Forever isn't that long...

You remind me of the babe,
What babe?
The babe with the power,
What power?
The power of voodoo,
Who do?
You do.
Do what?
Remind me of the babe.

Chapter 2: A rose is still a rose...

Sarah had trooped into the bathroom and had bolted the door before anyone could think of stealing her bathroom time. She had a ritual in the morning and didn't like her daily routine to be changed. She put the toilet seat lid down and placed her towel on top of it along with her clothes for the day underneath. She liked using this bathroom, not only was it decorated nicely but it had a shower installed, unlike the other which just had a bath e.t.c. A shower was more refreshing, to mto mention a heck of a lot quicker. The time you took to run a bath, Sarah shook her head, you would be late for class. Mind you she would be late anyway at this rate.
She pulled back the shower curtain and made sure to check the lock on the door again before deciding to undress. She did this quickly and efficiently, there was no time for dallying in the cold air around her, she quickly leapt into the shower and took the shower head off the hook it was on. Sarah squeak lit little as cold water leapt forth from the holes in the shower head, she turned it away from her and fiddled with the dial in which the tempreature was controlled with. Once at a suitable heat, she replaced it on the holder and reached behind her for the soap. She rubbed it with her hands until a suitable lather was made and then rubbed it into her soft skin, sighing at the feeling of being clean.

~*~

"Sarah..." the name that had caused him many sleepless nights was on his lips as he looked at his crystal ball that he had made a few moments ago. His reflection repeated the words as he spoke them cleary into the glass-like substance. The ball misted, then cleared and showed the face of a young woman with beautiful wet locks and glowing cheeks. Her eyes were closed and her mouth red, her head tilted upwards as if awaiting a kiss from someone other than the water from the shower that pattered on them. He stood nearer the glass and moaned as he saw her come properly into view, Sarah.
He took in all he saw as he watched her fingers trace paths across her gleaming wet skin, his mouth went dry and he watched as she washed herself clean of the soap. Her eyes opened as he watched and the water droplet her her lashes gleamed like little pearls on the ends of them. As she blinked, they joined the others casscading down towards her lovely full breasts and down her slim stomache towards-he looked away, rosy cheeked and breathing hard. Hard was another place of his at the moment, he groaned in frustration, it had been too long for him. He looked back at the image and breathed, "Bide your time my lovely, as you will have little left of it." He took one last look at the lovely girl before biting his lip and cancelling the vision from his crystal. It would soon be time.

~*~

Stepping out of the shower Sarah slipped a little on the wooden floor, "Damned thing, if I was the decorator of this I would-" she heard a slight chime from the clock that was on the wall of the bathroom, it's face was steamed up but she could tell it was 7:00. "Ah...shit." she rushed to get dry, the towel was rough against her wet skin, but she was in a hurry.One hour until class started and she hadn't eaten breakfast or even begun to dress. "Okay, step 1, dry hair!" she grabbed the towel that was wrapped around her and began to wrap her hair up turban style. She then grabbed her clothes and hastilly began to put them on, her normal well-worn jeans went after her black panties and socks and then her black lace bra and here Hertforshire t-shirt. She glanced once at the large mirror on the wall to check her image, it was misted but she could see herself well enough to survey.
Well the rest of her looked okay, apart from her hair, she had 45 minutes now. Sarah lifted the lid of the toilet back up and made sure to open the small bathroom window above the toilet, since they had no fan to take the steam away. She then gathered her mismatched nightwear up into her arms, turning around behind her a couple of times to make sure she hadn't left anything. When she was satisfied she then unlocked the bathroom door and started running to her room. She almost knocked Kelly over as she was coming out of her own room, bleary eyed and looking slightly groggy still.
"Hey! Chill girl, you look as if you could use some coffee-" Sarah gasped for breath as she was mildly winded from running into the girl making her way to the bathroom, who seemed unnaffected. "S-sorry, gotta go, gotta go and get ready for class," she managed to huff out before dashing off again. Kelly watched her go with an upturned right brow, "Okay," Kelly shook her head as she watched Sarah run back into her room and shut the door behind her, "...weird girl."

