AN: What? What is this? Is this an update? Yes it is. And I'm working on the next one. Promise.
I won't even apologize. I'm just the worst.
Despite her ease with talking endlessly, Emm and her father had never spoken excessively while they worked. They would talk figures and ask each other for parts, maybe suggest that one go see what's being made for dinner, but it wasn't often that they would have in depth conversations.
Except today he'd decided to just throw all that our the window. Because he, like apparently everyone else in her life, was determined to make her never ever want to see Warren Peace ever again. Everyone was ridiculous.
"So you got paired up with Juliette, right?" That was the start of it and it immediately made her wary. They'd talked about this last night at dinner, at length.
"Yeah..." She said, looking at what she could see of her father under the Le Barron they were working on. The alternator she was polishing was forgotten for a second.
"Didn't her and Warren date at one time?"
"Wow, really dad? Are we going to gossip now?"
"I was just asking. I hadn't really thought about it before."
"Because there's not much to think about on the subject. It was like two years ago. You didn't even know Peace back then."
"Toss me a rag." She did so, landing it right by his arm where he couldn't miss seeing it. "But I know him now, and I know Juliette. I was maybe just inquiring as to how they get along now. I mean, with Warren being your friend now-" She made a noise "And Juliette already being your friend and new partner, that might have gotten tense."
Emm sighed and went back to carefully polishing her alternator (any good machine started with healthy insides). "They're fine dad." She said. "I can't say I've seen them hanging out a lot or being super chummy, but I'm pretty sure they both get along fine. Maggie asked Peace that the other day."
She hopped off the table she'd been sitting on to drop the alternator down on the table with its car part friends and play with their specially constructed filtration system. It was no easy work, building a flying car.
"So, uh, what about you and Warren?"
"Oh my god, dad! You're my dad! You shouldn't be trying to set me up with boys, you should be locking me up and secretly hoping I'll join a convent at some point!"
"That sounds like a terribly unlikely turn of events."
"Really, dad? There's nothing going on with me and Peace."
Her dad slid out from under the car finally and sent her an innocent look. "Did I even say anything about you two dating? I'm pretty sure that was all you." He shrugged and tried, unsuccessfully, to keep from smiling. "And, no, I don't actually want you dating anyone, but it's happened and it's going to happen again at some point and I'd like to be in the know when it does." He rolled back under the Le Barron. "I am being pro-active!" He shouted back at her.
Emm forgot about the filtration system and pointedly rolled her eyes several times though he could not see her. "You and Mags and Logan and I think 'Lijah and even Dan." She let out an exaggerated groan that trailed off when she ran out of air. "I severely dislike all of you right now. Much like I severely dislike Peace all the time."
Under the car she could almost see her dad put his arms up in surrender (as much as the car would allow). "Sweetheart, if you say there's nothing, I'm inclined to believe you, you've never lied to me about anything like this- I think. But, I see something, and apparently so do a few people."
She groaned again.
"Just think about whatever we're all seeing. That's all I'm saying."
The groaning continued.
"You want to switch with me?"
She stopped groaning.
Emm glared at Juliette in Mad Science for several minutes, ignoring the final calculations she needed to be working on. Juliette, for her part, was too involved in her own work to actually notice until Gareth nudged her side and motioned to Emm.
With an amused smile Juliette turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"
Emm sighed, as if the question itself was an inconvenience and moved her ignored papers aside. "Are you and Peace going to have any problems at all if we all hang out?" Before anyone else could question her she quickly went on. "Because, of course, everyone seems incredibly concerned about Peace all of a sudden, including my father. My father. Can you believe it?"
Gareth, Karl, and Juliette shared a look.
"Your dad is concerned about Warren's feelings in regards to me?" Juliette asked.
"Oh yes. He specifically asked about it while we were working on the car. I mean, I guess he's concerned about your feelings too, he likes you better." Juliette jokingly fluttered her eyelashes. "But, he's not the only one who's asked."
Karl stepped away from the white board and sat on the table beside Emm. "What would happen if there was a problem?"
A very good question. One that Emm hadn't considered at all. She gave her typical answer. "More reason to not hang out with Peace?"
The three looked between one another again. Emm narrowed her eyes- she didn't like feeling like she'd been left out of their secret communication.
"And you're sure," Gareth began, "That your concern has nothing to do with your own feelings toward Warren Peace?"
