A/N: Just so no one's confused, school field trips can sometimes take place on the weekend, especially if it's a super special trip that you have to pay for.

And this chapter is kind of long since everyone's in it. Try not to fall asleep. ;)

Chapter Eighteen: The Beginning

5:30 A.M.

Vernon's alarm clock went off at 5:30 on Saturday morning, a good two and a half hours before it would have gone off had his plans included nine holes of golf instead of nine hours of boredom and misery babysitting a group of delinquents who couldn't manage to stay out of trouble for one goddamn day. Little brats.

He showered, shaved, and dressed himself quickly. On his way out the door, he stopped for a quick glimpse of his wife, Molly, who was still sound asleep in bed, her wild brown curls splayed across her cheek. Her body shifted slightly, one hand stretching out sleepily. Worried that she would wake up completely and drag him into some absurd discussion about who the hell knows what, Vernon quickly shut the bedroom door and made a break for the kitchen to fix his lunch.

He arrived at the school at about 6:40, irritated at the woman at the donut shop for mixing up his order, yet again. He sat down at his desk and pulled his bag of donuts from his briefcase. Then he started thumbing through the stack of papers on his desk to find the detention roster.

But it wasn't there. Vernon pushed his donuts to the side and started pawing through his inbox, glancing at every page to make sure that he wasn't missing anything. After a couple of minutes of searching, he still hadn't found it.

And then he remembered. He'd burned the damn thing and threw it away with the garbage. Vernon swore under his breath and grabbed the garbage can next to his desk. It was empty except for a fresh white trash bag.

"Shit," Vernon muttered. He couldn't remember who was supposed to be there. Bender, of course. And then that kid with the gun, Johnson something. And the girl whose father had called late Friday afternoon to get his daughter out of detention. But there were others, too. He just couldn't remember their names, or how many there were.

"Shit," he muttered again, just because it felt good to swear. "Shit, shit, shit!"

There had to be some way to take roll without admitting that he had lost the list, he reasoned. Maybe he could pass a paper around and have everyone sign in. Would that look stupid? Or maybe…

Vernon grabbed a stack of notebook paper from his desk drawer. Why do that when he could kill two birds with one stone? Students hated essays. He'd learned that lesson well enough during his days teaching English. What better way to take roll and get back at the students for making him miss his golf game? Vernon smiled and settled back in his seat.

How do you like that, huh, Bender?

5:43 A.M.

Andy woke up at 5:43 A.M. on Saturday morning, exactly two minutes before his alarm was set to go off. He flung an arm over his eyes to shield them from the sun that was already peaking over the rooftops and spilling into his bedroom through a space between the curtains. He turned over onto his side and nestled further under the covers, trying to get back to sleep.

But two minutes later, he was wide awake again. Blindly, he reached for his alarm clock and hit the top a couple of times until the beeping stopped. Tentatively, he opened is eyes. 5:45. Why the hell did he set his alarm so early? He didn't usually wake up on Saturdays until at least eight o'clock, later if he could help it.

He'd just managed to get comfortable again when it hit him that he had to be in detention in exactly one hour and fifteen minutes. He'd set his alarm so that he could get up and go for a run beforehand. "Shit," he muttered, throwing the covers aside.

The temperature outside was hovering somewhere around forty degrees, but the cold didn't bother Andy. He zipped up his fleece jacket and took off down the street, heading for the park next to the middle school. There was a trail there that he liked, one that he took when he wasn't with his father. It was shady and private, and the fact that no one knew he used it only added to its appeal.

