"I would like to apologize."

They sat somewhat apart, separated by a few feet of space on the concrete wall. No one else had the nerve to take the space between them. Marie sat with her feet up, her knees drawn close to her chest. Eddward was bent forward, hunched with his arms braced in his lap, staring at the ground.

After a moment, he mustered the courage to turn his head and see her face. She was looking back at him with the one eye that wasn't obscured by blue bangs. Her mouth quirked up in a smile that, while subdued and somewhat rueful, was in no way insincere.

"Am I really the one you should be apologizing to?"

Eddward straightened his back, though he remained bent forward, leaning on his knees. "I upset you. That was never my intention." He paused, and he hoped she could forgive him for turning his face away again, just long enough to mutter, "I am sorry, Marie."

She could. "It's all right, Edd. And... I know I kind of jumped into the middle of things without asking. And if I hurt you by doing that, then I'm sorry, too."

He nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and the two of them sat for a few moments in a comfortable, companionable silence.

At length, Marie slid her feet down to the ground again and leaned back, planting her hands behind her. "But seriously, I know you don't get along with him at all, but he deserves an apology."

Sullen silence.

"He helped you, Edd."

"I am aware of that," Edd answered bluntly. He paused. "I am not looking forward to it, however."

"Well, no one ever does. Don't know what to say?"

"Among other things."

Marie grinned. "You're a genius. You'll think of something. Maybe you can put a bunch of 'Sorry' labels on his locker or something."

"Now you're being purposely obtuse." With a sigh, Edd got to his feet.

"Where're you going? You think of something already?"

The corner of his mouth turned upward in a smile, his lips parting just enough to show teeth. "Perhaps."

"That's the spirit. See you later, Double D."

"Of course, Marie." Eddward pointed himself in the direction of the track, and started walking.

There had been no care or caution in this theft.

Why would there be? The crime had been committed in full view of the notebook's owner, wagged proudly in his face as the culprits practically danced upon his helplessness in their triumph. There was no point in hiding it when, not only was their victim aware of them, but entirely helpless to do anything about it. It was half-forgotten by now, anyway; in a few days, whoever happened to be holding it would probably discover the unwanted thing in his backpack and leave it in a dumpster somewhere. Everyone would move on with their lives, except the dork who would be minus one nerd-notebook, but everyone important would move on with their lives.

Except for the fact that none of that was actually going to happen.

No amount of caution could have stopped it, but the fact that the track runner who was carrying the thing had been in too much of a hurry to notice immediately that his backpack was open simply sped things along. Moreover, as he caught up to his two friends outside of the locker room after practice had run over into lunchtime, both either failed to notice or failed to see any point in telling him. Very considerate of them, really.

One rarely, however, fails to notice the distinct sensation of someone sliding something out of one's backpack. It was already done, deftly, almost carelessly, by the time the athlete whirled around in indignation.

"What the fuck, man, stay out of–" He stopped speaking when he saw who he had the pleasure of addressing. The other two turned around as well, a beat behind, and froze.

They had neither seen nor heard him approach.

"Very impressive, I must say, Jackson, was it?" Eddward Rockwell mused, flipping idly through the pages of a familiar red notebook. Sunlight reflected and winked off of his dogtags, which hung shining clean and polished in their proper place around his neck. The three of them avoided looking at them, or at each other. "And here I was under the impression that you were failing Introduction to Physics. Why, these designs display a knowledge of mechanical engineering that goes far beyond basic, when, last I checked, your own knowledge barely scratched the surface of rudimentary." Never once did he raise his voice, but the last few words were harsh and cutting.

"Come on, man, that's not yours." Impelled by some stubborn boldness, or perhaps by the slight to his intelligence that not even the swim captain's vocabulary could disguise, Jackson made a grab for the stolen item. His hand, though aiming for the notebook, inevitably came closer to the other formerly-stolen item that now rested against Eddward's chest.

It was difficult to discern whether the snapping sound was from the notebook shutting, or from Eddward seizing him by the wrist. His grip was vicelike, painful, and his thumbnail dug into skin in such a way that the harder Jackson pulled back, the deeper it sank.

"Ow, ow – hey!"

"Really?" Eddward hissed, before any of them could demand he let go. "Is that your argument? Are you certain you wouldn't like to think of another? Phone a friend?" Green eyes, narrowed into angry slits beneath his hat, flicked past him to bore into the other two. If they had been entertaining any ideas of freeing their friend, they now reconsidered them. "Did you honestly think," he went on, "that I would not find out?"

One of the other two attempted to weasel a way out for them all. "Find out about wha–"

"I was speaking rhetorically, so shut. Up."

The halfhearted lie died in his mouth.

"So help me," Eddward snarled. "If you enjoy your lives as they are now, your current privileges and luxuries of school and shallow little friendships, you will keep your filthy hands off of what is not yours."

"Yeah?" the third broke in boldly. "Even if we don't, there's three of us and one of you. How the hell would you stop us?"

Eddward smiled past his angry grimace, and held up the notebook as if teasing an animal with it. "I wouldn't have to, if you continue to be this careless. But... if you ever, ever touch my things again, I will ruin you." His eyes flashed with anger. "Do you believe I will not, or cannot?"

