Temperance Brennan (tempe_brennan) wrote in inbetween_place, @ 2008-02-25 11:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | seeley booth, temperance brennan |
Marco...
Who: Temperance Brennan, Open
What: Entrance
Somewhere between the admonishments of the class's poor standard of homework completion and the grudging move onto the Silk Road, Temperance had stopped paying attention. She was never a notable presence in class, hardly ever opening her mouth, let alone raising her hand. To her harried teacher, she was a dream student: never disruptive, always prompt with her work. Oftentimes the only sound they would hear from her all day was the industrious scratching of her pen on paper. That same pen was presently hovering absently over the page, quite forgotten by its owner.
Tempe's eyes were on the window beside her, where she'd thought, just for a split second, that she'd seen somebody out in the school yard; a flash of white teeth and unruly hair peering into the classroom.
Marco. That was Russ's thing. His way of checking in on her during the day. She'd be sitting in class, hunched over her books, and then from outside there'd be a tap on the glass and a cheeky wave. "Marco!" And Tempe, no matter what her mood or the time of day, no matter what her usual reticence, would invariably raise her head and gamely return, "Polo!" Because she wasn't cool or pretty or any of the things you were supposed to be to fit in at school, but she was Russ Brennan's sister, and he'd let everybody know it. Marco.
All that was before, of course. Before Mom and Dad went missing. Before Russ went strange and distant. It wasn't till he stopped showing up during her classes that she realised how much she'd valued that. Somebody caring where she was all the time.
Marco. She wondered vaguely what would happen if she initiated it herself. If her brother would unexpectedly poke his head through the door with an answering "Polo."
Outside the window, the crown of a scruffy, brown-haired head stooped into view, and her heart leapt. Then its owner straightened, and the greying beard and craggy features of the gardener emerged. Tempe bit down on her lip. Disappointment was something she was learning to expect, but she still hadn't figured out how to numb herself to it.
Tearing her eyes away from the window, she forced herself to focus on what the teacher was saying. "... of course, one of the first Western explorers to recognise the value of the Silk Road was the Venetian explorer... who can tell me? Come on, this was all in your homework. Marco... Temperance Brennan, you know this one. Marco-- Temperance? Temperance!" Tempe barely realised she was in motion until she'd cleared the length of the room and her hand was on the door knob, and by then it was far too late to go back. Closing the door behind her, she started down the empty corridor...
...which was now, it seemed, neither empty nor a corridor.
She stopped dead, taking in the flagstone floor, the wooden tables and chairs, the oil lamps and crackling fireplace, and took an uncertain step back, her eyes travelling to the heavy oak door. To go back would be to face the bemused, derisive, and - worst of all - sympathetic stares of her classmates. To go forward... she didn't even know. And so instead she found herself standing there frozen, caught in indecision.