Chapter Seven, Part One.
(artwork in progress... will be posted when finished)
The room was silent, as well it should be, considering the time wasn't quite yet six AM. Mikey sat fully and sharply dressed at his desk, scratching numbers onto a page for his algebra class later that morning. He couldn't concentrate at all. Where was Gerard? He hadn't been home all night. He had said something about Helena, but he wasn't really sure what. It didn't even matter now. As he wrote out another problem, fists pounding on the door and a frantic cry of "Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikey! Mikey, open the door!!!" caused his "7" to grow a tail and look more like a "Z". He really had to do something about his nerves; he couldn't keep jumping like this. He ran over to the door and looked through the peephole. He'd trained himself to do that ever since the incident with Sonny and Coleen last year.
Sure enough, there was Gerard, leaning against the door, panting, hair all mussed up - moreso than usual. His face was sweaty and he looked so... grimy. Mikey undid the chainlock with shaking fingers, and flung open the door. Gerard spilled into the room, leaning heavily on him.
"Mikey! Mikey, oh... oh, thank God... thank God you're here!"
"What the hell happened to you?!" asked Mikey. Between great heaving breaths, he got something of an answer:
"I've done something really... I'm.. stupid..." he stammered out.
"You did something stupid?"
"Ya... really..... stupid... he's gonna... he's gonna... oh, god, he's coming!" Gerard panicked, his knees collapsing under him as he scrabbled for handgrips on the door and the side of Mikey's face, much to his chagrin. Mikey threw Gerard's arm across his shoulder and helped his horrified roommate across to his bed, where he collapsed with an all-encompassing "Aaaauughhhhh!!!" Mikey fixed his glasses and straightened his blazer, and took a good look at his roommate. He looked more a mess sprawled out there than he did standing in the doorway. There were grass stains all over his shirt, buttons were missing, the leg of his pants was torn, knuckles were bleeding. His knee was swelling up rapidly and was turning an ugly sort of plum - something had collided messily with the joint. No wonder he could hardly stand without Mikey's support. Where the hell had he been? He must have done something seriously stupid to end up looking like this. Gerard grasped at Mikey's hand, catching it in a deathgrip.
"Mikey... Mikey... he's coming... he's coming and he's gonna kill me..."
Mikey didn't know who this "he" was, but he didn't really care. If someone was coming after Gerard, it probably meant trouble for him as well. Gerard, although he was bigger than Mikey, wasn't all that athletic. As a matter of fact, the only thing he'd ever actually excelled at in gym class was croquet, and that's not exactly something that's going to earn a varsity letter. After reclaiming his hand, Mikey crossed the room to close the door, but before he could, he heard a voice bellowing down the hallway.
"Where the fuck are you?!"
Mikey froze. He knew the voice, and he knew Gerard knew the voice, and it was definitly a voice that neither of them wanted to know. It was the voice of Antoine Wilcox, the biggest guy on the football team. He wasn't all that bright, but he was tough. Nobody would mess with him, which only fed his planet-sized ego. There was a running debate among the underclassmen as to which he would use to crush a victim first: the fist or the ego.
From his bed, Gerard's voice raised in fear, "Close the door... close the door, Mikey! Don't let him in!"
Mikey tried, he really did. But something checked him in his place. He didn't know what to do. He knew he needed to close the door, but his body was just not responding. He looked toward the direction of the voice. Dominating the hallway, he seemed to be walking in slow motion, like an executioner of sorts. The few students in the hallway parted as he made his way to room 707. Mikey still stood just inside the doorway, frozen. Gerard still lay on his bed, screaming "Close the door! Mikey, for God's sake, close the door!" But he couldn't. He was too busy looking behind the massive form of Antoine. Trailing behind him, looking almost as bad as Gerard, was Helena.
Her hair was messed up, she had grass stains on her arms and knees. She didn't even look like she was wearing clothes - it looked more like a nightgown or a kind of black slip. She was running on bleeding bare feet after Antoine, screaming at the top of her lungs: "Leave him alone! You leave him alone! It's my choice!"
Suddenly, everything clicked, and with a sickening lurch, Mikey realized that the door was not closing. He knew it was hell for both of them, but he also knew there was no way that he could stop it.
"Mikey... Mikey, please! Close the door! Close the door!!"
But Mikey just stood there, feeling dazed. He spoke slowly, almost dream-like, "It's Helena. I can't do it... I can't do it because it's Helena." Gerard sat up very suddenly.
"Helena!" He screamed out her name again, "Helena! Hurry!"
"No, no," said Mikey, "She's behind him. She'll never get here in time. She won't get here before him."
Gerard closed his eyes and sighed, resigning himself. Mikey stood there, watching him. He looked from Gerard to the towering form of Antoine. Something was going to happen, it was going to happen soon, and he was going to get caught right in the middle of it. He didn't really know how this all started, but he had a fairly good idea. And still, all he could do was stand there, listening to Gerard pleading with him to close and lock the door, and watching the hulking mass come down the hallway towards him, and the girl, clad in black, trailing after him, trying to stop him. Helena grabbed onto the back of his jersey, yanking on it, pulling, even pulling on other students that were coming groggily out of their rooms for help... but no one moved.
