A/N: Amelia and Lucia show up. It's gay. That's all.
Eda's not supposed to have favorites, but as long as she grades their tests the same as everyone else's it can't hurt. Every teacher's allowed to have a few students they hate beyond all reason, so why can't she love a few as well?
Lucia Noceda is definitely one of her favorites. On the first day, she slouched in the back of the class, not paying much attention, until Eda had done her standard first-day greeting and made a violently purple cloud of smoke. Lucia craned her neck to see the explosion, nearly falling out of her chair. The next day, she sat in the front row.
That's what teaching is about. Motivating kids to learn. And nothing motivates kids to learn better than explosions.
And Eda's not saying she likes the queer kids better than the straight ones, but when Lucia showed up to the first GSA meeting, Eda decided right then and there that she'd die for this kid.
Lucia's only problem is that she brings with her a fierce, bloodthirsty rivalry with Amelia Blight. And that's only a problem when it actually disrupts class. As far as Eda's concerned, the Blights have it coming. So she hands out detention slips to them both when the muttering and scowls erupt into screaming matches, but she puts a little smiley face next to her signature on Lucia's, and she hopes that the message comes across.
There's a knock on her classroom door the third Wednesday of the year, six minutes after the last class finishes. Eda glances up from the stack of homework she's grading and calls "come in!" because it's probably just some kid asking questions about the week's assignment.
Lucia steps in. Her face, the front of her shirt, and the shoulder-length hair that sticks out of her beanie are all wet and stained a bright, artificial red. She looks pissed off, and also a tiny bit scared.
"What happened to you?" Eda asks, even though she can probably guess. She wasn't exactly Miss Popular back in high school either.
"Some asshole threw a slushie at me," Lucia mutters, then, "Oh, sorry, excuse my language."
"Are you okay?" Eda asks, rather than telling her off for swearing. It's a difficult situation, and she might deliver ferocious death glares at students when they cuss in class but this is different.
"I'm fine, I guess," Lucia says, which is a sign of not being fine if Eda's ever seen one. "But my phone got fried, and my mom's not going to be happy about that."
"Let's see the phone," Eda says, and Lucia reluctantly hands it over. It looks a little waterlogged, but not permanently destroyed.
"I can fix this. Go wash up in the lab sink."
Lucia does. Eda pries open the phone's casing with a slightly repurposed pair of tongs, and what she sees confirms her suspicions. Nothing is fried or permanently destroyed yet, but there are tiny beads of water sitting on the circuitry, and any attempt to turn the phone on is going to wreck it.
Eda rummages through the cabinet of slightly less dangerous substances, and cracks open a tub of silica gel. Ten minutes in there, and the phone will be as good as new.
She tells Lucia that when she's done washing. Her face is mostly clean, but her shirt and hair are still full of sugary residue and there's a smear of food coloring in one ear. Eda restrains herself from dabbing at it with a tissue, because she's not actually these kids' mom.
"Thanks so much," Lucia says, sitting down on one of the desks. Eda returns to her grading, and they're both quiet for a moment, until Lucia asks, "Aren't you going to ask who did it?"
"I figured if it was important, you'd tell me," Eda says, shrugging, and looks up to meet Lucia's eyes.
"He was an upperclassman, I don't know him," Lucia says. "Some guy in a varsity jacket, with his friends, and I was in their way, I guess."
Eda nods. She can hardly bring down her whole fury on anyone who happens to be on a sports team. Not that that's going to stop her from trying, or at least giving the sports players in all her chem classes particularly offended stares when they say something stupid.
"If you happen to, you know, remember his name, I'll give him detention. Won't even tell him what it's for, so he can't retaliate."
"You don't need to do that," Lucia mumbles. "I think I'll be fine."
