Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine. Even the basic plot isn't mine. It's based of a musical titled "Mary Lou" (only in Israel ;)), with a change of some things to suit the plot and characters better.
A/N: This is an AU (Alternate Universe) story. Some characters are not where they are supposed to be or not how they're supposed to be or not in the place you're used to see them at. You'll see.
I know that Kirk, in this story, is… very not Kirk-ish. But I just had to get someone to fit in this mold of a role I needed. And while I couldn't write Kirk even just as Kirk, and even if my life depended on it… I beg you to be considerate.
All I Have and Don't
It was over.
School. School was over.
Finally. School made him feel like he was locked inside a cage. And like 98% percent of the students all over the world, he hated school. Well, that was only an estimate. But he was never able to understand those… people. Those how actually enjoyed school. Those who actually wake up every day, early in the morning, willingly, just to study. It seemed ridiculously stupid to him. School did nothing to him. He felt more educated after watching Smurfs.
Everybody always told him he was smart. Well, not everybody. But no matter how smart he thought he was, or how smart Lane told him he was, or how his father used to insist that he was smart enough to do anything, or how Sasha always told him he was a mindless idiot… okay, that wasn't in place, but… he never saw himself as one to work with his mind. He wasn't planning on going to college. He hated thinking too much, he hated homework, he hated papers, he hated test. What was school to doubt his intelligence and knowledge, anyway?
But he did it. He studied. He thought too much, he did his homework, he handed a paper, he was tested. He still wasn't planning on going further with the splendid wide knowledge he gained, but he graduated. He had no idea how, though.
He knew he owed it all to Lane. She pulled him up when he was down. She sat on his head – almost literally – so he would get back to himself. So he'll stop pining and move on with his life. She gave him material to read, books to study from, and didn't agree to go until he knew all he needed to know.
He hated her for that.
But he was grateful. Somewhere within that hectic time period, he thought he had actually managed to somehow get over her, if only just a little. Somewhere in there, he had actually lost his count.
"To Graduated seniors!" Lane raised her bottle.
He lifted his own bottle, as he was seated opposed her. "To finally being able to burn down the school without getting suspended." He chuckled quietly.
She stared at him for a moment. Her face expressed something that looked like a very confused frown.
"What about getting arrested?" She asked, and he replied with a shrug, followed by another chuckle.
"To not getting caught." He offered, raising his bottle a little higher.
She grinned as she echoed, "To not getting caught", then clicked her bottle with his.
She sipped from her drink, holding on to the tip of her straw. The only thing he was able to do at the sight was to stare at her, overly amused.
And she noticed. And she looked up at him.
"What?" She asked, like what she did was… normal. At least, that was what he thought.
"You're aware of the fact that you're drinking beer with a straw." He stated, his tone rather questioning. His lips wore his famous-but-infamous smirk.
She just nodded. "Mmhm." She replied, with the straw still hogged between her thin lips.
"And I assume you're aware of the fact that… people don't usually drink beer through a straw." He kept going.
She felt his mocking gaze on her, feeling it was burning two deep holes into her forehead. But she was used to it. She kind of liked it. There was a time where he wasn't even in the mood to mock her. That was the time to really get him back on track, she knew. She was relieved when he started mocking her again. Besides, his mocking was always amusing and in good taste. Well, sometimes. With her.
God, no wonder people called her a masochist.
She let the straw slip down and drown in the bottle as she opened her mouth to speak. "All straight lines eventually get to a point. I'm begging you, do the same." She raised a brow at him, causing him to roll his eyes.
He said nothing for a moment. Then another moment passed in silence, and another.
"You're a strange girl." He eventually said.
She grinned proudly. "I know." She replied.
He smiled at her. She loved his smile. It was awkward in its own little way, cute in its own little way… enchanting, in its own little way.
She was in too deep. And she smiled back.
He reached to grab his beer and sipped from it. She rescued the straw from sinking in too deep, like she did, and brought it back into her mouth.
"If you were a tree, what tree would you be?" She read off the paper that she held in her hand. It sounded as forced and uncomfortable as she herself felt. Forced and obviously, uncomfortable.
Not only was she sitting in a cocky bar, on a cocky stool next to a cocky sure-she's-oh-so-super model with horrible, cocky music playing in the background, but also she wasn't even allowed to ask her own questions. She started feeling a little relieved that she wasn't getting her well-deserved credit. Still.
"A tree?" The blonde sitting next to her laughed. She hated that girl's condescending laugh. "I don't thing I'm able to be a tree. I don't really want to be a tree." She said. "Trees are so dull and like, fat. I won't be caught dead with my waist as wide as a trunk." She stated as her eyes wondered down to Rory's suit-covered body. She raised a mocking eyebrow as she begun. "You, on the other hand…"
Rory felt enraged enough to hit the girl. She had never actually hit anyone, but in the past few months, she was more than ready to begin.
Before she was ready to flame back at her, a rather large woman came to stand behind the blonde, smiling a fake cocky smile. She was almost bewildered by the fact that cocky people have to fake cocky smiles. But that was a different story for a different time, possibly the one where she'll be out of the mess she put herself into. Meaning she was never going to open her mouth again.
"I'm… afraid your time is up." The large woman said. "Thank you." The woman forced out, then unwillingly reaching to shake her hand. Rory, just as unwillingly, took it.
"Thank you for your time." Rory said, her lips curving into the fake smile that her lips wore so very often. She followed the two with her eyes as they got up and left, whispering and laughing rowdily. Her eyes. The same ones that were as miserable as her heart was.
She waited until they were completely gone and excused herself to the bathroom. Her over-the-knees length, made of an extremely rough fabric, made her walk much clumsier than it was supposed to be.
She tried to find a quiet corner where she reached into her purse, grabbing her Cellphone. She clicked 'one' on her speed dial and held her phone next to her ear, waiting for a proof of life from the other side of the line.
And it came. "Gleason."
His voice really started to annoy her. "That is my promotion?" She asked, practically scowling.
"Yes."
The simplicity of his voice was driving her crazy.
"Me, sitting in a bar, interviewing a brainless model. That is my promotion?" She asked again. Her free fist actually clenched as she tried to not burst.
"Yes." He repeated. Remember the hitting thing?
"I… I…" She started, shutting her eyes. She was in a lost of words.
"You came here because you wanted to be an overseas correspondent and I do nothing to help you with it. I know." He completed. God, the voice!
She just sighed. What else did she have to say? That was basically the main point she always tried making to him. She leaned against the wall.
"At least this didn't involve a cow." She tried to make the best of it. Well, not an actual cow, anyway.
"You never did anything with a cow." He denied.
"I reported straight from a location where the annual Cows' Beauty Pageant was held." She reminded him, angrily.
"You did not." He tried.
"I witnessed milking. It was gross." She stated.
"Nope." He deadpanned.
"I can't close my eyes at night without seeing someone squeezing milk out of a cow's guts." She winced.
"Nope." He repeated in the same nonchalant tone.
"It was stupid, it was gross, it was nothing and I still haven't got my credit." She was really holding in now.
He sighed. "What exactly do you want from me?" He asked her from the other line.
Anything but this, she thought. Her old life, maybe. Her family, her friends, him. But she couldn't say anything. She just sighed.
"I'll see you tomorrow at eight." He said, hanging up.
She lowered her arm, not bothering to do anything with her Cellphone. She stared into space. Into the dim-lighted hall that was fogged by cigarette smoke.
It was depressing to think that it was all she had.
