King of Hearts (House of Card...

A/N: Chapter titles.... Ok. There is a MAJOR theme in the chapter titles. For QoS readers, I used the Tarot deck for titles, thus giving a little glimpse into the chapter theme for anyone who knows that kind of thing. Fo King of Hearts, I am using hte playing deck as the frame work. You can use regualr cards to do fortune telling as well as a tarot deck, so the titles are all hints. I won't bore you, but if you want to check it out follow:

http://www3.sympatico.ca/terrir/playing_card_meanings.html 

And the picture to the side is Maddison Avery.

____________________________________________________________________________________

"This is so lame!" West complained as he helped print out and organize stacks of paper. The librarian just harumphed at him and ignored his whining, used to it by now. The school library was organized with a perfection obtained only by having a head librarian with a serious case of OCD. Right now the taciturn old man was having the golden-eyed Cubano print out the booklets that were later be folded and turned into pamplets and passed around to everyone, and then promtly thrown out. What student actually cared about a booksale? It was his own fault though, he'd thought it above and beyond genius to volunteer in the highschool library. Then he wouldn't even have to go anywhere to do the community service hours, he could jsut stay behind after school to help out. And sometimes, like today, come in ridculously f***ing early to help out when necessary.

West stopped his grumbling when a long familiar face walked in. "Parca! Como esta?" he greeted the Spanish man. (Reaper! How are you?)

Malcolm Vega smiled at the young Cuban. "Buenos dias Westley. Mantener distraído de la angustia?" he asked, a smirk on his face. (Keeping yourself distracted from trouble?).

"Tratando." West grinned at the teacher. (Trying). He knew Malcolm from his years in Spain. When Westley Sr had moved West jr from Cuba to Spain, he hadn't changed his work habits. So little twelve year old West had tagged along with the boys from school and eventually ended up in the same neighborhood group of toughs as Malcolm had been in. Only back then everyone knew him as Reaper.

"Consíguete una novia. Te garantizo que tendrás las manos ocupadas." Malcolm laughed. (Get yourself a girlfriend. I guarantee you that you'll have your hands full).

"Estoy tratando, pero la niña tengo mis ojos en no parece estar respondiendo." West's smile dropped away. He'd asked that nerdy girl in class, Justine, about the new girl Alice and gotten a huge speil. The girls were friends and West had officially been told that Alice had not once asked about him, even though she had to have noticed him long before yesterday.

"Oh?" Malcolm asked, eyebrows raised. Everyone knew of West's reputation with the ladies. He had not dated a single girl since moving to Canada, and yet he constantly had girls on his arm outside of school. West could admit to himself that he was a ladies man, preferring to take his bedmates from the clubs rather than from class.

The teacher was photocopying a page out of the grade ten's Shakespeare so West was only half paying attention to him. "Es que la nueva chica, Alice. Ella es .... que está enloqueciendo caliente. Y al parecer, totalmente ajeno a la cubana con encanto persiguiendo al suelo." he stated. Even only half aware of Malcolm, West still saw the older man jerk at Alice's name. Oh he knew of her alright.... (It's that new girl, Alice. She's....she's freaking hot. And apparently totally oblivious to the charming Cuban chasing her down).

West frowned slightly when Malcolm scowled at the photocopier, whacking it as if it were jammed. West knew that Reaper had a volatile temper and some seriously terrifying mood swings, but he usually needed so,e kind of provocation to set him off. Maybe the new girl had done something to annoy him? "Ella es una de mis estudiantes aula. Creo que he oído que ella tiene un novio." Malcolm said through gritted teeth. (She's one of my homeroom students. I think I've heard that she has a boyfriend).

The Cuban kept frowning at the teacher. He hadn't heard any such thing and normally West was more likely to come across obscure gossip faster than Malcolm would. "¿Está seguro?" he asked, turning to watch the teacher's reaction carefully. (Are you sure?)

"Por supuesto." Malcolm replied curtly. (Absolutely). West blinked, feeling like he was reading too much into that statement. Surely Malcolm hadn't meant it to sound so... possessive. West shook the ridiculous notion aside, of course Reaper wasn't banging a student! Even one as hot as that Alice girl. "Yo sólo recuerdo haber oído hablar de ella que es mayor. ¿Sabes cómo las niñas charla en clase." Malcolm added on after a breif moment, seeming to realize how bad his first response sounded. (I just remember hearing her mention that he's older. You know how girls chatter in class). West nodded at the explanation, taking it with a grain of salt.

