Part Two

"I think I just died," Parker said, collapsing into a chair at lunch. Her clothes were splotched with mud, and her short honey blonde hair was coming out of its headband. Across the table, Julie, Connie, and Dominique stared.

"Honey, you look like you got dragged in by a horse," Dominique snorted, sipping a glass of water. "I'm waiting for the carriage."

Parker glared at her, and sighed. "We just finished about every drill imaginable, including suicides. I hate suicides. And then we have weight training in an hour and a half. I have to get food, run to Ashe and shower, and then run back here to get all sweaty-"

"Sounds hot to me," a voice behind her said, a smirk evident in the tone. Parker whipped her head around warily, and her eyes met a tall, brown-haired boy with sparkling hazel eyes. He plopped down in the seat next to her, and stuck his hand out. "Charlie."

Parker glanced at the hand, and grasped it. "Parker." She let go of his hand, and turned to Julie, jerking her thumb in Charlie's direction. "Who's he?"

Julie choked, spilling her milk all over herself. While she was grabbing napkins to cough into, Connie answered for her. "This is the captain of our team, Charlie Conway. He's not usually such a cocky bastard."

"Awww, Connie, I'm not THAT bad, am I?" Charlie asked, pouting and giving her the puppy-dog eyes.

"I can think of a couple of Ducks I'd rather spend time with," she muttered under her breath.

Charlie grinned; it was a long-known fact, and a fact already discussed with the group of girls the previous night over pizza and iced tea, that Connie and Guy Germaine were still very much an item. "Just because I'm not as innocent as Guy-"

"Who said Guy was innocent?"

"I did," Charlie said, folding his arms across his chest. "The guy's vanilla!"

"He is not either, Spazway," Connie retorted, eyes narrowed.

"Oh yeah?" Charlie's mind immediately reverted to their numerous grade-school arguments, and he grinned. "Then what is he?"

"I-I…" Connie stammered, pausing to actually think about it.

"What's this about bein' vanilla?" asked a short black boy with a diamond earring shining from his ear. He plopped a plate piled with a Reuben sandwich and chips down beside his captain. "Don't tell me y'all are confusin' the slang." His dancing brown eyes settled on Parker. "Hi."

"Uh, hi," Parker said. "They're arguing over whether or not Guy is vanilla or not, and Charlie wants to know if he isn't vanilla then what is he. It's confusing."

The boy's eyes widened, and then he burst out laughing. "Guy. As in, Germaine? Whiter than Banksie, that Germaine?" He coughed. "Yeah, right, Connie. You have a better chance of telling me that Luis is leaving that cupcake school and taking up farming than convincing me of THAT."

"So, I'm Russ," he said conversationally, more for Dominique and Parker's benefit. "Unfortunately, I'm on the hockey team with these rejects. Any chance I could get your name, sugar?" The last part was directed more towards Dominique, and Parker couldn't blame him; her cocoa-coloured skin was even more flawless against her swimming warm-ups, which consisted of a bright white zip-up jacket and shorts, both with a red stripe down the sides, and her braided hair drawn up in a tight bun.

Dominique stared at him incredulously.

Julie, finally taking pity on him after several seconds' pause, introduced her. Russ spent the remainder of the meal trying to get her to talk to him. Parker, on the other hand, found him charming and funny. She made a mental note to hassle Dominique later about her newly-acquired admirer.

As Parker roamed the cafeteria to find something suitable to scarf before beginning the second leg of practice, she made note of the swarm of boys that descended on the table. Gathering a chicken salad sandwich and making her way through the throngs of students milling about towards the drinks, she watched as the group of boys interacted with her roommates and Connie. Joining Charlie was a blond boy dressed rather conservatively compared to Charlie's Pantera t-shirt and scuffy jeans, with khakis and a blue button-up shirt that played up his fair features, and a gawky looking boy in black jeans and a cowboy hat. Beside Russ were a redhead and a dark-haired boy munching intently on a piece of pizza. She was so busy watching them that she didn't realize her cup had overflowed until she heard someone say, "Uh, you with us?"