~*~

30 minutes later and Sarah was marching across the grass, hair dry and brushed.Heading towards the block of dull grey buildings ahead of her, today was yet another day of listening to teachers. Not that Sarah minded listening to them, it's just they droned on so much that you went to sleep and forgot half of what they said. As she looked on her College calendar she saw she had her class in room D3 today, not 4. A little change will help the day break up a bit, she reminded herself. "So much for routine," she said and started to jog the rest of the way, her backpack bouncing gently on her shoulder. She only needed to carry minimal supplies for class. Drama didn't have too much written work, as long as they weren't doing an essay. Sarah rolled her eyes, god I hope McDermott isn't teaching us instead! that woman was a real pain. She made them all write each lesson instead of getting on with their acting skills. Sarah didn't like her one bit.
As she neared her class she slowed to a walk again, breathing a bit heavier. She brushed a few stray strands of her dark hair from her slightly sweaty brow and looked up. The sky was slightly shadowed with clouds today, darker one's were coming in as the lighter one's moved out, it looked as if there was rain on the horizon. "Great, it might rain," Sarah disliked the rain, intensely. This was because on nice days they did drama outside, today it looked as if today was going to be a long, indoor only, boring day. She remembered practicing her acting outside at home, it always helped her if she wasn't confined to a small class. She shrugged and opened the main door to the reception cum corridor, she smiled back at the smiling blonde receptionist and began walking along the corridor, A classes were to her left, D to her right. A stands for Art and D stands for Drama. Simple and easy programme, simple things were good. Especially in the mornings. She reached a red door, her classroom for today. As she opened the door to room D3 she was met with a voice saying in an important yet strained way, "Calm down, calm down!"

Calm down was not the right thing to say to teenagers, as the teacher was finding out. She was a new one, Sarah was sure she had never seen her before. She was a plump woman with a short bob of brown hair and glittering rings on her fingers and small half-moon glasses. She looked as if she would be better suited reading tarot cards than teaching unruly teenagers drama. The teacher looked like she would be half inclined to agree as she was sorting two students out with their homework, homework?! Shit! Sarah had forgotten hers! She started to panic as she tried recapping over the lessons they had had. She couldn't think what the homework was, suddenly she spied two people that she knew walking into the room laughing. Sarah quickly sidled over to the laughing couple, Chloe and her best friend Emma.
"We had homework?" Emma grinned as she held hers out for inspection, "Yep! Don't tell me you aint done yours?" Sarah swallowed hard and nodded. Chloe laughed, she was one of those girls that you thought should have been a cheerleader for a career, if that was called a career."Hey it isn't the end of the world, just tell this new teacher you you had other things to do-like a...funeral or something-" she saw the look Emma gave her, "oh, erm...or whatever...oh I don't know. Anyway it wasn't a biggie assignment or anything. We just had to write down what we thought we achieved overall last week-" the relief on Sarah's face made her stop, "Huh? You have done it?" Emma rolled her eyes, she was a brown haired, slightly over-weight girl. She had a pig nose and she was always sarcastic. "Go fig, William's has never missed a homework set before."
Sarah ignored the jibe and smiled at Chloe, "Yes. I did it the first night it was set, I thought that this one was a different one you see and I was panicking." Chloe shook her blonde head, "Ah well maybe we'll catch you out next time on the homework front, eh?" she smiled at Sarah and dug into her bag looking for the homework, Sarah dug into hers also, "Ouch!" she drew back her finger in pain. "What's the matter Sar'? Sommat bite you?" Chloe reached into Sarah's bag and withdrew-a red rose. "How did that get in there?" Chloe moved the rose away from Sarah's reach, "Who gotcha this Sar'? You got a new boyfriend?" Sarah blushed, "No, that-that was from the old one-" Chloe examined it, "Oh. You going back out? Hey, he send this yesterday?" Sarah looked at her funny, "No Iv'e had them for ages, why-" then she saw, the rose was fresh, "but I-." Emma shushed them, "Teachers coming, we can talk about your love-life later William's. It looks like it's gonna be writing all day again." Sarah groaned.

