"Right, that's it for today, girls," the teacher said. As the class started to the locker room, she added, "Not you, Mulders. You need a lot more practice."

Susan winced in sympathy. The new student's first day had been rather badly unsuccessful, and Coach Gruber could be a bit of a petty tyrant at the best of times. Susan still remembered what had happened when she corrected the coach's pronunciation of her name.

Before she could make it out of the gym, the coach's voice called out again. "Quinn! You're on the volleyball team, you stay here and see if you can at least get her so she's not a danger to her own team."

Susan sighed and went back; the girl might need some help, but this wasn't going to work out well. Not only was she not a good teacher, but there wasn't any way to practice much with only two people. Still, arguing the point wouldn't help any, and would probably just get them both in trouble.

"And put everything away before you leave," the coach added as she left.

While she didn't say anything, Susan couldn't resist the urge to snap a quick military salute at the coach's back. She then went over to the other student. "Well, I guess we're going to have to at least do a bit of practice before we leave." She smiled and held out her hand. "Despite how the coach pronounces it, I'm Shuzhen. Susan to my friends."

Sports had never been Merideth's strong point. Not when she was a kid, and certainly not now. Unfortunately for her (and for most of her classmates), it was required for most students here to take at least one physical education class. She'd taken this one, hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't accidently injure five other students by the end of the class.

And for once, amazingly, her hopes had been answered! ...She'd only hit four students and almost knocked down the net.

She sighed quietly to herself, staying there upon the teacher's orders, not saying a word. This happened all too often for her, unfortunately. Yet, despite how many times she had been singled out, she had never gotten used to this. Every time felt like an old wound being reopened once more. Better than a new wound, one would suppose, but the fact that it's the same wound over and over again kept showing her how little she'd actually improved.

The fact that someone else was being told to help her out made her feel even worse. "Quinn" probably had more important things to do with her time. Like study, or read a good book, or... be awesome at sports somewhere else. Given, she had been watching her in-between bouts of injuring other students and, yes, she had to admit, "Quinn" was probably better at sports than Merideth would ever be in her lifetime.

She shyly glanced up towards the student, awkwardly adjusting her glasses on her face. It'd been amazing that she hadn't broken them yet, considering all they'd gone through. She then glanced towards her hand, before reaching out with her own smaller, paler, freckled hand for probably one of the weakest, most awkward handshakes that Susan had most likely ever received. Hadn't anyone ever told Merideth to grasp the whole hand, not just the fingers?

"N-N-Nice to meet you... ah..." She hated it when people gave her two names to choose from. She didn't want to be cold, but she didn't want to make it out like they were already friends. I mean, it's not like "Quinn" was doing all this willingly. "S-Su-Shuzhen," she finally decided upon, not wanting to make her feel obligated to be her friend. I mean, who'd want to? She tried to give her an amicable, gentle smile. She looked like her face is going to crack into pieces from all the tension.

How could she not be tense, though? Susan was just... just so cool! She couldn't hope to ever get to the same level.

"Calm down, I don't bite," Susan said, hoping to get the girl to relax somewhat. "And I'm not the coach's enforcer or anything like that." She started over towards the net. "In any case, I don't think we'll be able to do more than work on your serve a bit."

She picked up a ball and stood in the server's position. "I'm guessing you're only taking this class because you have to, so an underhand serve should be good enough." She held the ball out at arm's length, then swung her other hand up beneath it to send it in a high arc over the net. "It's not going to cause the other team to miss, but it'll get the ball over the net." She picked up another ball and held it out to Merideth. "Here, give it a try." When she took the ball, Susan stepped off to the side, giving her room to try the serve while leaving Susan in a position to see any obvious mistakes in her form.

Despite Susan's best efforts, Merideth still looked like she was on the edge of spontaneous combustion. None the less, she joined her over at the net, fidgeting nervously.

To be honest, Merideth didn't hate sports completely. She was just fine with watching them, and would even watch a game here and there when her father had watched them on the television. It's just that, despite what her mind enjoyed, her body disagreed with her completely. Just about the only way that her skinny frame would look even less like a volleyball player's is if she were three hundred pounds overweight.

She watches Susan's form-- meaning the way that she's hitting the ball over the net, ya pervs-- closely and studiously. She watches the way she holds the ball, the arc of the ball as it sails over the net. She even takes a quick note of the positioning of her feet. Her lips thin. She's only seen it once, but she's feeling a little more confident about it. "R...Right!"

