Author's Notes: You might've already noticed, but I decided to remove the first person point of view from this story. The reasons: I could use practice for that POV and I decided because the story is ultimately about more than just Alexis it shouldn't just be told from her mind.

Also, just a friendly reminder that with this edits comes an elimination of my OCs. So don't be surprised when different characters from the Gx universe pop up to fill in the spots left open. :D

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.

Chapter Three

Shuffling of papers and nervous feet echoed down the large classroom, invading Professor Rhodes' working space. With no little effort, the blonde restrained herself from glaring out into the fifty desks creating her own personal student body surround sound system. It had been three days since she had mailed out her interrogation to Jim, and each added a new headache to her routine. She was about as well off as her students: shifting eyes and scratching wrong answers on a test none of them were prepared for.

At that thought she did glare, but down at the first test handed back rather than her scuttling pencil choir. Half of the test was left bare and the other half was barely legible; clearly the student had just wanted to get it over with and escape outside. She flicked her eyes to the name line, resigning herself to tracking down another lazy student and having a conversation. The first letter nearly gave her a heart attack, but when she realized that "-enny" proceeded the J and not "-aden" she relaxed.

Lack of sleep was making her eyes heavy nowadays, but there was little she could do to help the problem. Her days were full of Atticus' incessant presence and chatter about dating; her nights were full of twisting dreams of the Dark World—one moment Jaden was under Burgundy's sword, the next she was looking down at him from Brron's dueling pit, and then her mind would swim with large green and orange eyes, watching her until she awoke in a breathless tizzy.

The pen groaned in her grip. A student glanced at her as he handed in his test, but looked quickly away when she reached for his paper. She watched him loop up the steps, swish up his backpack, and escape through the automatic double doors.

Apathy had three years of proof to vouch for its effectiveness. If she could not change anything, there was no use getting worked up about it. If her students were still unprepared, uncaring, and scared of her at the half-semester mark then there was little she could to break their bad habits. Wasting anxious nights over lesson plans was not something she had done since her freshman year as a teacher aide, trained under Dr. Crowler's pointy nose.

She smiled. Crowler was the one person that hadn't changed since her return to Earth three years ago. Decked in his high-collared frills that would put anything Jesse wore to shame, the elder professor spent all his time parading down the halls of Duel Academy, tracking down slackers and harassing them half to death. He'd have a field day with any of her classes.

Thirty minutes of shuffling and bad grades later, the bell rang and her remaining class members filtered out, already complaining about how unfair the material was. The Alexis of three years ago would have been bothered, but the Professor Rhodes of today knew the answers could be found in their notes or textbooks if only they'd care enough to look. She'd told them that for every other exam, and there was nothing she could do if the students refused to help themselves.

Privately, as she packed the tests into her briefcase and left the room, she wondered if this was a cruel cosmic joke. After spending fruitless years looking for one Jaden Yuki, she'd found a class full of them.

"Ah, Alexi—I mean, Ms. Rhodes!"

Alexis paused in the hall, nearly causing a collision with a horde of younger Ras. The yellow-coats scooted past her with a snicker, glancing at her surprised face. Behind their annoying heads appeared Ms. Fontaine, brown ponytail bouncing as she approached. A few students passed greetings to the school nurse and head of the Girl's Dorm, but the woman waved them off with a pleasant little smile before stopping in front of her target.

"Hello, Ms. Fontaine," Alexis ventured, surprised by her old head-of-house. "Do you need something?"

"Someone," the nurse chirped. "And that someone is you, Ms. Rhodes. Are you free?"

"Uh," Alexis hedged. In a moment of confusion she imagined Atticus misreading her deferral of his countless male suitors for something else entirely, and was now offering a female. She tried to not to groan at the thought, blaming her troubled sleep as her college continued to smile at her. The only time Ms. Fontaine ever spoke with her brother was during his recovery in her first year at Duel Academy. As Alexis' old mentor and nurse, there was an endless amount of reason for the woman to speak with her—none of which were part of Atticus' romantic endeavors.

"For what?" she asked, kneading at the bridge of her nose. It was about time she had a sit-down with her brother if that man was so invasive he had her freaking out about her coworkers. Then she realized he'd think she was talking about Jesse and squished the notion entirely. Ms. Fontaine's smile faltered at her student's unfriendly response, and Alexis felt a distant flash of guilt for putting her off.

"Sorry," she said. "Rough week."

"It'll only take a few minutes," Ms. Fontaine promised, pleading with prayered palms at the graduate. "I wouldn't ask if it weren't important."

