Author's Note- Edited.

Enjoy!

Forbidden

Trust

Our meet up at the diner on Saturday did not go over as well as both Derek and I would have liked.

The rest of the week after classes had resumed on Wednesday had passed rather quickly. Miranda invited me to sit with her and her friend Kari during Professor Carson's English lecture and I didn't get a chance to see Liz or Nate later on in our studio workshop class as Professor Banks had called it off for the day. He had sent all the students an email explaining that he had a few things to take care of and couldn't find a stand in. To be honest, since that meant that his classes didn't resume until the following Tuesday and I didn't have to see him until then, I personally wasn't complaining.

On Friday Derek issued our class the first homework assignment of the term and he offered to stay after classes ended for the day to assist me if I needed it. I simply accepted the challenge to do it myself and prove that I was more than capable to handle his class, then told him that I would see him the following morning.

Only, the following morning had been an unusually busy one at the diner. When Derek walked in, I was calling up Beth and Connor for extra hands because there was no way that Marcus and I could handle the shift ourselves where we normally could. I had enough time to serve him his usual coffee and slice of pie, and that was about the most I saw of him. When I made my way to his table to hand him his check, I had an apology on my lips, however, he simply stood and placed a bill on the table before leaning in and murmuring something into my ear.

"Request the eighth off of work."

He gave me a swift peck on the cheek then left. When I went to the back office to put down my request after my shift, I noticed that the eighth was two weeks away, on a Friday. I wondered what he had planned.

As the days continued to pass, I worried that Nate was a little more wounded than he had let on the previous week, as I hadn't seen him since I'd broken the truth to him. There had been several times where I picked up my phone with the intent to text or call him, but he said he would need some time and the least that I could do was respect that.

Fortunately though, on Tuesday, when Professor Banks finally held the first studio workshop class of the term, Nate trotted right up to Liz and I who were sitting next to each other on the auditorium stage, legs dangling over the edge, and hoisted himself up to sit between us. He threw his arms over both of our shoulders ad grinned.

"Only one more term ladies. Then it's off to Juilliard and a lifetime of fame." He stated, tone overdramatized. Liz rolled her eyes and I snorted.

"You still have to make it through auditions, movie star."

He tossed me a pointed look and replied with an air of cockiness.

"Chloe, we've been rehearsing for over a year. I couldn't care less if the auditions were next month or next week. We're ready. Hell, we're practically already accepted."

"Well, the auditions are mid-march and, considering we're still in Professor Banks' class, I'd say we're nowhere closer to being accepted into Juilliard as we were last term."

Nate chuckled.

"Way to bring me down, Chloe."

I tried to catch if there was any implication in his words that pertained to me turning him down last week, but I only found my old friend poking fun at me as if the very event never happened. I wondered though, if Professor Banks hadn't called his class to order, then would I have found something? Or was Nate really okay with my decision?

"I'd apologize for the delay of the term, guys," Professor Banks announced as he ascended the stairs of the stage to begin his class. He smirked at his own words and gave a halfhearted shrug. "But I'm sure you all appreciated the free hour last week while the rest of your classes were resuming so, we'll just leave it at that."

It was strange really, as I listened to Professor Banks talk about what we'd be doing this term and the next play we had to set up for, I realized just how much I had forgotten that he even existed. Before Christmas break, he was like a bodiless breath on the back of my neck, having the hair on my arms stand on end. All because of one lone encounter with him in this very auditorium and the frightening, dangerous light that ignited in his eyes once I mentioned that I was being tutored by Derek. Derek had clearly expressed that Professor Banks was bad news and that I didn't need to worry about it as long as I kept my distance from him.

Then of course, just as school was getting out for break, Derek and Royce had their little confrontation that raised even more questions about their history.

It wasn't until now, when he was explaining the day's task of stripping the stage of its Christmas Carol backdrop and his brown eyes flickered in my direction before resting there, holding my gaze and throwing me somewhat of a smarmy smile, that I remembered just how wary I was of this man.

Why hadn't I been more observant and careful after Christmas break ended whenever I was around him in this class? Why hadn't I questioned why he was gone the previous week? Why had I even signed up for his class again in the first place? Had I seriously forgotten how uncomfortable he made me feel?

And then more things that I should have been contemplating more than I was came rushing back to me.

Why was Derek's father involved with whatever had happened between him and Professor Banks in the past? Why was Royce even a teacher here if Derek strongly believed that he shouldn't be and why had Derek's own teaching ability been under question when they both applied here?

