For notes, warnings and disclaimers see scene 1

Scene 12: Give Me Shelter from the Storm
(Age: 13)

Kara was trying desperately to get her breathing under control, to keep Ty from realizing just how scared she really was, even as she tried glaring at him. She didn't need anyone to fight her battles for her and she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, thank you oh so very much.

Of course, trying to convince him of that while he had her in a headlock wasn't going to be easy.

The truth was that having someone looking after her was not something she was used to and all of a sudden she seemed to have grown herself about half a dozen self-appointed protectors, though Ty --the one currently giving her a noogie while he asked her if there was a problem and glared at the tenth grader who had been giving her a hard time-- was by far the worst of the lot. He was one of the biggest guys in the team and more than once he had stepped in when he saw one of the older kids picking on her. Unfortunately that didn't mean he didn't scare the crap out of her, especially because he insisted on coming up from behind and grabbing her by surprise like he had done just a minute earlier.

She hated that.

As a rule Kara wasn't particularly fond of people touching her. She hated the fear she felt when she saw their hands approaching and she also hated the fact that she had to fight to keep herself from flinching but that was nothing compared to what she felt when someone came up to her from behind with no warning whatsoever. Still, after a couple of months in the team, she was starting to get used to it and most of the guys seemed to have gotten the message that she didn't like being caught off guard so they were careful not to startle her. In fact Ty was the lone hold out in that regard and Kara was pretty sure that he did it just to annoy her.

Well, at least he had scared the boy away. In fact --seeing how fast he had run out of there-- maybe he would have been more successful if he'd tried for the track team instead of the pyramid one in the first place.

Kara barely managed to keep herself from sighing in relief when Ty finally let go of her, ruffled her hair and told her that it had looked like she could use some help before simply walking away. That left her shaking her head.

The thing was that even though she really enjoyed playing and she loved being on the team, she was still struggling to wrap her head around the whole concept of teamwork.

That was the one thing her coach kept going on and on about, of course, seeing how the results didn't really give him much reason to complain, she could usually keep him from giving her too much grief about it.

Kara was an aggressive player and she knew it. She never held back, that was what had gotten her in the team in the first place and she wasn't about to change that any time soon, not if she could possibly avoid it. The pyramid court was the one place in which it was safe for her to let herself go, the one place where she didn't have to be afraid, where she didn't have to hold back and where, if someone pushed her, she could actually push back. In fact the court was the one place where people actually expected her to fight back and that was a welcome change.

Of course, at times having to wear a uniform was a bit of a problem, though luckily the bruises were something that had grown a lot less frequent lately so it wasn't that bad. Still, Kara was pretty sure that her coach hadn't really bought her story when she'd tried to tell him that she had picked a fight with some kids in her neighborhood a couple of weeks earlier after she had shown up sporting a pretty spectacular black eye and an assortment of other bumps and bruises.

She was well aware that, as far as explanations went, that one had been pretty lame but what was she supposed to do? Tell him that her mom had finally sobered up long enough to realize that while she was drunk she had signed the form allowing her to join the team in the first place? Yeah, that would have worked wonders.

Luckily the man had decided not to push it. He had just given her a funny look, told her to let him know if she got into any more 'fights' and ever since that day he had taken to asking her if she was up to it before practice... that and he had also started asking her to stay after the team was done training for the day and helping her with her homework. That was weird and at first Kara had tried to protest but he had pointed out that he needed her on the court and couldn't afford to have her on academic probation so he was going to damned well make sure that her homework was done and done properly.

Well, considering her grades, Kara couldn't help but acknowledge that he did have a point about that but in spite of that she still wasn't sure that was the real reason behind his request, in fact she was pretty sure it wasn't, but seeing how she wasn't about to turn her back on a perfectly good excuse to avoid having to go home any time soon, she didn't make too much of a fuss about it either.