Beautiful Collision
"Jigsaw Feeling"

"So, where'd Corny go stomping off to this fine lunch hour?" Irma Lair asked conversationally around a mouthful of chocolate-covered graham cracker. "I was trying to hit her up for the answer to that stupid Caligula question before history, and she just sat there huffing and ignoring me. Somebody's hairdryer must have shorted out again."

She and the three remaining Guardians were enjoying a sunny, yet still nippy, late January afternoon, situated around a large brick planter, where they'd spread out their lunches. The cafeteria's offense that day was meatloaf (or "food loaf", as it was more commonly called), so most of them had brown-bagged it—save Will, who was so intent on dissecting her mashed potatoes with a plastic spork that she hadn't looked at anyone else for fifteen minutes. Hadn't said anything, either. She hadn't even laughed at Irma's "Grade-F meat" joke. And everybody laughed at the Grade-F meat joke. It was grade-A material. Rimshot!

"First of all, Irma," Taranee Cook interjected as she meticulously peeled the rind off her tangerine, "for someone who keeps insisting that Martin Tubbs is a sociopath in horn-rims, you spend more time talking to him than doing your homework. And secondly, I could've told you the answer to that question! What did you end up putting?"

"Something about him honking on his sisters," was Irma's offhand reply as she crunched into a third cracker. "And I was not talking to him, I was talking to his answering machine. And oh, man, you should've heard it! First I pretended to sell him beachfront property in Phoenix, and then—"

"You two have the weirdest foreplay ritual ever," Taranee said calmly as she popped a tangerine segment into her mouth.

Irma choked. Next to her, Hay Lin shrieked so loudly that she dropped her container of cold lo-mein noodles and clapped her hands over her mouth.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Irma gasped, spraying herself with cracker crumbs in the process. Since when had the Guardian of Fire gotten all sassy, anyway? Well, apparently since Ms. The Earth Literally Revolves Around Me was a no-show, and their often sarcastic leader had taken such an interest in her gluey fluorescent gravy. After all, somebody had to make with the cutting rejoinders, and Hay Lin was entirely too sweet to fill that role. "Never, ever mention Martin and me in the same sentence with the f-word. Or the other f-word, for that matter. Unless you fancy a watery demise."

"I'm just sayin'," Taranee smirked behind her bottle of water, feigning innocence. Hay Lin giggled as she stabbed at a straw mushroom with her chopsticks. Will still hadn't looked up from rearranging the so-called comestibles on her tray.

Irma raised an eyebrow at her unusually taciturn friend. "So Will, you have any idea what's wrong with the Queen C?" she prompted, determined to get her speaking one way or another. "Pea under her mattress? Or did she just overpluck her eyebrows again and flee in shame from humankind?"

"She broke up with Caleb," Will answered mechanically, then dropped her spork, looking mildly surprised at her own announcement.

The surprise was much more pronounced on her friends' faces, all of whom gaped at her, mouths hanging open.

"They broke up?" Hay Lin exclaimed, sounding scandalized. Irma hoped she'd brought an extra set of chopsticks, because one of them had just taken a flying leap into the shrubbery. "When did that happen?"

"Last night," Will said, looking somewhat uncomfortable as her friends continued staring. "Look…maybe she doesn't want me discussing it with you guys."

"Nonsense. Spill it," Irma declared, leaning forward with hands on knees. "If she can tell you all the gory details, then she has indirectly given her consent to have them made public."

"Well…" Will hunched so far into her shoulders, Irma half expected her head to retreat into her neck cavity. "I…kindasorta didn't hear it from Cornelia."

The three other girls all exchanged a significant glance. "So…you kindasorta heard it from Caleb then?" Taranee inquired, crinkling her brow. "But if it was last night—"

"He came over. He…needed a way home. After the way he left Cornelia's, he figured she probably wasn't going to let him back in to use the portal." Will explained all this in a rush before bending back over her tray and resuming her decapitation of the slab of food loaf with renewed vigor.

"But did he say why they broke up?" Hay Lin pressed, looking worried. She'd championed those two from day one, and judging by the alarm on her face now, you'd think the end was nigh, Irma thought. Earthquakes and tsunamis were nothing compared to the harbinger of eternal doom that was the death knell of the Most Perfect Couple Ever.

Irma, however, held no such foolish notions. It wasn't any surprise to her. She'd guessed the Big One was about to drop during her and Cornelia's dual baby-sitting gig on Will's birthday. Somewhere between Cornelia whining into the carton of General Tso's Chicken (which she had totally hogged, despite Irma's attempts to get a chopstick in edgewise) about how men were constant disappointments, and her running commentary during the movie about how Vance Michael Justin at least tried to spend time with his girlfriend in the face of invading orc forces…well, Irma had gotten the teensiest whiff that the rose garden was starting to smell like poo.

