Chapter Text
Your stomach dropped and panic set in when news spread that Lariss—no, you corrected, Principal Weems has been poisoned and was in critical condition.
Your head swam with fear, despair, confusion, worry, hope. After staring off with your vision blurred for a few minutes as your heart ached, you sprung into action. You wrapped your cardigan around you tighter as you moved quickly to the dormitories. Someone had to ensure panic did not erupt with the news, even if what you wanted most was to run to wherever Principal Weems was. It didn’t take more than a handful of times meeting to understand this school and its inhabitants were the pride and upmost importance for the principal. You knew this would selflessly be on her mind after being poisoned. What twisted priorities, you thought, shaking your head slightly as you made it to the wing of the school that housed students and faculty.
With Bianca’s help, you began ushering students to safety and placating their frantic questions.
In the Burlington hospital waiting room you found yourself jittery and bouncing your legs up and down in your chair. When other professors eyed you, you half-heartedly attempted to groan that the seating was uncomfortable—especially after sitting for hours.
You stood up quickly to escape to the large floor length windows and gaze outside at the early morning sky and birds beginning to chirp and sing a new day. Noticing how your breath was shallow and uneven, you focused on the birds’ songs and tried to deepen and steady your breathing. After a few moments, you were able to calm a bit. You spot a few American robins circling a tree outside seeming so jubilant and free. You let their melody surround you, giving you goosebumps down your arms. Enchanted, you begin to orchestrate a new tune in your head, one to soothe your remaining worries.
Music always had this effect on you and consistently provided an avenue to build or release your feelings. In fact, being able to explore and share your abilities teaching outcasts over the last two years at Nevermore has changed your life. Before you could finish your bird song arrangement, a polite voice spoke out that Principal Weems could now briefly see visitors.
Not everyone could queue to visit the principal, though. Only faculty at this time. Your annoyance flared. You chided, leave it to that woman to negate healing in order to ensure the academy is continuing adequately. You stifled a scoff while thinking about it and made your way with a handful of other members of the staff to Weems’s room through the emergency doors. As you glanced back to the waiting room, you saw a small dark figure with reddened eyes being enveloped comfortingly by blonde, pink, and blue.
Once you reached the doorway to Principal Weems's room and tentatively glanced inside, all your frustration at the situation dissipated. You've never seen the tall, statuesque woman embody anything but poise, control, and confidence. She still looked graceful, but there was a weariness to her form now. It broke your heart to see.
Pulling you from your thoughts was the voice of the person in question. "You may come in, dear. I hardly bite."
At this, your cheeks were set ablaze, and you scurried inside after the other professors once seeing you were the only one still outside her room. “Apologies, Principal Weems,” you muttered, standing in the back behind your colleagues.
Each of us gave our respective reports to the bedridden principal, and we strategized how to move forward with the semester. With a heavy sigh and her long fingers rubbing at the bridge of her nose as if she is staving off a headache, Principal Weems relinquished, “I’m afraid we will be cancelling classes for the rest of the semester.”
Rather than protest the decision, you looked around the room curiously, taking it in. It really was too bland to be connected to someone as exquisite and full of character as Larissa Weems, even in her current state. There was a small TV hung up in the corner of the room, a laminate top table, a strange patterned chair with faux leather accents to the right of her hospital bed, an IV, and machines beeping rhythmically behind her. It was far from her lavish and impeccably designed office. You contemplated to yourself with furrowed brows, Does Principal Weems even watch television? Unbeknownst to you, Principal Weems observed your brows and eyes darting around the room, almost sensing your questioning and dissatisfaction with the space.
At that moment the same nurse from before came to collect the visitors from the room, letting us know that the patient needed adequate rest. Nodding and murmuring, my colleagues began to clear out. I neared the doorway as the last person out when I heard through pursed lips, “It’s a shame that I’ll go mad here recovering without my books or laptop. Think you could fetch them for me tomorrow, dear?” You turned, only to encounter the other woman's inquiring blue eyes, waiting expectantly. You swallowed a large knot in your throat, “Y-yes, ma’am.”
With your mind spinning from your interaction at the hospital the previous evening, you set to work gathering the items Principal Weems requested. After embarrassing yourself twice in front of the woman yesterday, you’re not sure if you’ll make it through this task as you push open her office door to get to her adjoined living quarters. You’ve always found her to be quite desirable, and you typically aren’t a bumbling idiot when it comes to crushes. What makes this different? you plead with yourself.
Regardless, you’ve decided a change is in order. This was your second year at Nevermore Academy, and you have barely had ten conversations with the tall blonde outside of weekly faculty meetings. If it wasn’t for Principal Weems’s history with Garrett Gates’s murder, you’re not sure she would have had the Nightshade antidote on her to confront his sister, Laurel. You almost lost the one person you wanted to pursue all because you didn’t have the courage to speak up. No more. You’re going to woo Larissa Weems even if it’s the last thing you do.
With a duffel open on her magnificent office desk, you begin to collect some books from Weems’ bookshelves. Next is a stack of forms and papers that you’re sure the nurses would forbid you to sneak her if they knew. You head through a large door into her bedroom, a slight blush creeping up your neck. You shake your head to clear it and round the corner to her private bathroom. After a moment searching, you snag her signature red lipstick. You’re sure it’s not technically needed, but you imagine it is a comfort item for the woman. You look down at it almost mesmerized that her lips’ faithful companion is situated in your hand. You can’t help but wonder and hope you might take its place.
This possibility emboldened you. Instead of making your way back the way you came, you simply phase through the bathroom wall into Principal Weems’s large, regal office. Back in her workspace, your eyes fall onto a sleek, walnut vinyl and CD player. Taken aback, you walk over to it to run your finger over the dials. No TV, but this? My, what taste…you muse.
Suddenly, an idea weasels its way into your head. Almost every time you’ve been in Weems’s presence, she hums. She likes music. This you can work with.
After finishing your gift, you gently place it in the otherwise prepared duffel on her desk. If Principal Weems is concerned she’ll be too under-stimulated in recovery, you’ll ensure that is not the case. You’ve prepared a selection of songs for the woman, ranging from the obvious classical tunes to instrumental covers of pop songs—of which you’re sure the principal will like. You even composed your own piece for her to enjoy. Thankfully your powers lend so well to music generation and compiling for others. You think back to the moments where you could hear certain notes coming from the woman in the halls and faculty meetings. Not quite an aura, but a sonic manifestation of her current state or desires.
Now all that is left is to sign your name to the accompanying letter. Your hand stalls on the page, heart beating rapidly in your chest. Name. On. Letter. Easy. You are disrupted by a knock on the large double doors to Weems’s office. No doubt it is Nevermore’s driver waiting to depart to the hospital. Defeated, you scribble on a post-it note hastily, “Found this on your desk. Not sure who from!”
You’ve never lied to Principal Weems before, but the alternative is too terrifying. You’re not sure such advances would be welcomed with everything that has been going on. Nor if she would even bat an eye at you.
Best to tread carefully…