Snapping out of it and looking at her fruit punch-covered hand, Parker smiled sheepishly. "Sorry," she said, moving out of the person's way. "First day, new motor skills, I guess."

The speaker, a boy with sleek brown hair styled into a shaggy bowl cut, grinned. "S'okay. At least you're aware of your deficits." He filled his cup with ease, and looked at her intently. "Try not to trip over your feet on the way back to your table, huh?"

Parker smiled weakly, trying to keep a blush from rising to her face. Though more tawny than fair, Parker had the misfortune of having skin extremely susceptible to going from normal to beet red in a span of about thirty nanoseconds. "I'll try," was all she managed before turning and hurrying back to her spot.

"Who was that?" Lee, who had joined the table and elbowed a giant of a boy with short dark hair and a mischievous smile out of the seat she'd taken, asked with a wicked grin. She clutched at her heart. "Love sprung by the fountain!" she cackled.

Parker glared at her. "Shut up, Lee," she grumbled, taking a huge bite of her sandwich.

"Why?" Lee prodded, her eyes dancing. She knew Parker's type; easy to fluster, quick to annoy but not to anger, and quick to forgive. "Love at first sight? I'm thinking a crimson theme for the wedding, to mark your meeting at the fruit punch. Lovely, don't you think, doll?" she asked Charlie.

"Mmmm," Charlie said thoughtfully, studying Parker. "She does have the colouring, after all."

Parker turned her glare towards him. "Don't make me, Conway. I may have just met you, but I have no reservations knocking you on your ass."

Charlie laughed. "I like her," he said to Julie and Connie. "Can we keep her?"

Julie looked at Connie, and they both rolled their eyes. "Stuff it, Spazway," Connie said.

"Let her eat in peace, she's got weights in an hour and a half," Julie added.

Charlie immediately looked contrite. "Sorry," he grimaced. "After a three-hour practice? That's rough."

Parker grinned at him. "S'okay. I heard my coach talking to yours, and he said you guys were on right after us. Said something about weights, pilates, and then running." She grinned even wider when she saw Charlie's look of incredulity. "Have fun!" She ruffled his hair as she left.

"How do you know it was our coach?" he hollered after her. She just waved as she exited the cafeteria. He sat, and glanced dejectedly at his plate. "Shit."

In all, the time the softball team spent in the weight room wasn't that difficult. Coach Rothman started their one-hour session with a talk about teamwork and sportsmanship, and announced that Daniella had been removed from the team. She was to be drafting her resignation letter as they trained, as Moloney's athletic integrity policy was pretty straightforward. She would be allowed to stay on for the semester and try out for another team, but her time with the softball team was through, and any additional strikes against her would be grounds for expulsion. Parker couldn't help but smirk a little at that, and had more fun with the free weights than she thought.

Afterward, Coach Rothman had handed out slips of paper with three lines on them. "For your team name submissions," she'd said, going on to elaborate on the uniqueness of Moloney's athletic mascotry. Each team chose a mascot for the year, and, provided that they fundraise, displayed that particular animal and the Moloney colours (red and white) on their uniforms.

She arrived back at Ashe Dormitory with her limbs feeling more like Jell-O than actual appendages, her clean set of practice clothes disgusting and wrinkled. Climbing the stairs proved to be more of a challenge than she had originally anticipated, and thanked God that she was placed on the third floor instead of the fifth floor. Pushing the door open, she was not at all surprised to see some of the Ducks sprawled out around the room in various states of exhaustion. Dominique had left for the pre-swim team meeting, and Lee was still running around on the tarmac with the rest of the sprinters. Julie and Connie were sharing a beanbag and watching intently as Russ and the redheaded boy played Halo 2 on Parker's X-Box. The blond boy was seated at Julie's desk, typing intently on a laptop computer.

"Hey guys," Parker mumbled as she shuffled in.

"Parker, you look awful," Julie said, not even looking at her.

