Francis Scott Key Regional High School
Craiger, Maryland.
April 9th, 1979
9:48am

Ethan suddenly appeared beside Dana, while she was desperately searching through her locker for a book that she needed for her next class - History. He reached out and touched her upper arm, gently, trying not to startle her.

"Hey"

"Oh. Hi, Ethan" Dana turned her head quickly, flashing him a wide toothy smile.

Ethan loved that smile. More importantly, he loved the girl it belonged to but still hadn't found a way to tell her that... just yet.

"You're busy. I'm sorry..."

"Nope, not busy. Just missing a textbook"

"Let me check for you" Ethan gestured for Dana to step aside.

He lifted up all the heavy books, files and loose papers looking for anything resembling a standard textbook that could possibly be the one Dana needed for her class and yanked out a thick book with the words 'American History' across the top.

"TA DA!" Ethan handed her the book with a giant grin on his face, somewhat impressed with himself.

She stared at him, brows furrowed and then ducked her head back into the locker, trying to look for the trap door that obivously was in there somewhere. There had to be one. It was the only thing that could explain how Dana hadn't found it after ten minutes of looking but Ethan could stick his hand in there and find it immediately.

"Thanks" Dana pressed the book to her chest and threw her free arm around Ethan's shoulder, hugging him.

"It's no big deal..." Ethan caught a whiff of Dana's lavender shampoo and breathed it in, deeply "but you're welcome. How are you?"

"Good. You?"

"Yeah, good"

"Is that all?"

"Umm, I was just going ask about- but it doesn't matter"

"I've got like three minutes before I need to be at my next class, and so do you" Dana looked over her shoulder, watching as the other kids in the hallway were hurrying to their next class, whatever it was.

"Lunch?"

"Yes. And we can talk about this thing that doesn't matter" Dana smiled warmly and touched his arm, before running off to beat the bell to her next class.

Dana was closing up her textbook, when the bell for lunch rang throughout the school. She tossed her pens and pencils into the silver metal zip up case and placed it onto the textbook, waiting for Mrs Pearson to let them rise and leave.

"Red!" came a voice from behind, just as she began pulling the large doors to the cafeteria open. Dana smiled, recognizing the voice and turned around, letting the door to the lunch room close. It was Violet, the only other person aside from Ethan that she had become friends with since moving to Craiger last September. Violet had curly brown hair, lightly tanned skin and her light grey denim backpack was covered in poems in multiple colored sharpies... and she loved science as much as Dana.

"Vi... you're back" Dana exclaimed, and took a few steps towards her, still smiling. Violet had gone to the east coast to visit her aunt, who had just had a child.

"Yupp. Couldn't leave you here alone for too long, could I?" Violet laughed and then pulled Dana into a gentle, friendly hug.

"How's your aunt?"

"She's doing fine. They had a little girl.. called her Willow. I can't believe my family sometimes. They let me hold her, which is crazy. She's totally cute though. I took a polaroid, wanna see?"

Violet came from a family/household of former hippies. Well, her parents were former hippies, her aunt Robyn was still in the lifestyle more than a decade later. She pulled a tiny insta photo from the front pocket of her backpack and handed it to Dana.

"Aww..." Dana gushed, looking at the blown out and fuzzy photograph of Violet's aunt Robyn holding her tiny daughter against her chest her African American boyfriend beaming beside them "she's so cute!"

"Yeah. I'm hoping to teach her all about the way the world works before they turn her into a hippie and she's lost to us forever"

"Ethan's waiting for me..." Dana pointed to the cafeteria doors, and smiled "but I'm happy to have my lab partner back"

"You missed me, didn't you?"

"Maybe"

"Good. See ya later!"

They both laughed.

Ethan spotted Dana coming towards him in the cafeteria, smiling and gesturing for her to come sit down next to him.

"Hi"

"How was class?"

"Surprise math test" Ethan rolled his eyes and shrugged his denim jacket off. He liked math, of course, he was even considered a prodigy but he didn't like surprises.

Dana sat down across from Ethan, pushing her food tray towards his. They both had a mac and cheese, but Dana had a diet coke in place of his chocolate milk.

"Shut up. I bet you aced it" Dana grinned, reached out and rested her hand on top of his.

"Did you hear from that guy, Muld- what's his name?"

"Mulder" Dana said, attempting to help him, unaware that it was an intentional dig at the new guy in her life, not forgetfulness on Ethan's part.

"Right. Muld-ah. So?"

"Muld-ER" Dana corrected Ethan, before explaining the follow up phone call. "Well, the Captain wanted me to make sure that it would happen here, in town".

"That seems reasonable... considering you don't really know the guy" Ethan mumbled under his breath, trying desperately not to come off as the jealous best friend/other suitor.

"Well yeah. Anyway, Mulder agreed to my Dad's ground rules and we're going to see a movie this weekend."

"Sounds like a fun night out. I'll probably be doing homework all weekend."

Ethan scooped up a mouthful of mac and cheese with his fork and ate it, quietly pondering this new information. If he wanted to ask Dana to go steady, then he would have to do it soon. Dana twisted the lid off of the bottle coke, listening to the ubiquitous pop and fizz sound and then took a sip, completely oblivious to the feelings raging inside the boy sitting across from her. She hadn't noticed it when he stammered a hello when they first met, either.