Disclaimer: Okay, okay, okay. Let me just say that girl don't own no Titan player. Girl also don't own no Ryan Hurst who played Gerry Bertier (though I wished I did =) ) This is a fluff piece if I ever wrote one. Just got bored, saw the movie two times, loved it and as I said was bored. If I insult anyone in anyway because of what kind of story I wrote, let me apologize before hand for wasting your time… but I love this thing non the less! Please R&R and if ya hate it, don't resort to flame tactics please. If ya hafta do it, do it, but in good taste. Again, I wrote this 'cause I was bored and I admit it's a fluff piece, so I'm not a total space cadet. Boy I've got so much humility don't I? Anyway, enough yakking ears off and on to the story…
AIN'T NO TIME AND SPACE LONG ENOUGH
TIME: Present Day 2001
PLACE: Maui, Hawaii
"C'mon, Alex! I don't want to miss the sale!" A girl wearing a red baby tee with black surf shorts called out to her best friend.
"I'm coming! Keep your damn shirt on!" Her friend, sixteen year old, Alexia Crowe replied.
Janice Gundaker, also sixteen, checked her watch anxiously. "I'm giving ya 'til the count of ten, Al. If your ass ain't down here by then, I am so leavin' you!" She threatened, gazing up at the two stories house. Her eyes on the second story window, "Nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two…"
"Shit! Hold your horses!" Emerging from the first level door way, Alexia jumped outside. She smoothed out her baby blue mid-drift tee, dusting off her tight black jeans. Her onyx eyes flashing at her friend, annoyed as hell. The fair tanned, black hair, vixen made her way to the car, eyes fixated evilly at her pal.
"Damn you." She cursed.
Janice hopped into the passenger's side of Alexia's car, chuckling at her buddy. Alexia also jumped into the car, the driver's seat, side-glaring at Janice.
"Bitch." Alexia cursed again, causing Janice to mock flinch.
"Oh…" She replied sarcastically, her brown eyes dancing with amusement, "You so hurt my feelings."
"Girl, this is my car, I'm drivin', I invited you to the mall, and yet you have the audacity to order me around?!" She shook her head as she started the engine. "There is something so wrong with that picture."
"Look out Maui! Local girl getting' all pissy and trigger-driver happy!" Janice cried jokingly. She glanced at her friend, noting her temper.
As Alexia made her way out of the drive way and onto the Lahaina road, "Don't you dare start with me, child."
Janice sighed, running a hand through her long auburn hair. The fair skinned, yet evenly tanned, teenager chuckled at her best friend's attitude problem. "Oh my Lord, woman. You has got to learn to control that temper of yours! It ain't funny. You always take the fun out of getting teased every time you lose your temper."
With her livid eyes on the road, "Oh, and you don't?"
Cool as a cucumber, with her arms crossed, "Nope."
"Liar!" Alexia hissed, glaring more daggers at her when they stopped at their first red light, right at the Lahainaluna road intersection.
Janice smirked, opened her mouth as if to say something, then shut her mouth and thought better of it. Instead, she decided to just give Alex a silent response. She knew that when tempted, her pal could explode like the volcano on the Big Island. It usually wasn't pretty, because Jan would end up getting seriously burned in the end. It would be best for the both of them, not to mention for the sake of their unusually strong friendship that she let Alexia cool off.
The two amigos remained in quiet solitude half way through the journey to the other side of the island.
Meanwhile…
TIME: September 1971
PLACE: Alexandria, Virginia
He just stared at the object with unusual fascination. At first he just held it in his two hands, handling it with fragile care. Now the leather object began to jump from palm to palm, his eyes carefully watching the silent contact sport. Unaware of the looks that his teammates began to send to him.
His friends had observed his little retreat into solitude, respecting it in all its glory due to the certain situation behind it… but now it was beginning to become ridiculous.
"Gerry? Hey, Bertier!" His soul brother, Julius Campbell, called out. He waved his hand in front of Gerry's face, "Hello? Anyone in there?" He chuckled.
It took a millisecond for Gerry to react. "Wha-wha-what?!" He grasped the football with one hand, knocking away Julius' hand with the other. "Shoot, get that hand of yours out of my face!"
"Well… didn't think no one was home." He smirked, casting a look back to a couple of their Titan teammates in the locker room.
"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" Gerry replied as he began to play with the football again in the same manner.
