Author's Note: Sorry about the extremely long delay, again. And I doubly apologize about the misleading updates: my writing style has improved since I first began this, and I decided to go back and clean up all of the POV and grammatical/spelling errors/typos that I personally noticed to make the overall reading experience for newer viewers more enjoyable. I also spliced a few chapters and added further content to them for easier reading. Oh, and there's a lull in my previously mentioned project, so I'll be uploading a few new chapters here and there. Stay tuned! And thank you all for being so damn patient. I very much appreciate it.

Chapter Thirteen: Karma

The rest of the day passed Meg by in a literal blur.

When she'd returned to class, people had whispered and muttered all around her, but she'd been blown into a sense of shock when she'd overheard what Mike had really done to make everyone back off. At first, she hadn't been able to believe her ears, or even the people around her... but everyone, literally everyone, kept saying the same thing amongst themselves, and she could clearly remember how close he'd been.

But what she didn't understand was... why?

She was ugly, had scars all over her body, she had a terrible reputation because of her family... so, why would he do that to himself?

Because in all honesty, if the whispers were true, Mike had actually been pretending to kiss her in front of the whole school.

Eyes locked on her worksheet, she robotically scribbled down answer after answer, mulling over it, wondering at it, worrying about it, not understanding what he could gain or why he'd go so far. No matter how hard she thought about it, his decision didn't make any sense: he'd agreed to be her bodyguard, but he didn't like her much, so why would he pretend to kiss her in front of everyone?

Why tarnish his own reputation over a falsehood?

It couldn't be because he actually liked her.

He'd have kissed her for real if that were the case because he was just that kind of guy: he was blunt, no-nonsense, and had zero bullshit tolerance.

He did what he wanted to.

And that's why she didn't understand.

Why would he want to fake a kiss in front of everyone at school?

She aggravatedly gnawed on her pencil and looked out the classroom window, unable to focus on anything but the strange decision he'd made. Twenty minutes before the final bell, someone opened the classroom door and Meg turned with everyone else, casting a glance at the arrival, a fairly pretty Asian girl wearing a white hair-clip to keep her bangs pinned off to the side. Her last hour teacher, Mr. Thompson, turned and gave her a disapproving leer until she lifted a pink slip and handed it to him.

The man pushed his glasses up his nose and tilted his head back to read it, then scowled intensely and looked right at Meg.

"Griffin!" he barked. "Main office. Now."

Meg cringed and wheeled herself over to the desk to hand in her half-finished paper before rolling towards the door. The trip through the halls was of the silent variety since everyone was still in class, but even as she made her way towards the office, her stomach sank since there could only be one reason that Principle Sheppard would call her before classes were over. Sure enough, when she made her way in, Jared and Mike were both already sitting in the two available seats.

Nurse Anna was standing in front of the headmaster's desk with folded arms, but she turned around at the sound of the door opening, looking grim.

Just beyond her was the principal, who looked rather small behind his Mahogany desk.

"Hello, Meg," he greeted, watching as she curtly closed the door behind her. "I take it you know what this is about?"

Mike cast an intense stare her way before staring straight ahead; Jared merely glowered, glaring at the floor. She shifted her weight in the chair, then grabbed the pad and her pen, scribbling down a response. Everyone turned when she held it up.

'I think so'

"Then let me clarify," the man said, leaning back and folding his hands. "Mr. Alistair made a very serious complaint that Mike Pulaski physically harmed and threatened him, and as he is in fairly bad shape, we asked Mr. Pulaski to address the situation, and he did. He admitted to us that he did, in fact, get into a physical altercation with Mr. Alistair, but he claims it was because he witnessed Alistair 'beating on you,' as he put it, and that he even harassed you sexually."

Meg swallowed hard when both boys looked at her with different types of intensity.

One gaze was so hostile she was terrified to meet his gaze, the other was just... piercing and hard.

She lowered her eyes and scribbled a response.

"Mike was only protecting me from him."

Sheppard's face remained blank as he read the reply, but his eyes shone when he nodded. He raised a hand, gesturing towards Nurse Anna, who instantly made her way behind the wheelchair and started pushing Meg towards the door.

"Please go with Anna so she can inspect your back and stomach, then," he said calmly. "We'll see if your own injuries match up with the stories we've already heard before making any critical decisions."

