Disclaimer: I do not own Zoey 101, or any of it's affiliates (it'd help if I knew what they were) but it'd sure be convenient if I did. I do however, own Lara, Joanie, Fleur…(basically the characters that currently AREN'T in Zoey 101) so if you want to use them in your story then please ask me first. Thanks and pie, N x

Zoey smiled encouragingly as she watched Nicole, her chestnut hair swept into a messy up-knot, her pretty face adorned with a look of great concentration.

"Come on Nicole," she said sweetly, "we've done this one!"

"Okay, okay," Nicole put down her pen and stared levelly at Zoey, squinting her eyes in concentration. She tucked both legs underneath her, perched on the sofa in the girls' lounge. "What was the question again?"

"What is mitosis?" Zoey repeated. She couldn't believe she was going over mitosis of all things on a Saturday night but Nicole had asked for revision help, and Nicole was her friend. She had to help her out.

"Okay…mitosis…" Nicole picked up her fork again and tapped it against her chin while she looked skywards, "mitosis…mitosis…is the process of…of…cell division?"

She put down her fork and looked at Zoey expectantly.

"That's right!" Zoey said, with a relieved sigh that she didn't have to go over it one more time, "Well done. Have a chocolate."

"I already ate them all," Nicole said, with an apologetic smile, "I'm sorry, thinking makes me hungry."

Zoey looked to her elbow and sure enough, the box of chocolates sat empty.

"How did you...wh…?" She looked up and frowned at Nicole, "How did you do that?"

"Um…I chewed?" She tried.

"No I mean, take all the chocolates without me noticing?"

"Ohhhhhh," Nicole nodded, "I just snuck my arm around and swiped them. I'm super-good at swiping things."

"Never admit that to the police," Zoey said warningly, setting aside the biology textbook and picking up the last in the pile. She read the title at the top. "Okay, languages."

As opposed to groaning like she'd done for every other subject Zoey had announced, Nicole clapped her hands together and squealed excitedly.

"I've been studying all week for this!" She cried, "Ready?" She clasped her hands together and again looked skywards as she recited, "Je m'appelle Nicole. J'ai 16 ans. Je ne pas animaux. Je suis fille unique. J'ai un éléphant qui s'appelle Piétiner."

Zoey nodded impressively.

"Very nice," she grinned, "when can I meet him?"

Nicole looked confused.

"Who?"

"Your elephant called 'Trample.'"

Nicole frowned.

"Oh God, that's not what I meant to say at all," she drummed her fingers on the table, "At. All."

Zoey looked down at the textbook again.

"Um, Nicole, don't you do Spanish?"

"Yeah."

"That was French."

Nicole paused, looking blankly ahead.

"Hey!" She said suddenly with a bright smile, "So it was!"

Zoey had discovered a long time ago to chew her tongue whenever she felt like hitting herself/Nicole on the head due Nicole's complete dizziness. But then again, if Nicole wasn't her usual, dizzy self, what fun would she be?

"Okay, so what can you say in Spanish?" Asked Zoey encouragingly.

"Umm…" Nicole widened her big, chocolate brown eyes and smiled, "Hola cacahuetes!"

"And that means?" Zoey prompted.

"Hello peanuts!" Nicole said proudly, before frowning at her own words, muttering 'hello peanuts' under her breath confusedly.

"Peanuts for your elephant Trample," Zoey laughed, setting aside the textbook and slipping them back into Nicole's empty book bag. "You needn't worry," she said, "you just have this anxiety problem before you go in for tests. You know all the information, you just freak out. I'd practice some good, calming breathing exercises before going in for a test."

"Like…like the Dalai Lama?" asked Nicole.

"Um…" Zoey frowned. It was probably best just to humor Nicole, "yes, like the Dalai Lama. If he sat tests."

"Which he doesn't," Nicole said, before adding questioningly, "right?"

"I have like, nothing to say to you just now Logan! I am so tired of you being so nasty to me!"

Chase and Michael both grimaced as they strolled along the corridor to their dormitory. They'd hoped maybe if they took the scenic route, they'd miss the drama, but by the shouts coming from Room 32, they had a feeling they hadn't.

"Whatever, just leave, I don't care."

"I wish you did!" The girl screamed, "Then maybe, maybe I would stay! Because you'd treat me like a person and not like an object!"

"Whatever."

"Stop saying that! I know you don't mean it!"

Michael and Chase came to a stop outside Room 32. Michael indicated Chase to open the door.

"No, seriously, after you," Chase insisted.

"Ladies first," Michael hissed.

"Can you just please get out. You keep telling me you will and I'm getting tired of being hopeful."

"Sometimes I think you'd be perfect if you maybe had a soul Logan!" The girl cried, "But you have no soul! And you can't love anybody! And I'm not going to stand for that!"

