Author's Note I forgot the disclaimer before. I don't own Joan of Arcadia or any of the characters. I just love playing in the fairy-tale playground of Luke and Grace!

This chapter references the notorious geode-giving scene. I had to watch the scene over and over to get this down. Yeah, I know, it's tough watching these two, but I lived somehow.

I have Silence now, yay!! I'll try to get that part up in the next few days. I had planned on posting them together, but I need a break from writing for a while. This is the first thing I've written and posted within a single day, which means I haven't mulled it over as long as I usually do. Hopefully, it's OK.

Unbidden Delight

"Hey, geek." I said as we met in the hall to study for the Chemistry test.

"Grace," He greeted, "Have you seen Adam or Joan?"

"Uh, I think Joan might be looking for something to give Adam, for some inexplicable reason." I had a suspicion what the "gift" was going to be, but it's not like I was going to tell that to her brother. All I need is a freaked-out geek on my hands. Better for him to think that the gift would be an actual thing "I think this whole gift giving thing is just a merchandising ploy to keep the capitalism machine moving."

"I don't know," he hedged, as though he thought there might be something to the boyfriend/girlfriend gift-giving idea. We were stopped at his locker, and his back was turned to me.

"You got something for Glynis? You guys were together for what, like, 3 weeks?" It was longer than that. Closer to 2 months, although that is not something I kept track of.

"No," He said, turning to me. "I thought about it. Getting her Richard Fineman's lectures on Physics, but it just seemed so..."

Richard Fineman's lectures on Physics? Boy, this guy knew how to be romantic. "Lame?" I offered, highly amused.

He offered a small shrug and looked at me, sheepishly. "Yeah."

As we continued walking to the study hall, I couldn't help the smile that tugged lightly on my lips. Once he and Glynis started dating, we'd fallen into a safe, comfortable quasi-friendship. He, along with his sister and Rove, was one of the few people I could stand being with. He was nothing like Friedman, and although I knew they hung out together like some kind of geek duo, he could hold an intelligent conversation without making stupid innuendos every 5 seconds. He was with Glynis too long to be carrying any previous torches, so I wasn't concerned about remaining friends once they broke up.

"I don't know," he continued, "A gift should just happen, shouldn't it?" I turned and waited for him to continue, mildly interested in where he was going with this. "If you think too much, then..." He gestured helplessly, and shook his head in resignation "Forget it."

It wasn't like him to ramble on about something that had nothing to do with science. My curiosity piqued, I watched as he turned and walked into the classroom, then followed him and joined him at a table.

"You were getting all poetic there for a minute, Spock."

"No, it's......you know," he shrugged.

I knew he wanted to drop it, and usually, I wouldn't be much interested any. But I was sort of humored by his nervousness, and couldn't let it drop. "Actually, no."

"I mean, haven't you ever walked by something, and gotten the feeling that someone you knew would absolutely love it?"

My eyes narrowed at him, as realization dawned. "Are you interested in somebody else, already?" Suddenly, this wasn't as amusing.

"I'm just having a theoretical discussion." He muttered, avoiding my gaze.

"So there is somebody?" This guy's interests went from girl to girl to girl faster than I could find a new authority figure to subvert. It was typical 15-year-old, male behavior I guessed, but for some reason, I'd expected differently from him.

"Guys should be sprayed down with could water every hour," I declared, flipping through my Chem notes.

"Maybe we should study later, when Adam and Joan are here. They're going to get so far behind." He suggested.

"They knew we were meeting, if their thing is getting so hot that they want to blow finals." Waiting for Joan to be where she had said she would be was, I had learned, a futile exercise.

"What?"

"What, what?" I asked, realizing my mistake. How was I gonna out of this one?

"They're getting hot? How hot?"

"OK, take a nap, I'm not going there." It's not often that I say things I don't mean to say, and it was vaguely unnerving that I'd been thrown enough to let this information slip.

"I think you just did," he countered. Of course he understood my full meaning.

Pushing everything else to the back of my mind, I concentrated on damage control, which entailed swearing him to confidentiality, and making sure he didn't wig out because of his sister. His concern for Joan was refreshing, even if it was a little chauvinistic, and I couldn't help but consider it further proof that he was at least half-way decent.

Thinking that we had dealt with all immediate crises, I watched as he reached into his backpack, and drew out a large stone. The light, smooth surface on its outside contrasted with the darker shade in it's cavity, where flecks shimmered as it caught the light.

I looked up at him. He didn't meet my eyes, but pressed the stone towards me. I gingerly took it from his hands, and slowly turned it over in my own, as I began to understand. So, his interest went from girl, to girl...back to...the first girl?

Oh.

"OK, dude, this is just weird." I told him, wondering why I was unable to keep myself from grinning like an idiot.

"I know," he said, looking at me. "I don't care." And I believed him. I got the impression that he had fully expected me to laugh out loud in his face, but had gone ahead and gave me the stone, anyway. The thing was, I didn't feel at all like laughing at him.

Biting my lip, I turned my attention to my Chemistry notes, hoping that once we focused on the reason we were meeting, the awkwardness would subside. "OK...Exchange reactions."

As he began to give his answer, he slipped back into the science geek and was caught up in describing how solutions of ionic compounds are mixed, that cations of one encounter the anions of another. I looked at him, and couldn't help but smile as he began to ramble, giving far more information than I'm sure Lischak ever gave us in class.