She Said No: Lancer

I acknowledge that I liked Edward for his first name because of Lacey52's muy excellent fic, Links in the Chain. It just worked so well. You guys should go read. Anything of hers. And on to the drabble…

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It had been all over the papers that morning, and every news channel that Edward Lancer had turned his television to while preparing himself for yet another day of attempting to drill knowledge into the thick skulls of his high school students. In fact, it had made not only local, but national and international news.

The influence of the Manson family was, without a doubt, vast. They may have made their fortune from toothpicks, but they had increased it exponentially but shrewd investments in companies that had leapfrogged in the stock market in recent years, and then held continually steady once settling at an excellent return.

He could only assume that the near-rape of the daughter of such a prominent family would be news, especially when the would be rapist was found dead in his cell in the hours before dawn. Suicide, they said. Apparent. Even obvious. He had strung himself up against the bars of his cell using a sheet. No one had been in or out, and there was proof of that on video cameras and computer tracked logs for the electronically controlled city jail.

It had been six weeks since the attack on Sam Manson. Five weeks since Danny Fenton had shown back up at school, all charges dropped. The day was bound to be interesting from the get go, both were in his first period English Lit class, along with the other side of triangle, Tucker Foley.

He hadn't been wrong. He'd beaten all of the students to the classroom and, indeed, the school by more than half an hour. They started trickling in and finding seats roughly five minutes before the bell was to ring. There went Dash Baxter who Lancer knew sometimes read Dickens instead of his textbook. And Paulina Sanchez, she was failing the class and would have to retake it in order to graduate.

There was Tucker Foley, and very close behind him was Sam Manson. Tucker was wrapped up in his PDA, a normal occupation if the way he maneuvered around desks, backpacks and sprawled feet without removing his eyes from the screen said anything about it. And Sam, moving more freely than Lancer had seen her do since the day she had returned to school. Like the death had taken a great weight off of her mind.

There was the bell, ringing, and the door opened again, and Danny Fenton stepped through. Tired looking, exhausted even, and Lancer could only try not to choke on his tongue as Sam shot out of her seat and straight for the tousled boy near the door. And then hugged him. She hugged him tightly, her face pressed into his shoulder as he sighed and wrapped his arms around her, the fearful expression he'd had on his face for a moment melting off.

It was the whispered, "Thank you," that made Lancer's eyes burn. She was thanking him, no doubt for saving her life.

But there, adding to the confusion from his desk, was the shocked and stricken look on Tucker's face. Like he'd just heard the most terrible thing he could ever imagine. And then it was gone, melting away into relief. Relief tinged with worry as he stood and paced to Danny, and murmured, "It was you?"

Whatever response there was Lancer couldn't see, but for some reason he thought it was a yes, whatever it was. And then Tucker nodded once sharply, clapped a hand to Danny's back, and like that the world seemed to shift almost back to normal. He told himself not to be surprised when the old rules of high school society clamped back down into the strictures that had been torn down as students changed in the wake of the problem.

He was surprised, though, when the old habits died hard, and the new way of things stayed.