Still Light Follows the Same Rules I Do
By: AliLamba
Thanks: to AB, noch einmal, because she's a sweetheart.
Notes: Away we go…

p.s. warning to my jak girls, whom i adore: you have been used and ilywaytoomuch.

CHAPTER TWO: common wants and common cares

Day two. Tuesday. She's got AP Bio on her schedule now and a bag lunch in her backpack (apple, peanut butter and jelly, and some potato chips). She keeps feeling like her uniform is too tight, and it was too expensive in the first place… Sam's face was stony all of last night, during the three hours they spent sharing their living space while conscious. It hasn't been lost on Kate that her dad's been moody since they moved to San Francisco – he had to pull too many strings to get her into Sacred Heart, and some sort of guilt was weighing too heavily on him; a guilt of moving her around too much, of this being her last year of high school and having more than half a dozen transcripts. Of his only daughter having only one friend in the whole world.

This transferred guilt is rolling around in Kate's brain as she pulls into the parking lot at 7:40 in the morning. Her locker is on the first floor next to the stairs and science wing, and she stops by there first to drop off all the text books she took home last night. French is first.

Five minutes into class, the door flings open, and a leggy blonde waltzes in. This is what Kate understands:

"Sorry Ms. Rousseau, my driver [verbed] a [noun] and [verbed] coffee on the top of my [noun]. Naturally I [something] to home [word word word]."

Suddenly Kate was very scared. She started scribbling sounds down and flipping to the back of the book. This girl had used a tense she hadn't even heard of before. The teacher launched into a arm-waving-filled response, but the mental block was already up. The blonde student was rolling her eyes and dumping herself into a chair near the back, her cell phone already out next to her unopened text book.

Ms. Rousseau looked frustrated when the class settled it's attention back on her. "Bon!" she called. "You will prepare for me a [noun] for […Thursday?] and I hope you have a good time with the preparation."

Kate's shoulders scooted up around her ears, as she fought the urge to check the other faces in the class for one as equally confused.

Awesome.

Pre-calc came as cool relief. They were a few chapters behind where Kate had last learned, and polynomials came – for once – as a fun activity. After finishing her problems early, she tried to sweep her eyes around her new classmates unnoticed.

Someone immediately caught her eye.

She was picking at her nail polish, flat black hair hanging like a plastic carpet on either sides of her face. Her eyes were circled in layers of dark black eyeliner, and an empty piece of paper lay on her desk. Kate wasn't sure why…but she felt like she couldn't look away. It wasn't like she hadn't seen any Goth kids before; Arizona was full of them, for some reason. It was just how…angry she looked; how checked out, like she wasn't even in the room. Dr. Chang took over the classes' attention, but Kate found herself looking back every few minutes.

She realized how small a school it was when she ran into the leggy blonde and the Goth girl in her Ethics and Culture class.

"Papers! Papers please," Dr. Arzt demanded. Kate also knew that he demanded to be called Dr. Arzt. He was giving all the girls in the class a very hard stare as they staggered up to his desk, dropping off thin packets of stapled essays. His eyes fell on Kate.

"Papers, please," he reiterated, gruff and mocking.

"I uh," Kate stammered. "Sir I just started yesterday."

Dr. Arzt's frown deepened, like he was offended. "Then you had plenty of time to complete the assignment!"

Kate didn't need to look around the room to know that everyone was staring at her. She felt like a small child in a room full of grownups, and she'd just knocked over someone's glass of wine. Why are you even in here?

"Sir, you…you never told me it was due."

Dr. Arzt threw up his hands in a large, wide circle. "Oh, I find that hard to believe miss—" He checked his attendance log. "Miss Austen!"

When Kate's expression didn't waver, Dr. Arzt got flustered. "Turn it in tomorrow, please!"

Unmistakably, Kate heard the sound of two giggles behind her back. For some reason, she didn't want it to be the leggy blonde and the goth girl.

"Miss Rutherford and Miss Littleton, I would thank you to keep your amusement to yourselves? Thank you!"

The vein on the side of Dr. Arzt's neck was throbbing dangerously. He closed his eyes and tilted his head towards the desk, his nostrils flaring as he took deep, calming breaths. "Ground your body, Arzt," he whispered to himself, and there was an unmistakable snort in the back of the room. "Find the center of your head…be in your bubble. It's your bubble. Ground."

He looked up, his eyes hawkish as they raked the room. "Okay class, today we'll be talking about genocide."

"Today we'll be continuing our introduction to badminton!" A perky blonde was dancing around on the balls of her feet, trying to shake out whatever excess enthusiasm was making her play with shuttlecocks as she led the class. "I'm going to need you to pair up – Sun? You'll now have a partner. Kate is new."

