Chapter 11: Skin-Deep

A/N: Okay, so ummm….

Yeah.

No actual explanation for my prolonged absence except I'm just really lazy and I apologize for that. I've been thinking of revisiting this story for quite a while so I suppose now is as good as time as any, right? Hopefully some of you out there are still following the story and will continue to be fans? I don't blame if you most of you have left though but y'know, new people will find the story and enjoy it too. Anyway, if anyone has any questions please DM me for more information and I'll do my best to answer it. I'm giving everyone two chapters in one weekend because I don't really have a lot of homework and I don't know I suppose I'm feeling generous. Be happy, this is probably never going to happen again.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed my comeback chapter and now on to chapter eleven! Hope you enjoy!

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Topanga hated her face.

Not only that, she hated puberty and the awful effects it projected onto her, specifically her left cheek. She woke up that morning and went for a shower but paused when she noticed the bright red mountain protruding from her face. An ear-splitting scream had escaped from her mouth, practically shaking the windows of the cramped apartment.

She had felt bad, momentarily, for waking up the rest of the boys but her regret passed when she felt Shawn put his hand over her mouth, muffling her next shriek. He removed it immediately after, glaring daggers at her.

"Okay, who's murdering who?" Jason asked, running a hand through his bed head as he stuck his head in the bathroom door, eyes half closed signifying he was extremely tired and Topanga felt a pang of shame once more.

"Why don't you ask little miss horror movie scream over here?" Shawn spat, jabbing a thumb towards Topanga who held her own hand over her cheek. Jason raised an eyebrow in question and Topanga sighed before slowly removing her hand from her face, eyes closed tightly, preparing for the onslaught of laughter.

"Oh, would ya look at that? It's Mount Everest!" Eric proclaimed with a laugh as he passed by the bathroom and Topanga nearly hurled her brush at him before Shawn restrained her once more and Jason put an arm around her middle so she couldn't bull rush Eric who was still howling like a hyena outside of the bathroom.

"Topanga, it's not that bad. If you want to stay home from school and um, take care of your problem then you can." Jason exhaled exhaustedly as he released his grip on the smaller girl. She shook her head, taking another horrified glance in the mirror in front of her, afraid to take her hand away from her face. "Would ya just stop screaming?" He inquired and she nodded solemnly, muttering an apology as the two boys left her (and her mountain of a zit) in the bathroom.

XxXxXxX

Cory cared about Ancient Greece as much as the next guy but as Mr. Matthews strode up to the front row, holding a significantly large wrapped gift box in his hands that tantalized everyone in the room, their eyes following the box like dogs fixated on a piece of meat, he was suddenly roped into the lesson that Mr. Matthews was no doubt about to inact.

"What that? What that that?" Riley suddenly perked up, pointing excitedly at the gift in their teacher's hands.

"What this this?" Mr. Matthews repeated, mimicking Riley's ecstatic tone. "This is a present." He clarified. Even Cory couldn't hide the fact that he wanted the gift or at the very least wanted to see what was inside of it. His best friend, however, wasn't so easily swayed.

"What's your game, Matthews?" Shawn piped up, quirking an eyebrow at the box that their teacher was basically dangling over their heads like a cat toy.

"Game? I mean no game. I just want to know who here wants this present." He shrugged, holding out the gift once more. Every hand in the class shot up immediately, save for Shawn and Maya.

"What? You two think by playing hard to get that I'm gonna give it to you?" He questioned, staring down the two stubborn teens.

"Well, yes. That's one of the many arrows in my quiver." Maya pointed out coolly, trying to seem unaware of the present right in front of her eyes. Farkle shivered in front of him and Cory scooted back a tad, afraid that the boy was going to spontaneously combust or something.

"Medieval talk. What are ya doing to me, woman?" He sighed lovingly and Mr. Matthews rolled his eyes as he placed the box on Riley's desk, every other kid setting their hands down in resign.