Aside from Royce, what about Derek himself? Sure, I knew I had yet to learn so much about him, but that had always been centered more on the present Derek. What about his past? Why did he refuse to tell me about his concerns of Professor Banks? Shouldn't I be a little informed as to what I should be avoiding if he had been so adamant on me doing just that? And what about that day he had showed up at the diner, when Rae was pronounced missing? Where had he come from and why had he been in an all-fire hurry to leave once he saw what I did on the news?

And, oh God, Rae. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that Rae was dead. You don't just go missing for more than four weeks without so much as a word of your whereabouts unless something had happened to you. Especially in New York City. For all anyone knew, she could have been mugged and left in some alley to die. She could have been kidnapped or hurt somewhere without means of help or-

"Chloe? Hey, are you alright?"

Liz's soft voice broke through the hysterical typhoon my brain was forming and I blinked, finding those chocolate brown eyes still holding mine, flashing in a mixture of sneering amusement and curiosity.

All that had come from just looking Royce Banks in the eye.

I stifled a shuddering breath, blinked hard and forced my gaze to Liz. Her and Nate watched me, eyes dark with concern.

"What?"

"Nate was asking what you wanted to get started on." Liz said. "Professor Banks said he wanted to take down the set from the last play but, you zoned out. You looked stressed about something."

"Oh, no it's nothing." I stated, shaking off the grimy feeling I got under Royce's stare. "Um, why don't we take down your beautiful bushes, Liz? You worked so hard on them that it's only fitting that you take them down."

Liz's nose scrunched up, recalling her awful paint job from a couple months before when she had been too busy ogling the arts teacher. Nate released a snort and made a teasing jab before standing and heading over towards said bushes. Liz scoffed and dragged me up with her. I smiled, however, as I followed them, I couldn't push against the feeling of Professor Banks' eyes on me.

"Four."

I blinked, a bit startled by the unexpected sound of someone talking and came crashing back into the present. I looked up to see jade eyes staring back at me, a dark brow raised a bit as they assessed me.

I was sitting across from Derek at his desk. However, the end of studio workshop and making my way to his classroom, as well as sitting here working on some problems I had missed from Friday's homework was all a blur. I couldn't seem to fight the distraction caused from the whirlpool of questions that had manifested in my brain when Professor Banks had looked at me earlier.

I shook my head and gave Derek a questioning look, trying to clear my thoughts. He was lounging rather comfortably in his reclining, office-like chair with his feet propped up on his side of the desk. There was a packet of papers that he was grading sitting in his lap as he absentmindedly chewed on the cap of his red pen. If I hadn't been so mentally disrupted by all these undesirably thought provoking questions running amok through my head, I'd have marveled by the fact that this was the most relaxed I'd ever seen him.

"I'm sorry. I spaced out. What were you saying?"

Derek's gaze held mine for a moment longer, studying me before he gestured towards my sheet of equations.

"You've been working that problem for the last twenty minutes. You know the answer, but you won't write it down. The answer is four."

I observed the equation I had been working on and noted that I had, in fact, worked the entire problem through but hadn't written out the answer. I mumbled a quick 'Oh yeah' and scribbled down the number four before moving over to the next question.

"What's wrong?" Derek asked bluntly. I heard the shuffle of his papers and clothing as he sat himself straight, pulling his feet off the desk and focusing his attention on me.

I debated answering. When I was on my way to his classroom I had thought of asking him outright what the hell had happened between him and Royce and why I felt so uncomfortable around him though I knew close to nothing of the guy. The feeling had nothing to do with Derek's warnings. I'd had them before Derek said anything about steering clear of the guy.

But I remembered that I had already tried that and Derek had shot me down. But why though? Would things be different now that we were closer than we were back then? Would he be more open on the subject? I didn't see why it wasn't worth a try, but, I wasn't sure how I was going to bring it up. I guess now was as good as time as any, seeing as how Derek was laying the opportunity out on a silver platter as he continued to survey me.

"Chloe, what is it?"

He must have been able to detect the look of anticipation and uncertainty on my face, for his tone went from curious to low with concern. I put down my pencil and looked up at him again, taking a deep breath.

Well, here goes nothing.

"It's Professor Banks."

Derek's aura suddenly took a dangerous plummet as his skin paled, his worried expression morphing into one of anxiety and question before taking on that of anger. I realized my mistake as his fists clenched atop his desk, knuckles going white.

"Oh, no, nothing happened!" I blurted as my hands spazzed about to deter him from thinking so. He didn't seem to comprehend my words though, so I calmed my tone and tried again.

"Nothing happened, Derek. I'm just-" I tried to choose my words carefully in hopes to ease him out of his anger but keep him from being displeased with my questions like he had been the last time. It wasn't as if I worried about upsetting him. In fact, even if I did, I'd find a way to get my answers. I just knew him well enough now to know that he wasn't easy to converse with when he clearly didn't want to have anything to do with the topic.

