A.N.: new year everybody, we're in 2009! I'm going to be even more boring since I have a vlog project and I start high school later this year, so ehhh its going to be fun. Either way, I'm hating where I'm going with this. I'm going toward useless filler. Nikki and Rocket sing in park. Nikki and Rocket see a movie. Nikki and Rocket text during algebra. I want to get to the good part, where I can make everyone happy and stop the dual POV.

Oopsie. Did I just verify the theories of my ending? Whoops. Maybe-spoiler.

Sorry for the late update. It's not easy to switch from concert band flute to marching band battery percussion. I've waited 4 years for this. Sorry it took so long to get everything set, but I'm back. Thanks for sticking with me.

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rocketman

"Hey, Rocketman!" Donny shouted at me. I turned just in time to grab the basketball flying towards me. "Get your head in the game!" he shouted at me. I threw the ball back to him. "What's with you, anyways? You're always really tired, and now you're obsessed with that song Beauty in the Breakdown, and you've been spending a lot of time in the Drama department, man!" Donny told me. I shrugged.

"I dunno. I just…" I started, thinking up and excuse. "My grandma died?" I tried, kind of sheepishly. We both laughed, knowing just what a load of crap that was.

"Wait a minute," Donny told me. "You never talk about girls anymore." I nodded, knowing it was true. I could feel my face getting hotter.

"Zara!" Coach Bolton shouted at me. "What's with the red face?" The whole team turned to look at me.

"Well, Rocket? What's going on with you?" Donny asked me, smirking slightly, reveling in my pain. He passed me the ball.

"Okay, you know that chick Nicole?" I asked Donny.

"Is she the chick with the brown hair up in the denim hat in our Art class?" he asked me. I nodded. "Yeah," he replied.

"Well, we're…kinda…maybe dating," I told him, getting quieter. I threw him the ball, and he just barely got hold of it, gaping at me.

"How did you manage that?" he asked me.

"Beauty in the Breakdown," I told him, smiling. "Come on love, run with me, get the hell out of this town, so we can get a better feel for each other, I'll take you back to when you remembered how you used to just live your life a little for me. Take the time to let it go, step away and watch me grow," I recited, and I heard Chad Danforth snicker slightly. I couldn't help myself, and it slipped out. "At least I just had to sing a little to get a date. I didn't have to stand on a lunch table and beg her."

I heard almost the entire team make little "ooh," and "oh!" noises, and I smirked a little to myself before Coach Bolton shouted us back into attention and we started up practice again.

Back in the locker room, Donny and I found our lockers empty. Looking to each other, we knew we were both thinking the same thing. "Dude," Donny said, "where are our clothes?"

"C'mon, boys!" Troy and Chad said, coming up from behind, our clothes in their hands. "It's moving day!" they said. I didn't think they were serious. I hadn't expected them to actually let us have their lockers. "But you know, you have to earn it," Troy warned us.

"Okay, fine," I said quickly.

"Sure," Donny added. "So what's the combination?"

"Yeah, what's the combination?"

"Like we said boys," Chad started to say, and the two slowly walked away backwards. Turning around and sprinting away, they shouted, "You gotta earn them!"

Donny and I looked to each other, groaned, and then chased after the seniors. The next thing we knew, they'd led us straight into the auditorium, where the Drama club was having a rehearsal. And Nikki was reading some of Kelsi's tablature, and Donny and I were in nothing but towels.

Oh God. Oh God, oh God.

"Yearbook opportunity!" Gabriella, Troy's girlfriend, shouted out. Taylor, at least I think that's her name, ran to Down Center Stage and took a picture of us. I made a mental note to kill her in her sleep.

Ms. Darbus walked over to me and Donny, obviously upset. I couldn't blame her. Trying to make the situation a little less awkward, I gave a simple, "Hey."

"As much as I agree the theatre is a great place to discover yourself," Ms. Darbus started, everyone laughing. "Here at East High we prefer you discover yourselves fully clothed." Everyone burst into an all out hysteria.

"They stole our clothes!" I tried to explain, but everyone was laughing too hard. All I could see of Nikki was she was covering her nose and mouth with her hands, eyes wide. From the way she was moving I think she was trying hard not to laugh. Donny and I walked over to Troy and Chad, who stopped their laughter right away, and grabbed our clothes.

My cell started vibrating in my pocket, though. I slowly pulled it out, and read the text. I have a secret.

What? I texted Nicole back, and Donny and I ran to the locker rooms to change. Nikki never texted back. But the locker room phone did start ringing. Donny, already dressed, answered it.

