Okay everybody, I am happy to say that I am in fact getting caught up with my stories. Now that I have updated my four stories, I decided to get started on the one-shots. I had 12 people respond to my poll and the top vote is, you guessed it, "You Don't Talk Much, Do You". However, I have a feeling that some of you will be disappointed with this one. I bet when you voted, you expected it to be a Chlerek one-shot. However, this one is Derek and Simon. It is their first meeting when Derek is still with the Edison Group.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Darkest Powers

Sighing, I looked down at my work. We were learning how to add and the teacher was giving the other boys special treatment because they didn't understand it. I knew better though. I knew that they weren't even trying and that all they wanted was the attention. I didn't care. I understood how to add and I even knew how to subtract. I taught myself that. And because I understood it, I had already finished the packet they gave us. The bad side though was now I had nothing to do. We still had 15 minutes left of class and then they would let us out into the playground for a little while before we started reading. However, no matter how much time until the break, I still had nothing to do. Each day when they let us out, the other boys would go outside and play together, but I had nobody to play with. I had to sit by myself while I watched the others play. I didn't really want to play with them. They were mean and were always pushing me around. The nurses never did anything about it either. I learned fast that no matter how many times I told on them, they never got in trouble. Now I don't tell on them anymore.

"Alright, boys," the teacher said. "Time's up. You can put away your things and go outside."

The other boys rushed out of their seat so fast that their chairs flew back and toppled over. They didn't even bother picking them up. I, however, took my time putting my math stuff in my desk and then standing up, pushing in my chair. As I walked by the teacher, I couldn't help but notice the small look of disgust on her face. I didn't think anything about it though. Instead, I kept walking out of the classroom and into the hallway. As I was walking down the hall, I heard my name being called. I stopped and turned around. A tall man with black hair was walking toward me. With him was a boy who looked like him but with blond hair. I knew the man. His name was Kit. He sometimes came to talk to the other adults. Sometimes he brought me stuff, like candy. I didn't know the boy though.

"Hi, Derek," Kit said, stopping in front of me.

"Hello," I said.

"How have you been?" he asked.

"Fine," I said.

"That's good," he said. "I want you to meet somebody."

He looked behind him and motioned for the little boy to walk up to me. The boy walked around him and stopped in front of me.

"Derek," Kit said, "This is my son, Simon."

"Hi," Simon said enthusiastically.

I was a little surprised by his enthusiasm in meeting me. Nobody liked meeting me. Hesitantly, I said, "Hi."

He didn't seem bothered by my hesitance. Instead, he just smiled.

"Derek," Kit said.

I looked up at him.

"I have to talk to Dr. Banks and I was wondering if you could watch Simon for me," he said.

Not wanting to be rude, I said, "Okay."

Kit smiled and said, "Thank you. Simon, I want you to listen to Derek, okay?"

"Sure, Dad," he said.

We watched as Kit walked down the hall in the direction he had come from and through a door. When the door closed, Simon turned to me and said, "What do you do for fun here?"

"Fun?" I asked, confused.

"Yeah," he said.

When I still looked confused, he said, "You know, what do you play with?"

"I don't," I said.

"What?" he said, surprised. "Don't you have any toys?"

"No," I said.

"How do you live?" he said, dramatically.

I shrugged, not knowing what to say.

"Well, where were you going?" he asked.

"Outside," I said.

"Well then, come on," he said and he started walking.

I didn't really know what to do, but Kit had asked me to watch Simon, so I followed him. When he passed the door to the outside, I stopped. He noticed I wasn't following him anymore and turned around. When he saw me standing at the door, he just smiled and walked back to me.

"This is the door?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Well then, out we go," he said, grabbing the handle and twisting it. He tried to pull it open, but he wasn't strong enough so I grabbed the middle of the door and helped him pull and with the two of us, we got the door open.

We stepped out into the sun and I held my hand up above my eye to block out the sun. I spent most of my day inside and this was the only time a day I got to go outside, so every time I did, I had to let my eyes adjust. As they did, Simon wondered off. When I could finally see, Simon was no longer next to me. I started to panic. It wasn't safe out here and I told Kit that I would watch Simon. I knew that if something happened to him, I would be punished.

I scanned the small playground but I couldn't find him. And what frightened me more was that I couldn't find the other boys. If they found Simon, they wouldn't hesitate to make him their next victim. They hated me and were constantly picking on me and hitting me. Simon was an outsider. Besides the fact that he didn't know what they could do, they would hate him more because he didn't belong.

I ran around the wall of the jungle gym and breathed a sigh of relief. Simon was standing there trying to reach a knotted rope. As I started to walk over to him, I froze. Standing a little ways off were the others. They were standing around the sand box. They didn't appear to have noticed Simon yet and I was determined to keep it that way. I walked over to Simon was grabbed his arm, pulling him towards the other side of the wall, trying not to make a sound which would draw the attention of the others. Simon, however, didn't get the message.

