AN: Thatn you all for the nice reviews! Hey, I forgot to mention that I was going on a week vaction but I return with a loooong part. Usually my chapters are about 6 pages on Word and this one is 13 pages. And not to mention, I think that this part fits the opening lyrics the best. Not to mention that this brings up more about the trial and stuff.

Oh, and it bugs me how when Marco was written 'gay' on the show, he lost his knowledge of sports. It was made like he only got the Leafs shirt to impress Dylan, yet he won tickets to them in "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". Meh, it has always bothered me.

And this part is the calm before the storm. Part 7 has always been the 'shit hits the fan' chapter. :P And a hint for the next part: A character will break a promise that is made in this chapter

Disclaimers: I don't own Degrassi: TNG and I don't really hate lawyers.

Part 6: Impressions
I knew how it felt to be another one in need
Of someone to show the way,
Until you saw a part of me, that nobody else could see
And my life hasn't been the same
- "Lucky"
"Yeah, I'm Dylan Michalchuk." Dylan stared at the dapperly dressed man standing on hisdoorstep.

Armed with a dark briefcase and an extended tape recorder, the man threw Dylan for a loop. Wasit some scout for hockey? A social worker for Marco? Some reporter? A guy about to announce that he had won a million dollars and there was some camera crew hidden behind his mother's rhododendrons?

"I am sure you are aware of the charges that your sister has placed on my client. I just need to ask you a few questions." he moved into Dylan's personal space, clearly wanting to be let inside the house. But he didn't budge from the door frame.

"Yeah, I know Paige has filed the rape charge. What does it have to do with me?" Dylan arched an eyebrow at the man, who had revealed himself to be this Dean guy's lawyer. He had instantly felt his body go cold at the mention of the events that had occurred last year to his sister. It wasn't something he liked to discuss, at least without hitting something.

"Well, as you know, the defense is entitled to a meeting with any witnesses that the prosecution
plans on calling." the man moved even closer to where Dylan stood, barring the entryway.

"Actually, I didn't know that." Dylan dead panned, not bothering to hide his dislike. "I didn't even
know that I was going to be a witness to this trial."

The man looked slightly smug at that admission. "Of course you are going to be called to testify. You're a character witness."

Dylan still didn't relent any space to the lawyer. "Are you suppose to be telling me this?"

Idly, Dylan noticed that the tape recorder had been recording the entire exchange. But the man didn't look perturbed by his rudeness, nor did Dylan really care that he was being rude. Any guy who was going to be defending that Bardell slime was worth a less than kind attitude.

"I'm just helping you understand. Now may we head inside so we can commence with questions?" The idiot moved even closer to Dylan. Now the dumb little tape recorder was pressing up against Dylan's chest.

"Fine." Dylan ground out and stepped aside so the other could enter. He shut the door and grumbled several choice phrases about the man in front of him. He experienced the strange sensation of following a complete stranger throughout his own house. It was such a mind tilting feeling.

The man, whom's name he had never caught, headed straight to the dinning room where the large oak table waited for them. Reaching a chair, the man sat down without so much an invitation from Dylan and proceeded to remove papers from his brief case and prop up his recorder.

Dylan slowly sank into the chair that was the farthest away from the annoying man. "So, there is one thing I want to know."

The man looked up from his business as if surprised that Dylan had the gall to ask him a question.

"And that is?"

Dylan leaned forward on his elbows to raise an eyebrow at the guy. "I'm still in high school, shouldn't a parent be present when you question me?"

The man had enough sense to look sheepish. "Uh," he stumbled. "Yeah, I've already talked to your father, he is on his way here right now. So we'll wait until he gets here."

Dylan fell back against his chair, not bothering to hide the smug look spreading across his face. "But you were just about to start anyway, without my dad being here." he pointed out with an air of triumph.

There was silence as Dylan gloated at the failed attempt to coerce him. Unfortunately the lawyer had been telling the truth when he had said that he called Mr. Michalchuk because not much longer than ten minutes of the stretching silence, the sound of the door opening was heard, followed by Mr. Michalchuk's voice.