"Hi to you too, Gaffney," she said, rummaging around in her dresser for a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Picking up her shower caddy, she slipped on her Adidas slide-ons, and shuffled out of the room again.

After her shower Parker was surprised to see that her roommate and most of the Ducks had left, but the blond boy was still typing away at Julie's desk. Not wanting to startle him, she allowed the door to click shut behind her, hoping the noise would be enough to alert him. He didn't move, didn't twitch. Nothing.

Wanting more than ever to just climb into her bed and fall asleep, Parker groaned inwardly and put her things away. The boy looked up, and, for a brief moment, looked petrified.

"Hi," Parker said. "I'm Parker. I live with Julie."

The boy gave a polite smile, and then gestured to his laptop and a stack of books she hadn't noticed there before. "I'm Adam. Julie told me I could stay here and study." He paused. "I hope that's okay."

Parker shook her head. "Uh, yeah, it's fine." She kicked off her sandals and plopped down in her desk chair. "I'm probably going to head up the bed in a sec, but I'll be out like a light with or without you here, so…" She paused. "How, exactly, do you have studying to do already?"

"I can leave if you want me to," Adam said quickly. "Uh… I took a math class to prep for classes over the summer?"

She rolled her eyes. "You sound confused, but okay. Dude, I said you could stay. I'm just saying, I hope you're not uncomfortable being alone with someone who could pass as unconscious."

Adam shrugged and turned back to his computer. Parker pulled a face and shrugged back at him, and slipped a headband over her head. "Night," she said, climbing like a monkey into her loft bed. Adam looked up at her with a bemused smile.

"You comfortable? Would you like me to shut the light off?" he asked.

She patted down the comforter and sighed happily. "Nope. I'm good. Night, Blondie."

The first day of classes started early in Suite 304, when Dominique's alarm went off promptly at 5:30 for her personal pre-class practice. Her alarm woke Parker before she could shut it off, and the dark girl grinned sheepishly at her glowering roommate. To make matters worse, Parker hit her head off the ceiling when she sat upright in her bed.

With a muttered 'fuck', Parker rubbed her forehead. After trying to go back to sleep, she threw the covers back and slid down the bed, promptly falling in a heap on the floor. From across the room Lee rubbed her eyes and snickered. "You know, most people learn to walk BEFORE they come to college, Harris."

Still in a heap on the floor next to her softball cleats, Parker gave Lee the finger. "Shut up, Underwood." She picked herself off the floor and started rummaging through her dresser drawers, which prompted Lee to groan and pull her pillow over her head.

"Are you absolutely nuts?" Lee whined. "One too many softballs to the head?"

Parker grinned to herself, pulling on an old Yankees shirt. "Oh, no, missy. Jules gets out of hockey practice at seven-thirty, then she's going to shower and then we're going to breakfast."

"But I don't have to go to class til ten-thirty!" came Lee's muffled howl from underneath her pillow. She suddenly squinted in Parker's direction, hair mussed. "Connie isn't up!"

"And how do you know that, exactly?" Parker asked, zipping her jeans. She looked pointedly at Lee. "Isn't she at hockey practice with Julie?"

The runner slumped back down into her blankets. "Shit."

An hour or so later they were sitting at their table in the cafeteria, joined shortly by Connie's roommate Mara. It was obvious that she was not a morning person, despite having class every morning at eight o'clock; she had on a pair of black running shorts, a red tank top over a green hoodie, and two different coloured flip-flops. Coming back from the cereal bar, Parker stifled a giggle when she saw her. She slid into her seat beside Lee, who was nursing two cups of coffee and yawning, and hastily shoveled her oatmeal into her mouth. Next to her, Lee was mumbling under her breath about inconsiderate roommates and how a person needed their sleep once in a while in order to function properly.

Parker snorted into her oatmeal, earning herself a well-aimed elbow. Meeting Connie and Julie's eyes and laughing, she stood to go put her dishes in the window.

She hadn't counted on collision.

