She Wished

A/N://This is fanfic for the series 'Spy High' by A.J. Butcher. I wrote this during a bout of writer's block for a R/Hr (Harry Potter) fic I was working on after finishing 'Mission One' for the second time.

If you read this an actually know the genre, I'm begging you to review, because this is a very thinly trafficked genre.

So make my day, review, and get a complimentary (-insert your favorite character here-). Your's might be the only one I get.

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Lori Angel was tired.

She didn't understand how none of the others could feel the sense of foreboding that she did, even as Ben smiled and squeezed her tight and fat snowflakes drifted down to land on Bond Teams' hair.

It wasn't right.

For a moment, she couldn't place it. They'd won. Averill was dead. They'd passed Stromfeld, and her grades were spectacular - second only to Ben. She had a wonderful, team-leading, perfect boyfriend. Jake had even persuaded Jennifer to come out and join the festivities, and Cally had finally let out what appeared to be previously pent-up feelings for Eddie and kissed him when no one else would. Everything was perfect.

So why did everything feel so wrong?

Lori blinked and looked up, snowflakes making their lazy descent. She was just lying to herself, now, trying to hide from the inevitable truth. She knew exactly what was wrong and - on top of that - she knew why it wasn't right. She desperately wished she didn't.

Lori had always been an extremely perceptive person; or at least that was what she had been told. She noticed the crack underneath the rock-solid smile. She realized what it meant when someone's eyes shifted towards another for a moment - only an instant - before turning immediately back to what they'd been looking at earlier, and then continuing on as though nothing had happened in the first place.

She supposed that it was part of what had gotten her into Deveraux Academy in the first place - and in that respect, it was both a gift and a curse.

Right now, however, she desperately wished she didn't have it.

Because she alone seemed to notice the way Cally's eyes were glued to the back of Jake's head, even as her chin rested peacefully - apparently happily - on Eddie's shoulder. She alone noticed the pure, blissful, oblivious look on Eddie's face - completely relaxed and pleased and in love or lust or whatever it was Eddie Nelligan felt and not even pausing to think that Cally might be using him to worm her way under Jake's skin.

She alone seemed to realize that Jennifer shook with a little bit more than the cold and the excitement of Jake's arms around her, and Lori was positive that even Jake wasn't aware of the terror and melancholy that hid just underneath that first layer of absolute blissfulness on his face that was startlingly similar to Eddie's.

And then there was Ben himself. Lori turned to look curiously at Ben, analyzing him with a scrutinizing look on her face even as he, oblivious, goaded Jake from afar.

Ben had always been hard to read - particularly for Lori, maybe because she was so emotionally attached - but even with this obstacle, even as he laughed, she could see the determination and the hatred and the over-whelming sense of superiority.

Lori turned away, settling for the melancholy that was engulfing her, settling for semi-happiness and fake smiles.

Now, more than ever in her life, Lori wished that she wasn't so perceptive. She wished that she could pretend to laugh and smile and act as though nothing was wrong like her five teammates were now, act as though she didn't notice that, slowly but surely, each of them were falling apart.

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