Pencils, paper, dictionary, calculator, and thick books that Locke would rather not crack open. It was not just for his usual homework, if it were all he’d need would be his trusty old Asus laptop. Even with his less then stellar grades in all classes math and science related, Locke was a junior in high school, which meant college applications and the most vital test any student might have to take. The English portion of the SAT he wasn’t worried about at all. Even if he had to take the old exam with the analogies, Locke was sure he’d be able to score well. It might not be the same SAT that his step-mother had taken, but she did want to help him with it. He didn’t even want to take the stupid thing. If Locke were to go to college, he didn’t want to so soon after high school. Plenty of kids went to college not knowing what they wanted to do, but Locke didn’t even have an inkling of what he maybe might want to major in someday. The SAT prep books that she had sent had been FedEx’ed out of good intentions, but it didn’t make the strained relationship between the two any better.

A sigh bearing the weight of the monumental task ahead of him fell out of Locke and he flipped the first prep book open. On the plus side there were letters. Unfortunately they were all letters that were suppose to represent numbers. “Letters aren’t numbers, not unless you’re the Romans.” he complained and shut the book. “Last I checked I wasn’t.” His complaints might be a little loud, but he was stuck with either this SAT crap or his normal homework that liked to add physics to the math. Physics was just a science term for math. Sure it was math that would explain the world to you, but he didn’t need to know how to figure out friction. Locke sighed yet again, it turning into a groan. SAT first, get the math part out of the way for that, then do his favorite assignments, leaving the stupid science for the end.

This time when he opened the book, Locke sat down in front of it, and grabbed a pencil. For a few seconds he studied the problem. This wasn’t the practice, just working out some of the questions. He could time himself later on. His focus did not waver as he started bouncing the eraser end of the pencil against the table. The rhythmic beat however quickly took him out of the question and he was paying more attention to not paying attention. This was a dumb idea anyways.

Henrietta Braun was technically a junior in high school, though she hadn’t done too much as of late. She had been following a curriculum she had found and had been gradually learning things. Unfortunately, it was getting to the point that she needed to buckle down more. There were so many more exciting things to do, but studying was a necessary evil especially when it came to SATs. The brunette had sighed and gathered up a pile of things, including many books, notebooks, pencils, a ruler, a protractor, and a calculator. Grabbing a backpack, the girl started to tuck the things away. Once everything was inside, she swung it over one shoulder and onto her back. The weight of all the things almost made her tip over, but she regained her balance and set off on a magical journey of learning.

Well, maybe not learning yet, but a magical journey of trying to get to the library so she wouldn’t get distracted with other things. If there were other options open to her besides schoolwork, she would undoubtedly take them. She climbed a flight of stairs breathlessly and stopped outside the door to the library. Henri had only gone to the library thus far to check out books for recreational reading, not actually to try to study or check out books for an education, though they say reading at all is supposed to make you smarter. Whereas that was of some comfort, it wasn’t enough to promise a passing grade on any test or the SATs. Especially the SATs.

With a heavy heart, the brunette let out a small sigh and pushed the door open. She walked through the room, trying to decide where to sit. Henrietta had almost decided on a table far off from any others, when she noticed a boy sitting at a table who seemed to be studying. He said something about Romans. It was Locke. She blinked her blue eyes in surprise and walked a little closer to his table. Dropping her bag on an empty chair on the opposite side of the table from Locke, she gave him a slight smile. “I see you’re studying too. I promise I won’t make much noise, so can I sit here? I just feel odd sitting by myself if there’s already someone in here.” She hoped he would be okay with it, but wasn’t sure. If didn’t want to be distracted and he was worried about it, she could swear up and down that she really would be quiet. Of course, she did want to talk to him some. They hadn’t gotten to talk much last time they met and she was curious as to how everything was, but if he was in need of quiet, she could handle that. After all, the girl had been very quiet most of her life.

