Disclaimers -- I don't own any of these characters.

a/n -- Again, a big thank you to everyone who R/R-ed the first couple of chapters. I'm definitely feeling inspired.

- x -

Mondays always felt like a cold, hard slap in the face, but on this particular Monday, Ellie felt even more unprepared for the week ahead. The weekend had been too short, really, but also somewhat unsettling, and she wished that she had another day or so to process all the things going through her head.

Before first bell, she stood at her locker with Ashley, putting away her books. Maybe it was just the funk that Ellie was in, but everyone around her seemed especially cheerful. Even Ash was in a good mood, humming some catchy tune as she unpacked her book bag. It was almost sickening, Ellie thought.

Across the hall, Spinner and Jimmy were reenacting scenes from some big-budget action adventure movie they'd seen over the weekend. They looked like idiots but didn't seem to have a clue. Craig watched them for a moment as he passed, apparently coming to the same conclusion that Ellie had because he shook his head at them like they were incredibly stupid and immature.

When he walked by Ellie's locker, he gave her a strange smile, something between nervous and goofy, and turned the corner toward the library.

"I almost forgot to tell you," she said to Ashley after he was gone. "But I think your loser of an ex-boyfriend is stalking me."

Ashley looked up, confused. "Craig?"

"That's the one. He came into the gym the other day when I was working on our new song and he couldn't stop telling me how great it was, what a fabulous guitar player I am. Bascially that the sun and moon and stars revolved around me."

Ashley frowned. "Maybe you're next on his list. You know, in his plan to screw over every girl at Degrassi."

"I don't think so," Ellie said. "You know what this is about, right?"

Ash leaned back against her locker, lost in thought for a moment. Finally, she turned to Ellie and shook her head.

"He thinks that if he's nice to me, if he keeps showering me with compliments, then I'll persuade you to forgive him and he can stop feeling so bad about himself."

Ellie and Ashley shared a meaningful look. Then, in unison, they laughed, "Ain't gonna happen."

Maybe this week wouldn't be so bad, Ellie thought. She was starting to feel better already. She glanced down the hallway for a moment, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sean as he walked passed. He smiled at her, and waved quickly, but didn't stop to talk. Ellie sighed, and went back to putting her books away.

"Trouble in paradise?" Ashley asked. There wasn't any malice in her voice, just friendly concern.

"Not really. It's just… there's something going on with Sean, and I can't figure out what it is."

"What does he say?"

"That's the problem," Ellie said. "He won't say."

She closed her locker, and smiled at Ashley.

"I shouldn't complain, really. We hung out all weekend, and it was great. Really great."

She remembered Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning – there were quite a few fond memories involving Sean's couch. Certainly nothing to get angsty about.

Ash tilted her head, waiting for her to continue.

"But the minute I try to ask him what's going on, he gets all quiet, and tells me that's it's just school. That he hasn't been doing well lately. I've seen him fail tests before, Ash. He never took it this hard."

Ashley shrugged. "Guys are strange, strange creatures," she said. She pointed across the hall to Spinner and Jimmy, who were now in the middle of a contest to see who could stuff the most Oreos in his mouth at once. "They are impossible to figure out."

Ellie frowned, not entirely convinced. "I guess so."

"Seriously, I wouldn't worry, El. I know Sean fairly well, and I see the way you guys are together… no problems there."

Leaning back against her locker, Ellie tried to imagine how she and Sean appeared to other people. Nothing would come to her. Really, she didn't think they'd be all that interesting to others. Certainly not interesting enough to generate any gossip.

"How are we together?" she asked Ashley as they started to head for home room.

"I don't know… Comfortable maybe?"

Ellie nodded, but didn't smile. Deep down, she knew that Ash was right. She and Sean were extremely comfortable with one another, and that certainly wasn't a bad thing.

But she knew something else too, something that she didn't like too much -- comfortable was often another word for boring. And boring was nothing that Ellie wanted to be.