As he ran, his thoughts turned back to the previous day's events. He remembered standing outside during the fire drill, watching his friends pull pranks on the two nerdy boys wearing gym shorts and embarrassed expressions. He remembered sitting in the locker room, taping up his knee, his father's words tumbling around in his head. He remembered the way the nerd's face felt under the weight of his knuckles, the sound of the tape being ripped from the boy's skin, the shocked silence that followed…

Before Andy knew it, he was back at the start of the trail, about five minutes ahead of schedule. He'd been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't even realized how fast he'd been running. He looked up at the sky, pale blue against the deep green forest he'd just emerged from, and suddenly felt exposed in the morning light. Part of him wanted to turn around and head back into the woods, where he could hide until he the rest of the world didn't hate him so much. Until he didn't hate himself so much.

But didn't do it. Instead, he paid careful attention to his speed as he made the slow jog back to his house. By that time, the sun had cleared the rooftops, and the temperature had risen by about ten degrees. Andy opened his front door and stepped inside. His mother was cooking breakfast. Pancakes maybe, or waffles, judging by the smell. He pulled his hood away from his head and walked into the kitchen.

His father was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. When Andy walked in, Mr. Clark looked up at his son long enough to make eye contact and nod, but didn't offer any verbal greetings. Andy took his seat at the table and looked over at his mother, who was watching him from her place next to the stove. She looked away quickly and wiped her hands on a dish towel on the counter. "Hungry?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah." Andy unzipped his jacket and poured himself a glass of orange juice. Mrs. Clark brought over a plate of pancakes from the kitchen counter and set them in the middle of the table. Mr. Clark turned a page in his newspaper and reached for his glass of milk.

Andy ate quickly, knowing he would need time for a quick shower before he left for detention. As he ate, he kept glancing over at his father, who still hadn't said a word about his fight or detention. Any minute now, any minute…

But the words didn't come. Finally, Andy wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood from his chair. "Thanks, Mom."

His mother nodded and looked over at her husband. Mr. Clark pulled the newspaper away and folded it up, setting it on the table in front of him. "You'd better hurry if you don't want to be late."

Andy nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Be down here in ten minutes. I'll take you to school."

Andy paused uncertainly. "I can drive myself. It's--"

"I'll take you," Mr. Clark said firmly. "Be down here in ten minutes."

Andy nodded mutely and turned away, knowing that it was pointless to argue. He trudged upstairs and stripped down to his sweatpants, throwing his sneakers across the room, where they landed with a heavy thud. His eyes settled on his desk, which glittered gold and silver and bronze in the morning light.

"Fucking fire drill," he muttered.

6:15 A.M.

Allison woke up on Saturday morning to find her cat Harold curled up in a ball right next to her head. She frowned sleepily, and he reached out to put a paw on the tip of her nose. Allison brushed the paw away and turned to look at the clock next to her bed. 6:15.

Allison sighed and glanced over at her sister's bed, which was empty. Danielle was probably out for her morning run. The thought of performing an activity that required so much energy that early in the morning made Allison even sleepier than she already was. She turned back over on her side and tried to go back to sleep.

But Harold had other plans. After a couple of minutes, she felt something brush against hr hair, and she opened her eyes to see Harold chewing on the dark strands. She pushed him away, but he hopped back onto her pillow and curled up next to her face, resting his chin against her forehead.

Allison sighed, frustrated. She sat up in bed and glared at Harold, who looked back at her innocently. She stuck her tongue out at him and stood up from the bed.

Downstairs, the kitchen was in chaos. The twins were going on a school field trip to the planetarium, and their mother was busy packing lunches. Allison's father was standing by the kitchen sink, talking on the phone.

"So, how about that math class you were telling your mother about? Are you maintaining that A?" he asked.

So, he was talking to Tom, Allison's older brother, who was finishing up his freshman year at Harvard. Allison sat down at the kitchen table next to her younger brother Steven, who was eating a bowl of cereal.

"You're up early," he said, pushing up his glasses with his index finger.

Allison nodded and reached for a spare bowl from the center of the table. She filled it with Cheerios and milk and started eating.

"That's good to hear. Do you think you'll make the Dean's List again this semester?" Her father paused, listening. Then he smiled proudly. "Well, that's good. Don't want to lose that scholarship now."

