A/N: My brother has just committed heresy. He said that he thought of Mark as looking like Snape. Can I get a collective EW! Mark does not have long greasy hair. And he's not old. It's short, I know.

A few weeks later Mark and Odette sat in front of the TV. Odette was making grass skirts to replace the wilted ones in the shop. Bernadette was watching the store, and Wade was at work. Odette usually would have done this outside, but it was nice to have someone to talk to. Mark had it on a cartoon channel, and was enjoying it immensely. So when the doorbell rang, Odette answered.

"Hey, Docette!" A girl about Odette's age immediately hugged her. She was an average sized girl, with shoulder-length hair and glasses. She looked native. "Ooooh, who's the cute guy?" This time the girl whispered in Odette's ear.

"Heather, this is Mark. Mark, Heather. What brought you by?"

"You promised to help me with math this summer. You know that without you, I'd fail terribly." Heather replied. Mark waved from his spot on the couch, paying no more attention to the conversation.

Odette smiled, "Okay then, come up to my room." Heather smiled too, and followed Odette. As was their personal custom, Heather took off her Celtic cross at Odette's door and hung it on a nail. It represented the fact that neither would bring religion into any conversation, as that would just end in an argument.

Odette immediately started explaining things to Heather that made her head swim. Two hours later they were taking a small break. Heather was half asleep right next to the boom box. Odette was reading ahead in the math book, so that she would understand what she was teaching. Suddenly Heather's eyes popped open, and she rushed out of the room. Down the hall another door closed.

"How's the tutoring going?" Mark came partway into the room, and began to lean on the left wall. Odette was about to answer when Mark hissed in pain. He had touched Heather's cross. Odette grabbed his right arm and led him to the lab. She turned over his left arm to look at the burn. It wasn't bad, but nothing she treated it with worked. Heather wandered in after a couple of minutes. Odette had packed a bandage full of herbs and wrapped it around the burn. She was pouring so much healing magic into Mark that they were lucky he didn't glow.

"What happened?" Heather asked. They ended up making a phony story about Mark hurting himself while attempting to cook. Mark wasn't very happy about this, but it worked. Heather went to get her cross, and went home. Bernadette came in just as Heather left. Bernadette went into the living room to find Odette, but when she saw Mark her eyes began watering.

For the second time that day they were asked what had happened. Once the real story was told, Bernadette said to Odette, "You never need to use that much magic on someone, dear. It's hurting my eyes. If it isn't healed, it's not going to." So Bernadette helped Odette drain the magic from Mark's arm, and they took off the bandage. The burn had indeed healed, but instead of new pink skin there was a scar. It was pretty for a scar.

Bernadette and Odette were perplexed. They discussed the reasons that the burn might not have healed correctly straight through dinner, when Wade finally told them that they were ruining his appetite. Mark decided that it would be a good night to go pig hunting. He didn't want to be experimented upon.

He disappeared, and the women went into the lab so that they could discuss the matter again. While in there they decided to keep their hands busy. Soon the whole house smelled like tropical flowers. Wade decided that he should escape too, and went to find Mark. The womenfolk were all alone in the house at eleven, when they finished both the perfume and their conversation. Since it had turned into boys night out, they picked up a scary movie that they had been saving for such a night.

An hour and a half later, Mark and Wade walked in the front door. Both Odette and Bernadette screamed and fell of the couch. "Do they always do this?" Mark whispered. Wade nodded, an amused smile on his face. He stepped forward and helped his wife up while Mark turned on the lights. Odette scrambled to her feet and turned off the TV. Her dad was not a big fan of scary movies.

Wade gave Bernadette a look, and she turned to Mark and Odette. "Bedtime. You need to be up bright and early tomorrow." They both went very reluctantly to bed.

The next morning they were each woken up by one of the adults. Mark was sandwiched between Odette's parents on the bench seat. Odette sat irritably in the back seat. They were in her SUV. After about ten minutes of driving, Odette figured out where they were headed. "I have to go to school with him?" She exclaimed. This was horrible, terrible, cruel, and unusual punishment. They still had a rivalry going, even if it was quieter. Bernadette pulled over to the side of the road and turned to look at her daughter.

"Odette Muriel Xanders." She said with a stern glare. Odette wisely stayed silent. "We are going to get Mark registered as your foster brother. You father had to pull a lot strings and call in several favors so that this could be done without questions being asked. And yes, you two will have to go to school together. If you are going to have a problem with that, we'll have a Talk."

"I won't cause problems, mom." Odette whispered crankily.

"Good." Bernadette resumed driving. "I hope you don't have a problem with this, Mark. In the fall I get busier with my gardening, and Wade stays just as busy. This is the best way for us to keep an eye on you." Odette found this interesting, but didn't say anything.

