toxic_corn | Daybreak/BSC Crossover fic: The Story (R)

Title: The Story
Author:

nutmeg610
Rating: R
Disclaimer: The characters belong to ABC, Scholastic Books, and Ann M. Martin respectively.
Summary: Follows The Tape and The Game. Mary Anne finds something interesting on Chad's computer.
Author's Note: Here's where it all started to turn to meth. Proceed with caution.

The Story

Mary Anne's laptop was in the shop and if she wanted to get any work done, she was going to have to use Chad's PC. He always set his computer to hibernate so it didn't take long for it to start up; she was happy to see he'd made his desktop a vacation photo of her and the girls.

Smiling, she popped in her memory card and went to open the document she needed but paused when among the list of recently opened documents she saw MaryAnne.doc. She debated with herself for a moment about opening the document but then her curiosity got the better of her.

She clicked on it and started to read, smiling more and more.

~*~

Chad was in a good mood, so he'd had all the basketball hoops lowered and let the students shoot hoops. Playing the game of basketball itself wasn't required, though a few groups did so. Mostly, the students would practice lay ups or organize friendly games of horse. He'd usually walk around and make sure no one was just standing around talking, but actually being active.

He'd already gone around the other groups and had broken up a little gossip session among the cheerleaders, saving Mary Anne's group for last. A smile started to cross his face just watching her.

She had her hair in two French braids, making her look adorable. During one detention, she'd told him about how her father used to make her wear her hair in braids and Chad had asked her to do it so he could see what it looked like. She'd sighed heavily and said, "We'll see." The girl was a dream, that's all there was to it.

"Hi, Mr. Shelten," Dawn Schafer, Mary Anne's best friend and step-sister said.

"Hello, Miss Schafer. Who's winning the game?"

The girls all looked at each other. "I think it's a tie between me and Sunny," Dawn said.

Mary Anne smiled up at him in self deprecation, looking absolutely adorable. "I'm almost out."

"That's too bad," Chad said, trying not to reach out and tweak one of her braids. He'd have plenty of time to do that after school. "Try to work on your follow through, Miss Spier."

She looked confused, not knowing what he meant. "Okay, I'll uh, I'll do that."

Chuckling, he moved on to the group of awkward boys playing their own game of Horse. Before he could say much to them though, the school hotshot Jordan Cooper shouted, "Yo!" and passed the ball to one of his sycophantic little friends. The sycophant missed it and Chad watched the ball soar through the air almost in slow motion in horror as it smacked Mary Anne in the head, knocking her down.

Red hot anger coursed through his veins as he ran over to where the students had all gathered around her. She stirred and made a little whimpering sound. "Owwie, Chad help me."

He had to think fast. "You've got a concussion, Miss Spier. It's Mr. Shelten, all right?" He carefully scooped her up in his arms and turned to face the group of concerned teenagers. "I'll be gone about five minutes, just keep doing what you're doing."

Hurrying down the hall, Chad spoke softly to Mary Anne. "Just hold on, sweetheart, you'll be fine."

"You're so muscley," Mary Anne noted with a woozy smile, "You must bench-press dinosaurs."

Chad chuckled. "The T-rexes are best for my triceps."

"Silly... dinosaurs stink. Ex stink. Extinct?"

"That's right. Here we are." Chad walked through the doorway into the nurse's office and the nurse who'd been there probably since the Truman administration jumped up to meet him as he carefully set her on one of the paper-covered plastic beds.

"You carried her here?!" the nurse shrilled, glaring at him. "You're supposed to call for a wheelchair!"

"This way just seemed faster," Chad growled at the nurse.

The woman pursed her lips and shook her head. "I can take it from here. You'd best get back to your class."

"'Bye, Mr. Shelten," Mary Anne said, watching the nurse get her an ice pack. "I have to be sick now."

This arrangement sucked. He wanted to kiss her forehead but had to settle for saying, "Alright. Feel better."

"I'll try." Once Chad was out of the room, Mary Anne smiled at the nurse. "Isn't he pretty?"

The nurse smiled back and pressed the ice pack to Mary Anne's head. "He's a little young for me, dear."

~*~

When Chad returned to the gym, he took one look at Jordan Cooper and wanted to kill the little shit. With absolutely no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, Cooper came up to him.

"Oh my god, Mr. Shelten, is she okay? I just like, lost the ball there for a second."

"Looks to me like you were playing NBA hotshot. Now go get changed and sit on the bench before you end up killing someone." Don't fucking push me kid, Chad seethed silently.

"But dude, Mr. Shelten, I didn't mean to hit Spier! I mean, she's totally hot, I wasn't trying to hurt her or anything."

Chad marched up to him slowly, gritting his teeth. "I said get changed NOW!"

Cooper cringed. "Okay. I'll go get changed and maybe even visit Spier to make sure she's okay." He nodded, seeking approval for this plan.

The thought of this bastard anywhere near his sweet Mary Anne and the frustration of not having his instructions followed nearly made him kill the kid. "No you won't. Just stay the hell away from her. Got it?"

The boy blinked in surprise. "Yeah, uh.... got it."