Frankly, she thought Cornelia and Caleb deserved medals, a ticker-tape parade and a kickline giving a twenty-one-gun salute, for having made it last as long as they did. She'd never really understood what they had in common, other than when Cornelia managed to get Caleb out of his grubby rebel attire and into something of her choosing, they both looked like they'd just jumped off the window placards in the local Gap. Looks. Psh. How could anyone jump into a relationship based on that? You at least needed to like the same kinds of music, or enjoy the same hobbies, or be willing to listen patiently while the other yakked.

Or, failing that, share an appreciation for deranged humor, which explained herself and Martin at any rate—although the word "relationship" in regards to them would be better replaced with "prolonged mutual harassment."

"I'm less interested in the whys as I am the hows," Irma announced, unscrewing the cap off her Yoo-Hoo. "As in, how did it go down, exactly? Was it a 'Dear Caleb' letter? Were there any plants or expensive vases destroyed in the process? I mean, are we talking a mere Three Mile Island here, or a full-on, Slim-Pickens-riding-the-bomb-and-yelling-'Woohoo' thermonuclear war?"

"Irma!" Hay Lin rounded on her so fast that Taranee, who was in closer proximity, nearly sustained whiplash from her pigtails. "How can you say something like that? Did you have this much fun when Will and Matt broke up?"

"Of course not," Irma said testily, keeping an eye on her redheaded friend as she sipped. Will's eyes were almost closed, her head drooping like a wilted flower over her mangled lunch. If only she could get a chuckle—or even a trace of a smile—out of her. "For one, I thought they would make it. But just to prove I'm not completely heartless, Hay Lin, I propose a wager, with all proceeds going to charity. I'll put five bucks on the prediction that Cornelia's on the rebound within a week."

Taranee glared at Irma over the rims of her glasses. "Irma, your heart is as black as the dark side of the moon."

Irma shrugged and grinned. "Okay, ten bucks says that she dates your brother first."

Taranee's eyes bugged at that statement, but any possible attempt on her behalf to charbroil Irma was mercifully halted by the interruption of Uriah—quite possibly the only time she'd ever been glad to hear that sneering voice of his. "Hey, Wilma!" he shouted from across the courtyard, accompanied by the snickers of his lumbering cronies. "Since you ain't tuning Olsen's six-string anymore, how about you come over to my place and hit my whammy bar for awhile?"

"How about we give you a Fender Stratocaster brand enema, you pockmarked asshat?" Irma yelled back through cupped hands, leaping up atop the planter as she did so. A gaggle of cheerleaders crossing the quad began giggling at her proclamation, prompting Uriah and his goons to scowl and beat a hasty retreat.

"All right, Irma, you've redeemed yourself for the moment," Taranee allowed her, fighting a small smile as she crumpled her paper bag into a ball. "I don't think Hay Lin or I would've been able to pull that out of our arsenal."

Hay Lin nodded eagerly. "Especially 'asshat'."

"Eh, I say next time we lure him off school grounds with a blow-up doll on a string, then flash-freeze him," Irma declared, jumping back down to the concrete and plopping herself down beside Will, whose expression hadn't much changed. Man, what is it going to take to get the girl to snap out of this funk of hers? "That way we won't get detention. And I'm sure there's some beastie in Meridian who'd appreciate a human Popsicle for dessert. Whaddya say, Will?" She looped an arm around the sagging shoulders of her friend, who was now sitting doubled over with chin in hands.

"He kissed me," was Will's muffled response.

Irma froze, goggling at Will, or rather at the curtain of red hair that shielded her face from her friends. "Who? Uriah?"

"Caleb."

Thank God. She'd nearly had a heart attack—wait, wait, back it up a second! Had she said Caleb? As in, the resident freedom-fighter dude who usually either had a smelly green passling or a snooty blonde Guardian clinging to him like a barnacle?

Caleb…kissed Will? I understand the words, but that sentence makes no sense!

She glanced back at Taranee and Hay Lin, whose mouths had both formed immobile Os. "Say that again, hon?" she prompted, withdrawing her arm so as to give Will space.

"It didn't mean anything," Will said in a strangely faraway voice, her face finally resurfacing, but avoiding her friends' stunned expressions at all costs. "He kissed me, but it didn't mean anything." She ambled to her feet. "I—I gotta go, you guys."