Jared lunged to his feet.

"You're seriously gonna believe him over me?!" he barked, foaming at the mouth. "He beat the shit out of her once before! He could have done it again afterwards, and its not a secret that Meg is scared of him! She's the sort to cover for him just to save her own hide! Why do you think I'm the bad guy here?!"

"Mr. Alistair," Sheppard said sternly, "we're merely going over the evidence. Take your seat."

"Looks like your bullying backfired," Mike grunted, folding his arms with a smirk. "Its called karma, bitch."

"Mr. Pulaski," Sheppard sighed, giving him a look, "watch your language."

Meg noticed, even as she was being pushed out of the room by Anna, that his tone held no real force or fire and was mildly encouraged by that. She hoped that Mike wouldn't be in too much trouble, but the inspection was even quicker than the trip, since all Anna really had to do was lift the back of her shirt to see the result of Jared's attack. Meg couldn't help but wonder how bad the bruising was when the blonde woman's breath caught and she stared, bug eyed, at her back.

"Oh, my God," Anna whispered, touching her skin. "How... how hard did he kick you?"

Meg doodled her response, huddled forward as she was, before holding the writing pad under her nose.

'Hard. It hurt like hell.'

"If he wasn't a minor, I'd kill him," Anna deadpanned, grinding her pretty white teeth with her blue eyes narrowed. "You got very, very lucky."

She stared at the school nurse in shock, then scribbled her response.

'How is getting beat up lucky in any way?!'

"That's not what I meant. You're lucky to be alive since you're still recovering from back surgery," the woman told her, nostrils flaring with fury. "If he'd kicked you even an inch higher... he would have ruptured the spinal vertebrae that was damaged during the car accident and killed you. There's no if, it would have killed you, Megan! If he kicked you hard enough to leave a bruise the size of your whole head, why didn't you come see me right after he did it?! Why didn't you tell anyone?"

She was a little startled to have so much anger being directed at her from Nurse Annabel since the woman was normally exceedingly cheerful.

She tentatively wrote a response.

'It didn't hurt much afterwards, and I didn't know the bruise was really that bad.'

The woman's blue eyes skimmed across the response.

"Well, next time someone kicks you, or even tries to take a video of you lying helpless on your back with your underwear exposed," she said sourly, "talk to me. I'm called a councilor for a reason, you know, and I also happen to think you're a pretty girl with a lot of unreleased potential. You don't deserve shit like this... pardon my French."

Meg nodded, keeping her eyes trained on the floor.

"Let's head back."

Without waiting for a response, the blonde grabbed the handlebars and pushed her back towards the principle's office, heels clacking against tile. All three males in the room looked up when they returned, but Principle Sheppard looked at Anna expectantly. The woman wasted little time, stepping forward with her arms crossed; she was visibly livid, lips pursed, jaw clenched, blue eyes narrowed... she had one hell of an angry mom face, that was for damn sure.

"So, is it true?" the principle asked. "Where do we go from here, Nurse Annabel?"

It took the woman a second to respond, but when she did, each word was clipped and articulate.

"If anything," she said calmly, collectedly even, although her flaming eyes told another story, "Mr. Pulaski saved Megan's life."

Principle Sheppard seemed startled, as did both boys, who turned to look at her with varying expressions of perplexity and shock.

"What do you mean?" the man inquired, leaning forward and fixing her with an intent stare.

"I mean that the extent of the damage done to Megan's back was far worse than I thought it would be," she said in a thin, no-nonsense tone. "She has a nasty bruise the size of a basketball right beneath the spot where she had surgery on her spine. The amount of force needed to cause that much bruising in such a short amount of time is considerably large. And based on what I saw... if he'd kicked her just an inch higher, she'd have been killed instantly. Mr. Pulaski did the right thing."

Sheppard nodded, then turned and looked at Jared with cold eyes.

"I still need to speak with your parents, but without a doubt your punishment will be at minimum a month's suspension," he said quietly. "I'm also going to have a talk with the school board to see whether your actions would warrant further legal action. It is possible that you will be banned from playing football with our school."

"WHAT?!" Jared roared, lunging to his feet yet again. "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"

"As a matter of fact, you're right," Principle Sheppard said, just as the final bell rang. "It's up to the school board as a whole, but I'm sure after being given the facts about what you've done, your punishment won't be very hard to decide on."