"The Trojan Horse?" Riley asked, disappointment and disbelief evident in her tone. She held up a miniature blackboard with the words 'The Trojan Horse' scrawled across in Mr. Matthews' handwriting. Of course there's a lesson, Cory mused to himself, there's always a lesson. If he was being honest he was starting to get a little sick of the all-knowing future him that seemed to have all the answers and was actually kind of pretentious. He sometimes still wished he could have been a baseball player. "This isn't a present." Riley whined in protest, setting the blackboard back into the box. "This is one of your life lessons wrapped up in a class lesson wrapped in a box of nothing." She pouted, leaning back in her seat and glaring at the box.

"How ya doin', honey?" Maya questioned, putting a comforting hand on Riley's shoulder.

"I'm all worked up!" She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

"We know." Maya stifled a laugh as she crossed her legs and shot Riley a small smile.

"You assumed because it was all neat and pretty that something good was inside." Mr. Matthews explained, picking the box up off of her desk and setting it back on his own. "Ancient Troy was protected by walls. The Greeks couldn't get in, so they built a big wooden horse and left it behind. What do you think the Trojans did?" He questioned, kicking off that day's lesson about Ancient Greece.

"They left it there because they thought somebody was trying to teach them something?" Cory asked, referring to the gift box lesson that had Riley all huffy.

"They captured it as a trophy and brought it inside." Mr. Matthews corrected. 'That night, the Greek soldiers crawled out of the horse and defeated Troy. What have we learned here?" He recapitulated, nodding towards the box on his desk.

"Don't make assumptions based on what you see." Lucas answered confidently. At that very moment the door opened and Topanga appeared in the doorway, her hair completely covering the left side of her face. Her eyes were glued to the floor as she handed Mr. Matthews her late slip and took her usual seat next to Maya.

"And then there's that." Mr. Matthews nodded, glancing over to the downcast girl. "You alright, Nebula?" He asked, raising an eyebrow concernedly.

"Yes, just a little zit." She explained before her head shot up, eyes filled with terror. "Sick!" she corrected immediately. "I meant sick!" She clarified before sinking back into her desk in shame. Cory swallowed the lump in his throat, not taking his eyes off of his best friend and crush. He had heard her scream this morning but nobody had told him what had happened exactly, but he was going to figure out one way or another. He was scribbling out a note to toss over to her but was interrupted as Mr. Matthews continued with the lesson.

"Riley, look, I'm sorry I made an example of you. So, here's a gift for you." He offered, producing a much smaller box from his blazer pocket and placing it on her desk.

"Ooh," She commented, her eyes filling with joy as she reached out for the box but quickly stopped herself, remembering what had just happened. "No!" she refused but couldn't tear her gaze away from the small red box. "I want to, but no! Pretty ribbon…no!" As she grappled with her indecision Lucas raised his hand once more.

"I'll take my chances with that, sir." He offered and Mr. Matthews set the box down on Lucas' desk.

"But shouldn't you assume that this one is no good since the first one was no good?" Cory questioned thoughtfully, looking at the gift that Lucas was slowly unwrapping. The boy pulled out a note card and read it aloud to the class.

"Get out of detention free." He recited and Cory could just see both Maya and Shawn's eyes light up with happiness like a kid on Christmas morning.

"Ooh, I could use that." Maya cooed, not taking her eyes off of the small card that Lucas held in his palm. Shawn leaned over the boy's left shoulder, plucking the card from his hand and away from Maya.

"I need it more than you." He insisted with a slight whine. But, Maya didn't give up that easily.

"Give it to me and I won't call you Fonzie all week." She offered, Shawn obviously contemplating the two options. Eventually he sighed and tossed the card over to the defiant blonde whose grin stretched a mile wide. "Thanks, Danny Zuko." She flashed him a quick smile and Shawn slumped back in his chair in defeat.

"Let me guess, Zuko's filling in for Fonzie?" He asked.

"All week." She replied cheerfully before turning on Mr. Matthews like a shark circling their prey dangerously. "And now you." She continued, taking pleasure in Mr. Matthews' somewhat terrified countenance.

"Is something going to happen to me?" He questioned, trying to hide the nervousness from his tone.