Kate looked up and around the room for someone who was maybe trying to catch her eye, but there wasn't anyone looking.

Libby Smith went over the finer points of serving, then she approached a pretty Asian girl with a stern expression. Mrs. Smith lightheartedly bumped the student on the shoulder and then pointed towards where Kate was standing awkwardly in her school-issued gym shorts and t-shirt. Kate tried to manage a smile and wave.

The girl known as Sun started walking towards her. When she was within a few feet, she stopped.

"You better not suck."

It was the only thing Kate heard from her all class.

But they dominated. After a few fumbles over her own feet in the first match-up, Kate and Sun became an unstoppable force. The period-long tournament seemed to fly by as Kate pounded the crap out of the shuttlecock, sending it flying over the net, where it would lob back to her partner, who easily set up a straight whack to send the birdie two inches over the net and straight at their opponents shoes.

It was awesome. It was fun. And Kate was pretty sure Sun smiled at her when they walked back towards the locker room after class.

So much was her enthusiasm, that she almost forgot that she was new. As she waltzed out of the locker room, backpack slung over her shoulders and ready for lunch, she felt a sense of ease. And then she saw the sea of cliques spread out over the courtyard that made up the front of the school.

"Impressive, no?"

A cool voice filled her left ear as a hand slipped against the inside of her elbow. Sun effortlessly started tugging her out into the middle of the fray.

"Y-yeah," Kate stammered, finding her footing.

It was a pulsating cesspool of perfectly shiny hair, dry cleaned uniforms, and 24-karat earrings. Everyone seemed to be busy – copying homework, writing text messages or eating types of prepackaged snack food Kate had never heard of.

All the hubub seemed to be carrying her though. Kate noticed that people seemed to move their legs out of the way for Sun, and bags were snatched up just in time. It was as if they were in some kind of current, and it was taking them somewhere.

Dead center, towards the back, were the models. It wasn't that everyone else wasn't pretty, it was just that these girls were hot.

And Kate recognized them.

The leggy blonde was sprawled out on a stone bench, her head resting in the lap of the goth girl. A sparkling brunette Kate had stared at in the hallway was chatting on her cellphone, next to a pair of girls wearing hats. Everyone but the leggy blonde looked up when Sun approached.

"This is Kate," she said flippantly, abandoning her to lean against a pole and pull out her Blackberry. "She's new."

Kate was selfconsciously remembering the bulky, four-year-old cell phone somewhere in the bottom of her backpack, probably being crushed at the moment under the weight of two binders and a textbook.

"Hi Kate!" perked the sparkling brunette. "My name is Kristen, and this is Shannon [the leggy blonde] and Claire [goth girl], and then this is Jessica and Marie."

Finished with whatever she was checking on, Sun kicked her foot into Shannon's calf, so the blonde could lift her legs and let Sun sit on the bench beneath them. Kate tried her smile and wave to the girls she was just meeting, then swung her backpack around her shoulder so she could fish out her sack lunch.

"Awesome." Shannon drawled, clearly uninterested. She opened her eyes and squinted in Kate's direction. Although Kate didn't notice, she was obviously being scrutinized. "…Where are you from?"

"Uhm," Kate stalled, getting her PB&J from its plastic bag. "I guess you could say…Iowa?"

"What does that mean?" one of the hatted girls asked.

"My dad's military, so we uh, move around…a lot." Kate shoved the sandwich in her mouth, taking a big bite. She hadn't realized how hungry she was.

Shannon leaned upwards a little. "Oh my god, Sun, do you remember those guys from last year? Those…I dunno, army guys?"

"Marines, dummy."

"Yeah whatever. They were totally hot."

"Oh my god, yes!" Kristen piped in. "Brad, and Owen? They were so. cute. Maybe we should call them! Oh my god do you remember their eyes? So cute. I wonder if they're dead."

Kate was trying not to frown, but her eyebrows were bunching together of their own accord.

"How—" she coughed, some sort of seed tripping down her throat. "How do you guys, uh…how do you guys know each other?"

Shannon settled her head back into Claire's lap and closed her eyes. "Water polo," she sighed. "We're all on the same team. Kristen's our goalie—" Kristen shot her hand up half-way like she wanted to answer the question or was trying to cheer for herself, "—and me and Sun are part of the front line. Oh, with Ana Lucia. Shit I just forgot that I haven't seen her today. Guys, have you seen her today? Where the hell is she?"

"She wasn't here yesterday either." It was the first time Claire had said anything, and Kate was caught off-guard. She wanted to believe that it was only because of Claire's Australian accent, which she wasn't expecting.