Jared's eyes narrowed and his face turned red... before he paused.

Smirked.

"Prove that I did it," he sneered, folding his arms. "If you want to play the blame game, prove it was me. I dare you."

Principle Sheppard raised an eyebrow, and then turned to look at Mike, who hadn't so much as batted an eyelash; he was slouching with a cold, stony face.

"Where did these altercations take place?" he politely inquired. "What part of the school?"

Mike raised an eyebrow.

"A little grassy spot behind the school, near the cafeteria side entrance."

The man nodded with a kind smile, but when he turned on the flat screen resting against his office wall using a remote he pulled from a drawer, Jared's smirk faded into a look of grim confusion; he stared at the flickering screen just like everyone else in the room, including Meg, as the principle did something on his computer. Within seconds, the screen flicked and Meg saw the very same spot through a camera broadcasting security footage.

Jared's face went bone white.

"Now, this happened around lunch time, didn't it?" the principle asked, smiling at Jared kindly before clicking the mouse. "I'm normally not forced to use this method, as most of the students here are quite proactive and well-behaved, but today I'll make an exception. Let's go back and see what happened in full."

Jared sank down into the chair, fists clenched, face tight and he didn't look at the screen as the footage was rewound. Meg blinked when she came into view since watching herself being pushed by Mike in reverse was strange. The footage zoomed back over the fight, over Jared hurting her and taking a video of her lying with her underwear showing, back to before he'd arrived, when she'd been daydreaming with her head tilted back, eyes closed.

All of it happened so fast she could barely even see it.

The principle stopped rewinding and pressed play just as Mike left her there, and they watched.

Seeing herself from that angle made her feel weird, since she looked smaller than she felt.

Much smaller.

Then, Jared arriving... slamming his hands on her wheelchair and bringing his face close, even though she was obviously trying to pull away. Anna's eyes went hard when she saw the footage of him flipping the chair sideways, but when he lifted his leg so high that his knee went past his chin, she gasped and covered her mouth; sure enough, his foot came down at breakneck speed and landed right on her back.

The principle flinched, but Mike was stone-faced, and Meg watched as she rolled over on screen just in time for another kick to hit her in the chest.

Then came the blow that had landed on her arms, which she'd used to cover her face.

Just as he'd lifted his leg again, however, he'd paused... and then pulled out his phone, touching the screen and holding it out.

The principle flicked the television off and turned, then, looking right at him.

"It would seem that I have my proof, Mr. Alistair," he said quietly, waving towards the door. "I'll see you tomorrow morning for the conference with your parents to discuss the full extent your punishment. For now, the bell has rung, and you are dismissed."

"Whatever," he snarled, whipping to his feet and casting Meg a glare that curdled her blood, "fucking bitches..."

He stormed out of the office without another word, slamming the door behind him.

"Nurse Anna, would you please do me a favor and give me a moment alone with Miss Griffin and Mr Pulaski?" Sheppard politely inquired. "I wish to finish the rest of this discussion in private, and I do believe that you have a bit of paperwork that you're behind on."

"Sure," the woman said in a low tone, working her jaw. "After everything I just saw on that television screen, I... well, I need a distraction, anyway."

He nodded understandingly when she saw herself out of the room, leaving the three of them alone.

Meg, however, was surprised when Mike uncrossed his arms and glared at him.

"So, old man, what happens from here?"

Principle Sheppard inclined his head.

"Your father has already been notified of your less than satisfactory actions towards Mr Alistair," he said slowly, then quietly added, "but due to the highly unpleasant and very shameful circumstances leading up to them, we have decided not to suspend you."

Mike winced... then paused.

Backtracked.

Blinked, then blinked again.

And even after all that, Meg had a feeling that he still couldn't tell if he had been hearing the man correctly.

"Hold up," he hesitantly scoffed, lifting his hands. "Are you saying I'm not going to be suspended or expelled?! You told me last time I was here that if I got into another fight you'd have me out of this school quicker than a bolt of lightning."

"True," Sheppard said, smiling at him, "but even though you got into a physical altercation, you did it to protect someone who couldn't protect herself, and I commend that in every single way. If anything, I should be thanking you."

