Early premiere! This wasn't supposed to release until Monday (October 27) but I just found out we're moving (again) so, I need to start posting this before I don't have the time.

NOTE: Sorry, had to repost due to some errors I didn't see before! For everyone with alerts, please realert this story! I promise it's going to be a good one!

This entire project is dedicated to my good friend and fellow writer Solid Snake's Soldier. Our styles may be different, but together, we create the most beautiful and perfect roller coaster ride of emotion and disaster. She's a ray of hope and happiness, lit through the eyes of child like souls and empowered by the purity, love and goodness of the heart, even in the midst of the engulfing, maddening darkness...and I'm usually that engulfing, maddening darkness. Her writing is every bit as epic and magical as Disney once was in their time of "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid" and I'm extremely proud to get to call her my friend. This one is for you!

"Your papers are due on Monday."

He knew that would make all thirty-eight of his students moan in collective disappointment and he tried not to smile once they did. "Well, I could see how that might ruin the weekend for a couple of you" he teased, pointing glances to a few of the students he was referring to. "You had two weeks for these papers, guys. You should be looking over them at the very least and not starting on them."

He looked over the top of his glasses to the back of the room to make sure the figure in the back was still in place and waiting against the wall.

"Alright guys. I want to read masterpieces on Monday. You're dismissed."

Hal Emmerich watched his entire class file out of the lecture hall via the double doors before the body in back decided to move forward to him.

"Professor Emmerich?"

He caught Dave's steel blue stare of amusement moving closer.

"You sound like you don't like it."

"That's not true. It's just...different."

"It sounds a little odd to me, too," Hal admitted, "You'd think I'd be used to it by now. I've been here for nearly a semester. I'm not even the newbie professor anymore. I'm really happy you stuck around for the entire class although it's usually a little more interesting than it was today."

"I wouldn't miss the opportunity to see you exert your authority over a bunch of university students."

Hal laughed. "I'm not teaching Dictatorship 101 here, Dave. It's Technological Solutions. There's not much chance of a power trip in expressing the need to solve the world's increasing energy crisis using advancements in technology rather than natural resources."

"I bet you put it just like that in your syllabus, didn't you?"

"Mock me if you want but, I feel like I'm making a difference. And that may sound stupid or incredibly pretentious to you but I feel like I belong here doing this. I'm truly happy for the first time in a long time."

"I'm proud of you, Hal."

Hal stopped shuffling papers in order to digest the words cautiously, as if he expected the feeling behind them to disappear in one of his friend's 'just kidding' smirks.

He finally smiled. "Thanks, Dave. That means a lot to me." Hal tossed a sudden annoyed look up at the ceiling and then down at his podium, still covered in his students' work. "Damnit!"

"What is it?"

"They still haven't fixed that leak." He shook and brushed at the papers as if it would take the form of powder if he did it enough. When he checked their state, he let out a small slit of a grin across his thin lips that Dave immediately noticed.

"What's that look for?"

"Looks like Milea Stewart's paper suffered the most. I'll have ask her to print me off another copy, using better ink perhaps."

"You don't sound too torn up about ruining a potential masterpiece."

"Masterpiece?" he repeated with a chuckle, "Well, maybe if you like abstract art. Ms. Stewart's work is entertaining if nothing else." He looked up at the clock on the wall, "Shoot. I'm going to be late to the school. We can finish this conversation on the way there if you like. I know Sunny would be really happy to see you."

Dave stuffed his hands in his pockets and shook his head, "No, that's okay. I'm going to get going."

"Okay. Well, drop by the house sometime. Sunny—we both—really miss having you around." Hal didn't regain the ability to talk and say the one thing that had been beating the back of his throat since he had seen Dave enter the classroom until he was nearly out of it again.

"I don't hate you." Dave paused, freezing one side of the door open with his arm. "I just thought you should know that."

Hal waited for the door's hinged return to click shut before he moved anymore papers around and stuffed them into his black messenger bag. He could count all the ways Dave made him remember that he wasn't truly happy at all later. At that moment, he had a little girl to pick up.

Hal watched the endless stream of kids pour from the building and separate at the sidewalk into awaiting parked cars. He smiled when he spotted the one little girl running the path that lead straight to him, toting behind her something by hand that turned out to be another little girl upon closer inspection.