"Good." Chad looked around and for the first time saw they had an audience. "Are we gawking or are we shooting baskets? Let's go!!"

The class quickly went back to their baskets and Chad sat down to look over his grade book, grinding his teeth. He'd give Cooper partial points for the day for that little stunt.

~*~

By the end of class, Chad was even more pissed. Cooper hadn't returned to class after changing. Now he stood just a few feet away, sending smug little looks over at him.

"So I go in there, right, and Spier's all laid out on one of the beds and I start apologizing right off the fucking bat and she's all, 'No no, it's okay, don't worry about it.' And then I say that to make it up to her, we should go to the dance next week." He tossed his hair out of his eyes in some pitiful attempt to look cool. "She said yeah."

Chad froze. She said yeah? The little bastard nearly gave her a concussion! He thought he and Mary Anne had something special but... apparently he was wrong.

He made the rest of the P.E. classes run the mile for the rest of the day.

~*~

At 3:00 Chad barely looked up when Mary Anne came through the door. Like always, she climbed into his lap for a kiss, but he turned his head away.

"What?" she asked, playfully. Did she think this was a game?!

"Today I think you should do laps around the gym." Chad clenched his jaw, tightly when Mary Anne nipped his ear.

"You want me all sweaty first?" she whispered.

"Nah, I want you to run off all the energy you have after agreeing to go to the dance with that Jordan kid. You must be on cloud nine," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Who?"

He put her off of his lap and ignored the wounded look on her face. "The asshole who smacked you upside the head with a basketball! I heard him say he's taking you to the dance!" I can't believe I'm jealous of a seventeen year old.

"Him?!" Mary Anne's eyes widened in shock. "I never said I'd go to the dance with him!"

Chad blinked. "But, he said you were..."

"Oh he did, did he?" She folded her arms, looking pissed. "You want to know what actually happened?"

"Please enlighten me," Chad said, standing up too.

"He came in to apologize and I forgave him. Then he started stammering and stuttering and it was so annoying that I told him he'd already given me a headache; he didn't need to make it any worse."

Frowning, Chad tried to figure this out. "So, he made that all up? You... aren't going with him?"

"I didn't even know what he was asking." She looked hurt and masochist that he was, he couldn't look away. "Why would you think I'd do that?"

"I don't know." Chad sat back down and ran a hand over his head. "I guess I just thought-- I thought you'd be tired of me."

"No." Mary Anne climbed back into his lap, cupping his face in her hands. "I'm not tired of you, Mr. Shelten."

He smiled at her. "I'm not tired of you, either."

"Good." Suddenly, she winced and rubbed at her head. "Owwie."

Chad kissed her temple gently. "No physical activity for you today. You're injured."

Mary Anne smiled at him gratefully. "I'll still correct your papers, though."

"You don't have to."

She gathered the papers together in a cute, business-like fashion. "I know I don't. But I like to."

"Yeah?" he kissed her temple again, staying close to smell her hair. "Gonna be a teacher someday?"

"Uh huh. Not high school kids, though. I don't know how you get through the day without murdering one of us."

Sometimes he didn't know, either. He chuckled, leaving a kiss on her neck. "Getting to see you every day helps."

She turned to look at him, wide eyed. "Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah." He nodded.

Seeming to melt, she cuddled into him for a hug. "You're so sweet." Her soft breath tickled his neck, making him smile.

"Thanks. I don't hear that too often."

Mary Anne nuzzled his ear. "You should. You should hear it every day."

"Maybe I should give you detention every single day so I'll be sure to."

"I already have it every single day for a month, remember?" She tickled his sides as she reminded him.

"I mean for the rest of the year." He jerked up when her nimble fingers found a ticklish spot.

Taking pity on his squirming, Mary Anne stopped. "These papers aren't going to grade themselves."

"Thats right. If you want to be a teacher, you need to practice your grading skills."

With a little smile, Mary Anne went back to correcting the papers, sighing softly every now and then when Chad's lips found a sensitive spot on her neck. It took her a moment to recognize the name on one of the papers. "Here's Jordan's homework. I should give him an F."

Chad laughed. "As much as I wish you could, we can't fool around with grades."

"I know. But I can dream, can't I?" She looked over Jordan's work and giggled. "He calls menstruating 'administrating' here."

Hardly daring to believe it, Chad leaned forward to take a look for himself. "Wow, he's going to get a girl pregnant at the prom, I guarantee it."

Mary Anne looked at him earnestly. "And it's not going to be me."

"I know." He nodded and kissed her nose. Expecting another smile, he was surprised when she frowned softly and turned back to work. "Why the frown?"

"I was just... wondering what I'm going to do for prom."

Oh duh, I can't go with her and I don't want anyone else to take her. "Umm, got any nice gay guy friends?"

"I can look around, I guess. I heard a lot of them are going to the gay prom instead."

"Gay prom? Where's that gonna be at?"

"I really don't know." She sent him an amused look. "Why?"

Chad rolled his eyes. "I knew I shouldn't have even asked. I was just curious. That's all."

"I know you're not gay." She smoothed a placating hand over his hair. "I had the sore thighs that first week to prove it."