How could Alexis say no to the woman who had helped her brother?

Ms. Fontaine's victorious cat-ate-canary smile was immediately worth all the trouble. The pair took the long way to the Girl's Dorm, the elder asking way too many questions and the younger answering far too few. Crossing the lake was interrupted with queries about Alexis' first duel with Jaden, the entrance way with one-sided laughter about Syrus' botched peeping, and the hall down to Ms. Fontaine's private room littered with stories of the nurse walking around at night with her face-mask on, scolding anyone who stayed up past eleven.

"I was only worried about you girls," Ms. Fontaine assured Alexis. "Sleep is necessary for growing teens!"

"You called it beauty sleep, though," Alexis pointed out, glancing around the raised ceiling fondly. Little had changed in her old dorm across the years: the walls were still ornate, the doors thick, and the halls filled with girls awkwardly pulling down their too-short skirts. "We couldn't take that seriously."

"But that's important, too!" the older woman cried, stopping in front of her door and jiggling for her key. "If you don't get sleep, you get those unsightly wrinkles..."

A gaggle of laughter drowned out the head of house as a small group of girls passed by with towels, on their way to the hot springs. In the middle of the group was a shorter Obelisk with bobbed brown hair—the student with the half-answered test, Jenny. Frowning, Alexis took a step forward to call out her wayward student for the sit-down known as detention, but Ms. Fontaine was striding into her room with no sign of slowing down. Hesitation caught Alexis between the two retreating females and cost her the younger; the duelist bobbed down the stairs with her friends and out of sight.

"Ale-Ah, I mean, Ms. Rhodes?"

Alexis turned from her lost student and forced a nod at her lingering companion. "Coming."

Ms. Fontaine's room was larger on the inside than expected. The ceilings were higher than in the regular dorms and the walls few, dividing only the living room from the bedroom and bathroom down the hall. A light blue living room fit with a coffee table, television, and couch-set sprawled across the space to her left, and a cute little kitchenette to her right. Straight ahead, a dividing strip of wood flooring led into the back area—the bed and bath undoubtedly. Aware that she was gawking, Alexis closed her mouth and looked for her host, finding the woman winking in amusement.

"I forgot," Ms. Fontaine chuckled. "You never got called into here for a referral. Your trouble-making was always the good kind."

Alexis felt an embarrassed blush rising and did her best to tuck it away. "Not always the good kind."

"You're right," the woman said, kicking off her shoes and gesturing for her guest to do the same. "Saving the world is the great kind of trouble."

"It wasn't me," Alexis corrected. The room felt hot and off-kilter, swirling with years of danger, shadow duelists, raving light maniacs, and one boy with a grin as blinding as the sun. "I didn't save anyone. It was always..."

"Jaden," Ms. Fontaine finished with a fond shake of the head. "Wherever his is, I'm sure he's still causing all kinds of great trouble."

Grains in the beige wood flooring became much more interesting than their conversation. Ms. Fontaine's socks padded down the hallway towards her living room, oblivious or ignoring Alexis' downward stare. The blonde heard her stop at the coffee table in the living room, but decidedly continued to exam the shiny flooring. Talking through problems hadn't worked for her since her freshman year, staring out at the ocean under the lighthouse with Zane.

"Oh, and Alexis?" Ms. Fontaine added. The addressed looked up reluctantly, only half-surprised to find Fonda holding a thick yearbook. Winking, she said, "Behind every great man is a great woman, no?"

With that Alexis decided that yes, Atticus was probably behind this after all. She nudged at her shoes, ready to put them on and bolt, polite excuse forming easily on her lips. But Ms. Fontaine was quick to walk over and shush her with the extended picture album and heavy words, "You really are a wonderful woman, Alexis. Don't ever think that you had nothing to do with saving us. Jaden Yuki is a great duelist, but he only succeeded because he had powerful people like you supporting him."

The book was pushed into Alexis' reluctant hands, and Ms. Fontaine guided Alexis' exposed palms over the Duel Academy crest. "I have something important to say you, and before you respond I want you to really look through this. I know this school's brought you a lot of pain over the years, but there's a lot of good things, too."

As Alexis put on her Queen of Obelisk face, distant and unaffected by the world, the head-of-house closed her eyes and leaked a smile. "I'm retiring."

"What? You're only"-Alexis realized she had no idea how old the Obelisk was-"the students here love you. Why would you retire now?"

