3. The time he gave his first lecture in Professor Cutter's absence.
Stephen stood next to the double doors that lead into one of the many lecture halls in the University. He stood there and watched as student after student piled into the seats. He stood there second after second, minute after minute. He couldn't do it. He couldn't walk into this huge lecture space and just start teaching. It wasn't possible. Not by his standards.
Stephen Hart was many things. He was a student, he was an assistant, For a short time he was a male model, and for an even shorter time he was someone's mister... mistress? Mister. Anyway, the one thing that Stephen Hart knew that he was not, was a Professor.
And yet, a professor was the one thing that he was asked to be at the moment. Stephen stepped back but kept his eyes firmly on the double doors. He starts shaking his head and chuckling. Anyone walking by would probably find him in a very disturbed state.
'I can't do this.' Stephen reasons, ' A few months ago, I was one of those students. I was sitting there with my friends as a fidgety and all together unqualified professor walked in my class and started to mumble out a lesson. I can not do this!'
Stephen starts to pace indigently in front of the doors and steps aside a few times as more and more students walk into the room. It felt like the entire University was there. 'How many kids does he teach anyway?'
Stephen suddenly stops when he remembers the reason that he was in this predicament in the first place. What do you get when you add one Nick Cutter, a grief stricken memory of a lost spouse, and one bottle of Bourbon? An absent professor, of course. Man, those Scottish men can drink.
It wasn't as those Stephen felt that he owed Cutter. Since becoming his assistant, Stephen had actually grown found of being around the man. When Cutter wasn't drunk as a skunk, and Stephen wasn't in the on going battle to fight back the piles of clutter in Cutter's office, they actually had a very enjoyable time together. He could see why Helen and Nick had been married. They were much the same, in many ways.
Stephen snapped out of his musing about his boss when the chime that signaled the start of a class clanged loudly throughout the building.
He regrettably realized that his time was up. It was either, A) Go in to the class, start teaching, make a complete git out of himself, and chalk it up to life experience; or B) Turn around, high-tail it out of there and tell Cutter that he couldn't find the lecture hall at all, "Oh, it was the door that said Evolutionary Zoology? Oh, well that makes a load more sense then what I thought it would be..."
It felt like a no win situation. He had to make a choice...
Stephen Hart moved briskly to the podium that sat at the front of an exceptionally large lecture room, and started to do something he never thought he would have to do in a million years: Teach.
"Hello, My name is Stephen Hart, I am professor Cutter's assistant, and I will be teaching his class today. Can anyone tell me where he last left off on his lecture course?" Regardless of the sweat that was forming on his body, and the twitch that he was sure everyone one could see that he was surely beginning to develop, no one seemed to be surprised, or find it the least bit interesting that he was filling in for Cutter.
A young man, that couldn't be a year or two younger than Stephen himself, raised his hand. Stephen knew what the question was going to be before he even pointed to the kid.
"We were just about to go into the deeper meanings and alienated creatures of the Prehistoric Era." A few other students nodded and most of them got out their text books and started flip through the pages.
Stephen raised his eyebrow, but said nothing. He turned to the board, picked up a piece of chalk, and slowly breathed in. "Very good then, let's begin..."
Stephen only has one thought running through his mind as he fills in for a man that he has started to refer to as not only a professor and mentor, but a friend:
' I shouldn't do this. I mustn't do this. I can't do this... but I will anyway.'
