"How did you ever draw the short straw this year?" Comes her sing-song voice as she walks along the row of seats towards him.

"Miss Calendar," Rupert greets formally. Jenny cocks her eyebrow at him; she suspects he insists on using her last name because she insists on calling him by his first name.

"I happened to be the last to arrive at the faculty meeting," he bitches, thinking about the small infraction that left him open to be an absentee volunteer. He removes his glasses and starts to stress clean them. "I feel I must warn you I have had to remain cordial for the students' sake, so much so that I fear I may unwittingly aim my built-up frustration at you if you decide to stick around."

"Don't hold back on my account, Rupert," Jenny smiles at him. She flops into the chair beside him, giving him a once-over just as he replaces his glasses. "You know I can give as good as I get."

"Needle a poor man when he's down, why don't you," he grumbles at her. She nudges his arm and nods at Cordelia Chase standing at the corner of the stage with sparklers and a lighter dangerously close to the curtains. He follows her gaze. "Cordelia! I have told you before; we're not insured for you to light the sparklers in here."

The popular girl huffs and storms off the stage muttering about the need for a manager to deal with the producer. Jenny snickers as Rupert removes his glasses again to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, I'm glad someone enjoys my suffering," he snipes.

"Is that any way to speak to the woman who holds your salvation in her hands?"

"Salvation?" He's been stuck in here for so long, suffering through off-key renditions of Memories and The Greatest Love of All and getting enough schtick from the ventriloquist act that his brain is not up to registering her words. "Is there any chance you are willing to trade for…?" He asks, his suspicion growing. "Wait, what did Snyder rope you into?"

"Chaperoning the Spring Fling," she reminds him, wrinkling her nose. She gets to watch hormonal teenagers make out and make sure they only grope each other on the dancefloor and not in the darkened halls or corners of the Bronze. At least there'll be booze she can sneak into her coffee.

"And no, I'm not trading. Are you nuts? The students organise the dance themselves. I only have to show up. It's not as hands-on as the talent show."

"Well, what are you doing here? Voluntarily, I might add," he says finally looking at her, seeing his flask in her hands.

"Thought you might need this," Jenny hands him the tea-filled flask she got from his office.

Honestly, she'd gone looking for him in the library only to find Willow there with one of Shakespeare's plays open in her lap as Buffy and Xander refused to entertain her notion that a dramatic scene was the only option they had for the talent show. Their favourite librarian was nowhere in sight.

When Jenny asked them where Rupert was, they filled her in on the rehearsals they'd crashed earlier and, what was more than likely, Rupert's living nightmare. She bit her tongue as she made sure they were okay without adult supervision before she swiped the flask from his office. She'd made a quick stop in the faculty lounge, refilling the flask with the tea he kept in the cupboard before strolling towards the auditorium. She couldn't remember why she'd gone looking for him in the first place.

Jenny reaches into her pockets to palm her other gifts for him. Closing her fists, she holds them out to him. "You're getting both but pick one, first."

"I swear you're just doing this to torture me."

He frowns at her hands for a moment, trepidation seeps from his entire posture. Jenny resists the urge to roll her eyes. Before Moloch, she wouldn't have blamed him for questioning her motives. Before Moloch, she wouldn't have been here.

But they're past that and she thinks she's earned a little trust. There's been a thawing of sorts, a truce. Well, maybe she wouldn't go that far, but they've dialled back on the bickering since then.

So much so, Jenny overheard one of the other teachers speculate that they were screwing out their tension rather than the sniping everyone had grown accustomed to during faculty meetings. Jenny hadn't been as offended as she should be by that assumption because Rupert is cute and he's the only guy in this town that doesn't back down when she's in the mood for a good round of verbal sparring.

She appreciates his passion when he gets heated about a subject; he's a good match for her. And, she's gearing up to tap his vast knowledge on a couple of topics she's been researching lately. False starts aside, he's starting to grow on her.

"Humour me here, England," she prompts pushing her fist closer to him.

His eyes flit between her face and her fists a few times before he taps his index finger on her left hand. She smiles her most innocent smile as she turns her hand upward, opening it to reveal two paracetamols for his headache. She hadn't been prepared for Rupert to look oddly touched by the gesture or the way his fingertips brushed her palm as he took them from her to swallow with a mouthful of tea.

"Thank you," he says.

"I'm not done with the gift-giving," she reminds him gently, not entirely understanding her own motivation. This is a guy who, until recently, had been her archnemesis since she arrived at the school, she should be revelling in his discomfort.

She takes hold of his free hand, uncurling it so she can drop the contents of her right hand into its palm. Rupert chuckles at the small bright orange earplugs in his hand. "Ingenious, why didn't I think of that?"

"I'll let you off this once, being stuck in here for hours of rehearsals is bound to damage a couple of brain cells," she quips, accepting the cup as he passes it to her. She takes a sip despite not being a tea drinker, though she wouldn't turn a cup down if he offered it to her.

"How can I ever thank you?"

"You could keep me company at the Spring Fling," she suggests turning back to the stage to see Harmony Kendall take to the stage as the speakers crackle to life with the first strands of Memories. She will look at anything but him. She isn't sure why she said it, only it's the first thing that sprung to mind because she's not ready to ask him out for a drink or how to figure out if this is just a crush or if she needs to prove to herself that there's nothing between them. So, she makes it about their work, and, if the evening goes well, maybe she'll ask him out or meet up during the summer.

"Do I have to?"

Maybe not.

"Isn't an evening of guarding the punch bowl and people-watching with me enticing enough to get you out of the library?"

"With you? Yes," Rupert concedes. "With the student population grinding against one another to music that is nothing but monotonous noise, I'd rather pass."

"With me, huh?"

Notes:

Chapters may not be in episode order. Ratings and warnings may change with future chapters. Any and all feedback is welcome.