Author's Note: As promised, I have returned from exam week with not one, but TWO new chapters of ROBAD (the other one will be up in about a half hour). Thank you for the reviews, they are always appreciated.

This first part is an attempt to pick up a drop plot line, but I'm not sure how this will work. Kiwi doesn't strike me as a high school drama girl. I might end up cutting it all together. Tell me what you think.

The weekend did not improve a whole lot. Mark spent the rest of the weekend sulking in his room. He didn't say much when he did come out, he just usual grabbed whatever he needed and then left. I had never seen him so upset over a girl.

My weekend was not fantastic either. I ate, slept, practiced and ran, and managed to do a little homework on the side. It was pretty bad to put it bluntly. I contemplated cutting my run short on Sunday because the pain in my knee was so bad, but I figured that it was nothing and it would probably get better if it I kept going (that is what they call an ignorant decision.) If anything, it got worse.

I was actually looking forward to going back to school on Monday, hoping that it might be a nice change of pace from a rather depressing weekend.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

"We need to talk," Em said as soon as I walked into the band room that morning.

She dragged me out into the hallway and quietly explained the current situation to me.

"I'm doing WHAT?!?" I asked her when she finally done speaking, "You've got to be kidding me."

Em shook her head.

"Does anyone actual believes her?"

"I don't think anyone believes M-Cat anymore," Em said calmly, "but I figured you should be warned. You know that everyone going to ask you if it's true."

"Thanks," I said, "This girl has quite the imagination. I've never heard of someone being kicked out of a corp the during the second rehearsal camp."

"Why does she hate you, again?" Em asked.

"I can't tell you for sure." I said, "I think she liked Brian and she asked him to homecoming, but he was already going with me and he didn't even like her to begin with. So instead she got really ticked at me and kept telling people that I took Brain from her or something ridiculous like that."

"All I remember was that you guys got into a massive fight after practice one night. It was creepy; I thought someone was going to die."

"Yea," I said, "I thought she was going to kill me or something. She called me every word ever known to man and a couple new ones. It was scary."

"Well, I guess that you did something right, because up until now, she's been pretty sedate."

"I guess."

In truth, the only thing that stopped her from killing me was the fact that Brian came up and told M-Cat to go crawl back into the hole she came from (that's a direct quote, by the way). Until that point, it was getting nasty. I shuddered; even though I had forgotten most of my epic saga with M-Cat (once Brian told her off, she shut up and left us both alone), I was still not proud of some of the things I said that night.

The thing that I still didn't understand was why she was so set on having Brian. Not that he was the type of person you wouldn't want to go out with. He was a nice guy. He was both bright and articulate, and he was funny as hell. And even by shallowest guard girl standards, he wasn't all that bad looking. Brian was built like a runner; tall and slender, even skinny, with long legs and thin shoulders. He was clean shaven and actually bothered to get a regular hair cut. He had stunning green eyes that looked like emeralds. The thing was he wasn't exactly the type of person that M-Cat tended to date. Since freshman year, she'd dated at least ten football players and even more drummers, all who were barely passing class, incredible obnoxious and looked a lot like Justin Timberlake. I couldn't understand why she wanted to go out with Brian so badly. But, nonetheless, she did, and when he told her he wasn't interested, she blamed me (lord knows why).

"Look, I really don't think it's a big deal," Em said, "I just thought I should tell you so you wouldn't be completely floored the first time someone asked you.

"Thanks," I told her, "I appreciate it."

The bell rang for first period.

"Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho," I said unenthusiastically, "It's off to German I go."

I was pretty sure this wasn't the end of my problems for the day.

Unfortunately, I was right.

German was incredibly boring that day. After I finished my physics homework, I put my head down and tried to catch on some sleep. When I woke up, Brian was working on an English paper that wasn't due for three weeks and Frau Wasser was in the middle of lecture number thirty-four on the evils of cell phones (in German, of course). I guess somebody's cell phone had gone off while I was sleeping. That, or she was just having a really bad day. I was hoping it was not the latter.

I tried to feign interest for the rest, just in case she was in a bad mood. I will tell you, it was challenging. I somehow managed to pretend to pay attention for the last ten minutes before the bell rang and I sprinted towards the door.

"Miss Peterson, I need to speak with you."

Shit. She was speaking in English. I was in trouble. She must have caught me sleeping.

I turned slowly and walked back towards Frau Wasser's huge desks.

"I received you request to have your grade submitted early."

Since I was missing almost the entire month of May because of move-ins, I had to start dealing with the paper work now. I had to request have all my grade submitted a month early so they could calculate weather I would graduate or not. None of my teachers had had a problem so far. Since three of my classes were AP classes, they would be pretty much over by the time I left (I was leaving after the first week of exams). None of my teachers were really upset about it.

