~*Thanks so much for the reviews! After months (literally) of no ff.n contact whatsoever it's great to be back to such encouragement! Absolutely spiffy. On with the show.*~

Ch.2-Blue Destiny

"Please, please oh god, I swear I'll never cuss again, or even keep yogurt after the expiration date, if just please don't be blue!" Lindsay prayed with every molecule of hope intermingled with desperation within her. The rest of her life depended entirely on a tiny slip of paper, all of fate to be determined by the simple changing of a color. A heavy burden for the tiny paper indeed.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, almost as if she never wanted to open them, never know her destiny. She was too scared. Too scared it'd turn blue. Yet as is most often the case, curiosity prevailed. Taking a deep breath her eyelids fluttered up, and she beheld the rest of her life.

To her great dismay and misfortune; the slip was blue.

~

"Um, hey is Cindy there?"

"Sam is that you?"

"Yea, it's me. Um I know you probably don't want to talk to me right now…but I just had to call to see if, you know, how your parents were reacting and stuff."

He heard an audible sigh on the other end of the line, "ok I guess. I mean they totally trust me, so that's good. And I explained that we just fell asleep, and they believed me. Only…they're kind of skeptical about the wine. They don't believe it was an accident."

"Yea I just wanted to apologize for getting you drunk again, I swear I didn't know it wasn't grape juice."

"It's ok Sam, but I think for now on we shouldn't really be seen with each other or anything…just have some space ok?"

"Oh, um yea, I was gonna suggest the same thing. So ah, see you Monday? Or not see you, I guess."

"Yea, something like that. See ya." The tiny annoying beep that meant she had hung up rang through his head like an echo. He couldn't pretend he wasn't crushed. He had just lost all chances with Cindy. She didn't even want to be seen with him. What a horrible, awful morning. Fate could sure be cruel.

~

"What am I going to do?!" Lindsay moaned for the hundredth time that hour. Pacing her room in the ever-familiar circle she cried and lamented to her bedroom walls, as if they could actually hear her angst. She was doomed. Her entire life was over, before it had ever really began, and all for some stupid, needy, selfish guy. More like jerk. He was such a jerk. This was all his fault! He had gotten her in this mess.

Yet she knew that wasn't entirely true, and she knew she couldn't hold him responsible. She was the guilty party as much as him…as the old saying goes, it takes two to tango.

Yet she couldn't help but feel a bubbling sense of rage that he, he who claimed to love her so, was irresponsible enough to neglect looking out for her general welfare.

She bit her pinky nail and watched the blood ooze from the crack. "Damn, that hurts," she muttered and frowned. Although it was a welcome distraction from her bigger problems…

Taking a deep breath she resolved to actually do something about her situation instead of just cry about it. "I've got to tell someone. I can't keep this to myself…I'll explode! It's too big of a secret. But who do I tell?"

A mental list of all the people in her life composed itself in her mind. One by one, name by name she scanned it, searching for the perfect match.

Her parents? Out of the question. She'd be lectured to the brink of sanity, not to mention grounded, and would loose their trust, and in the worst-case scenario be thrown out on the streets to live out of a cardboard box. "That's ridiculous," she muttered, "they wouldn't kick me out of the house just because I'm pregnant! Or…would they?" Shaking her head as if to get rid of that disturbing thought, she moved on to the next person on her master list.

Sam? No, he wouldn't be much good. He'd probably just be traumatized. She didn't want to be responsible for years of therapy.

A girl, she needed to tell a girl. Kim? No…Kim would never, could never, be sympathetic to her plight…or could she? She had surely gone through the experience of being full of anxiety, waiting for her period and counting days it was late, after every time right? Yet Lindsay wasn't sure she even liked Kim much…let alone trusted her with her secret.

A friend. Millie! She had fallen back on Millie before…but surely Millie would be traumatized to. She was so naive, Lindsay just didn't have the heart to corrupt her so, or load her problems onto her friend's innocent back.

Then there was Nick…the father of her currently still-an-embryo unborn baby…the obvious choice. Yet she really didn't think she had the guts to tell him he was going to be a father. She couldn't even admit to herself that she was going to be a mother…at sixteen. Sixteen! So young, so many things unaccomplished…what happened? She was supposed to go to college, get married, them maybe have some kids. But now all of that was in fast-forward, and college was out of the picture. She'd be lucky if she finished high school.