Kate took the opening of everyone pausing in collective thought. "Uh…what is…what is water polo?"

Shannon was immediately sitting up.

"You don't know what water polo is."

Kate forgot to chew the last bite of her sandwich and shook her head. It was a hard bite to swallow.

"Water polo is the hardest game in all of sports."

"It's easy," Kristen tried to moderate.

"It's not easy," Shannon cut in. "Water polo is the most difficult sport you will ever play. Can you run?"

"Yes."

"Then you can't swim. It's like playing soccer in quicksand. You need to have the endurance to tread water for forty minutes, the intelligence to stage your play, and the sheer strength to throw a, a," she was trying to find the analogy, "a basketball, with one hand, into a five-foot net, that's guarded by the strongest member of your opponent's team."

Kate couldn't tell if she was put off or turned on.

"I uh…I was thinking of joining the swimming team."

"Psh," Sun dismisses, letting the sound represent how lesser she feels of the sport.

"Yeah, well," Shannon starts, assuming an air of authority as she starts to lay back down. "We've graduated."

Kristen's been wanting to jump in for awhile now. "Not only that, but the guys team we sometimes practice with? St. Ignatius? They are, without a doubt, the hottest guys you will ever meet."

Kate remembered yesterday afternoon, seeing the group of kids on the corner. And also seeing Shannon getting picked up in one of those sedan limousines with all-tinted windows.

"Well, no pressure, but we're always looking for alternates," a girl in a hat suggested. Did they switch hats? She was getting them confused.

"Yeah, you should come try out sometime," the other said, though Kate got the impression that she didn't mean it at all.

A short pause filled the conversation. Shannon pulled out a pink rhinestone-encrusted cell phone and started madly typing on the swivel-out keypad.

"What classes do you have?" Sun asked.

Kate started listing them off. "Oh, and then I got switched to something new today. Some sort of…Biology class? With a Shep-hard guy?" She pronounced the two halves independently, because it sounded like a joke she'd wanted to make last night with her dad before realizing neither of them would laugh at it.

Kristen's mouth dropped. open.

"Nah uh. Nah uh! You got Marc and Jack!" It was phrased almost like a question, and Kate nodded tentatively. Why are you yelling?

And while Kate watched, all the girls in front of her shared eye contact. They grinned, a few giggled, like they were sharing some sort of secret they weren't ready to impart yet.

"Those guys are really hot," Shannon explained, her lips almost catlike in the way they curved. "Jack Shephard also happens to be the water polo coach. Maybe you'll be convinced to try out by the end of the day…"

Claire rolled her eyes and looked away, and Kate almost didn't see her. In a quiet voice she whispered:

"Most girls are."

Sun had AP United States History with Marc "dreamboat" Silverman the same time as Kate, so they walked together. Kate tried to fill her in on what sort of history classes she'd had thus far, and was pleasantly surprised when Sun smiled a little at some of the transitions of subjects; like peanut farming to the Japanese porn industry.

"It's a little embarrassing when you start mixing up facts. I'm still 90% certain George Washington Carver owned a glow-in-the-dark sex doll."

They arrived early enough, and Sun put Kate in the seat next to her. It wouldn't have been her first choice, but Kate settled into her seat at the dead center, front of the room with relative comfort. As the other girls trickled in, Kate noticed that – unusually – the front half of the room filled up first, the last girls jumping into the doorway with hopeful expressions, immediately wiped off when they saw the only available seats in the far back corners.

Kate wasn't sure what to think about that. Either this was a popular class by teaching standards, or Mr. Silverman was some sort of Ken doll.

…He turned out to be more of a Ken doll.

He had wavy reddish brown hair which he swept back, a strong build and a fitted dress shirt. He had this air of… Kate couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something about him was just off. She wouldn't realize until the end of the week that she didn't feel like she could trust him.

The class went smoothly. Kate was surprised she could answer some of the questions, but was put off by the smiles she received in return.

"That was weird," Kate concluded after class, walking with Sun down the hallway. Out of the corner of her eye Kate caught sight of a glimmer of a smile across her new friend's face. "What."

Sun just shakes her head and turns a corner, heading to whatever class she has next that's not with Kate. Kate's lips twist in disappointed confusion. Her head is in sort of a fog when she gets to English class with Mrs. Nadler, and doesn't realize until class has started that she's taken the seat next to Claire Littleton. It shakes her concentration completely for a minute, and during the class's discussion of Othello she can't help but sneak glances at the raven-haired Aussi who seems to exude mystery.

While a perky brunette starts to read Iago's iconic soliloquy with gusto (Kate hadn't even noticed Kristen on the other side of the room), Kate impulsively scribbles a note on the back of a gas receipt.

