Thank you pixievix and sleepingbaby22 for the encouraging reviews, they helped me decide to post quicker than I would have otherwise.


I'm not a boy? Great way to state the obvious. Thought Caitlin incredulously. She stared at the blood covering her fingers and ran her tongue over her bloody, now punctured lip. She tasted the thick, tangy liquid.

"Ouch." She mumbled. She looked up at Eric's disappearing back.

Why'd he help me? She thought. He doesn't even really like me. In fact, scratch that. He's supposed to hate me. She heard footsteps and looked up to see Eric approaching, a red plastic box in his hands. He knelt on the ground in front of her, placing the box on the floor beside him. He lifted one hand to her face, tracing his thumb over a cut on her eyebrow.

"This from headbutting him?" He asked softly. Caitlin nodded, swallowing a lump which had risen in her throat from his touch.

Stop it Caitlin. She mentally chastised herself. He's being a Good Samaritan. Chill out. Eric turned to the box beside him, and undid the clasp which secured it. He touch out an antiseptic wipe and removed it from the paper wrapper.

"This might sting a little." He told her. He lifted the wipe and dabbed the scratch on her eyebrow. She winced and recoiled at the sharp pain which zigzagged across the cut in her skin.

"Ow." She muttered, biting back the little shriek which built in her throat.

"Sorry." Breathed Eric, pulling his hand back. "You okay?"

"It's nothing." Caitlin replied, clenching her teeth. Eric tossed the wipe into a nearby trash can and pulled a plaster from the first-aid box. He stuck it over the cut on her eyebrow and pulled back. He snorted with laughter and unsuccessfully tried to restrain a smile.

"What?" Asked Caitlin, mildly annoyed that he was laughing at her. Eric looked away, but couldn't help dragging his gaze back to the plaster on her eyebrow.

"You look… really stupid." He snorted. Catlin's eyes widened and she looked at him in disbelief.

"I've just been mugged by your friends… and you're laughing at me?" She stated in amazement. Eric looked at her, blood trickling from her lip, the plaster covering the scratch on her eyebrow and her hands… her hands were scratched and bleeding from scrabbling on the gravel, and they clutched her stomach where she had been kicked. The gravity of the situation kicked in.

"I'm sorry." He apologised. Caitlin, surprisingly, smiled.

"That's the second time you've apologised to me in five minutes." She croaked. "And you're the only one who most definitely didn't do anything wrong."

Eric looked away, embarrassed. He lifted his hand to scratch the back of his neck. Caitlin reached out, resting her hand on his immobile wrist. He looked up, meeting her eyes.

"You're amazing."

"What?" Asked Caitlin.

"Most people, guys as well as girls, would be crying if they had gone through what just happened to you." He removed his hand from the back of his neck, laying his arm on his crouching legs. Caitlin's hand didn't leave his wrist.

"I think we covered crying etiquette in the supply shed." She replied smoothly. A silence followed her words. The two just stared at each other, neither blinked nor looked away. Caitlin's brown eyes bored into Eric's blue eyes.

What the hell are you doing? Caitlin's dazed mind screamed at her. You hate him, you hate him, you hate him! A second voice suddenly piped up, smaller than the first. Quieter. Don't you?

A voice interrupted the silence.

"Caitlin? What are you doing in here?" Caitlin recognised the voice before she looked up. Brett. "Eric? What's happened?" The footsteps drew closer and Eric dragged his eyes away from Caitlin's.

"She got jumped." Eric said, looking at his friend. Caitlin finally turned around, looking over at Brett.

"By who?" Asked Brett, hurrying over to them.

"Mark Jefferson and Dan… someone." Replied Caitlin. Eric looked at Caitlin, noticing how she held her head high, despite the pain she was in that he knew was making her want to draw her knees up and curl into a ball. He himself had felt that pain when a manoeuvre had gone wrong in a football game, landing him on the floor and several feet in his gut. God he admired the girl.

