Chapter Ten - Avoiding History.

"Okay, how about we look at the history of importation to America? Mainly beer."

"No."

"Well, what about the history of warfare? In video games."

"No."

"The history of the zombie apocalypse?"

"Clyde!"

Wendy was just about ready to slam her head down against her desk. The teenage girl was in her eleventh grade history class, where she and the rest of her classmates had just been split into groups to work on a team presentation.

The task given to them hadn't sounded like it was going to be very difficult at all, and Wendy was certainly relieved to be grouped with two of her friends. But with each ridiculous suggestion that was being sarcastically made by Clyde, the dark haired girl could only feel herself cringing more and more.

"We can't do any kind of study on the zombie apocalypse!"

Looking across the table to their other team mate, Wendy smiled at Heidi, breathing a sigh of relief, "Thank you, Heidi."

"It hasn't even happened yet, how are we supposed to research it?"

Groaning to herself all over again, Wendy finally conceded, bringing her forehead down to the wooden table in front of her. If the only idea that Heidi and Clyde could honestly come up with between them was something that didn't even have any history, then this assignment was going to be one strenuous, one-woman effort for their left over team mate.

Just as she began to mull over possible presentation topics that her two long-time friends would hopefully be able to wrap their heads around, Wendy was forced to bring her train of thought to a halt.

"Alright, class," a loud voice suddenly boomed from the front of the classroom. Ms. Pocks was one of South Park High School's history teachers. She was short, stumpy and fairly hefty, but if the middle aged woman had one other noticeable attribute, it certainly had to be her extremely stern and harsh attitude. This was one woman who did not take any nonsense from anyone, "If we're all settled together in our groups now, then you need to start thinking about –"

With Wendy's head still facing downward in a drained stupor, she didn't particularly notice when her teacher's loud ramblings came to an abrupt end. And she certainly didn't notice that the reason for this happened to be the sound of the door clicking open as a late arrival stepped foot into the classroom.

"Mr. Marsh," the grumpy teacher exclaimed, clearly annoyed at being interrupted, "How nice of you to join us."

In an impulsive instant, Wendy's neck snapped back upright as her wide eyes landed on the image of Stan lazily standing in the doorway. Her heart immediately began pumping that little bit faster just at the mere sight of him as she tried to hide the uncontrollable smile that was desperate to creep its way across her face.

It had been almost a week now since the two estranged friends had spoken to each other at the Homecoming after party. Despite Stan saying – more or less – that he would be willing to stop ignoring Wendy so much, the teenage girl was somewhat disheartened as a second conversation between the two was yet to evolve. Sure, they had waved and smiled at each other as they passed in the school corridor, but none of that had been anywhere near as exhilarating to Wendy as it was to actually talk to him.

As the dark haired girl slowly brought all her crazy thoughts and emotions back down to her lacklustre reality, she subtly glanced back over to where Stan stood. She frowned slightly. Wasn't Stan much more serious about school work and getting good grades these days?

"Would you care to explain why you have been keeping me and my class waiting?" Ms. Pocks grunted, raising an impatient eyebrow.

A sarcastic smirk faded onto Stan's face, "Well, Stark's Pond was kinda' half frozen over this morning, and Cartman bet that Kenny wouldn't be able to drive one of the workshop's motorbikes over it, so then we went to get Kenny and – "

"Okay, okay, that's all I need to hear of that!" Ms. Pocks sniped aggressively, shuddering to herself, "I thank God I only have to deal with having one of you terrors in my class this year…" she mused loudly enough to fill the whole room. Stan merely shook his head as his teacher went on, "Now, not that I enjoy repeating myself, but the class has been divided into groups for a team presentation. There are two groups left over that only have three members, so hurry up and pick one of them."

The venomous tone in Ms. Pocks' voice caused Stan to roll his eyes. He was so disinterested in everything she had to say and every spiteful comment she made that he was yet to notice the newest member of their class who was staring right at him.

With the same unenthused attitude, the dark haired boy soon cast his vision over the class of students sitting in front of him. The majority of them were in groups of four, except for the two left over that Ms. Pocks had mentioned. One comprised of three Middle Park students – two girls and one boy. Immediately disregarding this option, Stan looked to the other side of the classroom, finding that the final group was Clyde, Heidi and…

Instantly, Stan's heart was still. The scene of his history classroom seemed to completely diminish around him as all he could focus on was himself and Wendy gazing at each other across an empty room. He tried to hide his smile. The teenage boy was confused – he didn't know whether to act friendly towards her, and he certainly didn't know whether he should go and sit at her team's table. Being civil and saying hello was one thing, but committing to working on a school assignment with her?