"I'm going back to school," Ms. Fontaine replied. She let go of the book and turned to take in her home of seven years. "After all the serious injuries you kids had, I decided I wanted to be a full-time doctor. So I'm going to get my degree."

Alexis could not think of an appropriate response, so she offered her congratulations instead. Ms. Fontaine accepted them with assurance that Alexis and her friends were a huge part of her decision, and then moved on with an eager little bounce. Growing serious, the ex-nurse continued. "Now that that's out of the way, I can tell you why I really brought you here."

"Alright," Alexis replied, shifting the heavy yearbook to her hip.

"I thought about this for a long time," Ms. Fontaine assured. Her eyes were pinned on the younger woman, bright with happiness and wide with anxiety. Alexis felt a hot trickle of panic run down her throat, seeing exactly where this conversation was going.

"Ms. Fontaine-"

"Of course," Ms. Fontaine interrupted with a raised voice. "The school is going to need a replacement nurse, but they've left me in charge of finding my successor as head of the Obelisk Blue Girl Dorms. After a lot of consideration, I decided you were the right pick, Ms. Rhodes."

"But there are so many more experienced teachers-" Alexis began, only to be cut off again.

"You personally lived and learned at this academy for three years, and now you've returned as a teacher. No one knows and is more invested in the welfare of this school than you."

"I-"

"Should not answer this question without some equal consideration," Ms. Fontaine finished, gesturing towards the yearbook. "I won't take no for an answer until you've reflected on this. I really think you're the perfect fit for my job."

Alexis floundered, a briefcase full of bad tests in one arm and a yearbook full of painful memories in the other. "I really appreciate the offer, but..."

"Nope!" Ms. Fontaine shouted, wagging a solitary finger at her old student's face. "Won't hear it until you think about it! And to help you decide, I want you to stay the night here and get a feeling for the dorm."

Grabbing onto an argument, Alexis denied, "No. You haven't quit yet. The girls still need their head-of-house living with them."

"Which is why," Ms. Fontaine sang, triumphant. "I'm staying in an empty room down the hall. I've already moved my door decks there, and your brother kindly packed an overnight bag and left it on the bed."

The older employee reached for Alexis' hands once more and dropped her key in the student's palms. "Of course, I wouldn't know if you didn't stay, but I don't think you'd be taking my offer seriously if you didn't try it out."

Flabbergasted by the woman's audacity, Alexis could do nothing but watch her coworker wink, wave, and exit out the door, leaving her alone in the foreign apartment. Offering a late, "hey!" Alexis started for the door, realized her hands were full, and threw down the items in a fit of frustration. Ms. Fontaine was long gone, and Alexis refused to search through the dorm with an angry scowl on her face. With a kick at her fallen briefcase, the infuriated teacher pushed back the bangs in her eyes and marched through the apartment. At the very least, she'd go through the motions to appease Ms. Fontaine's before denying her.

The bedroom was straight down the hall, next to the bathroom, and across from what looked like a small study room. Forgoing a thorough investigation until her belongings were in check, Alexis opened the bedroom door and came face-to-face with her grinning idiot of a brother.

"Surprise!" he hollered, leaping from the bed and throwing his arms out. Bits of confetti sprinkled down from his fingers, landing in her hair and all over the plush carpets.

Great, she'd have to add vacuuming to her growing chore list tonight.

Pushing past her joyous brother, Alexis took a quick inventory of what he'd brought, disappointed to find that everything was available—even her laptop for grading. There would be no escape, however brief, from staying in her old dorm tonight, nor any polite way to force Atticus out the door before she took his head off. The pop star continued chatting, happy beyond belief at the 'grand opportunity' his little sister had acquired.

Alexis gave herself a deep breath, counted to ten, and then turned to the excitable male. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

Atticus' eyes dimmed at her tone, but he fixed a cheerful expression. "I moved your bags."

"Other than that," she demanded. "Did you tell Ms. Fontaine to pick me?"

"No," Atticus replied, a bit too quickly. Faltering, he admitted, "but when she came by yesterday asking if you'd be a good choice, I said yeah."

"You didn't think to ask me first?"

Atticus lowered his arms and the corners of his mouth. "I didn't think I had to. This is great news, Lexi."

"You should have," she snapped. Too fed up to even look at his face, Alexis turned and stomped back towards the door. Taps from Atticus' flashy shoes chased after her, but she refused to acknowledge them as she swiped up her briefcase and left the yearbook on the ground to rot. "Then instead of giving Ms. Fontaine the wrong choice, someone with actual experience and who knows what they're doing would be here."

