Disclaimer: Actually, I own a few characters already. I own Joshua, Greg, Mr. Puceton and a few more characters along the way. However, the C.B.T.D cast still belongs to the writers and creators and WB. These characters also belong to me: Kristy, Felicia and Mandy.

A/N: Since some people are insisting that I include their favorite characters, well, I'll just do that! Their plot is still in the process of planning, but do not fear, cos' there'll be more later! Special thanks to Nadiah, who helped me brainstorm the ideas for this chapter. Couldn't have done this without her and her persistent love of Charlie and the older characters. Million hugs to you!

Rating: PG-13. Just in case!

Reviewers: There are too many to note down, so, I'm just really grateful to all those who are reading this now. You guys are the best readers and reviewers that a fanfic author can ever get. I'm thankful for all the support you've given. Again, thanks for reading! ;p

The Split of the Dozen

By avren

8 Resistance is futile

Switching off the ignition, the engine died down and the humming ceased. Withdrawing the key from the ignition hole, Charlie got out of the weather beaten Chevy and slammed the door shut. He grabbed his backpack from the back seat before locking the doors and waited for Lorraine to do the same. Lorraine, in the meantime, was idly taking her own sweet time applying her probably tenth layer of lip-gloss and checking her reflection in the rearview mirror.

"C'mon Lori, could you hurry up? Why do you need to put all that gunk on your face? You already look beautiful even without the make-up." Charlie insisted as he leaned against the Chevy, watching her sister, still sitting in the car, now touching up on her hair. They were in the parking lot of their new school, Model West High School. There were students milling around, some getting out of their cars and bikes, couples managing mini make out sessions under the trees while waiting for the tardy bell to ring. Model West High School is basically a school for students from modern and rich families living in and around Forrest Central. Thus, there are many students who look like models - tall, pretty, handsome and all the other qualities that are usually associated with models. There are, however, a group of minorities, those that do not come from rich family background and do not have the looks or means to stay in the 'cool' club. Guess where WE belong? Charlie thought wryly to himself.

Lorraine huffed at him and quickly got out of the car and grabbed her satchel that was thrown in the back seat. Slamming the door shut, she said, "Even if I'm beautiful, those girls in the school are GORGEOUS! I'm nothing compared to them. Their skin is practically flawless! And they're almost perfect!" She sighed as she glanced at the tall pretty girls who were walking past and strode off towards the school's entrance, Charlie trailing behind. "Plus," she added, turning to Charlie when he managed to keep up with her strides, "They're tall and slender and they're practically living and breathing BARBIE DOLLS! They're totally popular and I'm totally a loser." She finished and her face look so down hearted that even Charlie felt sympathetic.

"Well," Charlie tried to comfort her. "At least you're real whereas they're totally plastic and I am really glad that I have you as my sister, not them." Lorraine managed a small smile at those words and looked at him gratefully.

"Well," she said, slipping an arm and giving him a half hug before releasing him, and continued, "I'm really glad that I have you as my brother. Even though you are as tall as those models and have to make me stretch my neck up just to talk to you face to face." She grumbled while Charlie just laughed light heartedly. He wrapped his right arm across her shoulders and returned her hug.

Releasing her, he added on, "And you're not a loser. Never ever think that. The Bakers are never losers. Except for me." He said indifferently and continued to walk towards the entrance. Lorraine stared at his back and it's now her turn to catch up with him. She gave a small jog just to catch up with his long legs and panted when she reached him.

"Charlie!" she called out and grabbed his back pack and turned him around to look down at her. "Why did you do that? Why did you comfort me only to put yourself down like that?"

"Let's just look at the facts shall we?" He said dryly, " I was kicked out of football last year and everyone in the football team hates me except for the water boy, and I'm nearly flunking my Advance Chemistry but I haven't told Mom and Dad about it and if I did, they'd probably ban me from going back to visit Beth, which, is four hours drive away from here and our relationship is strained enough as it is!" He managed without pausing to take a breath.

But before Lorraine had a chance to reply, they were interrupted by a deep leering voice that belongs to none other than Dean Padalecki, the pain in Charlie's ass. Both Charlie and Lorraine whirled around and glared at the intruder and his cronies, Marlin Hacker, Jody Street, his bimbo model girlfriend and two beefy looking guys that's also from Jaguars, the school's football team.

"Oooooohh…trouble in paradise? Or just in the farmland?" Dean leered, his cronies at the back sniggering with him.

