Everything Has Changed - [Part II] No Sleep Tonight

[parallax23]

No Sleep Tonight
Part II of II

Episode: 4x11

Summary: The students return to the school after the events in La noche de las dos lunas.


Maria’s footsteps felt hollow as she walked to Ivan’s room.  She wasn’t sure what mental state she would find him in.  Was he still in shock?  Was he scared?  When she entered his room, his expression was unreadable.  He sat very still on the bed with Julia beside him, inspecting his newly washed face for bruises.  They had changed into their pajamas, and for a moment they looked like small children ready to be tucked in.

“I brought aspirin and some bandages for Julia’s ankle,” said Maria.  With the blood gone, there were still a few scratches and a black eye left as evidence of what had taken place.  Julia nodded and took off her shoe for Maria to wrap her ankle.  As Maria kneeled down, she asked them, “How are you holding up?”

“Well, in spite of my father’s best efforts, I’m not dead yet.  So, fan-fucking-tastic,” muttered Ivan.

“To say that I’ve had better nights is an understatement.  Thanks for this,” said Julia as Maria finished wrapping her ankle.

Maria stood up and went back to the cart.  “We need to watch our backs now.  No one can know what happened because there are some very bad people involved.  If you need anything, let me know, right?”

She wasn’t sure what she could do to protect them, but she would try.  Without Fermin and Hector, they were more vulnerable to Noiret’s schemes than before.  She would have to break that news to them as well.  “We need to be more careful because Hector is not here.”

Julia and Ivan sat up intently.

“What?” asked Ivan.

“You didn’t hear all of the students returning to their rooms?  Hector collapsed at the party and had to be taken to the hospital,” said Maria.

“Shit,” said Julia, shaking her head.

Ivan rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Fuck.”

“I know,” sighed Maria, pouring the tea into cups and leaving a bottle of aspirin on Ivan’s desk.  “This night is just full of the worst surprises…”

She left the room when she was done.  Once she was in the hallway, she leaned against the door and burst into tears.  How could Noiret do this to his son?  Her son? The man was truly a monster, and Ivan’s fate had been left in his hands.

*                *                *

“Ivan, are you okay?” asked Julia as she handed him a cup of tea and two aspirin.

He drank the aspirin with water from his nightstand and briefly stared into the tea cup as if he was looking into the ocean.  His eyes were full of tears that he couldn’t hold back when he looked at her.  “He died in my arms.  He told me that he was my fucking biological father and then he just died.  This whole fucking time that’s why he kept talking to me?  Why he gave me his bike?”

Julia sat down beside him and stroked his hair.  They had managed to get safely out of the woods, but they had paid dearly.  Their trust had been shattered.  The men that Ivan and Julia thought they could rely on were harboring dark and deadly secrets.  How far did this conspiracy truly go with the school, Marcos’ mother, Martin, Ivan’s father, and now Julia’s stepfather?  Was there no adult left untainted by it?

“And it gets better,” Ivan continued.  “He said that Maria is my damn mother.  This whole time she’s been hovering over me, it’s been because she’s my damn birth mother…  I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

If she had the energy left, Julia would have been shocked.  But this revelation received a quiet, accepting nod.  No wonder Ivan was a bigger mess than he should have been.  She kissed him on the forehead.  “You just had to crash, then upstage my kidnapping.”

“Hey, I would still gladly trade my fucked up family for yours,” said Ivan.

“Listen, I don’t know what to believe anymore either.  The man I thought loved me just tried to kill me.  And you turned out to be my almost hero.  Life is funny like that.  But believe me when I say that it doesn’t matter if your real parents are Maria and Tony, or the King and Queen of Spain, I’ll always be here for you… because you really suck at rescues.”

Ivan laughed.  “Well, you suck at being a damsel in distress.  How about picking a guy that you don’t need to be rescued from next time?”

Julia took his tea cup and placed it on the nightstand beside hers.  “Really?  Do you have anyone in mind?”

“Maybe,” he said, pulling her on top of him as he lay back on the bed.  “If you want Marcos, you’ll need someone to rescue you from Carol and Amelia…  And you already passed on Roque and Rodrigo…”

“So that just leaves you?” Julia grinned.

“No, you’ll definitely need to be rescued from me,” Ivan said as their faces got closer, and their lips finally met.

They kissed for some time, and when they came up for air, Marcos, Vicky, Roque and Carol stormed into the room.  Julia and Ivan pulled away from each other and stood up to greet their friends.  The others took off their coats, unfazed by the scene they had just walked in on.

“Nice to see that the text that you sent about being all right wasn’t exaggerating,” Macros teased.  He received a hug from Ivan, while Julia hugged Roque, Vicky and Carol.

“I doubt there’s anything right about me anymore, but we’ve got bigger problems,” said Ivan.  “Noiret’s on the warpath for some documents that Tony stole and Hector’s in the hospital.”