"Yes it is." The teen explained as she got to her feet, scatting nonsense syllables like a jazz singer as she tapped over to Mr. Matthews' desk and jumped on top, still scatting much to everyone's amusement. "Dee-dee-dee-tention! But not today! Boom!" She finished her little song by holding the card about an inch away from Mr. Matthews' nose triumphantly. However, the little voice in Cory's head couldn't deny that there was something odd about the whole thing. It's a trap! He wanted to shout, but he was too late. Of course, everything had to be a freaking lesson.

"Read the card." Mr. Matthews told her, his eyes mischievous.

"Huh?" Maya exclaimed, looking back at the card as she hopped off of the desk. "Say 'get out of detention free', give Maya worthless card and then watch her dance on my desk." She read glumly before throwing the card to the floor and taking her seat once more. Cory couldn't help but grin to himself momentarily, older him was definitely clever, he'd give him that.

"Never assume. Look more deeply. Just because something is wrapped up all pretty doesn't mean it always is." Mr. Matthews explained, walking back to sit on his desk. Cory glanced around the room nervously, his eyes falling on Topanga who was hunched over her desk, her hair falling into her face and her eyes filled with sadness. He was going to find out what was wrong with her if it killed him and knowing Topanga, it had to be bad if it had her this down.

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Shawn wasn't one to experience real feelings about anyone.

But, here he was; overcome with the stupid things.

The only people he had ever really cared about were the Matthews, Topanga, and sort of his father, but now things were different. Everything he had ever known had been pulled out from under him and on the outside; he was handling it rather well and just going with the flow.

However, on the inside he was screaming.

It wasn't just a little screaming either, no; this was just one long continuous scream drowning out his rational thoughts all day, every day.

But, he couldn't let Cory or Topanga or anyone see him that way. So for now, he was cool and collected and not screaming. He was just regular Shawn.

Regular Shawn wasn't very hard to be either. He went on dates with girls, he cracked jokes, and he didn't do his homework. It was even easier to be regular Shawn after he had gotten over his little "crush" on Cory and Topanga's future daughter. Seeing her in that diner, really handing it to Maya's mom, he realized how similar she was to his best friend and now he was over her and had moved on to date almost every girl in the seventh grade that (of course) wasn't Riley or Maya.

But, for a moment, those real feelings that he held only for the Matthews or his father had leaked through when he was suffering through his crush and he couldn't help but feel a little alone now that he no longer thought about Riley as much as he did prior. He couldn't deny that he was glad that Topanga and Cory never found out about his lapse into dangerous waters relationship-wise and neither did Riley. It was all working out. All he had to do was ignore Riley for a little bit and he could fully get over her.

It was a little hard to do that when she was standing right in front of him though.

He had been wandering aimlessly outside of the school, waiting for Cory to be done with whatever stupid debate thing he was at so that they could go down to the store and get some supplies for Topanga's face. The girl had left early, claiming a stomachache and Shawn had felt a pang of sympathy. He had convinced Cory (without telling him what was actually wrong with her) to go to the store with him after school to get her some acne stuff and of course her favorite kind of ice cream. But, of course Cory had decided to stay behind and watch the debate team do whatever a debate team does.

"I'm supporting Farkle." He had explained earlier that morning at lunch. He had scoffed, since when did Cory give a rat's ass about supporting anybody but him? Of course he was jealous, they didn't have a Farkle back home and they sure as hell didn't need one now.

He had figured Riley and Maya were also 'supporting Farkle' at whatever debate team thing was going on because they had both emerged from the school and now had him cornered up against a wall outside of the school.

"Do you know where Nebula is?" Riley questioned, bouncing up and down on her heels excitedly. It was a little scary to look at her despite knowing the girl for more than a month now. She really did look like a weird hybrid of both Cory and Topanga.

"Probably home. She's sick, remember?" Shawn shrugged, trying to peer over Riley's shoulder to see if Cory was leaving yet.