She takes the ball, giving a quiet little nod of thanks. She holds it out at arms length, focusing, then swings her other hand up. It hits the back of her other hand, causing her to wince and let out a light yelp as the ball pitifully jumps a foot from her hand and rolls on the floor, stopping just before the net.

Her cheeks redden. This is going to be a long day. "I...I'msorry!"

Merideth's first attempt failed as she hit her other hand instead of the ball. As she blushed and stammered out an apology, Susan wanted to hold her and reassure her it was all right. Between the girl's nervous disposition and the possibility she'd encountered one of the island's monsters, however, she doubted that doing so would help her relax any.

"Don't worry about it," she said as she went to pick up the ball, "I should've explained how to hold the ball." She put the ball in Merideth's hand so that it was somewhat off-center. "Like this. You actually had pretty decent form aside from that." She stepped back to let Merideth try again.

As the ball was placed back into her hand, Merideth almost dropped it, but quickly fixed it again. She listend to the explanation, eyes wide as she nodded slowly in understanding. At the compliment, she blinked a few times, actually seeming to get enough nerve to look up at Susan, looking a little shocked. "...R...Really?" Poor thing clearly hadn't had enough people give her compliments about sports. Most of the time, they were too busy trying to prevent her from destroying anything.

"I... ah, uh..." she tried to think of the right thing to say, eventually settling on a quiet, extremely awkward-sounding, "...thank you?" almost as if she was trying to second-guess herself. That is what you say when someone tells you that your form is decent, right? Not that she would know for sure.

"I, ah0... right." She focuses on the net, then on the ball in her hand, still a little distracted from the shock. Without thinking about it too hard (for once), she swings her hand back, then brings it forward.

It hits! It sails up into the air... higher, higher, higher...

...Hey, isn't the angle a little--

WHAM.

Merideth is bopped to her knees as the ball hits her on the head. Her hands go up to where it hurts, and she lets out a pained groan. "Ow, ow, ow, ow ow..."

Susan hurried over as the ball hit Merideth. "Are you alright?" she asked, genuine concern in her voice; while it was unlikely that the ball had done any real damage, she couldn't be sure.

As soon as she was sure the other girl hadn't managed to give herself a concussion or anything, she said, "We'd better take a short break, at least," and led her over to the bleachers.

Once they sat down, Susan admitted, "I'm not entirely sure how you managed to do that. I have an idea that might help you out here." She smiled. "Or we can call it a day, wait for long enough that Drill Sergeant Gruber'll be gone, put everything away, and head for the locker room. Your choice."

Merideth gave a small nod, then a little wince. "...I-I-I'm okay," she stammered.

She was lead over to the bleachers, where she sits. Not sure how she did that, huh? "People... say that... a lot," she admitted, trying for a smile. It doesn't quite make it.

She looked up at the last bit, though. "Y...You think... you think you can help?" She looked surprised, and... god help her... a little hopeful. "I... I mean... if... you think you can help, I... I mean... I'd appreciate it, just I don't want to waste your time..."

"Well…," she said hesitantly, "I think it might possibly be able to help you get a serve over the net. No guarantees, though." She smiled. "And don't worry about wasting my time. If anyone's wasting our time, it's the coach; I'm not any good as a teacher, and she knows it. Anyway, whenever you're ready, let's go and give it one last try."

Once Merideth was ready, they went back to the court. Susan gave her the ball and let her get in position to serve and then moved in close behind her. "Try to relax and let me show you what to do," she said as she took hold of Merideth's wrists, a move that necessitated pressing her chest lightly against the other girl's back. I hope this doesn't make her too uncomfortable, she thought. "Hold your arm out straight like this," she explained, slightly changing the position of the hand with the ball, "and bring your other hand up in a smooth curve to hit the ball." As she explained, she moved Merideth's other hand up to meet the ball, paying attention for any signs of her trying to move either arm in a way which would cause the ball to fly straight up instead of over the net. If there were no problems, she'd step back and let Merideth try again.

Merideth seemed to have been getting slowly more comfortable with the situation. Emphasis on the slowly part, of course, but she seems maybe just a little bit less tense than she did before. She's not exactly used to someone being quite this nice to her in a setting where she can't solely rely on her smarts. Given, Susan's only being this nice out of necessity, but even so, it's a pleasant change of pace from people either ignoring her or telling her to stop breaking things.

"Ah. a-alright. I'm ready."

She took the ball, but suddenly felt some of her comfort slip away as Susan comes in from behind, the taller student's athletic frame pressing lightly against her own. This was... new to her. Very new. She was not entirely sure just how to handle this. Her face certainly knew how, though; It started turning a lovely shade of red. Though, given, that didn't seem to be exactly difficult to do.

