Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: If you sue me, all you'll get is an Elvis CD. I've told you already, I don't own The Faculty.

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Saturday, November 7, 1998

Kit's POV

I pull up to Herrington. Cutting the motor, I get out of the car and walk up the steps. No one is there, obviously. It's Saturday. The chilly autumn air swirls around me, making me pull my tan suede jacket a little bit tighter around my neck. I feel little wavy tendrils of my hair pull loose from my two braids and whip against my cheek. My breath puffs out in little white clouds. I know my cheeks are pink, and my glasses feel cold against my nose and ears. I walk up the lawn and look around at the deserted school. Even though I've been here for two months, I instinctively compare it to "home." Here everything seems so yellow. It's like the callousness of the students here has killed the verdant grass, turning it a stiff, dry straw color. Somehow, looking around at how impersonal it is here, I want to cry. I feel tears spring up in my eyes. The ground and the building blurs. I want to be home, with every fiber of my being. I want to be at home, sitting in my hut out in the fields, with all my friends. I want home. Ohio is not my home. I want to be back in Wyoming, where I have friends. I want to be standing under a tree, with Rob's arms around my shoulders, making me feel small and protected. I want to play speed with Nell in her arbor. I sit down on the steps where just yesterday my only friend here apologized. I want to be back with people who understand what I like and wouldn't make fun of me for singing Elvis songs at whim. I want to be home. There's no place like home, I think wistfully, clicking my heels together three times in some wild hope. I want to go home. Please, please, I want to go home. My birthday party can't come fast enough. Please, let me go home. I don't like it here. I reach up and pull a hickory branch down to me and look at the golden leaves. Fall is beautiful, but I want to go home. I sigh and turn back around. I slowly walk back to my car and get in, taking one last look at Herrington. Oh god. Let me go home. I want to go home. I get in and drive back to the house.

End Kit's POV

--- --- ---

Thursday, November 19, 1998

Kit slid into her desk in World Lit next to Casey and passed him a note. He opened the small piece of paper.

Want to come to my birthday party?

Casey quickly scribbled back a response.

Okay. When is it?

The response came back in the form of a small paragraph.

It's the 26, 27 and 28. You'd come back the 29. It's Thanksgiving Break in Wyoming! We'd pay for the tickets, of course. Rob's parents are helping, they're travel agents as well as part-time ranchers.

Casey stared at the paper and then looked at Kit. She grinned widely at him and nodded. She was brought back to earth with a sudden thump with the sound of her full name spoken in Miss Burke's timid voice.

"Katherine? Could you present your report on Don Quixote?" Miss Burke said softly, twisting her handkerchief in her fingers nervously. Kit groaned and stood up, rolling her head as she stood dramatically.

"Okey-dokey." Kit walked to the front of the room and spun around on her heel to face the class, loose-leaf paper in her hand filled with her slanting, loopy writing. Kit took a deep breath, tipping her head back.

"Well," she said, nodding her head. She looked down at the kid in front of her and put her paper down on his desk. "Hey, could you, could you, like, hold that for me? Yeah, thanks. Okay. My report," Kit began, brushing her palms off on the sides of her jeans and rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. She started to speak, her voice at first a little uncertain, but then getting stronger.

"In, uh, reading Don Quixote, the novel by Cervantes, I found that most of the common beliefs about the novel are…uh…complete and total…" Kit glanced at Miss Burke and then said firmly, "…complete bullshit."

The class looked up from their magazines. Kit grinned. She started gesturing with her arms as she spoke and started pacing up and down the front of the class, half thinking out loud and half lecturing.