They finished the paperwork at three. They ran home and Bernadette told them to hustle into formalwear. Odette put on a long periwinkle dress. She gave her hair a little curl and went into her mom's room for makeup. Bernadette applied the makeup skillfully. Odette hated it, but even she had to admit that it looked good. When she walked out to wait by the front door, Mark was still getting ready. Bernadette finished and came to wait beside her daughter. Finally the boys came out. Mark was dressed in black slacks and a red satin shirt. His hair had been spiked. No wonder he had taken forever.

They piled into the smaller car for once. It was snazzier. Wade usually drove it to work. Wade drove them to the dock, and they got to see why they had dressed up. Someone was doing a catered dinner cruise. Odette sighed. During the last one she had been stuck with some of the shallowest girls on the planet. They had decided that the reason she hadn’t been participating in their conversation about boys was that she was far too loyal to her nonexistent boyfriend. Needless to say, it had annoyed the heck out of her. She figured that this was Mark's kind of thing though.

Once on the ship, they were immediately separated. Mark and Odette were shooed over to the other teenagers while Wade and Bernadette were escorted to the host. Odette was happy. There seemed to be a good balance of boys and girls, and a good balance of personalities. Odette knew a few of the girls from school. One was the nice popular girl. Odette met a Japanese girl that she didn't know and they were soon friends. They were talking avidly after the host's speech when Odette heard a familiar sneer behind her. She turned around to see the school slut, Cheryl. Normally Odette didn't pass judgment on people, but Cheryl was a pain, and she took pride in it. "You better not tell anyone that your dad is my daddy's boss."

'So that is why the host looked so familiar . . .' Odette thought before retorting, "Do I look like I parade my wealth around?" The Japanese girl took the opportunity to make a jab at Cheryl too.

"If she took pride in being better than you, her head would be as large a Jupiter."

Mark, hearing the sweet sounds of an argument, wandered over to them. All the girls perked up when they saw him. Cheryl immediately attached herself to his arm and introduced herself. Odette began fiddling with her crystal pendant. Mark had learned that that was a sign of agitation. So he tried to get Cheryl off of him. "Cheryl, I really just came over to ask my foster sister something." Cheryl's mood crashed. Either he lived far away, or he lived with her worst nightmare.

Mark was having problems thinking of something realistic to ask Odette, so he asked for a dance. Odette accepted and, as soon as their backs were to Cheryl, began giggling. "Did you see her face? Thanks for getting me out of that one." A slow song came on and they began dancing. They danced until the next song, which was an extremely fast one. They took one look at each other, then danced so hard that the rest of the couples gave up trying to keep up with them. They separated for the rest of the evening. Once they were home again, Odette was reminded why she usually did something her hair. Trying to braid it for the night, she encountered several hard knots. She spent the next half hour on the sofa, brushing her waist-length hair. She was half asleep as she walked up to her room.

"Would you turn on the music please?" Mark whispered to her at the head of the stairs.

Odette grunted and turned to look at him. In her tired mind, she registered that Mark actually looked good shirtless. "Wha?" She asked. Mark repeated himself. It took twenty seconds for the words to reach her brain and another ten for her to digest them. Once she understood, she smiled and nodded slowly. "Good night."

A week and a half later, it was time to start school again. "MARK! Get your filthy vampire behind out of bed." Odette screamed at him at five thirty in the morning. Mark stumbled out of his room to see a completely ready Odette. She was huffing and puffing, and there was an angry light in her eyes. "You have to shower and put on the sunscreen. Hurry."

When he came down an hour later, Odette had just finished cleaning up her breakfast dishes. He could still smell the hash browns and eggs. She stepped into her shoes and out the door. Mark followed her. It was unusually dark outside, even for this time of day. It smelled like rain. Odette grimaced, "This isn't going to lift before evening." Kauai tended to have showers one minute and sun the next. But this looked like a large thunderstorm that would last a while.

Odette carefully backed out of the driveway. The rest of the drive reminded Mark of his tenure at Tulsa in the eighties. They still weren't the first students there. Their homeroom was almost half full. "I don't care what you do for lunch as long as you stay in the cafeteria." Odette whispered before going to sit in the second row. Mark took the seat right behind her, which was thankfully free. No sooner had he sat down than Cheryl came into the room. She set a laminated card gingerly on the teacher's desk, surveyed the room, and headed towards Mark.

The student next to Mark huffed as they were booted out of their seat. 'This is one girl who thinks she knows the ways of a whore.' Mark thought. Well, she didn't. He had met several more tempting women in his time. And he was young by vampire standards. But even as he decided to ignore her, a better plan came into his mind.

As they stood to recite the pledge of allegiance, Cheryl stayed in her seat. When the bell rang Odette crankily burst out the door with Mark on her heels. "The idiotic, unpatriotic slut! Religious conflicts my . . ." Odette took a breath and refrained from vulgar language, "Even I say it, and I'm not religious at all. She, however, wears a cross." As Odette continued to rant while she walked, Mark smirked. This plan was perfect.