It was the first day of the academic year for T.C. Williams High School. Not to mention the very first day that this infamous Titans school began integrating African-Americans into its educational system. The tension was high to say the least. Luckily, or so some thought, that the conflict didn't have some affect on its just integrated football players.
Amazingly enough, upon the return of the team's summer training camp, much of the players were getting along quite fine. In the beginning, the hostility was extremely thick between the black and white players. When time passed, and most was said and done, most of the players formed friendships between both races. There was an especially unique bond that began to form between the white captain, Gerry Bertier, and his black opponent, Julius Campbell.
Now camp was over, the fun quickly fading into the past, as the team received a bitter taste of reality, back in their hometown of Alexandria, Virginia.
Bertier's first dosage of the real world began when his girlfriend, Emma Hoyt, in her utter disbelief, ignored Julius' greeting after Gerry attempted a friendly introduction.
"You still ticked off about what happened with Emma, aren't ya?" Julius asked, watching the ball continue to jump from hand to hand.
Before Gerry could respond, Petey Jones, another silent bystander, practically slammed the man down when he jumped to grab the football out of his hands. "Shit, man. Give me that damn thing!" Cradling it within his own hands, "Ain't gonna let you drive us stir crazy watchin' you toss that ball back and forth like that!"
"Amen to that, bro." Alan Bosley replied. He held out his hands, "Hey, Petey, toss it over here."
As the players began to throw the football from one player to the next, Gerry silently slipped out of the locker room. It was after practice anyway, not like Coach Boone would mind if Gerry was the first one to leave.
Gerry needed to think. Thanks in due to Emma's weird reaction to Julius, Bertier was left confused most of the day. Luckily, he hadn't let what happened in the morning affect his afternoon practice… because Lord only knows that he just so needed Coach Herman to jump down his throat.
What Gerry needed was a reassurance that things were going to at least lighten up. He was getting grief at home from his mother, who was just as perplexed and bemused with the whole racial integration. His girlfriend blamed the high tension on both races, but seemed less compassionate non-the-less on the blacks. He wasn't even going to go there with everyone else in this little town of his.
From the view at his advantage point, he glanced at the Titan stadium. A quiet peace seemed to draw him there. Quickly gazing heavenward, he whispered, "Just give me a sign that things will be okay."
============================================================================================================================================
"What are you doing?"
Janice watched as Alexia reach into the glove compartment of her car. "Al? Uh… you're kind of *driving* right now. If you need to look for something…"
"Got it!" Alexia proclaimed, dishing out a CD. She glanced up at the road, noting that she had yet to gone off it. "Relax, Jan. We're not in the ocean, now are we?"
"That's because we have yet to gone off the cliff! And we are not going to as long as you keep your damn eyes on the road!"
Alexia smirked at her best friend, her onyx eyes dancing with amusement. "Whatever you say, navigator."
Janice sighed, leaning her head back for a moment. Letting Alexia drive to the other side was not good for her blood pressure.
It was officially the same afternoon in which the two teens began their shopping journey. When they arrived at their first destination, Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Center. As soon as Alexia parked the 4-runner, the two decided to cement their argument and let bygones be bygones. Besides, since when do they let their friendship fall apart over some bitter banter? They do that sort of thing everyday! If anything, it would take something as strong as time and space to tear this bond apart.
Now time had passed, all their sisterly bonding and shopping done, and the two teenagers were making their way back to Lahaina. They had not just passed Ma'alae Harbor when the clouds began to overcast and the rain began to fall.
"Shit…" Alexia had cursed silently as soon as she saw the first few droplets of rain. "Mom said that it'd rain. Looks like I should've believed her." She thought it over, then added, "Of course, being a quote-unquote psychic, she also said that she saw me falling for a football player and that ain't happening anytime soon." She smirked.
"Does having a crush on Lahainaluna's new assistant football coach count? What's his name? Ryan H. Smith? Where the 'H' stands for hottie?" Janice teased.
"Shut-up." Alexia growled.
Janice snickered, "My Lord, girl, everyone knows that the only reason why you went out for team manager with Nalani guys is due to the fact that you had fallen head over heels for the hot assistant couch from California."
"Do the words 'shut-up' mean anything to you?"
"Not in my dictionary, my friend." Janice replied. "And you would've gotten the job… if you hadn't dropped that water cooler on the head coach's foot!"