"You see, most people think that what Don Quixote did was insanity and a delusion, something you should really pity or gawk at, but what it really was was sanity and enlightenment. Karmically speaking, he did only good. The only harm he did was make other around him insecure because of their total lack of knowledge about what was important in life. What he was was sane, he was the only sane person in the entire book! Sancho Panza was the only other one to even be close to sanity, but not really because he never really believed what Don Quixote knew in his heart was right. Love, truth, courtesy to fair maidens, all of that was completely lost with the Dark Ages. Some people believe that we could be, like, flying now if we'd just skipped the Arthurian period and the Dark Ages and gone straight to the Renaissance period, but it's not true. If we'd skipped the knights in shining armor we would be an amoral society. No man would open doors for ladies, - not like any do any way, well, I mean, some do, but not many,- and we'd all be killing each other in the streets and stuff. Don Quixote discovered what most of us only discover as we are dying: that life is completely fleeting and we shouldn't waste it with mistrust and prejudice and hate. Don Quixote knew that love was the only way to live and so he only hurt the evil, apparently windmills were evil then, and the unjust. I think that Dulcinea was like his light, the symbol of his love and as long as he had Dulcinea he could be truly happy. With love, he lived and because of love he was completely ostracized and taunted and put down for his beliefs, because they thought that just because this guy tries to kill windmills, hey, we can beat the shit out of him or humiliate him. He was turned out of society because society couldn't stand his goodness." Kit stopped her pacing for a minute and turned to the class, looking at Casey in the back of the class, smiling thoughtfully. "Not unlike a few people I know." She resumed pacing as if she had never paused. "So in conclusion, Don Quixote was the only sane character Cervantes wrote. In accepting love and light he was unaccepted by those who did not. And they were the truly ill and insane, those were the ones to be pitied. Not the only sane one. Not the one who loved and was just and true." Kit stopped and looked down at her boots, looking like she suddenly ran out of energy. She softly hummed a few bars of "To Each His Dulcinea," and then looked up again and grinned. "Okey-dokey. I'm done."

She stood at the front of the class for a few seconds as the students stared at her in a stunned silence. Kit bounced on the balls of her feet and then started back to her seat. The silence erupted into a buzz of whispers of amazement. Kit stood up again and walked back up to the front, retrieved her paper from the kid in the front row and sat back down. Casey looked at Kit fleetingly, stunned by the depth of her speech. Kit scrawled down something on a piece of paper and passed it to Casey. It was a harshly accurate sketch of Delilah with the words, "To Each His Dulcinea" scribbled at the bottom. "Don Casey," she mouthed, then said softly, "Donde esta tu Dulcinea? Con su enamorado, pero ella no se ama el. Tu adora ella, pero ella no adora tu, Casey. Hablas 'Dulcinea, te adoro, querida,' y ella habla Casey es loco. Eso si que es. Loco. Amor es loco.* But that's why we do it. Because it is crazy. And we need that type of insanity in our life."

*"Where is your Dulcinea? With her boyfriend, but she does not love him. You adore her, but she does not adore you, Casey. You say, 'Dulcinea, I adore you, dear,' and she says Casey is crazy. That's what it is. Crazy. Love is crazy."

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Thursday, November 26, 1998

Greengrass, Wyoming

Kit leaned out the window of the passenger side and grinned. Casey uncomfortably shifted in his seat, wedged firmly between Kit and Kit's father, whom he hadn't met before. Ben O'Connell scooted over to give Casey a little more room. Casey's things were packed in the back seat of the cab in the pickup truck. Casey looked around at the scenery, a little awkwardly. Wyoming was so much different than Ohio. Another pickup truck was parked in the lot of a small general store. Geez, thought Casey, I didn't think those things existed outside of westerns. Mr, O'Connell saw this too and pulled into the lot as well with a, "Whoa!"

Casey lurched forward in his seat. It was a little unsettling when the child was a better driver than the parent, and Kit certainly was. Mr. O'Connell reached across Casey's lap to pat his daughter's knee. Kit turned and looked at her father questioningly.

"Go on, take Casey with you. I'll drive the things back. You can have fun with the gang."

Casey had only a split second to worry about the use of the word "gang," before he suddenly had plenty of room to move, because Kit had left the truck. He looked over to the other pickup and saw a tall broad shouldered- there was no other word for him- cowboy get out and hold out his arms. Kit let out a shriek that Casey could hear a good twenty feet away and leapt into the cowboy's arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and laughing happily. Mr. O'Connell smiled in a fatherly manner and said, "They make a wonderful couple, don't they?"

Casey nodded. "Yes sir."

"You go one too. Kit wants you to meet her friends. She may be lacking in social skills at the moment but she'll recover soon and remember her manners," laughed Mr. O'Connell. Casey couldn't help liking Kit's father. Casey smiled in his usual furtive way.

"Yes Mr. O'Connell."

"Call me Ben. Please."

Casey echoed uncomfortably, "Ben. Yes sir."

Casey climbed out of the car and walked over to the car and group of teens that had by now piled out and were assembled around the lump of KitandCowboy. A girl about Kit's height approached Casey and smiled warmly.

