Author's Note:
Sorry it took me so long to update this, but I've been busy with real life things (I'm starting a new job next week) and I've also been kinda obsessed with those other Joan/Adam stories of mine that play in the future. But I was a good girl (thanks for the nudge, Jane and Adam) and sat down last night to write that one scene for this story that was still missing for me to update the next chapter. Hopefully, I'll return to this story before long.

--...----...----...--

"Hey. You look... um... slightly scruffy this morning."

Adam frowned and very consciously used his fingers to comb through his hair as he looked at the person who had just been addressing him at his locker this morning. M.J. was giving him a once-over as Adam hurriedly threw things from his locker into his red knapsack.

"Overslept," he just stated tight-lipped, hoping that would explain it to M.J. and stop her from asking any more uncomfortable questions. He didn't exactly feel like talking to anyone this morning.

This day had started as bad as last night had ended. He had switched off his alarm clock groggily after the first few beeps and had, stupidly, fallen back into a light slumber. Half an hour later, he had awoken with a start, realizing that he should have gotten up a while ago and that he'd have to skip both shower and breakfast to make it to school on time. For a split second he had considered skipping first period, but then his conscience had gotten the better of him. Everything from then on had been a rush and he had just made it to his lockers in time for the bell to ring.

He had no idea why M.J. was still standing next to him, hovering nearby as if she wanted to keep him company, not caring if it would make her late for class. The bell had already rung and she had closed her locker minutes before, clearly already finished with it. As Adam slammed his locker shut maybe a little too forcefully, she asked, "Hey, you all right?"

He gave her a look of slight annoyance. "Yeah, I'm fine, yo," he said in a gruff tone that might have been more appropriate for one of Grace's comments. "Look, I'm gonna be late for History," he added before he rushed off.

M.J. was left standing in the hallway, staring after Adam with a puzzled look on her face. She removed her dark red toque and shook her head so that her dark brown ringlets seemed to bounce off her shoulders. Was it just her impression, or was something bothering Adam? Or was it something more innocent, like having gotten up on the wrong foot?

Everyone's entitled to having a bad day once in a while, she thought and shrugged it off with a shake of her head before she strolled in the direction of Calculus class, not particularly interested in the fact that she was now five minutes late.

--...----...----...--

History had been uneventful, if not slightly boring. Adam had tried to ignore the looks he got from his fellow students as he had burst into the classroom when Mr. Blake was already in full flight about thesecond World War. He had, however, not been able to avoid Joan's curious, yet somehow worried look lingering upon him as he mumbled something to his teacher about not hearing his alarm clock.

How was it that with a single glance, she could disarm and see right through him? How was it that it still affected him so much? He had looked down as to avoid Joan's gaze and had pretended for the rest of the lesson to not acknowledge that Joan was even there, trying to focus his attention on the particularly grueling time in 20th century history they were discussing. It took him the whole lesson to work the grogginess from oversleeping out of his system and get his mood up to not-snapping-at-everyone-who-dared-address-him level.

After the bell rung and students left the classroom, Adam watched Joan get up and sidle up to him almost casually. A part of him wanted to confide in her, but this morning he would rather not have to, having no idea how to explain his father's behavior last night or talk about anything related to it. When Joan approached him, her face still bore a tinge of concern. "Hey," she addressed him in the usual way. "Are you okay?"

Adam sighed. "I wish everyone would stop asking me that," he replied, maybe still a bit too abrasively.

Joan was taken aback. What was up with Adam? Last night he had grabbed her arm so hard, she had thought it must have left bruises. In the car, he had been even more taciturn than usual, now he was snapping at her again. Granted, it had been awkward when they had encountered a slightly drunk Mr. Rove on the front porch, but Joan hadn't thought much of it. She had seen her parents coming home drunk or tipsy on occasion as well. Now she wondered if there was more to it than what she had thought it to be.

