To many, homeroom was not much more than a glorified study hall. In many ways, it was and it was treated as such by the students in Professor Anderson's class. Professor Anderson tended to let his students guide the discussions, with minimal comments or direction. When nothing was scheduled he simply let the class do whatever with two stipulations. One, you had to remain inside the room. Two, drugs or cigarettes were not permitted, as he had noted at least one student with asthma in the roster and another with health issues. Otherwise, go nuts.

Strangely enough, despite their apparent freedom, a lot of students simply studied or quietly did whatever they wanted to at their desks. Jack loved it. Most teachers hated that she didn't want to sit still in a seat for an hour and listen to their garbage and their 'lessons'.

Anderson seemed to have a 'fatherly' aura around him, but even still he didn't really supervise the class. Jack noted that a few of the students were drawing something surpringly inappropriate on the board, but she didn't do anything about it. Mostly because it was Vakarian and Vega showing off again. Last week it had been how many pushups they could do.

There was the homework clique of the cheerleaders T'Soni, Lawson, then Eddie, Jane, and someone Jane kept calling Joker. Then there were the delinquents of Wrex, some kid who called himself Grunt -ironically Grunt was also a football player-, and Jack. Jack didn't much pay attention to the other cliques, knowing only that her clique was 'bad' and Jane's was labeled as 'good' in the eyes of the teachers. Which sucked, but Jack had learned that there was social hierarchy to it all, and she wasn't wanted in it.

Which made it surprising when Jack looked up from her notebook to see Jane Shepard standing in front of Jack's desk. Looking uncomfortable and looking to her clique for confidence.

"What do you want, Army Brat?" Jack said, leaning back in her chair as if she were expecting an unfunny joke at her expense.

"I wish to ask you to the... prom?" Jane said, and Jack was keenly aware of the stares from most of the class and the mild interest from the rest.

"No," was Jack's reply.

"Wh-"

"I said no. This is clearly a joke, so I'd rather not go and save myself some pain." Jack said, rolling her eyes. "Besides, you did it wrong. Apparently people go all out when they ask. Signs and all that shit." Not that Jack would know, because that was her previous experience of being asked to the prom, just a casual question.

She was stupid back then, but she wouldn't be now.

"Okay. But... can I ask you again later?" Jane asked, nodding seriously at Jack's comment.

"Fuck it, why not? I want to see how far you'll take this joke." Jack replied, "but I bet you can't make me say yes."

Jack pretty much knew she was screwed when she saw a light come on in Shepard's eyes. The sort of look that says without words, 'challenge accepted'.

But... it couldn't hurt to see how far this could go.

Jack laid on her messy bed, in her messy room, her phone on charge as she plunked away at some game. Something about killing zombies with a machine gun? Jack knew it was one of those zombie games, but she couldn't keep them straight anymore. She glanced at the time, noting that it was only nine o' clock.

"You Died!" the game yelled.

"Damn it, that was a cheap fucking move and you know it game." Jack mumbled to her phone as she started to tap the 'try again' button.

Thwack!

Was that... a rock? Jack thought as she stood up to investigate, and saw figures on the lawn. Nope, just a bunch of dumbasses.

She walked back towards her bed when another rock hit her window with a significantly lighter ping.

Jack, irritated at the rock throwers, moved to the window and opened it yelling, "which one of you fuckers threw-"

Then she saw the dark cardboard signs which she couldn't read due to the lighting. It took her a moment, but she remembered her dumbass comment from earlier and groaned, tempted to jump out of her window. It wouldn't nearly be far enough to kill her and get her out of this stupid situation.

"I can't read it, you bunch of dumbasses!" she yelled, "light is necessary to read, you bunch of jackasses!"

"... shit." A voice that Jack recognized as Joker said. "I thought you said this would work, Eddie. That we had enough light for her to read these stupid things."

If Eddie was there, she didn't reply. Although one of the poorly lit signs moved up and down quickly.

"Anyone got a way to light these up?" A voice Jack knew was Jane's asked.

"Uh, there's a streetlamp down the block a little ways?" Joker suggested.

Jack opened her window the rest of the way, crawling out instead of letting the group of morons bicker for any longer. She picked out the shape that looked the most like Jane, and grabbed the sign from her.

"The answer is still no."

In the last week Jack had received: one candygram, two more signs (one of which was now torn in half), a poster (done by some art student Jane apparently knew), some choir members singing a capella, a half-hearted attempt by the cheerleaders to lure her into the gym -no doubt for another of these convoluted plans-, and one singing parrot.

"I don't get why you keep saying no," Wrex said, taking a drag on his cigarette. "If you ask me, it's damn impressive. Heh, my favorite was the parrot."

"Because it's a trap, none of those types ever ask a delinquent like me out to prom." Jack replied, resting on her hands, she didn't feel like a cigarette right now, and besides, she'd just end up smelling like smoke so she'd be tossed out of class again. "I have to admire their dedication to helping her get this date."

"Mmphmm," Wrex grunted. "Hey, you think she asked Grunt to do anything? He seems to like her for some reason."

"He's a big dumb kid. I doubt it."

"Why don't you just say yes to make it stop? Then just not go to the prom?"