"What are you doing?" he asked, quite loudly.

At the sound of his voice, the others turned around.

"Let's go," I said, quietly.

"Why?" Simon said. "What about the jungle gym?"

"Not now," I said.

"Why not?" he said.

I looked over his shoulder at the others, who were looking at Simon like he was prey. Simon saw me look and turned around.

"You didn't say there were others," he said. "Let's go play with them."

He started to walk over to them and I quickly reached out and grabbed him arm to stop him. He felt my hand and turned to look at me. He gave me a questioning look and tried to pull his arm back. I held tight and shook my head.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Before I could answer, I voice came from behind him.

"What do we have here?"

I looked up to see the three other boys walking over to us. I didn't say anything. I just stood still, not wanting to anger them. They walked up to Simon and stopped. Simon reached out a hand and said, "Hi."

They looked at him for a minute and Dominic, the leader, stepped forward and pushed Simon down. Simon fell backward onto his butt and sat there, surprised. I stepped forward and shoved Dominic back, angry at what he had done to Simon. He tripped over his feet and fell back. He looked up and behind me. He started fake crying. The others looked behind me and started fake crying too. I turned around was instantly filled with fear. One of the adults was marching towards us. I knew that she had seen me push Dominic and I knew I was about to be punished. When she reached us, she looked at Simon on the ground and frowned. She then looked over at the others and her frown grew. She looked at me. I looked down, hoping to draw less attention to myself.

"Derek," she said. "Grab you friend and follow me."

I reached down and grabbed Simon's hand and pulled him to his feet. He brushed himself off and followed me, not saying a word. The adult led us through the door and into a room I was in whenever Dr. Banks asked me questions.

"You boys can stay here until Mr. Bae comes back," she said, walking out the door and shutting it behind her.

I was confused. Wasn't I going to be punished? This wasn't the type of punishment I usually got. I looked at Simon, who was now looking through all the cabinets. I shook my head and walked over to one of the chairs. I pulled myself into in and watched Simon as he explored every aspect of the room. After a while, he had nothing left to look at.

"I'm bored," he said.

I just sat there.

"We should do something," he said.

I still said nothing.

He looked over at me and I just stared back.

"You don't talk much, do you?" he asked.

I shook my head. He smiled and said, "Well, that's all right. I talk enough for the both of us."

At that, I smiled a little. When he saw my smile, his got even bigger. He walked over and sat in the chair next to me.

"So how old are you?" he asked.

"Five," I said.

"Cool," he said. "I'll be five soon. Then we'll be the same age. What do you like to do?"

I thought for a second before saying, "Reading."

"You can read?" he said, amazed. "I can't yet, but Dad said I will in September. That's when I start school. Do you go to school yet?"

"No," I said, not knowing what school was.

"Well, you're five, so I guess that means you'll be starting in the fall," he said. "Do you know what school you're going to?"

"What's school?" I asked.

He looked at me like I was crazy. "You don't know what school is?"

"No," I said.

"Well, school is…um… it's where you learn, I guess," he said.

"I learn here," I said.

"Really?" he said.

I nodded.

"Well, I guess that makes this school," he said.

"Oh," I said. "I don't like school."

"I don't think I like school either," he said, slumping in his chair.

"So, um, what do you like to do?" I asked.

He instantly perked up. "I like to draw. And I like to play basketball."

"What's basketball?" I asked.

"You don't know what basketball is?" he asked, his eyes going wide. "It's the best sport ever! There are two teams and each team tries to get points by throwing a ball into a hoop."

"Why?" I asked.

"Cause it's fun," he said.

He spent the rest of the time explaining the rules of basketball and everything related to it that came to mind. And I listened to every word. Nobody ever talked to me and Simon's willingness to talk to me nonstop was refreshing. I had never heard so many different kinds of words spoken in such a short time period. And Simon didn't care that I didn't have anything to add to the conversation. He always had something to say.

When he started to talk about different sports teams, the door opened. He stopped talking and we looked toward the door. When the door opened wider, Kit walked through.

"Hey Dad," Simon said.

"Hi," he said, "Did you boys find something to do?"

"Yeah," Simon said. "We talked about basketball. Did you know that Derek doesn't know what basketball is?"

Kit smiled and said, "Something tells me he does now. So you ready to go?"

"Yeah," he said. He hopped off his seat and walked over to Kit.

"Well, Derek, thank you for watching Simon," Kit said.

"You're welcome," I said.

"Bye Derek!" Simon said. "See you later."

"Bye," I said as Simon followed Kit out of the room. Not knowing what else to do, I just stayed sitting in the seat. I looked down at my hands in my lap. What did he mean by later? Does he want to come back? I remembered what the woman had said when she told me to come inside. She told me bring my friend. Was Simon my friend? I thought for a little bit and smiled. I have a friend.

So what do you think? I personally thought this was one of my better ones. It wasn't where I had originally planned on it to go, but I think this is better.