"What's wrong with you, Lexi?" her brother exploded, snatching the fallen yearbook from the floor. She shot daggers at the DA crest with her eyes. "I thought you wanted to make a difference here. Isn't that why you gave up on the American University?"

"I'm not ready," she refuted, shaking the failed tests in her arms. "I can't even figure out how to make my students pass a test let alone take care of half the academy."

"What does testing have to do with anything?" Atticus questioned. "I never aced a test here to save my life, never mind Jaden-"

"Don't bring him into this!" she shouted, storming into the living room. She stared out the arched window and into the lake where they first dueled, biting her lip at the outburst. Reflected in the windowpane, Atticus' expression was a nightmare: the same exhausted, mournful look he had worn upon his defeat as a Shadow Rider.

"I can't help it," he whispered. "Not when this is about him in the first place."

Arms crossed over her binder, she snarled into his reflection and bit out, "This is not about him."

"Lexi," he pleaded. He took a step closer, his palms extended towards her back. "Everything is about him with you. You haven't been the same since he disappeared."

She scoffed. "Of course I haven't. None of us have."

"But the rest of us moved on. Syrus and Chazz are pros. Hassleberry and Jim are archeologists. Axel's some kinda superspy or something. Jesse even had a swing at the Pros before he quit," he argued, taking a step closer. Back bristling, Alexis sent warning glare at her brother that was ignored. "You're still depressed. Jaden wouldn't want you to hold yourself back because-"

"Depressed?" Alexis repeated. "I am not depressed."

She whipped around to face her attacker head on, uncaring that it was the concerned brown eyes of her brother staring back. Cornered against the glass in an unfamiliar territory, she took a bold step forward, thrusting one accusing finger at his chest. "If anyone's holding me back, it's you!"

Surprise wiped the worry from the elder Rhodes' face, erasing the words in his mouth. Alexis made up for the hole with another step forward, closing the distance between the siblings with a jab from her pointer finger. "I was doing fine until you started bothering me! Two years I was studying with Crowler to teach, but the second I'm on my own you decide to butt in and annoy me every night. Do you really think I have time to waste on your stupid blind dates or drama?"

The finger disappeared, and then reappeared with the briefcase in tow. "I have a classroom full of students that I can't help because you're bothering me all night whining about our friends or trying to hook me up with the only other professor who could help my workload! Do you know how uncomfortable that is? You're ruining my friendship with Jesse just because you think you're helping me get over a nonexistent crush on Jaden!"

Discarding the briefcase to look down her nose at her brother, Alexis finished coldly, "And you dare to say I'm the one who can't get over him?"

Icy, the younger Rhodes donned her Queen of Obelisk mask and crossed her arms, throwing every ounce of strength she had into one single command.

"Get out."

Atticus opened his mouth to protest, closed it, and looked at his younger sister as if she had gutted him. A strangled noise escaped his lips, followed by a nervous bite from his teeth, and even the beginning of a sentence. "Lexi, I didn't mean to…"

"Get out," she repeated, widening her stance and flinging her finger at the door. "I'm not going to talk about this anymore."

With a funeral face, the elder Rhodes heeded her warnings and ducked out, trailing leftover confetti in his wake. Even the squeals as the Obelisk students recognized the famous pop star couldn't revive him, and the dead man's grip he had on her doorknob almost made her regret her harsh eulogy. But she let him close the door on their conversation, driving the nail in the coffin of whatever chance she had for a peaceful night.

Instead, she mourned.

Dragging her feet, she returned to the living room to retrieve the train-wreck tests. Sitting beside the ruffled briefcase was the old yearbook, taunting her with a bright color scheme. Depression and Alexis Rhodes did not mix; her brother was just being overprotective and paranoid. To prove it, she snatched up the yearbook and cracked it open, scanning over the faces of unfamiliar students in her graduating class. The pictures were arranged by year, dorm rank, and last name, allowing her to easily glance over the Slifer portion of the book. She didn't run into trouble until after the last senior photo, where the yearbook committee had clearly taken some liberties.

She was all over that page, and she wasn't alone. Jaden stood blindfolded and laughing on the beach in their first year, baseball bat raised above the unsuspecting watermelon below. She, Mindy, and Jasmine posed as Harpy Ladies around the Slifer's hodge-podge costume at the yearly festival. A victory shot of Jaden's duel against Zane's graduating duel followed, and then the memories bled over the page in a terrible memorial to the memory of Jaden Yuki, who had saved the school so often he didn't deserve to be missing or dead in the Dark World.