"Oh shut up! Mind your own business!" Lorraine retorted and pulled Charlie away, before he managed to land a punch on Dean's face.

"Why, Charlie, you have your own little protector to defend for you. Is the big strong farm boy afraid to stand up for himself?" He jeered, looking at them with a devious smile on his face.

"Speak for yourself! Look at you. You need backup-" gesturing to the two beefy guys behind Dean, "- in case your scrawny little body can't win in a fight? How pathetic." Charlie lamented and scoffed back at him.

Dean's face scrunched in fury and growled. "Why you little-" He began but was cut off by Charlie.

"Whatever. I don't need this. I'm just wasting my time quarrelling with a bunch of fools who has nothing better to do than to make other people's life miserable. Get a life, why don't ya'?!" Charlie dismissed them dryly and urged Lorraine to continue walking, leaving a furious Dean and his comrades behind, spouting threats like 'You'd better watch out!' and 'You'd wish you never moved here Charlie Baker!'.

Luckily, the bell rang and they hurried inside the school, away from Dean and his gang, for now anyway, Charlie thought.

Lorraine glanced at him for a while with a sympathetic face and sighed, " Oh well, guess I'll see you after school then."

"Yeah, see ya," Charlie gave her a small smile and walked away from her, moving towards his own locker located further down the hallways. Lorraine just stared at his retreating back, shaking her head and moved towards her own locker, with thoughts swirling in her brain, thinking about her brother and trying to figure what was going on with him. I'll never understand him. She shook her head, clearing away the thoughts of the conflicts that her brother was going through and went about her first lesson of the day.

Meanwhile, Charlie was dragging his feet to his first lesson of the day, double period of Advance Chemistry. What a great subject to start off my terrible day, he thought dryly to himself. Entering the Chemistry laboratory that was located on the second floor of the Science building, he found most of his lab mates already seated and mildly chatting with one another and no teacher in sight. He made his way towards the back of the room, where his lab partner was sitting in her chair, scribbling something in her book.

"Hey Fern," he greeted when he reached their lab desks and went around to sit in his stool, on the left side of her.

Fern looked up upon his greeting and immediately gave him a smile, showing him her perfect set of white straight teeth, which was the result of two years of horrible braces and careful dieting. "Oh, hey Charlie," she replied. Today, she was wearing her sandy brown hair up as usual in her ponytail that bounced to and fro whenever she walked and was in her usual tees and jeans. Fern was not like the other girls in the school. She was not extremely conscious of how she looked; as long as she looked presentable and was comfortable in whatever that she was wearing. She wears a frameless pair of glasses and that gave her a sort of 'smart girl' vibe whenever anyone glanced at her. She's very friendly and helpful to anyone, even with those blonde bimbos that are usually mean to everyone.

"So, you look down in the dumps," Fern began, when she noticed his glum face that was void of the usual set of dimples and closed her notebook and turned towards him. "Care to share what's troubling your mind this morning?"

Charlie let out a long sigh and was about to answer when the clacking sounds of heels was heard; indicating that the teacher had arrived and the room fell silent as Dr. Melissa began her lesson.

Fern whispered," Well, maybe later then," giving him a comforting smile and turned towards the front to hear what Dr. Melissa was addressing to the class. Charlie just shrugged and also sat up to hear the announcements made that morning.

"And now, I'll be returning you back your test papers that you took last Friday. As always, there are failures," groans were heard around the lab and she continued, "and for those failures, there will be a makeup test coming up. If you fail to pass that makeup test, I'm afraid, I will have to call your parents and discuss whether you should continue taking this subject. This test will count into your final grades and if you do terribly for them, it will seriously affect your overall marks." She finished and went around, distributing back the papers to the respective students, commenting as she handed them out.

Charlie slumped forward and rested his forehead on the clean, spotless brown lab desk and muttered, "I've got a really bad feeling about this." Fern glanced at him and tried to cheer him up.

"Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm sure you'll do fine," she consoled but Charlie shook his head despairingly on the desk.

"I really doubt that I did well, least of all even pass that test. I didn't study for that cos' I went back to Midland to visit Beth." He muttered, his forehead still attached to the lab desktop. Finally, Dr. Melissa reached their table and shook her head when she handed Charlie his test paper.