"Dan Jones." He filled in. She looked over at him again, and something wrenched in Eric's stomach as those two brown eyes searched his face.

What is going on with you? He asked himself. Snap out of it. He turned back to Brett. "Should we call someone?"

"Maybe you should call Jim?" Brett suggested, addressing Caitlin.

"No." She spat, vehemently. At the look of surprise on the two boy's faces she shrugged. "I'll take care of this myself." She looked once more at Eric. "I'm not a squealer." He knew the significance of her words. He had said almost the same thing to her after he stole one of her poems for an English assignment. His stomach wrenched once more, this time with an uneasy feeling of guilt.

..
"I never figured you for a squealer!" "I didn't tell him."
..

"Caitlin." He whispered. "This isn't just some school assignment. This is assault. It's a crime." She looked at him, fire in her eyes.

"I said I'll deal with it myself." She repeated. Her voice low, showing there was to be no arguments with this decision.

"But…" Brett began.

"Are you deaf or just stupid?" She smouldered. "I'm not going to tell anyone, it's bad enough that you both know. I'll take care of it myself, I'm used to that." Eric softened, unable to not notice that her hand still lay limply on his wrist. She noticed his gaze, and Brett looked momentarily puzzled as she pulled her hand away.

"But you don't have to take care of it yourself." Eric reminded her. "You have us. Tell Jim, he can help."

"And then what?" She argued "He'll arrest two of the school's popular football players for me. Might even charge them with assault. And all the while everyone in the school will turn against me and make my life even more difficult than it already is. They probably won't even believe me; I mean come on, my word against theirs? Who would you believe if you weren't here?"

"But we were here." Brett argued back. "We'll stand up for you. They'll believe you if we say it's true."

"You really don't understand." She muttered. Looking Brett in the eye she forced herself to speak up and get her point across. "Even with you backing me, that won't stop people hating me." She turned to Eric. "You heard what Mark said, he said you'd regret helping me. Meaning that he'll take it out on you as well, and so would his friends if anything happens to him." Eric began to understand what she meant.

"We're big boys. We can take care of ourselves." He told her. Brett looked at Eric, snorting with laughter.

"What's so funny?" He asked, his lip curling in a mixture of confusion and irritation.

"I can't believe you actually just used the phrase 'We're big boys'. It just so…" He shrugged his shoulders, at a loss for words.

"Well when you say it like that it sounds wrong. But you know that's not what I meant!" Caitlin began to laugh silently and when Eric noticed her convulsions he leant back on his feet, raising his hands in an expression of exasperation.

"What I meant was their friends are our friends too. They don't scare me."

"And while that's admirable." Caitlin sneered, unable to contain her cynicism. "I'm not being responsible for you getting the shit kicked out of yourself. I can cope." Anger began to fill Eric, and he stood up.

"Fine. You cope. Fine with me. I obviously had nothing to do with this. I put my ass on the line for nothing! That's… just… whatever." He turned and began to walk away and Caitlin hurriedly scrambled to her feet.

"Eric wait!" She called out. He stopped but didn't turn around. His breathing was in short, angry bursts and he forced himself to calm down.

"Look Eric I appreciate what you did for me." She spoke quietly, trying to sooth him as Brett looked on, unsure how to react. "But this is between me and them. I know you risked yourself for me… and I… well thanks but you shouldn't involve yourself any more than necessary. I can take care of it." Eric shook his head.

"You're so stubborn!" He yelled angrily without turning around. "And if you're so sure you can look after yourself, go for it. I won't get in your way anymore." He stalked out of the locker room, slamming the door behind him.

"She wants to look after herself, she's got it." He muttered, kicking the gravel in the path. He paused when he came across her rucksack. It sat in his path where it had been dropped. For a moment he just stared at it. "Damn you Caitlin Seeger." He growled, leaning down and picking it up.


I hope you enjoyed! Please review and I'll get the next chapter out as soon as I can.