Go Study with Beatrice

“Actually, I just realized that I have some chemistry work due soon that I should be working on instead of this,” you say sheepishly. “But thanks for the explanation Professor Luck, and I’ll see you later, Ruby!”

You see the disappointed look on Ruby’s face as you head for the door, while Professor Luck appears unfazed by your answer, waving goodbye to you.

Once you’re out the door, you pull out your phone, texting Beatrice to let her know that you’re on the way. She instantly texts back, letting you know which library room she’s working in.

A few minutes later, you find her pouring over her chemistry notes with two textbooks open on the side, while she scribbles something on a sheet of lined paper.

“Hey, you came!” Beatrice says too brightly as you step into the room. “I didn’t know if you’d be able to make it today.”

“I was worried you’d get lonely working alone in here without me,” you say.

“Me? Lonely?” Beatrice laughs unsteadily. “That would be ridiculous…”

“Hey, that’s all of us on some days,” you say.

“Uh-huh,” she says, sounding unconvinced. She looks at the problem set she has laid out. “A-ny-ways…. have you had much luck with the last couple problems? Stuff on the structure of coordination complexes?”

“I took a glance at it earlier,” you say, meaning precisely that.

You read through the problems from over her shoulder, nodding to yourself as you see the shape of the problems forming in your mind. This is some tricky stuff.

“Have you worked through all the other problems?” you ask, flipping through the earlier pages of the problem set.

“Uh… most of them, but I thought I could check some of the answers with you, since there were a couple I wasn’t sure about,” Beatrice says. “Is it… have you done the earlier problems yet?”

“Okay, let’s go over those first,” you say, opening up your backpack to look for your chemistry notes. “The first couple problems are like a crash course survey in molecular orbital theory, so let’s make sure we have all the concepts from that down solid before we move on to the more complicated applications… let’s see, how’d you go about characterizing methane in problem three?”

Beatrice pulls out her write-up of the problem, and begins to haltingly go through the orbitals and the bonds. She gets through the basics fine, but stumbles a little as she tries to relate them to ionization energies. You gently correct her, heading up to the whiteboard to sketch out a helpful diagram or two, and she listens attentively to your explanation.

“Wow, okay, that actually makes sense now,” Beatrice says as you wrap up your little lecture. “Okay, yeah, I definitely messed up problem five too, but I think I’m fine on four.”

“Should we check those questions too?” you ask.

She shakes her head.

“Let’s try working on problem eight then,” you say. “This one’s on transition metal complexes, and I suspect it’ll require some group theory.”

“Oh god, this is the math stuff the prof went over super fast in class, right?” Beatrice groans, burying her head in her hands.

“Yeah. I don’t have much experience with it either,” you admit. “So this will be a fun one to figure out together.”

You spend a few minutes trying to make progress, but it’s only after you read through your textbook’s section on ligand field theory that it slowly starts to come together. You put pen to paper and begin to sketch out your solution to the problem, consulting your notes every once in a while.

Lost in your work, you don’t notice Beatrice helplessly flipping back and forth between her textbooks, scribbling nonsense onto her paper in frustration.

“I can’t do this,” Beatrice eventually says, quietly.

That finally catches your attention. You look up at her, concerned.

“What are you stuck on?” you ask.

You think you’ve got a pretty good grasp of the problem now, and could probably explain whatever confusions she might have.

“I don’t know. Everything! All of it! I thought it made it sense when you explained it just now, but now I look at this problem and…” Her voice trails off for a second as she balls up a piece of paper in frustration. “It makes no sense!”

“This one’s definitely a harder one,” you say. “Here, let’s take it from the top. Remember how we talked about sigma bonding before? Well, now we have to consider…”

You talk Beatrice through the complexities of the problem, patiently working with her through each bit of confusion as it comes up. She’s not stupid, not by any stretch of the imagination, but you can tell that she’s often unsure of herself, even when she’s right. Oftentimes, all it takes is a simple cue from you for her to put the pieces together herself, and before long, you’ve come up with what you’d consider an acceptable solution to the problem.

“Wow, you saved my ass Alex,” Beatrice says. “There is no way I would have ever figured that out by myself in a million years.”

“You’d be surprised,” you reply.

She hugs you then, jumping out of her seat and putting her arms around you. You’re taken by surprise, but quickly return the hug. With her up close to you, you suddenly notice her cute moon-shaped face, her slender curves, and you lean down, kissing her softly on the lips.

This takes her by surprise, you can tell from the way she stiffens, but then she sighs into the kiss and begins to kiss you back, her hands gripping your shirt tightly. She feels nice and right in your arms, and you could just about—

Her phone suddenly starts buzzing, some alarm-noise ringing.

“Oh crap,” Beatrice says, disentangling herself from you. “I’ve got… I’ve got class now, but I’ll um…”

“I’ll catch you later,” you smile.

“Yeah, that!” she says, scrambling to pack up her books. It takes her a couple seconds to get there. “I’ll see you!”

With that, she runs out the room, rushing off to class.

Beatrice, +20
Luck, -10
Ruby, -10

Sorry for the lack of updates! As some of you may know, I’ve been pretty busy working on my branch on the Affection Multiplier. Now that I’ve found a comfortable rhythm there, I’ll aim to put up at least one chapter a week on this story!