This temporary confusion seemed to ease some of her movement, though, her arms moving just as Susan directed. It should have been alright. Merideth moved very slightly away from Susan as soon as the demonstration was over, trying to smile nervously, but still not quite making it. "Ah... I, erm... okay. I can do that."

Merideth paused, practicing swinging her arm in the way indicated. Soon enough, she managed to gather up the bare minimum amount of confidence to try again, and swung her arm one more time, harder than before, hitting the ball. Merideth cringed automatically as her hand hit the ball, not out of pain (though her hand still did hurt from before), but to prepare herself for future pain. Like balls hitting her head. Or bouncing off walls and hitting her head. Or almost knocking over the net. Or...

...sailing... effortlessly over it...?

Merideth heard the ball bounce on the ground, and glanced over. The ball was on the other side of the net, taking a few more bounces before rolling to a stop. She stares at it for a second, then turns to Susan, excitement clear in her expression. This time, she actually does smile.

"I... I did it!"

It hadn't been the best serve. It was pretty low, and not very far, but it had managed to go over the net. And that, to Merideth, was an incredible feat. ...For her, anyway.

Susan smiled back at Merideth's excited reaction to the successful serve; it might not have been the best serve, but it did what it was supposed to, and it was already clear how much trouble athletics gave her. Glancing at the clock quickly, she said, "Okay, let's just do a couple more for practice, then we can pack up and hit the showers." She rolled the ball back to Merideth, then waited across the net from her for the next serve.

Merideth nodded eagerly, not quite seeming to register the showers part. She'd never really hit the showers back in high school, having been forced to go through public school, where there was barely any time after P.E. anyway. Even if you did wanted to take the risk that the showerheads wouldn't break off or some mean girl wouldn't pull a prank on you, she tended to take longer showers in general, and would probably still be dripping wet and shivering in a towel by the time the next class arrived. Either way, she'd have to deal with it eventually.

"A...Alright!" She mentally pumped herself up as she prepared to serve to Susan. You can do it, Meri. Show her what you can do! Show her you're not just another loser! She focused, then made a serve. Shockingly, this one was even better than the last, going higher and landing farther than the last one had. Maybe she really was getting the hang of this!

...This probably won't last, though... Wait. What are you thinking? Of course it can! You just need to focus! Put on that game face of yours!

And so she did. For the record, Merideth's game-face was one of the least terrifying and most awkwardly adorable expressions that she was capable of. No one ever had the heart to tell her in the past, though.

The second serve went somewhat farther than Susan had expected after the first one. She moved to catch it easily enough, then rolled it back to Merideth. "Not bad. One more and we should be done here for today." Hopefully, we'll be done here for good; I'm surprised I managed to teach anything, and I doubt I'll be able to duplicate the feat with anything harder. Doubt the coach'll care about that, though. Really, though, the problem was the school's fault; they should have something equivalent to 'rocks for jocks' if they felt a phys. ed. class was necessary. And they probably do; keep us in shape and attractive for the monsters. She did her best to keep her frustration at the coach and the school off her face; the last thing she wanted was Merideth thinking she was annoyed at her.

Thankfully, Merideth didn't notice any anger on Susan's part, too focused on doing her best to prepare for the next serve. Her brows furrowed a little bit in concentration, and she hit the ball.

It immediately hit the net, then bounced back to hit her in-between her glasses. Welp, her good luck had to run out sometime, didn't it?

She stumbled back, glasses falling off of her face. Thankfully, she manages not to step on them, and the glasses themselves don't seem all that broken. For all the abuse she puts on them daily, she bought some sturdy motherfuckers.

Her hands go up to her face, covering up where it had hit her. "Ow... S...Sorry, sorry..." It seemed like her apologizing wasn't just for apologizing; It had become very much a sort of second nature to her.

Susan again hurried over after Merideth managed to hit herself with the ball a second time. "Are you alright?"

"It's alright, it wasn't your fault," Susan reassured her when she apologized. "It was just a weird bounce." Must have hit the top of the net just right; I doubt I could duplicate that if I tried. She moved Merideth's hand to look at where the ball hit her. "Hmmm… Don't think there'll be any bruising." She repeated the tests to be sure Merideth hadn't given herself a concussion, then asked, "Are your glasses okay?" Once she'd confirmed that, she said, "We should probably call it a day now, unless you'd rather try again." She smiled. "You'll probably be okay in class either way, at least when serving; bounces like that aren't likely to happen."