Marcos nodded.  “I told you not to get tangled up with that guy…  I heard about Hector, but I haven’t had time to check in on Paula.  Is this some sort of deranged horror flick?”

“We don’t know much.  I hope Hector is all right,” said Julia.

“Marcos, you should go to Paula,” said Carol.  “We’ll fill in Ivan and Julia.”

“Fine.  Tell them about the chapel until I get back,” said Marcos, and he exited the room.

“So what’s the first item on the agenda?” asked Ivan.

“Nazis.  We’ve been going up against Nazis this whole time,” Roque said.  “There.  It’s out.”

“Nazis?  Like the kind in Schindler’s List?,” Julia asked incredulously.

“Yes.  They have some creepy super villain hideout under the old chapel,” Carol explained.  “There were pictures of them in the envelope – Noiret, Elsa’s father, and the whole Secret Society of Super Villains – going inside.”

Ivan ran his hands through his hair in frustration.  “Are you fucking kidding me?  Not only is my old man a murderer, he’s got an entire fucking cohort that took an entire World War to take down?  Is he going to shave his head and reveal that he’s Lex Luthor next week?”

“This whole thing gave me the creeps before, but how big does this go?  A multi-million dollar corporation, the school, even Marcos, Ivan and Julia had their families involved.  Is there no place safe anymore?” Vicky wondered.

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

“Come in!” shouted Roque. Then he said quietly, “Would Nazis knock before entering?”

Rodrigo opened the door dressed in his pajamas.  “Guys, where have you been all night?  Ivan, what happened to your face?”

“You don’t want to see the other guy,” Ivan said.

“Right,” Rodrigo nodded. “Anyhow, since the teachers are all freaking out about Hector, we managed to swipe the leftover wine from the party.  There’s going to be a private get together in the gym.  Coming?”

The friends paused and looked at each other.  The events of the night had already exhausted them.

“I’m in,” said Ivan, walking over to Rodrigo.  “I could use a drink or four.”

Rodrigo smiled.  “Great.  Remember, it’s pay to play…”

“Of course,” Ivan said pointedly.  He should have guessed that Rodrigo invited him for a reason.  Some things never changed.  He went over to the closet and retrieved three packs of cigarettes.  “This is all I have left.”

“It’s better than nothing,” said Rodrigo, and he walked out of the room to collect more people for the party.

“Julia, grab the lighter from my drawer,” Ivan said.  Julia got the lighter from the nightstand and walked over to Ivan, who put his arm around her to help her walk.

“Since when does Ivan share his cigarettes?” asked Carol.

Roque rolled his eyes.  “It was Cayetano’s that we were supposed to split, but Ivan used his half already.”

“How can they just go off to party after everything that’s happened?” Vicky demanded.

“Maybe they realized that they need a drink to cope with how fucked we are.  Which seriously doesn’t sound like the worst idea,” said Roque, taking off his tie and throwing it on his bed.  “As Camilo would say, ‘carpe diem.’ Let’s go.”

He unbuttoned his shirt collar and walked out. Carol and Vicky followed him out of the boys’ room.  They went back to their room to change out of their dress clothes and join the other students.  It wasn’t as though they would get any sleep tonight anyway.

“Marcos probably ran off to Amelia since he hasn’t replied to my text about the party,” said Carol as she put on her nightgown.  She was getting frustrated with his relationship.  “When is he going to see her for what she is?”

“I don’t know.  He’s a guy and right now he’s only thinking with one thing,” said Vicky.  “Boys are such idiots.”

“Is that comment directed at Marcos or Ivan?” asked Carol.

Vicky grimaced.  “You think this thing with him and Julia is serious?”

Carol shrugged.  The answer was most likely yes, if tonight was anything to go by.  She had known Ivan since they were six years old, and she could read him like a book.  While she wasn’t crazy about Julia, she preferred that Ivan paired up with Julia instead of Vicky.  Carol wasn’t going to get dragged into Vicky’s feud with the other girl.  “I don’t know.  What’s serious?  They’re already sleeping together.”

Vicky bristled at the blatant remark.  “Don’t you even care?  That girl is wrong in the head and sees dead people.”

“We’re not together anymore.  He can see who he wants,” said Carol, indifferently.  “Besides, I think any questions about him and Julia will just piss him off.”

Vicky nodded, remembering her last confrontation with Ivan about Julia.

“They’re enjoying themselves, so why shouldn’t we?  Let the Nazis wait until the morning, tonight I’m going to be a fifteen year old girl,” said Carol, looping her arm around Vicky’s as she steered her out of the room.

They would deal with their problems in the morning.  But they had no intentions of sleeping tonight.

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A/N: The scene with Ivan and Julia has to be one of my favorite scenes to write this year.  I felt like I nailed it.  Also, I think Alex & Sierra's song "Little Do You Know" really fit this mood.