"Well… it wasn't my fault!" Alexia defended herself. "If Ryan hadn't smiled at me and offered to help carry the cooler for me…"
"Well you should have let him! If it wasn't for your damn pride, you wouldn't have felt the need to walk backwards watching him and then knocking the coach, sending him to turn around and having to watch you accidentally drop the cooler on his toe!"
"See! The key word was 'accidentally', okay? It was purely by accident. How was I to know that it would get me fired?"
Janice held her mouth, not daring to speak another word about the incident. She, instead, watched her friend pop in the CD she was looking for. "What are you playing?"
"Just a mix my brother made for me." She replied.
The faint tune of a familiar sound fell into place, causing a small grin to emerge from Janice's face.
*Listen baby…*
"Ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low, ain't no river wide enough baby…" Alexia sang along.
Janice chuckled as she watched Alexia began to sing. She knew that the girl had a soft spot for the oldies like this one. As Alexia sang, and thank the big G all mighty that the girl had a great singing voice, Janice decided to just watch the world outside of Alexia's car.
The young woman watched as the rain fell, and the clouds began to darken the late afternoon sky. It was troubling at first, taking into the consideration that hurricane season had yet to begin for them.
A few minutes had passed in considerate silence for the two friends. Janice was content with Alexia's singing voice, for most of her attention was on the road and the bleak weather. By now, her best friend had moved on to singing Peter Cetera's song "Glory of Love", which was on the movie Karate Kid II.
"Like a knight in shining armor, from a long time ago. Just in time I will save the day, take you to my castle far away…" Alexia began to bob her head to the guitar solo. "Man, Janice! Don't you just totally love this part? Shit, it's awesome extreme!"
"Uh, Al…" Janice began to have this uneasy feeling as she spied the distant tunnel. "I really think you should be paying a lot of attention to the road, and not solely on the song."
Alexia scoffed, "Hey, you've seen me drive with music before, Jan."
"Yeah, and I'm still ever so grateful that I've survived all encounters!"
Alexia turned down the volume a bit, taking note of her pal's tense behavior. Mumbling an apology, she kept her focus on the road.
For Janice, she was partly relieved that Alexia decided to take driving a bit more seriously… unfortunately, her uneasiness still wouldn't die.
As they came upon the tunnel, they were unaware of the clouds forming just outside on the opposite end. Just when they entered the tunnel, a blinding flash temporarily entered the channel, causing a weird time spiral to open.
The time spiral swallowed Alexia's car, with passengers and all, and quickly closed up before it could engulf anything else.
============================================================================================================================================
AIN'T NO TIME AND SPACE LONG ENOUGH
TIME: Present Day 2001
PLACE: Maui, Hawaii
"C'mon, Alex! I don't want to miss the sale!" A girl wearing a red baby tee with black surf shorts called out to her best friend.
"I'm coming! Keep your damn shirt on!" Her friend, sixteen year old, Alexia Crowe replied.
Janice Gundaker, also sixteen, checked her watch anxiously. "I'm giving ya 'til the count of ten, Al. If your ass ain't down here by then, I am so leavin' you!" She threatened, gazing up at the two stories house. Her eyes on the second story window, "Nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two…"
"Shit! Hold your horses!" Emerging from the first level door way, Alexia jumped outside. She smoothed out her baby blue mid-drift tee, dusting off her tight black jeans. Her onyx eyes flashing at her friend, annoyed as hell. The fair tanned, black hair, vixen made her way to the car, eyes fixated evilly at her pal.
"Damn you." She cursed.
Janice hopped into the passenger's side of Alexia's car, chuckling at her buddy. Alexia also jumped into the car, the driver's seat, side-glaring at Janice.
"Bitch." Alexia cursed again, causing Janice to mock flinch.
"Oh…" She replied sarcastically, her brown eyes dancing with amusement, "You so hurt my feelings."
"Girl, this is my car, I'm drivin', I invited you to the mall, and yet you have the audacity to order me around?!" She shook her head as she started the engine. "There is something so wrong with that picture."
"Look out Maui! Local girl getting' all pissy and trigger-driver happy!" Janice cried jokingly. She glanced at her friend, noting her temper.
As Alexia made her way out of the drive way and onto the Lahaina road, "Don't you dare start with me, child."