For the second time that morning, Parker picked herself off the floor, mouth dropping in horror when she felt the milk from the bottom of her cup seeping into the seat of her jeans. She attempted standing, but her foot slipped in the puddle forming, colliding again with the poor person she'd taken out.

"I'm so sorry," she said quickly, glancing at the person sprawled out on the floor. She jealously noted that they were well out of the puddle's reach. She found herself face-to-face with a pair of almond-shaped brown eyes. She smiled impishly in spite of herself. "I'm really sorry… I don't know how to walk."

The boy grinned. "You're forgiven. After all, it's" –he checked his watch- "not even eight o'clock yet." He offered her his hand.

"Thanks," Parker said. The boy was at least a foot taller than she was, an easy feat considering she only stood at five foot four, with smooth black hair that fell into his eyes. His broad, boyish smile created small crinkles near those eyes; the eyes that made a little piece of Parker's heart melt as she took his hand. Once she was back on her feet, he handed her the tray she'd been carrying.

Together, they walked to the dish window, and he smiled again. "Well, next time I see you I'll try to get your attention," he said as he walked away. Grinning to herself, Parker practically skipped back to the table, where her friends were dying of laughter.

"What's so funny?" Parker demanded.

Julie shook her head, her mouth full. She swallowed, and said, "Uh… Parker, your pants are soaked!" Parker looked at her suspiciously, and ran a cautious hand over her bottom. Sure enough, the denim was drenched. Julie laughed even harder at her expression. "And on top of that, Kenny looked like he wanted to die!"

"Kenny?" Parker repeated. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "As in, the kid I ran into?"

Julie nodded.

"You know him?"

Another nod.

Parker groaned. "Great."

After Parker made a quick stop back into her room to change her jeans, she proceeded with her map in hand to her first-ever college class. She found the room without incident (more importantly, without falling or tripping), and peeked inside. While most of the people in the lecture hall were unfamiliar, Parker recognised one of them; the pitcher on the softball team, Tammie. The dark-haired girl looked up and smiled warmly as Parker hoisted her canvas messenger bag in front of her to an empty seat in the middle. She opened a notebook, scribbled 'Class Notes' at the top of the page with the date, and waited, tapping her pen.

People trickled in, and Parker kept craning her head for the professor. Next thing she knew a large, bearded man with thinning hair and large glasses walked in carrying a tattered briefcase. He opened the clasps and started rummaging around, taking out a laser pointer and a smooth stone. He had just stuck his hand back in it when the classroom door opened again. Parker looked up again to see Kenny, the boy she had run into, poke his head in. After whispering to a redheaded kid with glasses close to the door that she thought she recognized, he walked in and started looking for a seat. He eventually found one a couple of rows up, a bit to the right in front of Parker.

As soon as he sat down, the professor barked, "Okie-dokie, listen up!"

The hall fell silent. He quickly took attendance, and then began explaining how his classroom ran. "I don't take emailed copies of anything. Email is nonexistent from this day forward. If you email it, it will get lost and then you will fail because I don't waste my time with that new-aged silliness. If you want something graded, you put the stylus to the tablet and carve." He looked around expectantly, and, after several seconds' awkward pause, shrugged. "Never mind then."

An hour later, Parker gathered her things and made a beeline for the door- her bladder was thisclose to exploding. Before she could get there, however, Kenny, the boy from earlier, appeared in her peripherals.

"Some first class, huh?"

"The guy sure knew how to make an impression," she said, eyes darting desperately toward the door. She turned toward Kenny. "I'm real sorry, and I really want to keep going with this walk-and-talk thing we have going on," she paused as they rounded the corner, where the bathrooms were, "But I have to go to the bathroom. Wait a sec?"

Kenny nodded. He was checking his text messages when Averman caught up with him a second later.

"Hey Kenny, I thought you'd be chatting up Julie's roommate on the way back to the dorms by now. You went and left me behind, what gives?" Averman looked properly affronted.