Irma, Taranee and Hay Lin shared another wordless glance after the furious pounding of Will's sneakers on the sidewalk had finally receded. "Do you think that was the why?" Hay Lin finally asked in a tentative voice.

Irma held up the backpack Will had left behind in her haste, tugging the frog zipper-pull enough to see the glowing Heart of Kandrakar secreted inside amongst a nest of gum wrappers. "Don't know, but if it's making her forget stuff like this, I'm sure it means something."

Will knew exactly where Cornelia was. While making a slapdash effort to finish her algebra homework that morning, she'd overheard some of the drama kids talking about an emergency lunch rehearsal. From what she'd been able to gather between equations, the guy slated to play Tommy in the school's production of Brigadoon had been stricken with a sudden case of mono, forcing both his understudy and Cornelia, as the female lead, to re-rehearse all of their scenes.

Backstage was mostly empty, except for a couple of art students painting a pastoral scene on a huge sheet of plywood, and another couple who had apparently designated the spot near the giant table saw as appropriate for making out. Will ignored the few giggles wafting over from that direction, not wanting to be reminded of all the equally inappropriate places she and Matt had once sought out for that same purpose. Hope they don't get any farther than heavy necking, or one of them might end up losing a couple of fingers.

She peered around the heavy velvet curtain to see Cornelia standing with her back turned, facing a boy Will didn't recognize. "All right, we'll start over from the spoken part," the drama instructor announced. "Adam, your turn."

"You see?" Adam read aloud from his script. "We mustn't be sorry about anything."

"I'm not," Cornelia responded, and Will didn't miss her tone of voice. Despite her attempt at a Scottish brogue, it was a shade less 'heartbroken Highland lass' and a good deal more 'wounded-pride Cornelia Hale.' "In fact, I shouldna be surprised if I'll be less lonely now than I was afore ye came. After all, there's other fish in the Loch besides ye, right?"

Adam scratched his head, looking puzzled. The drama instructor threw down his script and heaved an enormous sigh. "Cornelia, what are you doing?"

"Making a last-minute revision," Cornelia answered, turning to face him with her arms folded across her chest. "I've decided that Fiona just needs to get over Tommy. I mean, I'm sure you can't turn around in Brigadoon without hitting some hot guy in a kilt, so why even bother pining for some guy from another world who says he loves you, but isn't going to drop his other-world baggage to be with you?" Cornelia concluded this by holding her thumb and forefinger in an L-shape against her forehead. Will cringed.

"Because, Miss Hale, although your creative input is greatly appreciated, we are doing this play as originally written by Lerner and Loewe," the drama instructor huffed, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose in clear exasperation. "Furthermore, have you already forgotten that at the end Tommy does leave his life to be with Fiona?"

"Oh, sure, at first it'll be all roses and champagne—or whatever it is Scottish people drink—but what about when Tommy starts getting the itch to go on raids and fight Lurdens when he and Fiona are supposed to go out that night? What then? Is she supposed to sit at home and play the bagpipes forever?" Cornelia's face had been getting progressively redder throughout this passionate outburst.

Will stared blankly at her fuming friend for a long moment. So did the drama instructor, before finding his voice again. "Cornelia, why don't you take ten minutes and go get something to drink. You too, Adam."

Adam gratefully took off in the opposite direction. Cornelia tossed her script to the stage and stomped toward the curtain, but slowed when she noticed Will hovering behind it.

"Oh. Will. What're you doing here?" Her voice sounded more tired than angry.

Will shrugged by way of a noncommittal response, offering Cornelia a hesitant smile. "Everyone was wondering where you were at lunch."

"Oh. Yeah," Cornelia said distractedly. "I guess I didn't tell anyone. I don't remember much about first period except Irma blabbing about some Greek guy who dated his sisters, and…ew. Anyway, you want to go get a soda?"

The two girls headed backstage, past the scenery-painters, past the couple making out near the heavy machinery ("Watch out for the jigsaw!" Cornelia called to them over her shoulder), and through the heavy double doors leading outside, where a soda machine stood against the building. Will ventured the question just as Cornelia popped the tab on her diet cola. "So…how are you?"

Cornelia made a face as she sipped, though it might have been due to the aspartame. "Couldn't you tell by my performance back there? I guess I'm doing about as well as you are."

Will began fiddling with the tab on her own can of ginger ale, pushing it back and forth until it finally snapped off. "Yeah. Um, Cornelia, there's…something I need to tell you."