Eda keeps a close eye on her for the next week, just in case, but Lucia really does seem to be doing fine. She and Will eat lunch in Eda's classroom together for a while, chatting and laughing, then one Monday comes and neither of them show up. Eda checks the cafeteria, not in a creepy way, just because she wants to make sure that her kids are okay and not off dying of tuberculosis or broken arms or sadness, and she sees them.
Lucia and Will are at a small table near the edge, and they're alone, but they don't seem to care, and nobody's bothering them. As Eda watches, Amelia Blight stops by their table to snarl something into Lucia's face, and Lucia rolls her eyes and says something snarky that Eda can't make out. They're blending into the background, no longer visible enough to be obvious targets.
…
Amelia Blight slips into Eda's classroom at 3:45 on a Thursday, looking angry, like always, and messing with her hair, raking it around and pulling it up into a little ponytail, then sighing and dropping it.
"Well, hello, Miss Blight," Eda says. "To what do I owe this honor?"
Amelia mumbles something under her breath, and jerks her head awkwardly at one wall, then goes back to fiddling with the ends of her hair. Eda looks at the wall, bemused, then realizes that it's the wall with the pride flag on it.
Oh.
She's being all gay and sneaky right under Odalia Blight's beaky nose, and Eda is wholeheartedly here for that. The hair thing is a nervous tic, she realizes a little belatedly.
"In that case, welcome to the GSA!" Eda says cheerfully. "We have a lot of resources if you need them, and if you'd just like to talk and meet some of your fellow students, that's great too. Can I interest you in a pamphlet on safe sex? A little pride flag? A big pride flag? Pronoun pin? Rainbow stickers? Anything that you can display publicly and proudly, maybe at home?"
"I'm good," Amelia says, continuing to fidget. She pulls a book out of her bag, and Eda takes it as a signal to get back to her lesson plans and wait for the rest of the kids to show up. There's about ten kids who come somewhat regularly, which is less than Eda wants but also more than she expected, so she's not complaining.
Halfway through a particularly misguided worksheet answer, in handwriting so bad Eda can barely tell if they got the right answer, the door opens again. Lucia walks in, Will and a sophomore Eda doesn't really know trailing behind her.
"Let's get this GSA started," Lucia says cheerfully, sitting on the edge of one of the desks, right next to Amelia. Amelia's head snaps up.
"We're four minutes early, and nobody else is here," Will points out. "Hi, Ms. Eda. This is Amber."
"Hi, Ms. Eda!" the sophomore squeaks. "I didn't know about the GSA, but then Lucia mentioned it, and I think it's awesome that we have a space where we can be open and proud! I'm bisexual!"
"Me too," Lucia says, and gives Amber a high five. "Welcome to the club."
Amelia snarls something under her breath and stands up, shoving her book back into her bag.
"Oh, no, is that a problem?" Lucia asks mockingly, leaning close to Amelia's face and smirking. "Too many gays in the GSA for you?"
"Fuck off," Amelia snaps, and Eda doesn't even try to reprimand her. "It's not that, okay, it's just –" she flails one hand vaguely – "you're everywhere, no matter where I go, and it's starting to get annoying."
"Starting to get annoying? I'd hate to see you when you're really angry, then."
Amelia storms out of the room without another word, nearly colliding with more incoming GSA members.
On Amelia's next test, Eda scrawls down a note next to her perfect score.
If you need anything, come talk to me. I know what it's like falling for girls who make you angry all the time.
Amelia scowls at the test and methodically rips it into tiny pieces. Well, Eda tried.
The next worksheet from Amelia has a note written at the bottom, in painstakingly backwards script. Eda has to take it home and hold it up to a mirror to make any sense of it.
If she weren't trying to piss me off, and she spent a little less time trying to be funny, and her mere presence was just slightly less aggravating, we might be friends. But she's pretty, and I hate her, and I don't know what to do.
Eda writes down a vague response about following your heart, but the truth is that she doesn't know what to do either. But Eda's gotten this far while having no idea what to do, and papering over it with psychotic levels of overconfidence. Amelia's going to be fine.