Kenny instantly felt bad. He knew Averman had been checking with the professor to see if there was a later section so he could sleep in, but had been intent on making a better impression than the one he'd made at breakfast. The Ducks were notorious for spending the time they had off the ice together, and as Julie's roommate, he figured getting on the blonde girl's good side couldn't hurt.

"Sorry, dude," he said, smiling sheepishly. "I was talking to Julie's roommate, but she's in the bathroom."

Averman nodded. "Ohhhhh, gotcha." He paused. "Uh, Ken?"

"Mm, yeah?"

"Can I walk back with you guys? I dropped my map in the lecture hall and don't really remember where our building is. I mean, I'm sure I'd find it eventually, but I have zoology at 10:30." Kenny and Averman, along with the majority of the other Ducks, had the good fortune to be placed in suites with other Ducks, or in the case of Julie and Connie, right down the hall.

Just as Kenny said, "Sure, Averman," the bathroom door swung open, and Parker walked out. Her eyes lit up when she saw Averman standing with Kenny, but as she moved forward, her messenger bag caught on the handle and jerked her back, sending her sprawling on the floor for the third time that morning.

Averman clapped as she picked herself back up.

"Graceful today, aren't I?" she said with an embarrassed smile. She turned to Averman as they started walking. "You ate lunch with us yesterday, right?"

"That would be correct. Lester Averman," he said, sticking his hand out to shake. "You're one of Julie's roommates. Lemme guess. You're the… track star?"

Parker burst out laughing. "Negatory, big bird." Catching Kenny and Averman's confused looks, she barreled on, "Sorry, something my dad says. I'm Parker Harris. I play softball."

"Kenny Wu," Kenny said from Averman's other side. "So, Averman, you switching out of class or what?"

The redhead shrugged. "The professor told me that the only way I was getting out of the 8:00 class was if I had something else to take its place." He deepened his voice and swung his arms around jerkily, clearly an imitation of the professor. "'You're too young to be worried about sleep. You can sleep when you're dead.'"

On their way out of the building, they passed his office door. Parker was delighted to see that that his door was completely devoid of all frivolous decoration save for a bumper sticker that read, 'gonna vote this year, stupid hippie?' The sticker alone said everything they would need to know about him. As they were discussing the professor and his anti-technology attitude, Parker heard a voice behind her.

"Harris!"

Parker turned, and saw Tammie, the stocky brown-haired pitcher coming towards her. "Hey!" she said.

"Some class, huh?" Tammie shook her head. "Imagine, no email? So weird!"

Together, the four proceeded towards the dormitories, discussing the syllabus and the project they had to complete in October. After deciding that they would eventually form a study group, Tammie parted ways with them, explaining that she lived across the street from the major dining hall, Hamm Café, in Bannock Dormitory. Parker quickly confirmed their practice schedule, and she, Kenny, and Averman pushed on toward Ashe. They stopped in front of Chamberlain Dormitory, where Averman explained that he, Kenny, and two of their Duck teammates lived on the first floor.

With a smile permitted only to redheads with glasses, he unceremoniously invited her in, but she declined with a grin, saying that it was only a matter of time when she could find it blindfolded. She couldn't help but notice the smile Kenny gave her after she said it, and walked away from them humming cheerfully.

Averman watched her as she walked towards her own building, catching strains of the song she was humming. He had seen the smile Kenny had given her. Despite his jokester façade, he wasn't stupid, not by a long shot. He could tell that there were sparks, if only little tiny ones, between Kenny and the girl. He made a mental note to tell their captain. He was notorious for 'helping' situations like these.

A/N: Okay, guys, I know some of you are still waiting for Jingle Belle, but I re-read some of my favorite Ducks fics (hats off to Donuthole, NYGoldfish54, and Punkteacher), and realized that not many people write much about the other Ducks… like Kenny, Averman, Goldberg, Dwayne, and Luis. I'm advocating for the lesser-known Ducks, mainly because I love reading about Kenny and the majority of what's out there make him angsty and unappealing. Anyway, let me know what you think, suggestions and criticisms welcome!

Over and out!

Flyinghawk