"What, that Caleb was at your house last night? Duh, of course he was," Cornelia added when Will's expression took a turn towards shocked. "How else was he going to get home? I didn't hear any police sirens going off, so he sure didn't manage to get back into my basement." She gave a little snort. "I guess he filled you in on all the details, huh?"

"Not really." Will's hand slid inside her right jacket pocket and closed around the pendant, a reflexive action she barely noticed. "He said…you deserved someone better." Well, it wasn't exactly what he'd said, but that had seemed to be the gist of it.

"Funny, he said the same thing about you," Cornelia replied, watching a trail of ants march along a crack in the concrete. Fortunately she took no notice of the blush spreading across Will's cheeks. "Of course, that's when I all but flipped and practically accused him of having a thing with you. Which…was totally ridiculous of me," she added in a more apologetic voice. "I mean, like you'd ever do anything like go behind my back with Caleb in a million years."

Will didn't realize how hard she'd been biting her lip until she tasted blood.

The two girls sat in silence for a couple of minutes, the vacant pause filled only by the sharp rustle of leaves overhead and the hissing carbonation in their drinks. Will continued rolling the pendant methodically between thumb and forefinger while trying to keep her breathing relaxed. Don't say it. She doesn't need to hear it. You're not going to say anything.

"Will?" Cornelia finally spoke up. "Can I…ask you something?"

"Uh—yeah. Of course." Will hoped she didn't look as alarmed as she sounded.

"How long was it before you…cried? Over Matt, I mean?"

"Uh…well…" Will hesitated, then looked down at her soda can for the answer. "Uh…a week, I guess. Why?"

"Because…I feel like I should be torn up over this," Cornelia said, drawing a deep breath. "I mean, we were together almost three years! Like, the average celebrity marriage doesn't even last that long. And Caleb was my first—well, my first everything, really. So, according to all the magazines, I'm supposed to be going through box after box of Kleenex and loading up on Haagen-Daas while spacing out in front of sad made-for-TV movies about girls with leukemia. But…right now I'm just mad, you know? Mad and frustrated and…is any of this making sense to you?"

It took Will's brain a moment to decipher the rambling missive issued from Cornelia's lips, but she finally nodded. "No, I get it. I'm the opposite, I guess. I haven't gotten mad yet. I've mostly just been kind of…confused." A feeling which has multiplied tenfold since last night, she didn't add. "I felt like crying in the beginning, but I spent so much time trying not to that it just finally all came flooding out last night. God, I was actually sitting there in my pajamas going to pieces all in front of Caleb, and then all of a sudden he—" Oh. Oh. There went the hands over the mouth. She hadn't meant to do this now.

Cornelia finally stopped watching the ants and turned to face Will, morbid curiosity slowly manifesting itself across her fine features. "All of a sudden he…what, Will?"

Will mumbled something that sounded like "hixtmeep" against her palms.

"What?"

Terra-cotta eyes squinched up tight to block out wintry blue ones. "He kissed me."

It was a few moments before realization finally hit and the blonde's face took on the same ripened-tomato look it had had onstage.

"What." Not a question this time, but rather a forceful one-syllable statement uttered in a low, level voice. Will thought she would have preferred Cornelia screaming and brandishing a giant rubber mallet, to speaking in that tone.

"It—it wasn't anything—it was just—it was just that I was completely losing it and he was—he was just trying to—it was nothing," Will heard an incoherent string of something-or-other escape from her mouth. What was wrong with her? All she could think about was how she was trying not to think about how she'd wanted to more or less jump Caleb afterward. Not exactly the marking of a sympathetic friend. Or a good friend.

Cornelia turned the soda can around in her hands, examining the list of ingredients. She said nothing. Will felt pressure mounting in her chest, her lungs like a pair of balloons being squeezed.

"Cornelia, I'm sor—"

"I think you better go," Cornelia said quietly, still not moving to look at Will.

So for the second time that day, Will left something behind as she bolted down the sidewalk, this time a can of half-consumed ginger ale and a fellow Guardian who ducked behind her cascade of blonde hair, hid her face in her hands and started to cry.

A/N: Dramarama, I know. But hey, I think I can say with certainty that this is the only WITCH fic to make reference to Dr. Strangelove, Lerner and Loewe, and The Simpsons (twice!) all within the space of one chapter. And they say all WxC fics are alike...

I know Irma's sense of humor is a little more gallows than usual here, but hey, she's had three years to get a bit twisted.

Also, I will be making up for the distinct lack of Caleb in this chapter in very short order. Around the same time I start making up for the distinct lack of actual plot progression. :)

Once again, thanks for the reviews. You guys rock!