Well she still had to tell someone, and of all the choices…well, no one was really the best. Wait, backtrack…Kim. It'd have to be Kim. She was a friend, well, at least an acquaintance of her age group, and a girl…and she had experience with this sort of problem. If anyone could help her it'd be Kim. But how to ask her? Just call her up and say, "hey, I need your help. I have a problem, I'm kind of pregnant"? Was it that simple? Well, it was either that or face this alone. And she knew she didn't have the strength to fly solo.

~

"Where are they?" Sam leaned against the telephone poll, frowning at the empty road. He watched the world idly float by and wondered where in the world his friends were.

When the bus pulled up at the spot he had no choice but to board it. He wasn't about to ruin his perfect attendance record for two lousy (not to mention not very punctual) guys.

Glancing around worriedly to double check they were just down the street running for their lives, he stepped aboard and plopped down in the first seat he saw open. Clutching his backpack he tried to reassure himself that Neal and Bill, however coincidentally, where both sick at home with some strange flu or something. What other explanation could there be? They waited at the bus stop for each other, then rode the bus to school every day. (As freshman they were too young to drive to school, something Neal bemoaned nearly every day to and from school.) That was the sacred routine, unbroken by anything but dire illnesses on a deathbed.

It was while staring out the window at nothing he heard it; a loud unmistakable gauwffing laugh that could only belong to none other than Bill Haverchuck. Sam's head turned to the sound of laughter behind him…as his smile turned to a frown upon seeing Bill and Gordon roll some dice on a math book.

"Ok Gorgon, Elven Ranger, the dice have spoken! 2D6…that's eight points of damage, and you are now un-conscience my good man." That was unmistakably the voice of none-other-than the class stink bomb, Gordon.

"Have I stabilized yet?" Bill asked worriedly, pushing his glasses up his long nose.

"Nope, but Chitulu is apparently on your side, 'cause here comes Meepal, the party cleric!"

It wasn't the idea of Bill and Gordon playing Dungeons and Dragons together, it was the idea of playing D&D, his ultimate favorite RPG (roll-playing-game, ie: imaginary scenarios usually dictated by a set of rules and dice game, for all you people out there who don't speak D&D) in the whole world, without him. Whatever happened to the plan? The one were the famous trio always sit together on the bus. It was like, the law. And where in the hell was Neal? Was the entire universe falling apart or something?

~

"Pass this back," Lindsey whispered to the girl behind her, who, with a brief look of annoyance, obliged. A year ago Linsdey wouldn't have been caught dead passing notes in class. She thought it was stupid to be so disrespectful to the teacher, especially if all the dumb note contained was mindless drivel on what time the mall closes. But this wasn't last-year anymore, this was now, and she couldn't give a damn about a sale on nail polish and eyebrow wax, this was serious.

Rarely did Kim bother showing up for class, especially one as mundane as Spanish (they had been reviewing the preterite tense for weeks now, over and over and over again, like a really bad sci-fi movie with lots of time distortion), but Kim's mom had recently kicked into mother-mode and threatened to throw away all of Kim's dark black eye-shadow if she didn't pull up her grades. Normally Kim would have just rolled her eyes and hidden Midnight Madness underneath some floorboards, but her mom had confiscated it all before she made her threat, and was holding every color hostage over the garbage disposal. Hence Kim actually being found inside a classroom.

Scanning her eyes over the paper Kim's expression changed dramatically. A minute ago she was bored as hell, and would have given anything for a little excitement, but this wasn't exactly what she had in mind. Maybe she wasn't best friends with Lindsey, but she was the closet thing she had to a friend, and it was obvious she needed her help. Oh god, she thought, rereading the note again:

Kim, slight problem. Me and Nick like did it, and it's blue, HELP!!

~

"How come you didn't wait for me Bill?" Sam asked, confronting his friends in the lunch-line.

"What? Sam, oh, hi."

"Yea, hi. How come you were sitting with Gordon?" He was not to be diverted! Operation Answer was underway.

"Well Gordon and I worked on our science project all weekend, and played some D&D too. He got a new set of dice."

