December 19th, 11:42 a.m.

Dess quickly finished her trigonometry homework, the only effort being writing. Of course, she didn't even have to write that much. She was still Mr. Sanchez's favorite student. And if he gave her anything below a 95% on an assignment, she would simply release the truth about his little smoking habit.

Currently, she was in study hall. Although she hated to admit it, it was kind of lonely without Jessica. And Jonathan. And even Melissa. It was just her and Rex. But she couldn't talk to him about math unless she wanted him to have a spazz attack. Which meant she was alone. Alone, with only her numbers to comfort her.

Dess got up, the quiet simply too much to bear. It had been over a month since Samhain, but she still wasn't used to the unbearable silence of her current existance.

Walking out of the library 173 seconds before the lunch bell would ring to dismiss them, she walked over to Rex's science class. Personally, Dess loved science. It was the real-world application of math. Sure, it didn't kick butt as much as Dessometrics, but it was still awesome. She remembered that Rex used to love it too. Now, especially since it was currently the technology unit, he hated it.

Everything seemed to have changed now. Rex, the midnighters, and the blue time itself. She recalled a comforting concept; once a mathematical proof has been proven, it will never be unproven. Math didn't change. Dess felt like a proof. The lives of all her friends had drastically changed, but she was in exactly the same position as when the school year started. The bell rang.

-----

Rex exited his science classroom the moment it was dismissed. He felt especially irritated after having a lecture on alloys. Clever humans with their clever metals.

"Hi, Rex," Dess interrupted his thoughts.

"Hi," he replied, walking towards the lunchroom.

"So," she said, trying to make conversation, "winter break is coming up. Any plans?"

"I was hoping to get Melissa and the others to come back and give us a status update. You know, without phones."

"Yeah," Dess replied, smiling, "you want Melissa and 'the others' to come back 'for a status update'. Of course. You know, they're sending me the coordinates of they went, and it makes for some fascinating data."

"Is math ever not fascinating for you?" he said as they came into the lunchroom and sat down at their far-too-empty lunch table.

"Nope. But seriously, according to Jonathan and Melissa, the blue time is spreading across the 36th parallel, but it extends less than a tenth of a degree in longitude. Meanwhile, places where the 36th parallel intersects a longitude that is a multiple of 12 have a Midnight about the same size as Bixby's."

"Hmm," Rex said, trying to sound interested as he ate his sandwich. Dess noticed his boredom, and feeling exceptionally social tody, changed the subject.

"Have you found any interesting new lore?" Rex looked up.

"You're actually interested in lore?"

"Yeah," she replied, "I rant about math often enough."

"Well," he said, smiling an evil grin no doubt due the excitement from his own rant, "I have had the chance to visit a lot of lore sites recently. The darklings barely come out since Samhain. And its not just around me. There is literally no focus from within the past month. But the focus from the lore is as strong as ever. There's so much new information. So many precious details from Midnight's history." He flicked his tongue, something that Dess had learned indicated excitement.

"Wait," she said, "Are the darklings all gone?"

"No. They're still there, just not coming out. Maybe its like you said; they sleep for most of the day, after all. They were all up at once for Samhain, and now they're napping it off."

"Hmm. Just be careful when you're out at the lore sites, okay? You never know when they might strike."

"I will be."

Author's Note: Sorry about the angst in the beginning. I don't think it will be like that in future chapters.