A lifetime spent living in paranoid, adrenaline fuelled danger had given him a knack for reading people, and West could tell that Malcolm was not being entirely honest with him right now. When West was younger, he followed Reaper around like a shadow, wanting to be just like him when he was bigger. He never questions the orders Reaper had given him, and had trusted the older gang member explicitly. Now, after he'd grown up a bit and been exposed to the harsh realities of the world, West was a little more pragmatic. He knew his once idol would lie to him if necessary, but never would put him in a dangerous situation. So he let it drop.

"Es una pena. Viéndola en esa falda y las mallas de baile y no ser capaz de aprovechar ese ...." West started to wax on but trailed off as he saw that Reaper's jaw was clench and he was gripping the photocopier as if he needed the support. (Too bad. Seeing her in that kilt and those dance leotards and not being able to tap that....). Holy s***! Malcolm Vega, the REAPER himself, had a thing for a student! West thought, making his face blank so the older man couldn't tell West had figured him out. Not that West could blame him one little bit for it. West had heard how Alice was handeling the b**** queen Lexi's harassment and had nothing but respect for the new girl. She didn't back down from confrontation one little bit. West knew that a girl with that much spunk might actually be a good match for the mercurial Reaper. Too bad she was his student though. "Anyways, I need to head off to class, see you later Reaper!" West waved to his old idol, setting aside the finished stacks of paper he'd been organizing.

West couldn't help but chuckle to himself, amazed that Malcolm Vega, Mr. Cool himself was mooning after a seventeen year old. Normally he could catch a glimpse of her as she headed to class, but this morning he didn't pass by her at all. Giving himself a mental shrug, West let his mind drift back to what it had been like to come to Canada and find out the Reaper was his gym teacher. He slouched in his homeroom class, Philosophy, and remembered just how hard it had been to move.

Seventeen year old West was full of a lot more anger and bravado back then. He'd been easily provoked, and any question against his manhood was immediately refuted with violence. And that was the problem. His grandmother was more than a little worried for him. Los Santos, the Lost Saints street gang, was big and dangerous, but that wouldn't stop the authorities from making him disappear if he became too much of a nuisance. When things started to look that way, 'La had contacted Westley Sr and demanded that he do something to intervene. So West had found himself packed up and shipped North.

The bell signalling the end of first period propelled him to his feet and West strode out of class with a quick pace. He hadn't even bothered to take a book out of his bag, so he beat everyone else out. God West didn't want to sit through this crap again. After Philosophy was the Maths block. The three classes he was failing and needed to pull up to graduate. F***. The teachers there all had heard from his father, repeatedly, about the need to ride him to get him to excell. So everyday in class, one of the teachers would come in and work with him directly, like he was some sort of special needs student. H*** even the special needs kids got less patronizing than he did!

"F*** it, I'm ditching." he muttered to himself, spinning on his foot to head back up the hallways to his locker. There was a pack of smokes in there, and if he remembered correctly, something a little more.... mellowing. The hallways around him were emptying quickly as he calmly pulled open the locker, grabbing the smokes from the top shelf. He didn't smoke all the time, and usually kept the illegale stuff to emergencies only, but he felt the growing need to step away from the world for a little while. For a country this big, and with this many different kinds of people, it was all a little too safely predictable for his tastes. The halls were deserted as the late bell rang. With a shrug West closed his locker and decided to head out through the gym. Less likely for any of the harpy teachers to see him sneaking away through there.

He had made it maybe halfway through the gym when he heard a terrified shout. He spun and started at the boys locker room door, wondering what the hell they were doing to make someone yell like a girl. He frowned and thought about walking out, it wasn't any of his buisness after all. But the fear in the voice of whomever had screamed bothered him enough that he felt compelled to check it out, if only to see what new horrors the school bullies have come up with. He was walking towards the doors when he heard a thumb and a muffled curse of pain. His muscles tensed, adrenaline flooding his system as he realized that it wasn't some harmless prank going on in there.

