Disclamer in chapter 1.
Aftershocks
by Smittysgirl
Chapter 3
She'd somehow managed to pull herself back together before class, and quickly foisted a pop quiz on her charges to avoid needing to think. Tori figured her future self would resent needing to grade that many students, but at least it got her ass out of the open flame.
What was it Cam wanted from her? How could he expect her to deal with all this at once? No, that wasn't being fair. She'd been the one to press the issue. Cam had never been anything but a gentleman to her.
Cam had never been anything but a gentleman to her.
She'd always thought that she'd been close to Blake. That Cam had thought of her as an inferior student. Obviously not.
Or maybe he'd begun to think of her that way after he'd become a Ranger. It must have happened after Mr. Ratwell, must have started at that point.
Was he right? How would she have handled it if she'd been made aware after Ratwell what he felt for her? Dismissed it? Avoided him entirely? She already made sure to keep him far enough away from her own friends in a social setting.
She'd told herself that she hadn't wanted her parents to get word of Cam and go ballistic. And she was in love with Blake, or she'd thought so, at least. War made you do some pretty weird things.
In the deepest part of her, Tori knew Cam was right. She would have never accepted his feelings as genuine. Their relationship was great up until a point. They never would have met outside of the academy. Maybe that was what made her put a wall between them - it was too easy to see Cam as an extension of her life as a Ninja.
But what does it mean when you admit that's the only way you've come to define yourself?
She had to get out of there. Leave the Academy. Cam was right. She didn't want to turn into him. Didn't want to deal with this.
With a scream, she fired a stapler across the empty classroom. "GODDAMMIT!"
"Tor?" Shane said, peeking in the door.
She yelped, looking up from her desk forcing a smile. "Shane! Hi! How was drunken debachery?"
"Dustin and I had a good time," Shane said. He folded his arms, looking impressive in teaching robes. "What's wrong, Tori?"
"Wrong? Nothing's the -"
In their dozen years as friends, Shane Clarke had developed an uncanny ability to cut through whatever BS she had constructed around her. Most of the time it was a charming sign of their closeness. Now Tori found it exhausting.
"Tori, I've been your friend since Elementary school, been your teammate and leader since high school, and a fellow teacher for two years. You can't tell me that throwing a stapler across the room is normal behavior for you."
She knew right then she had to talk to someone about this or else she'd explode. "All right. But if I tell this to you, you can't let another soul know. Ever. Especially not Sensei."
Something about the desperation in her voice made Shane pause. "All right. How about we go to the lake? I don't have any classes right now."
"Thank you," she beamed.
"So that's what happened," Tori finished sometime later as they sat in their old uniforms at the lake.
Shane leaned back on his elbows, watching clouds drift across the sky. "I wish I knew what to say right now. I never would have expected this from Cam."
"Yeah," Tori said. "I mean, given how he was when we joined... I just don't know, Shane. I don't know what to do. I don't even know who I'm in love with, or whose in love with me!"
"Leaving the academy seems a bit harsh. Please tell me you're not seriously considering that."
"I might be," Tori said. "I'm not running away, Shane. It's just maybe ... maybe Cam was right. Maybe I need to get away from here before I completely forget who I am."
Shane sighed. "Sometimes, Tor? I wonder if any of us knew who we were before we became Rangers."
"Did we know who we were after becoming Rangers? Have you talked with Porter or your folks lately, Shane?"
"Yeah, I had lunch with Porter last week. My parents..." he sighed. "My parents expected more of me than this, but we were drifting apart before I was chosen. If they can't respect the choices I've made with my life, then this was going to happen whether I became ninja or not."
Tori's mouth quirked up into a grim grin. "Licensed ninja. Not exactly something you can put on a resume in the outside world."
"Yeah, but it looks so good for a government job," he beamed. "I'd really like to go somewhere because of what we've done, Tor. That doesn't mean I don't still skate, and that doesn't mean I don't love my family. It does mean I don't blame being a Ranger for my life changing. Seems to me this is all a nice little scapegoat to avoid having to deal with the real issue."