"Did you now?" He grinned a little proudly. "Well, I feel bad about the soreness, but definitely not about the cause of it."

She smiled at him teasingly. "You could've been more gentle with the almost virgin, you know."

Almost virgin. When she put it that way, yeah, he maybe shouldn't have mauled her the way he had. He'd been so excited at the time, maybe he hadn't realized how rough he was being. "I'm sorry," he said, feeling embarrassed.

Mary Anne kissed him softly. "It's okay. The attention was actually really flattering. I mean, I barely knew what I was doing."

"You were really good though," Chad said, honestly. "A natural."

She blushed but smiled, pleased. "Thank you." She went back to correcting papers and he just barely heard her when she said softly, "... my dad's going out of town next week."

"Oh? What for?" Chad played with a strand of her hair.

"He has to go back to Connecticut for work-related reasons and he's taking my step-mother with him. He's leaving me on my own."

"I..see." Why is she telling me this?

"I guess you wouldn't... I mean..." Color suffused her cheeks as she stumbled over her words.

"What?"

Tentative, she looked up at him through her eyelashes. "Would you like to come stay with me?"

Panic shot through him. "What if someone from school sees me coming over?"

She looked into his face carefully then turned away again. "It was a stupid idea. Sorry."

"It--It wasn't stupid," Chad said, his heart pounding. "I'm just worried about what people will say about you, and me getting fired, of course."

Mary Anne nodded in agreement and set the pen down. "Yeah. I think I'm done. I'll just go grab a jumprope." She started to get out of his lap.

Oh great, he'd hurt her feelings. He grabbed her waist to stop her. "Wait. You understand what I mean, don't you? We can't let anyone know until after you graduate."

She removed his hands and the gesture stung a little. "Look, you're right, okay? I get it. But... we could get caught just as easily here as at my house. I don't want you to get fired. I'll be in the gym."

Again, he stopped her. "That's because we have an excuse here. Detention, remember? But I have no reason to stay over at your house." That sounded a harsher than he'd intended and he regretted the words when she winced a little.

"I'm not very good at this though. I slipped and called you by your first name today."

"I know, but everyone thought it was because of the concussion. That was lucky though."

"Lucky." She shook her head. "I'm kind of mad at you, so I'll just spend the rest of the time in the gym, okay?"

Why did this have to be so difficult? Chad sighed. "Look, I didn't mean it like that. I just-- nevermind. I don't even know what I meant. You can go early."

"No, I'll do my detention like I'm supposed to, Mr. Shelten." She grabbed a jump rope before heading out the door. "I'll check in with you before I leave."

"Okay." Once she was gone, he dropped his head to the desk. He'd like nothing more than to spend a weekend with her, to have her in her bed, maybe take a shower with her, cuddle with her on the couch while they watched tv... But if it only resulted in him losing his job and her father suing the school and then never, ever getting to see her again-

Shouting from the gym burst into his self-pity and he jumped up and ran in to investigate. He got in just in time to see Mary Anne pop Jordan Cooper in the face, knocking the boy on his ass.

"That's for spreading lies about me!" she snapped and he wanted to cheer. Instead, he cleared his throat so the group of teenagers noticed his presence.

On the ground, Jordan cupped his nose and looked to him for assistance. "Mr. Shelten, she totally attacked me out of NOWHERE!"

"Really? Way I hear it, you're been spreading rumors about her. You might wanna see the nurse about that nose."

Cooper's friends looked confused. "So she didn't say she was going to the dance with you?"

"I never did!" Mary Anne exclaimed, looking outraged. "I already have a boyfriend!"

"Oh please," Cooper scoffed. "Everyone knows you broke up with him."

Mary Anne's eyes widened in realization and for one horrible second, Chad was afraid she'd give them away but she quickly recovered. "Well, I have a new one at another school! And he's twice the size you are and he'll kick your ass if you spread lies about me again!"

"Fuckin' dyke," Cooper muttered as he shakily climbed to his feet.

Furious, Chad grasped the back of the boy's shirt and hauled him up so fast the seams ripped. "What was that?"

"Dude, brutality!" Cooper squeaked.

"Dude, slander!" Chad snapped back. "Say one more word about her and I'll give you detention cleaning the locker room toliets until you graduate." He released the boy and gave him a shove towards the gym doors. "Take a walk."

Looking sullen, Cooper led his band of idiots out of the gym. Chad turned away from them to check on Mary Anne but she was halfway to the other door. He followed after her and found her getting a Pepsi out of the machine. She pressed it to her bruised fist and hissed softly.

After a moment, she sensed his presence and stiffened slightly. "I'm just going to go home now."

Chad nodded in agreement. "I think that'd be best. Another half hour and someone will knock you down the stairs."

She gave him a nasty look. "Thanks for the heads up."

"I didn't mean that I'm going to be the one to- Mary Anne!" But she'd taken off running and he couldn't follow after her.

Sighing in defeat, he went back to his office.

~*~

That's where he'd left it? Who knew her baby could be so dramatic? After a moment of thought and glancing at the clock to see how much time she had before the girls came home from their friend's house, Mary Anne set to typing.

Continued in The Collaboration!