Since he was distracted from his work anyways Locke responded fairly quickly when he was spoken too, tilting his head up and brushing more hair over his left eye. A sheepish half smile lightened up his features. If he weren’t so grateful for the excuse to not figure out how quickly Patty and Sam can paint a house if Patty can paint it in four hours and Sam in six, Locke probably would have started turning a nice shade of red. As was she caught him twirling a pencil and looking very much like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. The last time he had seen her he had thought he was John Kramer and well… All he remembered clearly was that he was confused and angry in the end. She had been with him right before things went funky, but at some point he had abandoned her. By now she had to be convinced that he was a complete jerk AND an idiot. Locke gestured at an empty seat. “Not really doing much studying. I’m pretty sure that half the questions you don’t learn how to solve until you get into a college.”

He slumped over and bounced the eraser again, mumbling the next question, thankfully one that did not have letters for numbers out loud. “In a class of seventy-eight students, forty-one are taking French, twenty-two are taking German, and nine are taking both French and German. How many students are not enrolled in either course?” Ok, this one you can do. Forty one minus nine is thirty-two, and twenty-two minus nine is thirteen. Thirty two plus thirteen is forty-five, so seventy-eight minus forty-five… Hugo was good at math, his son not so much, and he had to resort to his calculator. “Thirty-three.” He flipped the book ahead to the answer, confident that he got it right. “Twenty-four?!” No way that could be right. It had to be thirty-three because that’s what the numbers told him. The scribbles he made in the book proved he was right. “Seventy-eight equals forty-one minus nine, yeah, plus twenty-two minus nine, yeah, plus nine plus neither?” Why were they adding back in the nine? And why were they adding the ones that were neither? The way that he did it made sense, but this was plain old vanilla ice cream flavored stupid. “Do they check this?” Still sore that his math was apparently wrong, Locke trudged through the remaining nine questions, guessing on the ones he had no clue about. The end result was rather interesting. “Three out of ten, and only one of them I did the work for. I just guessed the rest.” Well, at least he had a plan now for the actual test day. Fill in random bubbles on the math section.


((I will admit that that is what my exact results were with the practice questions. Seven wrong, and I worked on those wrong ones))

The boy smiled and then gestured at the seat. Henrietta grinned back to let him know she was grateful and sat in the chair next to her heavy book bag. Yanking it onto her lap, she opened and began pulling things out one by one. First, a giant math book emerged. It was for Pre-Calculus. It was followed by a chemistry book, a dictionary, and a grammar book. She sighed as she stared down at the thick books lying in front of her. Her blue eyes met Locke’s uncovered blue eye. A crooked smile appeared on her face. “Well, I can’t say I’m looking forward to any of these things, but it would nice to be able to get into a good college. I think I’d like to stay in New York, though I’m only junior. I guess I have some time to decide.” The thought of college used to terrify her. The brunette hadn’t ever wanted to go away and leave her mom, but that problem had already been taken care of, considering she had been forced out because of her mutation.

Henri smirked as she listened to Locke murmur about a math problem. In her head, she started to do the math. She tuned out everything else and concentrated. It seemed like 33 to her. Right after that, the brunette heard the young man announce the answer ‘33’. She laughed. “I just got that answer.” The girl watched silently as he checked the answer in the back of his book. “Twenty-four?!” He sounded so surprised, and she didn’t blame him. “Are you serious? That doesn’t seem right. Maybe they just choose random numbers so everyone appears to be wrong. I think it may be a conspiracy.” She stared at the evil book with a pouty face. “Well, I’m upset. I hate when people make me feel stupid. I usually do well in school.” With a sigh, she lied her head down on her crossed arms that rested on the table. “Great…”

Peeking back up after a couple seconds, she picked her head off her arms. “Okay…Let’s see.” Henrietta flipped open her pre-calc book and quirked one eyebrow. “Inverses, eh? Compared to the last unit, I guess this isn’t too bad.” She smirked and dug through her backpack again. “Pencil, pencil, pe-- Oh! There it is!” The brunette pulled a pencil case out and then opened that and pulled out a pencil. Next, she turned back to her bag and dug a little more. When he hands came back out this time, she had her calculator and a notebook. “Time to get down to work. So, is there a specific subject you’re studying, or are you just doing practice questions?”

She glanced at him and then smiled. “By the way, I wanted to ask, has everything been going well? I was worried when you were gone at Halloween. I just remember getting very confused, thinking I was a ragdoll, and then snapping back out of it. At that point, I had been locked in a stall, locked in a men’s restroom.” Henrietta blushed and scratched her head a little. “I was afraid you might’ve been confused and went somewhere and got hurt.” She looked at him with no hatred or anger in her eyes. She really had just been worried. He had been confused too, if she remembered correctly.