"Today would be preferable, Mr. Marsh," Ms. Pocks abruptly snapped, shattering Stan's deep trance.

The dark haired teenager jumped slightly at his teacher's unexpected shouts before he reluctantly shoved his hands in his pockets and took one slow step over towards the table where Wendy and his two friends were sitting.

Clyde and Heidi swapped a curious look with one another as Stan scraped out the fourth chair at the table and took a seat beside Wendy. The awkwardness that settled in around them was instantaneous. Even as their teacher began talking again, telling everybody to get back to work, Stan's eyes refused to look up from the desk in front of him. He swallowed a lump at the back of his mouth, far too nervous to even think about what there possibly was for him to say. Just as the chatter of the rest of the class began to build back up around them and Stan felt even more pressure to break his stubborn silence, he suddenly breathed a sigh of relief as he heard Clyde clear his throat.

Quickly looking back to Heidi with a shrug of his shoulders, Clyde directed his attention to Stan, "'Sup, bro?"

Glimpsing out of the very corner of his sight, the teenager found that his ex-girlfriend was now somewhat fixated on him, as well. He gulped, "Not much, 'sup with you guys? What's the deal here?"

Heidi was about to open her mouth to reply before she brought herself to a sharp halt. For a split second, she thought it may have been a good idea to give Wendy the chance to speak. However, as the silence at the table began to stretch on for perhaps a bit too long, the brunette quickly licked her lips, "It's a pretty open task," she explained, "We just gotta' pick any major historical event from, like, ever, and then give a group presentation on it."

"Exactly!" Clyde suddenly cut in, "Any event! There are more than enough people who have written shit online about the apocalypse that we could use!"

"Oh my God…" Wendy droned, her overwhelming annoyance allowing her to finally find her voice.

The sweet tone that accompanied each of the three words that slipped from her mouth brought a couple of timid goosebumps to the surface of Stan's skin. The edge of his mouth turned up in a smile, "The apocalypse?" he repeated, "Dude, we can't research the zombie apocalypse."

Initially, Wendy was thrown by hearing Stan talk in her presence again. It made her heart skip a beat. Although, quickly realising that what he said was a very valuable contribution to the ridiculous conversations of her group, she settled herself, "Thank you," she spoke simply, proving her point.

Raising a cynical eyebrow, Stan's grin abruptly widened, "It hasn't even happened yet, how are we supposed to get a good grade for that?"

An immediate scoff escaped Wendy, "Oh, not you, too!" she exclaimed. She should have known, she thought to herself. She blocked out Clyde and Heidi's laughter and continued to gaze at Stan, unimpressed. He might have always been one of the more serious out of all the boys in South Park, but deep down, Stan was still just a massive goof. And Wendy knew that. She loved that, "Anybody who actually believes that a zombie apocalypse is coming is a complete lunatic."

"Oh, come on," Stan joked, "As if everybody these days doesn't have a plan for it."

"It's true," Clyde agreed.

Folding her arms against her chest, Wendy shook her head. It was secretly hilarious to her that the more bizarre her situation with Stan became, the more her nerves began to slip away, "Alright, so what's yours then?" she challenged.

"Mine?" Stan repeated. The teasing smile still hadn't dropped from his face – how could it? It made him feel surprisingly happy to know that the childish banter between he and Wendy was bouncing back and forth just as easily as ever, "Easy. Hold up here at school. There's a tonne of room, heaps of food, heaps of places to sleep. It'd be easy to save everyone and stay together in a tight group, and then use all the desks and shit to block the doors until the worst of the beginning was over."

Laughing in disbelief, Wendy shook her head, "Except there's no guns or weapons at school, dumbie."

"Ah, see, you have thought about it," Stan instantly snapped back, "And, duh, my Uncle still owns his gun store."

Wendy gritted her teeth together, trying not to burst out into an array of giggles. She was concentrating so, so hard on being subtle about how giddily comfortable felt while talking to Stan. So much, in fact, that the dark haired teenager didn't even notice the eager expression that had crossed Heidi's face. The excited cogs in her mind began to turn.