So, I started with what had happened during class today. Clearly, that hadn't been the right decision. I'd barely gotten out the words 'Well, today in his class I-' before his eyes snapped back up to mine, igniting with incredulous disbelief.

"You enrolled yourself in his class again?" He blanched. I cringed inwardly, having thought pretty much the same thing when I had met Royce's gaze today.

Derek looked about two seconds from jumping to his feet and chewing me out. Funny enough, his expression seemed somewhat familiar, though, I couldn't quite put my finger on why I thought I had seen it before. And, based on the looming vibes I was getting from him, I didn't think that I wanted to.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Derek exclaimed, his tone and words triggering at something in the back of my head. I could vaguely recall the blur of a lively suburbia whizzing by, dark since it was the middle of the night but vivacious due to the fact that it was nearly New Year's. However, from what I could remember from New Year's Eve, this wasn't really part of it.

I was sitting in a dark sedan, uncomfortable under the warm breeze blowing through the ventilation system of the vehicle. I felt strange. Like my brain was all foggy and unfocused, though, I could very much feel a seething Professor Souza at my side.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Professor Souza barked, hands gripping tightly on the steering wheel as he veered through traffic towards the University. I had all but forgotten my little rendezvous with Liam and was more or less bouncing with excitement seeing as how I was sitting in Professor Souza's car. I mean sure, he didn't seem too happy with me at the moment but I couldn't help the elated feeling knowing that he was here, watching out for me.

"I thought I told you not to do anything stupid."

"Actually, you said that if I was going to do something stupid then I might as well be smart about it." I corrected nonchalantly, messing with the temperature knob of his heater.

"In which case you weren't, Chloe," Professor Souza snapped.

"I called you, didn't I?" My tone sounded an awful lot like that of how he was treating me. A teenage brat who had snuck off in the middle of the night and had been caught by her parents. Somewhere, suffocated by the alcohol, I hated that I was reacting this way. Of course, I knew I would have argued back. I would have tried to plead my case, show him that I wasn't going to sit here and take his crap. But that side of me was pretty intoxicated.

"By accident. This isn't a joke. If I hadn't heard you telling Liam to back off at the beginning of the phone call, I wouldn't have been able to figure out where you were. You were going to leave by yourself and for all I knew, you were going to hop into your car and drive home-"

"I'm not that stupid." I interrupted. "I didn't even drive to the party."

"So you planned on drinking then." Professor Souza rumbled coldly, accusing me. He finally got tired of me fiddling with the conditioning of his car and swatted my hand away from the controls, settling for turning it off.

"Of course I didn't. Sure, I wound up deciding to during the party but I didn't leave my room today thinking 'Oh, I'm going to get so wasted tonight.'"

"Regardless, you did something reckless and you nearly got yourself hurt."

My head spun a bit, temples throbbing as I tried to reach for more of the memory, but it seemed to slip. I'd nearly forgotten that I had no recollection of what had happened that night. Hell, I'd forgotten that I had wanted to ask him about it, though, seeing that little snippet, I'm pretty sure I wanted to question Derek about that as much as I wanted to question him about his history with Royce.

Carefully.

I shook off the minor headache from the little flashback and continued to answer Derek's previous question.

"To be honest, after break, I had more or less forgotten that Professor Banks had even existed. I mean, I guess subconsciously I kept my distance from him like you said but-"

"But what, Chloe?" Derek retorted angrily. "You just figured that he left you alone so you'd might as well willingly sign up for his next class, despite the fact that I warned you to keep as far from him as possible?"

"That's not it, Derek." I snapped, temper flaring at his tone. Unlike in his car the night of the party, I was completely sober and was ready to fight by what I had said the last time we delved into this subject. I wasn't a child and I didn't appreciate being addressed as if I were one.

"These aren't anything more than excuses, because you're right. I should have been a bit more cautious. But, maybe if I hadn't been dealing with Nate-"

"Nate?" Derek questioned, his agitated expression momentarily taking one of confusion and something I couldn't quite pinpoint.

"-or dealing with my feelings for you-"

"Don't try to pin the blame on me, Chloe." He tried interrupting again, his frustration coming back.

"-or maybe if I actually knew what was going on-"

That silenced him. This time the look he was giving me didn't change for a split second. His eyes became wary though they still held disapproval.

"I know we've gone over this before. But, don't you think that things are a bit different now? I don't like the way I feel when I'm around him," I said slowly, articulating each word knowing that I felt the very fear as if it were Professor Banks himself that I was talking to. "And I think that I deserve to know why it is that I do feel this way. Why you reacted the way that you did when I first told you about it and why you keep insisting that I follow that instinct whenever he's near."

