Overview: What would have happened if Wen hadn't been so anti-confrontational when Ray was bothering Olivia in the cafeteria that day?
Disclaimer: I do not own Lemonade Mouth, nor do I have any rights to the characters herein.
Note: This will be a multi-chapter story, eventual Wenlivia. Previously posted under my other account, Thayne M.
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Wen couldn't believe what he'd done. Neither could his father, but that didn't stop him from sitting his son down in the nurse's office and, after getting the full story, launching into a tirade. "Are you kidding me, Wen? Listen, I know things have been stressful for you lately, but at some point, I have to stop letting things slide- -"

"Dad, you don't understand!" Wen objected, covering his face with his hands, mindful of the bruise. "I don't even understand," he said, words muffled by his palms. And in truth, he didn't. His new friends were important to him without a doubt, and he would have done the same thing if it had been Mo or Charlie or Stella in Olivia's place (though Stella probably would have called him a chauvinist and insisted she could fight her own battles). But what he'd felt in his chest when he saw the glistening of tears in Olivia's eyes wasn't just a friendly protectiveness; it was something else. The same something he'd felt on the first day of second grade, when she walked in looking so much different than she had the year before - smaller and sadder. Then again, toward the end of fifth grade, when he'd seen her standing in the hallway with her grandmother, a look of helpless confusion on her face. Then in seventh grade when McKenzie Collins shoved her into a trash can, eighth grade when Garrett Yetsy asked her to dance at the middle school graduation party and made fun of her for stepping on his feet, and every other time he'd ever seen her upset since then. He wanted to protect her, but it hadn't been his place until the last few weeks. Though he'd known the girl for most of his life, they'd hardly ever spoken until Stella came along. And now that it was acceptable for Wen to defend her, he intended to, even if he couldn't correctly define his driving force.

His father sighed and sat down, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "Then explain it to me as good as you can, bud, because I need to know how to deal with this."

Wen copied his father's sigh and uncovered his face, picking up the ice pack Nurse Hobbes had given him and holding it to his cheek. "I don't know how to explain it. He was just…he was messing with one of my friends, and I had to do something."

"One of your new band friends?" The older man pried, not accusingly, but curiously. He'd met the kids a handful of times already, when they wanted to utilize the acoustics of the Gifford poolhouse, and he'd found them intriguing. They weren't like anyone his son had befriended before; they were a cast of characters, from the outspoken guitarist, to the prim-and-proper bassist, the cluelessly kindhearted drummer, and the painfully shy lead singer.

Wen nodded, "Olivia."

"Ah, Olivia," his father chuckled knowingly, seeming to forget most of his anger at being pulled out of an important meeting to come check on his hot-headed son. Though she was the most soft-spoken of the group, Olivia was the one Mr. Gifford had taken the most notice of. Or, more accurately, he'd taken notice of the way his son's eyes always seemed to follow her - watching her as they practiced, studying her in awe as they wrote together. And though Wen hadn't said anything to him about the girl, he wasn't at all surprised to hear that she was the one he'd been looking out for. "Well, kid," he clapped a hand on his son's shoulder, "I guess I can't be mad at you for protecting a friend. But let's try to not make a habit out of this, okay? I don't like the idea of you fighting."

Wen looked at his father, surprised that he was letting him off the hook, and nodded with a cautious smile, "No problem. Getting punched doesn't feel as cool as it looks in the movies."

"Don't I know it." Mr. Gifford looked around the nurse's office and asked quietly, "So are you suspended, or…" He trailed off, letting his son fill in the rest.

"Nurse Hobbes knows that someone hit me, but I didn't tell her who and I sort of…left out the part about me hitting him first. No," he summed up, "I'm not suspended, but I do have detention for the rest of the week."

"I think that's fair."

Wen rolled his eyes but he couldn't help the smirk that crept up the side of his face. He wasn't grounded, he wasn't suspended, and Olivia was safe; all things considered, he thought he could chalk this day up as a win. Though he wasn't looking forward to facing Olivia - he knew she, too, would ask why he did what he did, but he couldn't explain the way he had to his father.

Mr. Gifford left shortly after one o'clock and the nurse wrote Wen a pass to sixth period. Lucky for him, he didn't have any afternoon classes with any of his bandmates, so he used the time to think of how he would explain himself. I was just standing up for a friend, he thought, and it was true. But would they see through him, the way he blinked too much when he wasn't telling the full truth, the way he couldn't meet their eyes? I was worried about Olivia; she doesn't know how to handle things like that. That was true as well, but he wasn't sure he could say those words without offending the girl. I get this indefinable tightness in my chest every time Olivia is in trouble and I wanted to be her knight in shining armor… Yeah, he could see that one going over really well.

"Wendell," Miss Cruscher tapped on his desk to get his attention in eighth period English, pulling him from his thoughts. His eyes snapped up guiltily, but the teacher was just staring down at him with kind brown eyes. "Hey," she said gently, "Where are you right now?"

"In my head," he mumbled, "Sorry. What did I miss?"

Miss Cruscher smirked and looked around what Wen now realized was an empty classroom. "I'd say about forty-five minutes of my genius teaching skills." She flipped his book shut and put a test review on top of it, "Your friend Olivia had this class fifth period; ask her if you can borrow her notes, and be ready for the test tomorrow."