Just as Joan was about to ponder how to best address this issue, she saw a teenage boy in a brown corduroy jacket through the open classroom door, standing in the school hallway, beckoning for her to join him with a mere look. Joan quickly looked at Adam. "I... I gotta go. I'll see you in English, right?"

Adam gave her an inscrutable but indifferent look. His voice was bitter. "Yeah, whatever."

It sent a tiny but sharp stab of pain to her heart to hear Adam so troubled, but when had he not been troubled lately? Sometimes she was sick of being caught in the middle of all this drama and misery and chaos. Sometimes she just wished for a life without love and hate and all the other messy stuff in between. Nevertheless, she left Adam standing in the classroom and went over to CuteBoy-God, who awaited her near the lockers.

"Gee, haven't seen you in a while," she greeted him.

"Why the sarcasm, Joan? In the bathroom, just the other week, weren't you asking for me to help you? Didn't you miss me?" CuteBoy-God retorted in a mock-cheerful voice.

"Yeah, I really miss the 'you-have-to-save-the-world' thing. Thanks, it really made my life a lot more enjoyable," Joan said, getting irritated. "Is this about Ryan? Because if it is, I'm not sure I there's any more I can do right now."

CuteBoy-God looked at her with a twinkle in his eye and so annoyingly didn't answer Joan's question, but instead uttered another one of his 'suggestions'. "I want you to help out your mother this weekend."

"Oh, you want me to help my mom, do you? Is there anything I should prepare for? You know, maybe bring spare fuses and a flashlight this time? And what do you mean, this weekend? Could you be any less specific?"

CuteBoy-God gave her an almost pitying look, but in a calm and very reassuring voice answered, "You'll know, Joan. And don't worry, this one should be easy. Consider it a vacation of sorts."

Joan's face relaxed somewhat. "A vacation," she muttered. "Yeah, I really need that. A vacation from my life."

Too cheerfully, God said, "I want you to remember one more thing: family is important. It's never too late to remember that. And be courteous to the old lady, Joan." With that he left and with the back of his hand to her, he gave her the little trademark God-wave.

"What do you mean?" Joan asked, but CuteBoy-God just went on walking. "What do you mean, be courteous?" she shouted after him.

God disappeared round the corner and Joan sighed and made it to English class. When she entered the classroom, she saw Adam talking to M.J., Adam sitting at his desk, M.J. half-sitting, half-leaning against it next to Adam. It took all the strength she had to not turn around and leave the room again.

Instead, she swallowed what felt like emotional bile rise in her throat and walked over to her desk, which was diagonally behind Adam's. She pretended to rummage around in her bag with her back towards them to better overhear their conversation.

"—that today," M.J. finished her sentence Joan hadn't heard the beginning of.

"Look, I'm sorry about this morning. Guess I'm kinda having a bad day," Adam apologized to M.J.

"Hey, no worries, forget about it. So, what are you up to this weekend?"

Joan gritted her teeth. They had known each other for barely a week, and now she was asking him out? Was she asking him out? Joan's knuckles went white as she gripped her worn leather pencil case. She thought she heard the plastic pencil sharpener inside crack.

Adam removed his hood from his head—something he did when he had or wanted someone's attention. "I still haven't decided what college to go to. I thought I'd drive out to Washington to have a look at the College of Arts and Sciences at UDC."

Joan almost let the pencil case drop onto her desk, but caught herself at the last minute. Why was he sharing this with M.J. first, and not with her?

"Washington D.C.?" she heard M.J. almost squeal. "That's so cool! Most of my relatives live in D.C., we lived there before we moved here. My Dad and I were gonna go get some of the last remaining stuff this weekend that we stored at my aunt's place. Hey, we could go together, wouldn't that be fun?"

Adam wasn't quite as enthusiastic. "I guess," he said tentatively, painfully aware now that Joan was listening to every word they were exchanging. "Look, I haven't really planned anything about the trip yet. Maybe we can talk about this later, all right?" he tried to evade.

