Professor Salvatore sticks out like a sore thumb when we walk into Laser City. Not only is the man about twenty years older than the average person running around this place, he's also still wearing his professor clothes that make him look like a cross between James Dean and the entire clan of Mumford & Sons. Don't get me wrong, he makes the vest and leather jacket combo look really, really good, but his sharpness is so out of place in this world of tweens who dress like prepubescent gangsters and sluts.

I weave around the hoards of twittering middle schoolers and lead us to the counter. Randy, the regular "laser tag guy" at Laser City, quirks his eyebrow when he sees me approach his register.

"Where's the rest of your team, Ripley?" he asks, giving Professor Salvatore the look-over.

"It's just me and him today, Randy." I dig through my purse for my wallet, but Professor Salvatore hands Randy enough money to cover the both of us for two twenty-minute games. I look up at him. "You sure?"

"Of course."

Randy gives Professor Salvatore his change and exchanges our jackets and my purse for two laser tag vests. We shrug our arms into the holes, fasten the vests over our clothes, and sit in the waiting area amongst three groups of birthday parties. Professor Salvatore nudges my arm. "Why did that guy just call you Ripley?"

I laugh. "I've only ever been here with the band, and one day Matt and Tyler decided that the five of us needed code names to 'infiltrate the enemy base,'" I explain, embellishing with finger quotes. "They christened themselves the McManus twins and then named me Ripley, Caroline – The Bride, and Bonnie – Rambo."

"Any reason they chose those particular names?"

I shrug. "I honestly think that they just chose the first five badass movie characters they could think of. Matt and Tyler even recite the Boondock Saints' creed every time before we enter the arena."

"They take laser tag pretty seriously, huh?"

"At least they don't show up wearing black war paint streaked across their faces like Bonnie does."

We file into the intermediary room with about thirty other kids, the two of us easily towering over everyone else. As the introductory video starts to play, I lean towards him. "What military strategies did they use in the Civil War?"

He looks down at me. "For the North or for the South?"

"Both."

He speaks in a hushed voice as the video drones on. "The North used what they called the Anaconda Plan, which was designed to literally squeeze the South to military death. They surrounded the Confederacy to blockade the Southern port cities, advanced down the Mississippi River to divide the South in two sections, and then moved inwards to hunt down Robert E. Lee. The South opted to remain on the defensive until an opportunity presented itself to launch an offensive attack. Jefferson Davis thought that using such a passive strategy would promote the image that the South was only fighting in self-defense."

The corners of his mouth tilt upwards. "I bet you and your friends have plenty of strategies that you use here. Care to share?"

I pretend to think about his question for several seconds before I shake my head. "No, I don't think so."

The video ends, and Randy walks into the room to administer the distribution of laser guns. Professor Salvatore and I loiter in the back of the crowd that rushes towards him.

Professor Salvatore admonishes me for my refusal to reveal my laser tactics. "That's not very nice of you, Miss Gilbert."

We reach the front of the line. Randy places a gun in each of our hands. Before I enter the laser arena, I whip my head around and flash Professor Salvatore the most impish smile I can muster. It's time to get into character.

"Kicking your ass in that arena also isn't very nice of me, Professor Salvatore, but you'd better start embracing the fact that it's going to happen," I state, watching his eyes grow comically wide before I slip through the curtain and into the blacklit room.

My entire mentality shifts as soon as I step into the laser arena. I am intense and focused; I am the assassin of all assassins. I am the lovechild of Hawkeye, the Terminator, and Jason Bourne. When I find Professor Salvatore – and I do mean when, because finding him is an inevitability – I will take him down.

He's my only target tonight.

Cheesy techno music begins to play, indicating the start of the game. My eyes adjust to the darkness as I slink around the perimeter of the room, making sure to keep the whites of my Chuck shoelaces out of the blacklight as much as possible. I scan the room for Professor Salvatore.

Target acquired.

The silhouette of his height gives him away as he stands against a tall plastic shield. His gun is cocked in front of him and his back is completely exposed. I creep behind him, aim my gun at the laser receptor on the back of his vest, and pull the trigger. The lights on his vest flash red.

Direct hit!

I step and hide behind the nearest barrier, watching as he immediately drops to the floor against his plastic shield. The outline of his head whips back and forth as he tries to discern where the shot came from. I stifle a laugh as I aim my gun at the receptor on his shoulder. I take no prisoners when it comes to laser tag. I pull my trigger again.

Another direct hit!

I wait for three giggling girls to rush past me before I step out of the shadows and into the neon glow. "You're making this too easy on me, Professor Salvatore," I call, grinning when his head twists in my direction. "I feel like I'm shooting fish in a barrel."

"That was you?" he demands, standing to his feet. "I didn't even see you!"

I take advantage of his unprotected stance and shoot him in the stomach again. "Somehow I think that you not seeing me isn't the problem here," I say, pretending to blow smoke off the tip of my gun. "I just think that you're terrible at laser tag and you're making excuses to cover up that little factoid."

"Maybe I want you to believe I'm terrible to disguise the fact that I'm about to destroy you, Miss Gilbert. Did you ever consider that possibility?"

I scoff in mock indignation. "Destroy me? Destroy me? Professor Salvatore, I'll have you know that I—"

The sudden vibration of my vest cuts me off mid-sentence. I look down at my stomach, then three feet across from me to the gun pointed right at my chest. My eyes drift up to Professor Salvatore, who stands across from me wearing the most boyish, most smug, most challenging, most goddamn sexy smile I have ever seen on a man in my entire life. My breath hitches in my throat at the sight of him illuminated in blue neon, grinning down at me as if he hasn't got a care in the whole world. Holy goodness, the man is stunning when he smiles, and I have the sudden realization that I want him to do it as often as possible.

