Shoutout to the train I took on the way back to school. The wifi wasn't working so I ended up working on this chapter en route … didn't finish it till a month later but we're here now.

Add this chapter to another one of their stupid stunts.

VIII: Searching For a Fob Watch in a Filing Cabinet

It could've been five minutes or five hours, it's tough to track the passage of time while in the Wilderness School's library.

Jason was shocked to see that this school even had a library. It looked (maybe) better than he initially thought when Coach announced they would be having an "independent study session" here. The scent is stale, nearly stuffy, and it doesn't help that there's a thick coat of dust on every surface and no airflow. The tables, the old books, the unused computers and keyboards, the shelves, the walls, the windows, and the floor are all tinted grey.

Kids in the cohort vary from "studying" with their notebooks or on the computers (changing the tabs or their worksheets whenever Coach would pass them on his supervision rounds), drawing obscene symbols on any dust they could find (which wasn't hard to do), or drawing the same symbols in the old books on the shelves. The tables were already decorated in engravings from past students. Initials in hearts, graffiti, genitalia, anything in this old wood.

Everyone was sneezing, though. Coach shushed them after every sneeze so much so that it became routine.

Jason, Piper, and Leo have a table to themselves in the reading corner where they were "reading." Jason has a yellowed book written in Latin that was shockingly easy for him to understand (an unpleasant scent that could've come from the yellowing), Piper's reading a harlequin novel with a mob boss and a girl in tight leather on the cover (he doesn't want to know why certain pages were dog-eared and the spine is broken), and Leo's scribbling on the back of overdue homework with a dull pencil. Jason glances over and sees that it's a list of theories on why he's here. Piper peeks and grins, lowering her novel. Their cohort mates are dispersed throughout the library but they didn't want to be near anyone, even during times when they weren't rattling conspiracies.

"So why is our Jason Grace here…" Piper asks rhetorically, voice trailing to a whisper so Coach doesn't appear to shush and scold them for not doing their work. "My money is on a lobotomy."

"I didn't get one," Jason states. He doesn't know where she would've gotten that idea from unless her mafia romance novel, especially if it came from a marked page in there.

"Only someone with no memory would say it wasn't a lobotomy."

"She's got a point," Leo says.

"No, she doesn't," Jason argues. "Don't write lobotomy down."

"I can't promise that since I don't know how to spell it," Leo says as he scribbles something down, sounding out the word phonetically. They're in a library so he could search the archives for an old dictionary if he really needed one.

"Or maybe you got involved with some hardcore drugs and you forgot," Piper suggests.

"Or a gang - the one that branded you on your arm and gave you a shirt - made you forget," Leo adds.

Piper perks up. "The gang gave you a lobotomy to forget all the hardcore drugs!"

Leo smacks the table. "That's it! We solved it!"

Jason groans and slides down in his creaky chair as Piper and Leo high-five. Suddenly remembering they're in a Coach-monitored library, they straighten and put their noses back into their books or work. They hear Coach clopping up and down the shelves, getting closer before returning to where the computers are at the sound of a music video playing with sneezing as an accompaniment.

"You know there would be physical evidence that one had a lobotomy," Jason says, whispering this time.

Piper points at his upper lip. "You have a scar there."

Jason touches the scar with his tongue, a grin ticking the corners of his mouth. He remembers seeing it in the mirror during his early days at the Wilderness School. Another mark on his body that he doesn't know the origin like the tattoo. The Latin acronym is there and on his shirt. Those could explain why he could read the Latin book so easily. He wonders if that has anything to do with the lip scar. Maybe Leo and Piper were onto something about gang activity. He wouldn't be the first or only kid in here for gang-related activities.

"You have no idea what a lobotomy is," Jason teases.

Piper cocks a brow at him. "Neither do you."

Jason stares at her. There is no talking her out of the lobotomy theory, but it's not like he could safely say that what happened to him wasn't a lobotomy.

Piper smiles a little. "You definitely had an emotional lobotomy."

Jason sighs. "You and lobotomies."

Leo finally finishes attempting to spell lobotomy. It looked correct enough, not like Jason or Piper knew how to spell it. "Okay, forget the lobotomy for a second. There was this one episode of Doctor Who-"

"Oh boy," Piper interjects.

Leo ignores her. "The Doctor made himself forget everything about Gallifrey and his time travelling adventures for a greater purpose, to keep himself and Martha safe. During that, he lived a normal life with flashes of it coming through in dreams. All his real memories were kept in a fob watch. Maybe that's what we got here with you."