"Oh. We just wanted to know who did her hair, we're trying to help Smackle here." Riley elaborated and just as Shawn was about to inquire as to who this 'Smackle' was, she stepped aside revealing a rosy-cheek, short, black haired girl with thick glasses and pleated pigtails. She was the exact copy of some stereotypical nerd off TV and not only that but she looked exactly like Farkle. Well, if Farkle was a girl of course.

"Hey girl Farkle." Shawn greeted with a slight nod, not missing the way Smackle's cheeks turned a deep shade of red as he laid eyes on her. He turned his attention back to Riley before the young girl got the wrong idea. "You're not gonna believe this but I was the one who actually did her hair." He chuckled, remembering how Topanga had nearly slit his throat before he could even get near her hair.

"Really?" Riley asked, raising her brow in astonishment. "So you can help us then!" She cheered in realization and Shawn was about to protest before Maya interrupted from behind Smackle.

"C'mon, Zuko." She pleaded with a teasing grin. "Help a nerd in need." He rolled his eyes before finally letting the three girls drag him away from the stone steps of John Quincy Adams middle school and the familiar route back to Riley's house that never changed. If Cory wasn't going to be around for him, maybe the girls would.

xxx

Before 6:00, they had given Smackle a full makeover.

It was a regular "extreme makeover" complete with clothes, hair, and makeup that made Smackle look like, well, not female Farkle. While the girls worked on possible outfit ideas, he had taken the horrendous pigtails out of Smackle's hair and chopped a few inches off the bottom of her smooth, black hair to even it out. After that, he had borrowed a curling iron from grown-up Topanga and ran it through her hair, even letting her curl a few parts herself so she could get used to it. Luckily, they didn't have to teach her much about makeup or hair. Being a genius and all, she caught on pretty quick about how to wing eyeliner and use a curling wand.

As the trio finished and stepped back to admire their quick work, Smackle looked down at herself before meeting her own gaze in the full length mirror that stood in front of the girl. She let out a miniscule gasp of amazement, doing a 360 to admire her new looks.

"I'm…pretty?" She questioned, a tad nervous.

"You're the hottest little gopher-chipmunk in the whole forest." Maya complimented with a grin.

"My outward appearance now seems to represents the current trends agreeable to the outward populace." The girl confirmed to herself, flipping a lock of dark, wavy hair over her shoulder as she tore her gaze away from the mirror and faced the three teens.

"So why are you still talkin' like ya don't know what ya look like?" Shawn pointed out, referring to her brainy and awkward speech pattern that conveyed the emotion of a shoe. She was a robot, but at least she was an attractive robot.

"Ah, my speech." She shrugged, obviously not worried. "That's an easy fix." She concluded with the faintest impression of a smile. That was another thing they'd have to work on Shawn mused to himself.

"I don't think so, Smackle." Riley sighed glumly, not as confident as the robot-chipmunk that stood in front of them proudly, ready to drop some knowledge.

"Awesome, like, giggle, question, omigosh." She recited off the top of her head with ease.

"Huh?" Shawn blinked, trying to make sense of the words Smackle had just said.

"You wanna lay that out again for us normals?" Maya requested

"Observations reveal that if I merely insert "awesome," "like," "omigosh," and giggle at everything like it's a question, I will assimilate into the general teenage population." Smackle elaborated, not convincing the three teens who sat in front of her, still shocked by her theory of how to fit in.

"It's not that easy." Riley admitted, trying hard not to discourage the girl.

"E=MC2." Smackle exhaled melodramatically, undeniably a tad bored with the three 'normals'.

"What did ya do that for?" Maya questioned, unaware of Smackle's point.

"Like, "E" totally equals MC squared!" She cheered with a giggle before exclaiming a happy "omigosh!" Shawn only sat there, shocked at how right she was.

"E=MC2." Riley repeated monotonously

"I can graduate high school." Shawn tacked on, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes.

"I understand the universe." Maya added.

Smackle only stood there, looking awfully proud of herself. Shawn only hoped that all their hard work wasn't all a part of some lesson.

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Topanga sighed as she slipped into one of the cool metal chairs set up all over the cramped auditorium in preparation for the school's final debate of the season.

