New life for Maria Bonaparte.

Chapter 5: Day 1 part 5

She had completely forgotten about her second community service. From what she could remember, it was for all semester long, and doesn't change every other week.

"Hopefully it won't be too bad," she thought.

They walked through the halls in silence, and her doubts kept growing.

"What do they really mean by community service exactly? Earlier it was just to help out in the library, hopefully this will be more fun than that,"

They walked up to the fourth floor, and then went up another staircase.

"Where exactly are we heading?" she asked.

"You'll see,"

She frowned, but didn't say anything.

The staircase ended with a trap door. Alexander pulled out a key and unlocked it. He pushed it open, and she immediately hit with a cloud of dust.

He grabbed one of her hands while she coughed into her shoulder and pulled her up the stairs.

"What *cough* is this place?"

"This used to be the observatory, but because of budget cuts years ago, they closed it. it's been used for storage, but now you're going to clean it all up,"

"With what?"

"Those," Alexander pointed to a pile of things near them. She squinted her eyes and noticed it was a pile of cleaning supplies.

"Oh, are there at least some lights?"

She thought he nodded, and he moved away behind some of the boxes. A second later the room lightened, very dimly, but it was still something.

"You'll be cleaning until 6, it's 4:45 now, better get started,"

She nodded, and grabbed the duster from the pile and started dusting away.

"I think I preferred the library job over this," she thought. "At least that job didn't clog up my throat with dust,"

But she kept cleaning, without a single complaint, for she was sure she was going to be reprimanded by Alexander.

Though she wasn't sure how seriously he was taking his job. Sure he was here with her, but she didn't think he really cared.

Maybe that was a good thing, because he seemed like the type of boy who would rather look at her chest than her face. At least that was the vibe she got from him, later on in the game he got better, but she doubted she would get to that point.

So she dusted the first floor of the observatory in silence, with only her coughs breaking out.

"It's six, you can stop now," Alexander called out.

She let out a sigh of relief that turned into another coughing fit.

"I assume you want to head back to your dorm for dinner?"

She nodded. "Yeah, and maybe a shower, I'm covered in dust,"

"Shower?"

"Uh, I meant a bath,"

Alexander looked at her, and she turned to avoid her eyes.

"Are we going or not?"

He rolled his eyes, but turned off the lights and went down the stairs. He locked the trap door behind her, and they made their way to the dorms.

Students started trickling back to the main building, and she could feel eyes on her. She was still wearing her training uniform, but now it was covered in dust. She walked a bit quicker.

"What do you want for dinner?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't really care, just order something for me while I'm in the bath,"

"You're going to take a bath right now?"

"Yeah, I don't want to eat dinner when I'm so gross,"

With that she shut her bedroom door. She slipped off her dusty training uniform and walked into the bathroom. The bathtub was more old fashioned than she was used to, but she figured it out quick enough.

She slowly sank into the warm water, and for the first time since she's been "reborn", she felt at peace.

Maybe it was because she was finally alone, or maybe it was just the warm water. She looked down at her reflection in the water.

"Will I ever get used to this?" she thought.

Remembering that Alexander was waiting for her, she stopped her moment of self reflection and started cleaning herself.

Once that was done, she got out and drained the tub. She slipped into a long nightgown and walked out to the sitting room.

"Oh good the food is already here, it's not cold is it?" she asked.

"It shouldn't be. . ." Alexander stopped talking and looked at her with a smirk.

"Oh right, I guess it would be considered inappropriate, but the dress doesn't even show a lot of cleavage! Well, maybe to me, the standards here are probably different,"

"Could you stop looking at me?"

He looked into her eyes, but the smirk stayed put. "Sure,"

She looked at him suspiciously, but sat down to eat her food before it got cold.

They ate dinner in silence, and once they were finished she started pushing him out the door.

"Whoa, I'm meant to monitor you, you can't kick me out,"

"So you're planning to watch me in my sleep? That's really creepy, ya know."

"What no, and are you really going to sleep now? It's barley past 7,"

"I'm tired, okay? So just leave me alone and let me sleep,"

Alexander let out a sigh before finally giving up.

"Fine, but I'm going to watch you get in bed at least,"

"That's still really creepy, but I am tired, so I guess I'll just deal with it,"

It was her turn to sigh. "Then come on then,"

He followed her into the bedroom and watched as she crawled under the covers.

"Can you go now?" she asked.

"Yes, goodnight Maria,"

"Goodnight,"

He turned the lights off and closed the bedroom door. She heard him leave through the front door, and gave a sigh of relief when she heard it lock.

She slowly got out of bed and lit the small candle on her bedside. She reached into her school bag. She grabbed an extra notebook, ink well, and feather, then started writing about her day, and before the day started too.

"Dear Diary,

I am already regretting my decision to be reincarnated..."