Janice sighed, running a hand through her long auburn hair. The fair skinned, yet evenly tanned, teenager chuckled at her best friend's attitude problem. "Oh my Lord, woman. You has got to learn to control that temper of yours! It ain't funny. You always take the fun out of getting teased every time you lose your temper."
With her livid eyes on the road, "Oh, and you don't?"
Cool as a cucumber, with her arms crossed, "Nope."
"Liar!" Alexia hissed, glaring more daggers at her when they stopped at their first red light, right at the Lahainaluna road intersection.
Janice smirked, opened her mouth as if to say something, then shut her mouth and thought better of it. Instead, she decided to just give Alex a silent response. She knew that when tempted, her pal could explode like the volcano on the Big Island. It usually wasn't pretty, because Jan would end up getting seriously burned in the end. It would be best for the both of them, not to mention for the sake of their unusually strong friendship that she let Alexia cool off.
The two amigos remained in quiet solitude half way through the journey to the other side of the island.
Meanwhile…
TIME: September 1971
PLACE: Alexandria, Virginia
He just stared at the object with unusual fascination. At first he just held it in his two hands, handling it with fragile care. Now the leather object began to jump from palm to palm, his eyes carefully watching the silent contact sport. Unaware of the looks that his teammates began to send to him.
His friends had observed his little retreat into solitude, respecting it in all its glory due to the certain situation behind it… but now it was beginning to become ridiculous.
"Gerry? Hey, Bertier!" His soul brother, Julius Campbell, called out. He waved his hand in front of Gerry's face, "Hello? Anyone in there?" He chuckled.
It took a millisecond for Gerry to react. "Wha-wha-what?!" He grasped the football with one hand, knocking away Julius' hand with the other. "Shoot, get that hand of yours out of my face!"
"Well… didn't think no one was home." He smirked, casting a look back to a couple of their Titan teammates in the locker room.
"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" Gerry replied as he began to play with the football again in the same manner.
It was the first day of the academic year for T.C. Williams High School. Not to mention the very first day that this infamous Titans school began integrating African-Americans into its educational system. The tension was high to say the least. Luckily, or so some thought, that the conflict didn't have some affect on its just integrated football players.
Amazingly enough, upon the return of the team's summer training camp, much of the players were getting along quite fine. In the beginning, the hostility was extremely thick between the black and white players. When time passed, and most was said and done, most of the players formed friendships between both races. There was an especially unique bond that began to form between the white captain, Gerry Bertier, and his black opponent, Julius Campbell.
Now camp was over, the fun quickly fading into the past, as the team received a bitter taste of reality, back in their hometown of Alexandria, Virginia.
Bertier's first dosage of the real world began when his girlfriend, Emma Hoyt, in her utter disbelief, ignored Julius' greeting after Gerry attempted a friendly introduction.
"You still ticked off about what happened with Emma, aren't ya?" Julius asked, watching the ball continue to jump from hand to hand.
Before Gerry could respond, Petey Jones, another silent bystander, practically slammed the man down when he jumped to grab the football out of his hands. "Shit, man. Give me that damn thing!" Cradling it within his own hands, "Ain't gonna let you drive us stir crazy watchin' you toss that ball back and forth like that!"
"Amen to that, bro." Alan Bosley replied. He held out his hands, "Hey, Petey, toss it over here."
As the players began to throw the football from one player to the next, Gerry silently slipped out of the locker room. It was after practice anyway, not like Coach Boone would mind if Gerry was the first one to leave.
Gerry needed to think. Thanks in due to Emma's weird reaction to Julius, Bertier was left confused most of the day. Luckily, he hadn't let what happened in the morning affect his afternoon practice… because Lord only knows that he just so needed Coach Herman to jump down his throat.
What Gerry needed was a reassurance that things were going to at least lighten up. He was getting grief at home from his mother, who was just as perplexed and bemused with the whole racial integration. His girlfriend blamed the high tension on both races, but seemed less compassionate non-the-less on the blacks. He wasn't even going to go there with everyone else in this little town of his.
From the view at his advantage point, he glanced at the Titan stadium. A quiet peace seemed to draw him there. Quickly gazing heavenward, he whispered, "Just give me a sign that things will be okay."
============================================================================================================================================
"What are you doing?"
Janice watched as Alexia reach into the glove compartment of her car. "Al? Uh… you're kind of *driving* right now. If you need to look for something…"
"Got it!" Alexia proclaimed, dishing out a CD. She glanced up at the road, noting that she had yet to gone off it. "Relax, Jan. We're not in the ocean, now are we?"
