I still haven't decided where I'm going with this - please review and say if you'd like to see more in this "fic universe", or if I should move on to some Attack of the Bullies speculation/future fic. :)

I've got an idea for a High School fic (au as for VV, but whatever) where the kids have been pulled into different high schools and reunite at a football game to go save the world (of course). And one that's my idea for Attack of the Bullies - involving the school dance and their work/school lives colliding. Thoughts?

"You really should see him, Ruby."

She bristles at the use of her name. "It's been two days, Gluestick, and there's no urgent need for me to observe him personally, especially as there's so much to do with Brand and Holiday and..."

"Ruby, it's got nothing to do with the team. You should see him. Personally. Talk to him. The rest of us did yesterday."

Ruby rolls her eyes, set to walk away…

"...And we kind of mentioned you to him."

"You what?" She spins around and scratches at the back of her neck.

"It was an accident!" Duncan insists, backing away.

"I told you I didn't want to be apart of this, okay? Why couldn't you just respect that?"

Duncan expression begins to lose it's usual calm. "It was an accident," he repeated, "and you can't hide from him forever, Ruby."

She turns away from him. "I did go in. Yesterday, after you guys left. He was asleep. He… he doesn't look like Heathcliff. Heathcliff was vicious. This kid is… he's hiding it under a friendly exterior, and we're going to have to be on our toes. We can't let him get the best of us."

Duncan just looks at her, slowly shaking his head. "He's not any different. Or at least, he's not any different than the boy he was when he first joined the team."

"I know my own team mates, Gluestick. He was always like that. Always."

"No, he wasn't," Duncan replies. "You just never allowed yourself to get to know him when he was a guy worth knowing, okay? You didn't want to be friends with any of us. You only started becoming our friend after Jackson arrived. He never got that chance."

Ruby can't remember Duncan ever telling her off like this. Ever. She's angry, but she lets him continue ranting, as she scratches still. She's allergic to confrontations. And being told she's wrong. And Duncan Dewey having a backbone.

"Give him this chance, okay? Give him the chance to be a normal kid, and then decide whether or not he's a monster that's not worth your time. It's not fair to him, Ruby. I know you're hurt about what he did to you— the team. I mean, what he did to the team. But he's a different person, and you need to treat him like one."

"I can't," she responds immediately. "He's Heathcliff Hodges. Memory or not, he'll always be Heathcliff Hodges."

"Then think about what you liked about Heathcliff Hodges, what you two had in common, because I'm not going to let you treat him like a villain when he's like this. It's not fair, and the rest of the team will back me up."

Ruby scowls. "Fine."

Duncan nods, and then winces a little. "Sorry, for, um, being so hard on you."

Ruby says nothing. What you two had in common, she thinks, and she reaches up and touches the frames of her glasses.

When Heathcliff wakes up, there's a girl in his room.

He know she's a girl, even with his blur-o-vision, because she's got her hair pulled into weird shapes on either side of her head. And even though she's his age, he can distinguish a shape to her, belt tight around a small waist, her figure already turning into – what was it again? An hourglass? Whatever it was called, it made her very obviously Not A Boy.

She's standing against the wall, very still and watching him, doesn't even move when he sits up. He finds himself suddenly very aware of the way his hair sticks up and the gap in his teeth, and tries not to recoil. All she does is tilt her head, slightly. Her gaze is electric, powerful, cutting through him, into the parts of him that he can't see; into the parts of him he doesn't understand. And quite clearly doesn't like what she sees.

This must be Ruby.

"Hello," he tries.

She turns her entire body to him and crosses her arms. "Hello." It's a sharp response, almost like a challenge.

Being polite has served him well the past few days, so he squares his shoulders and says, "I'm Heathcliff, and it's a pleasure to meet you." Then he leans over the hospital bed and extends his arm to her. He is literally pressing into the rail. It is very pathetic, and he really hopes she appreciates the effort he's putting into this ordeal.

The blur that it is her face moves a bit (he hopes it's a smile, but part of him very much doubts it) and then she walks over and takes his hand. Her handshake is incredibly firm.

Before she can release her hand, he speaks up. "And you are?"

She moves back, if surprised. "Ruby. Ruby Peet." He nods, like he didn't know this.

"It's very nice to meet you, Ruby Peet." He lets her hand go, and she immediately goes to work scratching her arm.

After that, silence. Heathcliff feels awkward. He can't meet her eye, not without being able to see her face, and his new glasses, just out of his reach, don't really help much. He looks at them, accidentally, and Ruby follows his gaze. Gingerly, she picks them off the table, like she was going to hand them to him. Instead, she examines them and pulls off her own frames to look through them.

"Hey," she says suddenly. "Are these are yours?"

"Yeah. The doctors gave them to me yesterday?" His nervousness turns the last bit into a question.

"Well, they're not your prescription."

Ohhhh. Well, he couldn't even properly remember the sensation of having good vision, so he doesn't feel particularly robbed. Ruby's still looking at him, though.

"Here," she says, handing him her own rounded frames. "We're the same."