Except for Frau Wasser.

"I've been looking at my class plans for the month of May. The more I look at them, the more I think I can't submit your grades."

I stared at her blankly. I couldn't believe she was doing this.

"So, in short, if you are not willing to stay for the last three weeks of school like everyone else, then I will have to give you an incomplete on your transcripts."

What?!?

"Are you serious?" I asked her before I could think of better way to phrase it.

"All your other classmates are willing to finish out the year. I cannot grant special privileges to those who simply do not choose to finish out the year."

"This isn't a choice. I have to be there," I stammered.

"As far as I can see, you chose to do this marching band thing that interfered with school. Therefore, you are choosing not to come to class, and I will not make exceptions for you."

For the love of god women, I thought, this isn't some "marching band thing". This was DCI. This was the chance of a lifetime. It was the equivalent of playing pro football.

I looked at her with pleading eyes.

"There will be no further discussion on this."

I stood there completely stunned until I realized the bell for second period had already rung. There was no point asking for a pass, so I sprinted out the door.

I couldn't believe this. She was going to give me an incomplete because I wasn't going to be there for the last weeks of school? Are you kidding me? It wasn't like I needed this class to graduate; I was fin there. But if a college gave me a scholarship, they would want to see my second semester grades. An incomplete in an AP class would make most college officials think that I was unable to do college level work, making them revoke my scholarship, and possibly withdraw my acceptance. All because my German teacher had to be a bitch.

I tried to force myself to maintain composer as I walked down the halls. I was probably overreacting. It was just one class, and it wasn't like having an incomplete in German was really going to affect my performance as a Chemistry major. Colleges knew that.

I made it two steps in the door before I burst into tears and Miss Lauro, my Calc teacher, sent me to bathroom telling me that I didn't have to come back for the rest of the period. That was the nice thing about having such a young teacher; she still remembered what it was like to be in high school.

I walked to the bathroom and poured cold water on my face. I couldn't break down now; it was only second period, I told myself. I had to make it through the rest of the day of school. I was not aloud to start crying.

I took five minutes to clean myself up before I headed back to class. I sat down in my seat, pulled out my binder and mouthed 'I'm fine' to Miss Lauro, who was giving me a very suspicious glance. I shoved the memories of Frau Wasser and M-Cat to the back of my brain. I had other things to do.

The rest of my day was pretty similar to the first part. It was a slew of forgetting books, forgetting homework and occasionally getting pissed off and wanting to cry.

I don't have time to get upset, I reminded myself. I've got other things to do.

I came home after school exhausted. It had been one of the longest days I could remember, and there was still so much to do. We had been given the second movement this week via e-mail, and on glance at it made me realize that I had to start working on it today. On top of that, I still had to finish all my homework and run.

Bleh.

I pulled out my horn and started hacking away on the second movement. I sounded awful. Maybe it was the fact that I was tired, maybe it was that today had been mildly traumatic, or maybe it was the fact I just suck; I don't know. Regardless, I was doing terribly.

Who am I kidding, I thought. I would never be able to play as well as these girls. Maybe M-Cat tale had some truth to it. Maybe I didn't deserve to be a Dragon.

After about an hour, I gave up. There was no point. I change and head out the door.

I started out normally, but I forced myself to go faster. And then faster. Ten minutes in and my knee was killing me. But I didn't slow down. I was so discussed that I couldn't even go ten minutes at this speed without some problem that I forced myself even faster (if you haven't noticed, at this point all logic had escaped me). I went further that I had probably ever gone. When I hit the hour mark, felt like I was going to die. My knee was screaming with pain, but instead of going home, I ran even further because I was so discussed with myself for not being able to go this far.

Finally, my feet (the only sane part of me left) took over for my brain and lead me back home. When I finally made it in the door, all I wanted to do was take a shower, but instead I collapsed on the floor and started doing sit-ups. I had no idea why; I was exhausted and my knee hurt. But I felt like I had to keep going that if I stopped now I would I would never be able to start again.

I was on about my fiftieth push up when Brain walk into the room, hot and sweaty from his own run. Apparently, I had forgotten to shut the door

"Kiwi, what the hell are you doing?" he asked, still trying to catch his breath.

"Push-ups" I said, "What does it look like? And why are you here?"

"You leg's spazing," he said looking at my right leg.

"I'm fine," I said, lying through my teeth.

"Damn it, Kiwi," Brian said, "Stop, you're going to hurt yourself."

"I told you I'm fine" I said. But by now my knee was on fire.

"Kiwi, stop!" Brian yelled, "You're going to hurt yourself more than you already are."