Jack didn't really want to lead Jane on, but Jack's answer to Wrex was, "then I'll have to pretend to be looking for dresses, and fuck that shit."

"Mmphmm," Wrex grunted. "If you do eventually cave in, take me for your dress shopping. You dress like you belong in one of those zombie apocalypse games you play."

"You're not serious."

"I think you look good in whites or blacks, maybe reds?" Wrex said, seriously ruminating on the idea as he sized up Jack. "No, something with orange accents to go with your tattoos."

"I'm not going, Wrex, so stop trying to shop for dresses for me. It's fucking weird."

Grunt, Vega, and Vakarian all walked up to where Jack was studying -going home meant being attacked by Jane and her lackeys so she had to study during homeroom- and proceeded to try and sing something.

"Guy, stop. You're already off key, and I have something more important than your guys' desperate attempts to try and get Jane laid." Jack said, crossing her arms to show her irritation. "I won't accept it, no matter what."

"Fine," Vakarian said. "Although... you should see her latest attempt. I'm amazed she managed to get so many cliques to work together without people wanting to kill each other. At this point, only the school has declined to help her and her crazy plan. You should go to the gym after school, at least don't let the effort go to waste."

Jack gave them an incredulous look, and the trio departed.

Jack was packing up her stuff from Art, slowly assembling her backpack and putting away pencils to avoid the end of day rush that always happened when the morons heard the bell. Jack looked up to see... actually everyone was already gone. She pulled out her headphones, curious at the sudden departure of all of the people. Even the teacher.

She finished putting away her stuff quickly, now suspicious of the sudden and abrupt departure of literally everyone. Jack poked her head to see the hallways almost completely barren. A few stragglers and freshmen wandered about, but this was unusual, because Jack knew the bell had rung earlier. She'd heard it over her music, but...

"Are you a miss Jacqueline Nought?" asked a voice, which she recognized from the botched sign incident not all that long ago.

"Please tell me she's not-"

"She is."

"Gym?"

"Gym. Come on, I know that half the school's excited to see this too."

Jack didn't want to go, but at the same time it couldn't hurt to see. The mysterious end-all prom proposal that apparently most of the school was in on now. Plus it would put off having to go home.

"Fine, but really? A wheelchair? You stood fine before."

"Jane doesn't like it when I break bones doing stuff for her. It's funny, but she won't say it straight out, but she cares about everyone. You'd think the military would beat that out of her." Joker said, laughing a little at the awkward straightforwardness of Jack.

The walk was short, and Jack was ordered to stay until 'the lights signalled her to move', whatever that meant. Then Joker was gone into the darkness, and Jack was waiting at the doors to the gym.

She didn't have to wait long before a smoke machine whirred to life and started to spill smoke out into where Jack could see it. She suppressed a laugh before the drums started to play and some kind of rendition of 'Mickey' started to play.

The lights all turned on at once, a horrid display of strobes and colored lights, and revealed Jane, Grunt, Vakarian, and a whole slew of other people dancing.

Jane belted out the first lines of the song, "Oh, Jackie, you're so fine! You're so fine, you blow my mind! Hey, Jackie, hey, Jackie!"

It was the entire song, with every single instance of 'Mickey' replaced with 'Jackie'. It was hilarious if only because Grunt somehow had managed to get a solo dancing part, and he was... not a dancer at heart. Also, Jane could not sing worth a damn, but she belted it out anyway, not going to let a thing like 'pitch' or 'key' get in her way.

Jack noted Eddie in the back of the gym, fiddling with her tablet, which was probably providing the music to the terrible ordeal. Joker sat next to her, occasionally pointing at things on the tablet and trying to help.

At the end, out of breath and hand extended to Jack, a bunch of signs held up by the cheerleaders asked, "will you go to the prom with me?"

There was a moment of silence as Jack was stunned by the sheer effort and work that had gone into the whole thing. She'd expected Jane to have given up after the parrot, but all this effort... just for a joke? Jack started to cry and ran out of the gym.

Jane was close behind, Jack knew, but Jack sprinted for the women's bathroom anyway to hide in a stall. "Fuck you! This is all a joke isn't it?"

"No! It was never a joke! A dare, maybe. I dared Joker to ask Eddie out, but in exchange I had to ask you out. But I never-" Jane stopped. "I shouldn't have done this. It was too much. I'm sorry. I won't bother you again, I didn't think about what you thought."

Jack was quiet for a while, but asked as she heard the door open, "so, you really were serious?"

"Serious enough to learn the lyrics to a one-hit wonder's song and change them, then proceed to band together our homeroom, most of the school, and Anderson for one last ditch effort to try and make you say yes."

"Sounding a little manipulative, there, Jane."

"They mostly turned out to see me shot down again, I assure you." Jane said. "Except for Grunt. He just wanted to dance."

"Well, I guess now that there's the expectation on me to say no..."

"What time do you want me to show up?"

A/N: Going back to school meant that I ended up not updating last week, I'm sorry. But we're back and jeez this one is long. You'll notice on the original challenge that this chapter would have been 'insanity' but I don't like that word, especially since this is Jack's chapter. So instead this was used as a 'free space' and after conferring with my sister, this glorious monster was brought to life. I listened to 'Mickey' too many times. I blame her.