"What? Having a life?" Tori countered.
"I want you to consider something. Let's just say you hadn't accepted the position at the academy. Are you going to sign up for Factory Blue? Become a moto deadhead, following the tour all around the country? Are you going to go on to college, slowly pushing the rest of us out of your life because you can't stand what we remind you of?"
"Going to college wouldn't mean I'd lose you guys... or I hope not. I just... I've been so absorbed with rebuilding and teaching at the Academy that I haven't realized I need to go on."
"Who said they had to be mutually exclusive? Dustin's doing great for himself. And he still manages to handle a heavier workload then either of us. Torm I'm certainly not about to recommend you go falling into Cam's arms, but isn't this exactly what he said you'd do?"
Tori got up and kicked a rock viciously into the lake. "I don't want to deal with Cam right now."
"You take a sabbatical. You've earned it. Screw your head on straight. Go visit Blake, if that's what it you really need." He fell back into the sand with a practiced grace. "You're so wound right now there's nothing else you can really do."
"And how do I explain to Sensei...."
"Let me worry about that. Don't worry, I'm an artful liar."
Tori shook her head. "When did you get this way, anyway? The guy I remember was way too hot-headed to keep dispensing reliable advice like this."
Shane smirked. "It comes with the red uniform."
"You mean it came from you getting whupped a lot," Tori said, a genuine smile starting on her face.
"Cam?" Shane coming up to him between classes wasn't a good thing. Not with the look in the younger teacher's eyes. Sometimes Cam swore that Shane forgot he wasn't the team leader any more.
Better to get the inevitible beating over with. "Something bothering you?"
"Tori." Shane said.
Cam sighed, dropping his arms to his sidees. "If you want to start hitting me, feel free."
"Dude, I didn't come here to hit you," Shane said. "I just want to know why she started tossing staplers across the classroom."
"Because she wants to murder me in my sleep." Cam abesently cleaned his classes on a shirt tail. "Sorry if I snapped, but I figured she'd sent you to soften me up."
"No." Shane said. "I talked to her, but she wasn't making much sense. However, I did figure out it somehow involved you. What's going on?"
"Tori found out I care for her, and this led to an altercation. We both said some - strong things."
"I kind of guessed that," Shane said wryly. "She wants to leave the Academy."
Cam swallowed. "We'd talked about that before ... before she found out how I felt. I actually advised her to leave, if it was what made her happy."
"But you're not happy about it," Shane said softly. He leaned against the doorway. "Cam, why didn't you say anything earlier? About how you felt?"
"Pedophilia carries a long jail sentence, Shane."
"You can be in love without having sex," Shane pointed out.
Cam looked at the students dispersing outside and hoped no one was eager to chat with them. "You know what I mean. The stigma. The fact that I never really stood a chance with her."
"Because of Blake? Or because you couldn't bring yourself to deal with us?"
"A little of both, I suppose." His eyes took on a faraway look. "Shane, I think you'll agree with me Tori is boundless. She'll transcend either of us. Our strengths, our weaknesses, she's just... more."
"Cam, I know you feel something for her. But she's Blake's girlfriend."
"Then you understand why I never said anything."
Shane ran his fingers through his short hair. "Hell of a time for the two of you to have a crisis."
"I am truly sorry for this. I never meant to hurt anyone."
"I know," Shane said quietly. "Cam? I know she and Blake haven't been close lately. Just be careful with this."
Cam wiped his glasses again. "Would you be terribly offended if I asked when you got so good at this sort of thing?"
"Dealing with begining wind students for two years. Your cousin Marah, for example."
"Well, I always said you were an -" He choked. "God, I really am an ass. How did you people ever put up with me?"
"Sensei and a lot of patience. You kinda got better after you got to be a Rangrs."
