AN: Update.

Disclaimer: don't own SBT. Wish I did. I don't. :/

Thanks to all my lovely reviewers!

-Episode 22-

Winter had descended on Sherman with a cold-hearted fury, darkening the city with rolling oceans of grey clouds. Whatever sunlight broke through the clouds fell weakly to the slick icy streets, and strong winds from the North blew it away.

But despite how the chill had soaked the tiled floors and black chemistry countertops of the AP sciences classroom, Lance was feeling unseasonably warm. His lab partner was skating through her chemistry nomenclature worksheet, but he was wondering idly if he could see his reflection in her hair. It was so shiny. It shone like oil in sunlight, or like the obsidian cliffs on the third moon, which were so shiny that Galalunan fighter pilots could see their reflections from the cockpits of their velociters as they flew over. He was feeling warm and he was feeling the same round swoop at the bottom of his chest as he did when he flew velociters in low gravity. Her hair was hanging low and hiding her face, but he could see her clearly, in his mind, her eyes full of combative fire and her form totally, totally wrong.

"Mr. Lunis, this isn't astronomy class, stop spacing out and do your work," said Mrs. Rudish loudly from the front of the classroom. Lance jumped and Kristen the Goth Girl, his lab partner, chortled at her paper.

"Someone's getting extra homework tonight," she said in a low voice, eying his entirely blank worksheet.

"This shit is easy," he whispered back, and to prove it, he filled in numbers one though eight, in pen.

"Impressive," said Kristen, cocking an eyebrow, "but that one's wrong. And… I'm done."

She jumped off her stool with her worksheet and marched to the front of the classroom as Lance frowned and scribbled out the offending nomenclature. Her hair swung back and forth as she walked, sleek waves of reflective light rolling off as she moved. There was almost a purple-ish tinge to it… if he ran his hands through it, would the shine spill onto them? Lance chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully and realized that he had crossed out a right answer instead of the wrong one. But it didn't bother him that much.

Kristen returned to the lab table and pulled a slim black-sheened device from her bag, unwrapping the white wires around it as she did so. She stuck the wires in her ears and looked at Lance, slightly bemused.

"What?" she asked.

"What's that?" he said, tilting his head towards the device in her hands.

She gave him a weird look.

"It's an iPod… You know, the thing that everyone and their goldfish has? Did you live in a cave before you moved here?"

"No… I've just never seen one… like that," Lance said defensively. Earth tech was a little bit different from Galalunan tech, as he learned when he had asked Ian from Disenfranchised about his comm device. Ian had told him that calling a cellphone a 'comm device' was way retro in a vintage 60's sci-fi kind of way, but it was a little too ironic.

"It's a fourth-gen nano, it's not exactly new… Take it, you Luddite, it has music on it," and Kristen yanked the ear buds out and pressed the iPod into his hand. Her fingertips were, for a fleeting instant, soft and cold on his skin, and he felt a subtle chill thrill up his spine and stall his breath. He put the ear buds in and held the iPod in both hands, studying it carefully. It had a round scrolling control. A power switch on top. A connective port at the bottom. Simple but beautiful, almost Galalunan in its design. He ran his thumb over the scrolling control and pressed the center.

"I hope you like the White Stripes, because that's what you got," Kristen said, in her smoky voice, and Lance, looking into her dark, beach-glass eyes; found that he liked them very much.

~ break ~

The lunch bell had rung and Lance and Newton were crossing the parking lot, wrapped in their scarves and coats, their breath wafting away into the cold, overcast day. Their plan was a quick run to the drive-through for something Newton called 'a nutritious wrap even better than ice sticks,' but the Earthlings merely called a steak burrito.

"Hey, Newton, can I have some money?"

"Sure, Lance, how much do you need?"

"Um… how much is an iPod? It's this music thingy," Lance said, shoving his hands into his pea-coat pockets and feeling mildly envious of Newton's mittens... but he would die before he wore earmuffs. Newton went silent for a few brief seconds, his eyes glazing over, and his walk getting slightly stiffer… Lance looked up at him, teeth chattering furiously.