That wicked smile stretched across West's face as he knew that things had just gotten a lot less predictable around here. And then he heard the victim scream. She was terrified, he could hear it in her voice as she screamed out Malcolm's name. West shoulder checked the locker room door, bouncing whoever was holding it shut into a locker. He flew into the room, taking it all in within an eyeblink. Alice on the floor, bleeding and curled into a ball. The guy that had been holding the door shut had cracked his head against the side of the locker and was now sprawled onto the floor, looking like a corpse. There was one guy, Chirs, with a bloody finger. And Eddie, the resident drug dealer at school with a baggie of pills.

Oh this was going to be fun....... West thought as he barreled towards them.

##############

Maddison unwrapped the bandage from around her foot, wanting to see how bad the damage was but feeling too squeamish to actually look at it properly. "Oww oww owww." she whined to herself, letting her be a baby just this once. Her breath hisses as she saw the extent of her injury. "Great. Way to go Mad. You finally land a job in the troupe and you go and step on a rusty nail. Freaking fantastic. Moron." she muttered, wondering just what was taking her mother so long?

Finally the small redhead hurtled out the door, running to the car. "Sorry, sorry. Couldn't find your healthcard. You really need to carry that thing in your purse." Maddison's mother lamented as she got into the big van and started to drive the still bleeding Mad to the hospital.

"I know mom. Can we talk about it later? This hurts. And I'm going to need a shot in the arm for it too." Maddison whined, knowing her mother was fussing because she cared.

"Alright sweety. I'm sorry. I just wish that your father had gotten around to cleaning out the garage before it came to this! Really, sometimes I wonder about him, how can anyone be that abscent minded? He tells you that you can turn the garage into an apartment but then leaves all the hard work and clean up to you alone. As if you don't have enough to worry about!" her mother continued on that speil but Maddison had heard it all before. As much as her parents b****ed and moaned about each other's flaws, Mad and her younger sister Siobhan (A/N: looks wonky but that's the real spelling. Pronounced Shiv-awn) both knew that their parents were very much disgustingly in love with each other. Considering how often the two Avery sisters caught them making out or getting 'jiggy with it' as Shiv says, it was hard to not notice that the passion was still a-burning.

"Mom it's alright. I'm just being a wuss about it. I stepped on a freaking nail, it's my own stupid fault for going in there wearing flats instead of steel toe boots. I know how dad likes to collect old rusted junk with sharp corners, we've been over THAT conversation many times." Maddison made it into a joke, trying to ease the worry off her mother's face. Who knew that at 21 Maddison would be the one that was better at handling unexpected events like this?

"I just don't want you to loose your place in the troupe. You've worked so hard at it, and I know that you've been wanting to move out entirely but..." her mother bit her lips together, not saying the rest. Maddison nodded, already knowing. She didn't have a job if she lost the position in hte troupe, and her family was already hurting for money in this weak economy. Thus the compromise of her getting the garage, and her dad selling off the extra car. This way she got some form of freedom, and paid a ridiculously cheap rent to boot. Siobhan was just thrilled to finally get her own room in the house, so it was literally a win for all involved.

The rest of the car ride was quiet, Maddison wondering if maybe she should back burner dancing for a while and focus on getting a real job to try and help her family out. They supported her dreams, and when Juliard had given her a full scholarship, they had helped her move all the way down to the states. It was only now that she was back that problems occured. She stared moodily out the window, wondering just how long they'd want her off her feet now.

#####

West wasn't even breathing hard, these punks were pathetic. The one had been taken out by the door, lucky for West, unlucky for the guy who was barely breathing on the floor. Eddie was giving him this wild eyed look, like he was desperate and crazy, unpredictable and dangerous. But West just gave him this bored, dead-eyed look he knew gave would be thugs nightmares.

Eddie charged at him, obviously aiming to tackle the Cuban to the ground. Most people saw how slight West looked in the uniform and assumed he was handsome, but slender. One of those bean pole types, like Robert Patterson. But his lithe body was all hard muscle, earned on hte streets and honed in dangerous gangs. West used Eddie's momentum to spin him back around and launch him head first into the lockers. There was the sound of a bone somewhere breaking, and West gave a momentary pause to wonder if he'd just killed someone, again. He shrugged and faced Chris, knoing that this was his real opponent, the one likely to be a little more fun.

"I'm going to f*** you up." Chris snarled at West, pulling a switch blade out.

"You're going to try. But you will fail." West replied, voice cold and emotionless. He saw the other student twitch, a combination of fury and fear shaking his body lightly. A detatched part of his mind noted that he heard Alice throwing up, so thankfully she was still alive. Then he focused entirely on Chris, knowing that the presence of a weapon demanded respect for the deadly potential in the room.

