It was a surprisingly nice day out considering the torrents of rain we had been getting hit with these past few weeks. It got so bad that some mornings I would wake up and believe my apartment somehow ended up under water. That would be bad. I may have made machine that could travel through time, but I still couldn't breather underwater…. Maybe that should be my next project…. But you know what they say; April showers bring May flowers. Spring was on its way and that made me happy. I really hated winter, not only because of the traumatic experiences I had during the season, but also because I hated the cold. I could stand one-hundred degree weather and feel perfectly fine, but as soon as it got bellow sixty-five degrees I was ready to kill myself.

I was walking outside, on my way to complete one very important mission. Today was Thursday and as such I was on my way to meet my rival. You know what else they say; know your enemy. Francis showed me the little indoor terrace where Arthur and his significant other would be eating on this fine day. My job was to get in there, strike up a conversation, and find out everything I could about Gregory without seeming like a total creep. I had spent all night thinking of the perfect battle strategy and I was sure that I had gotten it. This was gonna be good.

I entered the terrace as casually as possible. It wasn't over crowded, but there were a few students and other teachers sitting at the various tables with lunchtime goodies. Of course, sitting in the corner of the room was Arthur and… I think that was Greg, but I had never seen him before. He wasn't facing me so all I could see was that he had dark hair. I went up the line and grabbed myself a cup of coffee and a doughnut just to make myself seem a little less suspicious.

I gave a little glance in Arthur's direction. Man… it was still so weird seeing him. I had spent for years constantly reminding myself of the fact I would never see Arthur alive. I would only see him as a ghost held frozen in time between cardboard backing and a sheet of glass. The feeling that welled in my heart was strange and hard to explain and I had yet to figure out what it all meant.

Arthur had been my life when he was alive. I tried to spend nearly every moment I could with him by my side. All the times when he wasn't sitting at the table across from me or snuggling on the couch next to me I was always thinking of ways to see Arthur, to meet Arthur, to talk to Arthur. I loved him so dearly. And then, even when he was gone, I was still infatuated with Arthur. Finding Arthur, stopping Arthur, keeping Arthur from dying. Everything was just one big circle of Arthur.

Ever since I had met him my life had been infinitely revolving around the man and the entity that was Arthur Kirkland. He was the support in the building that was my life.

"Oh, they build buildings so tall~"

I wondered, when did I get like this?

I stole one more glance over to the corner of the room where Arthur was sitting. Now to just casually make my way over and-! I was too busy trying to remember everything I had planned that I didn't see the chair that the universe had placed in front of me. I crashed right into it causing quite the ruckus. The room got kind of quiet and everyone looked over at the idiot who didn't even see a chair that was obviously right in front of him. Great.

"Uh… ha-ha, got my head a little stuck the clouds… ha…" I tried to laugh it off, but no one seemed really interested and returned to their own conversations and meals. I didn't dare glance over in Arthur's direction now that I had made myself look like a moron. Abort mission! Abort mission! Now my heart was beating a million miles an hour and all I could think about was getting the hell out of there. Who the fuck was I kidding? I couldn't do this! I made a beeline for the closest exit, but before I could even make my way out a horribly familiar voice call my name.

If you're thinking that familiar voice belongs to Arthur you would be horribly mistaken. Unfortunately that familiar voice belong to Zach, the annoying student in my elven o'clock class who was only ever interested in my accomplishments and not me myself. "Professor Jones! Professor Jones!" He called eagerly as he ran up to me with a paper bag and coffee in hand.

I tried not to groan as I turned to answer his call, "Uh… hey Zach, what's up?" Might as well figure out what the damn kid wanted though I already had a feeling what it was.

"Are you busy? Are you going back to your office or something? If you aren't I was wondering if I could eat lunch with you." To be honest, I think I would have rather be covered in honey and have an army of fire ants let loose over my skin. Still, I forced a smile on my face and tried to act like I wished I was on fire instead.

"Yeah sure, Zach, that sounds awesome." I agreed. The boy's eyes lit up as if I had just totally made his life and an uncontrollable grin spread over his round face.

"R-really! That's so cool, Professor Jones! Thanks a bunch!" The two of us sat down at a nearby table and instantly Zach started rambling on about something or other. I tried to pay attention to him as best as I could, but I found trying to hold his gaze difficult. My eyes kept wandering to that isolated little corner where Arthur was laughing and talking with Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome. I loved the way Arthur's lips curved carefully around every single word he uttered as if every one of them were a precious treasure to be handled with the utmost care. I loved the little amused glint that flashed in his eyes whenever he wanted to laugh, but didn't so he could remain the reserved gentleman he claimed himself to be. I loved every twist and wave of his elegant hands as he used them to further express and stress whatever it was he was talking about. All these little quirks… I knew them so well. They captivated me and made my heart swell to wonderfully dangerous proportions. He was so wonderfully endearing.

"Professor?" I tumbled out of my Arthur induced stupor to see Zach looking over at me with one dark ginger brow cocked in confusion.

"W-what?" I had to admit, the transition was a little rough. Whenever I saw Arthur I tended to let my wander into this little world of happiness and light; a world I hadn't allowed myself to be in after that same Arthur had died in the car accident. I always tended to get a bit sucked in to my dreamy little world which made me unresponsive to Zach.

Zach chewed his inner cheek a bit, reaching one finger out to poke the squishy white bread of his cafeteria bought sandwich. "You're not very subtle, are you?" he asked bluntly as his gave me a little look from under the top line of his lashes.