You're Claire, right?

It's easy enough to slide over while Mrs. Nadler is arguing with Kristen over her impression of Iago's accent.

A few minutes go by. Kristen is now trying to stay standing while Mrs. Nadler is trying to force her performance to remain seated. …Claire still hasn't replied. Kate sneaks another glance. And then another.

Her face is so blank, so passive. Like she's not even in the room.

"Claire, can you please take over where Kristen left off?"

Claire's chin tipped up, and without missing a beat, she began to recite from memory.

"She must change for youth: when she is sated with his body,
she will find the error of her choice: she must
have change, she must: therefore put money in thy
purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a
more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money
thou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt
an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not
too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou
shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of
drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek
thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than
to be drowned and go without her."

Mrs. Nadler sent a veiled look towards Kristen, who was huffing indignantly. The class continued as if nothing had happened, but for the four minutes remaining in class, Kate could hardly take her eyes away from Claire. Why did it seem like no one else saw it?

The bell rang, and Kate started to put her backpack together.

"You have Shephard next, right?"

Kate's spiral notebook completely slipped from her fingers, so surprised was she to hear the Australian's voice.

"Uh—" she tried. She paused, kneeling on the floor, her books and notebook halfway into the faded blue sack. "Uh. Yeah." She tried to smile, expressing this sort of floodgate of relief. For the life of her, Kate couldn't understand why she felt so drawn to this small, gothic girl.

They walked to AP biology in silence. When they could see the door, Claire spoke.

"Mr. Shephard is a stickler for assigned seats. Sorry." Kate couldn't help but feel a little abandoned when Claire headed straight for a mid-room seat. She paused near the door, examining the entirely empty last row. She could see Sun, and Shannon, already seated at random around the room. She thought she recognized one of the girls in a hat, too.

The bell rang. A door at the back of the room opened, drawing Kate's attention.

Was this the cause of all those giggles? Kate had to swallow her initial reaction.

She hadn't really thought teacher's came in "attractive" until a few hours ago. But the man who came from back and steadfastly was heading toward the front – he was… Well, he couldn't be a teacher. Sure, he wasn't wearing the uniform - a button down shirt and a tie, slacks… There was a coat hanging by the door…I mean, he was male, after all, in an all-female student body, and was also obviously hovering around thirty years old… But he was cute.

Really cute.

"Anywhere, Miss Austen," he said as he passed her. It startled her, and it was with jerky movements that she took the seat farthest from the door.

When she was sitting she realized that Sun and Shannon were looking at her, grinning like cats with canaries behind their teeth. Suddenly annoyed, Kate mouthed a mock-innocent What? and tried to focus on the front of the room.

Mr. Shephard launched immediately into his lecture, using a very simplistic powerpoint and writing tablet to guide the class. It was knowledge after knowledge, and halfway through Kate realized she honestly had to give up. She couldn't follow anything, so she spent the second half pretending to write notes while she scoured the first chapter of the text book. Towards the end she became engrossed, and it surprised her when the bell rang for the end of the school day.

"Miss Austen." It carries across the room, short and loud, and makes her think of her father.

Sick. Her shoulders were tense so she made them slump, and she turned back towards him with her head bowed a little bit.

"Yes?" she asked, in all senses polite.

Then there's this weird moment. He's staring into her eyes, and she can feel it. And the moment's taking longer than it's supposed to, and she's feeling uncomfortable, and suddenly all she wants is to hear him say something else instead. Something that would break the surface of whatever's beneath the water in her throat.

"Mr. Shephard?"

"I need you to stay a moment."

It came so quickly on the heels of her words that she's sure he'd been trying to say it for awhile. Her cheek puckered with a small, confused frown. Was she getting kicked out of the smart kids' class?

Kate shoots a glance towards the door, watching everyone else file out. Nearly everyone turned back to look at her, trying to be furtive as they looked up from textbooks that took them too long to put away.

She felt herself zoning out, as her mind tried to catch up with itself. It hadn't come full circle by the time Mr. Shephard was calling her name again.

"Miss Austen, can you come over here please?"

Her head snapped back towards him instantly, but it took her feet a half second to follow behind.

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say first. "Is something…wrong?"

He was staring at her again, into her eyes, and again she felt like prey caught by its predator. She felt antsy, shifting her weight to her other foot.

"I'm sure you're aware of the…nature, of my reputation here."

Kate could feel her face contort a little, confused. Mr. Shephard pulled his lips together. "Look," he dropped. "I know that certain girls…well, they manage to get into this class under false pretenses." Kate frowned, a little unsure but not feeling optimistic. "I just want you to know that I won't be lenient. You got yourself into this class, and there will be no hand holding. I expect you to do all your work from this point out, and I'm not shy of flunking students just because they didn't realize what they were getting into."