"Anyway!" the brunette girl cut back, "We've got these couple of text books to find a real topic, but how about you two look through them and Clyde and I will go look on the computer?"

The thought of this made Wendy's heart stop suddenly. She whipped her neck around and glared at Heidi, "Uh – "

"C'mon, Clyde," Heidi merely pushed on, totally ignoring Wendy and snatching Clyde up by the arm and away from the table as fast as she could. Within a split second, the two friends raced over to the other side of the classroom to sit in front of the computer, leaving the ex girlfriend and boyfriend at the desk alone.

Continuing to watch as they left, Wendy felt a severe reluctance to turn back around. There had been somewhat of a safety net for her to have her other friends present along with her and Stan. It was similar to how they had been able to share a quiet drink in order to break the ice at the Homecoming after party the previous week. But now, they had nothing else. Zero distractions. Only a noisy classroom, and each other.

Inhaling a deep breath and finally spinning around in her seat, Wendy blinked, her eyes settling back on Stan. He was leaning against the back of his chair with his hands resting behind his head. The abrupt silence between them was overwhelming – overwhelming and incredibly obvious. So much so that Wendy wasn't even going to try and deny it.

Leaning forward and dragging one of the text books towards her, Wendy opened it up and began to flick through it as she sighed, "Well, if anyone had told me two weeks ago that this was going to end up happening, I never would have believed them," she admitted half-heartedly.

Her lame attempt at reigniting their conversation made Stan frown. Bringing his hands down from behind his head, he reached for the second text book, "Well, there's no way I was gonna' form a group with those three over there."

Looking over her shoulder at the trio of former Middle Park students, Wendy's face was blank, "I don't even know who half the people in this class are," she said with a laugh.

Stan's expression was soft as he gazed at Wendy. He wondered if she had noticed as much he had that they were suddenly speaking to one another normally again, "Okay, well, the guy's name is Brent," he started, a friendly tone in his voice, "He's one of the only other eleventh graders on the football team who plays in the starting line-up, so he thinks he's hot shit and some kind of super athlete or something."

Wendy's chest swelled at how warm and opening Stan was acting towards her. The calming levels of relief he was projecting on her made her smirk cheekily at him, "Oh, what, and you don't think that about yourself?"

A surprised scoff spat out from his lips, "Geez, when did you become so snappy?" he joked, pretending not to spot the faint blush that flushed in her cheeks before pushing on, "But anyway, he's also a douche and thinks he's top shit because he's been hooking up with that girl next to him for, like, a year now."

"Who, the blonde one?"

"Yeah," Stan answered, "Her name's Tori. They're not together but they're always all over each other. And they're so crazy, they've been walked in on so many times in the most fucked up places."

Wendy's brow collapsed in a confused look, "Walked in on?"

Staring at her vacantly to see whether or not she was serious, Stan chuckled gently, "Like, sex, Wendy," he laughed, "There have been some pretty gross stories spread around about them."

The blatancy of Stan's comments made Wendy's eyes widen curiously, "Oh, yeah? Like what?"

"Like, do you ever hang around the football field?"

"The football field? Here at school?"

Nodding his head, Stan leant in slightly so no-one else could hear them, "A word of advice - never go walking around underneath the grand stand."

Wendy's lips instantly parted in shock as she gasped with disgust, "Ew! As if! Who would do that?"

"Hey, people from that side of town are pretty crazy."

"Okay, so what about that other girl?" Wendy asked, gesturing back to the desk where the group of three were sitting.

Following where she had pointed, Stan's enthusiastic approach faded slightly. He fell quiet for a moment before he slowly licked his lips, "That's just Leah."

The monotone response she received made Wendy furrow her brow, "What, she doesn't have any interesting story?"

Wendy continued to wait, watching as Stan was seemingly mulling over an answer as much as he could. The teenage boy fixed his red and blue beanie that sat on the back of his head as he tried to think of the best way to approach his reply. Soon enough, he simply shrugged his shoulders, "She's Darcy's best friend."

The enthralled emotion spread across Wendy's entire exterior rapidly dropped. She quickly glanced down her lap before bringing her awkward expression back up to meet Stan's. It obviously didn't take much for any sort of friendly and enjoyable conversation between the two to abruptly turn on its head.