"Dylan?"

"In the dining room , dad." Dylan raised his voice so it would carry. Mr. Michalchuk appeared in the archway to the dinning room, looking infinitely more warm in his suit than the creep that was sitting across from him.

"What's going on in here?" his father had the polite sense of puzzlement as he took in the lawyer sitting across from his oldest child. "Don't tell me you started without me?" his voice turned a little bit colder at the last question.

The still-nameless man was quick to respond in the negative. "Oh no, no sir. We were waiting for you."

Dylan watch his dad's eyebrow do that same twitch that Paige's eyebrow would do when she was really annoyed but didn't want to really show it. "Well lets get started, I don't want to make Dylan late for his evening hockey practice."

The lawyer nodded. "First question, Dylan. When did you learn about Ms. Michalchuk's alleged rape?"

Dylan tensed up at the guy's dismissive tone about his sister's rape. Of course he was going to say things like that, he reminded himself, he was defending the creep. "I heard about her rape," he put emphasis on the word rape with a little more anger than he intended. "about the same time, my parents did. It was right after she went to her first meeting with the school counselor."

"So she went to a stranger before her parents or brother?"

"She actually to her best friend first, then her friends encouraged her to talk to a professional. Ms. Suave then guided her to tell us."

"Would you say that Ms. Michalchuk is popular at school?"

Dylan rolled his eyes at the inane question. "I guess so, I mean sure. But it isn't like I hang out with her, she's a Grade 10 and I'm a Grade 12."

"So you guys aren't that close?"

"I wouldn't say that, I mean I still pull her hair and she still hides my hockey gear whenever we get mad at each other but that is normal sibling stuff. But we do know what is going on in each other's lives. I know her secrets and she knows mine."

"But you didn't know that she had been 'raped'?" the guy made a note on a legal pad, which didn't make much sense because he had that dumb recorder going.

"No she kept that one to herself. I have some stuff I haven't told her either." Dylan hoped that recorder didn't pick up the grinding of his teeth.

"Did you have any association with my client?"

"I knew of him from the rivalry between Degrassi and Bardell. Before I went to the Junior A Raiders, I played for Degrassi and he was on Bardell's team. So I played against him."

"You didn't like him?"

"I didn't give Dean a second thought before he raped my sister, but after? Yeah I think it is safe to say I don't like the bastard."

Dylan winced as his father shot him a look. It was getting kind of awkward answering these question with his dad sitting right next to him.

But the lawyer continued on.

If he had thought it was awkward before, he was floored by the next question.

"Is it true, that you are a homosexual?" the man's flippant tone did nothing to guise the shocking question.

"Wh-what?" Dylan stammered in surprise.

Mr. Michalchuk intervened then. "I don't think that has anything to do with my daughter's case."

"On the contrary. Your son's testimony is giving Ms. Michalchuk's background. Your son's sexuality, open sexuality I might add, affects your daughter's."

"What?" Dylan was still reeling.

"Answer the question." the lawyer tapped his pen against the legal pad.

Bastard. "Yeah. I'm gay."

The lawyer was merciless, "And do you have a partner?"

"'Partner'? You mean a boyfriend?" Dylan normally had a long fuse to get angry. But the appearance of this jerk and his offhanded way of handling Paige's trauma had set him on edge and now this, Dylan was definitely angry now.

"If you will." he motioned for Dylan to answer.

"Yeah, I do." sorta, he added in his head. Dylan tried to ignore the mildly surprised look that the answer earned from his father.

"Name please."

Dylan had enough. He stood and shoved his chair back. "I am not answering that!" he looked at his dad and pointed at the lawyer. "This is going too far! This isn't about me or Marco! This is about Paige and that fuck-tard that calls himself a man!"

His father raised his hands in a placating manner. "Dyl' please calm down."

The lawyer pounced on the name that Dylan had accidently dropped. "Marco?" he checked his notes that had appeared out of the brief case. "As in Marco del Rossi? One of Ms. Michalchuk's friends?"

Dylan turned and practically growled at the idiot. "Yeah." he spat. "But if you go near him I'll-" his threat was cut off as his father roughly pulled him down by his shoulder.

