A/N: What can I say….I know I'm sorry is not NEARLY enough, and I can't even begin to assume that just posting this will make up for it. My life has been a little crazy in the last six months, but I swear to you, this baby still has life in it! You can expect another update soon!
I'm SOOO sorry for the long wait. Do enjoy!
(And for NCIS Tony DiNozzo fans (yes, I'm plugging my own story), I have a story over on that board. Do check out (and review!))
Chapter 8
One Way To Afford A Horizon
The silence that sat over the room was something thicker than any air that any of them had breathed before. No one spoke. No one moved. They had all expected this day to come, but it doesn't mean any of them was anymore ready for it.
Amy held her arm tightly to her chest as Ricky stood next to her. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to be at home, watching something futile on TV, wasting her time pretending to finish her reading list for school. Of course even if they got almost a month off from school, they still had to still do schoolwork. Who cared that there had been people who died? Who cared that there were students who were shot and survived.
Ricky opened his mouth to speak, but they were all at a loss for words as they stared at the crime scene tape. It had taken quite a bit of pressuring Ruben to get this far, and he refused to turn back now. There were things they wanted from their lockers, and slowly, they were letting students in to gather their things, once they were cleared as non-evidence.
Amy gulped as she looked down at the long since dried blood on the floor. The various markers gave away what belonged to who. There had to be at least half a pint of blood just from where they had laid for no more than five minutes. She could see the curve of where she had bled with her arm thrown over his head, and the various spots where different wounds on his body secreted blood onto the floor.
Adrian stepped around them, watching all the markers. "I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to spend any more time in here. I'm going to my locker and getting out," she spoke quickly. Ruben followed quickly behind her, only turning around once to look back at Ricky and Amy for a mere second.
Ricky settled back down into his wheelchair, and his mother pushed it forward, heading towards the main hall. It took Amy a moment to realize they were moving, but she followed quickly behind, only stopping when she reached her locker.
She slowly turned the combination, having to try it three times before she dialed it in right. She kept turning her head to make sure Ricky was okay.
Very quickly, she pulled down the few pictures she had in it, and shoved them into a random folder before moving the few folders and notebooks she had left there, into her bag, and the several keepsakes she had in her locker, before she slammed it shut.
Ricky didn't have such an easy time. Standing up was hard enough, but trying to spin his combination with his non-dominant hand proved to be difficult as well. After two tries, he got it open and gulped as things began to tumble out. Apparently other students had already been here, because dozens of envelopes fell to the floor in front of his feet. His mother moved to pick them up while he turned back to his locker. More laid on top of his books, and he moved to toss them into the bag his mother was holding for him.
Finally, he turned back to his locker and began pulling out the pictures of he, Amy, and John, down from the inside of the locker wall. Below the few photos of them he had, there was a photo of their entire group of friends, including Shawn and Zoe. It had been taken one night after a football game, on the beach when they were celebrating Grace's birthday.
The pictures below it were just random snapshots that he'd been given by various people. A random photo of him holding a baby - someone who had been a foster child he lived with. She'd only lived with them for a few short months before she was adopted by a couple. Ricky had only been 13, and was still getting used to living with people who wouldn't hurt him.
The photo next to it was a rare one - an elementary school photo. To anyone who looked at it, he looked like a happy child, but that wasn't much truth to it. The light hit him in a way that it didn't show the glaring bruise under is chin, or the stitches on his lip. He'd only been given the photo after finding out that the school had kept all the yearly photos taken of him. His teachers had wondered more than he'd ever said, but of course, none of them ever actually said anything.
The final photo left in his locker was one taken at Christmas time. Amy had agreed that they could get their two families together to see John open his presents. Rather than do it at either's homes, they decided to meet up and do it in a hotel in the city. Getting one of the banquet rooms hadn't been easy, but they'd split the cost and ended up turning Christmas day into more of a party for both of their families. It had been the beginning of growing into a family.
The photo itself contained both of their families. Amy and Ricky sat next to each other, smiling at each other, while Ashley sat in front of Amy's legs, and one of Ricky's foster siblings sat across from her. Their mothers sat on either side of them, and their fathers behind them. One of the concierges had taken the photo a few moments too soon, and caught the truth on camera.
It was a photo Ricky had kept to himself for months, until he and Amy actually started becoming something more than just parents who were friends.
The hallway started to spin around him and he reached behind himself gripping the arm of the wheelchair. Margaret reached out to grab his arm, but his slipped past her, leaning against the lockers in front of him.
