fandomhighdorms | 128 Sunday Afternoon

His earlier workout was interrupted, and the weather sucked, so Shep was skateboarding up and down the halls of the dorm. He'd only fallen down one set of stairs, and hadn't banged himself up too badly. As he went flying down the first floor hall, he saw someone sitting on the floor going through a pile of stuff.

When he recognized his Speech Comm prof, he promptly tripped himself up and went sprawling right in front of her.

Startled ouot of her key hunt, she blinks at him and resists the urge to laugh.

"Graceful and charming. How do you do it, Shep?" she says dryly. "You ok?"

Shep picked himself off the floor and kicked the skateboard behind him. He dusted off his knees to give himself a second to compose himself.

"Uh... Miss Cregg. You're in the dorm. Did you drop your purse?" He bends over to help her pick up the stuff on the floor.

"No...I dumped it out to look for my keys, which don't seem to be here. I know I brought them..."

She packs everything back in her purse and starts patting her pockets.

"I live here. This one. Now."

Shep swallowed hard. "You live... here..." He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks nervously up and down the hall. "I guess it's probably a little bigger than the phone booth you told me you were living in, but... here?"

It was suddenly going to be a much bigger problem for him to run down the hall to the bathroom in his boxers knowing that his teacher was living in the dorm. Even if she was 4 floors down. Her catching him in his skivvies, was just *not* something he wanted to contemplate.

"It's actually the smallest place I've lived in since college."

Finally locating her keyes deep in her jacket pocket, she smiled, "Score. Yeah...here. Why? You want to come in?"

Shep snickered. "I knew you didn't live in that phone booth." He stares at her apraisingly, unsure if the invitation is for real. And whether or not there are rules about students and staff being alone in a dorm room. Reminded him of when he was in... at his other high school and he'd been a summer camp councilor and they had to leave the tent flaps open at all times when there was a camper and a councilor in there.

Not that he thought C.J. was suggesting... but the radio had eyes everywhere!

"I really did, Shep. Ask Jack...he'll tell you. He had his own room."

She tossed her coat and purse over the back of a chair and kicked off her shoes. "Come on in...and leave the door open. Lana doesn't need another reason to slap me, okay?"

Shep stepped on the end of his skateboard to stand it up and grabbed it. He stepped through the door way, but just barely. "Lana's too busy running around tasting things right now." He looked around the small space. Looked like a dorm room... he wasn't sure why, but he had a hard time thinking of Professor Cregg living in a dorm, eating dorm food and sharing a communal bathroom.

"Tasting things? O-kay."

She opened the tiny fridge and took out a diet coke, then went to retrieve the fish food to feed Fred and Ginger.

"You can come in and sit, Shep. Jeez, I don't bite."

He moved slowly across the room and perched on the edge of the desk chair, his skateboard under one foot and he nervously dragged it back and forth across the floor as far as his foot would go.

"She got hit with a spell or something and now when she tastes something she can spit out a chemical composition report. It's kind of freaky. But I now know exactly what my toothpaste and chewing gum are made of." He all but slapped a hand over his mouth. He couldn't believe he told CJ that.

Giving him a look when he slapps his hand over his mouth, she laughed softly and turned back to the fish as she shook her head.

"Good dental hygeine isn't something to be embarassed about, Shep."

He just shook his head. If she couldn't figure out how Lana would be tasting those things, he wasn't going to be the one enlightening her.

"So," he said brightly, clearly changing the subject. "Uh... how's the fish?"

"The fish are fine, Shep." she smirked. He was so easy to tease. "Hey, how's your essay coming along?"

Shep scrunched his eyebrows up, trying to think. "Essay for who?"

She turned her back, supposedly to put away the fish food...but really so he couldn't see her grinning. SHe'd seen the roster from Friday.

"For me, Shep. 3 pages? On the movie?"

Deciding this is C.J. winding him up, Shep smiles, "Very funny." She wouldn't make him flip out this time. He was catching on to her.

"You didn't go to class Friday, huh? I had a note on the board...Jack should have taken care of it."

She turned around, absolutely serious.

Not giving anything away he answered cooly, "Well since *you* didn't go to class Friday, you wouldn't know who was there, would you?"

"You didn't sign in on the roster." With a small laugh, she raised her can before taking a sip, "You can't pull one over on me, Shep. I know what's going on."

