…………………

Fixing It

…………………

"So what's going on with you and Josie?"

Lucas looked up at his sister's question, slightly taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"Come on, I'm not blind. I've seen the way you look at her. And the awkwardness…" Lucy said in a teasing voice.

"Luce, just drop it. Okay?"

"Why? If you like her-" he slammed shut the book he had been reading and she stopped talking, "I do. But she doesn't. End of story. " He gathered up his stuff and stalked inside.

Lucy looked around the tables where the students were lounging outside. It was the fifth straight day of the unseasonable heat wave and it was much too hot o stay indoors or move around too much. Even with the air conditioning, it was still over a hundred degrees.

There was definitely something Lucas wasn't telling her. And that bothered her. Lucas had always told her everything. What about his liking this girl couldn't he tell her? It was obvious they were friends. He wasn't dating somebody else, so there was no guilt about liking her. She just didn't get it.

"You look like a young lady who's deep in thought." Professor Z said, setting a lemonade in front of her. "Anything in particular?"

He sat down on the bench across from her while she played with the straw in her glass. "It's Lucas. "

"You two have a fight?"

She smiled. "We almost never fight. And never about anything serious. But I asked him something today, and he just completely shut me out."

"Girl trouble?" he grinned.

"How did you know?"

"Because I've gotten to know Lucas pretty well, and I've noticed he only keeps quiet about things that are really personal to him."

"Like girls?"

"Like Josie." he clarified. "That is what you two were discussing, wasn't it?"

"You know?" she asked, surprised that a teacher would be up to date on his students' love lives.

"They're not exactly good at hiding it."

She sat up, now certain there was something she didn't know. "They?"

"Josie, Lucas, and Vaughn."

"Vaughn?"

"It's a long story." he said.

She scooted over toward him and folded her hands on the table in front of her. "I've got time. "

………………….

"Lucas." Lucy called down the hall.

He stopped and turned around to face her, looking like she was going to torture him.

"I'm sorry about before." she said sincerely.

He relaxed visibly. He had probably been terrified that she was going to start grilling him again. "It's okay."

"No it's not. You didn't want to talk about it, and I should have dropped it. But I love you so much, I can't stand that I can't fix this for you."

"The big sister curse." he smiled at her.

"Just let me rant about how blind she is to not see how great you are." Lucy said.

"Oh I'm sure she sees it," he told her with a touch of sadness in his voice, "but she just thinks Vaughn is…greater."

"Sixteen year old girls aren't necessarily the best judge of guys." She put her arm around his shoulders and they walked down the hall towards the cafeteria together.

"Says the girl who just broke up with the guy she was dating at sixteen a year ago." he replied.

"I never said we got smarter with age."

"I knew that."

She pushed him playfully. "At least I tried. We never would have gotten together at all if I hadn't made a move beyond the friend phase. It was hard, but worth it."

Lucas had stopped walking and she followed his eyes to a table in the back where Josie and Vaughn were sitting together, sharing to a walkman, very close together.

"Was there someone else?" Lucas asked her.

She shook her head sadly. "No, there wasn't."

…………………

Professor Z walked slowly down to the teacher's lounge. It was well past midnight, but the thermometer outside his window still read ninety-seven degrees. Unable to sleep, he decided to go to the teacher's lounge and grades some papers.

He was surprised to find Lucy there, staring glumly into a mug in his favorite chair by the window.

"Couldn't sleep?" she asked without looking up.

"How did you guess?"

She looked up at him with a small smile. "You're awake."

He chuckled. "Straight to the point. I like that."

"Anything in particular or just an insomniac?" she asked.

"I can't sleep when it's this hot." he replied. "You?"

"I was thinking about Lucas. I hate that I can't just fix this for him. I've always been able to make everything better. But this is different." she confessed. She laid down the book she had been reading earlier and rubbed her face with her hands distractedly.

"I understand how you feel." Z told her. "I don't have any siblings, but there are times I've wished I could change things for my students."

She smiled indulgently. "That's not exactly the same thing."

"No, it's not." he admitted.

"It's just that…after my parents split up, my mom moved away and Dad was working a lot, so I had to take care of him. I still feel like his protector in a way. Even though he's taller than me now."

"I can understand why you feel that way. But Lucas isn't a kid anymore." he sat papers on the small table between their chairs and took her hand. "You can't keep the bad things away from him forever."

"I know. I think I'm just overcompensating. When I came here, Lucas was only nine. So I couldn't be there as much as I wanted to."

He didn't really know how to respond to that. He just rubbed her hand soothingly until she pulled it away gently and went to get another cup of tea.

He picked up her book and skimmed it. Love poems. A few lines in he realized they were very…sexy love poems. He began to blush just reading them.

"You know what?" she said suddenly.

He took in the expression on her face. "I'm almost afraid to ask."

"I know why we can't sleep."

"Didn't we just go over that."

His voice sounded odd. She looked at his hand and then the blush staining his cheeks. "Are you okay?"

"Fine."

"You don't look fine. In fact, you look a little flushed." Her voice held a playful tone.

"It's almost a hundred degrees in here." he argued.

"That's not why you're so hot under the collar though, is it?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but couldn't really think of anything to say. She was right.

"Now I know this is a good idea." she skidded over and grabbed his hand, pulling him to his feet and out the door.

"What's a good idea?"

"We're too distracted to sleep. There's a pond in the woods about a half a mile from here. It'll be perfect."

"Perfect for what?" he stumbled slightly as she continued to pull him toward the faculty rooms.

"I can't fix Lucas's problem, but I can fix ours."

She came to a halt outside his room, three doors down from his, and released her hold on his wrist. "How?" he asked, dreading the answer due to the mischievous twinkle in her big green eyes.

"How would you feel about a little midnight swim?"