I frowned a bit, "That's a little harsh…" I replied though I had been called one of the least subtle people on earth more than once and by more than one person. "Why would you say that?" I asked as he took a sip of my coffee that had been thoroughly watered down with a bit of cream and a load of generic sugar packets.

Zach looked as me as if he knew I knew what he was talking about. I didn't know what he knew, but he sure thought I knew. Now I was just sounding confusing. "You know…" Know I didn't. "You keep staring at Professor Kirkland…" He said, dropping his voice a little lower and giving his head a minor jerk in the direction of Arthur's table.

I pretended to act like I was totally wasn't just staring Arthur down and admiring the way he spoke each and every word with such delicate care or how his green eyes shone like emerald gem stones. "What? Me? Him? No, no, no I was just, uh… I was just admiring that painting that's hanging over his head. Very nice piece of art. Did a student make that? Very talented. I like art. How about you Zach? You like art? Ever been to the Met? Super cool place." I launched a battalion of questions and comments in an attempt to dissuade Zach from the path he was following. Of course it didn't work. Zach was much too sharp and cunning to fall for my little trick.

"Don't play coy, Professor?" Jeeze, where did this kid get off? If I had talked to any of my professors like this when I was in college I probably would've gotten some sort of demerit…. Wow, that made me sound really old despite the fact I was only twenty six. I didn't have a problem with being friends with my students, but I think I drew the line when they started poking into my love life. Wouldn't most people? "You've been staring at him practically the whole time I was talking. If you weren't so absorbed in staring, then what was I talking about?"

Now that I really didn't know. It was true. I had been so infatuated with Arthur that I really hadn't heard a word Zach had said, "Uh… something… something about the time machine?" Which was a good guess since that was the thing Zach asked me about most.

"Nope. I was talking about my experimentation with teleportation." Teleportation? Damn. If he could pull that then he'd pretty much kick me off the pedestal of the world genius. Truth is, I don't think I'd mind if I was.

"O-oh…" Was all I said since I was bit on the guilty side now. Zach had seemed so excited about getting to eat lunch with me and I just pressed him into the background. Just blocked him out and ignored him like he wasn't worth my time. I must seem like an ass. "Sorry, Zach… it's just I… I have a lot on my mind. My whole has taken a sudden one-eighty and I'm finding it hard to figure out just which direction I'm supposed to be going in…." Which actually wasn't a total lie. Seeing Arthur back from the dead as pretty much hurled me into an unending spiral of everything confusing and then some. Then again how could it not? Seeing people back from the dead wasn't a normal occurrence even for a man with a time machine.

"S'okay…" He said with a little shrug of his shoulders. "I'm kinda used to people blocking me out. I know I talk too much and I can be kind of a smarty pants…" He brought a little smile to his lips, but it was just the ghost of one mixed in with a deeply buried hurt. "I'm used to it…." If I didn't feel like an asshole before I definitely felt like one now. He wasn't trying to evoke any kind of pity or sympathy- that much I could tell. He was just a genuine kid who was genuinely hurt and that was all.

I guess I understood the feeling. Although I wasn't friendless or anything like that, but I wasn't the most popular kid in school ten years ago. I wasn't a teacher's pet, but I might as well have been. I was smarter than the other kids and they ignored me for it. They didn't want anything to do with me unless I did their homework or let them cheat off of me during a test. I loved attention, I loved being social, but I wasn't a cheat. So I only had a small group of a few okay friends that hardly stayed in touch when high school ended and that was all. Maybe that was partly what inspired me to start building my time machine. Loneliness and a general lack of things to do.

I pressed my lips together and looked down at my umber coffee through the little hole in its Styrofoam lid. Just a sliver of me was visible in the surface. Just a fraction of the whole that was myself. I suddenly saw a lot of myself in Zach. A bright, talkative boy with brains, loneliness, and a general lack of things to do. "Y'know what, Zach?" I started, looking up from the sliver of my reflection. "I really want to hear about that experiment. Why don't we head over to my office and you can show me what formulas you're working with?"

Zach's eyes lit up like the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, "R-really?" He asked as if he almost didn't believe what I had offered.

"Yeah, totally. Let's blow this popsicle stand." I confirmed before I stood up from my seat, taking my leftover coffee and doughnut wrapped into a nearby waste bin. Zach did the same and eagerly started gushing about the physics behind his experiment.

I looked behind my shoulder for one wistful glance at Arthur still sitting at his table speaking those carefully spoken words. I wanted to be with Arthur. I wanted to sit next to Arthur and look at Arthur and listen to Arthur and share Arthur's thoughts and feelings and emotions. I wanted to be within Arthur, take in his influence and essence and bury myself in its warmth. I had been so starved of him in the years past…. But, something told me that for now I should just leave him be. Something told me not to start rebuilding the ruble of my ruined life around the shrine that was Arthur as my support. I had done that once before and it had destroyed me in the end. Without Arthur to hold me up I was broken without any hope of being fixed.

I wanted to be hopeful that in the end my love would win out in the end. I had always been a positive thinker, but I supposed it couldn't hurt to be catious. Arthur wouldn't be my support beam he would just be a centerpiece that could come and go as it pleased. My life may be a little more dull, but not completely collapsible. I'd make my building stronger.

"Oh they build buildings so tall~"

The doujin "Stumbeline" Is not owned by me. It belongs to Hakuku on deviant art!