Jason doesn't know what to say. Doctor Who? That plot does seem fitting for him and he doesn't know why. If only all his memories were in his coin that he still needs to get back. For all he knows, if he flips it the right way, he'd get answers instead of weapons. Unless those weapons are the answer to questions he doesn't know to ask. With his current luck, that would likely be the case.

Piper groans, closing her novel. "... guess we're looking for a fob watch."

Leo fist pumps the air in victory. "It was a really good few episodes."

-o-

Later that day, at night and past curfew after Coach did his surveillance rounds to make sure everyone's asleep (or, at least, in their rooms), Jason, Piper, and Leo sneak out of their rooms and meet in the east stairwell on the boys' end of the school. As per Piper's request, they're all dressed in black from head to toe. It's perfect spying gear, she told them since her father starred in some espionage movies back in the day. Black jeans, black sweaters or t-shirts, black sneakers, and black beanies. This is their spy movie on a budget of negative dollars since they had to dig through the lost and found for some of their materials.

"I smell like the funeral home by one of my old schools," Piper grimaces, sniffing her sleeve.

"That's very specific," Jason comments as they head down the stairs.

"We always snuck over there to look at the corpses."

"That's disturbing. Are you in here for coffin-robbing?"

Piper's brow perks a bit as she smirks at him. "That would be the best reason to be in here. Not even grave-robbing, coffin-robbing."

The trio stealthily sprints down the hallway, slowly opening and closing the door to the stairwell before heading down to the faculty floor. They didn't think that any staff would be on site except Coach and maybe a security guard or two. Nobody's seen the Headmistress in weeks and everyone knows that the teachers who come on-site to work immediately leave the moment classes finish (which nobody could blame them for since, well, who'd voluntarily stay here minus Coach?)

"Oh no," Piper says once they reach the faculty floor.

The trio looks at the keypad beside the doorknob, meant for cards to access the floor. They should've expected that but didn't think the Wilderness School would spend the money there … unless they allocated it there instead of food which makes more sense.

Jason slowly closes the door behind them and they walk down the stuffy hallway in the dark, the only sounds audible being their breathing. Maybe they'd run into a cohort mate who will snitch on them unless paid off in Wilderness Contraband. Piper once told them how she silenced someone with drugstore hair dye her father once sent her as a way to "have fun" with her "classmates" or "new friends" here.

"Best shot for the fob watch is the Headmistress's office," Leo whispers.

"What even is a fob watch?" Piper asks.

"Those small clocks on a chain that open up."

"So like a compass."

Leo glances at her, scratching his head. "Why do you know what a compass is but not a fob watch?"

Piper shrugs. "My dad did some pirate movies."

The halls are barely lit by emergency lights as they continue their trek. The door at the end of the hall has no sign, but Jason and Piper recognize it as the Headmaster's office when they visited it at different times. Jason reaches to open it, but it's locked. Obviously. What door would be left unlocked even during the day?

Leo rummages through his pockets for something to pick the lock, loud jingling echoing the hallway over Piper shushing him. Toothpicks and binder clips table out. As Piper scrambles to pick them up, Jason balls his hand and punches through the door next to the doorknob. Piper and Leo freeze, staring at him in shock as Jason loops his hand through the hole and unlocks the door. He takes his hand out before opening the door and turning on the light to the Headmistress's empty office.

"What?" Jason asks. "All the doors are busted so this one won't matter."

"Wow, Jason, just wow," Piper says sarcastically before heading inside first.

Leo closes the door behind them as Piper sits in the Headmistress's office chair. She spins around on it before wheeling it over to the filing cabinet. Jason walks over to the bare desk that's coated with a layer of dust. He opens one drawer only to find it empty. After another one that's still barren, he opens every one in the desk only for nothing. He looks up at Leo who was snooping through an empty coat closet and putting some hangers in his pocket.

"I knew this Headmistress wasn't real," Leo states, closing the closet door. "I don't care if I've seen her."

"Could you really blame her for not wanting to leave things here?" Piper asks as she looks at the filing cabinet. Her eyes widen as she pulls out many thick files and plops them on the dusty desk. "I mean look how easy it is to break into her office."

"I'm guessing this one is our cohort," Jason says, recognizing some names on the front.

Piper leafs through and hands Jason his file as she continues looking through the pile for hers and Leo's file.

Jason walks to the side of the room, staring at the closed manila folder with his name stamped on the front in big red letters. It feels light and he isn't sure if he should be alarmed. Is less info better or worse? The results vary between it being a concise form of what did to end up here, or they don't know anything. But they should know, right? They have to. They got him.

He isn't sure if he wants to know anymore not that it's right in the palm of his hand. He can find where he comes from, his family, and why and how he got here.

But what if it was something so bad that he somehow made himself forget?