"I just need a….minute," he whispered breathily as he slumped against them. He slowly slipped down to the floor, and a moment later, his head lolled to the side, unconscious.
"He's pretty screwed up," someone spoke loudly.
"He's been through hell," he could hear Margaret saying. "His mother gave birth to him at 17 and she was also on drugs. It screwed him up physically as well as emotionally."
"Yeah, but who takes five bullets willingly. I would've fought back," the person argued back.
"His back was turned to the first two shots, in the neck and his shoulder, and they knocked him out. When he came to, Bob was on top of him with a gun. There was no possible way for him to fight back," Amy growled.
"Whatever."
"Ricky? Ricky!" Amy whimpered, gently shaking his shoulder.
Ricky's eyes fluttered open slowly. He shook his head wearily, slowly sitting up with the help of his mother. He looked around, momentarily confused about being in the school, before everything flooded back to him.
"You feeling okay," his mom asked.
Ricky nodded. "Yeah, just tired," he shrugged.
-
c'mon mary, get your ass outta bed
-
Grace flipped her notebook shut and stood, crossing her bedroom. At the same moment, her door opened and her mother stood before her.
"Adrian called. Some of the other kids went over to the school to empty out their lockers," her mother started.
Grace simply shrugged it off. "I know," she mumbled. "I told her I didn't care if I got my stuff back."
"Okay," Kathleen muttered, confused. She crossed her arms at Grace, confused at her. "I thought you had pictures of your father in your locker that you just couldn't live without," she teased.
Grace shrugged, stepping past her. She limped in her grey yoga pants as she grabbed a Lancers sweater off of her door handle and pulled it on. "I don't want to go back to that school."
Kathleen nodded, brushing a stray strand of hair out of Grace's face. Grace kept her gaze on the ground.
"You know if you need to talk to someone, Grace-"
Grace quickly shook her head. "I just…" she trailed off, not sure there was an ending to her sentence. "I'm fine. I'm going to meet with Jack."
Kathleen nodded, letting her daughter go. She watched Grace descend down the stairs and heard the back door slam moments later, but she couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't something Grace was just going to be okay with.
Jack pulled his earphones off as his mother stepped into the room. Everyone had been so on edge in the last week - every time he turned around, his parents were asking if he was okay; if he needed to talk to anyone. He felt perfectly fine. Sure, he was a little shook up by the things that had happened at school, but he knew full well that there were other people who were even more freaked out than he was. He was far more worried about Grace than he was himself.
Speak of the devil.
"Grace is outside," his mother explained as he settled his iPod on the nightstand.
He nodded and stood, thanking his mother. He walked down the hall, into the foyer and out the front door. Grace sat on the top step of his front porch, tightly held together. Jack slowly pulled the door shut behind him and walked over next to her. He sat down on the step and gently placed a hand on the small of her back.
"How's it going," he asked gently.
Grace shrugged. "Fine, I guess," she muttered numbly.
"You getting any sleep yet," Jack questioned.
Grace only shrugged again. She rested her head against his shoulder.
The bell rang, and everyone stood, picking up conversation from where they had dropped it the last time the teacher had told everyone to quiet down. Adrian slipped her arm into Grace's and started talking about a party she wanted Grace to go with her to the day after tomorrow.
Half the students were into the hallway when the the exit signs started blinking. Surprisingly, their blaring sirens didn't join in, but instead the P.A. system clicked and Mr. Sedlack began talking.
"Attention all students: we are on lockdown. Please make your way to the nearest exit or classroom and proceed with lockdown rulings. This is not a test. Repeat, we are on lockdown. Please calmly make your way to the nearest exit or classroom and proceed with lockdown procedures."
Grace and Adrian both looked at each other, confused. Most of the other students ignored the announcement as well, and continued on their way to their next classes.
Grace stood outside of her English class and stretched up to wrap an arm around Jack in a hug as he walked up to her.
"Can I have a drink," she asked as he sipped from his water bottle. He nodded and handed it to her.
She had it halfway to her lips when someone blitzed past her and knocked the bottle out of her hands. She gaped and then looked up from where the freshman had been running from and screamed. A student, someone she didn't know, was waving a gun around. She threw her hands up over her ears as a bullet fired through the air. A moment later, students were running for the doors she stood in front of. She screamed as the pressure became tighter and tighter. More screams blew through the air as a bullet pierced the glass and she went tumbling to the floor. People ran over and around her. She screamed and curled into a ball where she lay, waiting until everyone was gone before she felt herself pulled up from the ground. She pushed the hair out of her face and saw that it was Adrian dragging her down the hall.
