A/N This is not a dead fic. I have never considered it a dead fic. I have also not been of the proper mind set to finish it.

The Calm and the Storm

There was a quality to the air as if the house was holding its breath. Part of it was the heat. August was being disgusting, blanketing the city in a late wet heat wave, the worst in ages. The air was both crackling with electricity and completely, agonizingly, still.

Matilda would be moving into her new dorm room with a new roommate in nine days. Nothing significant had changed between Matilda and Jenny, except for something crucial that had. Something was simmering, in the heat, in the silence, between them. Matilda found herself opening her mouth to bring it up in conversation, but was unable to voice it. The hot slick air suffocated her. It was too much work to speak so her eyes did all the talking.

Large quantities of fresh lemonade were made, and drunk.

Jenny avoided Matilda's gaze as much as possible, and threw herself into preparing lesson plans for next year. It was a waiting game, she told herself, and after Matilda was living away in the dorms, the tension between them would have the space to diffuse. Jenny only needed to wait it out until then. This was not as easy as she'd hoped.

"Stop that." Jenny's voice was harsher than she meant it to be- from disappointment. She had been enjoying a small miraculous breeze that had sprung up suddenly, until she realized that it was caused by the movements of a paper fan that Matilda was powering through her telekinesis.

"I'm boooored." The long drawn out syllable was all teenager, as was the way that Matilda was poured out over the couch. Jenny found herself straightening primly in reaction, which irritated her further, because honestly, when was she prim?

"Take a walk, then."

"It's 'too hot." Matilda had forgone her usual overly enunciated style, her voice thick as honey.

"Go visit Shannon and go... swimming."

"She's fucking Max." There was no mistaking the ire in Matilda's voice. "Honestly, right now. At this very moment. How do I know? Because she just texted me. 'I'm fucking Max. Heart. Heart."

"Eh, sorry."

The fan beat faster, causing a greater breeze, but ever mindful of the fuel that powered Matilda's miraculous abilities, Jenny couldn't simply enjoy it. "Could you stop that?"

Jenny thought that perhaps Matilda had forgotten that she had control over the fan as other papers in the room rustled and stirred.

"It's not fair that Shannon has Max, and I have no one," Matilda grumbled. She seemed oblivious to the way the items in the house were reacting to her. Her mood seemed to have increased the static electricity in the room, causing the hair on Jenny's arms to rise.

Jennifer nodded, but said nothing. Matilda seemed to have less and less control over her powers, and that made Jennifer nervous. The part of her mind that controlled her powers was a subconscious part like the breath reflex. Something she could hold back, but not for long. And not in the sort of mood she seemed possessed by.

"She doesn't have to rub my face in it."

Jenny held her tongue.

"It's just not fair that they are so happy and here I am, just stuck here, repressing. I bet it's unhealthy to be this repressed."

Jenny lips twitched.

"Aarrg! I am just so horny right now!" Matilda finally exploded.

Jenny laughed loudly, shocked at Matilda's crassness.

"I mean it. I am sooo horny right now." Matilda jumped up, and as a demonstration and an expression of her frustration, she levitated nearly every small knick-knack in the room, sending them twirling about each madly for nearly a minute. Jenny could not help but marvel the skill Matilda demonstrated as she made the items dance around the room, never colliding, the path of each complex in its own right. Finally, Matilda set them all down, not quite gently, as though her telekinesis had run completely out.

"Evidently." Jenny said, now more amused than nervous. Nothing in the room was stirring any longer, the burst of kinesis having broken the spell of tension in the room. She looked directly at Matilda, and said wryly. "Feeling better now?"

Matilda collapsed backwards onto the couch and hid her face with a pillow. "Yes," she squeaked. She curled up on the couch in mortified silence as Jennifer became engrossed in her work again.

Until.

"Have you ever... been with someone?" Matilda asked.

"What?"

"It is just that I don't remember you ever even dating anyone other than that balding fellow-"

"- Spalding."

"-that I know of. Or have you?"

"No, I never have."

"Never? At all? Haven't you wanted to?"

"I don't know. I just wasn't interested. I used to wonder if I was asexual."

"Are you?" Matilda's heart sped up at the past tense..

Jenny bit her lip and considered for a moment. This revelation could make things very awkward between them, but she had never in her life been anything but truthful to Matilda.

