10 years later
"What are we doing here?" Charlie asked, sighing as he slumped against the wall.
Not looking up from the stack of papers in his hands, Rodney replied, "I know why I'm here, but I have no idea what you're doing here. Or anyone else from our school, for that matter."
"Excuse me, Rodney?"
"I'm simply answering your question. This is basically a one-day conference to allow gifted students, such as me, to interact with gifted youths from other schools. I clearly belong here as I am a genius, but I have no idea why you are here." He looked up to scan the rest of the large room, taking inventory of the hundred other students in attendance. "In fact, I'm not sure why most of the people here are here. Look at that group over there all wearing those ridiculous identical shirts. It looks like they have a collective IQ of 50!"
"We can't all be geniuses, Rodney."
"Unfortunately not."
"Why 'unfortunately'?" another boy asked. He'd been standing a short distance to the side, barely noticed, but now Rodney and Charlie both turned to him in silent question. "I'm just saying that if everyone was a genius, then who really would be? Isn't 'genius' defined as someone with extraordinary intelligence? If everyone was that smart, it wouldn't be extraordinary anymore. Hence, unfortunate for those few, true geniuses."
Rodney had the distinct feeling there was a healthy dose of mocking sarcasm in that statement…and that he was the object of it. And what was going on with this new boy's hair? What that kind of mussing could produce that? "Do you always listen in on others' conversations?"
The new boy shrugged a shoulder. "My group arrived late, and we had too many people on our team for this activity. A few of us were told to go join smaller teams, and guess what – I got you," the right side of his lips rose in a way that made Rodney blush and look away.
"You mean we got you. And who would you be?" Rodney asked, still not looking at the new boy.
"John Sheppard."
"I'm Charlie, and this is Rodney," the third boy took a step closer to the newest addition to their team.
"Rodney, eh?" John's smirk slowly became a grin that even made his eyes sparkle.
There was something about that smile that was vaguely familiar.
"Well," Charlie grumbled, "let's get started on this."
"Yes, because I'm starving."
"Rodney, we just had breakfast," Charlie uncapped one of the markers they'd been given.
"I'm hypoglycemic, you know that!" A second later, a granola bar was shoved into the hand closest to John.
Not waiting for Rodney's question, John answered, "You said you were hungry. We were given granola bars with our breakfast, but I didn't eat mine. Go ahead…wouldn't want you fainting from hunger." If it was possible, his grin seemed even wider.
Again, Rodney wondered where he knew John's smile from. It wasn't until that night, lying in bed, that one word came to mind. Wodney.