Wen smiled apologetically, skin tingling at the mention of Olivia's name, and starting shoving things into his bag, hoping he wasn't late for detention. "Thanks, Miss C. I will be." She nodded and he jumped up, tripping over his own long legs and catching himself before he could wipe out, then continued to the basement for the first of four detentions this week.

hey, he texted Stella on the way down, we still doin practice at 430 instead of 330 today? They'd worked out that detail when he'd been in the nurse's office, waiting for his father, and Stella had been in study hall.

The answer came right before he opened the detention door and surrendered his cell phone to Mrs. Reznik: No practice today. O cancelled. Seemed upset. And that's what Wen had to think about for the whole hour. Olivia was so upset - either because of what had happened today, or because of Wen's involvement - that she couldn't even make it to practice. He felt like a jerk, and a failure, a weakling, and about a thousand other self-deprecating things. Most of all, he felt panicked. Olivia had a habit of shutting down when things got too hard - of giving up without really trying. By tomorrow morning, when they had second period Geometry together, she may not even be talking to him anymore. The pain returned to his chest as he buried his head in his arms, squeezing his eyes shut and thinking. What could he do?

Stella answered this for him. When detention ended and he collected his phone, there was a text waiting there for him: Do you think O would be up for working on new lyrics at least?

Wen tapped his nails against the back of his phone, thinking. Then he sent back, i'll ask her, and made a quick pace toward the elevator.

He could have texted Olivia, if he'd thought she would have answered, but he knew she wouldn't. If she was upset, there was no way the reserved girl was going to talk to him, even through text messaging. He remembered her address from the week before, when her bike had a flat tire and she'd bashfully asked if she could carpool with him, and he started walking. It was unbearably hot and he could feel a sunburn layering itself over the already-throbbing bruise on his face, but he didn't stop moving his feet until he was standing in front of Olivia's big red-and-gold house; it was nowhere near as big as his, but somehow, it was monumentally more imposing.

He took his time walking up the steps to the porch, and hesitated when he reached the odd restaurant-style door. He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment - maybe he should have texted first, maybe she didn't even want to see him - before finally rapping his knuckles against the cool glass and taking a step back. The door opened almost instantly, like Olivia had been waiting there for him. Judging by the alarmed look on her face, however, she hadn't been.

"Hey," he greeted with his best smile, and it sounded like the lamest thing in the world. Hey.

Olivia didn't fall back on the same greeting. Instead, her brow furrowed and she immediately asked, "What are you doing here?" He guessed he had to respect that; she may have been a shy girl, but at least she didn't waste time with muddled niceties.

Any confidence Wen had built up (which wasn't much at all) instantly drained from his body like someone had twisted a spigot in his soul. He wondered how it would look if he ran - just turned on his heels and bolted off of the porch and didn't stop running until he was safe in his own home, hiding in the stables with Lightning and Honey. Probably not very good, he decided, and forced himself to press on. "Stella said I should come by…work on some songs with you." He had to hand it to himself, it was pretty crafty of him. It wasn't the real truth, but it wasn't a complete lie either.

But Olivia didn't seem to buy it completely. Her chin shrank back against her neck and she eyed him carefully before saying, "Oh." It was breathy, reluctant, "Okay." Even though the word could have been taken as an invitation, her tone and the way her body stayed frozen in the doorway said otherwise. It was plain to see that she didn't want him to be there.

Any intelligent person would have taken the cue and excused themselves. There were a million ways to do it: A fake phone call, remembering an appointment, pretending to have a sudden epileptic fit. He didn't have to stay there, darkening her doorway and making her so wholly uncomfortable, but he couldn't get his feet to move. He couldn't make himself leave. "So…" He said leadingly after an awkward beat.

"Oh, right," she sounded so tired, "Yeah, um…" She took a step back and waved her hand, "Come on in." When Wen reached out to hold the door, she started walking ahead of him, into the house. Inside, it was even more imposing than outside. The rooms were open and bright, large but without all of the fancy decorations that most people with such a large house would indulge in. Instead, there was modest furniture and old-fashioned appliances, and framed baby pictures and needlepoints of pithy quotes scattered across the walls.

He took this all in as he followed close behind Olivia, then almost ran into her when she suddenly stopped and spun around. "Actually, you know what?" She still sounded so exhausted, and upon closer inspection, Wen could see that her eyes were bloodshot and her nose was a little puffy and pink. She'd been crying. "I, uh," she cleared her throat, "I'm not really feeling all that well, so maybe we could do this tomorrow or something?"

Good idea, the frightened side of him said. He could just go home, get some sleep, and they could start fresh tomorrow. But, as previously observed, tomorrow would probably be too late, and there was no way - after almost ten years of quiet acquaintanceship - he was going to let her go now. "Olivia," he started with a sigh, staring down at his shoes, "I'm not leaving."

She raised her eyebrows, "You're not leaving…my house? Where I live? Where I have more legal rights than you do?" Her voice was harsher than he'd ever heard it, but with a thick undertone of helplessness and sorrow that brought the tightness back into his chest.

"Olivia," he said again, reaching out tentatively to rest a hand on her shoulder. When she didn't brush him off, he blinked heavily and said in his softest voice, "Come on. Talk to me, okay? Tell me what's going on." He could literally feel the tension leaving her body as tears returned to her eyes, but she looked toward the ceiling and blinked them back. He was quiet for a moment, letting her get control of herself, and felt relieved when she met his eyes and nodded.

"Okay," she said quietly, "Not here, though. Out back."