She sank into her seat in home room, and tried to figure if she was doing something wrong. It wasn't like she could count on Sean to tell her...

- x –

When the bell rang, and it was finally lunch time, Emma felt like she'd accomplished something major. She'd made it through an entire morning --that was a pretty big deal.

Not only had she been working on a science report most of the last night, but she'd had to sit up with Jack, who was suffering with a pretty bad ear infection, because her mom had to take Snake to the emergency room sometime near midnight after he'd passed out in the bathroom. The good news was that they'd been able to stabilize Snake pretty easily, and he'd probably be home on Wednesday. But the bad news was that Emma had only gotten four hours of sleep. Her mother offered to let her stay home sick, but that only would have driven Emma insane.

Better to sleepwalk through school than spend the day trapped in a house with death and a screaming baby.

And it was lunch time now, so at least she'd get forty minutes all to herself. She couldn't handle a crowded cafeteria, and just the thought of sitting outside in the sun made her head ache. Chris was home sick with some kind of stomach virus, so there wasn't anyone who expected Emma to be in a certain place.

She was free. Finally.

She sunk to the floor in front of her locker, and leaned back. In her rush to get out of the house this morning, she'd forgotten to take a lunch, so she had nothing to eat. It didn't really matter since her appetite had taken a vacation lately.

Instead she just sat on the floor, and tried not to think, though that was nearly impossible.

All weekend, she'd tried to stop herself from thinking about Sean, but that turned out to be as useless as trying to stop herself from breathing or her heart from beating. Thinking about Sean came naturally to her; it had for almost three years now. There was no way to control it.

During the past couple of weeks, when her life began to seem less and less like her own, she kept thinking about Sean and the way they'd broken up all those months ago. Emma thought that she might finally understand how Sean felt just before it happened, when he started hanging out with Jay and his friends – and instantly she panicked.

On one hand, she was terrified because she didn't want to do anything as stupid and destructive as the things that Sean had done with his new friends. On the other hand, she was furious with herself for even entertaining the notion that she might harbor any sympathy or understanding for him.

Because, honestly, he had ripped her heart to shreds, without ever showing the smallest bit of regret for it. How could she ever forgive him for all of that?

Here I go again, Emma thought. In her head, it was like all Sean Cameron, all the time. She shouldn't be thinking of him now, not with all the really important, life-altering things going on in her world. Yet somehow, that's where all her thoughts wound up going -- right back to Sean and every single thing that he'd ever made her feel.

Around Emma, kids gathered in groups and headed to lunch. They were smiling and laughing, gossiping about this and that. To them, life was all fun and games.

Her dad lay in a hospital bed, wasting away. It was hard to pretend that wasn't happening. Even if she let herself think about Sean.

- x –

He was all the way down the hall, and Sean could still see her, slumped against her locker, staring straight ahead. It was eerie, the way kids moved around her almost as if they didn't see her.

He saw Manny watching Emma from across the hall, where she stood at her own locker. Every once in a while, she'd look over her shoulder and glance down at Emma. It seemed like Manny wanted to say something to her, console her, be a friend, but something was stopping her. Finally, she gathered her jacket and bag, and disappeared down the hall, leaving Emma all alone on the floor.

Sean had been putting this off since last week. He'd promised himself that he'd talk to her, that he'd actually work up the nerve, but it was easier said than done. All weekend, he'd thought about it -- the best approach, the best location, the best tone of voice.

Over forty-eight hours of thinking, and still he hadn't come up with anything good.

Now Sean found himself walking down the empty hall toward her. He moved slowly, almost as if he hoped that he'd talk himself out of it before he got to her.

Actually, he'd watched her for almost thirty minutes before he actually had the guts. Now or never, he'd said to himself, and he'd forced himself to move.

When he was close enough for Emma to see him, Sean stopped, and waited for her to acknowledge him. She just sat still, though, looking at the bare wall in front of her. He wondered if she was just being spiteful, ignoring him because she still hated him that much.