After class a small break was issued, only 15 minutes and nothing much to speak of happened. All Sarah did was mope around the drama corridor and haunt the reception area, thinking about the rose. Chloe and Emma had gone off to watch the guys play a small round of football outside before break finished. When the students came to go back into the classroom Sarah followed them, still with the perplexed expression on her face. Chloe gave her a suggestive wink as she passed by into the classroom, "No worries Sar,' I'll interrogate you at lunch about the rose, break was sho short a thing for what I have to talk about." Sarah sighed, she found out at lunch that Chloe wasn't lying. As the lesson rolled on into Lunch break Chloe was following her everywhere-followed in turn by asour-faced Emma who wanted her lunch and then to watch the football match outside.
"I have no idea wut tut that in there!" This was the fourth time she had said that, she was sure. Sarah had decided to skip lunch because Chloe kept badgering her, she couldn't eat under interrogation proceedures. "Aw, c'mon Sarah. I thought we were friends." Sarah realised that she wasn't going to let up, "I really don't know who put it in my bag-okay? Now will you stop acting like a bulldog and let go of the rose situation." Sarah turned to walk off but Chloe was there again, "So it's like a secret admirer?! I love secret admirer's and stuff like that, I'm gonna find out who he is!" Chloe ran off. Emma sighed, which startled Sarah, she hadn't realised she was still there. Emma put her hand on Sarah's back and turned her in the direction of the exit, "I shouldn't bother trying to avoid the issue if I were you Sarah.Chloe was all over me when I recieved some chocolates on my birthday. Turned out they were from my Aunty though," She grimaced, "Better to just tell Chloe what she wants to know and be done with it-" she saw the look on Sarah's face but she still asked, "so you seriously got no idea who gave them to you then?" Sarah was reaching boiling level, "No! I quote 'have no idea who gave me the rose,' unquote! Okay?!" Emma looked gleeful, "So maybe it is a secret admirer after all!" Sarah almost cried, she ran off, heading for the door calling behind her, "Not you too!"

After the ordeal with the rose Sarah decided that it was best to bin the thing. She walked over to the trash can at the side of the teacher's lounge and threw it away, not caring that it pricked her again, she was just glad to be rid of the blasted thing. She now had a 20 minutes left of her lunch break, not enough time to do what she had to do. She would just have to go and raid the cafe after classes. She looked at her router and grinned, after lunch it was back to do roll-playing then later on some public speaking. She liked roll-playing best. Maybe today wasn't going to be so bad after all, just maybe. She put her roter away and stretched her arms over her head,yawning. She hoped she could get some sleep tonight at least, these mornings were killing her. "Library time?" she gasped and turned around, startled at the voice. "Hiya," the voice said a little sheepishly this time, "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you-" it was Dylan. He was an art student, but he took some of Sarah's classes aswell, wanting to all of 'art,' after all drama was an art too. He had dark brown hair and hazel eyes and always appeared to have a grin on his hansome young face.
"No that's alright Dylan. Yeah you are right-library time again." she smiled at him and began to walk off, "Hey...is-is it okay if I come with you? Only I've got to go too, and I-" he was stuttering, "Yeah sure. I'm gonna be 10 minutes though, I just need some rescources for my homework tonight," Dylan looked sympathtic, "New sub?" Sarah nodded and pulled a face, "She's almost as bad as Mcdermott!" Dylan cringed at the word and made a cross with his fingers, hissing. Sarah laughed at him, he was good at his drama, she had seen him perform before in a short play they had made. He looked as if he were combatting a vampire before him. "Surely she aint that bad!" then he saw her face, "Whoa! Someone is as bad as McDermott! That's gotta be a world record or someg. Hg. Having two people in college like that." Sarah smiled, "I wonder if they could be sent off and tested to see if they are, in fact, twins-" Dylan laughed, "Yeah twins. That would make sense." He followed Sarah as she walked towards the library, chatting about the lesson he had next with her, "Someone in my previous art class said that we would be having a sub for this lesson, hope it isn't her." Sarah agreed, not another lesson with that appauling woman. Routine was looking better and better all of the time.
The library was pretty much empty as they arrived there, Sarah smiled at the librarian, whom smiled warmly back at her. Mrs Smith was a nice lady, very helpful and full of all sorts of information, or maybe it was just the roll of libarian had made her into a book worm. Dylan went off and found his books and Sarah browsed for hers, she managed to find 2 of them, the rest were booked out as the little red sticker below where they would be was up. An ingenious system for pupils thought up by the librarian herself, green for in and red for out. If there wasn't a sticker then it was missing or had yet to be returned to the shelf, if it wasn't returned then you would be chased up and hounded until it was returned. Luckilly Sarah had yet to feel the librarian's wrath, but she could picture her bearing down wielding a sword and demanding her books back. Sarah stifled a giggle in the back of her hand. The librarian looked as deadly as a worm. She was a motherly lady that wouldn't hurt a fly, she would rather crochet than fight.

