A Tale As Old As Time (Billy Hargrove x OC)

Five

It is Thursday at school, and Billy still seems like he doesn't care. Crystal has literally seen him go home with a girl every single day. Yesterday, he even came back after a couple of hours to pick up one of the other cheerleaders. Crystal only knows this, since she is a cheerleader, so she had to stay for practice too.

She stands at her locker, when she gets a profound headache. Her hands goes straight to her templates, but soon after to her ears. The ringing sound is back again. She feels an arm around her waist, pulling her into an empty classroom nearby.

"Crystal... okay?" She can only hear parts of the sentence, but she is somehow able to decipher, who the voice belongs to. Billy.

He gently slaps her cheek to try and reach out to her, whilst still calling her name. But nothing was working.

"Crystal. Hey, Crystal." He tries again but she can't say anything.

The ringing noise keeps getting louder and louder, until it is ear piercing. That when it all stops. All goes black.

She kept flickering in and out of being awake and sleeping. Groaning she sits up and notice that she is no longer at school but in a bedroom Crap, she thinks. Where am I?? Just then the door opens and reveals Billy standing with a glass of water in his hands.

"Hey, you are awake." He says placing the glass of water on the nightstand. "How are you?" He sits down next to Crystal.

"Like I just got hit in the head with a baseball bat like a thousand times." She says as she lays down again, after feeling a dash of tiredness. "What happened? And why am I at your place?"

"I saw you in the hallway and saw that you were holding your hands over your ears. You looked like you were in a lot of pain so I decided to get you away from the hallway and into an empty classroom. I tried to talk to you but it was like you couldn't hear me. Then you fainted."

"Why didn't you take me to the hospital?" Crystal interjects.

"As I was carrying you to my car, you mumbled something like; no hospital." He says. "I tried to argue with you but you kept mumbling the same thing over and over again; no hospital."

"I don't remember any of that." She sighs.

"No wonder." He chuckles. " You were knocked out."

"Haha very funny." Crystal says very done with Billy. A part of it was obviously also from the tiredness. "So what? You decided to bring me here."

"Not the plan at first, but I tried your house and no one was home, so I figured this was the next best thing." He says and hands her the glass of water.

Just as she is done drinking, she came to a realization. "You didn't do anything while I was knocked out. Did you?" Clearly nervous.

"Jeez Crystal. I am not that big of a jerk." Billy says angrily.

"Sorry. I just had to be sure." She feels incredibly guilty for accusing him of that.

After an awkward moment of silence, Billy breaks it. "I have to pick up Max now, so I can take you to your bike, if you want."

"That would be nice. Thanks." She says in a quiet voices, which she failed to make sound cheerful.

"Are you good to go?" Billy asks impatiently.

"Yeah." She says as she sees her backpack and picks it up. They then walk out to Billy's car. While they are walking through the house, Crystal notices a mark in the wall. It looks kinda like someone had punched the wall. She thinks about asking Billy, what it was from, but quickly decided not to go there right now.

They reach the Camaro, that reiks of cigarettes and alcohol. A silence is still surrounding them.

"I never got to ask you, what happened with you?" Billy asks in his monotone voice.

"I don't know. I just heard this loud ringing noise and it just got louder and louder, until my body couldn't take it any longer." She decides not to tell Billy the whole story. If she tells him that she actually saw El from last year just with more hair. Then the image flashed to Hopper being dragged down by these weird plants or vines or whatever you could call them.

"Well maybe but that doesn't explain, why your nose was bleeding." He answers back.

"What do you mean?" Crystal asks confused. Her nose hadn't been bleeding. Had it?

"Did I forget to mention? Yeah your nose was bleeding when I saw you in the hallway." He mentions.

"I don't know why, it was bleeding any more than you do, Billy." But she is lying once more. She doesn't even want to consider it, but down down she already knows. Something is going on with her and maybe it is linked to El.

After a couple of more minutes, they pull up to the school. Crystal thought that it would take way longer to get to the school, but with Billy behind the wheel, it only takes ten minutes or less.

"Thanks for the ride." Crystal says as she is about to exit the car. She then realizes that she forgot something. "And Billy, thanks for helping me back there. I owe you one."

"Don't get to caught up. It was only so that none of the other boys wouldn't get their hands on you." He says back in his usual voice. Crystal swears that she thought Billy had gone soft, but no. The old Billy was back once more.

"But still thanks." She says and leaves the car.

"Please tell me he didn't get you too." Crystal turns away from her bike and notice Max.

"Don't worry. Nothing happened. I just didn't feel good and Billy took me home. Then we realized that my bike is here and I just rode with him since he had to pick you up." She lies and ruffles Max' hair.

"Hey! I am not five!" Max giggles. A hunk from a specific Camaro, is then heard.

"You should go, before he gets mad." Crystal says and gestures towards Billy.

"You're probably right." Max sighs. "But see you around, Waters."

"See you around, Mad Max." Crystal smiles and gets on her ATV to go home. Dustin has told her about that nickname while she was at Steve's house helping him with homework. Apparently he was both pissed and in love with her. Oh boys are so strange, Crystal thinks and rides home.

When she arrives home, she let her self in. Kristen is probably working late again, so Crystal lays down on the couch and starts watching MTV.

Thinking about everything that happened today is the last thing, she wants.