The room fell silent for a long moment. I watched as Derek turned my words around in his head and I thought- hoped- for a minute there that he was really considering on just telling me the truth. When he met my eyes again and noted that there was no chance in me wavering from this resolve, he sighed heavily, leaned forward over his desk and folded his hands together. With a firm and determined expression, Derek opened his mouth to speak and-

A sudden, enthusiastic rap on the door had the two of us glancing in that direction. Though Derek said nothing to acknowledge the uninvited guest, the door cracked open and Miranda's smiling face popped through the door frame.

"Hey, Professor Souza, I was thinking about- oh, um, am I interrupting?" Miranda's hazel eyes locked on me but I was surprised to see no question there. I'd have suspected that she'd be curious as to why I was here, but she merely threw me a friendly grin before turning her attention to Professor Souza.

"I'm sorry, I forgot that you tutored Chloe after classes."

Frankly, I liked Miranda and I wasn't really threatened by her little crush on Derek. However, her intrusion in act of her affections for him had probably just cost me the rare chance that Derek was actually going to tell me more about his past. I was sure that he was going to talk, but now, there wasn't a doubt that the moment had passed.

"Ms. Rivers, aren't you supposed to be studying with Mr. Ricci? I informed him of your request for a tutor after our conversation last Thursday and he explained that he'd be more than willing to help you."

I had to struggle to hide the slight smile from gracing my lips at the sound of Derek's statement. It seemed that Miranda had come during office hours the previous week in hopes of making her fantasy a reality. She wanted to be tutored by Professor Souza. Though it seemed that Derek had informed her that he was already tutoring me- which would explain her last comment and how she knew I was here- and had placed her with Peter. Liz had told me before that her ex-boyfriend was exceptional at math and had been looking for a gig to tutor someone for some extra credit. Of course, I'd had already been proposed the idea to work with Derek at the time instead.

There was no contest.

Regardless, Derek had turned Miranda away and though I was possibly a bit selfish for feeling this way, I kind of liked that he had specifically decided to help me back then. It briefly made me wonder how long Derek's felt the way he does about me now.

"Well," Miranda started. "He called me and said that something came up for the week and that he wouldn't be able to make it. So, I was thinking that since you already tutor Chloe during the week, I might as well tag along seeing as how we're both in the same class."

If she had thought all that, then there was no way she actually forgot that Derek was tutoring me today. She wasn't very good at plotting now was she?

Derek didn't look fooled though and for a second, he tossed me an uncomfortable glance. Not only was I getting somewhat of a kick out of Miranda's attempts to get close to Derek, but also his clear displeasure with the situation. I wondered how often he had to deal with this. I was so absorbed by the comical event playing out before me that I nearly forgot about what Derek and I had been discussing before Miranda had arrived.

"I suppose we can start tomorrow." Derek finally said. "Chloe and I were about to call it a day."

Miranda smiled in victory and replied with a cheery "Alright. I'll see you two tomorrow then," then turned on her heal and left the classroom. Derek grimaced uncomfortably and I couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed. It looked like the only legit reason Derek and I had to be alone at school had been stripped away in a matter of five minutes.

"Chloe, do you trust me?"

I glanced up at him, brows furrowing in question. His green orbs held that same determined glow from before Miranda had walked in, only there was a small difference. I was slightly taken aback by his question and wondered for a moment if he meant that I trusted him with Miranda.

But then I noticed the minimal flair of hostility in his eyes and knew that we were back on the subject of Royce.

"Of course I do." I answered honestly.

"Then trust me when I say that the reason I'm not telling you about Royce is not because I don't think that you deserve to know. It's because I want to keep you as uninvolved in the situation as possible."

Derek's gaze was unwavering, focused and so serious that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to look away even if I had wanted to. I did trust him and I did believe him. But that still wasn't good enough for me. It was obvious that Derek was going to spill his guts before Miranda interrupted, but it was becoming more and more clear that Derek and I were going to have to be a little more careful about our relationship and we both knew that. Including what Derek had wanted to tell me but was now deciding against it because our lack of privacy and the death of his nerve.

So even if he said he wasn't going to give me the answers that I wanted right now and made it seem like he was going to keep them from me, that wasn't going to keep me from asking again when we were actually alone. When that chance would occur, I wasn't sure. Perhaps on the eighth, when he had asked me to take the day off of work. Maybe later than that. It didn't matter.

I was going to keep bothering him about it. About Royce and Rae and maybe even about the rest of that night during New Year's. I was determined to find out some way or another.