"I never considered it, until recently, but I think that maybe I am a lesbian." Bombshell dropped, she braced for the outcome.

Matilda scrambled to her feet and came to stand beside Jennifer. "Woah, say that again?" she said, nearly vibrating with urgency.

"Stop that. It has nothing to do with you." Jennifer's voice was firm.

Matilda's jaw clenched, "It has everything in the world to do with me, Jennifer, and you know it. You can't expect me to just..."

"I expect you to live and bear it. I am a person in my own right, I'm not just the object of your love. You cannot will me to desire you the way you will something to float. You keep pushing and you won't take no for an answer. It's bothering me! You are bothering me." Jennifer spoke without really considering what she was going to say. But having said it, she decided it needed to be said. "I haven't said this before, but I am saying this now. Back off. I won't date anyone while you are still here because that would be cruel. But do you see how that is unfair for me? I'm having to put off my own growth. I have to be the grown up, because you are forcing me to be. I don't even... this is really new to me. Please don't... please don't..." Jenny broke off. 'Use this against me,' was what she had been going to say, but that would be admitting that it could be used against her.

Here's the thing. Matilda had long recognised that the way she acted these past months was childish. All her life she had been the mature one, but at the mercy of her feelings it felt like she had no control. She wanted Jennifer. She wanted her right now. She wanted her forever. So she had pursued, although it was pointless. It would have taken more self control than she had ever possessed not to pursue, even though she knew Jennifer would never give in. The subtext that Matilda heard now under the Jennifer's plea was 'If you keep pushing... I will give in.'

So she pushed.

She put her hands on either side of Jenny's face and leaned forward, pressing her lips against Jenny's slightly opened ones. Matilda did not know what she was expecting. To be slapped for her presumption. Or at the very least to be pushed away.

But Jenny did not push her away, nor pull away herself. She seemed to stop breathing, she went so still, but she did not pull away.

Even when Matilda opened her mouth and let the tip of her tongue wet Jenny's lip, Jennifer did not pull away. Her hand caressed Jennifer's cheek, the other slid through her hair. At last, breathing heavily, Matilda stepped back to look at Jennifer.

And finally saw the horror in Jennifer's eyes. Jenny, who could not move, who could not even breath, so transfixed was she by Matilda's powers. Jenny, who had not endured Matilda's kiss willingly, but who had been forced into it by the runaway train of Matilda's will.

"No!" Matilda cried and pushed the focus of her energy away from Jennifer. It smashed through a window, splintering it into a fine dust. About ten feet from the house was a venerable old Oak tree that had been there since this century old house was built. Matilda's power broke it's back. The tree groaned, a great splintering sound, then with a CRACK as loud as thunder, it broke like a pencil between the hands of a child.

Matilda sprinted up the stairs, tear blinded and stumbling. Self hate, a devil of an emotion, rose within her, and she gasped at its depth. Childish. She was childish. She had hurt Jenny because she hadn't even tried to control herself. 'I am a person in my own right, I'm not just the object of your love,' was what Jenny had said, and Matilda had steam rolled right over that. She had acted as if Jenny could be made to desire her, and whether or not Jenny did indeed desire her, Matilda did not deserve her. Childishness, and its opposite - to take responsibility. Matilda took responsibility for her actions... today and for the past months, and in doing so finally began to grow up. She cried.

Jenny gasped for breath. She couldn't do anything to stop Matilda from running away. As soon as she was able, Jenny leaped to her feet to follow after the girl, but she was winded, her heart thumping as the terror abated. For moments, her body was convinced that she was dying; her heart hardly able to pump, her lungs incapable of pulling air into her body. She clutched the staircase railing. "Wait," she croaked, barely a whisper. But Matilda was gone and the door to her room was shut.

Jenny glanced through glassless window. It looked like the road was deserted. The neighbor's car -the only one which could have been hit- was not in its parking space, and was therefore; safe. She was stunned by the destruction of branches and leaves, the splintered trunk, that the oak tree had become. It was a terrifying show of strength, something she had not been capable of imagining. The same force that had broken a centuries old tree like it was kindling had held her still with what was almost gentleness in comparison. Her body trembled with adrenalin. She sat down on the steps. She did not go up to Matilda's room.

Matilda stared out her window, stunned at the damage she had caused. What she could have done to Jenny...

What she had already done was unforgivable.