A million unwelcomed thoughts were suddenly making their way through Wendy's mind. She wondered if Stan had discovered that she had helped Darcy with her math homework the day before. In that circumstance, she was then left to wonder whether Stan had gone on to inform Darcy of who exactly she was. But to counter all these uncertainties that Wendy felt, there was one thing that she could be sure of – and that she was sure that Stan was also sure of. And that was no matter how much they were able to harmlessly chat and joke and catch up with one another, there was still much more baggage and serious past events that the ex-couple just couldn't bring themselves to properly discuss.

Softly sighing to herself, Wendy crossed her arms on the desk in front of her and bravely opened her mouth to speak, "Is this going to be okay?"

Slightly thrown by the direct attitude of her question, Stan found himself swallowing a nervous lump in his throat, "Working together?"

Wendy slowly nodded her head with a shrug, "And having to talk to each other all the time and see each other and… I dunno'."

Stan could almost feel his heart sinking at the sad despondency in Wendy's voice. Their conversation had certainly fallen sharply flat at just a mere implication about how much things between them had changed. And still, just as much as ever, Stan was confused. Of course he wanted real answers out of Wendy and for her to explain herself and her actions of the past two years to him, but on the contrary to that, he was still perfectly happy being able talk in a normal, civil way with her. Which of those was the more important, Stan wasn't so sure of. But one thing he did know was there was no way to avoid working with her, and he needed a good mark for this history assignment. What else was there for him to possibly do?

"I'm cool if you're cool?" he offered in a gentle voice, smiling genuinely at her as she looked back to him.

Wendy pressed her lips together in hesitation, "Really?"

Hastily, Stan just nodded his head. The last thing he needed was Wendy giving him more opportunity to second guess himself, "Let's just… concentrate on this assignment, okay? I mean, we can work out anything else after that, right?"

On the outside, Wendy merely smirked and nodded her head. But on the inside, she was absolutely beaming. She couldn't believe how nice and understanding Stan was being towards her. God knows she didn't entirely deserve it, but still, the immense maturity that her ex was showing completely blew her away.

"Okay," she answered sweetly, picking up the history book once more as she went back to flicking through it. Still glowing with happiness, she swiftly decided to change the subject before Stan could mention anything else about the two of them and their pasts, "Ms. Pocks didn't seem to like you very much."

"Ha," Stan spat, "She hates me, dude. It's all from back in ninth grade when Kenny was still in school - the four of us were all in her history class together."

"The four of you?" Wendy confirmed, "You two and Kyle and Cartman?"

"Yeah, we made her life a living hell," he said with an apathetic laugh, "Guess the joke's on me though, because now she just assumes I'm still a little shit… well, as much of a little shit as I was back then, anyway."

Wendy tittered away at Stan's charmingly hilarious nature. Her head was suddenly a mess with nagging thoughts again. But they weren't bad ones or nerve-wracking ones, they were just thoughts that she knew were going to eventually grow to become unbearably annoying.

How the hell was she ever going to be able to get Stan off her mind and out of her heart now?

"Well, I think you've matured," she sang. Her blinking eyes caused her eyelashes to flutter in his direction as Stan grinned at her once more. Her tender appearance struck right through him as the dark haired boy tried to ignore the racing of his heart.

The amount of distance Stan was willing to allow between them was quickly beginning to stretch wider and wider.

"Thanks," he replied, narrowing his teasing eyes at her, "I think you're still as snooty as ever."

Gasping in mock offense, Wendy scoffed as she grabbed a lead pencil out of her pencil case and threw it at him. Stan just managed to duck his head out of the way as the writing tool bounced off his shoulder before he glared at her with a sarcastic wink. It made Wendy's heart skip a beat which she immediately tried to disregard as she slid Stan's text book across the table towards him.

"Get back to work," she huffed jokingly, "Do you want a good grade, or not?"

Laughing pleasantly at one another, the two teenagers finally buried their heads back in the history books as they continued to exchange random chit-chat.

There was no way in hell either of them were going to be able to get any work done that period, though. As much as they tried to read and research, and as much as they tried to find other things to talk about with each other, Stan and Wendy had only one major, defining thought that was uncontrollably consuming both of their minds,

This cannot go any further…

Hello friends!

I don't suppose I have much to say here... I guess this chapter kind of speaks for itself! I would LOVE to hear from you though? What is going on with Stan and Wendy, are they going to be able to keep their distance, or do you think it won't be too long until they just completely cave?

Please leave me a review and let me know what you think! I would really appreciate it :)

Till next time guys,

Reneyyyyyyyyyyyy x