But there was no way that he could walk away now.

Gently, he nudged her knee with his foot, and Emma looked up, startled. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth twitched, like she wanted to say something but didn't know what. Sean realized that she'd honestly had no idea that he'd been standing there. If he wasn't worried before, he sure as hell was now.

"You okay?" he asked quietly. He didn't recognize his own voice, all low and gentle. Did it always sound like this, or only when he spoke to Emma?

She looked at him strangely, like she couldn't believe that he was actually standing in front of her, speaking to her. She looked at him as if she thought she was imaging the whole thing. She had a dazed and confused look on her face, which some part of him, the part of him that had never seemed to forgotten her, registered as cute.

But then her face seemed to harden, her eyes going dark and cold, and her body seemed to get stiff and tense.

"Like you care," she whispered bitterly.

If Sean ever wanted to pretend that he hadn't hurt her that badly, the pain and hurt in her voice made it impossible.

"I did once," he told her. "You know that."

"Ancient history."

Sean threw his head back, and sighed. This was even more difficult than he'd imagined it would be. Part of him foolishly pretended that she'd be so grateful to him for reaching out that she'd just let bygones be bygones, sweep the whole ugly mess of their past under the rug without a second thought. Not a chance.

"Look," he said calmly. "You've been sitting here, staring into space, for like twenty minutes. You can't be—"

"What? Are you stalking me now?" Emma asked. She still wouldn't look him in the eye, but she managed to make him feel like an asshole anyway.

"Anyone passing by could see. I'm not …"

He didn't know what to say because the truth was that no one else had seemed to notice. Or care. It didn't seem like anything she should hear.

Emma stood slowly, and finally looked at him. Something like relief flooded him because in her eyes, he saw a spark of something familiar – her anger and passion and fire, all the things that made Emma who she was… they were still there.

"So you're talking to me again?" she asked, practically knocking him down with the bitterness in her voice. "You've decided? You figure I'm somehow worth your time now? Well, maybe you're not worth mine. Maybe I want my turn to spit in your face."

He took a step back. It was one thing to imagine how angry she'd be, how much hate she carried for him; it was another thing entirely to actually feel it directed at him.

Sean shook his head. "I was just trying to be nice. You looked like you could –"

"That's a new one for you. Nice..."

It was just like old times, Sean thought. Emma was making him want to pound his fists against the wall like she'd done a million times before. But he tried to calm down and control himself. There was a reason why he was doing this. He knew where Emma was coming from these days.

"Listen," he said finally. "I know you're going through some rough stuff, and I –"

"Do you? You didn't seem to understand that a few months ago."

A door opened somewhere down the hallway, and Sean could hear girls laughing. He moved closer to her, almost backing her up against her locker.

"Emma," he whispered, and it was almost hurt to say that word. She seemed to come awake at the sound of her name, though. Her eyes softened just a bit, and she looked so sad and vulnerable. "I know what you're going through, all right? I know what it's like to want to feel something, anything, just so you know that your life isn't over. I get all that."

She looked stunned and somewhat afraid, like she'd been caught or found out. She looked as if she didn't believe that anyone could possibly understand her, that it was all some kind of trick. For a long time, she just looked at him, and tried to take it all in.

"What do you –"

She was cut off by the bell ringing. Instantly, kids started to pour into the hallway, stepping between them. They kept looking at one another, though, like they were the only people in the hall, the world.

Suddenly Jay was in Sean's face, looking bored and annoyed

"Hey, man. Where were you at lunch?" He looked over his shoulder at Emma quickly, glaring.

"I was busy," Sean told him. "Stuff to do."

Jay grunted his acceptance, and nodded toward the other end of the hallway. Sean didn't know what to do or what else to say, so he found himself following Jay down the hall, away from Emma. The whole time, Sean could feel her watching him, feel her eyes burning into his back.

He had the awful, sinking feeling that he'd just made things much, much worse.