"Dylan, enough!" he ordered. To the lawyer, "Sir, I apologize, but this meeting is over."

The creep smiled insincerely at Dylan and calmly clicked off the tape recorder. "Yes, Mr. Michalchuk, Dylan, I too, believe that this interview is over."

Craig Manning sometimes couldn't believe that this was the same band (consisting of one Spinner Mason, one Jimmy Brooks, and one Marco del Rossi) that won the TO Sounds contest.

As he stood with his guitar slung around backwards on his should, he watched the other three practice the new cords for their new song. And practice was a liberal term.

Spinner was whacking away on the drums like if he hit the snare harder, then the beat would come out better. Jimmy was busy trying to make the smooth alternate rock chords on his own guitar turn out as hip hop as possible. While Marco was hunched over his bass on the ratty couch arm, not so much playing as idly plucking one note every five minutes or so, while staring off into the distance.

Of course Spinner and Jimmy's actions had reasons. Both of their respective girlfriends were sitting on the same couch that Marco occupied, supposedly listening to this crap that they were trying to pass off as music. So of course with females in the vicinity of them, Spinner and Jimmy went into super macho mode which, frankly, was annoying as hell.

"Guys!" he tried to get their attention. Spinner went on 'drumming', Jimmy went on rapping, Marco was spacing, and Paige and Hazel were discussing nail polish. This sucked. "Guys!!"

He got Jimmy's attention. "Dude?"

Craig let out a fairly loud growl. That got the rest of theirs. "This is not working!"

Spinner twirled a drumstick around in his hand and grinned his infamous lopsided grin, "What's not working, dude?"

"This!" Craig gestured. "No one has their mind on the song! We're going to be the only band that heads to a recording booth and not have anything to record!"

Marco sighed and leaned over his bass. "Look, Craig, why don't we just sing the song we won with? It is kind of expected."

Trust Marco to be damned logical. Craig set his guitar down and slumped down onto the concrete. "Look, I just can't sing that song again. It's like, too emotional, too raw or something."

"How sweet." Paige cut in, her voice softened. "But I understand."

Craig looked up. "You do?"

Paige stopped looking at her nails long enough to look up. "Like, yeah. Last year, Ash wrote a song, that I ended up preforming in a competition. We didn't win, but I don't think I can ever sing it again."

Craig looked at her thoughtfully as she exchanged a meaningful look with Hazel. Like how Marco had never truly came out to him, Paige had never truly told him what had happened to her last year. Spinner knew. Hazel knew. Ashley knew. But they had never told him. He had just gathered that it was pretty bad.

"Emotions make great songs, dude, but we need a song you can continue to sing over and over." Jimmy pointed out.

"I know, I know. And believe me, I am writing a good song."

"You just can't share it now, huh?" Spinner rolled his eyes. "Which probably means that you don't have any lyrics"

Craig groped for the nearest throwable object, which happened to be a basketball that Jimmy had brought over with him, and he heaved it at Spinner. Spinner, who was used to his object-throwing rage, ducked with precision only to emerge back up from behind the drum set laughing.

"Dude, you have the worst aim."

"Why don't you use the poem Marco wrote." Hazel tentatively asked.

Marco tensed over his bass and shot Hazel a slightly scared look. "Uh, my poem?"

She nodded, "Yeah the one you read in Kwan. It was really good. Emotional too."

Craig had to nod at her point. He had been really surprised that Marco had written such a good piece. Sure, he knew that he wrote plays and that sort of stuff, but Marco had always let Craig do the lyric thing.

But Marco was busy shaking his head. "No. Nu-uh. I am not letting any of you ever hear that again. I just should have told Ms. Kwan no."

Jimmy pressed on, getting into it. "C'mon, man, it was gold. We should try it."

Paige jumped in to defend Marco. "Hon, I don't think Marco's feelings needed to be exploited for TO."

Craig sighed and slumped back against the wall. "Fine, fine." he mumbled under his breath. "I guess I should write lyrics then, huh?"

"CRAIG!" everyone cried out.