Jackson stared at the ground, his arm limp in Eddward's grasp. With one last dig of his nail, Eddward released him, and he yanked his arm away and stumbled back. The third boy, cowed and unsettled and burning with indignity, turned his face toward the other two.

"Shit, the little dweeb told." It was barely a whisper, only a notch above simply mouthing the words.

"I find it insulting," Eddward answered dryly, "that you believe I would require him for such information. Oh, I might be led astray temporarily, but I always find out about things that... upset me. Do not for one moment think that I repeat mistakes, or that I will ever look the other way again." He looked at each of them in turn, injecting a hard meaning into each word that not even mediocre track athletes of mundane intelligence could miss. "Do try to exercise a bit more prudence in the future. If there is one for you. After all, whether or not I consider this matter settled is my business, though it may become yours very soon." He turned away, tucking the notebook under his arm. "I encourage you to think about that, anyhow. Good day, gentleman."

They did not follow him.

Juniors, he thought dismissively. Old enough to be upperclassmen, and young enough to be foolish about it. He might not have tried this by himself, had they been of equal standing. Proper revenge would take some more thinking, of course. And perhaps a bit of delegation.

His assertion had been more or less true, anyway; Kevin had not, in fact, told him of the specific culprits. However, he remembered their faces from the other day, when he had witnessed them assaulting Kevin in an empty hallway. He had seen Jackson shoving the notebook in his backpack, deaf to Kevin's protests, as the other two beat their victim bloody. Once he knew the full story, and recalled what few words Kevin had managed to shout at him as he had walked away, the connection was utterly transparent. It had taken moments for him to work it out on his own, this time with a clear head.

Still.

He had been wrong.

Disgusted, either with himself or with the students he had just left, he distracted himself by inspecting his thumbnail. A bit of blood darkened beneath the crescent, crusting and drying against the keratin. He grimaced.

"Filthy, filthy, filthy," he muttered, and jogged to duck into the nearest restroom.

Kevin found himself dreading AP Physics a bit more than normal. It was one of the classes he shared with Eddward, and after his outburst during break, even after the pep talk he had just received during lunch, he was reluctant to face him again that day.

Nazz shared this class with him, which was a mercy, especially since she sat only two desks down, while Eddward had been assigned a seat farther to the back. He had yet to arrive. Nervously, Kevin glanced at her, and she offered an encouraging smile. It only helped a little, but it did help.

He pulled out his homework from the night before, and placed it on his desk as close to him as he could nudge it without sliding it all the way into his lap. Head bowed, he bent over it so that he didn't have to look at anyone that came through the door, even in the corner of his vision. With one hand he braced the side of his head and propped it up with his elbow on the desk. With the other, he traced over the paper with the tip of his pencil on the pretense of checking his answers.

Familiar footsteps almost dragged his gaze upward, but he lowered his head farther, narrowed his eyes, and refused to answer the urge, even when they approached him at an easy pace. Eddward was going to pass right by him, damn it, even though his body language and the fact that he was only taking up the portion of his desk closest to him were jointly screaming GO AWAY. Though, let's face it, it wasn't as if he would have expected Eddward to pay attention, even on the best of days.

The footsteps were almost at his desk now. Kevin braced himself. He's not there. Just pretend he's not there. As if that had ever worked before.

A pause, right in front of him and a touch to the right. And then, something placed gently on his desk, and slid toward him with a careful hand. Kevin did not look up, even as Eddward stepped past him without a word.

Once he heard Eddward take his seat behind him, Kevin mustered the nerve to lift his eyes to the object in front of him.

He sat bolt upright, eyes going wide with shock.

His red notebook, full of diagrams and designs and notes and sketches that he could hardly bear to show anyone, the one that he had more or less given up for lost, now lay before him, smelling faintly of disinfectant spray. Like most things that came into Eddward's possession, it was neatly labeled.

Apology.

Kevin gaped at it, only just managing to keep from going slack-jawed like an idiot. Struck by a sudden boldness, he glanced as casually as he could over his shoulder. Apparently, Eddward had chosen the same strategy he had, and now sat with his face resting in one hand, apparently going over his notes from yesterday. Kevin was about to turn around again when the swimmer's eyes flickered up and met his.

For a moment the two of them simply stared at each other, one bewildered and searching, the other guarded and hiding.

After a moment, Eddward broke the eye contact and returned to his notes. Kevin turned back to his notebook and opened it.

The first page had been defaced, regrettably, but to his good fortune they had apparently gotten bored quickly. He flipped through the pages, relieved that there were no more scrawlings of "NERD" and "DWEEB" and "VIRGIN" on the rest of his designs, although...

Someone had gone in and made corrections, he realized with no small amount of annoyance. That he was unable to argue with most of the corrections did little to lessen it. Rolling his eyes, he turned to the last page and glanced at the diagram he had been working on just before he had lost it.

No corrections. No additions, no crossed-out portions of his notes. Just two words scrawled in the margin.

Thank you.

Well, hell. Maybe there was hope for the human race thing after all.

And that's the last of it. Thank you all for your kind comments, and for giving my humble little story a chance to entertain you. If you read this and enjoyed it, then consider me gratified.

I have another story in the works, also Reverse!Kevedd (the universe, at least; as with this story, the pairing itself won't actually happen, at least romantically). It will be titled "On the Head of a Pin", and I hope to start posting in the foreseeable future.

Happy reading, lovelies!