"Hello?" he asked, pausing. I saw him look increasingly nervous, and he shot glances at me. "Um, he's kind of busy right now…" he told the phone. Another long pause. "Okay. I'll tell him." Then he hung up.

"Rocket, there's-" Donny tried to say, but I cut him off.

"Come on, dude. We gotta get back down to the theatre." With that he and I left and headed back to the auditorium. Donny headed off for the stage crew and grabbed his head-set. Apparently Ms. Darbus had assigned him to help out the crew.

And of course Tiara was there, why would I think she wouldn't be? Ms. Darbus told us later that, "since we'd become such dedicated presences", we were going to be understudies. She started going at me about how stupid I was, and how I knew nothing about theatre.

"Rocket man," Donny said, coming up behind me.

"Not now, Donny," I muttered, the continued my conversation with Tiara.

"Rocket…" Donny tired again. I ignored him. "Jimmie!" he shouted. I spun around to look at him. "It's about Nicole!"

"Nikki?" I asked him. He nodded. Tiara gave a groan, walking away to Sharpay.

"She's really sick, man!" he told me. "They have to pull her from school after free period. She knows about it, too. Said she wanted you with her, or something."

"She's sick? She doesn't look it…" I said, watching her play guitar, sitting cross-legged on top of Kelsi's piano.

"Jimmie?" Donny asked me. I looked to him again. "It's called 'cancer'."

I froze. Cancer? Cancer killed people. Killed them. Nikki had cancer? "No…" I whispered. "No, no… She just, she has… no…" I tried, but there was no where to go with the argument.

"All cast and crew on stage," Ms. Darbus announced. We all lined up together. "This show is about your futures. So what do you see in your future?" she asked us. Gabriella stepped forward.

"I want to stage the perfect prom."

Taylor McKessie said, "I'm going to be the President of the United States. After I finish college, of course."

"Harvard Pre-Med is calling my name!" someone announced.

"Basketball in Utah, all the way!" another kid said. Ms. Darbus looked to me.

"I…" I started, stepping forward. Taking a deep breath, and looking at Nikki, I changed my mind completely. "I want to be a doctor."

"A doctor?" Tiara asked. "You must be kidding. With your study habits? Like there's even a chance!" she teased.

I didn't mean to say it, but it just fell out. "Look, okay? My girlfriend has cancer. Cancer. And for God's sake, I'm gonna be the one to save her," I shouted back to her. Nikki just looked over to me, tears in her eyes. Not the, "How-could-you-tell-everyone-I-have-cancer" tears, but the, "I-can't-belive-you'd-do-that-for-me" tears. She stepped out of the line and walked to me, wrapping her arms around me in a hug I thought was impossible to let go of.

nikki

I never thought I'd ever see someone do something like that for me. His dream has always been fame and fortune. Basketball, guitar, it was always about getting famous and getting rich and living life like he'd always dreamed, in California or Florida, or anywhere but Albuquerque, New Mexico. We both knew there was nothing here for us. We both knew it, and yet he had changed that for me. To try and help me. And the best part was that he saw that I was not a statistic. That I wasn't cancer, I just had it.

So I hugged him as tight as I could, like he was my cure. He was, actually. Rocket was the one person at East High that made me feel like I was a sophomore guitarist. Emily, and sometimes Kelsi, and Mrs. Darbus, and even Mrs. Rivera made me feel like I was Brainstem Glioma. And I didn't like feeling that way.

Hugging Rocket was pretty much all I could do, anyways. I couldn't kiss him because there were so many people and teachers around us, and I couldn't just smile at him because that obviously wasn't enough. And apparently my thought process believed that squeezing his spine in half was a perfect way to show my gratitude.

"Rocket…" I started, but I had nothing to say. Nothing I could say to him would ever tell him exactly how I felt. It was all too much to put into a phrase, or a paragraph, or anything.

"Nicole?" Ms. Darbus asked me. "Your future?"

I turned around, looking at all the people staring at me. Smiling, I answered her. "Music Theory at Byrn Mawr. New Jersey, that is. I wanna follow in Wizard Rock legend footsteps." Tiara rolled her eyes, and I did all I could to stop myself from flipping her off or punching her face in. I was getting really tired of her, you know.

"Okay, well, come on you all. These sets won't paint themselves," Ms. Darbus told us, waving her hands at us, pushing us to our brushes and wood frames. I grabbed the guitar I had leaned against the piano and went back into my scales, Kelsi composing. I saw Rocket grab a paint brush. He looked to me and winked, and then painted a big white streak of white in Tiara's hair. I smiled, trying not to laugh and clue her in, and went back to the music.

But I love that kid, I swear. I love Rocketman. I love the kid.

He makes me feel like a kid.