((I took ACT. I don’t know too much about SAT. We’re required to take ACT around this area. :/))

It was all well and good that Henrietta had a rough plan of what to do with her life, but it didn't make the future any more clear for Locke. She might be ok with not knowing exactly where things were headed, but Locke needed to know these sort of things. With the exception of moving east he didn't like to jump into important life choices. He didn't even know where he would want to go if he did decide to go to college. Locke was beginning to feel like everyone else knew what they wanted to do. For now he just wanted to be normal. Well, the new definition of normal.

The math question about the fictional class of students deceived Henri as well. Looking at the explanation Locke could that the numbers did indeed add up to seventy-eight, but the reasoning behind why those numbers were selected still left him confused and frustrated. "It is a conspiracy. Already you have to be either stinking rich or living below the poverty line to afford college. Might as well make it so that only a few can get in. You have to give them the answers that they think are right." He attempted another question and flipped to check the answer. The grim look on his face said it was wrong, but seeing as there was no outburst it was just his usual slip ups and not something that was illogical logic. "Right now it's math. My whole score is going to take a dive if I don't get better."

For a couple of minutes there was silence as Locke did his work, his mind admittedly not all on the pages he was muddling his way through. Henri didn't know much more about what happened to him than he did, but he was glad to hear that she had been safe after he left the horror movie area. Being stuck inside a men's bathroom was a bit of a shock, and had their positions been reversed he might have never gotten out of that room out of embaressment. The scattered bits of that night he remembered didn't give him the full picture. "Yeah, I went off for some reason. I remember for awhile knowing who I thought I was but then... My memories were all tangled up and out of order and I wasn't sure if I was dead or alive, but I guess I made it out in more or less one piece." She didn't need to know about the panic that had frozen his heart when he snapped back to reality. He had been free from his terror of the enclosing darkness for a time that night only to be plunged back into it. "I had some nice sized stone bits stuck in my knee that burned pulling out. Good thing I didn't go into a maze of mirrors huh?" Usually if a golem went wrong or fell apart the shrapnel from the sudden dispersion avoided Locke. When he thought he was Jigsaw some of the most basic instincts of his powers didn't work right. So much of who he was went into whatever materials he worked with that any questioning in his mind messed him up. Had he been in a house of mirrors he'd probably would have been ripped to shreds if he had used his powers to defend himself.

Locke was really quiet as she talked about her future. She wasn’t sure if it meant that he didn’t like what she said, or if he wasn’t sure what to say because he didn’t have a plan. The girl glanced down at her book, hoping that he wasn’t mad or something. Chewing slightly at the end of her pencil, she read a problem to herself. ”Figure out if x can be factored out of both equations. If x can be factored out, it makes the two equations inverses. Show all your work.” A heavy sigh escaped her lips as she opened a notebook and began to jot down the first equation. Next, she set up the second equation underneath. Plugging the first one into the second one, she got x. “I think that’s right,” Henri muttered to herself.

The brunette looked back up at Locke as he spoke about colleges and tuition. She had forgotten about the money part of college. Henrietta groaned. “I’m going to need a job. Or 5 jobs. I don’t have money for something like college and I don’t know how much my mother will be willing to help out. You’d think quite a bit since she was the one that kicked me out of the house, but I’ve started losing my faith in anything involving her.” The teen felt her stomach doing turns at the thought of how expensive everything would be. “Maybe I’ll just work minimum wage my whole life and live in a cardboard box with 13 kids that aren’t even mine, but I’ll take care of them because I understand their heartache and grief, but I end up having to give them up because I can’t even feed myself!” Her blue eyes were wide and her voice kept getting higher and higher pitch until she stopped herself. After a few silent seconds to get her breath, she blinked and then blushed. “Sorry, I just…My mom sent me here and I don’t even know my dad’s first name. Mom works two jobs and still had a hard time paying for stuff when I was there. I’ll never afford college, even with loans and scholarships.”

