"There is that," he smiles, "you ready to go, got everything?"

"Yup. Take me away, Stef. I wanna go show dad all the pictures I took. He's home?"

He opens the passenger door for her, and closes it behind her. Then when he's in the drivers seat he replies, "I haven't seen him today, so that probably means he's holed up in his office. I'm sure he'll love to see them."

"The doors breakable, not gonna give him a choice. I'm spoiled like that."

"I have a key, Juliet. No breaking down doors. Especially not very old and expensive ones." He starts the car, and pulls out of the parking lot.

"You are an Awful Role Model. Don't let me have any fun."

"Keep telling yourself that. Eventually someone will believe it."

Assorted students go home.

Jackson goes home. Mr. Whittemore tries to talk to him, but he's not interested in what he has to say.

He's not sure if he wishes they told him sooner, or if they'd never told him.

Every time he thinks about it, he wishes the lie had fallen apart years ago; every time he thinks about it, he wishes he could scrub the knowledge from his memory.

He practices.

Lydia goes home.

"How was your day, honey?"

"I made a new friend, I think."

"That's wonderful. What's her name?"

"Juliet Salvatore."

"...Salvatore? That's not a very common name, is it?"

"Isn't it? I haven't studied which Italian names are common in Southern California, should I?"

"There's no need to bite my head off, Lydia, I was just asking."

Boyd goes home.

His parents are polite, and pleasant, and avoid looking at him for longer than they have to.

His mother cries in the bathroom while he tries to study ahead for Latin. There's only one wall between them, but he can't confront her. Can't comfort her.

He puts in his earphones and thinks about crows.

Juliet arrives home. Her father is not there to greet her. She stands outside his office door and calls out to him, she can hear his heart beat, but she gets no answer.

She does not break down the door.

Instead she goes for a run, a swim and then transforms and runs through the woods.

Eventually when she arrives home she finds dinner waiting for her on the table. Pancakes.

She goes to bed hungry.

There's a knock on their door early the next morning.

Stefan is the only one up, so he answers the door.

"Stefan, hello!"

The rather large, rather bearded man and his less large, less bearded wife who greet him are familiar, as is the young man standing behind them.

"It's great to see you again," says Mrs. Walcott. "How's Juliet?"

"Vivian, hey." He steps aside for them to enter. "Wallace and Sean too, please come in, all of you."

"She's sleeping right now, had her first day of school yesterday. Did you want me to wake her?" He pauses, "Is something wrong?"

"We just wanted to make sure you were apprised of what happened yesterday," Vivian says, wringing her hands apologetically.

"It's a shame, really. I'm sure most of the students won't remember the details," her husband muse.

Sean is gritting his teeth, but he doesn't expect the adults to care.

Stefan notices, but looks to the couple, "This sounds serious. What exactly happened?"

"There was some kind of incident- she lost control, Stefan."

"Dad, come on, it was nothing-"

"I thought he should know, and we both know neither you or Juliet was going to tell him."

"This happened at school?"

Zach walks into the entrance hall. "What did she do?"

"Yes, in front of a class full of students."

Vivian shakes her head.

"She can sit out gym if that's what it takes, you're not pulling her out-"

"Don't speak that way to Stefan, Sean, it's rude."

"She might have flashed her eyes, and been a little better at playing dodgeball than the average kid, nothing incriminating."

Zach turns to Stefan. "I told you this would happen. She's not ready, she'll never be ready. She knows it, and you know it. I'm pulling her out."

To Sean: "Did she hurt anyone?"

"Not anymore than they were hurting each other. Not a single kid in there thought it was anything other than dodgeball."

"Sean, please," Wallace snaps.

"We've said what we came to say. We care about her well-being, but she's not our daughter. We'll leave the decisions up to you," Vivian says, placing an arm around her husband.