"What are you doing," she growled at Adrian. "We should be running!"
Adrian shook her head. "I saw someone with a gun follow everyone outside. It's safer in here. C'mon, the band room is just down the hall. They don't have any music classes until third period."
A lone tear drifted down her cheek as she readjusted her head on Jack's shoulder. Yes, she was extremely exhausted, but no. She wasn't sleeping.
"I'm fine," she repeated.
-
blow the candles out, looks like I'm solo tonight
-
Ben knocked lightly on Adrian's door as he adjusted the bag on his shoulder. He'd just come from Grant High School, and, upon Ruben's request, had grabbed all of their other friend's things. Adrian had been supposed to get Grace's things, but according to Ruben, she had just wanted to get in and get out. That made sense to Ben. He didn't really want to be there himself.
Adrian opened the door and smiled slightly. Sure, she'd been over to hang out with Ashley and Amy a little bit since school had been "out", but it was nice to see a fresh face. Especially considering it was looking like Grace had gone off the deep end.
She opened the door open a little bit more and allowed Ben into the house. They both only smiled at each other for a moment, before embracing in a friendly hug.
"How're you doing," Ben asked as he followed her into the kitchen. He settled his messenger bag on an empty stool as they both stood on either sides of the island.
Adrian shrugged. She ran a hand through her tangled mane. "I'm tired," she admitted. "Grace isn't sleeping well, so she's been calling me at night and talking about all kinds of pointless crap, and then during the day, she either shows up here or wants me at her place. This morning I told her I needed some space."
Ben looked sat her surprised, but nodded. "I get how that can be." He gave Adrian a once-over and pursed his lips slightly. She was in clothes she'd been wearing the last time he saw her - two days earlier. There were food stains on the white tunic she wore, and her sweat pants were pretty wrinkled.
"Did I come by too early," he asked suddenly. "I don't want to interrupt if you wanted to get cleaned up."
Adrian shrugged. "Maybe in a bit, if you were just stopping by. Otherwise…"
Ben shrugged, shaking his head. "Go ahead. I've got time to burn up."
Adrian nodded and thanked him before running for the stairs. She was about to round them to where she wouldn't be seen, but then stopped and turned back to look at Ben.
"I don't really get why we're getting all this time off anyway. I mean, I get that they need to iron out the details of where to send everyone to school, but most of us aren't hurt badly. Not like Ricky or Amy," she wondered.
Ben rolled a shoulder. "I think it's more for our parents than us. Like they're supposed to have time to grieve that we're the ones who didn't die. Y'know?"
Adrian thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. She took her foot off of the next step for a minute, looking back more clearly at Ben. "But that doesn't really matter for people like you and me - people whose parents work every day and don't really have the time to take off."
Ben only nodded in agreement.
Fifteen minutes later, Adrian was back in the kitchen with a fresh pair of jeans on and a clean tank top. Her hair was wrapped up in a towel as she sipped on a glass of orange juice. Ben was flipping through some of the things he had pulled out of his locker. Most of the pictures were just of him and other friends; all of his photos of Amy had come down when she and Ricky started exclusively dating a few months earlier.
Adrian, meanwhile, was going through Grace's things. A lot of the pictures were of Adrian and, or their friends, or of Grace and, or her family.
"Aww," she chuckled softly.
Been looked up from what he was reading and looked at the picture Grace was looking at. He flipped it up for a moment. Grace and Marshal 1997
"Nineteen Ninety-seven would've made Grace four," Adrian guessed as she set the picture down. Grace was smiling obnoxiously while she held an apple in her hand, while sitting in her father's lap. Marshal was simply smiling back at the camera.
"I wonder if we'll ever see this Grace again," Ben muttered. Ever since her dad had died, little pieces of her seemed to have changed. Ever since the shooting though, she seemed even more distant, like she'd fallen off her rocker.
Adrian brushed his comment off. "I don't want to think about it," she excused. "Everyone's so stressed out by different things. I just want things to start over again."
Before Ben could say another word, the back door opened. Both he and Adrian turned and watched as Amy and Ashley walked into the house. To Ben's surprise, Amy and Adrian had bonded over their fear of losing Ricky. Slowly but surely, they were learning to be friends.
