fandomhigh | Psych 101 (Monday, 04/03/2006, 3rd Period)

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psychology

Psych 101 (Monday, 04/03/2006, 3rd Period)

"All right, guys, it's getting on towards the end of the term," said Jenny. "Don't cheer too much, but we're gearing up to our final projects. Relieved? I've got some information on my desk about psychological experiments. I want you to review them, and come up with a short ~~handwavey if you want to do it that way~~ proposal for a safe, ethical experiment of your own. ~~One which you are in no way required to roleplay outside of class time if you don't want to, but people had fun with that last semester.~~" Jenny grinned. "This is the easy part--give me the proposal. And guys, next week, we're going to have a quiz. Fair warning, right?"

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Jenny leaned back in her seat, her expression serious. "So this is one of those 'I saw nothing, I heard nothing, and no school rules were broken in the making of this production' kind of problems, huh?" she asked. "You know, I'm pretty good at keeping things to myself, if you feel like talking about the stuff you didn't say."

"I don't want to talk about the stuff I didn't say," Elizabeth admitted, looking down at her hands. "And I don't think Charlie's actions are mine to tell."

"As long as you know I'm not going to start lecturing you," said Jenny. "You have to figure out what you want to talk about in your own time. But? It's okay if you want to talk about it. That's all I'm saying." She shrugged. "Okay, I'm also saying that Charlie's actions affected you, so yeah, they are yours to tell. I think, anyway."

Elizabeth kept her eyes on her hands, extending her fingers. "I... I know they won't hurt me anymore, these people," she began slowly. "And I feel glad, and I don't like that. It's like I'm taking comfort in other people's deaths."

She closed her eyes. Crap. She really hadn't meant to reveal that they were dead.

"They must've hurt you pretty badly," said Jenny. She'd blanched when she heard that Elizabeth's boyfriend had killed people. Sure, Buffy and the kids had killed vampires and demons, but that? Was a different story entirely. "Because that's some pretty serious action for a high schooler to be taking," she said, trying to keep her voice level.

Elizabeth's voice shook. "They took me from school and tortured me," she said. "They beat me, and they broke every last one of my fingers and now I'm the one feeling guilty."

Jenny blinked. That was heavy-duty stuff. "You know, when I heard they sent the guy that killed me to hell?" She remembered every instant of that panicked run through the halls of Sunnydale High. She couldn't forget those last, gasping breaths before Angelus had snapped her neck. Her voice hardened. "I was glad. When they cursed him and sent him to hell, and I found out about it? It made me feel better."

Elizabeth nodded, leaning her head forward onto clasped hands. "I expected relief, y'know?" she sighed. "But not this little voice in the back of the head that is saying that they deserved it. All life is sacred. The 6th commandment is that thou shall not kill. The law is the law, and Charlie broke it."

"Life is sacred, sure," said Jenny. "But it sounds like these guys didn't have a whole lot of respect for your life, or need to live it without, say, excessive pain and trauma."

"But that's not for me to judge. It's not for any of us to judge. Just because they were at fault first doesn't make the reaction acceptable."

"You wanna talk about not judging, I'm not the best person to go to," said Jenny. She shrugged, and smiled ruefully. "I grew up with 'an eye for an eye' as the main familial philosophy. You're, um--" She guessed at ~~almost~~ random. "--Catholic?"

Elizabeth nodded. "Well. Raised Catholic. Things have changed, but twelve years of Catholic school is still very much ingraned in me."

"Ew." Jenny wrinkled her nose and shuddered, but she was mostly not serious. "All that plaid?" She eyed Liz. "Though I find it kinda odd that you've been through twelve years of Catholic school when you're only, what, a junior?"

Elizabeth looked at Jenny wide eyed. "I started early?" she asked hopefully.

"Not that early," said Jenny. She shook her head. "So, what gives?"

Elizabeth winced. "Um. Yeah. True. Um. I'm older than I look?"

"Yeah," said Jenny slowly. She nodded. "I pretty much got that. So what's the deal?"

Curiosity killed the cat. But what the heck, she had a few lives left, right?

Elizabeth sighed, and leant back in her chair. "There was an accident where I used to work, and," she winced. "Technically still do work. A piece of technology created a clone of me, only this clone - which is me, is nearly twenty-years younger than my original body."

"Wow." Jenny picked up her mug of coffee, wrapped her hands around it, and took a long drink. "That's got to suck for you. You couldn't pay me enough to get me to redo high school. College, on the other hand?" She grinned. "I had fun in college."

Elizabeth scowled. "Oh, they're not paying me enough. Trust me. But, they're bribing me with my college financing which I'm planning on racking up again."

"So you sit through a couple of years of sock hops and then get a free ride to the college of your choice?" Jenny shrugged. "Okay, I can see that. And at least now I know why you don't act like a typical teenager."

"Colleges," Elizabeth said firmly. "The written contract stipulates that they will pay for a post-secondary eduction equal to, or less than the original education attained." She laughed slightly. "To be fair, I don't think I was a typical teenager the first time around."

"Take 'em for everything you can get and then some?" asked Jenny. She nodded. "I can see that. Though you're even more atypical now." She twisted the coffee mug in her hands as they talked. "Not that I could put my finger on it easily. So how come you keep it a big secret?"

"Well, I think part of their tactics was to agree to the more sensible things I asked for to try and shut me up," Elizabeth shrugged. "They'll have to pay for three colleges, so it's not as if we didn't cap it." She fiddled with her hands. "Well, to start with, it's classified. Highly classified. And then there's possible reactions from the students. How would you have felt during high school knowing that one of your classmates was actually thirty-five?"

"Three colleges? Wait, are you telling me that one of my students already has a PhD?" Jenny frowned. "I've only got a Masters. That? Is so not fair. Not that I was actually planning on getting a PhD, but it does seem like something I should complain about, don't you think?" She grinned. "Here? I'm not so sure how they'd react. But at a normal high school, not so well. You know, we'd be about the same age if I hadn't spent nearly eight years off floating in the ether."

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