He watched as he walked, an orange hooded figure prancing through the rain. He knew he shouldn't look, he shouldn't care, but his eyes are fixed on the boy, his hands searching blindly, idly, for a camera.

Kenny stopped suddenly in the middle of the road and tilted his head back, maybe to catch some of the cold rain on his tongue. Hair soaked, drenched in dirty rainwater, he stood there. Out of the corner of his eye, Craig could see a strange light, but his eyes were glued somewhere else.

He was half tempted to open his window, to shout something into the storm, when it happened. The light in the corner of his eye grew brighter and brighter until he realized it was the headlights of a car heading directly towards that dancing figure.

Click.

Craig had a dream that night, though when he woke up he had no memory of it: only a throbbing headache and an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu.

Nonetheless, he still managed to drag himself to school that day. School wasn't something Craig cared for, but he didn't hate it. It would be too much energy to hate – wouldn't it? – and Craig simply didn't have the motivation.

If he liked a class, he would do the work. He liked math, mostly because it made sense to him and he was good at it, and he liked his art class. He did not like Health Education, which was a mandatory class for all sophomores attending South Park High School. In fact, he sat in the back of his class and slept or read or doodled idly on his empty notebook. The people who sat back there with him also didn't care, like Kenny and Cartman and Stan fucking Marsh, who he hated with all his being, and it seemed to be a good balance.

The teacher would rant about not doing drugs or drunk driving and Craig would stay quiet. It worked out for the both of them. From the bits of sentence Craig picked up between pages of doodles, it sounded like he was talking about teen pregnancy today.

Class progressed first from a number of statistics pertaining to pregnant teenagers, then a passionate lecture on premarital sex, and finally the passing around of a large tub of condoms, half of which Kenny stuffed in his parka, to the classes' amusement. When he passed the tub back to Craig, he peeked in, rolled his eyes, and continued to not pay attention, until something else earned his notice.

"Eric Cartman, Wendy Testaburger – "

Immediately, there was a reaction from the class. It was loud enough to get Craig's attention just in time for his name to be called.

Kenny snapped out of whatever he had been doing and turned around to face Craig. He asked something, but he could only catch the questioning tone. He made the safe assumption that he was asking why his name had been called.

Craig didn't know why Kenny's name or anyone else's had been called, so he said, "I don't know."

"What was that?" he asked again, more audibly, blue eyes squinted as though trying to figure out something.

Craig shrugged. He never paid attention. (Well, to be completely honest, he could hold attention if the topic interested him, but teen pregnancy and fake baby dolls did not interest him in the slightest, so when Kenny McCormick and his pretty face turned around for answers as to what was going on, Craig could do nothing but shrug.)

Kenny frowned, eyes still lost, and muttered about how he'd heard their names called. Craig shrugged again. He just wanted to sleep. Fuck physical education, fuck teen pregnancy. He wasn't going to get pregnant. Instead of paying attention from this point, if only to figure why his name had been called along with Kenny McCodmick's, he focused his thoughts on how much he fucking hated this class and how little he'd use any of these skills.

The teacher dropped an infant-sized doll on his desk. Tch. Like Craig Tucker would ever have kids.

He gathered all the remaining energy he had to move his eyes – grey, bloodshot, half-lidded with fatigue – to meet the piece of plastic. He narrowed his gaze. No. Not this. Kenny snorted and prodded the thing like it was some sort of foreign object. An alien. It may of well have been. Even South Park's education system, Craig thought, was better than this.

"For the next two weeks…"

If this is really happening – so God help me – I will kill this guy right here and now.

"…you'll see what it's like to be a parent."

No, it was. It really fucking was, and his partner was no other than Kenny McCormick. How, he wondered, it was that the two poorest, least nurturing, and fucked up kids got paired up, he wasn't sure. The only thing Craig was sure of at this present moment was that he would not be doing this project.

His eyes fell locked on the doll while the remaining names were called. The bell rang, eventually, and Craig was grateful because this class and this teacher were successfully getting him on edge, which didn't happen often. Craig Tucker did not like children. He did not like group projects. He didn't like working as a whole, and he wasn't even sure if he liked Kenny McCormick.

Now, Craig wasn't a pleasant person; he preferred to be left alone, with some exceptions. Kenny McCormick may have been one of these exceptions, on a normal day. Craig would have been intrigued by a conversation with him, actually. But when Kenny approached him after class, an urgent look in his eyes, Craig knew this would not be a pleasant or intriguing conversation.

"Craig Tucker," Kenny drew out the name like he was trying out the sound of it, like he was seeing how it felt in his mouth.

Craig didn't have to ask what he was being approached about. Kenny had never made friendly conversation with him before and he wasn't going to begin now. He wanted something. No, he needed something.

"I'm not doing the project," Craig said.

"Come on,"

"Not doing it."

Kenny took a deep breath and pursed his lips. His playfulness was gone. "Look, I really need the grade or, or – I'm gonna fail or something. I'm not smart. I can't do this on my own." He looked down at the doll in his arms, hanging limp, and Craig couldn't help but feel a pang of what he assumed was pity.

There was a long pause in the conversation. Craig could tell it was making Kenny uncomfortable.

"Fine." That was all he could bring himself to say.

And, just like that, like God and Jesus and all the angels had somehow shone down their divine light and cured Kenny McCormick, his eyes lit up and his pouting lips turned to a bright, teeth-bearing smile. Hallelujah, it was a miracle. God bless Craig Tucker.

"Awesome! Okay, uhm," Kenny trailed off, glancing back down at the baby doll, though not as pathetically this time. "I'll take her for now—"

"Her?"

"—and tomorrow, come to my house after school and we can work on stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Y'know, parent stuff."

"Oh," Craig said, though he didn't really understand what there was to this project. It was simple: you had a doll for a couple weeks and you had to try your best not to destroy it. He had to admit, he didn't listen to a damned thing that teacher said, but he couldn't imagine there could be more to keeping the baby in one piece.

If Craig really didn't want to do this project, he wouldn't have. His curiosity was getting the best of him, perhaps. He wasn't sure what to think.

Kenny seemed glad, though. He gave a quick nod, slung his backpack over his shoulder and secured the baby in his free arm. "Tomorrow, then!" he called.

"Yeah, sure. Tomorrow."

When Craig got home that afternoon, he found a picture on his window sill, next to his binoculars. It was a polaroid that had developed overnight: a hazy figure, a blur of orange developed onto the film. A mistake. A photo that hadn't developed right. He tossed it in the box that he kept under his bed.

He did not go people watching that night, and he slept as he usually did: lightly and without dreaming. When he woke, he did not have that odd sense of déjà vu.