"So?"

"And some really life-like character figurines. There's even a half-orc barbarian, you know how rare those are--"

"I don't care. You still should have waited," Sam said grumpily, making a disgusted face at the "mystery meat," or as he suspected, old dog-chow.

"Sorry. But he made a new quest!"

What was the point? Of like, anything.

~

"Why are you smiling like that?" Ken asked in his blasé voice.

"Smiling like what, I'm not smiling." Nick said, smiling.

"Yea you are."

"No I'm not."

"Yea. You are."

"Will you two quit it?" Daniel asked, looking at himself in his pocket mirror. "I'm trying to do my hair."

"Oh, like that takes so much concentration," Ken said sarcastically.

"Shut up. At least I don't act like little kids like you two."

"All I wanted to know was why Nick was grinning is head off, jeeze."

Daniel turned around and scrutinized at Nick, who was humming to himself happily. Raising one eyebrow he started to grin, "Nick man, you are so obvious."

"Huh?" Both Nick and Ken asked.

"He got laid, duh!"

"What?" Ken asked, for once any traces of sarcasm mysteriously missing.

"Way to score man, how was she?"

Nick blushed, unused to so much attention. Usually it was Daniel who bragged about his nightly affairs.

"Oh come on guys,"

"Come on what? You did do it, right?"

"Yea."

"Hey it was Lindsey huh?"

"Damn, I didn't know she'd give it so easy."

"Shut up you guys--"

"Relax man, we won't tell a soul, cross our hearts. Now lets cut and go hunt down Joey for some pot to celebrate. You really need to chill out."

~

Sam left the lunch-line--tray loaded down with lumpy mashed potatoes and what was supposed to be coleslaw but more resembled barf--and headed for the usual table. Only no one was there. No Neal, no Bill. Totally weird. But what was even more odd was that Alan White, his sworn enemy Alan, was calling out to him to join his table, without the slightest hint of sarcasm. It must be a trick, Sam thought, I'll just ignore him.

Pretending he didn't hear, Sam headed in the opposite direction. But to his dismay Alan followed, practically leaping out of his chair, and cut off Sam's escape.

"Hey man I was calling you," he said.

"Sorry," Sam mumbled, preparing to have fried chicken dumped on his head, or some other such typical-Alan-torture. "But I already spent my lunch-money. If you want my Jell-O though, you can have it."

"Hey man, you got me all wrong, I'm your friend! Walk with me," taking Sam by the shoulders he spun him around and started walking towards his table, toting Sam along with him. Friends, right. Oh well, at least the worst of the summer heat was over and his locker shouldn't be too hot. And maybe the hall monitor would rescue him again.

"Hey Sam!"

"Yo man, wassup?"

"What's kickin' Sammy?"

Sam blinked. About ten different people, all popular, were greeting him, as Alan shoved him into the seat beside him, grinning and exclaiming in a low voice, "we heard what happened, Cindy Sanders, way to go!"

"Huh?" Was his only reply. What were these people talking about?

"Yeah man, total score. Didn't know you had it in ya pygmy."

Alan shot a dirty look at the guy who called Sam a pygmy. "Sam is the man."

Sam gulped. These strange creatures were obviously speaking a different language. They were probably discussing which pot to boil him in, the big one or the extra big one. Soon they would bring out war paint and wooden masks, and start dancing around the fire, chanting prayers to their gods and discussing how he'd taste better, roasted on a spit or boiled alive. Either way, they'd definitely need to get more salt. (btw, I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone who prays to spirit gods or participates in any such rituals. I'm just writing what I think would be in Sam's head in this situation; I apologize in advice for any offense taken.) Fortunately just then he was saved by the bell, literally, as everyone bounded up to their separate classes. What just happened here? Miraculously he had survived an encounter with the dreaded school bully and lived to tell about it. Surely the planets had aligned themselves differently this morning, and everything was shifting out of balance. Either that or life was just its normal chaotic self.

~*~

More next time hopefully J (and I still don't own a thing, except for maybe bad coleslaw.) Reviews of course appreciated and worshipped. I print 'em out and put 'em on a little altar, with offerings of whatever I saved from the cafeteria at lunch and some hamsters. Toddles for now!