He held still, limbs loose and ready to explode into action as required. West was patient and knew that Chris would have to attack soon, wanting the first strike. Chris almost stumbled in his hurry to thrust the knife out towards West, and the Cuban had a brief moment to remark that it was obvious Chris had never honestly fought with the knife before. West felt his body choose a course of action and side stepped the knife, grabbing his wrist and popping the elbow out of joint, making him drop the knife. Chris barked in pain and West rammed his knee into the bastardo's face, crumpling the student to the floor.

He walked over to where Alice was crawling and she shied away. "Hey it's alright, I'm not gonig to hurt you." he cooed, trying to ease her blind panic. Not that she hadn't had a reason for her fear. "We need to get you to a hospital." he stated after getting a good look at the injuries she'd suffered. And something in the dazed look of her eyes had him worried. He picked her up and heard her whimper at the movement. Not caring about the consequences later, West carried her out to the nurses' station, hearing people come out into the hall as they saw him carrying a girl splattered with blood.

"Ace!" he heard the worry and concern in Malcolm's voice and knew, without a shadow of a doubt that Reaper was with Alice, even though she was his student. You don't sound that horrified over someone who is jsut a student.

When the ambulance arrived, the cops came with it. West put his hands on his head and waited calmly, knowing that no one would believe he wasn't a bad guy in all this. But they started to believe it when they found the three amigos in the change room, especially when they found Eddie had a baggie full of Rohypnol. (Date rape drug) Surprisingly enough West was taken to the hospital with Alice, his knucles had split open somewhere along the fight, and one of the paramedics insisted he gets stitches for it. Normally he just super glued it and ignored it.

West was sitting in the waiting room chair, a last priority on the list compared to Alice and a baby that had swallowed a battery. He was wasting time when this really cute redhead hobbled in, supported by an even smaller, older version of herself. His eyebrows climbed up as he realized that the cutie was a slightly taller, little bit more curvy version of who was obviously her mom. There weren't a lot of seats available so the two redheads angled over to the empty chairs next to him, and the younger girl sat down while the older one walked up to the nurses' station.

He watched the cute red head out of the corner of his eye. "You know that cell phones have cameras now right? You can take a picture, it'll last longer." she said, pointedly catching his eye. He didn't blush, just shrugged, not minding being caught looking.

"True, but that's a little more creepy than I was going for at the moment." he replied, turning to face her, angling in the chair.

"Ah. Well you're still hitting creepy, but it's more of a 'is he gonig to try and smell my hair?' creepy instead of a 'I need a restraining order' creepy." she critiqued.

West felt an amused smik hit his lips. "Excellent, I'm right on the money. West." he offered his left hand, the right hand wrapped in white cloth stained red.

"Maddison." she shook his left hand and smiled. Her mother was still in line to harass the nurse, so West spent a few minutes talking to Maddison, grateful for such a cute distraction. She had a quick wit, and played along with his flirting. When her mother came back, they kept talking, though they included her and dropped the flirting.

Nearly an hour and a half later and Mrs. Avery got up to go ask what was taking so long when West got a text from his father, demanding to speak to him. "S***, I gotta bounce. Father needs to have words with me." West said, more to himself than to Maddison. He'd actually been enjoying himself in the freaking hospital! Just goes to show what good company can do.

"Boo, now what am I going to do for entertainment?" Maddison asked, pouting jokingly."Oh! Can you dance for me before you go? That'd be entertaining." she asked, smiling wickedly at him.

West raised an eyebrow at her. "Dance? I do dance, but you'd have to be on a date with me to see that." he replied with a smirk. "But... I do know how I can distract you from the pain." he added on, leaning in as if to whisper a secret in her ear.

Instead of whispering though, he turned and planted a kiss right on her lips. He felt her hesitate for a second, then she kissed him right back. "That might work." she breathed as she sat back, breaking their lips apart.

"Just imagine how I can distract you when I have a chance to rally plan ahead." he smirked. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it, staring her right in the eyes, not missing the blush that flushed across her cheeks. He smirked at her. "I hope you feel better Maddison." he waved his fingers at her as he walked out, already dialing his father.

______________________________________________________________________________

A/N: PHEWF! That was a long chapter. And I had to write some of it in Maddison's POV. I needed to get her introduced already :P