A Note From Lara: Yeah, in an attempt to break my Peter obsession (which Milo is NOT helping me do, what with being all sexy and such) I'm trying really hard to write stories for other characters. This is the result. It's my first time writing Lyle, so don't flip on me, 'kay? I'm expecting this to be three or four chapters.


I still haven't decided if I love or hate the idiot who invented "fall break." I mean, on the one hand, it meant that I had some time to visit my dad in DC. But on the other hand... fall break? Seriously? What is that?

Either way, I turned up at his apartment in the residential area of the capitol, fully ready for two weeks of vegging-out-in-front-of-football with my dad, but as it turned out, he wasn't there. Claire was, though, and she explained that her uncle (the exploding guy, right?) had shown up asking for his help in saving a time-traveler (think I remember someone mentioning this guy once) and they were now in Georgia (wtf) trying to find a healer (oh).

Which left me alone, except for when "Claire-bear" deigned to visit, for almost a week in a mostly empty apartment. Is it any wonder I got into a spot of trouble?

I mean, seriously, it wasn't really anything that bad. I was just trying to buy some weed from this guy. Not that big a deal. Marijuana never killed anybody, right? How the hell was I going to know he was an undercover cop?

Understandably, Dad was a little ticked that he had to fly back up from Georgia earlier than planned. But it wasn't like Mom could come all the way from California and bail me out, and since Claire was technically still a minor, she couldn't either.

Dad was pretty good about it, though. I mean, he gave me the standard lecture, but you could totally tell his heart wasn't really in it. If it had been Claire, she'd have been screwed. She was always the favorite, but that also meant that Dad was harder on her than he was on me. So I was feeling pretty good about the whole mess until we got back to the apartment.

That was when I found out that Dad had decided to bring Healer Dude back from Georgia with him.

"Who the hell are you?" I demanded the second I noticed him standing all awkwardly in the corner.

He shrugged from behind his curtain of stupid, anime-geek hair. "I'm Jeremy," he explained. "Your dad said he'd take care of me for awhile until they'd... figured some stuff out."

Great. Just freaking great. The one week I have for the rest of the year to spend time with my dad, and some super-powered freak decides to monopolize on it. "Yeah, whatever," I muttered. This was going to be a long week.