Hope and Destiny (and everything in between).

Chapter Four: Unforeseen

Fate works in mysterious ways. It's assumed by some that an external force is always at work, working as a puppeteer - moving the strings that are attached to the bodies of its puppets, otherwise known as fate, to play out some sick or sweet fantasy they've got in their mind.

This must be the former. This is not sweet.

Fate is not funny. Fate is a bastard who is probably getting sick in the stomach - not because of guilt, no way, it's probably because it got tired of laughing. The jaw is working overtime, the muscles are getting an exercise at her expense. Julia couldn't process how long it took for her brain to start recovering from the sight in front of her, stop reciting unforgivable curses towards some divine entity responsible for this, and realize that someone was speaking. Not just anyone, him.

"Hello?" He asked, snapping his fingers in front of her face until she blinked.

"You've got a weird habit of staring." He said.

"That's pretty creepy, I won't lie. I don't know what to make of you, Lizzy." He concluded, grinning.

"My name's not either of those, and I'm sure you know of that." She said, as one of the guys who passed the two down the hallway just half bro-hugged the boy in front of her.

"Oh, I know." He said, nodding.

"But it's boring to be like everyone. Think about it, did anyone ever call you by those names?"

"No, but -"

"You see?" He said, interrupting her.

"Takes a genius to come up with these. Not to toot my own horn, but it requires creativity. It needs some skill." He continued, patting his own back.

"To come up with Lizzy? What's next - Elizabeth?" She asked.

"See, that's too basic. Now, if you'd said Ellie, I would've forgotten about your habit of staring which you've got going on there." Nathan said, leaning against the wall and grinning.

"How proud were you of that reference?"

"About as proud as Chuck Palahniuk was of Fight Club, the movie."

She raised an eyebrow at the response to which he held his hands up.

"As proud as a mama hen. That's how proud I was."

Before she could hit back a witty response of her own, the door to the reception opened, and came back Madison, adjusting her glasses over the bridge of her nose, with a file in one hand and the other on her hip.

"Got it." She declared.

"It's only a photocopy. Susan said that the original one had been misplaced. This is what happens when nobody takes the systematic organization method I recommended last year."

"Vice prez!" Nathan said, his voice almost booming through the crowded hallway, though nobody here seemed to mind. Is this what people say NYC is also like?

"You know Ms. Price doesn't like you calling her by her first name, right?" He asked.

"She almost hates us all as much as she hates her ex-husband."

"What -" Julia asked before Madison shook her head, almost as if asking her to save her breath.

"What's your point?" She asked the boy.

"And what's that in your hand?"

"Oh, this?" He asked, pulling out a detention slip from his pocket, which is not what Madison was talking about.

"I need your help -"

"Of course you do." She groaned, rubbing her temple.

"It's been -" She looked at the clock hanging above the door and then at him, surprised.