Shep just smiled broadly. "I can try real hard. But hey if you weren't there, you can't really be mad at us for not being there, can you?"

"Oh, I'm not mad, Shep. I don't get mad about stuff like this. We can just cover power until you four want to puke...I'm cool with that."

Shep rolled his eyes. He was military. He'd long ago learned to deal with people who needed to prove they had more power than he did. Mostly he just let them do their thing. He didn't want the power or the control, so ... whatever.

"Do you know 1984?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to say, 'sure I was 12', but he remembered that everyone here thought he was 17 in the nick of time.

"Sorry. I'm only 17. Born in 89."

"Not the year, Shep. The book. George Orwell? 1984?"

"Orwell... isn't he the guy who wrote about the communist pigs? They had a fight with... I don't know Neitche's chickens or something?"

"That would be Animal Farm, and yes. Tell you what...you want to look like my shining star in class tomorrow, look into 1984 and if you really want to kiss up, write up 3 pages on the relationships of power." She winked at him, and smiled. "I promise you'll be better prepared than anyone else."

Shep sits back in the chair and smiles. "1984 is the one about Big Brother watching over us to be sure that everything we do is state sanctioned and approved. It's a satire on the way governement keeps taking control of more and more of our lives."

Having a sudden, Oh shit, I hope that's the write book, moment, Shep looks up at her hopefully. "Right?"

er... right book. (it's been a long night, capped off with my idiot ferret just biting me)

"That's the one, Shep. Big Brother is watching. Winston...the State. War is Peace, Hate is Love, Freedom is Slavery. Hmm...power of words and control of meanings."

Suddenly distracted, she walks over and flips open her laptop, turning it on.

"Tell me what else you know."

"Penguin parents feed their babies by regurgitating into their mouthes. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise. American car horns beep in the tone of F. Should I go on?"

He gives her a big grin. He knows more about the philosophy in 1984 than the actual text, but he's kind of loathe to admit that now.

She turned and stared at him for a long time. Her jaw might have been slack...but she was too stunned to notice. Before long, she broke out laughing.

"Oh, Shep...I'd hate to have to interrogate you."

She turned back to the computer and pulled up a web page (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/1984/).

"Come here and write this down. And you can add to your bevy of little thoughts to trade and save that the chemical compound of salt is NaCl...you know, so you'll know what Lana's talking about after you eat fries."

She actually would hate to interrogate him. He was black ops, he knows a little more about resisting interrogation than she thinks. He also has a couple hundred of these bizarre facts floating around.

He drags the chair over to where she's sitting and takes the notebook she hands him. "And Potasium is named for Potash - where it was discovered and Sodium is named for soda-ash for the same reason."

"Really? That's fascinating. Really." she says flatly. She'd learned long ago to take these things in and call them back on demand thanks to President Bartlet. She just never expected to use the skill here.

"Anyhow, don't plagiarize and bang out an essay and you'll get full credit. And I'm not playing favorites, kid. Just doing my job. I'm sick of talking about power, and the unit I had planned, we're skipping right now."

Shep scribbles down the URL. After quickly scanning over the summary he blurts out, "Oh, so that's where the whole 'Room 101' thing comes from. Cool."

"I'll get something out tonight. Any particular focus it should have?"

"I'll leave that up to you, Shep. You know..."

She bit her lip and stood up to face him,

"You could really link this to your little computer people, except that there's no bear that I recall in 1984...but that would make you Big Brother, huh?"

"Now there's a terrifying thought. Me in charge of what's good and right for the world. But yeah, okay, leave the bear out and tie it into the Sims. I can do that."

He takes the paper out of the notebook and stands. "I should probably let you and your fish get settled in here. I guess I'll... be seeing you around."

For the briefest second she looks utterly crushed, then forces a smile.

"Sure thing, Shep. See you tomorrow in class."

Shep reaches down and grabs his skateboard before putting the chair back where he found it. As he turns he thinks he sees... something in C.J.'s expression. But when he looks back she's smiling - but there's something less than sincere there.

Feeling more than just a tad confused, he grabs the URL she gave him and tucks it into his pocket. "Yeah. See you in class tomorrow."

He shuts the door on the way out.

"That was kind of weird," he says softly to no one in particular.

128 Sunday Afternoon

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