Of course, while I'm standing there like a gaping idiot, trying to process this new comprehension that is most certainly not a good thing, he shoots me in the stomach again and blows fake smoke off his fake gun in what is definitely a deliberate mockery of the similar stunt I pulled earlier.

"Game on, Miss Gilbert," he says, lifting his eyebrow in challenge before he flees into the safety of the arena. My mouth drops open. He did not just do that.

It is so on.

I run after him, ducking and dodging around the various obstacles in the room in my pursuit, calling out meaningless threats as I draw close to him, aim, shoot, and score. He chases after me, feints around the barriers and lurks amongst the shadows, taunts me when he knows he's got me cornered, takes aim, shoots, and scores. We play and we laugh, we act like six-year-olds; we completely forget that a world exists outside of this arena.

He struts over to me as soon as the lights come on, steals my laser gun, and reads the statistics on its screen. "Eighty-seven points? There's no way you hit me eighty-seven times!"

I swipe his gun out of his hand and smirk when I read his numbers. "Only fifty-five points, Professor Salvatore?" I tease. "I guess that's pretty good, considering how ancient you are compared to the rest of us spry young things."

"Spry? I didn't know that anyone used that word after 1892," he retorts, holding my gun out of reach when I try to grab it from him. "And I had a faulty gun. There's no way you got thirty-two more points than me."

I roll my eyes, making sure he can see the gesture. "If you want to switch guns we can, but it won't do you any good. There's no competing against my natural skills."

"Natural skills? Give me back my gun," he sputters, all but throwing my original gun at me as he snatches his weapon from my fingers. He practically shoves me into the introductory viewing room. "You got lucky, Miss Gilbert. It won't happen again."

Thirty minutes later, we exit the laser tag arena for the second time. I can't keep the smug grin from invading my expression…and Professor Salvatore can't stop the scowl from spreading across his face.

"One hundred and two points…yeah right," he grumbles as we exchange our gear with Randy for our jackets and my purse. Randy bursts out laughing.

"Son, you don't mess with Elena Ripley," he says, shooting me a cheeky wink. I beam at him as I shrug into my coat. I see Professor Salvatore try hard to restrain his smile.

"I'll have to remember that for next time."

Next time?

My eyes dart up to his face to discern whether he's serious or not, but his light expression suddenly reverses into solemnity, and he turns away from me as he slips his arms into his jacket. He zips it up and looks at the door.

"Ready to go?"

My inflated sense of cheer deflates like a punctured balloon as I realize that he's going to distance himself from me again. I want to drag him back into the laser arena and coax that smile from him once more, but he's already walking out the door. I wave a hasty goodbye to Randy and run to catch up to him.

We begin our walk back to campus in quiet and make no noise except the crunches of the leaves being squished beneath our feet. My thoughts are a myriad of all things Professor Salvatore: his childhood, his relationship with Dr. Pierce, his friendship with Alaric, and his association with me. I think he's a lot lonelier than he lets on, but what I can't figure out is how much of his isolation is circumstantial versus self-imposed. He seems to want to be around other people, but as soon as someone gets too close to broaching a sensitive subject, he retreats into himself and pushes those people away.

"Why did you bring me here?"

Because I think you should let yourself have more fun. Because I like spending time with you. Because I want you to know that you can trust me. Because I want you to be happy. "Why not?"

He doesn't respond as we continue walking over the leaves...until he opens his mouth again.

"I can't be your friend, Miss Gilbert."

I keep my eyes straight ahead and try to ignore the gaping hole in my stomach. "Can't or won't, Professor Salvatore?"

Neither of us say anything again for the rest of the walk back to campus, not even when I reach into my bag and hand him his two CDs and he accepts them with nothing but a grave look on his suddenly handsome face.

Hi all! Thank you so much for all the love you've shown BIYE. I think of this fic as "The Little Story That Could" - it's taken a while to get this plot train moving, but now that I've taken the time to set everything in its place, the pace of BIYE is only going to get faster from this point onwards.

The updates I post are much shorter than chapters I've published in my past stories, and I understand that the ideal way for me to maintain the increasing tempo of BIYE is to post frequently. I want nothing more than to be able to write and post updates multiple times a week, but doing so would require me to neglect my other responsibilities that need to take top priority. Right now I'm balancing a 40 hour/week full time job and two classes as part of a Master's degree program, and I'm also writing/revising my graduate school writing samples for when I apply to English Literature Ph.D. programs this fall. I realize that many of you out there do all of the above and more on a daily basis, and for that I have all the respect and admiration for you in the world. Unfortunately for me, something's got to give, and that something has to be fanfiction.

This AN is not saying that BIYE is going on hiatus. I am saying, however, that its updates will not be as frequent as they've been the past several weeks. It breaks my heart to make this announcement, as I would much rather spend my summer developing the relationship between "Professor Salvatore" and "Miss Gilbert", but I want to let you all know what's going on in my life so you don't attack me with pitchforks when my updates happen more infrequently.

As always, I love to hear your thoughts. Let me know what you think! Also, if you have any songs that you think would be perfect for this music story, let me know so I can check them out!

Enjoy your weekend!

Amy