FPE Impetus AU: Grading

???: Who's this? RUBY: ... I'm RUBY. I'm one of Robby's friends. ???: ohhhh ... so ... are you two da- RUBY: No. We weren't dating. I really need to ask you something important. Do you know where Robby is? ???: D*ad. RUBY: W- ... Wait, you knew he died? ???: Yeah. He hasn't returned in over a day. Kind of expected this. RUBY: How can you not care about your own son dying? ???: He's my brother actually. For your question ... I do care.  RUBY: A caring person wouldn't joke about this sort of thing. ???: When you lose people as often as we do, you don't tend to want to talk or cry about it. That doesn't mean that I'm not upset. I am. Truly. ... Were you two friends? RUBY: ... I don't know. We talked a lot. Before school started, I'd say yes. But ... things started getting worse. I don't know if he'd still consider me a friend. ???: What happened? RUBY: What caused us to fight? ???: NO. What caused him to d*e? RUBY: Well ... *RUBY looks at Robby's failed test sheet. * He failed his language test and Miss Thavel ... *RUBY realizes something. A lot of answers are crudely erased and replaced with different ones. The new answers have completely different handwriting than the originals. * Miss Thavel ... one moment. *RUBY still remembers the questions she put on her test perfectly. All of her answers should have been correct, but she got one of them wrong. ...  * Miss Thavel killed him. Sorry. I got distracted. ???: I'm sorry. I ... Before you had your fight, did you think he was a nice person?  RUBY: ... yes. ???: ... *sighs.* Thanks for being there for him. RUBY: alright. Before you go, could I get your name? ???: R ... Rebecca. RUBY: I'm sorry you lost him. And the other people in your life too. If you need, I still have some of Robby's things from his locker. I'd be happy to send them over. Rebecca: ... no ... I ... I don't think I want to be reminded of him if I can't look at him. I have family photos. That's enough. Thanks. *Rebecca hangs up the phone. *   *RUBY just sits down. Its ... understandable. You wouldn't want to be reminded of someone by just having a single object. That's not what makes her pause. The grades. The handwriting. She needs more information before she comes to a conclusi- * *RUBY's face receives a phone call directed towards herself. Its Petunia. She picks up. * Petunia: Hiiiiiiii, RUBY. RUBY: Hi, Petunia. What do you need? Petunia: Me and Lizzy are going to Engel's house to cheer him up. Do you wanna go? RUBY: No. And how do you know where Engel lives? Petunia: That's the thing. We need your help to figure that out. RUBY: ... I never actually went directly to his house, so I wouldn't know exactly where he lives. Petunia: C'mon. Just think about it. RUBY: ... Can I call you back?  Petunia: Sure. *RUBY hangs up on Petunia. * *She inputs Engel's number. He's been willing to call since she gave him her number, but he hasn't called since ... * *Ring. * *Ring. * *Ring. * *The ringing continues until an automated message occurs. * *RUBY hangs up. * *She goes to texts. * *The last few texts were just asking about studying with her and Cubbie. He always said he didn't have time. He didn't need to study. She just accepted it. * "Maybe I shouldn't have." RUBY thinks. *She types out something: TEXT: "Hi Engel. I haven't been hearing from you since Bubble dead. I just want to know that I want to help you. I want to talk. I'm sorry that I got so mad that you didn't help Robby. You were right. Can I just try to help you? In person." Send!   Engel's TEXT: why?   RUBY's TEXT: Because I care. Even if you made a mistake.   >   Engel's TEXT ok.   *Engel sends his address. RUBY sends it to Petunia. It doesn't feel good to lie like this, but she's confident that they'll be better at cheering him up than she could. *