"I thought you said you had some lyrics, dude!" Spinner cried out, launching a drumstick at Craig's head, which nearly hit him.

"I have some!" Craig tried to defend himself. "Okay, one line."

His band all looked slightly disgusted with him.

But before they could voice their disgust, a loud banging shook the door to the garage. Craig looked at the door in confusion. Everyone who ever came over, including Joey, would just walk in, so who was knocking?

Getting up, Craig opened the door.

Paige Michalchuk had been avoiding going home that afternoon. Going home meant facing her parents and her brother, and their worries about the impending trial and preparations.

So she followed her boyfriend to his band practice.

But her family had a way of stalking her.

Craig Manning opened the garage door to reveal her brother Dylan Michalchuk, looking very enraged. She hadn't seen him look so angry since she told him what had really happened the night she went to the party for Dean.

"Dylan?" she heard her surprised echoed in Marco del Rossi's voice. She didn't even realized he knew where Craig lived.

Dylan nodded to Craig and slightly pushed passed him, to meet Paige. Shooting an apologetic look at Marco and the rest of the band (plus Hazel) he pulled Paige aside to the corner and bent down to her level.

"I just got visited by none other than that bastard from Bardell's lawyer." Paige couldn't help but notice how angry her brother really was when he whispered those words. His hand was tight against her upper arm, his eyes were glowing (in a creepy alien-cat sorta way like that scary B-movie that Spinner made her watch), and there was a vein showing on his forehead.

Anger was not the best emotion for her brother.

But shock first.

"What? What did he want? Was he looking for me?" questions were running through her mind; she had set out to ignore this trial and it ended up following her brother.

"Actually, he wanted to talk to me." Dylan broke eye contact and glared a some spot above her head. "Yeah, he wanted to know if you told me about what had happened, how close we were, oh and if I was, in fact, gay and dating one of your friends."

"What?" she accidently exclaimed louder than she had intended. Throwing a quick glance at the rest of her friends, who were all pointedly ignoring the conversing siblings, she turned back to Dylan. "But why? What does that have to do with what is going on?"

Dylan slammed his other hand against the wall in a burst of frustration. "I don't really know. It is some ploy. I know it. They're going to use my sexuality against you, Paige, but I don't know how yet."

"How can that even work? It wasn't like Dean raped me," she took in a deep shuddering breath at that statement and noticed that Dylan tensed up at those words too, "it wasn't like he raped me because you're gay."

Dylan sighed and threw an unreadable look over at where Marco sat with his bass. "I know that. But, lawyers? They'd use information like that against you, even if it really has nothing to do with you." he gave that strange look again the direction of Marco. "And I think they are going to go after Marco too."

"Marco? Why him? I never told him!" it was true that the only people that she had told were Hazel, Ashley, Spinner (though it was Hazel that told him first), and JT. The others knew that something bad had happened, many putting two and two together, but never hearing it from her own mouth; Marco was one of those.

"It was a mistake, but I accidently said his name when the jerk was questioning me. He has like a list of your friends or something so he knew I was talking about a certain Del Rossi."

She was slightly confused. "How did he even come up in the conversation?"

"He asked if I had a boyfriend."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Something clicked. "Wait, if they talked to you, and probably will talk to Marco, then do you think that the will be talking with Spinner?"

Dylan paused to consider it. "I would think so. He is your boyfriend. I wouldn't be surprised if they would want to talk to Hazel or Ashley either. Anything to dig up dirt on you."

Paige groaned and rubbed at her eyes. "My lawyer said that it was going to be tough, but I don't think I want to deal with this anymore."

Dylan looked at her sadly, his earlier anger seemed to have dissipated. "I know. But things are going to work out and you'll get that bastard."

She nodded and they turned back to the rest of the group. "Sorry," she forced herself to smile to her friends, "Dylan had some news to tell me."

Craig nodded, "No problem. If you wanted to stay and listen to us play...then I'd have to warn you that you'd be sadly disappointed."

"Or you can give us more tickets to another hockey game." Jimmy grinned, showing that he was only kidding around. "Maybe we can finally get Marco to understand hockey."