"Yeah, okay," M.J. replied, still sounding zealous at the prospect, sitting down at the desk next to Adam.

Just as Adam was about to turn and look at Joan, Mrs. Brown entered the classroom and called for the students to focus their attention on Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights. Adam was following the task, but suddenly all he could think about was that one passage that he had stared at for an hour in the library, the one that, through Heathcliffe's voice, told him he had broken his own heart along with Joan's when he went to Bonnie.

All of the ugliness came rushing back to him and he didn't dare cast his look upon Joan now, afraid of seeing the contempt in her eyes. How was this ever going to be back to normal? He remembered normal. Vaguely. Not that he had ever felt truly normal or happy after his mother's death, but a certain amount of normalcy had returned eventually—at least before the Bonnie incident.

He tried to keep his mind off Bonnie and everything connected to her for the better part of English class. He had a trip to plan anyway, no matter if with or without Mary Jane.

It was then that he remembered pre-Bonnie Adam. He had to talk to Jane, had to ask her about the trip. It was bad enough that he hadn't told her about it yet in person. And if he could choose between Mary Jane and her, then there would be no question whom he'd pick. He decided he would talk to Jane first thing after English.

--...----...----...--

"Eww, and I thought creamed chicken was gross." Grace lifted a spoon of pea soup from her bowl and by tilting it, let the contents seep back into the bowl in blobs.

Joan and Grace were having lunch in the cafeteria, by themselves for a change. Luke, Friedman and Glynis had something to go over with Mrs. Lischak for an upcoming science project. After English class, Joan had managed to get out fast enough to escape having to subject herself to any more torture of seeing Adam with M.J., who had claimed his attention right after the lesson had finished. Joan hadn't missed him looking expectantly at her with that imploring intensity in his eyes that seemed to say "please talk to me", but she had chosen to ignore it and walked out without another word, meeting up with Grace for lunch.

"Yeah, sometimes I think they're just running big-scale endurance trials on the students, you know?" Joan replied just as disgusted.

Grace's face contorted in contempt. "Did you notice how they sold these unlabeled, white cartons with yoghurt or something the other week? I wonder what was in those. They probably installed hidden cameras in the bathrooms to monitor how many of us would get sick after having them. I made it a point to stay away from those. The cartons, I mean."

There was a silent pause after Grace finished talking, still absently stirring her pea soup. She looked up to see why Joan wasn't replying and followed her gaze to find it lingering upon Adam, who had just entered the cafeteria and was searching the tables as if he was looking for someone. When his gaze fell upon Joan, he came walking over to them.

Joan looked at Grace and sighed. Grace frowned. "Did I miss something? I thought you two were cool by now."

"We are," Joan said in frustration. "I mean... I don't know. It's just that—" But Joan couldn't finish the sentence because Adam had arrived at their table.

"Jane, I was looking everywhere for you." He walked around the table to sit down opposite Joan, who was trying hard not to look him in the eyes.

Defiantly, Joan lifted her head and said sarcastically, "Yeah, well, it's lunch break, so it's a real surprise that I would be in the cafeteria."

Adam's forehead wrinkled ever so slightly at Joan's snide remark. "Look, can we talk?" he demanded more than asked.

Grace was taking the hint and lifted her hands. "Okay, that's my cue, guys. You want privacy. I'm leaving."

Joan looked up at her almost pleadingly. Somehow she wasn't prepared to confront Adam again by herself. But Grace either didn't get Joan's silent request to stay, or chose to ignore it, because she said, "I wasn't gonna eat this anyway." She picked up her plastic tray and walked to the cart that carried the trays with dirty dishes.

Adam removed the toque from his head and kneaded it with his fingers on the table in front of him. "Jane," he began.

Joan had to swallow. That name in that voice still made her heart melt. She remembered someone once talking about speaking in a 'bedroom voice', and it had made her think immediately of Adam.