"An iPod Classic is two hundred and fifty dollars," Newton said, returning from his cyber-jaunt, "and we can get them and other related electronic musica – hey, what are they doing by our car?"

Lance swung around towards their parking spot. He and Newton had firmly sided against the minivan today because their car needed love. And they had parked it carefully and precisely in a spot at the far end of the parking lot, away from any reckless drivers who dared to threaten it with the possibility of a scratch or a dent. But there were five people gathered around the car, leaning against it, waiting ominously; four guys, one smoking a cigarette, and a stunningly beautiful Asian girl with long, flowing hair and bright red lips. She was Chan's girlfriend, Cat. Lance scowled and stormed up to Cat, who was smiling in a vaguely malicious way as she ran a gloved finger over the hood ornament.

"What are you doing with my car?" Lance growled.

Cat straightened up and took a few steps back, still smiling at him. She kicked a car tire experimentally with the toe of her boot and turned to the shaggy-haired guy standing by the driver's window. He was casually swinging a crowbar back and forth from his fist.

"It really is a nice car, isn't it?" she said to him.

The guy grinned evilly and slammed the crowbar into the car door, denting it deeply.

"Maybe not that nice of a car…" Cat sneered, and Lance took a step forward but Newton grabbed his shoulder -

"Get away from my car!" he yelled, and the guy with the crowbar swung it again. The car door crumpled inward several inches with a hollow crunch.

"Let me go," said Lance. Newton frowned and didn't let go.

"We can fix it later, Lance, it doesn't matter," said Newton, and Lance slapped his hand away.

Cat sneered at them.

"Looks like Soccer Mom doesn't want you getting into fights. Lucky for you, Chan got seven years, but he wanted us to say hey… and fuck you," she snarled. The shaggy-haired guy lifted the crowbar and, with a violent thrust, shattered the window. Lance broke his nose with a palm strike before the glass even hit the ground.

~ break ~

Ilana's expression when she swept into the front office was a look Lance had seen before all too many times, and never in a good way. She barely glanced at him as she successfully convinced the vice principal not to expel him from school, looking like a military commander in her snowy white trench coat and furry black ushanka. The vice principal, a rather intimidating woman herself, appeared completely bowled over. And when Ilana was done, she turned to him, eyes dark and narrow.

"Get up, Lance."

He glared at her, pulled his knit cap down past his ears, and peeled himself off the office couch where he had been slouched for the past two hours. He shrugged his pea coat on and winced as it brushed against his bruised ribcage, where one of the White Dragon kids had gotten lucky with the crowbar. Ilana rolled her eyes, apparently refusing to be sympathetic. Fine, then.

The vice principal held the door open for them as Ilana wheeled out of the office and took off. Her snow boots squeaked on the linoleum, and with each step she put more distance between herself and Lance. She was taking wide strides, her shoulders squared, her form somehow denser than usual. Lance sighed and trotted forward, trying to get in front of her.

"It's not my fault," he said, walking backwards to both keep up with her and face her. She wasn't meeting his gaze.

"Really," he tried again, and her eyes flicked towards him, bright and sharp with rage.

"Ila – "

"Don't," she snapped, without breaking her pace. Lance snorted and regretted it as pain shot through his chest.

"Can I at least explain?"

"No. I know what happened."

Lance stopped dead, halting her march down the hallway. She glowered at him. The hallway was filled with gray light and everyone had gone home already. They were probably the only students who hadn't gone home yet, and each sound they made bounced off the lockers and walls and the gaping silence. She tried to go left around him and he flung out his arm; she darted right and he held out his right arm as well.

"You can't be mad at me, they were trashing my car," he said plaintively, squaring himself with her hardened face.

"That's not the point," Ilana said, ducking around his outstretched right hand; he tried to grab her sleeve and she shrugged him off, hard.

"So, what? You don't want me to defend what's mine?"

"No, Lance, that's not the point either!" she yelled, wheeling around, her voice rising to a shout. The high notes spilled down the empty hallway.

"Then what?"