Mike's jaw dropped, but he quickly snapped it shut and the stony mask returned.

"I don't think I understand," he said slowly. "I beat the living dog shit out of someone. Even though I had a reason, I still hit him first. Aren't I at fault?"

"He nearly beat a girl who can't even walk to death," the principle said plainly, eyes half-lidded behind his glasses. "Frankly, violence in our school is not tolerated, unless it's in the name of self defense only. What you did was a little extreme, but Jared wouldn't have stopped if you hadn't. So, no, you are not at fault here."

Mike was speechless.

"So..." he said slowly, disbelievingly, but somewhat hopefully, "I'm... not in trouble?"

"I didn't say that," the headmaster warned. "You did, after all, go very much overboard. So, you will receive a punishment for your actions. I hope you accept it in good favor."

"With pleasure."

The quick response surprised Meg a little bit.

"Well," Sheppard chuckled, "it's very interesting that you're so enthusiastic."

"I'm just glad I'm not getting expelled," Mike countered, slouching a little more languidly. "My dad would have thrown a bitch fit."

"Language," Sheppard sighed, giving him a reproachful look before leaning back and interlacing his fingers on top of his desk. "Now, getting down to business... I will be completely honest with you: your punishment isn't really a punishment at all, since I personally believe in taking opportunities when they arrive."

"What?" Mike asked, frowning. "What sort of opportunities?"

"Starting tomorrow, I'm assigning you the responsibility of helping the handicapped students in our school during your free moments for the rest of the year," the man said slyly, and Meg gawped, since it was no secret that the only person with any sort of handicap in the school was her! "Furthermore, every Saturday at the end of each month, you and Mr. Alistair will join the school faculty for three hours of community service on or off campus. It depends on what they decide to do."

Mike nodded without complaint.

"Anything else?"

"No, Mr. Pulaski, that is all I wished to speak with you about. Unless you have any questions, you may head home."

"I'll do that, then," the blonde boy grunted, rising to his feet. "Later."

Meg watched as he lumbered out of the room and closed the door, but when it shut, she turned back around to face principle Sheppard.

He was looking at her in a way that had her hair standing on end.

"Miss Griffin," he muttered, shaking his head; instead of saying anything further, he turned the television on again and turned the volume all the way up. Meg blinked and stared at the screen to see footage of her scribbling something down in the writing pad... but when she held it up, the footage paused, and suddenly zoomed in so close that she was thrown a little off guard. The man leaned back, then, staring at the ceiling with a hand on the bridge of his nose.

The words "My Dad Shot Me" were flickering in very poor quality on the screen.

Meg swallowed hard and lowered her eyes.

"Is it true?"

His tone made her flinch and huddle in on herself.

Even though her principle was nice, talking to him about it wouldn't fix anything... not her scar, or her family situation, or her father.

"I won't force you to talk about it," Sheppard murmured, looking at her with tired eyes, "but I do want you to think very long and hard about what it is you wish to do about the situation concerning the bullying. I'm on your side, Megan... and if you ever wish to speak with me, don't hesitate. I'm always willing to listen."

She nodded at him, then scribbled 'thank you' before turning her wheelchair around and rolling herself towards the door. Once she was out in the hall, however, she was startled when a large hand came down on her shoulder. She jumped and whipped her head around to see Mike himself staring down his nose at her.

"Let's get the hell out of here," he muttered, jerking his head back and doing an about face. "Come on."

Meg was confused, but she followed him regardless.

The walk to his locker was slow given how achy she was, but once he'd grabbed his things, he led the way way outside... where he promptly halted. Meg dragged the wheels of her chair to a stop and looked at him in confusion when he turned and looked down at her with the intensity that always made her cringe. He folded his thick arms and cocked his head, raising a single eyebrow.

"Start moving," he ordered, nodding towards the road. "I'm walking you home."

She jerked, staring at him in shock, then flipped the pad open and scribbled madly.

His eyes skimmed across the paper.

"Why are you walking me home?"

"Because Jared is the kind of guy who'd try to get even outside of school," he said, scowling impatiently. "Move it, Beanie Girl."

Meg let out an exasperated sigh through her nose, but she wheeled her way down the ramp and onto the sidewalk regardless. She could hear his footsteps behind her, but she kept her eyes straight ahead. The walk from the school to her house normally took twenty minutes on foot, but it would take a little bit longer now that she was crippled... and since getting ready would likely take a lot longer than she was used to, she would probably have to start going to bed earlier to get up with enough time.

