by Christy Shorey and you

ARCHIVE: NOV. 21 edited for spelling and grammar

1355 words

Dresden was amazed that the enthusiasm carried over to his third period class. Usually seniors weren't excited about anything reminiscent of academic work, and they seemed to particularly resent Dresden's teaching methods. Until the substitute. He had volunteers to read from Othello, the play on the senior roster. While the students didn't complain as much about the sub, it was clear they were glad to have him back.

They were on a particularly potent scene between Othello and Desdemona, and Dresden made a casting decision that had most of the class snickering. Lane was a quiet, nerdy type, determined to get into the best colleges his grades could manage, and Meg was star shooter on the girls' basketball team. He gave a sigh as the scene started awkwardly between the two students from different cliques. By the end, he had to practically pry them apart. At the end of class he noticed each entering the other's cell number into their own phone, and walking out of the class hand in hand. This of course elicited jeers from their classmates, which they determinedly ignore. Dresden shook his head, young love was never that easy to predict.

The rest of the day Dresden found grateful students eager to participate in his class. He gave everyone an "A" for the day, because he appreciated their reaction to him - a first in the few brief years of his teaching experience. He left in a good mood, that not even the sight of his toilet-papered car could dampen.

He drove to Margot's place directly, eager to put the finishing touches on the research he had done the day before prior to her return from work.   Toilet paper tore away and fluttered off in the wind behind him as he drove, but he ignored the angry honks and some rude shouts telling him exactly where he could go, and what he could do once there.

Kyle let him in, and handed him a key. "Margot said to give this to you."

Dresden grinned at the multi-colored piece of metal. "Did you pick out the designed version for me?" he asked, and Kyle nodded. "Thank you."

Kyle headed off back towards his room, then stopped, turned around and walked back to Dresden. "I forgot, but I remembered again. Margot's sink in her bathroom is damaged, and she wants you to fix it before hitting the books."

Dresden was surprised at the damage, and sent Kyle to the store to get some supplies, while he set in to fix what he could without them. The damage to the cabinet under the sink was similar to that on the dining room table and the smaller bedside table, and he vaguely wondered if Kyle had brought the dog he had been walking over during the day.

As he fixed the scratches, and settled in to turn off the water so he could repair the leak, something nagged at him. It wasn't the dog, he was almost sure of it, but he couldn't say *how* he knew it. Maybe it was something to do with the storm, but that really didn't make sense.

He heard Kyle open the door, and he played through the events of the night before, trying to see if he could remember Margot mentioning another dinner party, or something else that could have caused the damage. But the porcelain itself was scratched, a chunk taken out of it. No dog could have done that, besides when would she have had the time to throw another party. He had been here every night for the past three weeks. He really should go home and change, he was still wearing the clothes from the day before.

Kyle came into the bathroom with the new basin bowl, and they set to removing the old one. Once that was free, they worked on putting the new one in. Then Kyle said something that almost made Dresden drop the new sink.

"I'm glad you know about Margot. I like her, but when she changes she can sometimes get grumpy. I like her dragon form best, but the human one is pretty cool too. What do you think?"

"Dragon," Dresden said, under his breath, and Kyle looked at him with an odd expression as they laid the basin into place.

"Yes. The scales are actually quite warm, and not sharp and cold like you might think."

And suddenly the full memories of the night before flooded back. Dresden just missed hitting his head on the doorframe as he fell into a dead faint.

****

Kyle looked at where Dresden lay on the floor. He quickly moved over, and dragged him out into Margot's bedroom, on the carpet near her bed. He looked down at the teacher and said, "Shoot. Margot told me not to say anything; that she altered your memory. I hope she's not mad at me." He sat down next to Dresden to await Margot's return.

****

"Why do you do that?" Logan asked as they left the walk-in burrito place and headed in search of a place to eat.

"Do what?" Lacey asked, darting across the street. Logan jogged after her.

"You know what, and you'll just get mad at me if I say it," Logan said. Lacey sighed, and turned to face him.

"Look, I'll grant that you had a long day, what with that trying experience with your memories yesterday and all," she said, walking backwards towards the great lawn. "But I know you haven't shared all the memory with me, the device only caught some of it. Am I right."

Logan made a face, and walked past her. "That doesn't answer my question."

"I'm getting there. But I'm right, aren't I? I watched it again today, and realized it was too short to be all of your memory. I must have only captured the part when I was touching you."

"And?"

Lacey stopped in her tracks, forcing Logan to stop and face her, or risk not getting lunch, or an answer. "Well, I figure you have a reason for not telling me about those memories. I have my own reason for not sharing some of my past, too. Granted it's probably not nearly as interesting as past lives, but I have my reasons."

Logan blinked at her, then took a step back towards her. "Okay. I'm sorry I pressed," he said, and allowed Lacey to take his hand again. "But to be fair, since we both have our reasons, I won't tell you about the rest of those memories until you are ready to talk about your past."

Lacey swung their arms between them. "Fair enough," she said, and led to a spot on the lawn. Once they were settled, sitting so their legs were touching, Lacey opened the bag, and handed Logan a burrito. Lunch passed in relative silence, with the exception of a campus preacher getting into an argument with a persistent woman over some topic dealing with admittance to heaven.

They sat for another twenty minutes after they had eaten, Lacey scooting closer to him, and leaning a head on his shoulder. As Logan's lunch hour wound down, she said. "Is that good? I mean, you shouldn't have any visions this afternoon?"

"You'd better hold my hand on the way back," Logan said begrudgingly.

Lacey stood and grabbed his hands, helping him to his feet. They had made it back to the English department when she squeezed his hand, instead of letting it go.

"Hum?"

"I'm going to go through more dreams when I get home. Maybe I can find something useful," she said, careful to put the doubt in her tone.

"Okay, good idea," Logan said, pulling his hand free from hers, and heading to the door.

Lacey waited until he had the door open and was part of the way through before she called his name. He leaned back out with a "What?"

"I'll be ready to talk about my past when you get home. Just wanted to give you fair warning." She smiled at the look at his face, waved, and turned to head home.