"Charlie, I'm really disappointed in you. I thought you'd make the extra effort after you've failed the other test that you took and really study hard for this one. Looks like I was wrong. You have the potential but it just depends whether you make the extra effort to achieve it. Now, I really hope you'd work harder and try to at least study for the makeup test."

Charlie nodded his head and she continued. " If you fail again the makeup test, I'm afraid, I'm going to have to fail you for the overall as well and your parents need to be informed about this. And I'm sure you wouldn't want that, do you? And also, I know that you're a football player in the school team. And you know the policy here, if we find that your grades are degrading and the reason might be from football, I'm sorry to say that you'll have to be suspended from football too." Dr. Melissa warned firmly and turned towards Fern to give back her paper. "And as for you Fern, excellent work as usual!" She praised with a wide smile, making Fern's cheeks crimson with embarrassment of being praised in front of Charlie. Turning to the whole class, Dr. Melissa gathered everyone's attention. "And for everyone's info, Fern managed the top marks with a score of 97 for this test. And that proved to show that if anyone works hard and study as they're supposed to, they too, can get top marks like Fern's," she finished and patted Fern's shoulders, making her blush even more.

Some of the popular girls scoffed at Fern when Dr. Melissa had gone back to the front and began writing on the chalkboard, starting the lesson. One of them, a brunette bombshell, Hilary Manson, muttered loudly, "What a teacher's pet. So what is she got 97,she's just a nobody," she said snidely and turned back to her friends who were sniggering too.

Fern glanced at them, and heaved a long sigh. Now, it was Charlie's turn to comfort her. "Don't care about what they say. They're just a jealous bunch of cheerleaders. They just didn't want to admit that they only have looks but no brains."

Fern returned him a smile and said, "Nah, it's alright. They don't mean any harm." She put away her test papers inside her folder but Charlie halted her.

"No it's true. Just look at me. A jock with no brains. I totally fall under their category for sure," he sighed.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. I'm sure you can do well too. You do have potential, just like what Dr. Melissa said," she said. Suddenly, Charlie's expression changed and he sat up straight and turned towards her. Fern was startled by the sudden change of behavior and scrunched her eyebrow in confusion.

"Wait, you did get ninety-seven, didn't you?" Charlie asked, suddenly hopeful looking.

"Umm...yeah..why? Do you need to borrow them?" She asked, taking out the test papers again.

"Well, I was wondering," he said hesitantly, "Whether you could tutor me. Only for a few weeks, you know, for this makeup test. I'm really clueless about Advance Chemistry and I'm really in dire need of help. Please?" Charlie pleaded, giving her a hopeful looking face that was so totally adorable; it made Fern blush slightly just looking at him.

"Well, I don't see why not. Sure," she agreed, smiling back at him.

Charlie beamed at her and said, "That's great! So, can you come over to my house today? We can go over the test papers again before moving on to the topics covered by Dr. Melissa. And if you're worried of going home late, don't worry cos' I can give you a ride home after that." He asked, looking at her eagerly.

Fern pondered for a moment and said, "Well, you really want to start today? Hmm…okay sure. But I need to inform my parents that I'll be coming home late today first."

"That's swell. Thank you so much! You're a great lab partner Fern. I really owe you big time," Charlie stated.

"No problem. Glad I could help. C'mon, let's pay attention to Dr. Melissa." She urged and turned her attention to the board.

Charlie glanced sideways and mouthed, "Oh, so I'll meet you after school at the parking lot. You don't mind do you? I also need to pick up my siblings from their school."

"No problem, it'll be fun. I've never met your siblings before. It'll be refreshing!" Fern replied, eyes still on the front.

Charlie laughed softly, and said, "It'll be refreshing alright. You'd be thankful you've never had brothers and sisters like mine. Don't worry, you'll see. They're little scheming devils, especially my fifth sister, Sarah. She's the chief troublemaker. You'll see her later when we pick them up from school." Charlie warned, with a smile on his face.

Fern just laughed at his description of his siblings and just shook her head. "Fine then, like you said, we'll see." And they turned their attention to Dr. Melissa, who was starting with the day's topic, Organic Chemistry.

After school

Charlie tapped his foot on the pavement of the parking lot, whistling as he did so. Glancing at his Swatch, it read two fifty five. Crossing his arms in across his chest, he leaned back against the old, weather-beaten Chevy that was given by his parents on the day when they moved to the new house in Evanston. It was initially a bribe to make him less hostile about the moving and also, to allow him easy transportation when he needed to visit Beth back in Midland.