Marco rolled his eyes and set his bass down on the ground. "Contrary to popular belief, I do know hockey."

Spinner didn't bother to hide his scoff.

"Remember, Grade 9, I kicked your asses in the break dancing competition, Vanilla Ice, Michael Jackson?" Marco stood up and crossed his arms. "I happened to win Leafs tickets remember?" he paused to roll his eyes again in disgust. "I'm not a complete girl."

"Dude, never said you were." Jimmy raised an eyebrow and Marco sudden abruptness.

Paige returned to her seat and watched Marco gather his school bags. Ever since he had turned up on their doorstep, he had been swinging between dark and darker moods. It was unnerving from someone who was usually so upbeat. But from experience, she knew that some things can totally change your outlook on life. For better or for worse.

Dylan stopped Marco's attempt to storm out. "Marco?" he asked softly.

"What?" Paige was surprised to hear the slightly childish sullen tone from Marco.

"What is wrong? They were just kidding around." Dylan gestured to Spinner and Jimmy who were looking at the two in pure confusion.

"What do you think?" he answered her brother's question with another question.

"You need to talk to someone about it, then!" Dylan still managed to bar Marco from exiting the garage. "You can't keep it all in; it is going to destroy you!"

Paige caught the exchanged looks that Craig, Spinner, Jimmy, and Hazel shared. Only Dylan, herself, her parents, and Ellie knew about Marco and his parents; she knew that there were going to be plenty of questions after all this. About Marco and her.

"What do you care?" Marco snapped, still trying to shove his way pass Dylan.

But Paige knew from growing up with him, that when Dylan wouldn't let you pass, you weren't going to be able to pass. He was a hockey player after all.

"Because you're my boyfriend, why else would you think I'd care?!" Dylan exploded. Paige froze as that information was revealed and judging by the looks on everyone's faces, they didn't know that bit about their friend.

Well, she didn't know they were either.

Now that she looked, Marco didn't look like he knew either.

Dylan continued on, "You, me. Talk. Now." with that he pulled Marco out of the garage.

With that sudden exit, the group stared at each other in shock.

Craig recovered first. "Uh. Didn't know they were actually together."

"I knew they went on a date, but..." Jimmy trailed off. He blinked and turned to Paige. "What's been going on?"

Paige sighed and shook her head. "I'm not supposed to talk about it."

"Why not?" Hazel asked.

"It's complicated." she looked over at Spinner and gave him the Look. She wanted to talk to him, to warn him about Dean's lawyer. Luckily, Spinner had been practicing on reading her many Looks. He got the meaning right away.

"Listen, guys, why don't we just end this practice. We lost our bassist and we don't even have lyrics." that last jab earned a glare from Craig as Spinner stood up from behind his drum set.

Everyone nodded and began to gather their stuff. Spinner moved to Paige's side and rest a hand on her elbow. "What's up?"

Paige shook her head, "Not here, outside." Spinner nodded and they both said their goodbyes to their friends and stepped outside. Still parked in front of Joey's house, was Dylan's car which meant that he and Marco were still talking. So they decided just to walk in the general direction of the Michalchuk house so not to run in on her brother's personal talk.

"Spin, you know what happened with me and Dean?"

Spinner's voice was hard. "Yeah.

"Yesterday, I got the word that my case going to trial." she looked at him through the corner of her eye. He was looking at the ground as they walked, with his hands in his pockets and the drumsticks sticking out his back ones.

"Really?"

She nodded. "Yeah, that was why Dylan came over. He had just been questioned by Dean's lawyer and he was worried about me."

"Why was Dylan questioned?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know really, but I think that they want to dig up bad stuff on me." she stopped walking and turned to Spinner. "Which is why I am worried about you."

Spinner raised an eyebrow and clicked his tongue ring. "Why me?"

"Because I think they are going to try and talk with you, get you to say stuff about me."

He shook his head and let out a light laugh. "No way. I wouldn't say anything bad about you."

"They can use anything against me." she moaned. "They got Dylan to admit that he was gay. I think they are going to use that against me!"