"That's because we have yet to gone off the cliff! And we are not going to as long as you keep your damn eyes on the road!"
Alexia smirked at her best friend, her onyx eyes dancing with amusement. "Whatever you say, navigator."
Janice sighed, leaning her head back for a moment. Letting Alexia drive to the other side was not good for her blood pressure.
It was officially the same afternoon in which the two teens began their shopping journey. When they arrived at their first destination, Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Center. As soon as Alexia parked the 4-runner, the two decided to cement their argument and let bygones be bygones. Besides, since when do they let their friendship fall apart over some bitter banter? They do that sort of thing everyday! If anything, it would take something as strong as time and space to tear this bond apart.
Now time had passed, all their sisterly bonding and shopping done, and the two teenagers were making their way back to Lahaina. They had not just passed Ma'alae Harbor when the clouds began to overcast and the rain began to fall.
"Shit…" Alexia had cursed silently as soon as she saw the first few droplets of rain. "Mom said that it'd rain. Looks like I should've believed her." She thought it over, then added, "Of course, being a quote-unquote psychic, she also said that she saw me falling for a football player and that ain't happening anytime soon." She smirked.
"Does having a crush on Lahainaluna's new assistant football coach count? What's his name? Ryan H. Smith? Where the 'H' stands for hottie?" Janice teased.
"Shut-up." Alexia growled.
Janice snickered, "My Lord, girl, everyone knows that the only reason why you went out for team manager with Nalani guys is due to the fact that you had fallen head over heels for the hot assistant couch from California."
"Do the words 'shut-up' mean anything to you?"
"Not in my dictionary, my friend." Janice replied. "And you would've gotten the job… if you hadn't dropped that water cooler on the head coach's foot!"
"Well… it wasn't my fault!" Alexia defended herself. "If Ryan hadn't smiled at me and offered to help carry the cooler for me…"
"Well you should have let him! If it wasn't for your damn pride, you wouldn't have felt the need to walk backwards watching him and then knocking the coach, sending him to turn around and having to watch you accidentally drop the cooler on his toe!"
"See! The key word was 'accidentally', okay? It was purely by accident. How was I to know that it would get me fired?"
Janice held her mouth, not daring to speak another word about the incident. She, instead, watched her friend pop in the CD she was looking for. "What are you playing?"
"Just a mix my brother made for me." She replied.
The faint tune of a familiar sound fell into place, causing a small grin to emerge from Janice's face.
*Listen baby…*
"Ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low, ain't no river wide enough baby…" Alexia sang along.
Janice chuckled as she watched Alexia began to sing. She knew that the girl had a soft spot for the oldies like this one. As Alexia sang, and thank the big G all mighty that the girl had a great singing voice, Janice decided to just watch the world outside of Alexia's car.
The young woman watched as the rain fell, and the clouds began to darken the late afternoon sky. It was troubling at first, taking into the consideration that hurricane season had yet to begin for them.
A few minutes had passed in considerate silence for the two friends. Janice was content with Alexia's singing voice, for most of her attention was on the road and the bleak weather. By now, her best friend had moved on to singing Peter Cetera's song "Glory of Love", which was on the movie Karate Kid II.
"Like a knight in shining armor, from a long time ago. Just in time I will save the day, take you to my castle far away…" Alexia began to bob her head to the guitar solo. "Man, Janice! Don't you just totally love this part? Shit, it's awesome extreme!"
"Uh, Al…" Janice began to have this uneasy feeling as she spied the distant tunnel. "I really think you should be paying a lot of attention to the road, and not solely on the song."
Alexia scoffed, "Hey, you've seen me drive with music before, Jan."
"Yeah, and I'm still ever so grateful that I've survived all encounters!"
Alexia turned down the volume a bit, taking note of her pal's tense behavior. Mumbling an apology, she kept her focus on the road.
For Janice, she was partly relieved that Alexia decided to take driving a bit more seriously… unfortunately, her uneasiness still wouldn't die.
As they came upon the tunnel, they were unaware of the clouds forming just outside on the opposite end. Just when they entered the tunnel, a blinding flash temporarily entered the channel, causing a weird time spiral to open.
The time spiral swallowed Alexia's car, with passengers and all, and quickly closed up before it could engulf anything else.
============================================================================================================================================