"We just needed to get out of the house," Ashley explained as they stepped up to the island.
Adrian nodded and pushed a plate of cut up fruit towards them. Adrian picked up a piece of an apple while Amy simply stood next to her. She held her arm protectively against her body while her eyes flittered over what Ben and Adrian were looking at.
"All this bullshit is so useless," she suddenly mumbled, catching the other three's attentions.
"What," Ben questioned.
"It's bullshit," Amy repeated. She looked up at him, and then Adrian. "Yeah. We live by everyone elses rules, do what they tell us to do up until a certain age just because some idiots decided that at 18, that's when we should suddenly get to make all the decisions in our lives. Forget about the people who had guns held to their heads or had babies and had to change their whole lives. Forget about the kids whose parents died at five, six years old, and had to learn to live without them. Forget about the kids who raise themselves because their parents either aren't around, or spend so much time arguing about their marriage, they forget why they're married in the first place. It's stupid bullshit."
Ben and Ashley still looked at Amy astonished, but Adrian nodded. "You're right. It is." She paused for a moment and shrugged, biting her bottom lip as she reached out and placed a comforting hand on Amy's bicep. "But that's life. And it goes on whether we like it or not."
Amy's bottom lip trembled. She felt like she cried all the time these days. "Yet so many people are dead, and they shouldn't be. I have three funerals to attend in the next two days and I just…" she shook her head, too choked up to finish.
Adrian and Ashley both hugged her gently. She rested her chin on her sister's shoulder, mouthing an apology to Ben. He just shook his head.
-
Just close your eyes and remember; everything is beautiful
-
Ricky settled a stack of photos on his coffee table and pulled roughly at his blankets. Moving his leg was a nearly impossible task; Dr. Kosh had said that it could be a few weeks before the swelling went completely down.
He flipped open one of his binders as the door to his apartment opened. He looked up in time to see Margaret settling a bag of groceries on the table in his kitchenette.
Ricky turned on his couch, settling is broken leg on the coffee table, and keeping his right arm close to his body.
"How're you doing, kiddo?" Margaret asked as she began to put away the groceries she'd picked up for him.
Ricky only shrugged. "Okay, I guess. Tired."
Margaret nodded, folding down an empty bag. "And Amy and John?"
Ricky pushed himself up onto his good leg and hopped over to the table, grabbing an apple off of it. He took a bite out of it and then settled in a chair while Margaret finished putting the groceries away. She then grabbed juice from the fridge and poured them both a cup.
"John's better now that Amy and I are home. I don't know about Amy though. She still blames herself for everything that happened," Ricky explained. "I'm worried about her."
Margaret nodded again as she sat down at the table. She rested her hand over his. "And you are?"
Ricky gave her a small smirk. "I'm really okay, mom. I'm having trouble sleeping, but I guess you could say I'm doing better than everyone else."
Margaret smiled, shaking her head at him. "How is it that you were hurt the worst, and yet, out of all you and your friends, you're doing the best?"
Ricky shrugged. "I guess because I've lived through all of this before." He pushed himself to his feet and hopped over to the counter with his cup. He downed everything in it and then rinsed out the cup before dropping it into the sink.
"So, your father and I want you to move home," Margaret muttered suddenly. Ricky turned back to her, surprised at what she was suggesting.
"Mom-"
Margaret cut him off, shaking her head. "We understand that you like having your own place because of John, but the doctor said you won't have full use of your arm for a while. You need someone to help you out."
Ricky shook his head and huffed. "Mom, I'm gonna be fine. Most of the time I'll be at Amy's or by you. I'm gonna be okay."
Margaret set her jaw, not sure that she liked that he was trying to bargain with her, but when Ricky wanted something a certain way, he usually got it. Finally, she sighed and nodded. She stood, grabbing her purse.
"Well I have to get home. What are your plans for the rest of the day," she asked as she pulled her coat on.
Ricky shrugged, pushing himself off the counter. "I'll probably sleep for a while and then Amy and John are supposed to come over tonight for dinner."
Margaret placed a hand on her hip. "You're not going to attempt to cook, are you?"
Ricky chuckled and shook his head. "No. She's bringing takeout."
Margaret sighed heavily. "Okay, kiddo." She walked to the door, waving to him before she walked out. Ricky hopped back over to the couch, resting his leg over some pillows. He grabbed his TV remote off the table and turned it on before he rolled over and fell asleep.
