Chapter 3 - Summer

Here's a secret: As time went on, I kind of liked Ben. I mean, he thought I was lower than scum, and that kind of put a damper on things, but other than that one fact, he was pretty all right. When I pushed, he pushed back. I liked that-it kept things from getting dull. There were other things, too, of course. I didn't give a rat's ass about human history, but Ben was passionate about it, and it was hard to ignore that. I couldn't ignore it, teaching it was, ostensibly, our job. For now, anyway. I tried to channel some of that passion in front of students, about whom Ben cared infinitely more than I did. When we looked a classroom, I saw twenty-some odd bratty teenagers I had to suffer. Ben saw... well, he also saw bratty teenagers, but apparently he appreciated them as people.

With school out for the summer, a long three months loomed ahead with little in the way of distraction. It took about a week for me to realize that I couldn't actually languish around the apartment for three months. For one thing, there was nothing to do there except read and watch soap operas on TV, neither of which sounded appealing. For another, there would be no money coming in until the fall. The only savings Ben had ever had in his life had been money from his parents' life insurance, and every penny of that had gone to college, and that hadn't covered it all anyway. The good news was that we'd probably starve before creditors started showing up, or before we got evicted.

Still, we were down to a sleeve of Ritz crackers and a quarter gallon of expired milk before I decided that contemplating the nutritional value of drinking vegetable oil straight was probably a bad idea. By that point, though, most places hiring summer help had their help.

Which is how I ended up working at the Sharing's headquarters. In recruitment of all things.

Needless to say, any fondness I had for my host wasn't readily reciprocated. Though, as long as I wasn't actively recruiting people he cared about, Ben mostly kept his grumbling to a minimum. Mostly. Though, that said, it was surprisingly dull work that was more akin to marketing than anything else. Which I had no experience in whatsoever. My job was mostly clerical, which was fine, I supposed. It was relatively difficult to screw that up. "Office Lackey" wasn't the most prestigious position, but it was the perfect balance of "keeping busy" and "not very much responsibility"-truly, everything I ever wanted. It was probably little wonder that no one ever considered me for advancement in anything.

The summer passed with interminable slowness. One day seemed to bleed into another. I might have lost all track of time completely if not for the clockwork-like feeding cycle. It at least let me know how much time was passing, even if half the time I couldn't be bothered to remember the date unless someone had a calendar handy.

Which was probably why, one day in late July, when Anna called I didn't think much of it. Ben's sister called frequently-to chat. To gossip, even though I rarely knew who she was talking about. To complain that I didn't call her. "Why when I know you're going to call eventually anyway?" This was apparently the wrong thing to say.

Things would have been easier if I made an effort to make my host's family Controllers. It would have made my life infinitely simpler-and less annoying in some respects-but I was also a great fan of the status quo. I liked being the botherer, not the bothered. I saw nothing suspicious or treasonous in that, even if I also wisely kept all this to myself. I was lazy, not suicidal.

After the usual small talk, Anna asked, in a tone suddenly turned serious, "Are you doing anything special for tomorrow?"

"No," I said automatically, without even thinking about it. "Should I be?"

There was a long pause-long enough that I started to wonder just what I'd forgotten. "Ben," Anna said slowly, in what I knew to be her are you a fucking idiot? tone. "Tomorrow's the twenty-third."

Oh. Oh. Shit. I backpedaled quickly, saying something about how I meant I'd just planned to spend a quiet day at home, that I wasn't feeling up to much more than that.

I'd been in Ben a little over three months by then. Long enough to know that the twenty-third of July was the anniversary of his father's death. Five years ago now, in an accident, the summer before Ben's last year of high school. Technically we'd both forgotten. There were other things to think about, to focus on. It wasn't my job to care about these things anyway, except as far as keeping my cover went.

Still. When we hung up, I stood there looking down at the phone for a moment, trying to formulate a thought. Something.

Don't. Please.

I slowly replaced the phone in its charger, then turned wordlessly and crossed the living room to the couch, where I fished out the television remote from where it had slipped between the cushions. I sat down, switched the TV on, and settled in to watch Maury Povitch continue his seemingly eternal search for the Father.

A/N: So, like a dope, I forgot to look up whether or not Ben actually had a paying job. It wasn't till I started writing this chapter that I thought that maybe I should ask a teacher friend if student teachers got paid.

They do not. (Or at least they don't here.)

So. Uh. This story is AU in more ways than one. I'm sorry. I will attempt to fail less from here on out.