Alexis could feel tears trying to work their way out of her and swallowed them down, refusing to shed any more sorrow over a three-year-old obituary. If her friends could move on and pretend that Jaden was on an exciting vacation somewhere, then she was allowed to pretend that seeing his face, remembering the feel of his skin when she grabbed him for a picture, did not bother her in the slightest. She could pretend that the gasping pain in her chest was just the pang of an old flame unkindled, and not the flares of a burning wildfire left unattended.

She set the book down with breath, exhaling her smoking heart. If Ms. Fontaine and Atticus thought that reminding her of what she had, and then had lost, at Duel Academy was going to make her jump to lead this dorm, they were dead wrong.

The alarm from her PDA went off, scaring her off the couch and into the bedroom. Fumbling the device from the overflowing bag Atticus had packed her, the younger Rhodes sibling checked the caller ID and found Jesse Anderson's picture on the screen. Debating, she stared at his pixelated emerald eyes before answering, certain her argument with Atticus had summoned him.

Sure enough, the first question Jesse asked was, "So, is there any reason Atticus just came over and apologized profusely to me?"

Alexis sighed into unfamiliar pillows, holding the phone above her face. "Because he's an idiot."

Jesse sucked on that response, squinted at the screen, and asked, "Where are you? I don't think that's your room."

Being reminded of Jesse's unplanned visiting into her room last weekend was nearly as unpleasant as it had been the first time around. Alexis could find no better answer to distract her from it. "I'm in the Girl's Dorm. Atticus convinced Ms. Fontaine that I'd be a great replacement head-of-house, and she wanted me to stay the night to check it out."

Jesse's smile was generous, and his appreciatory whistle migraine inducing. "Wow, think you can handle all the extra work? I can barely keep up with just grading."

She forgave the whistle. Instantly. "I don't think now is a good time to accept. I still have a lot to learn as a teacher before I'm ready to take on a dorm."

Jesse's agreeing nod was lopsided—probably to account for a spirit on his shoulder. "So I'm guessing Atticus didn't agree, and that's why he's being all dramatic on my sofa?"—The screen flashed behind Jesse's shoulder and into the living room where the tip of Atticus' brown hair could be seen poking out of a bright green throw blanket—"Must've been on heck of a fight."

Her desire to talk about it was so little that she almost hung up on him. "It was."

Mercifully, Jesse was not her brother and took the hint. "M'kay, just making sure everything's alright."

"Mhmm," she replied, ready to end the conversation and never pick up her phone again. "'Night."

"Wait!" Jesse called, her finger a millimeter away from the end-call button. She raised an eyebrow and he lost a bit of confusion, replacing it with a sheepish grin. "Just… remember not to take the bad dreams too seriously, okay? You look like you're losing sleep."

She frowned. "Why do you think I'm having bad…?"

Jesse ended the call before she could finish.

Frustrated with the entire world, Alexis tossed her phone to the floor, kicked her bags off of the bed, and resigned to sleeping in her clothing, too tired to do anything else. Tomorrow was her late day; therefore, there was no reason she wasn't allowed to sit and do nothing tonight before grading the only depressing thing around—the tests. Ra knows if she tackled them now, she'd surely be having ore of the nightmares Jesse was so worried about.

Sulking, she buried her head under Ms. Fontaine's perfume-scented pillows and resigned herself to sleep, unknowing she'd wake up to the sight of her murderer.

Teacher's Dorms

Powering down his PDA, Jesse bumped heads with Ruby lightly before glancing back at his second problem: the bundled up pop-star despairing on his couch. Ruby broke free of the concerned young man to leap towards the blinking answering machine, nuzzling the device with a chirp and meaningful glance. Shrugging, Jesse strode over to the purple Carbuncle, reaching around her intangible paws to hit the play button.

Axel Brodie's quiet voice entered the room. "Jesse, call me back as soon as possible. When investigating the old ruin sight on the island where we first slipped into the Dark World, I found something."

Jesse expected the message to end there, as the transfer was famous for leaving short, cryptic sentences. As the only one of them capable of researching the Dark World and finding connections about Jaden, Axel had been relaying (a lack of) news to Duel Academy for years. Excitement battered in his ribcage when the message continued playing—Axel's sharp ears must have found some kind of rumor about the Dark World.

There was a shuffling sound as Axel surrendered his phone and another person started talking, causing Jesse's lungs to freeze. It was a voice he had not heard in three years.

He lunged for the phone.

A/N: I bet no one missed these cliffhangers, huh? XD

Thanks for reading and please review!

-AxJfan