"I will be going to Washington this weekend," he finished the sentence.

"Yeah, I heard," Joan answered matter-of-factly. "With M.J., right?" She tried to make the question sound innocent, but didn't quite succeed.

"Yeah. I mean, maybe. I don't know. That's what I was going to ask you." He looked Joan in the eyes and met her gaze.

"What? If you can go with M.J.? Adam, I'm not your mother."

A shadow passed over Adam's face, and Joan immediately regretted her thoughtless comment, but didn't want to go further into it. "You don't have to ask me for permission with whom you spend your time."

"Yeah, it's not that. I mean... The other day, when I was at the mall with Mary Jane, you seemed—I don't know—jealous or something. And I want you to be okay with this, you know?" His voice sounded almost shy, as if he expected some sort of punishment for what he was saying.

Joan was touched, she couldn't believe it. Was this really Adam—the Adam that not so long ago had first hired Stevie as "assistant" to make her jealous, and then gone to sleep with Bonnie, both behind Joan's back? Wasn't this the Adam who had grabbed her arm and looked at her with that defiant, angry glint in his eyes the other night? Was this maybe becoming the Adam she could trust after all? Was this gonna be as innocent as Adam made it sound? Was she ready to trust him on that, that he wouldn't try anything around Mary Jane?

Adam's glance fixed upon his folded up toque in his hands as he went on, "I don't want to go with Mary Jane if you don't want me to. I can go some other time on my own." He paused, looking at Joan again. "I was going to ask you to come with me, you know?"

Joan's laugh almost sounded like a snort. Joan couldn't help it, she had to think of the last trip she and Adam had taken together. "Oh yeah? And we were going to stay in the camper, right? Adam, you know how that ended the last time, so I don't think so."

One look into his eyes as she said it made it want her to take it back almost immediately. Joan swallowed and tried to placate in a calmer tone, "I mean, I'm flattered and all, but I really don't think it's such a good idea."

He slowly nodded as Joan went on. "I'm not gonna pretend that I will be turning somersaults of happiness if you go with M.J., but... well... I can live with it. And even if I couldn't, that shouldn't be keeping you. We're not married or anything. You gotta start making your own decisions, Adam."

"I am," he said determinedly. And then, barely above a whisper, he added, "I just want you to approve of them."

"Since when are we back to endorsing each other's decisions? You didn't ask me when you went to Bonnie," Joan said disapprovingly and hated herself immediately. Where had that come from? She hadn't wanted to address the subject of Bonnie again, since that had become the universal killing blow to any of their conversations.

Ashamed, she looked down at her tray with half-finished mashed potato and meat loaf. "Sorry," she said meekly. "I didn't mean to bring that up again."

Adam tried not to wince as Joan said Bonnie's name, but she was right. He should have thought about what he was doing back then. He still didn't know why he hadn't, he was at a complete loss about how he could have been aware of what it would do to him and Joan and had still done it anyway. He decided to let her remark go and not comment on it.

After an uncomfortable pause of a few silent seconds, he said, "About the trip... Mary Jane offered to stay at her aunt's house. Her aunt is out of town and it would be a lot more comfortable to sleep there instead of the camper. Her dad will be there too."

"Sounds good to me," Joan said, trying to sound cheerful instead of jealous.

But Adam had obviously picked up on her hidden jealousy because he said, "Look, I'm not interested in her that way, Jane. She's just nice to hang around with. You sure you don't wanna come?"

Joan suddenly remembered the assignment God had given her. She had grown a bit weary of His assignments lately, but this one actually sounded like something a little less intense. "Yes, I'm sure. You go have fun with M.J.," Joan said neutrally. "Besides, I can't, I have something I gotta take care of this weekend."

"Oh, okay," Adam answered, not hiding his disappointment. He put on his toque again as he said, "So, we're cool, yo?"

"Yes, we're cool."

--...----...----...--