a simple misunderstanding. Surely other girls went through the same disasters she had… just maybe not so late in life.

After talking with Artemis a bit, sitting on their beds with bowls of cereal in their laps, Zatanna had formulated a solid plan: it never happened. They were the only two who knew about the potential feelings Zatanna had for the burly football player, so there was no way for the others to understand why Zatanna reacted so strongly to the presence of Megan in Conner's lap.

Artemis agreed with this plan wholeheartedly, knowing the dangers of unrequited love. She also knew that crushes faded with the right time and distance, and while it might require a bit of work, she was all for helping Zatanna regroup and then surge forward. It was a military tactic the blonde knew well thanks to her mother, one in particular she liked. Although Artemis had always preferred the saying "Divide and Conquer" to any other, that wasn't something to share with Zatanna.

Thursday, October 11th, and thankfully Zatanna has no classes with Conner. Robin and Wally are usually the only ones that have free time at the same time she does on one day, so she happily tagged along with the two boys for lunch.

They took a bus to downtown Manhattan, snagged a baked pretzel and a sandwich or two, then sat in Central Park for a good hour or so. Wally ate incredibly fast, which resulted with him playing a game of Frisbee with another group of college students as Zatanna and Robin sat next to each other on the bench. She found him grinning a lot more than usual but thought nothing of it, even if it made her smile more in turn.

Unsurprisingly, Zatanna wiggled her way into Wally's Frisbee game. The boys fought over her, trying to win her for their team. In the end, the boys from Hunter College won her. This seemed to permit lots of wooping and celebration, but Zatanna didn't exactly know why. She simply laughed as Wally called her a traitor and Robin sassed him for it.

After about an hour of that, Zatanna was tired again. She wasn't out of shape, persay, but after a few months of sitting behind a desk, she wasn't used to so much running around. Slouching into the bus seat on the way home, she tucked her legs up onto the seat with her in between Wally and Robin, their conversation comforting as she closed her eyes.

The next day was going to be a lot worse and definitely tenser for the poor girl. She had Women in Society with Conner, which she couldn't avoid. That and they had to set up a work session to get started on their project. It was still just due in January, but they had already vowed to work on it before they were cramming for midterms. It was supposed to be accompanied by a visual presentation and a collaborated paper, which meant that whether or not Zatanna wanted to avoid him, she was still his partner and would be spending a tremendous amount of time with him.

Refusing to slink around or sulk in her class with him, Zatanna walked in with a calm expression on her face. No one gave her any weird looks for it, but she sure felt like they were. Self-conscious of everything she was doing, Zatanna sat down in her usual seat and fought not to fiddle with the buttons on her blouse or the pencils next to her notebook. She had yet to give up on system she had going for her note taking. She never brought her laptop to class and instead wrote notes down on paper, typing them later in the afternoon. Not only did this keep her from getting distracted in class, but it made sure she went through her notes a second time, further engraining the information into her head.

There were downsides to this technique, of course. For one, some of her teachers didn't warn her when they would be researching in class instead of taking notes. Mrs. Waller, who Zatanna swore did it out of spite. In fact, Mrs. Waller was the only teacher she had who wouldn't tell them what they were doing next class and what they would need to bring for it.

Today was one of those days. Mrs. Waller gathered the class and brought them to the library, claiming to be "graciously giving" them time to work on their final projects. They were to have two primary sources and four secondary, which really wouldn't be that problematical considering their subject and the size of the library.

Claiming a group table for herself, Zatanna began writing down essential questions on their subject, Title IX. It wasn't too broad of a topic to get a bunch of nonsense, but she figured it would be best to figure a few choice things out and be certain they incorporate them nicely. What is it? What was the acceptance process? What struggles or opposition did it meet? Zatanna liked this project simply because, while she couldn't relate to the perspective of female athletes, she was used to sexism. Lots of sexism.

Her train of thought faltered when Conner took a seat across from her. Not in his usual diagonal seat, but directly across the table. The table wasn't even very big, just a narrow old thing probably donated to the university when it was first built. Zatanna kept her eyes on her notebook for a few seconds before looking at him, hoping to compose herself in that short amount of time. It didn't work so well considering she could feel the heat of his shins very close to hers and she was fairly sure one of his legs was between hers. This was not a good scenario but her mind snatched ahold of it anyways, making her even more flustered. It probably looked like she was overheating, but really a flush had overtaken her face once again.

"What are we working on?" She had to meet his eyes then, blue melting at the sight of a darker shade. Her brain chose this time to tell her how they both had black hair and bright blue eyes, so their children would be gorge- no. She smothered that idea quickly, even if she secretly liked it. Thankfully there were no mind readers in the area… hopefully.

As much as she wanted to snap at him, to push him away so he'd keep his distance and let her get through this semester in peace, Zatanna knew that wouldn't end well. I am not a child, I can handle this like an adult. "Title IX, we need books on it, and probably some websites… not Wikipedia."

Conner thought about, said something, then practically sprinted away. It was amusing to see him rushing, to say the least, until she remembered it was pretty much his job. She went back to her notebook to distract herself.

She practically jumped out of her skin when Conner dropped a pile of books on the table, grinning and obviously quite proud of himself. "My god- how did you find all of those?"

Conner grinned, "well the librarian helped." Zatanna had no idea how much times had passed, but she had a feeling he had rushed just to get the stack back to her. Or maybe she just wanted to think he had rushed for her.

"Well yeah, but-" she stopped when she realized her voice was a bit breathless. Zatanna cleared her throat and tried again. "How many did you grab?"

"Only seven or so, and I don't think we'll need all of them, but we have a few months so I figured "why not." He shrugged and sat back down across from her, grabbing the book at the top of the pile and opening it. Zatanna had never pictured Conner to be the reading type, but damn did he still look good sitting behind a book.