For notes, warnings and disclaimers see scene 1

Scene 13: THAT Stupid After All
(Age: 14)

Kara was sitting on the bench, fuming. She couldn't believe her coach had told her to sit the first real practice of the year out. Sure, she knew she was probably looking pretty colorful but it wasn't like that was anything new and, after the whole summer and the hell of the past couple of days, the court was exactly where she wanted to be. Still, she was on the bench and that was almost more than she had dared to hope for... though the whole situation was still incredibly confusing, at least as far as she was concerned.

She remembered that the trouble had begun two days before --on the very first day of school-- when the coach had handed her the consent form her mother was supposed to sign to allow her to rejoin the team. She had known almost immediately that that was going to be a problem, a big one.

Just as she had feared, her mom had made it abundantly clear that she had no intention of signing off on it no matter what. She simply told her that while she had managed to fool her into signing the thing the year before, there was no way she was going to get away with something like that twice and Kara had known right away that there would be no changing her mind. That hadn't exactly come as much of a surprise, but it had still been devastating.

She remembered having to walk up to her coach the day before to tell him that she wouldn't be able to play that year... and then him telling her that she would.

At the time Kara hadn't known what he had in mind, after all, she was all too aware of the fact that her mom had the final say on the matter and she had looked pretty damned determined, but then the man had shown up at the apartment, wanting to 'talk' about her place in the team.

Kara could hardly believe her ears when she heard him openly reminding her mom that there were way too many skeletons in her closet and then he had gone so far as to tell her that any attempt to keep her from the team would invariably result in all those skeletons being dragged out into the open. That obviously hadn't been a risk her mom had been willing to take just to make her life a little more miserable so she had signed the consent form then and there. Sure, Kara had had to pay and pay dearly for that particular concession as soon as her coach left -- and that was the reason why she was currently reduced to warming the bench-- but as far as she was concerned it had definitely been worth it.

Her coach, however, hadn't thought so. When he'd first laid eyes on her early that morning he had been furious. She had seen it in his eyes and for a moment she had been tempted to take a step back but then he had placed a hand on her shoulder, told her to take it easy for a couple of days and --as usual-- hadn't really said anything else about it. That was something Kara had been deeply grateful for, the fact that he hadn't asked any questions.

Of course, the fact that she was grateful for that didn't mean she didn't find the whole situation to be more than a little weird. She had known her coach for almost a year and in that time --even though he had never pretended not to notice the bruises-- he had never tried to get her to talk or even volunteered to listen. In fact, except for the very first time when she had lied to him telling him that she had gotten into a fight, he had never openly mentioned them. Sure, he had marched her down to see the school nurse a couple of times but that had been about it... and, no matter how hard she'd tried, she had never been able to understand why.

That was the part that was driving her crazy. Kara had been struggling to figure out just what it was that the man was up to almost from the moment they'd met but no matter how hard she tried she just couldn't figure out what he wanted. He had spent hours helping her with her homework after school and he had always been there for her. A couple of times, when her stomach had rumbled in his presence, he had even gone so far as to buy her something to eat but he had never asked for anything in return... just that she give it her all in the court and, even then, he had told her that he knew she would have done it anyway. That was what he had said when she'd finally gathered the courage to ask him outright about it, after she had gotten tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Still, even though Kara had gotten kind of used to him being nice to her, nothing could ever have prepared her for the shock of seeing him basically blackmailing her mother into allowing her to keep on playing when she had all but given up hope. No one had ever done anything like that before, no one had ever stood up to her mother just to defend her, no one... and she had never expected it either.

Kara was used to having to fend for herself. She had been doing it pretty much ever since she could remember and she had always felt it was safer that way. Sure, she was a screw up and she kept messing things up but at least one thing she could be sure of was that she wasn't going to stab herself in the back any time soon. That was more than could be said about pretty much anyone else as far as she was concerned and she had never been one to take stupid chances in that regard. After all, she was stupid but not that stupid... or so she had thought.

The problem was that she was finding it harder and harder not to trust her coach --especially after what he had done the day before-- so who knew, maybe she really was that stupid after all.

Author's notes: Hi guys, okay, hopefully that explains the coach... and Kara's reaction to him. I know some of you saw her distrust as a sign that he was up to no good but the way I saw it, at this stage for Kara the idea that an adult in a position of power might actually care was probably unthinkable so that was the way I approached it.

Sorry if I had you a little worried,

Alec