A/N: I had a lot of fun with this interaction, mainly because it sets up some fun things later. I hope you guys enjoy it and please let me know what you think! Thanks!

Chapter Fourteen

I left the shop not really feeling better about things. Joyce had been hilarious but it felt like as soon as I left her company, I was back to where I started. I strode out of the store, wondering where I was going to go. It was too soon to go home otherwise Tammy's mother would know I skipped. I didn't know if they called home when an absence was recorded but I had a feeling that Ms. Callahan would cover for me. She was good people.

I walked down the street without any real purpose. I would have to go back to the school tomorrow and I suddenly felt every bit the twenty-eight years I had lived. God, this was exhausting.

Someone walked into me, my shoulder bumping someone hard. I looked up, scowling.

"Walk much?" The boy pulled the cigarette down from his lips and I narrowed my eyes as I watched him give me a once over.

"Do you?" I snapped back. He had what could be the worst hairstyle of the decade: a mullet. With his curls, he looked like he belonged in the Lost Boys with Keifer Sutherland. I made a mental note to look up a young Keifer Sutherland. Did he exist here? He was hot.

He smirked at me. "Are you always this rude or is it just because you wanted to touch me?"

I made a face at that. I had never seen this guy before in my life. "Do I know you?"

The smirk dropped and he suddenly looked unamused. "Don't do that shit."

"What shit?"

"That 'do I know you' shit. I've heard it non fucking stop since I got into this town. Like that's a fucking insult."

"I'm sorry but I don't know you. Obviously. Next time you don't want to hear someone say that, introduce yourself instead of being an ass." The guy was barely taller than me and yet had shifted his stance like he knew he was hot. That was the worst: when someone knows they're hot and brags about it.

"Let's fix that," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I'm Billy."

"Kate," I said.

"Well, Kate," he dragged out my name as he exhaled smoke.

I crinkled up my nose. "When I said to not be an ass, that includes not blowing smoke in the face of people you're talking to." I waved my hand in front of me, moving the smoke away.

He grinned. "Bit of a priss, aren't you?"

I scowled. What an asshole. "Because I prefer to breathe clean air? Yeah, wanting to avoid lung cancer makes me a priss." I rolled my eyes and went to walk away. He grabbed my arm. "Let go."

"I don't think we're done yet. You haven't even said sorry."

I whirled back and pulled my arm from his grasp. "Excuse me? You walked into me! It's not my fault you can't fucking step aside when someone's walking towards you. And since I clearly don't know you, that doesn't give you clearance to be fucking rude or to assault me."

"I didn't assault you!"

"Unwanted physical contact is assault," I said, admittedly sounding more bitchy than I meant to. I wouldn't apologize for it though.

"You ran into me," he said. "Wouldn't that make you the assaulter?"

I tried to take a deep breath and calm myself down. This asshole was making the day worse at this rate. "That would be an accident, which wouldn't have happened if you moved out of the fucking way."

"You're the one who wasn't looking where you were going." I watched him inhale his cigarette again and I felt myself grow irrationally angry. I tried to hold it down.

"So fucking move!" I said. "God forbid a man move out of the way for once. Next time you don't want to be hit, move the fuck over." I was so tired of this shit, in any time period. I was tired in general.

"There's no reason to be such a bitch."

I strode up to him and shoved my finger into his chest. "Listen, I have had a shit day and trying to fucking debate the process of some common decency is honestly making it worse and wasting my time. You obviously saw me coming and didn't move. Fine. But if you want to be such a dick about it afterwards, accept the fact that people can be dicks back. I'm so sick of people wanting to be assholes to others just because they can. Grow the fuck up and next time get out of the fucking way!" I stormed off. What was up with this town? Even the new people turned out to be assholes.

oOo

"What crawled into your bed and died?"

I gave Erica an unimpressed look. She didn't falter, just crossed her arms and waited. "It's been a week."

"What does that mean?" she asked.

I sighed and tried to figure out a way to explain it. "I've had a bad week. Fought with friends, met more assholes in this town and just...stuff." I couldn't explain that I had nightmares of never going home. That it had been over a month officially since I had arrived in Tammy's body.

"That's it?"

"Isn't it enough?" I gave her a wry smile.

"I guess," she shrugged. "Just seems kind of lame. You're pretty badass, why should some jerks get you down? Can't you just...karate chop them?"

I tried not to laugh. Erica was a good kid. "Thanks. I can't just karate chop everyone who pisses me off. That'd make me worse than them."

"Why?"

"Because you can't just go around hitting people who piss you off. That makes you a bully. I'm not going to make things worse, but I'm also not going to put up with people trying to make me feel bad for being me. Neither should you, by the way."

"I won't," she said. She was so self-assured. I wondered how she was going to take on the world. If she would. This world had monsters in it, things that apparently attacked children if people back home idolized Steve for saving them. I stared at her.

"Want to do something fun?"

Erica looked at me warily. "Like what?"

I grinned. "Let's make a monster survival pack." I watched her face drop.

"That sounds lame."

"Trust me," I said, "if we do it right, it won't be. Besides, Ripley totally would."

"...what does a monster pack need?"

"Whatever we want it to."

oOo

We filled a backpack with a variety of things. Some water and snacks, an extra pair of socks and a sweatshirt, a flashlight, a few quarters if we needed to make a phone call. We added zip ties, bandages and a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide we found buried in the cupboard. Erica had the idea to add bobby pins for emergency lock picking and I promised her I'd look for proper tools and a how-to book. We also found a small tire thumper. It wasn't much but it was unlikely to be missed and a lead pipe would be handy in a fight if she ever needed it.

"This is a lot," Erica said as we tried to fit it all in the bag she found.

"Better to be over-prepared than underprepared."

"For monsters?" she asked.

"For anything." I leaned back against the wall from where I was sitting on her bedroom floor. "Wouldn't you rather be Sarah Conner prepared to fight the Terminator than the random victims or even Kyle Reese?"

"Who's Kyle Reese?"

"Exactly. He's John Conner's father."

"I didn't know he had a father."

"That's my point! He died early. You'd rather be the resourceful Sarah Conner, another badass like Ripley, and survive the series."

Erica looked at me strangely before she nodded. "Uh-huh, yeah. Rather survive."

I grinned at her. "Exactly."

"Hey, Kate?" Erica looked up at me from where she was kneeling by the bag.

"Yeah?"

"Will you...I mean, could you take me trick or treating on Halloween? I know you probably have other things to do, but it'd be way cooler to go with you than my parents. Or god, Lucas." She rolled her eyes at the thought.

"Sure," I grinned at her. "I have no plans. I can take you if your parents are cool with it."

"Awesome."

[tbc]