Allison's sister Jenny stood from her place at the table and took her plate over to the sink to be washed. Her mother looked up as she passed. "Jenny, do you have you bag packed?"

"No," answered the younger girl. "I was just about to go do it."

"Honey, do you have anything to say to Tom?" Mr. Reynolds asked, holding the mouthpiece away so as not to shout directly into the phone. "He's about to go downstairs to get breakfast."

"I want to talk to him!" Michelle exclaimed.

Mr. Reynolds shook his head. "Not now. Maybe later."

Michelle's face fell. "Okay."

Mrs. Reynolds sighed. "Tell him I'll call him back later. I have a million things to do right now."

Mr. Reynolds nodded and went back to the phone. Jenny and her mother started arguing about what the girls would need for their field trip. Beside her, Steven reached for the box of Cheerios, which were sitting next to Allison's bowl. His arm was just a little bit too short. Allison wiped her mouth with her sleeve and reached over to hand it to him, but she was too late. Steven's fingers brushed against the box, knocking it over. Cheerios spilled all over the wooden table.

"Steven!" their mother exclaimed.

Steven's cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I didn't--"

"Clean it up," she responded shortly.

Allison started wiping up Cheerios with her hands, pushing them into a pile at the center of the table. She glanced up to see her mother shaking her head angrily, stuffing ham sandwiches into their sacks. Beside her, Steven was silent as he helped Allison push the pieces of cereal into the pile.

"Detention. Tomorrow."

Allison's mother threw the sandwich bag into Jenny's pick lunchbox and shut the lid. Then she grabbed the dustpan from the pantry and walked over to the table, thrusting it into Allison's hand.

"Honey, Tom says that he won't be around the dorm today," said Mr. Reynolds. "He and his roommate are going to the city library to study for a big Latin test."

"Well, I can't talk to him right now," she responded angrily, glaring at Steven. Steven bit his lip and went back to sweeping up Cheerios.

"I'll see you tomorrow at 7 A.M."

Jenny walked back into the room with her backpack in one hand. "Mom, I can't find my shoes!"

"They're under your bed," Michelle informed her, mouth full of cereal.

"No, they're not!" Jenny said. "I looked there already."

"Honey, Tom says that he just has a quick question to ask you. It'll only take a minute."

"I have detention."

Everyone stopped to look at Allison, who was still standing at the table holding the dust pan. "At seven o'clock," she said quietly.

"Today?" her father asked.

Allison nodded. "If I'm late I have to clean chalkboards."

Allison's mother sighed angrily. "Great. We're already running late as it is." She grabbed an extra sandwich bag and started spreading mayonnaise on a piece of bread.

Allison looked down at Steven, who was still standing next to her, clutching a handful of cereal in his right hand. He looked up at her, squinting through his thick glasses.

"I guess that's why you had to get up early," he observed.

Allison sighed and held out the dust pan for him.

6:20 A.M.

Claire arrived downstairs on Saturday morning to find her father sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. When she entered the room, he lowered the paper and smiled fondly. "Good morning, Princess. How did you sleep?"

Claire took a seat next to him. "Fine."

"That's good." He patted her hand and picked up the paper again.

Claire glared at the back page of the newspaper. "Did you talk to Mr. Vernon?" she asked.

Mr. Standish lowered the paper again. "Sorry, sweetheart?"

Claire sighed. "I asked if you talked to Mr. Vernon, the vice principal." She paused. "You know, about my detention."

Mr. Standish smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I did call, but Mr. Vernon was very firm. He said that it wouldn't be fair to the others if you didn't have to go."

"What others?" Claire asked indignantly. "The stoners? Daddy, they do drugs! Of course they deserve to be there. I didn't do anything."

"Yes, you did. You skipped school."

Claire turned to see her mother standing right behind her, holding a pitcher of orange juice in one hand. She lifted an eyebrow. "Juice?"