"I don't understand that." Spinner mumbled. But he shrugged it off and gathered her into his arms. "But don't worry. Nothing bad is going to happen. I'm here."

That was exactly what she wanted to hear.

Marco del Rossi was both violently pissed and floored by the 12th grader in front of him. Dylan Michalchuk had grabbed a hold of his wrist and dragged him around the back of Craig's garage into the slightly wooded area where he had once counseled Craig about the latter's writer's block.

He was pissed because Dylan wouldn't let him run away after his friend's teasing and his subsequent outburst.

And he was floored because in one comment, Dylan had cleared up all of his questions about what their relationship really was.

But he was still pretty pissed off.

"What the hell?" he turned on Dylan when they were well away from the garage.

"Look! Things are a little stressed right now, and they don't need your PMS!" Dylan snapped right back. "Plus I know that you have not yet even begun to deal with what went down with your parents and I know that you need to talk about it!"

"Oh and you are just the god damned expert aren't you, Michalchuk? You tell your parents that you're gay and they accept you with open arms." Marco pulled his hand out of Dylan's grasp.

It looked like the anger that Dylan had stormed in with was returning. "You weren't there when it did go down. They freaked. They're cool now, because they've had years to deal. Yours have had three days. Not to mention the religious background they have. Yes, the situations are different, but it was hard for me, because I was so close to my father before and when I had to tell him the truth, all those years that we had were gone in the instant that I said two words: 'I'm gay'" Dylan shook his head, "Things are only now just getting better."

Marco felt his anger leak away. He sighed, Dylan was right, they were two completely different people with completely different families. The Michalchuks were more open, liberal, and didn't base their thoughts on religion. His parents had grown up in Italy, in the heart of the Roman Catholic religion; their way was either conformed to or dropped. He had been dropped.

Maybe living in Canada had loosened them up a bit, so after cooling down period, they'd take him back, but that was a distant hope. One he didn't want to dwell on.

He felt Dylan pull him into a tight embrace and Marco buried his head into the folds of Dylan's windbreaker. When had he started crying? Suddenly it felt like all the feelings of hurt, anger, sadness, and depression hit at once and all he could do was break down.

Dylan was murmuring words that just didn't seem to make sense to him. But the sounds that he could make out over his own hitching breaths were comforting. So were the hands on his waist and back.

For all of his annoyance at the elder Michalchuk at the moment, his pushing was needed to make himself realize that he never really dealt.

Dylan let him cry for as long as he needed. It was only when he pulled back from Dylan's arms, that he notice that Dylan, too, had tears in his eyes.

"Dyl'? What's wrong?" he reached up and touched where a tear was making its way down Dylan's cheek. "Why are you crying?"

Dylan blinked and looked away for a second before looking back down at Marco. "It's just...today, a lawyer talked to me and you were brought up."

"A lawyer? Me?" he was confused. "Is it about my parents? Are they going to take me away from your home?"

"No, no. It was about Paige's rape case." Dylan sighed. "It was the defense lawyer and he was bugging me about you. I think he is going to try and ask you questions."

"Paige's rape?" confusion was building with each word. "What? Why?"

"Look, did you ever hear of some problems with a basketball player from Bardell named Dean?"

"Yeah, but I thought he just dumped her."

"No, he raped her. And she's taking him to court." Dylan's voice took on an incredibly cold tone that Marco had never heard before. "And now his lawyer is bothering me about being gay. And don't ask me why, because I don't have a clue."

"And you're upset." it was more of a statement than a question.

Dylan nodded. "It's just," he sighed again, "just that I know this is going to dredge up all this horrible feelings about my sister, about being who I am, and if that isn't enough, they are going to drag you into it and try to hurt you too."

"I'm going anywhere." Marco simply stated, staring at Dylan, whose blue eyes looked slightly surprised.

But the words seemed to work and Dylan seemed to relax. With a sweeping motion, Dylan scooped Marco back into his arms and tucked him under his chin.

"You're not going anywhere."

Marco felt sure of something for the first time in awhile.

"I'm not going anywhere."