Title: No Vacancy, With Exceptions [Part 1/?]

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, don't know the people who created/act on/write for/direct/do whatever for the show. Damn ;)

Distribution: Winslow High Library can definitely post it, anyone else: ask.

Rating: Hard R for swearing and sexual situations

Summary: Dana's in trouble, who would she go to? Hmm . . . hard question. I suck at summaries, give me a break. ;)

Feedback: Yes, please, I'd be one happy writer.

Authors Note # 1: I started this directly after the first season of Boston Public. I like the character of Dana Poole. I thought she added a little drama and tension to the show so when she split I had to reprieve her sentence of 'The first-season troublemaker' into something more. Who would read a story just about Dana, though? So I fleshed it out and made it a H/D romance.

AN # 2: This is not grammar perfect. Just a fair warning.

AN # 3: My taste in 'ships has greatly changed since I began this fic a very long time ago. This will probably be my last D/H fanfic aside from the ones I've already written and yet to post [there are quite a few]. It was fun while it lasted, but as time passes, I guess I see that the relationship wasn't quite . . . er, ideal. Anyway, here's the fic.

** It's one a.m. as the glaring red clock tells me and I really do not want to leave my place at the moment. My place is the comfortable; sleep- inducing bed in my room and to leave would be to answer the door that has been knocking for the past five minutes. Of course it isn't knocking on it's own and that's what gets me to leave my pillows and my nice, nice sheet to lay under . . .

I've been seriously deprived of sleep lately and if Guber thinks there's any chance of me taking over anyone's summer courses next year he is smoking a substance that is not legal. In the U.S. anyway.

I've finally managed to climb out of bed and get through the living room that's been covered with various assignment, administrative and news papers for over two days. Eh, it'll get clean someday; it has its dreams. I turn the deadbolt and open the slide lock that I'm shocked my hardly conscious mind remembered to take care of.

I open the door and if I was incredibly drowsy before I'm just as much awake.

You don't see this everyday. And I guess I should say something instead of squinting at her in the hallway light.

"Dana?"

**

"Hi, Mr. Senate. Long time no see, huh?"

I hope I sound like some semblance of normal. My back is aching from the pack I keep hitching higher on my shoulder, it's so filled I think the seams are starting to pull.

"Here's something you don't see everyday," he answers. It hasn't been a good day and if he says some smart-ass comment . . . it'll be just like him. But for the moment he seems like he's too surprised to see me there or too sleepy maybe, it looks like I just woke him up. His hair is a mess and it makes him look . . . nice, off guard, he's wearing some sort of stripped, cotton PJ bottoms and a white T-shirt and he keeps squinting at me. He doesn't seem like he's going to say anything else so maybe I should . . .

What do you say in a situation like this anyway? Maybe . . .

" . . . Surprise."

**

Surprise. Good word for the moment. I haven't seen her in a month and never thought I would again and then here she is. Surprise, a definite Dana affiliated word. Surprised when she kissed me, surprised when she blackmailed me, surprised when it somehow got a quasi-resolved feeling through the year, surprised when I found out she was a stripper and that she was poor . . .

Dana the surprise.

"Can I come in?"

Can she come in? Should I let her? She looks uncertain and I guess I should have said something instead of standing in front of her and staring at her after she said that word, her perfect word.

"Mr. Senate?"

"It's one a.m."

Well, it's factual. The only reasonable thing to say now that would make any sense - when I was a kid I never thought summer would have such long working days at a school.

She looks at her watch and then back at me looking even more uncertain than she was.

"Please?" It's quiet when she asks and that can't mean anything good. Something has to be wrong and here she is, maybe it's her job or . . . I have to ask before I know and to do that I have to make the choice.

**

He looks like he's observing me, I don't think he's going to let me come in. I wonder if he can see it in my face, how much I need his help now. Please see it, Mr. Senate.

"If I let you in my apartment are you going to steal anything?"

I think I just sighed in relief. That same expression on his face and . . . and I could feel my own face turning up. A little smile, a smile of remembrance maybe? To think back to when I could lean on his desk and flirt and he'd play along sometimes, but just play, he was never serious.

"Hey." My smile must have started to leave per usual because he waves a hand in front of my face and I try to reconstruct it as best I can. He looks at me all curious and steps aside, nodding his head. "Come in."