Claire didn't respond. She turned back to the table and grabbed a piece of toast from the plate at the center of the table. Her mother set the pitcher down beside her own glass and sat down at the seat across from Claire's.

Claire reached for the butter, deliberately ignoring her mother, who was watching her. For the next few minutes, the table was silent except for the sound of her father turning the pages of his newspaper.

Finally, Claire put her toast down and looked up at her mother. "Daddy, there's a party I want to go to tonight," she said, her eyes never leaving her mother's face.

Her father pulled the paper away. "Alright. You can take the car," he said distractedly.

Mrs. Standish cleared her throat. "Actually, she can't. Claire is grounded."

Mr. Standish glanced up at his wife. "Is she?"

Mrs. Standish nodded. "I told you that last night," she responded evenly.

"You told me a lot of things last night," he replied coolly. "I apologize for having forgotten that one detail."

Claire's mother didn't respond to that. She looked over at Claire, who was still glaring at her from across the table. "You know you're not going to the party," she said.

Claire shook her head. "This isn't fair."

Mrs. Standish ignored the comment. "That means no car privileges either. I'll drive you to school."

Claire shook her head. "No, I want Dad to drive me."

Mr. Standish glanced over at his wife smugly, but Mrs. Standish wasn't paying attention to him. She was still staring at her daughter, her expression hard and unsympathetic. But as Claire continued glaring at her, she noticed that her mother's eyes were sad. Sad and tired.

Claire looked away. "I'll be ready in a few minutes," she informed her father. Then she placed her napkin on the table and went upstairs to get ready.

6:31 A.M.

Brian's mother set a plate of waffles in the center of the table and glanced down at Brian's empty plate. "Are you hungry?" she asked.

Brian nodded, though it really wasn't true. In fact, he was feeling a bit sick to his stomach thinking about the detention he had that morning. In less than thirty minutes, he would have to walk into a room of total strangers--half of whom could probably beat him within an inch of his life if they found reason to, or if they just got bored--and he was too nervous to even think about eating. But his mother was watching him, waiting for him to take a waffle, so he did.

"Is that all you want?" his mother asked him. "You probably won't eat lunch for another five or six hours. You'd better eat until you're full."

"Yeah," said his sister Jamie, who was sitting next to him, smiling smugly.

Brian looked back at his mother and nodded. He took two more waffles from the platter and moved them onto his own plate.

When his mother stepped away from the table, Brian looked back at his sister, whose mouth was full of mashed up waffle and maple syrup. When she noticed him watching her, she made a face at him. "What are you looking at?" she demanded angrily.

Brian sighed and looked away. He knew that Jamie was mad at him for the way he'd yelled at her the night before. Usually, he let her come in and play dolls on his floor while he did his homework, and he figured that he'd hurt her feelings when he'd kicked her out of his room. Not that he blamed her. He hated himself for it, too.

Mrs. Johnson walked back up to the table and sat down at the seat across from her children. Brian started cutting his waffles into small bites, hoping that his mother wouldn't notice that he hadn't touched his food yet. A few minutes passed without anyone saying anything. Brian gulped down his food, hardly noticing the way it tasted.

After a few minutes, Mrs. Johnson set her fork down and wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Don't forget your backpack," she told her son. "You can work on your homework while you're there."

Brian opened his mouth to correct her, but Jamie interrupted him. "Yeah," she said, using the sing-song voice that drove him crazy.

Brian sighed and stood from the table. "I'm going to get ready," he told his mother.

She nodded. "Be back down in five minutes."

Brian nodded and went upstairs. He brushed his teeth quickly and walked into his bedroom to find his shoes. Then he grabbed his backpack from the floor next to his desk, not even bothering to make sure that he'd packed the right books.

Mr. Vernon had informed him the day before that he wouldn't be able to do homework during detention on Saturday, but Brian didn't know how he felt about that. Part of him was relieved by the rule because it gave him a required break from his studies, but the other part of him was disappointed. He had nine hours to sit there and do nothing except think about the F and the flare gun and how he'd screwed everything up, for himself and his parents. At least homework would provide a welcome distraction. How was he going to sit there all day and not go crazy with worry?