Beth, he mused to himself and let out a sigh. He leaned all the way back until he was lying across the front of his car and stared up into the sky. Things at first went pretty great between them despite Charlie having to move to their new home in Evanston. Beth was quite understanding about the whole situation and since Charlie visited often, there was no problem. But things were getting a bit strained these last few weeks. Beth seemed a bit distant whenever he called and when he visited, which was getting less frequent due to amounting workload in school, she seems reluctant to spend time with him and always give him the excuse that she's getting busy with schoolwork too. Sometimes, he noticed, she feels uneasy and uncomfortable around him when they cuddled in his car and seems a little distracted. I don't know what's going on with her and what she's thinking anymore.

Just then, his thoughts were interrupted by a sweet cheerful voice that belongs to none other than Fern.

"Penny for your thoughts?" She asked and went towards him. Charlie sat up and gave her a grin and shook his head at her.

"Nah, just daydreaming," he lied and got off the front of his car and went to open the doors of the Chevy.

"Anyway, I'm sorry if I kept you waiting. I was held back at my publications meeting just now," she apologized.

"That's alright. We still have to wait for Lorraine to come, and she's probably stuck in the bathroom, putting on her lip-gloss or something." Charlie assumed.

"Oh, that's right. I forgot that your sister is also in this school. She's the third child is it?" she asked.

"Yeah, the third one and the self-proclaimed fashion guru and hygiene officer in our house. She's totally into makeup and she's the one who always gets into quarrels with Sarah." Charlie explained and continued. "And those two are always at loggerheads. I guess, that's the fun part, being able to watch your siblings quarrel with each other," he laughed as he said that.

Fern also laughed along and added on, "Yeah, that's why I always envy big families. It bites not having anyone to fight with at home."

"You're an only child?" Charlie inquired.

"Nope. I have an older brother and we have our fights sometimes but that was a long time ago. He's already married now and has his own family. So, it's just me and my mom and dad at home. It's always quiet around the house, and I bet, it's unlike your house, where there are all sorts of action and fun going on all the time. You're so lucky. You'll never get lonely." She commented.

Charlie snorted at her last sentence. "Lucky? Yeah right. I never have any privacy even though I have my own room! They always try to listen in on my conversations and like you said, there's never a quiet moment in the house." He said exasperatedly. "Maybe we should switch families," he suggested, laughing slightly. Fern brightened up at the suggestion.

"Hey, I don't mind! I'd love to have that many brothers and sisters such as yours. But I don't think that will ever happen." She sighed and continued, "I just have to deal with mine and you just have to bear with yours."

They didn't notice that Lorraine had approached the car and was curiously standing a few feet away from them, listening on their conversation. She then decided to make her presence known, which startled the two teenagers.

"Hey you guys!" she shouted, making both Charlie and Fern jump up in surprise. They turned towards her and she grinned at them. "So, were you guys having fun waiting for me?"

"Lorraine! Don't frighten people like that! And when did you arrive? And what took you so long?" Charlie bombarded her with questions, while Fern just laughed.

"Whoa! Hold back the fire chief! Too many questions there." Lorraine said, eyes widened at the list of questions fired at her. "Anyway, who cares where I was, let's just go, okay?" she urged, getting into the back seat of the car. Charlie just shook her head at her and motioned for Fern to get in the front seat.

"Oh, and Lorraine, I forgot to introduce to you. This is Fern. She's my Advance Chemistry lab partner. She's tutoring me for a make-up test. " Charlie explained.

"Hi Lorraine," Fern smiled, turning her head around from the front seat so that she was facing Lorraine. "It's nice to finally meet you. He's told me some stuff about you."

"He did? What stuff did he told you about me?" Lorraine asked, curiosity displayed all on her face.

"Oh, just some good things," Fern fibbed; to prevent a sibling quarrel brewing if she told her the truth that Charlie had told her. Charlie mouthed 'Thanks' discreetly to her and she just smiled in return.

"Anyway," Charlie changed the subject and continued, "we'd better get moving or else Sarah, Jake and Henry might think that we'd forgotten about them."

"Fine, " Lorraine said and shut the door close.

They then sped towards their younger sibling's school to pick Sarah, Jake and Henry up. Neither did they know, that the secret that their younger siblings share, might make a drastic change in their lives, in the time to come.

TBC