Kate realized her mouth had slipped open a fraction. Her eyes were wide, and she squeezed the straps of her backpack unconsciously.

"Sir, I really wa—"

"Hey," he cut her off. "I really don't need to hear it. You just need to know how this class operates. If you don't think you can handle it, you have about a week to find something else."

Kate was stunned, and angry to realize that there were tears beginning to form at the corner of her eyes.

"I understand."

Mr. Shephard tried for a fleeting second to look sympathetic, then resolutely turned towards his computer, doing something with the handwritten notes he'd made during the class.

"Uhm…Mr. Shephard?"

These words seem to just be coming out of her mouth. She wasn't sure where they were coming from, but coming they were.

Mr. Shephard turned slowly in his chair. The way he was leaning back a little gave Kate the impression that he was caught a little off-guard.

"I was wondering when the next tryout was, for the water polo team."

His eyes flicked; narrowed a bit, like he wasn't sure who she was.

Claire was standing next to the door when Kate flew past her, unseeing. She'd heard the whole conversation inside, knew that Kate was now thinking of joining the team.

That was fine by Claire. It wasn't anything new. She heard Jack's fingers clacking on his computer keyboard and felt comfortable rounding the corner. His back was turned.

"Can you give me a ride?" she asked. In her mind she remembered saying goodbye to Shannon and Sun, thinking that being in the black leather interior of their towncar was the last place in the world she ever wanted to be. Nor did she want to head over to St. Ignatius and run the risk of running into…anyone.

Jack didn't turn around. Claire sort of hated being the only Australian in school. "I can't; I rode my bike today."

Claire bit her lip and stared listlessly out of the window. Okay then…

"Where's dad? Your mom?"

"Chicago."

"Ah."

Claire shifted her weight. "You know? It's okay. I'll just take a cab. I don't know what I was thinking. I'll call Shannon."

Jack turned around and gave her one of his debilitating stares; one of those that really reminded her that this 'brother' was so intensely foreign to her. They straddled such a strange relationship. Jack was looking at her like she was a frustrating child, but he fished out his wallet and grabbed a twenty dollar bill. He held it up to his face so she knew what it was, then put it down on the counter in front of him. Somehow satisfied, he turned around in his chair and resumed his work.

Claire felt angry tears swell up in her eyes. There was half a minute of an awkward pause, which she spent hating him as much as humanly possible. With heavy steps she stomped across the room and grabbed the money, storming out just as quickly.

Why was she so miserable? It felt like she put all of it on herself sometimes – like she was the one creating all this melancholy. But there seemed to be too many factors which expedited the process. And it was easy to misplace all of that into a generic hatred of America, and everything in it.

They'd been happy in Sydney, as just two of them. And then her mom had to go and get sick, and then her father had shown up…the one she had just assumed was dead, after sixteen years of silence. She often wished, with a sort of vague seriousness, that he had been. That she hadn't found him re-proposing to her mother in that private suite at the Sydney Hospital. That she didn't suddenly have everything change.

"Hey, do you need a ride?"

The words met her, like they were obviously said to no one else. Claire looked up, knowing that her eyeliner was at least a little smudged.

It was the new girl. She was halfway into her truck, one foot in the cab and the other on the pavement.

Kate…that was her name. She'd been circling around her and her friends all day. She seemed…okay. Claire examined the truck. It wasn't so old, maybe five years old…silver. Pretty average.

...And then she remembered Thomas…and how he had one exactly like it.

"Yeah, okay."

The ride was bumpy, and besides giving directions, Claire didn't offer any conversation. She was too busy remembering him, and how much she loved him. Traffic was on the heavier side of normal, and the drive took a little more than twenty minutes. When her building came into view, and Claire knew the ride was going to end…

"How would you feel about driving me home every day?" she asked, staring out the windshield, looking in every sense bored. "Twenty dollars a day?"

She saw Kate make a cough/choking motion. It was so easy to read her. "Uh…" she started, and Clair wondered if she heard an accent. "Yeah, sure."

They had just pulled up to the loading zone, and a guy in a carnivalesque uniform was already opening Claire's door. "Wonderful."

She hopped out, and headed straight inside. Frank knew by now not to try and engage her in conversation, so she made it clear to the elevators without hearing a voice within five feet of her. Once the doors closed, she let the tears fall.

Oh Thomas.

Surely she couldn't have invented the promises of a long-distance relationship, and eternal love. Or the girl he'd left her for.

Surely all that must be true.