She didn't really own any skirts aside from what she presently had on, so if she wanted clothing that would be easy to put on, she'd have to go shopping.

Unfortunately, she wasn't really allowed in certain parts of the mall...

She stared at the ground bitterly when the memories from before Stewie had been born flooded back into her head. When she'd been nine, she'd had her first and last physical outburst with Lois. Her mom had made an offhanded comment about how ugly her hat looked, and for once, she'd actually fired back a retort and said that it was better than the shade of red dye her mom used. Lois hadn't liked that at all, and had slapped her across the mouth.

And for the first time, the rage... the anger, abrupt and swift, had risen within her chest. She'd lost her temper and taken a picture frame from one of the side tables and had thrown it at her mother. It hadn't really hurt Lois, since it had glanced off of her arm thanks to Meg's poor aim, but the events that had come afterwards had been some of the hardest of her life. For three entire years, her parents had kept her locked up in the basement and had starved her every single day.

They'd never let her out for anything but school, and she hadn't been allowed to eat at home.

The basement door still had claw marks from all the times she'd tried to get it open, to make them hear her, to forgive her.

She would have starved to death if she hadn't gotten smart.

Every single day after school, she'd gone to the mall on her own and had started looking around the food courts, asking for handouts... and at first, people had given them to her since she'd been young enough and thin enough to look very unhealthy. But after a time, they'd stopped and started turning her away, which had forced her to look elsewhere. She'd tried to get food from anywhere she possibly could: from strangers, from restaurants, even from garbage cans and dumpsters.

But the place she'd discovered the best possible method had been the mall.

She'd learned from watching people's eating habits that mall shoppers sometimes had a big tendency to leave their tables with a lot of food still on their plates.

Back then, she'd been so desperate for something edible that she hadn't cared about how she got it or where it had been: every single day, she would wait and watch people eat in the food courts, and when they left, if there was anything still left on their plates, she would run over and eat as much as she possibly could. She'd gotten caught doing it a few times, but nobody had really done anything more than give her dirty, disgusted looks until a few weeks before her thirteenth birthday, when one of the newer workers in the food court had yelled at her. The way he'd looked at her back then had made her feel disgusting.

She'd run away and hadn't gone back there since.

Not long after that incident, though, her parents had let her out of the basement and she'd moved back into her bedroom.

And the food... she'd never been more appreciative.

But she hadn't been able to control herself, and that's why she'd gained so much weight in the first place.

She had gotten fat because her parents had literally kept her locked up in the basement like a dog and starved her for three years.

Hollow relief graced Meg's tired limbs when she made it to Spooner street, and she wheeled towards her house with renewed vigor, but when she turned and tried to roll up the sidewalk towards her front door, Mike stopped her in her tracks by gripping the handlebars. She jerked, since she'd almost forgotten that he'd been escorting her home, lost in her own head as she'd been. He looked down at her, then stared at the house with a taut mouth.

"That your place? This house?" he asked, and when she nodded, he let go of the chair. "Then, I'll see you later. Starting tomorrow, I'll be picking you up for school in my truck."

Meg jerked and opened her mouth to say it wasn't necessary, but nothing aside from a whisper came out.

He was already halfway down the block, too... running a hand through her hair, Meg leaned back and stared at the sky, too overloaded with the day's events to try comprehending what had just happened. She didn't understand the way his mind worked. He genuinely seemed to be helping her, but he was still violent... and his total one eighty towards her had come as something of a surprise. She hadn't been expecting him to keep his end of the deal...

But perhaps that was why, though.

Her level of expectation.

She was so used to expecting nothing but the absolute worst that it genuinely threw her off and made her jittery when something didn't go all that badly. She always ended up feeling skeptical and paranoid about what was really going on behind the scenes. Meg closed her eyes and set her hands in her lap, tilting her head back when a strong breeze suddenly rushed against her body from the front. It lifted her hair clean off her shoulders and carried cotton tufts from the trees her way, smelling of sweetness.

And yet, all this breeze did was make her sad.

She opened the sky and stared at it bleakly.

And to herself, she thought...

I wish I could disappear.