10th September 2013

Only the three youngest Benedict brothers still lived at home with their parents after Will had recently moved into Victor and Hazel's new house until he got his own place. Despite this however, mornings were still very eventful. Xav and Zed argued every morning - neither one of them were morning people and they took that out on each other - which annoyed Yves. All this went on whilst Karla made breakfast because Saul was already out on the slopes setting things up for the day so he couldn't make the food himself.

This morning was certainly no exception to the others. As Zed nursed a sore head (he'd stole a slice of Xav's toast and his brother had retaliated by hitting him), he slouched into a chair at the dining room table and looked over at Yves who was tying away on his laptop. "What are you working on?" He asked with a mouthful of the stolen toast.

"A new Apple security app. Just updates and stuff, you wouldn't understand," Yves responded nonchalantly.

"What's that meant to mean?" Zed exclaimed. "Why wouldn't I understand?"

Yves rolled his eyes. "Don't be so touchy, Zed. I didn't mean it as an insult, it's just the truth- you don't know about codes and such. Anyway, to change the subject... Your year are having that mini baseball tournament thing today, aren't they? Bet you're glad about that, so you don't have to have any normal lessons for the morning. Just lessons in the afternoon."

"Yeah," he grinned and nodded, his slight anger towards his brother now gone. "It's not in the league or anything so I don't have to hold back, it's not going into the newspaper and there are no scouts there. It's gonna be great, it's girls against boys."

"Well good luck," a deep and husky voice said from the doorway. Victor walked into the room using his crutch and leaning heavily on it, and sat at the table, a half eaten apple in his hand. He took a bite of it, looking like he'd only just woken up although he was fully dressed and had his hair neatly tied back. He usually liked to keep his hair at shoulder-length but it was now past his shoulders - apparently he was growing it a little longer because Hazel preferred it that way and he wanted to please her - but that wasn't a problem at work as long as he kept it tied back and out of his face.

"What are you doing here?" Xav asked, now on his fifth slice of toast. "It's well too early for you to have driven here."

"I only live ten minutes away now, remember," Victor rolled his eyes, reminding Xav that he no longer lived in an apartment in Denver. He'd wanted to be closer to the rest of the family so he and Hazel moved into a three-bedroomed house in Wrickenridge which meant all the Benedict's now lived in the town apart from Uriel (he still lived in his flat in Denver).

"Whatever," Xav shrugged. "Did you stay the night? Didn't here you coming in."

Victor winced. "Yeah I came up at about midnight. Hazel kicked me out."

"What did you do?" Zed asked with a smirk.

Victor looked awkward as he replied. "I may or may not have made a comment to Hazel about the weight she's putting on with the pregnancy... I meant it as a compliment, she still looks lovely, but she took it completely the wrong way and blew up at me. She told me to leave her alone for the night so I came here. I have a lot of groveling to do."

"Well it serves you right," Karla said with a tut as she walked into the dining room with another plate of toast. She placed it in front of Xav so Zed leaned forward to grab a slice. "You should never mention a pregnant woman's weight to her, especially when her hormones are all over the place, whether you mean it in a good way or not. Poor Hazel, I don't blame her for kicking you out for the night! I suggest going out and buying her something nice, then apologize to her and tell her how beautiful she is, okay?"

"Thanks mom," Victor replied. "You're right. I've got the day off today so I'll go shopping this morning."

"An engagement ring would be a brilliant present," Karla said casually with a sly tone to her voice.

"Mom. I've told you, stop pressuring us; we'll get married when we think it's the right time."

"She's pregnant and you're soulfinders, why isn't now the right time?" She raised her eyebrows. "Victor Benedict, you give the girl a damn ring at least before she gives birth."

Victor laughed and shook his head, knowing that he was not going to win this battle. Nobody could ever win against Karla Benedict. To change the subject he looked at Yves and Zed and asked, "do you two want a lift to school? I'll pick you up later as well, I have nothing else to do. Hazel's working all day."

They both said yes and finished off their breakfast, rushing to get ready for the school day. Zed threw on some jeans and a shirt - they were on his bedroom floor so he wasn't sure if they were clean or not, but he didn't care - and threw his shorts, a tee, and trainers into his bag to change into at school before they started playing baseball for the morning.

By the time they left the house, they were running late. Yves hopped into the front passenger seat so Zed slid into the back, clicking his seatbelt into place. Just at Victor started the car, he saw two blonde figures leaving the house next door and lowered his window before calling them both over. Blue and Daisy Williamson came over to the window. Zed's eyes drifted to Blue and he wasn't disappointed with her outfit: her plain white t-shirt clung to her and was see-through enough that he could tell her bra was purple, her shorts showed off her legs and she had Converse on her feet. Clearly she'd decided not to change at school and he guessed her clothes for the afternoon were in the bag she carried.

"Hey Victor," she smiled. She seemed like a completely different person compared to the miserable girl Zed had met yesterday. "It's nice to see you again."

"You too," he replied kindly. "You settling in back at home okay?" She nodded. "That's great. Do you and your sister want a lift to school? I'm driving these two there so it's no bother."

Blue looked into the back of the car at Zed and the smile fell from her face. "No, that's okay. We can walk, we normally do."

"Yes but we're running late," Daisy pointed out. "Just get in the car, Blue. I don't want to be late to school, I have a big test first lesson."

Blue sighed loud enough for Zed to hear and pulled open the door, sliding over into the middle seat as her sister got in beside her. Victor set off and the silence in the car was almost deafening. Blue's bare leg was pressed against Zed's, as were their arms, because of how squeezed in together they were, and Zed could feel the warmth radiating from her.

"So. Baseball today," he said to a start a conversation. "Are you looking forward to it?"