She ran to the driver's side to lean in a kiss on Hal's cheek.

"Hi, Uncle Hal," she said, syruper than she normally did without a request looming as her next thought.

"I don't suppose your friend here had anything to do with that kiss?"

"Can Virginia stay the night please, Uncle Hal. Just until tomorrow. It's Friday so it's not a school night and I don't have any homework."

She had not only stolen his usual questions out of his mouth but had answered and handed them back all with her 'no' repellent smile in place.

"Sunny...I have a lot of grading to do. This isn't a good weekend."

"Please, Uncle Hal. We won't bother you, I promise. We'll stay in my room the whole weekend. Don't forget, you owe me."

Hal crossed his arms and smiled. "I knew this would come back to bite me."

"I helped you proofread papers all last weekend, Uncle Hal, remember?"

"You told me you didn't mind helping me."

"I didn't," she admitted, "but this can be my pay for that, right?"

He brought her forehead to his, "You're going to grow up to be an extortionist, Sunny Gurlukovich, you know that?"

She giggled. "Does that mean she can stay the night?"

"Virginia," he looked up at her, "do your parents know you're staying the night?"

"Yes, Mr. Emmerich."

Hal laughed. "You don't have to call me Mr. Emmerich. Hal is fine."

Both girls clambered into the backseat and Virginia caught Hal's eyes in the rear view mirror.

"So, I should call you Mr. Hal then?"

"No. Just Hal. Without the mister."

"Oh, okay." She looked at Sunny, "You were right. Your uncle is cool for a grown-up."

"You should meet Dave. That's Uncle Hal's best friend. He used to live with us but he moved out a few months ago. Why did Dave move out?" she asked him in sudden curiosity.

They were stuck in their usual flow of traffic and Hal stared at the car that had pulled out in front of him harder than he had to to buy a few seconds with the question.

"Well, sometimes people who have been friends as long as Dave and I have need to live their lives...apart for a while." He joined her gaze in the rear view mirror, "But, I actually saw Dave today. He sat in on my afternoon class."

"How is he? Did he say anything about moving back in?"

Hal purposefully only answered her first question. "You know Dave. He never changes all that much. Still a man of few words."

Sunny and Virginia immediately leaped out upon the car's stop in their driveway and ran into the house while Hal gathered his things from the back seat. When he leaned up, he felt a hard pain in his head that made him think he had hit it on the car but he couldn't recall hearing the necessary thump to go with it. He dropped his bag near the doorway and knocked at Sunny's door.

"Hey, you think you girls could maybe keep it down for a while? I'm going to be laying down for a bit. Will you wake me up in about an hour, Sunny?"

"Sure, Uncle Hal. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I just got a bit of a headache."

He was understating it and in fact, the pain worsened in the short walk from Sunny's doorway to his own bedroom across the hall. He closed his eyes to shut out the light from his window and soon, his world throbbed into blackness.

...

"Uncle Hal? Are you there? Uncle Hal, what's wrong?"

Hal's view of the toy electronic megaphone came into focus before the speaker did and he lightly swatted it down to reveal her face and smiled.

"Who's idea was that stupid toy?"

She raised it to her mouth again. "Yours, Uncle Hal."

He took it out of her grasp when he pulled her onto the bed with him, giggling and laughing from his attacking of a few well known tickle areas around her stomach area and under arms.

"So, what do you Virginia want for dinner?" he asked her, watching the clock roll to 7:54.

"Virginia's not here. She went home earlier."

"What? Is she okay? Was she sick or something?"

Sunny frowned. "No. It's Saturday evening. You slept almost the entire time she was here."

"What? Sunny, I told you to wake me up! You know I can't afford to sleep that long. Why didn't you wake me?" As he asked her, he realized the megaphone hadn't been for her amusement after all.

"I tried to. I shook you like crazy but you wouldn't wake up. Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

He didn't know the answer to that himself even though for all it was worth at the moment, his headache was gone. He smiled and ran his hand over the top of her short hair. "Yeah, I'm okay now. I guess this whole teaching thing is making me more exhausted than I thought it would." He suddenly sat up. "Oh no, my papers. I haven't even started grading them yet. I'm going to be so far behind..."

"Don't worry, Uncle Hal," she offered right on cue to stop his impending panic, "I'll help you."