Emm's jaw dropped. "First of all, it is not my concern. It's everyone else who seems to need to know. Second of all, how dare you?" She huffed angrily, shoving Karl when he laughed. "The only feelings I have for Peace are a general disdain and occasional weary acceptance."
"Ah yes." Gareth said, laughing. "The general disdain and weary acceptance that causes you guys to always seem to be together."
Karl was roughly shoved off the table when he laughed again, but Gareth was too far to reach. Emm turned to the back of the classroom. "Mr. Medulla, I'm going to set them on fire. Okay?"
Mr. Medulla looked up from the papers he'd been grading and nodded at her. "Will you be needing Mr. Peace for that?"
The betrayal on her face lasted well after the bell rang.
It lasted well into lunch, in fact. Emm sulked at the table, every now and then looking up at where Coach Boomer and Mr. Medulla were talking and shaking her head in disbelief. And throwing an apple at Gareth when he walked by her laughing, again.
Maggie patted her back sympathetically, despite not knowing what was happening. "Everything okay?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You're just going to pout?"
"Shut up, Peace. I don't want to talk about all those traitors."
Dan shrugged. "You'll tell us later, I assume." They could be safe in that knowledge, since there was probably no secret Emm had ever kept from them. Elijah maybe, on a rare occasion, but never Dan or Maggie.
Peace and the others would have to deal with never ever knowing.
By the time Janice Gale made her way over to their table she was half done sulking. Janice stood at the end of the table, smiled and greeted the group in a friendly manner before turning to Peace.
"So, which one of us wants to go first? Your house or my house?" She asked.
Peace shrugged.
"My house, then, I guess. Next Wednesday work for you?"
"I work. Thursday?"
"Sounds good." She handed him a slip of paper with what Emm assumed was her address and maybe phone number.
Emm didn't know Janice well, but she'd always seemed a very straightforward kind of girl and Emm appreciated that. She wasn't dancing around Peace as if he was going to set her on fire at any second and she wasn't putting off the dinners they were required to do. She couldn't understand why they were constantly kept apart.
Janice turned to Emm. "And don't worry." Emm was immediately worried. "I'm not one of the weird ones who are simultaneously scared of him and then also heart eyes over him. You've got nothing to worry about from me."
On the other end of the table Will spit out his juice laughing. Elijah ducked his head, shoulders shaking with barely restrained laughter and Logan all but shoved his fist in his mouth. Maggie and Dan sighed wearily.
The look on Emm's face must have said it all because Janice looked very confused all of a sudden.
"Excuse me?" Emm's expression seemed frozen as she spoke. "Worried about what?"
"Well, you know, trying to get involved with your boyfriend, I guess?"
Somewhere in the back of Emm's mind she knew Janice was probably terribly confused and maybe worried that she'd deeply insulted her for reasons other than the truth. But at the present she just made a strangled noise in the back of her throat.
"What. In. The. World." Emphasis was important. "Gave you the idea that Peace is my boyfriend?"
Janice was quickly trying to back track, looking to Maggie for help. Maggie shook her head sympathetically. "I mean. You guys are always together now? And you danced at homecoming and he hardly ever dances. And these girls saw you with your hand on his knee one day and-"
Emm looked scandalized. "I did not!"
"You did."
All eyes turned to Peace. He rolled his eyes.
"The day of the explosion? You were distracted doing calculations in the air? Dropped your hand, weren't paying attention? I tried to burn you?"
"I knew you were trying to burn me!"
He rolled his eyes again and looked to Janice. "It wasn't anything. I was trying to burn her and she wasn't paying attention."
Emm kicked him under the table for good measure. And then Janice's words sunk in. She turned back to face her slowly. "What girls? What- who is talking about this? Who thinks Peace and I are a thing?"
There was a solid half-minute in which Janice was clearly trying to determine the right answer. "Everyone."
And that was it. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Emm pushed her lunch tray away, stood, and then stepped on the bench so she towered above them all. Maggie muttered an 'oh no' to herself and scooted away, into Magenta's side. Janice stepped to the side, no doubt wondering where the crazy had all come from.
"Attention Sky High," The few who hadn't already turned to look stopped what they were doing now. "It has come to my attention that several of you think I am dating Warren Peace."
There was a titter of conversation, mostly to the affirmative.
"Wrong." She gestured between herself and Peace, who looked like he was suffering a migraine. "Not a thing. Stop that. All of you stop thinking that and get your lives straight. That is all."
The bell rang as she was dropping back into her seat.
"And that's enough crazy for me." Janice walked away briskly.
Peace was gone seconds later.