"I… am… FINE!" I yelled. The pain was unbearable.

"Kiwi!"

My leg gave out and I collapsed, crying. Crying from the pain, crying because of the whole ordeal with M-Cat, crying because of the whole thing with Frau Wasser, crying from not being good enough, crying because I no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get anything right. I cried harder than I had cried in a long time.

Brian gently rolled me over on my back and sat me up. We sat there, me crying and him holding me, for a long time.

"Let me look at it," he said quietly.

He picked up my leg and began to move it. I gritted my teeth.

"Well," he said, "I'm no doctor, but I don't think you tore anything. I'll wrap this for you, we'll ice this tonight and I'll take you to the athletic trainer tomorrow. You might need a brace."

I stared at him.

"Hey, I've been running since I was sophomore year," he said, as if he read my mind, "you would hope I would have learned a couple things by now."

"Thanks," I said.

"Here," Brian said, finishing wrapping my knee, "let's get you on to the sofa."

Without saying anything else, he picked me up and carried me to the couch.

"Brian," I said, the pain in my knee starting to subside, "that was impressive."

Brain shrugged his shoulders.

"You don't weigh much."

"Why are you here?" I asked when the tears finally stopped.

"I wanted to check up on you. I heard about the whole M-Cat thing. I saw the front door open and I wanted to make sure you were okay."

We sat there quietly for a moment. I wanted to thank Brian for coming and saving me from myself, but I was struggling to find the words.

"Brian…" I said, trying to start.

However, I never got the chance to finish. At that exact moment, Mark came home from track practice.

"You ran on a bad knee again, didn't you?" were the first words out of his mouth when he saw me.

"I... How do you know?" I muttered.

He looked at Brian.

"How bad is it?" Mark asked, clearly at Brian, not at me.

"Not awful. She can move it. But I don't think I've ever seen her cry like this before." Brian says, looking down at me with his big green eyes, full of concern.

"You know I'm still here?" I interjected.

"Here, let me go change," Mark said, running up the stairs.

Brian sat down on the coffee table next to me.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

He played his hand on my forehead and brushed away a stray hair that had fallen on my face. It was a simple motion, but its effect was electric. Chills went up and down my spine and my whole body went numb.

"Yea," I said, looking up at him, "I think I am."

We sat there quietly for a moment, his big green eyes looking intently at mine.

"All right," Mark said, returning from his expedition to his room, "let's look at."

He inspected my knee closely, moving it back and forth.

"I think you're alright," he said, "but I'd really like to take you to the ER to make sure that you're okay."

The look on Brian's face was a mix between disbelief and shock. Had I not lived in the same house with Mark, I would have had the same look. Mark and Brian, while they didn't dislike each other, weren't friends by any means. Mark's poor grades and usual oblivious nature made him one of last people you would ask for medical advice. However, what Brian didn't know was that Mark had almost had to give up running his sophomore year because of knee problems. He spent countless hours in doctor offices and physical therapy. I had never seen Mark want something so bad or work so hard in his life. If someone knew about knee problems, I figured it was probably him.

However, that did not mean I was willingly going to the hospital.

"It doesn't hurt that bad," I lied, "probably just overuse or something."

"The way you've been running, that wouldn't surprise me," Mark said, "but I'd rather you get it checked out to make sure."

"No, please, no!" I whined, "If Mom finds out about this, she'll flip. She'll take any reason to keep me from marching this summer."

I looked at Brian pleadingly. One look at him, and I knew I wasn't getting out of it.

"He's got a point," Brian said, "It'd suck to not be able to march this summer because you refused to get your knee looked at."

Mark ran out of the room, clearly in search of something.

"But my mother…" I pleaded.

"We'll think of something," he said. I could already see the wheels turning in his head.

Mark returned with car keys in hand.

"Brian, a little help?" he asked.

Without saying a word, Brian picked me up and headed out towards the car.

Five hours later, Mark and I quietly slipped in side the house. Actually, Mark slipped in quietly. I was forces to loudly hobble because I was on crutches.

Yes, much to my dismay. I was on crutches, at least for the next three days. After 5 hours in the ER and about 10 x-rays, I was told that I didn't break anything, and that it was probably just a sprain. I was told to stay off it for the next three days, and then to see my doctor in two weeks. I was not to run between now and then.

No one had to tell me how much this was going to suck.

Mark had called home around seven telling Mom that he was with his track friends playing ball at somebody's house and that he wouldn't be home until late. Then I called and told her that I was with Emmy and that we were going to a movie and wouldn't be home until late. She told Mark and me the same thing: we better be home by midnight, because she wasn't waiting up.

We walked in the door at 11:58. Mark helped me up the stairs and I feel asleep as soon as I got into my room.