**

She walks past and she doesn't smell like she used too. Which brings to light a good question: When the hell did I start to notice the way she smells? What am I, a dog? . . . Scratch that. I don't know but it doesn't matter right now because I'm more focused on her and how she doesn't smell like that expensive perfume as much as she does smoke and something . . . and then I realize she must have come over from the club, that musty, disgusting hole.

She doesn't look like it though, not like she came from there. Her back is to me and she's casual, jeans and a tight little purple top with some little picture on it that's supposed to be cutesy or coy or whatever those little pictures are supposed to be. Her backpack seems like it's weighing her down but she doesn't let go of it, her hand is like a vice on the strap.

It's about then I notice that my apartment is a sty, might as well start talking now before she notices the gathering of glasses on the coffee table that never quite made it to the kitchen.

"How's it going?" Sounds casual, a good lead in for whatever she wants to say. Good start . . . except she isn't saying anything at all. "Dana?"

"It's good," she tells me but it doesn't sound very convincing.

And then she faces me.

I always have seen a certain beauty in Dana, especially when she emotions are raw and right now they're surface. Her eyes are watery and her mouth has a sort of slight slack to it, she seems like she's trying to say something but can't bring herself to do it. Pride I'm sure, it sucks, I know personally.

"You can tell me."

Yeah that's good, point out the obvious. She came here to see me so I'm sure she has inkling that she's pretty comfortable with me.

"I . . . Did you ever do something that, at first you could accept, but then later . . . you grew steadily more ashamed of it?" she asks genuinely curious.

"Yep," I try and quip. "And so ended my affinity for boybands."

"I'm serious."

Serious, no skirting around the issue, serious.

"Well, yeah. Everyone has things that they'd rather do over or stuff that they wouldn't do over but still feel bad about."

"Everyone," she repeats to herself like she's proving her point. "Tell that to my mother."

**

"Your mother?" he asks me.

Yep, let that slip too soon. If I start to cry in front of him I'm going to be sick, Harry Senate has seen me cry more than anyone has. And that's just in one year.

"You know, Mr. Senate, I should go."

Simple enough, I already said it so now I'll just walk past him and leave.

But he's grabbed my arm.

"Dana?" And his voice is warm and soft and the kind of tone that makes you want to tell everything because you know it's going to make you feel better. But will it? Or will it make me look worse than I already do?

And then I looked into his eyes like an idiot. They're just as warm and deep, deep brown and if I were that kind of girl I would write a poem about them. But I'm not that kind of girl and I can look away and leave.

I can.

"Mr. Senate, I need some help."

And there goes the theory that I can.

**

"What is it?" I hope she tells me the truth, she wants to, I know, she isn't pulling away from my hold on her arm.

It's hard for her whatever it is and it seems like she almost can't say it. Anything could have happened; maybe she was doing drugs. She didn't look like she was doing drugs though, and she had given up pot once she was busted on school grounds and shook her chances at getting into Smith College. Maybe someone was stalking her from the club or she was ra . . . no, I don't even want to go through the possibilities because they're just going to get steadily worse.

"I don't have anywhere to go," she tells me with teary eyes and a calm tone that tends to waver.

"What?"

"My mother threw me out."

"What? Why?" I didn't know the older Ms. Poole; she hadn't even shown up for her daughter's graduation so I could hardly pass my speculations on why her seventeen-year-old daughter was on the streets.

"She found out about my job. She won't have it in her house."

"So she threw you out, just like that?"

I think I sounded shocked and I guess I am you'd think there would be some sort of discussion. Then again, the Pooles seem to have soft spot for snap decisions.

"Yes, like that," she tells me and it seems like she's annoyed I bothered to have that reaction. Maybe she gets it a lot.

And then I start thinking.

Why did she come here? Because from where I'm standing there's only one question left to be asked.

"Dana, did you come here beca--"

"Mr., Senate, I need a favor."

**

"Woah, woah, stop," he says holding up his hands. "Walked this path, bought the souvenir."

"Please?"

"No, absolutely not."

"Why?" I hope I didn't just whine this would not go well if I whine.

"Because your favors have the potential to be life threatening to, oh, I don't know, ME?"

"Point taken, but still."

Let that be sweet and endearing.

"No."

Obviously not. I could tell him the rest but I'd rather spare myself the humiliation of him knowing my mother called me a whore after she threw her recently emptied gin bottle at me. A whore like me had no place in her house. I suppose she didn't realize that I needed more money than the seventy-two dollar check she got from my father once a month, the same one that went on keeping her in booze for less than a few days.