Waiting for Dylan after she had taken her books to be stamped by the librarian, Sarah had time to reflect on today. So far it hadn't been too bad-she ignored the crahat hat she still had from writing last lesson, and the fact that Chloe and now Emma were still looking around for the person who gave Sarah the rose, interrogating any male that walked into the vicinity-she cringed, maybe it wouldn't be so bad next lesson then. Maybe they would have let up by then-nah, she didn't think so. She leant up against a wall and examined the paintings tiredly that adorned the libaries cream walls. Her eyes wandered over each, some were done by students from the arts department that had left years ago, whilst others were copies of great drawings and paintings done by artists. There was Van Gogh's Sunflowers, some pictures down by Constable and one near the enterance to the library of a never ending staircase by Escher. This one made her breath catch in her throat and her mouth become suddenly dry. She looked away.
"Sarah! I've finished now, shall we go-hey! Are you okay?" Dylan frowned at her in concern. "Huh? Oh, yeah...yeah I am. Just a little tired maybe." She closed her eyes and rubbed a hand across her brow to erase a memory long since forgotten. "You sure your okay?" Dylan's warm face was next to hers, "I could get the nurse if your feeling bad-" Sarah snapped her eyes open, "I'm fine!" Dylan's face made her want to cry, he looked as if he had been slapped. "Dylan...I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. It's just that, I'm going through a rough time at the moment and my nerves are a bit, well, stretched." Dylan suddenly smiled in an understanding way, bless him. "Still no word from your dad then huh?" Sarah had talked to Dylan about her problems a little while back and he always asked her how she was with her dad. At least someone cared about her. "Nope, none. Doesn't surprise me though." Dylan frowned, "Hey c'mon, he still loves you no matter what. Your his kid after all." Dylan was trying to make her feel better, excepted maybe. "No, not while that woman is still living in his house. She will do anything to turn my dad away-" **Ring** The bell went as she was about to finish her sentence. "Ah well, class-time I guess." They both trooped from the library and followed the group that were heading in the direction of the next class. As Sarah was about to walk through the door Dylan whispered, "If you need to talk, I'm always here." Sarah smiled greatfully at him and turned back into the classroom, he followed her. The chairs that they had sat in early this morning were piled away once again and put behind the curtain in the corner of the room as usual for this lesson. "Come on! Hurry it up!" it was the atrocious woman from before, "Great," Sarah mumbled to her left." Dylan looked at her then to the teacher, "That her is it?" Sarah nodded. Dylan grinned at her, "Cheer up! Only an hour of this and then half of Public speaking! Then you can get back to your room and sleep!" Sarah grinned, "You didn't tell me you were phsychic Dylan Evans." He flushed at the use of his full name, but laughed anyway. Dylan hated his last name, she had no idea why but he did. Said it wasn't 'poetic' enough for him. Sarah thought it sounded just fine, Dylan Thomas Evans. Sarah was grabbed by her elbow by her partner for roll-play and she forgot about everything except her performance in the short sequences they had to act out.

Coming out of that awful classroom felt great. Roll-playing had been over far too soon and public speaking had been just as it always was, plain boring. It had not been her turn to speak today so she had sat on the floor and just listened, writing down with all the others around her on how each of the speakers could improve their technique. She had sat there bored to tears and barely paying attention until the bell had rung for them to go. Sarah rolled her neck in an effort to get some of the kinks out of it as she left the class, a crack issued and she grimaced. "Sar' you are so gross! So anyway, have you found out who he is yet-" Chloe. Great, just great. Sarah turned around and faced the smaller girl, "Look Chloe, before you start again, I've thrown the bloody thing away now okay? So lets not go down that path again."
Sarah turned on her heel and was about to walk off when the strap on her bag broke. She had not done her bag up since she had put her Drama diary away earlier on and all her stuff fell from her bag and clattered onto the floor. Her plastic pencil cases lid snapped and broke and all the pens and crayons she had were scattered over the white lino floor along with the rest of the mess. "Ah, shit!" Chloe winced at her language but knelt down to help her pick up her stuff on the floor. As she picked up Sarah's red laminated rotor she found something, "Hey you kept it! You liar!" Sarah sighed, still on her knees she spun to face Chloe,"Kept what? Chlo' I dont kno-" the rose was cradled within the blonde's hands. Sarah's eyes grew wide, "What the hell?!"


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A/N: What the hell indeed kiddies! Sorry it's a bit drawn out, it's just I am making this a full-bore story. I like background and so I put in LOADS of info. Sorry if it's a bit of a boring chapter but this was the kind of half-way bit that I needed to set the scene for my brain to come up with the other chapters. My brain doesn't work well under pressure! lol. Hope you enjoyed it though, please review as there will be another chapter out A.S.A.P! I have work late some nights so I maay skip a day that I usually post on so don't worry if you can't find the new chapter until the next. It will be there!!! See yah!