She knew it was rude, but she couldn't care less.

"Um, you gonna…explain?" Maya questioned, earning a glare from Topanga under the depths of her oversized floppy funeral hat.

"I'm mourning." She replied simply.

"What exactly?" She prodded and Topanga groaned inwardly.

"The loss of my face." She explained as she pulled the hat off with a flourish and flipped the hair from her face. Maya gave a slight chuckle before slapping her hand over her mouth and Shawn only looked down.

"It's not…that bad." Maya swallowed before speaking, choosing her words very carefully. Eventually, Shawn silenced her and the three settled back into their chairs uncomfortably, ready for the debate.

She hadn't missed much in the day she was gone. Apparently, Shawn, Maya, and Riley gave Farkle's debate nemesis, Smackle, a makeover but really the girl was just using them for debate material since today's debate topic was: "Is Beauty Really Skin-Deep?" Topanga couldn't agree with the girl's methods but she couldn't deny that it wasn't a clever plan. She would have been a whole lot more interested if she wasn't so miserable about her face. Also, apparently Shawn had lost his little interest in Riley which was a blessing from the heavens because she was afraid she was actually going to have to fight Shawn for a moment there. But for now, he was sitting contentedly between Maya and Riley as they watched the debate unfold.

Lucas stepped down from his (sort of lame) concluding argument and Smackle finally made her way up to the microphone. Shawn wasn't lying when he claimed he had given the girl an "extreme-home-makeover makeover". She fit in now, but Topanga knew for a fact that changing your face doesn't affect your brains. She had gone through that herself during the transition of middle school to high school. However, now she was back in middle school once more and she had a right to be self-conscious. There was a whole lot more pressure on her back now that she was fated to marry Cory and look so downright gorgeous everyday and have two kids. Geez, nobody appreciated her sometimes for all the hard work she would eventually do.

"Gosh, I'm like so totally unprepared and scared." Smackle giggled breathily into the microphone, sounding like a complete ditz. The entire auditorium went silent for a moment and the only noise that could be heard was two of the John Quincy Adams debate nerds high-fiving in victory. "Maybe that's what you would assume I would say considering the effort I put into my appearance." She tacked on and Topanga felt herself grin proudly under her floppy hat, silently cheering on Smackle.

"I'm here to argue that beauty actually is skin-deep." The girl started with a shaky breath, looking a lot more natural now that she finally fit in with the rest of the 21st century. "So, I've done some research and learned that it is. When you get compliments form people who don't ordinarily compliment you," She provided for example, taking a quick glance over to Shawn and Lucas before continuing. "When people look at you differently," this time she looked over to both her team and the opposing team. "I've realized that packaging does matter. I wasn't pretty, then I was." The girl smiled shakily at Riley and Maya. "We live in a society where pretty seems better somehow. Which is too bad, but it's not debatable. However, I also learned that if you get swept up by what you are on the outside you can lose who you are on the inside. Even though it is easy to be fooled by the beauty of a Trojan horse, its real power comes from the army within intelligence, compassion, integrity, courage. That army is the real you, no matter what you look like.
So even though beauty may be skin deep, beauty is nowhere near as important as the army inside." She concluded with a grin and the entire auditorium exploded into cheers and clapping. Topanga jumped up from her seat, removing her hat and her hair quickly to reveal her face. She was just so moved by Smackle's speech, she couldn't help it! However, Shawn could and he moved to put the hat back on her head before anybody could really see her face. She regained her bearings and thanked Shawn before continuing clapping for the debate winner.

As the gang (including Smackle) all went out for smoothies at the bakery Riley lived above, Topanga squished into the crowded booth next to Cory and finally removed her hat once more, giving him a slight smile. Who cared about beauty? Cory loved her for who she was, and who she was in that moment was someone strong with the confidence of a hundred Greek soldiers.

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That was long and really, really, really freaking cheesy. Sorry about that guys but I guess I'll get back into the hang of this whole thing soon. Next update next week on Saturday! Hope you liked these two comeback chapters and don't forget to review!