"Please, I don't have anywhere to go."

"Family?"

"I don't have any in Boston, we only moved here five years ago."

"Friends?"

"They left already for summer college courses or vacation and . . ."

"And those who are still here do not need to know that Dana Poole could use some help?"

Hit the nail on the head. Bastard. He can tell too, just the way he's looking at me I know that he's already figured it out.

"Dana . . ."

"Please?" When all else fails beg . . . Never been one for it myself but I'm on bottom barrel.

"I guess a motel is out of question?" he says and I know he's giving in. Thank God.

"So says my bank. The computers are down and I can't get any cash, it won't be fixed until Monday."

"It's Wednesday!" Okay, so maybe he isn't too happy about that one.

"Thursday, actually?" O-kay, I should stay quiet. I shrug and look at him. "Please?"

And then he looks at me with his observing look, more accurately his one- last-before-I-give-in-look and then he sighs.

"Just for tonight."

"Thank you! Thank you so much!"

My bookbag hits the ground with a thud at all of the clothes I managed to pack inside and I throw my arms around him neck. He's not responding but at least he's not shoving me off either.

**

No matter what I'm not going to give into a hug, she's staying here, that's enough. She steps back and looks at me with this serene, utter joyful expression that makes me want to feel guilty for having doubts. She's grinning and happy and suddenly I remember that I have a five a.m. wake-up and I'm dragging my ass in daylight hours, that and I am avoiding all possibilities that I'll end up smiling in front of her. Unlikely but you never know.

"Good night, Dana." I walk towards the open door to my bedroom and consider, no 'sweet dreams' or 'sleep tight', nope very impersonal, pretty P.C. if I say so myself.

"Wait. Mr. Senate?"

So close, so far.

I spin to see her look at me again, just as happy, maybe a little unsure again. Now what?

"Who gets the bed?"

Oh yeah, should have figured that one. But she's come in here and has managed to stay, bottom line: She isn't getting my bed.

**

"I get the bed."

No nonsense in that answer, not very gentlemanly. I look at the couch, navy blue, worn and saggy, looks kind of clean but with that dark color you really can't tell and . . .

"Well, we can always sha--"

"NO. No sharing under this roof," he says firmly. You'd think he suspects any minute I'm going to tackle him and stick my tongue down his--

"I'm not going to tackle you and shove my tongue down your throat." . . . Said that before thinking it through, even had the annoyance and slight fringe of anger, threw my arm out for added effect. Good going, I must be trying to get myself thrown out twice in one night. He has that look that's a cross between a comment ready to be thrown out and that he's not sure I just said what he thought I said.

"I'm going to bed," he answers, a little bit baffled at what just went on. Hey, I made him baffled, one for me.

"So early?"

He disappeared in his room and came out with a pillow and cover that looks light enough for the warm weather. He drops them before heading back and calling over his shoulder at me.

"I have summer programs tomorrow, it isn't early, it's after one-thirty."

Closed door.

He gave me a pillow, which is something.

**

Loonngg night, nice bed, sleep now. I plop down and try not to think of what just transpired or the girl currently occupying my couch. My couch, with the spring that sticks in your back when you even attempt a nap . . .

I do have the bed . . .

I'll admit I do groan a little, I have to get out of bed *and* give up my pillow so she can put it over the spring. I could feel that morning headache now; I hate sleeping without a pillow.

I open the door and she jumps. The hall light is still the only thing making the room visible and she's trying to fix a bed and doing a good job of it. Her bookbag is against the coffee table leg and I can see she is already taking some things out. How she fit even half the stuff on the table in there is a pure impossibility, not to mention the bag isn't even empty.

"There's a spring that sticks up, you can use this."

Pillow handed and I even get a grateful expression, I feel like I'm being an ass. Maybe I should let her have the bed.

"You know, you shouldn't have to sleep on the couch, you are the guest - much as I tried to prevent it - you should take the bed."

She looks a little amazed, like a shocked her, but then she smiles again.

"Thank you, Mr. Senate."

She collects her things and a pillow, throwing me a look as she goes, until it's all gathered. She's in my room and my door is closed before I see what's happened. Yes, she did agree. I look to the navy piece of furniture that's served me well. Yep, that is my bed.

And she took the pillow too.