Henri wondered what exactly Locke had been thinking when he walked off, but it didn’t sound like he was even sure, so there was no point in speculating. He said that he had rocks stuck in his knees and the girl made a pained face. “Ouch, I’m sure that was a bit of a surprise. It’s just good that no one was confused beyond their ability to function. Someone could’ve done something dumb and gotten hurt. It was good that I had locked myself in a bathroom. I didn’t even think I was really a living person. It was weird and made me feel like I was an idiot when I had come to.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes at herself. She then smiled. “But really, I’m glad you’re okay.”

Even if the two weren’t talking to each other you could hardly call the breaks in the conversation silence. The sounds of the pages turning and pencil lead scratching paper almost sounded like a hushed whisper. What it said Locke couldn’t figure out. They were working on the same subject he noticed, but Henri’s work looked more complex. Not nearly as complex as the possible future that she started to go on about. Locke was dumbfounded. How was he even supposed to respond to the panic of living in a cardboard box with thirteen kids? He didn’t even know about her family situation. They never really had a chance to sit down and talk in which he was awake or interrupted by some big situation.

Locke hooked his thumbs on the table and tried to think of something comforting to say to Henri. “I don’t remember my mom’s name, but Dad’s was Hugo.” At least she wouldn’t be alone in the not knowing the name of a parent. There was the temptation to tell her what the deal was with his birth mother and his dad, but he didn’t like thinking about it much, and it would just sound like he was trying to out-do her on who’s life was worse. “Don’t worry about the finances for now though. I mean Kendra, she’s my step-mother, she’s an internet nanny and last I checked my family wasn’t living in a cardboard box.”

The events of Halloween were a more cheerful topic to talk about, which was rather strange given that some rather dark things had happened, and people had gotten hurt. Locke wasn’t going to point out that people had to have done some pretty dumb stuff. There were so many possible costumes with wings that at least one person had to have tried flying. “Sorry to have ditched you. I don’t know what I was thinking when I did that, but I think there was a good reason at the time.”

Henri gave an embarrassed smile and then shook her head. “I’ve never lived in a cardboard box, of course, but I can just imagine how horrible it would be. Your house would get really soggy after a rain storm or could blow away while you’re out doing something.” She looked at Locke. “Sometimes I think I have it hard, but when you think about all the people out there who have nothing, it makes you feel kind of grateful.” Her blue eyes glanced down to her math book and she scribbled something on her paper while it was still in her mind.

“You don’t know your mom? I’m sorry, that must be hard. I know that I’ve had a hard time accepting that either my father wants nothing to do with me or my mom wants me to have nothing to do with him. For all I know, it could be a combination of both.” Her brows were knit together in thought for a moment before smirking at what Locke said about his step-mom being an internet nanny. “An internet-nanny, huh? I’ve never heard of that before. Is it literally her watching kids over the internet?” She was genuinely curious, considering this was the first time she ever heard of the profession. She added, “I’m glad you don’t live in a cardboard box. That would be rough.” She smiled slightly. It was nice talking to Locke when he wasn’t grumpy or walking away.

The brunette waved her hand as if to say it was no big deal that he left her. He hadn’t been himself and that didn’t require an apology. Like she had said, she was just he hadn’t gotten hurt. “I’m sure at the time it made perfect sense. I know that I wasn’t myself. I would never lock myself in a men’s bathroom usually.” She laughed and tapped her pencil against the table for a moment as she read over another math problem.

"Sort of,"Locke started. It was hard to explain Kendra's job, partially because he wasn't entirely sure of what it was himself. He remembered the day that she had met his dad. The two had done some programing together. "She sort of makes the internet safer. Kendra scours the web, finding things that kids might come across that they really shouldn't. Like say a kid wants to go to a Barney website. There are some pretty creepy people out there on the web that might make a site that takes advantage of a kid's typo and send them to something they shouldn't see. Part of her job is to report these sort of things, and another part is to make programs to keep kids from going to those sites in the first place.... I think." He didn't show much interest in her job, because it often meant he had to debate with her about just what he could see. When his dad was still alive he understood Locke's maturity level and the two could talk about movies. If Hugo thought Locke could handle it, then he was allowed to see said movie, under the condition that another friend was given the same permission and an adult went along. "She nearly had a coronary when she found out I watched Saw after I got out of the hospital."