"You must be Casey. I'm Nell, Kit's other best friend."

Casey quickly smiled and said, "Yeah, that's me."

Casey looked at Nell. She looked like a young Isabella Rossellini. Her hair was a lighter shade of brown than Kit's and very straight, hanging down past her shoulder blades and she had dark brown eyes. Kit detached herself from the Lone Ranger and went over to sling her arm around Nell's neck.

"People say we look like twins. You think so Case?"

Casey shook his head. "No. Not at all. People are blind."

Kit looked over her shoulder at a smaller girl still in the truck with strawberry blond curls and a pixie-ish look, staring at the scene with an expression of disdain.

"See Hayden? Now stop calling us Thing One and Thing Two."

"Well obviously your little geek friend here is blind. Hey, dorkus!" called Hayden to Casey. "Get out while you still can! My cousin's a freak and I can't believe we're related!"

Casey didn't like this girl.

Kit stormed over to the car and leaned into the cab of the truck, getting in Hayden's face.

"Don't you ever call Casey a geek, dork or any other rude name or I will break your fingers in half. Capisce?"

Hayden sighed and tossed her curls. "Reactionary much? I was just kidding."

"Ha. Ha. Ha."

The Lone Ranger decided it was his time to distract Kit from her cousin and said in a low, rumbly voice, "Hey, Kitty, you want to formally introduce me to your little keg chugging friend?"

She told him?! I can't believe she told him!!

Kit grinned, bouncing energetically back into the embrace of the Lone Ranger.

"Casey, this is Rob. Rob, Casey."

Rob extended his hand for Casey and Casey took it and shook, glancing down at their hands and felt he had a marked lack of general butchness. Casey's pale, fine boned hand was nearly swallowed up in Rob's big bronze hand with it's callouses all over. Casey released Rob's hand.

"Nice to meet you," he said quietly.

--- --- ---

"So, Casey, I hear you work at the school paper," said Nell, passing him the plate of mashed potatoes. They were all converged around the table at the local steakhouse, eating and talking. All of Kit's friends were there and her parents as well. Casey smiled at Nell, who was sitting next to him.

"Yeah, that's right. I'm the photographer."

Nell smiled and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"That's neat. So do you get invited to all the staff parties and stuff like that?"

"Yeah, I do. But I don't go."

Nell looked at him, puzzled. "You don't? Why not?"

Casey shrugged nervously, hoping he hadn't strayed into a touchy subject. "It's not really my thing."

Nell smiled again. "Good. It's not my thing either."

Kit's other cousin Hailey, Hayden's sister, (whom Casey liked a whole lot more than Hayden) smiled benevolently at the little flock of teenagers. Kit had informed Casey on the ride over – in between kisses with The Lone Ranger- that now that Hailey was a sophomore in college, she felt that her former peer group were "such dear little children," and enjoyed staring off into space and sighing in the manner she thought would befit a "woman of the world." It took Kit a considerable long time to say this because she was kissing Rob every four point two seconds. Alec, one of "the gang" Casey had only met on the car ride over to the steakhouse, was seated on the other side of Nell and eating enough food that would – as Nell put it emphatically – feed a starving Middle-Eastern family for a month. Alec had short, bristly black hair and gray eyes.

"So how's school?" Kit asked, apparently to the whole table, but she was facing Rob. Nell reached over and grabbled Kit's face and turned it to face the rest of the table.

"We're over here, honey," said Nell wryly. Kit laughed in this way that Casey hadn't heard before and repeated her question.

"Better," said Nell, releasing Kit. Alec answered, his mouth full of food.

"It's shit."

Kit laughed. "It can not be worse than Herrington."

Casey had just put a forkful of steak in his mouth and he shook his head emphatically and swallowed.

"Herrington is, like, Latin for hell or something. I hate it."

Katie, silent until now, spoke up and said, "Mrs. Walden is loading us down with these awful assignments. It's awful. I have to finish a three page paper on Freud."

"Well," said Alec teasingly. "It's your fault. You just had to take psychology." He turned to Casey. "Katie here is going to be a shrink when she grows up so you better watch what you say. She'll psychobabble you to death."

"Hey!" said Katie in her soft voice. She was a petite Native American girl with her hair cut three inches long all over her head. "Alexander, you know that's not true. I only try to help people, not annoy them."

