A/N: No, I am not dead and neither is this fic. I am so sorry for the extremely long wait... I know it's really no excuse, but I got really busy lately. I want to thank you all deeply for your extreme patience and your continuing interest in this story. Now, with all that out of the way... enjoy.

4/22/12 update: I fixed the name error in this chapter.

Chapter 15: Plans

"Fifteen-love!" Laurent called out, serving the little yellow ball overhand across the net. The other boy, Daniel Stark, tensed, his eyes tracking the ball as it sailed through the air. Suddenly, like a cobra, he struck out at it, successfully knocking it back to Laurent's side.

However, Laurent was ready, as the ball neared him, he swung with all his might, hitting it back to the other side of the court. They went back and forth for quite a while, striking the poor tennis ball with all of their force, trying to make it hit as far away from his opponent's racquet as possible.

The early spring weather was a welcome change from the dreary dullness of winter. It was still a rather brisk day out, but Laurent didn't mind it much. It had been far too long since he was able to play tennis out in the open like this.

"Oi, Laurent! Laurent!" a voice suddenly called. Laurent looked up. The little tennis ball whizzed past his face, bounced cleanly on the ground and rolled out of bounds.

"That's fifteen-fifteen!" his opponent shouted, but Laurent had already stopped paying attention to the game. He instead began focusing on Thomas Harrington, who was running over to the courts, waving his arm in a friendly fashion.

"Yes?" Laurent asked as Thomas jogged up, panting slightly.

"Professor Ruvie is looking for you," Thomas replied between breaths.

Laurent blinked, What…? "Professor Ruvie? Why?"

"Are you in trouble?" Daniel asked, walking up to join them.

Laurent shrugged, "I don't know… am I?" Laurent asked Thomas.

It was Thomas's turn to shrug, "I don't know…"

Laurent frowned, "I wonder what he wants…"

"I don't have any idea," Thomas said, shaking his head, "He just was asking for you, that's all. He didn't give us any reason for it."

"Huh…"

"You know, he doesn't like talking to us unless he really needs to…" Daniel said, suddenly finding the webbing of his racquet to be very interesting, "It must be something really important. You should probably see what he wants."

Laurent watched Thomas for a few seconds before his eyes drifted to his own racquet. He sighed, fiddling with the taut strings, "I guess I'll have to…"

Within minutes, Laurent was standing in front of Roger Ruvie's office, simply staring at the door. What could the professor possibly want? Laurent didn't think he had broken any rules... and Professor Ruvie was never one for chit-chat with most of the faculty, let alone with any of the students.

Laurent gave a sigh. The man struck him as being rather unfriendly. The professor had only spoken to Laurent a handful of times, and most of those times were because other people told him to. Laurent was never that interested in talking to him anyway. Professor Ruvie came off as many other adults did… as someone who really didn't care. Laurent was perfectly fine with that, really.

The question remained, though. What did he want with Laurent now?

Well, whatever he wants, I suppose it's best just to find out, Laurent thought, knocking on the door.

"I'll be there in a moment!" a voice called from within the office.

There was a bit of scuffling, some soft bumps, then, the door swung open, "Oh!" the professor exclaimed upon seeing the boy's face, "Laurent! I was looking for you! Come in," he said, moving to the side and allowing the boy into his office.

"Why were you looking for me, Professor?" Laurent asked, taking a seat in front of Roger Ruvie's desk.

"I was curious… would you like to do more in this school…?" Professor Ruvie asked somewhat awkwardly, situating himself in his own seat and folding his hands in front of him.

Laurent shrugged, "Maybe…" Is this really important enough for me to come to his office…?

"Well, lately, I was thinking about what you did this past autumn…Remember when you helped catch the robber Benjamin Green…?"

"Of course I do," Laurent said with a nod.

"Well... would you ever be interested in doing any other cases…?"

Laurent blinked and looked questioningly at the headmaster,"…what?"

"I said, would you ever be interested in doing any other cases?" Professor Ruvie said impatiently.

Laurent blinked again. This topic was certainly the last thing he had been thinking of…"Well… um...I've been wanting to," Laurent said,"…but there haven't really been that many criminal cases around town lately so I…"

"There's plenty outside of this little town, I assure you," Professor Ruvie said, cutting Laurent off mid-sentence, "…but you are interested, correct?"

"Yes," Laurent said.

"Fine. That is all I wanted to know…run along, now…" Professor Ruvie said, getting up from his seat and shooing Laurent out of his office.

"That's all?" Laurent asked.

"That's all," the professor confirmed.

After that ridiculously short conversation with Professor Ruvie, Laurent met back up with Daniel and Thomas, who had yet to stray from the tennis courts. Daniel was itching to continue the game that was so rudely interrupted, and Thomas had simply stuck around to hear about what the professor had said.

"Wait… that was all?" Thomas asked.

"I was confused about it, too…"

"Oi, Laurent! I'm going to serve the ball, alright?" Daniel called.

"Yeah," Laurent responded. He turned back to Thomas, who was standing on the sideline, "Does he usually call people into his office and ask them random questions?"

"Fifteen-fifteen!"

"I don't think so…Professor Ruvie never likes talking to most of us in the school…"

Thump. THWACK. Laurent hit the ball back over the net, but kept one eye on Thomas.

"That's what I thought," he responded.

Thump. THWACK. Daniel returned the ball with nasty speed.

"It's strange how he took so long to talk to you about your interest in that silly robber case. It was months ago!" Thomas said, "I almost forgot all about it."

THWACK. Laurent sent the ball in Daniel's direction right before it flew out-of-bounds.

"I know…I almost did, too…"

Thump… thump.

"DARN IT! Laurent, your serve!" Daniel shouted, bouncing the ball over to Laurent's side.

"Professor Ruvie is an odd one…" Thomas mused, "I thought that he didn't care about what anyone else liked…but why would he suddenly want to know about you?"

"Thirty-fifteen!" Laurent called, serving overhand.

Thump. THWACK!

Roger Ruvie leaned back in his chair. Perhaps he could have pitched it a little better to the boy. Looking back, the conversation seemed so stiff, so odd and so quick… ah, it doesn't matter… he said yes, didn't he…?

He frowned. What sort of child cared about those sorts of things? What sort of child felt the need to solve crimes and put away criminals? What sort of child wasn't interested in causing mischief, being loud and giving him gray hairs? What sort of child actually cared about the world?

Fictional ones, Roger's mind supplied.

That didn't quite explain Laurent, though.

He wasn't the standard sort of child that came through the school… he was a strange one, that was a fact…but not as unpleasant as the rest of them. There was little the boy ever did that upset him… then again, all of the others did it enough to make up for it.

…but how can he exist? Roger asked.

As soon as he had realized that it was in fact Laurent who had helped save the town from the robber, he started thinking more and more about the little boy's differences from his classmates. The more he thought about them, the more he realized he had little to no information about the sort of character Laurent had. Maybe he was just an ordinary child with a love of solving crimes as other boys have a love of cars, dogs or dirt… perhaps he was no different than any of the other children in the school. He just had a novel interest.

But why crimes of all things…?

He didn't understand it.

Therefore, though Laurent lacked an exoskeleton, two legs and a metamorphic growth cycle… Roger felt the strange need to study him.

…and what better way to study a person than to watch them do what interests them?