Whoops! Didn't mean to say that bit. Locke doubled over the book, this time scribbling in a circle with the sort of fierce determination a dog set on a bird has. Triumphantly he flipped to the answer, a grin taking over his face. This time he got it right. The moment passed though and he leaned back in the chair, thinking about Henri's point of view on the night. "My little sister got trapped in a men's room once at the fire-station. Chris didn't know that there was a difference between the two and told her that was the one she was suppose to use. One of the female firefighters had to go in and get her out because she was too scared."

“Well, that sounds like a pretty important job.” Making sure small children weren’t seeing something inappropriate was a very good thing, in her opinion. “My mom has a couple jobs. She waitresses and she was a secretary at an office for a while. There’ve been other ones too, but not at the same time of course. That would be way too much at one time, but mom didn’t have too much college before I was born so options are limited.” The brunette smiled at Locke and started to draw a table for a problem she had just read over, but stopped when he mentioned something about getting out of the hospital. He made a quick attempt to pretend that he never said that, so she pretended also. It was obvious he had no desire to talk about it and had accidently let the knowledge slip.

Henrietta blinked, a little confused when Locke began talking about his little sister getting stuck in a men’s bathroom once also. He explained that she couldn’t tell the difference. Of course, the teen had been able to tell, but had gone in anyway. When they had both been someone else, whoever Locke was had sounded serious about her finding somewhere to hide, so she ran to the first place she found. It had just happened to be the men’s restroom. “I bet she was scared. I know that one time I got lost in a store. It was the scariest thing that happened to me at the time. Since then, I’ve gone through a lot more, so I wouldn’t mind getting lost in a store anymore.” Henri was no longer writing, just staring at her paper. She wasn’t really reading anything that was on it either, she was thinking. Thinking about everything she had been through since getting to New York. Thinking about her mom being so much happier now that she wouldn’t have to be ashamed of her daughter.

The distraction from the homework was well welcomed. Locke’s heart just wasn’t in the SAT work that night. Usually he did his homework in his room alone, but having someone to chat with as he got work done was pretty nice. It was taking longer to get through it all, but it wasn’t so boring that he was falling asleep. The conversation they were having was really more of just telling stories, but it was more information about her than he had. “You have to respect waitresses. They have to put up with people cranky from lack of food, large and loud parties, juggling heavy trays of food, and not getting paid minimum wage.”

“Oh yeah, she was terrorfied, especially when one of the male firefighters came in while she was washing her hands. Don’t worry, later that night there was a thunderstorm and Chris was scared just as badly.” Locke chuckled at the memory of that day. He had a situation similar to Henrietta’s lost in a store happen to him. “I got stuck in a bush at one of those hedge mazes. Somehow I ended up upside down and my mom and dad couldn’t find me. Ever since I’ve hated mazes, even the ones on paper.” It was a little embarrassing to admit that, but on the whole not the most humiliating thing he had ever said or done.

Deciding he had had enough of the math portion of the book Locke flipped ahead to some word focusing questions. “Whet is most nearly the opposite of…deaden, engender, default, enhance, or desiccate.” He smiled at Henri before filling the bubble in for his answer. This was more like it.

Henrietta smiled as Locke talked about how waitresses had a hard job. She appreciated him saying that, because some people think less of people with that kind of job. Her mother’s options were limited especially when she was trying to hold down two jobs. Part of Henri felt nauseous every time she spoke of her mother. She wanted to change the subject, but at the same time she was interested in Locke’s life. She couldn’t ask the young man to keep talking about his family if she was unwilling to talk about her own. Although, she didn’t really have much of a family anyway.

The girl wondered how he ended up upside down in a bush, but decided not to ask. She was surprised when he admitted his fear of any type of mazes. “That makes complete sense. Lots of things that people are scared of were involved in a traumatic experience as a child. It’s interesting, but it sucks at the same time.” Henrietta gave a crooked smile. “I’m terrified of the dark almost more than anything. I’m also afraid of blood, thunderstorms, and death. Blood makes me feel faint. The dark thing is a really childish fear, but I can’t help it, you know? As for death, I have a feeling most people are scared of it.