"Right," laughed Alec, winking at Casey. "Help people. Sure Katie." Casey had learned early on that Alec was definitely and original. An original what he wasn't quite sure, but an original just the same.

"So, Rob. How's the horses?" asked Kit. Alec answered for him, mocking.

"Bitching."

Rob laughed. "What he said."

Casey looked around at the table of all Kit's friends. He saw Kit lean lightly on Rob's shoulder, smiling softly, and realized exactly why Kit didn't like it at Herrington.

--- --- ---

10 p.m., Kit's bedroom.

Casey lay on the cot in Kit's bedroom, his eyes open, staring at the dark. He could just barely see the outline of Kit's bed a few feet away.

"Casey?" he heard her say softly. "Are you still awake?"

Casey's mouth suddenly went dry as he opened it to respond. "Yeah," he said, his voice cracking.

"I'm sorry," she said sleepily.

"What for?"

"I didn't pay much attention to you."

Casey let out a breath. "That's okay. Nell was pretty nice."

He could barely see her smile. "You like her?"

Casey shrugged. "Yeah. She's nice."

"You think I look like her?" asked Kit sleepily, stretching her arm up over her head languorously. Casey swallowed, the complete abandonment Kit had subjected him to that afternoon still smarting.

"I think she's prettier," he said boldly. Kit chuckled and rolled over on her back.

"I said I was sorry, didn't I?" she laughed, but then Casey saw she turned over and faced the wall, hunching her shoulders. Casey felt instant remorse. He was never one to insult people.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean it," he said, sitting halfway up and reaching across to put his hand on Kit's shoulder. She turned over and caught his hand and grinned.

"No damage. Go to sleep."

Casey lay back down but they kept their hands linked for a few more minutes, just understanding somehow, in the strange way that best friends often do. Just being there.

--- --- ---

Kit woke up at five a.m. She didn't know why. It had been a long time since she'd felt any sort of urge to skimp on her sleep. She figured it had something to do with the fact that she felt truly at home, and this was her normal home routine. She sat up in her bed and raked her fingers through her hair. She scrunched up her nose and yawned in a particularly catlike way. She looked down at the cot next to her bed. Casey was sprawled out on the mattress, the gingham sheets tangled around his slight frame. His hand was still hanging over the side of the cot. Kit reached over back to her bed and grabbed her pillow and straightened her pillowcase. She walked over to the other side of the room to her closet and opened the doors. She stepped inside and shut the door, talking no chances on Casey seeing her in the buff. She emerged a few minutes later in a flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped off and blue jeans. She snatched her boots off the ground and pulled them on with a pair of blue socks. Kit started to go into the hallway and then stopped and turned back to Casey's cot. She reached down and brushed the backs of her fingers across his cheek and down the side of his neck, stopping and giving his shoulder a soft squeeze. She laughed softly. He looked so innocent in sleep. Kit shook her head and headed out of the room, carefully shutting the door after her. A few minutes later she was cantering across the fields on her horse, headed towards the McKay ranch. Rob met her halfway. They got off their horses and tethered them by a stream. Kit stood on tiptoes to fling her arms around Rob's neck. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers and Kit forgot everything else in the world as a white-hot heat coursed through her veins, shaking her down to her toes. His arms wrapped around her securely. Nothing existed for Kit except the hard muscles of Rob's arms and the insistent pressure of his mouth on hers. She pulled her mouth away long enough to gasp, "God, I missed you."

Then he covered her mouth with his and she forgot about speaking, forgot about thinking, forgot about anything. A bubble of happiness filled in her chest and she felt like her lungs were swelling and overflowing with joy as Rob rained kisses on her face and trailed kisses down her neck like fireflies. The fireflies fluttered along her collarbone and then back up the side of her neck and along her jaw and then captured her lips again. Kit resisted the urge to rake her fingernails up and down Rob's back, but instead brought her hand up to the back of Rob's head, her fingers tangling in his longish black hair. She clung to him like she was drowning, kissing him for all she was worth. The sun rose over the grassy hills, illuminating the two figures and the horses nearby with a rosy glow. Kit didn't know how long they stayed that way but she did notice that as Rob and she reluctantly went their separate ways for breakfast, the sun was very bright and definitely risen, whereas it had not even begun to rise when she woke up.