Brian sighed and closed his eyes, letting his bag fall to the floor. The better question was, how was he going to survive another day in this house without his heart giving out from the anxiety he'd worked so hard to keep packed away where he could pretend it didn't bother him? He tried to imagine what it would be like to continue down the path he was going, to keep working hard without saying anything to his parents. He tried, but he just couldn't see it. He couldn't see anything beyond the four walls of his bedroom, couldn't see past this moment where he was standing there alone, surrounded by silence.

"Brian! We're waiting for you!"

Brian's eyes fluttered open. "I'm coming!" he shouted. He took another deep breath, lifted his backpack off of the floor, and went downstairs.

6:43 A.M.

Bender woke up to the sun in his eyes, but it was different than the sun that poked through the holes in his shabby curtains back home. Confused, Bender sat up and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Then he realized that he was sitting on the couch in Zeke's living room, and that the blanket covering him came from Zeke's bed.

Bender looked around and found his combat boots sitting on the floor next to the couch. His trench coat and denim jacket were laid out over the arm of the sofa chair a few feet away. He grabbed those and shrugged them on over his red flannel shirt. Just as he finished pulling on his trench coat, Zeke walked into the room, his hair wild from sleep.

"Hey."

Bender nodded in greeting. "How's Billy?"

"Still asleep."

Bender nodded. Billy had woken up just after Bender had left to go find Damien. The boys took him back to Zeke's house, where he promptly fell asleep in Zeke's bed. Davis left shortly thereafter, but Bender wasn't in any hurry to get back to his own house. Zeke offered Bender the couch and slept on his own floor so that he could watch after Billy.

"You want some cereal or something?"

Bender shook his head. "I have to go."

Zeke frowned sleepily. "It's not even seven yet."

"I have detention."

"Oh." Zeke wiped his eye with the back of his hand. "Well, you can come over again when you're done. Watch TV or something."

Bender nodded. "Yeah." He pulled his sunglasses out of his trench coat and started walking towards the door. "See ya later."

He took the back roads until one of them dead-ended into the athletic fields behind the school. As he walked, he thought about what the hell he was going to do about Damien. As elusive as the guy was, Bender knew him well enough to know that he was going to come after him for attacking him at the club and for stealing his knife. Maybe not right away, but it would happen, Bender could be sure of it. The best that he could do was try to be ready.

But right then, he had a detention to worry about. He'd been to Saturday detention before, and he knew how fucking boring it could be. Nine hours of sleeping at his seat and playing air guitar. He'd rather jam broken pencils into his ear drums than endure another day like that.

But maybe he wouldn't have to.

Bender crossed the parking lot, not even bothering to keep the sly smirk off of his face. He noticed a grey Cadillac approaching to his right, but he didn't slow down. The Cadillac screeched to a halt just inches from his right leg, but he pretended not to notice, just kept walking. He pulled open the double doors and walked down the hallway, heading for the library.

When he pulled open the library doors, the first thing he noticed was a girl sitting on the front row. She had short red hair, and she was wearing an expensive-looking leather jacket over a light pink shirt. When she looked up to see who had just walked in, their eyes met for a split second, and Bender would swear that he saw her lips part involuntarily.

Perhaps detention wouldn't be so boring after all.

The Beginning

A/N: So, my goal for this story was that someone could read this story and immediately start watching the film, and that the two stories would flow together as one. Hopefully I succeeded. ;)

Thanks to everyone who has read this story and reviewed. I really enjoyed writing it, I'm sad to see this story end, but I'm glad that so many people enjoyed reading it. I have a lot of ideas for new stories, so if you want to receive updates from me, then put me on your author alerts. Thanks again for reading! Please let me know what you thought of this final chapter.