Ilana pursed her lips and gave him a stony look. She was being so difficult. She didn't understand. She never understood. Lance folded his arms, ignoring the bruise.

"I expected better from you," she said, with a steely edge in her words, and Lance exhaled forcefully. He had been cut by this anger-honed disappointment before. Ilana was her father's daughter. What she lacked in royal gravitas, she recovered through sheer fiery conviction. But it was the same frustration, the same regret, the same rage and coldness. And it was so unfair. Something in him flared up, something worse than in the parking lot, something old and resentful.

"You let a bunch of punks get to you, and then you sent two of them to the emergency room. Really, Lance? Really? How many times have I – "

"They were trashing my car," he cut in again, and she brushed away his words with a brusque wave of her arm.

"So call the police! Newton didn't break anybody's nose, he didn't break any collarbones or kick teeth out, and he cares about the damn car just as much as you do! You thought with your fists instead of your brain, as usual, and you – went – overboard, " she said, jabbing her finger through the space between them, "and you hurt people. Unnecessarily. For something stupid."

Ilana snorted scornfully and crossed her arms, shaking her head as she glared down the empty hallway. Lance's face felt hot and he jerked away from her, looking around to find... something, anything, to focus on for three seconds. The numbers 143 on the locker in front of him gleamed weakly in the gray light. Outside, the wind picked up briefly and they could hear it howling down the bricked alleyway, empty and loud. Ilana sighed heavily.

"You can't – Lance, grow up already. You can't just leave a trail of destruction and violence wherever you go," she started, and he suddenly felt whatever had flared up burn even stronger and deeper than before. When did she claim the right to tell him anything about causing damage? When did she become his babysitter, scolding him like he was back in the academy, for beating the righteous shit out of some idiot? Her naiveté was astounding, her lack of experience, her coddled, hand-held existence –

"Oh, yeah? Well, there are a lot of people dead here because of you," he shot back.

The words dropped between them like a stone. Ilana took an instinctive step backwards, startled, her face frozen with – what? Surprise? Alarm? Guilt? Somewhere beyond them, far away, outside the rapidly solidified seconds, a door slammed open against a wall. Her lips twitched, her eyes round and shining –
She slapped him across the face.

The slap rang through the empty halls of Sherman High. Ilana turned on her heel and followed the sound down the hallway and out the double doors into the icy afternoon. And then it got quiet as Lance watched her retreating figure get smaller and farther away and finally vanish as the doors slammed shut, and he smacked his hands to his face in frustration and yanked his knit cap off and ran a hand through his hair in helpless rage, wrung the knit cap between his clenched fists and took a few aimless steps and finally a short, atavistic syllable of anger came out of him and he hit locker 143 with his fist and then with his forehead and he stayed there, head against the locker, punching it so that the lock rattled with each hit but not so hard that there was any damage.

"Wow," said a cool voice behind him, "I haven't seen fireworks like that since the Fourth of July."

Lance didn't know what was so special about the Fourth of July, but he recognized Kristen's voice. He stopped hitting the locker and shot her a look. She was the one who had just opened the door; the gym was on the other side.

"Do I even want to know?" Kristen asked, her face glistening with sweat from her workout. He almost shrugged, but unable to sustain any sincere attitude of nonchalance, deflated entirely and slid down the locker to the floor.

Kristen walked over and stood over him, one arm crossed to the other; she tilted her head and studied him carefully as he sat against the locker, face feeling tight with a sort of wide-eyed, despondent ire.

She nudged his foot with hers.

"Come over and I'll kick your ass on Call of Duty," she said, and he looked at her and her slick, shiny hair and shrewd dark eyes. He didn't know what Call of Duty was, but it sounded dumb and fun. She nudged his foot again, slowly, a little hesitantly this time, and his mind settled.

"Yeah, okay," said Lance, and she held out her hands and pulled him to his feet.

~break~

Move right along to chapter 4, or episode 22 part 2/3. I broke it up because this thing is hella fackin' long, knaamean?

p.s. Yo, the endgame ships of this fic are not interplanetary if you catch my drift so don't sweat the Lance/Kristin too much