Heathcliff takes them, surprised by this little bit of trivia. He adjusts the frames, trying to get them to fit comfortably on his face. He knows he used to wear glasses constantly, but it's an alien sensation now. As soon as he's convinced they won't fall off, he looks up.

His head swims from the adjustment, but God, it's an adjustment. He can see everything. He thinks he might even be able to see sound. He can see the dots on his sheets and the words written on the papers on his table and the cheerful posters on his walls, and Ruby…

Ruby.

She's got brown eyes. That's the first thing he notices. They're dark brown and incredibly intelligent looking, framed by pale lashes. Her nose is rounded and her mouth is just… what was the word? Pouty. She's got a few freckles, randomly crossing her nose and the lower part of her face, like a constellation. Her hair is pulled out of her face, and branches into two yellow-blonde pigtails on either side, curly to the point of looking fluffy.

His eyes takes in the curves of her cheek bones and mouth, the way she's looking at him.

Heathcliff feels his heart beat faster, and is really, really, really glad he isn't hooked up to the heart rate monitor anymore.

Ruby takes his astonishment in the wrong way, fortunately. "Better? I don't know how you went without being able to see for this long."

"I was used to it," he says quietly, and she shakes her head, rolling her eyes. Her pouty lips set in a line. God, she was…

"I'll take these back now." She plucks them off his face, her pinky brushing against the top of his cheekbone, and his skin burns where she touches it. While she's putting her glasses back on, he rubs at his cheek.

With his vision gone, he finds it much easier to talk to her.

"How did you know? That we were the same prescription, I mean."

Ruby pulls back. "We knew each other before you lost your memory." She says curtly.

"I know that." He replies. "But did you switch glasses with everyone you met?"

He can feel her glaring at him, even if he can't see it. "When we were on… when we met," she corrects herself quickly, "we had to go on a trip. Our things were exchanged by accident. Miss… someone couldn't tell the difference, and I had been given your backpack and glasses and vice versa. We didn't even notice until Matilda pointed it out."

He catches all of her halts and hesitations and catalogs them for furthering questioning. "Then what? What happened?"

"You just smiled and accused me of being a rogue glasses thief."

"Were you a rogue glasses thief?" He asks, grinning. "If so, I'm taking your glasses back as compensation."

Ruby scoffs. "You haven't changed at all," she snaps back quickly, and immediately after makes a little gasping noise. Her hand raises to her mouth, like she's pressing the words back in. Suddenly the air is tense, electric, and she pulls back, away from him.

It feels like a dagger in his heart, and Heathcliff looks down.

"I'm going to go," Ruby says, after a minute of silence. He sees her turn.

"Ruby, wait," Heathcliff says. She stops walking, and he speaks to her back. "Were we friends? Ever?" The hope in his voice is tangible, desperate.

Her response is automatic. "No."

The word shakes him, and he grits his teeth. He's about to thank her for her time before she speaks again-

"…But we would have been. If we had known anything about actually having friends, we would have." She lets the words sit and then begins to walk again, her black shoes hitting the ground in a calculated pattern he's sure he will never forget. Not again, at least.

"Well," he says to stop her, thinking. "…Do you know anything about having friends now?"

She scoffs again, as if offended. "If I've managed to become friends with Jackson Jones, then I think I've learned how, yeah." He has no idea what the hell she's talking about, but that's okay, because it's addressed to Old Heathcliff, and it's not as hostile and vicious as everything else she's said today, and that's a start.

"Well, good, because I want to try. I don't know who I was, Ruby, or what I said or did or didn't do, but I want to be friends with you now, and that's all that matters."

She still won't look at him. "And why do you want to do that?"

"Because you let me borrow your glasses," he answers, "even though you came in here wanting nothing to do me."

She stands quite still. After a moment, she says, "Okay, that's the stupidest reason for wanting to be friends with someone I've ever heard."

"Not fair. You should cut me some slack, as I've only been around for a few days."

He has a feeling she's rolling her eyes again. "Fine."

"Fine what?" He says, smiling.

"Your petulance is vexing," she says, turning, her hand to her forehead. He wonders if she said it just to test his vocabulary. "Fine, we can be friends."

He grins. "Thank you."

Ruby sighs. "Don't make me regret this, Hodges."

"You won't, Pufferfish."

She shakes her head, as if she's already done with him. "I'm leaving now."

"Goodbye."

She walks out, and he smiles stupidly at the closed door for a full minute afterwards. Then he lies back on his hospital bed and stares at the (still blurry) ceiling. Ruby's face is still burned into his mind, and he runs through their chat in his head. For the first conversation he's ever had with a pretty girl, it didn't go too terribly...

And now he has so many questions, about the things she left out and how the rest of the kids fit into this. Not like he was expecting answers for them any time soon, but it was something to mull over while he waited for new glasses. He grabs the remote from his table and turns on the TV, quite pleased with himself and life in general. Life is starting to make sense, for the first time ever.

…Except for one thing.

…Why the hell did he call her Pufferfish?