"You know what I used to look like. Do you really think I looked like the type of girl that would be into sports and exercising?" She asked sarcastically. "I'm dreading it. I don't even know how to play baseball, never mind be any good at it."

Zed tried to stop himself from smiling at that comment. "But you don't look like that anymore," he pointed out the obvious. "So you must have done some sort of exercising, how else would you have lost all that weight?"

Looking straight ahead, Blue tensed up and she stiffly said, "I don't want to talk about that. Drop it."

"Okay, okay," he said, holding his hands up in surrender. "Well I'm amazing at baseball, the best in the school. You'd have no chance of winning anyway."

She didn't reply or speak again for the rest of the car ride.

It was the most awkward journey to school Zed had ever experienced and considering Victor had said he'd drive the girls home too, for once Zed wasn't looking forward to leaving school.

Whoever decided to cancel lessons for the day and replace them with baseball must be stupid, insane and deserved to fired in Blue's opinion. She despised any kind of sport and any kind of activity that entailed exercising and moving about. She wasn't coordinated, she couldn't run without looking like a complete idiot and she got out of breath and hot and sweaty after about five seconds. This was a personal kind of torturous hell for her.

Each gender of the year group had been split up into three different teams, leaving six teams to compete with each other. The first two teams went up against each other and the winner stayed on the pitch to play the next team, etc. She was slowly learning the rules and had figured out that it was basically a more complicated version of rounders. Stupid. Why couldn't they just make it easy?

She was in a miserable mood as she sat in the bleachers, watching the games pass by because she had nothing else to do. Zed's team was up first against a girl's group; Zed and his team won, with Zed clearly being the best player. Blue was kind of sad that he wasn't messing up even once; she would have liked to have something to tease him about in the car on the way home. His team won the next two games as well so they were the ones that Blue's team were up against when it finally came to their turn.

Her team was pitching first and Blue somehow chose the perfect spot to stand in on the field. She was behind two other girls on her team and whenever the ball came their way, one of them caught it and Blue didn't even have to try. Which was lucky for her team's sake considering the whole 'no coordination' meant she couldn't even catch a damn ball.

The second half of the game however did not go as well. Somehow she ended up third in line to bat. When it was her turn, one girl was on third base and one was on second. Both of them had hit the ball on the first try but Blue predicted that she'd get a strikeout with no hits of the bat. And even worse for her: Zed was the pitcher.

He grinned as she nervously approached home base with the bat in hand and faced him sideways. He had to change the hand he was throwing with because she was left-handed and therefore facing the opposite way, but he still looked confident in his abilities nevertheless. Before she was even ready, he threw the ball.

In a panic, Blue swung the ball with a squeal, no doubt looking and sounding like an utter loser. "Strike!" The person behind her shouted as he caught the ball before throwing it back to Zed who caught it effortlessly.

Not wanting to be hated by her team, Blue steadied her hands to stop them from shaking so much and kept her eyes on the ball, trying to focus. Still though, she didn't hit the ball when Zed threw it and another "Strike!" was shouted out.

Flushing red in embarrassment - another thing she hated about sports: it just humiliated those who weren't any good - Blue prepared herself for the third and final pitch, a sinking feeling in her stomach. She wouldn't have minded so much if it didn't mean that she would be the first person in her team to get out. This was going to be all kinds of unpleasant. She knew that it was only a game but who actually wanted to feel that way?

When she looked over at Zed, she saw a thoughtful expression on his face. A moment later, his voice entered her mind, unwelcome. "Don't stress," he said to her in a soft and gentle voice. "Look, you're swinging too early, that's why you aren't hitting the ball. Swing when I tell you to." He prepared to throw the ball, his eyes locked with Blue's, before pulling his hand back and throwing. Blue didn't even look at the ball, she was too busy staring at Zed and wondering why he would help her when all she'd been was rude to him. Granted, he annoyed her so that was an obvious reaction from her, but still. Should she trust him or was he just planning to make an even bigger idiot out of her? She didn't have time to decide because he shouted "Now!" into her mind.

Her body reacted before her mind did; it seemed like her body trusted him as it instinctually swung the bat. Crack! The noise echoed around her as the bat connected with the ball and went flying, over Zed's head and past him. Blue was frozen at first, staring in disbelief. Had she really just hit the ball? And a good hit at that?

"Run! Blue, run!" She heard various members of her team shout out as Zed's team scrambled to collect the ball and get it back to home base. Startled from her teammates' shouting, Blue started to run. She tried to block all of them out and just ran for her life, forcing herself not to even think about the fact she was running. She knew that if she did think about it she'd stop considering when she usually was forced to run it wasn't exactly a run- it was more of an awkward waddle like a penguin's, her arms waving about in the air. She ran past first base, looking ahead to see the two girls that had been at second and third now running on too. As she passed third base, out of the corner of her eye she saw Zed catch the ball and turn to throw it at home base.

With a screech, she sped up her running and hit home base with her bat less than a second before the guy caught the ball. As Blue's team cheered about her home run, she walked back to her seat on the bleachers on shaking legs and practically collapsed, breathing heavily. She was pretty sure she was this close to dying of a heart attack after that.

Thankfully, Zed's team ending up winning the game anyway - which basically meant her miraculous home run was all for nothing, yet she was still proud of herself even if Zed had helped out - and ended up winning overall too. Blue didn't care though; it felt like it took her the rest of the entire morning to recover from the running she'd done.

Author's note: I really struggled with this chapter, mainly because I know absolutely nothing about baseball. I googled most of it but if any of it is still wrong, I apologize. But it's the longest chapter so far, yay!

Also, the part where Zed helps her bat is sort of a tribute to Finding Sky when he helps her in football :)

A hint about the next chapter: Blue makes a friend.

Please review xo