"I'm a child who needed a nook to stop crying. Joy." Cam looked around them for a moment before raising his voice again. "Do you want to get outside for a while? All the sudden the walls seem a bit close for me."
"Sure," Shane said. "Let's go by the fountain." He wondered if he should start a counciling service for other Rangers.
Blake Bradley wasn't a person prone to deep introspection or long periods of self-examination. He spent too much time circimnavsgating his brother through his psychoses to worry that much about his own problems.
As such it came as an absolute surprise to him when his theoretical girlfriend appeared outside the Factory Blue dorms and demanded to be let in after hours.
"Tori? Are you all right?" he asked. If one of the others had been in trouble, well, everybody knew how to use the telephone. Therefor something had to be wrong with her.
Her eyes darted around the dormotories. "I'll be fine just as soon as you let me in before someone sees. I never took the stealthy assassin extension course, Blake!"
"Oh. Right." Blake led her through the gate and into his dorm. He was suddenly grateful for his private room.
As soon as he locked the door to his apartment, Tori pushed him up against the wall, her expression severe. "I'm just going to ask you this question once, and then everything will be a lot simpler for the both of us, all right?"
"Um, Tor... l'mee breathe first."
She let go, her eyes widening. "Oh. Sorry."
Blake took a deep breath. "What is it?"
"Do we have a future together? A life, a marriage, kids, a crippling mortgage, a transfer to an equally paying job within the company that requires we move to Raleigh."
"I... what in the heck's going on, Tori?"
"I've been forced to confront some harsh truths about myself, and I'm not in the mood for fucking around! I think I might have just squandered several years of my life with this ninja bullshit, and I need to know I got something REAL out of it."
Something in her eyes, the total desperation like he'd only seen before in caged animals, convinced Blake this was something more than the drunken ramblings of a young girl. That, and the conspicuous lack of alcohol on her breath.
It was the moment where one had to curse, if only inwardly. "Tori, I love you. I know we can't be together, but... are you leaving the Academy?"
"I don't... I... I love you too, Blake. I know we never really said it until you were gone, but I really... I just had to think at the time that there was..."
She collapsed in a heap on the floor, sobbing. Blake held her. "What?"
"What are we? What is... This? Are we friends who are just comfortable with each other? I love you, and I know I love you, and I say I love you, but... what is that, Blake? Is that what my parents felt for each other when they met? What about my sister and her first husband? What are we supposed to BE at this age, with these lives?"
He rubbed her back as the sobs racked her thin frame. "Tori, I don't know what to tell you. I just know that when I'm with you, I know there's something just and decent in the in the world. I know that whatever force that would allow you to exist in this universe must be a wonderful thing."
"But... can our love hold, with me at the Academy and you out on tour? I mean, you don't call me, Blake! You just send me a postcard or two. I talk more to Hunter than I do to you. YOU talk to Hunter more than you do to me."
He sighed. "I guess that's the difference between how we regard love. To me love isn't something that has to be spoken. It's just known. People don't really leave you until they choose to leave you, and make it known. That's what I had to believe, after I lost my parents. I don't have it in me to give the kind of love you need to anyone other than Hunter. I love my brother, but some days I'm running on fumes after we talk. I give him everything racing doesn't take."
"Then I guess it's over," Tori said, surprising herself with how deadly calm she felt. He didn't have to know about her tumble in the bed with Cam. He didn't have to know about her. She could leave the Academy permanently and go on with her life. Make up for the waste of nearly five years of her life.
He looked at her in confusion. "Tori?"
"I'm leaving the Academy, Blake. And..." she paused, not sure how to say what she wanted to say. Somehow it seemed easier on the trip up to see him.
Blake fought back the hurt and confusion he knew was struggling to get out. "And?"
"I'm sorry, Blake." That was all she could get out. She was pissed; she was tired. She wanted to hit something, just like Cam had that morning after they'd ended up in bed together. This was a mistake. Remaining at the Academy was a mistake. She wasn't going to be able to get on with her life until she left all of it behind.
