Author's Notes: This is my first Recess fic in about a millennium. This could very well stand on its own but I have ideas on how to expand on it (without falling into the usual cliches of the Recess group in high school), so I suppose if there's enough interest (and I have enough motivation), I'll continue this as a longer piece.

Feedback is always appreciated.

Wow, it's really weird (and kind of awesome) to be back here.

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fall.

At the last moment he expected it, he fell for her.

It happened without the trumpeted fanfare he would have expected to accompany a moment of such magnitude. Rather, it was a moment less of triumph, and more of a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Ten paces between them, and looking at her, he felt his insides twist.

She was all dark hair and eyes, darkly dressed. She should have had the dark soul to go with, but he knew her better than that. Instead, people just assumed that she was as dark as her hair. For that, she always took blame.

A bomb in the girl's bathroom, and nothing more than a rumor that it was her doing, and the principal, flanked by police, stormed the cafeteria and bellowed her name.

She stood from her seat at the next table and turned to face her accusers, defiant and silent.

He watched as they condemned her in front of the entire student body, and his blood boiled. He knew it could not be her fault. He knew her better than that. She'd sworn her innocence, and he believed her.

He acted without thinking. Leapt to his feet. "I did it," he lied fiercely.

The principal and police turned their hungry eyes on him. Her face registered pure horror and shock and comprehension and fear and thankfulness ... and love.

As they roughly cuffed his hands, he watched her eyes fill with tears, the rest of her as immobile as a statue. They hadn't spoken in years and still he could read her eyes as clearly as he had when they were children.

She wanted to know why. He hoped she understood that he loved her, and did it to save her.

And just like that ...

... he fell for her.