His heart beats so loud in his ears that he can't hear Leo and Piper if they're talking to him. His hands sweat so much that the envelope's staining at the folds.

Jason takes a breath as he opens it … and it's empty.

Nothing's in there. Not one form or photo.

Nothing.

Jason exhales as he shakes the folder as if that would help anything. He looks over and Piper and Leo who are already glancing his way with their folders that are full of many different pages. Reports, photos, and signed documents in different states of brand new to old and faded. They have their whole lives in there.

"This makes no sense," Jason mutters, slapping his empty folder on the dusty desk.

"Wow," Piper states, "even the school doesn't know why you're here. Maybe they had to hide your info or something. Or maybe someone else's folder had your stuff. We should look at everyone else's file just to make sure."

"You just want to snoop at everyone else's file."

"Well, yeah. Might as well."

"Could you show me how to clear your file?" Leo whispers to him. "Even make it that you forget what you did?"

Jason glances at Leo, thinking his friend was joking as he usually does. Who wouldn't want to forget why they're here? But Leo's face is stoic, serious. He wants to forget why he's here. Jason remains quiet, unsure what to say or do except reflect Leo's expression.

"Ha!"

The boys turn to Piper as she cheers. She holds up someone's file and points at pictures of a burned-down classroom.

"Morgan's in here for intentionally setting her school's lab on fire which burned down the entire science wing of the school," Piper explains, scoffing a little. "Girl said it was a small fire. Should've blamed her for that fire alarm. Honestly, it might've been her. Didn't she go to the bathroom before we all went back inside?"

The back of Jason's arm heats up and he turns around to see that Leo's own file is burning flames in his hands.

"Leo!" Jason yells.

Jason glances up at Leo who isn't even fazed by the flames, even when Jason knocks the burning papers to the ground. Jason steps on them to put the fire out and Leo only looks down at the ashes and smoke rising from it. His hands aren't blistered but the sleeves of his sweater are charred.

Piper stands from the Headmistress's desk and puts her hand on Leo's shoulder, leaning in closer to him. "Hey, you good?"

"At least you cleared your file," Jason comments.

"At least that'll distract from the hole in the door. You boys and property destruction. Come see what other dirt we can get on everyone." Piper pulls out another folder and opens it up, showing many buildings covered in graffiti. "Josiah got in for vandalizing half the buildings in his small town. Remember when he showed up and started a fight, saying he got in for beating up a cop?"

Leo smiles a little, putting his hands in his pockets.

"People never change," Piper says, flipping through the file. "They just get better at hiding who they really are."

"You grow up in foster care too?" Jason asks.

Piper shakes her head. "Hollywood."

Jason nods. He remembers what Piper said during Coach's distraction, how he's working on a movie with Chuck Norris. He didn't think he was real nor did he expect that from her. And then there were the mentions of her father in spy movies and pirate movies … she was good at hiding who she really was so it takes one to know one.

"What are you three doing here and past curfew too?"

The three look up from the files to see Coach in his fleece pyjamas standing at the door with his baseball bat. Nobody said a word as they watch Coach look at the damaged door, burned papers on the floor that are leaving a charred mark, and all the files out and opened.

"Any of you going to say anything?" Coach asks, gripping his bat tightly as he sneers at them.

Jason grips his file and holds it out to Coach. "Why is it empty?"

Coach doesn't say anything. Instead, he walks closer to Jason and takes the empty folder, opening it to see nothing as he did earlier. Jason thought he could get answers from Coach, but the man looked as confused if not more than he did.

"Go to bed," Coach orders, closing the folder. "I'll clean this up."

"Coach-"

"Go."

They have never been out of a room quicker, heading down the hallway to the stairwell without looking back. They stop right in front of the door entering their level, leaning against the wall as they look at each other to debrief.

"Something's definitely up," Piper says.

"We didn't find my coin," Jason adds. He forgot that was the objective of breaking into the Headmistress's office, but it didn't seem like it was there since the office was mostly vacant. He was distracted by his empty file which seems more important at the moment.

"Coach is definitely keeping it on him. If it turns into weapons with a single flip, I'd pocket it too."

"We'll restrategize. What do you think, Leo?"

Leo nods, but slowly as if he wasn't listening. "I lost my Mom in a fire. That's all I'll say 'cause I don't want to talk about it, at least, right now."

That explains the dazed look at the mention of the fire and when the spontaneous fire combusted.

Piper nods, lips pursed together. "My mom's gone too. I just don't know where she is but it's kinda like she's dead, if that makes sense."

Jason puts a hand on Leo's shoulder. "I don't even remember mine so I guess, same."

Leo grins. "Mommy issues, team up!"