Henri laughed when he read the English question and then filled it in. “English is my strong-suit. It just makes more sense to me than math. Of course, I’ve always hated math, so I may just be prejudice.” The brunette pushed her math book aside in frustration. “Is it okay if I give up for now?”

Locke wouldn’t say that he was afraid of mazes, just that he had an extremely strong dislike for them that kept him from going into them. It was more of the sensation of being lost and helpless that he was afraid of. The Lovecraft program had taken advantage of that fear and slammed it together with his fear of the enclosing darkness to make a personal hell. “More interesting is how the other fears come about. Chris has never gotten hit by lightning, but every time he hears a thunder clap he crawls under something to hide. Mai’s afraid of bugs, but she hasn’t been on an episode of Fear Factor or anything. Some things you’re just born with.”

Henrietta had surprised him by confessing her fears. To do so was to admit a type of weakness, and in doing that it meant that she didn’t hate him entirely. Maybe Locke had apologized to her on Halloween for his behavior when they first met. If he had done so it would have been when neither one were themselves. It was something he was going to have to do sooner or later, and not something he was looking forwards to. Rather than apologize, Locke decided to comment on a couple of Henri’s fears. “You can’t stand blood but you love horror movies?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Locke didn’t mean anything mean by it. He understood how fake horror movies were, and he sight of blood from them didn’t bother him, not like it had when he had chased after Saph into a gunfight, and he was just joking with Henri. He shrugged his shoulders “The dark isn't that childish a fear. And it’s normal to be afraid of death. It’s always been high up on the list of fears. If you think about it the fear of death is the most basic fear, and others all stem from it.”

“Go ahead,” Locke told Henri, “English is my strong suit too, and I quit with the math, well one of the maths, for now.” He was not sure if she meant that she wanted to stop the subject or if she wanted to go back to her life outside of schoolwork. If it was more of the latter then there was some guilt that he had interrupted her studying.

Henrietta laughed when Locke asked if she was scared of blood but loved horror movies. “Yeah, I know, it’s weird. If I know it’s not real blood, I’m fine and I like the psychological aspects to movies such as Saw. Other types of horror movies have to have plots otherwise I can’t tolerate them.” She blushed slightly at the confession. “Real blood in large amounts makes my ears ring and I start to feel dizzy. One time, I was at school, and this kid hit his head on the cement and started bleeding. Since head wounds bleed so badly, I went down like a ton of bricks.” She smirked. “He ended up being taken to the hospital and I was taken too. We were both fine.”

She smiled at the boy when he told her she could quit math. “I just hate math. It makes less sense to me and the rules to it seem like they have no structure. It’s just random stuff and I have a hard time putting it all together in my mind.” The brunette tapped her pencil to her head as she corrected grammar that was purposely screwed up just to test her abilities. “Though English is so much easier, it just seems a bit odd to go through a bunch of random sentences and totally butcher them to test another person.” Henri shook her head at the misuse of the word ‘their’ and the horrible spelling of ‘ecited’, which she was positive was supposed to be ‘excited’.

Biology, like math, wasn’t Locke’s strongest suit. However he still was studying anatomy books on a daily basis more or less. “I think the reason why it bleeds so much is because the muscles aren’t as big there. There’s no need to support yourself by your eyebrows or anything. Less muscles, less padding between the blood vessels and the skin?” Locke didn’t really know much medical things, just some basic first aid, but he knew how badly a cut on the head could be. He also knew now that Henri was the type to faint at the sight of blood. Good thing that she hadn’t been where he was on Halloween. There wasn’t much that he remembered clearly, but the image of a literal fountain of blood was burned into his memory. It woke him up sometimes at night, just like he had problems sleeping after charging in after Saph. Funny how the more fake the movie the more blood there was, and yet, it didn’t translate to more nightmares. “So you’d have a problem seeing Evil Dead or maybe the musical version of it?”

The English work absorbed Locke for a minute, so he didn’t respond right away to Henri’s opinion on the subject he was studying. When his attention was pulled away he chewed thoughtfully on his lip. “There are rules, and I guess that they make sense, if you can get around all the odd terms. The problem is that with English there are hundreds of possible right answers, but with math there are only ever one, maybe two possible solutions and an entire ocean of wrong. There aren’t any limits on numbers, but there are on words.”