She screamed fruitlessly, "Let him go! Leave him alone! It's my choice! My choice! If you're going to hit anyone, you might as well hit me!"
Mikey's throat tightened. Somewhere at the other end of the hallway, he heard Carla and Frank scream, "Helena, no! Stop! Helena!" Antoine stopped. He turned around slowly to face the tiny frame of Helena. She stood her ground, shaking. Adrenaline? Anticipation? Fear? Mikey couldn't tell. She was out of breath. She looked a mess. And he knew that he was going to hit her. Mikey closed his eyes. There was a resounding slap, and then he heard a body crumple to the floor. Several students gasped. He heard Carla from the back of the crowd, and running footsteps he guessed belonged to her and Frank. Gerard let loose an anguished battle cry. The monster standing over the fallen girl opened his mouth. He heard a low growl, "Serves you right. It serves you fucking right." A couple of seconds later, Mikey opened his eyes again, and immediately wished he hadn't, for there he was. The massive 6'5", 275 pound football player, standing eighteen inches from him.
It was the last thing he remembered before he woke up, sitting on the floor at the foot of his bed. His head hurt, specifically near his temple, and his nose. He probably had a black eye or something from the glasses. He licked his lips and tasted blood. Great... a bloody nose. Then he remembered everything that had happend. He jerked his head around. Gerard's bed was empty; the sheets were strewn everywhere. The entire room looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. Chairs upturned, notebooks, papers, drawers pulled out. How had such a huge fight happened without him knowing? And why hadn't anyone woken him up or moved him? He stood up tentatively, his head swimming, and he noticed there were bloody fingerprints on the doorjam. He walked through to the hallway and put his hands overtop them, and immediately recoiled. Gerard had been dragged from the roo. Dragged. Bleeding, broken, he had fought to the last, clinging with every ounce of strength to the wood. But Antoine was too strong for him. Where the hell was he?
Mikey ran through the hallways, stopping every person he saw, asking them: Had they seen the fight? What had happened? Where were they? Who won? Well, he didn't really need to ask that. He knew who won... and it wasn't Gerard. But, he felt like asking anyway. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because he looked up to him so much, that he thought there might be a slight chance... No. There was just hope.
Nobody seemed to know where it had ended. They all just said, "I don't know, I don't know. It was bad - really bad."
The first familiar face he ran into was Carla's, who was on her way back to the infirmary. She told him that she had to hurry back to take care of Helena, but that she'd be ok. When Mikey asked about Gerard, she just stood there, twisting her hair around her fingers, not really knowing what to say.
"I saw them. He dragged him out of the room, I-- " She lowered her voice, addressing Mikey's tie tack, "I've never seen Gerard that way before. I mean, what if he really hurt him? Just look at what he did to you."
Instinctively, Mikey put his arms around her, caressing her head. He whispered, "Shh, shh. It's ok. Tell me. I need to know. I need to find them. I need to find Gerard. You need to tell me, ok? You need to tell me everything you saw."
Carla sighed, recomposing herself, and then she spoke up again.
"He went into the room. He hit you, but nobody dared even to go in. I screamed, but it didn't matter. Frank pulled me aside. He said, 'Mikey's all right. He'll be ok. Trust me. It's just Gerard he wants.' I kinda blew up on him. I said, 'Why aren't you in there helping him?' Frank just kinda looked at me. He said, 'Ok. The difference between him and me is over a foot and a hundred pounds. Gerard doesn't... Look. My help in there fighting with him, wouldn't be help. My help is going to be following them so that when he finally does let Gerard go, I'm going to take him to the hospital.' At that point, he helped me take Helena down to the nurse's. She was unconcious, and the whole side of her face was swelling up, so we brought her down. After that, I only know what I heard. I'm sorry."
She lookd up at Mikey with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Mikey, really. I don't know. I'm trying to do every- I- I just... can't--"
"Hush. It's ok. It's ok. You did what you could. Do you know anyone who saw the whole thing?"
"Well, sure." she said, "Lots of people did. And even if they didn't, everyone still knows what happened. Pretty much in accurate detail. You know how things like this spread, unfortunate as it is."
"Hmmm. That's true." said Mikey, "It is unfortunate."
They stood ther in silence for a moment. Carla licked a tissue she had in her bag and helped Mikey clean some of the dried blood off his face.
"Where's Frank?" he asked suddenly. "Did he go yet?"
"I don't know," she answered, "I don't know where he is. I've been with Helena. He helped me carry her down to the nurse's, but he left right away to follow after Gerard. I've been taking care of her. I'm on my way back now. I went to our room to get her some real clothes for her to change into. I've got to get back to her. I'd help you, but--"
"No, no. It's ok." Mikey cut in, "You need to stay with her. Take care of her. She's your roommate. I'll go take care of mine."
Carla touched his face gently. "Ok, but... be careful, ok? You never know."
"Don't worry," he said, pushing her hair back and smiling, "I will be. I'll be careful."
"Good. At least you've got a head on your shoulders."
They embraced tightly. Mikey gave her an awkward sort of a kiss on her forhead, and they went their seperate ways.