"3," Chase said.

"Good for you."

"2," said Michael.

"Goodbye!"

"1," they both said in unison as the door burst open. The girl standing in it looked a bit deterred at seeing Michael and Chase standing at either side of the door, but she collected herself and stormed down the corridor, crying and sobbing loudly. Chase poked his head around the door.

"'I am so tired of you being nasty to me!'" He mimicked, in a high, sickly voice as he stepped in.

Logan sat on the bed lazily, propping himself up on his elbows and watching as Michael and Chase entered the room, sitting themselves down on the seats beside the television and game console.

"I'm glad she's gone," Chase smirked, "She was very…fatal attraction."

Michael lay back on his back and extended his arm so it was reaching underneath the bed. He fished out a PCA whiteboard with a Velcroed on marker pen.

"She was the loudest, definitely," said Michael, wiping 'Carla' off the board and replacing it with 'Kelly,' the girl who'd stormed out of the room just before. "So Carla's in second and Kelly's in first place. Well done."

"Shut up," said Logan, "it's all just so amusing to you, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Michael, at the exact same time Chase said "no," so all Logan was given as a response was a sort of 'yo' sound.

"It's amusing to you man," Michael insisted, "it's like a game to you. 'How Fast Can I Piss Off My Girl?'" He checked the white board again, "Kelly may be the loudest but if I'm correct, she lasted five days. That only puts her in fifth place in the time stakes."

"Who's the leader?" Chase asked uninterestedly, fiddling with the stubborn button on his jeans he'd just realized was open.

"Jennifer," Michael read, "eighteen hours."

Logan laughed.

"Oh yeah," he said, "she was okay. A bit temperamental though. But she was quiet," he checked the white board, "only in eleventh place when it came to volume."

Chase looked up from his fly and at Logan, who looked ready just to roll over and have a quick nap like a baby.

"You laugh about it now," he said threateningly, "but soon you'll find a girl who won't stand up to your blasé behavior."

"Ooh, you're right," Logan smirked, "maybe I should go for Zoey next. We all know how morally strong she is and how she could really teach me a lesson and redeem me."

Logan enjoyed watching the furious blush creep up Chase's face like a wave of water.

"I'm kidding," he said tiredly, "keep your pants on Matthews."

"They are firmly on," Chase said, indicating his newly zipped zipper, secretly annoyed at his tendency to blush whenever Zoey's name was mentioned. He hated how he had to work at keeping his cool around her. "But I mean it Logan, one day you'll find a girl who isn't going to be dependant on you, and she probably won't care what you think either. She won't be like Carla, or Jennifer."

"Or Kelly," Michael added cheerfully.

"Yeah or Kelly," Chase nodded.

"You'll meet a girl you really like," Michael continued, turning to face Logan, "and she'll be right under your nose. Like a friend. And she's seen you act yourself the whole time. No suave Mr Charming-Ladies-Man will work on her. Nope. Nu-uh. And then you'll realise you like her and she wont have you. Because she's seen the way you treat girls."

"No matter how many times you tell her it'd be different," Chase added.

Logan looked at his two best friends, sitting staring at him expectantly for some sort of reply.

"That's a nice little story you've got there," he said, rolling over so his back was to them both. He yawned loudly, "but there's one flaw."

"And what's that?" Chase asked.

Logan closed his eyes and muttered sleepily,

"There's no such girl."

"Just imagine, you and I."

"Yeah," Lara Monteiro said half-heartedly, "me and you."

"Actually, it's you and I, darling."

She looked up at her date with a look of great dislike on her face.

Actually, it's Lara, not darling, darling.

"So," Cam Parks continued, drumming his fingers on the table and looking into Lara's deep amber eyes so intently it made her squirm. She was beginning to seriously regret even saying yes to a date with Cam Parks. Sure, he was nice to look at, but that didn't really matter when the guy was a total weirdo. "Tell me all about New York."

"Oh well," Lara brushed her dark hair behind her shoulder and pursed her lips, "it's very different to California. More, compact, built up. It's more…casual in Manhattan. Like, you can wear what you want, because no one really cares. And –"

Cam watched her ramble on about her old hometown, without really listening to any of the words escaping her frost glossed lips. She was even more beautiful than she was just milling around during the day. Lara Monteiro was one of the very few and lucky people that happened to be the product of a two of the world's most beautiful supermodels marrying and having kids. Her mother, Adriana Camacho, an Amazonian-like beauty from Brazil was pegged as being the most beautiful woman in the world. Her father, Trent Benitez, an ex-DJ hailing from the Bronx, was the Gucci Guy everyone used to always talk about. Ergo, Lara was way too easy on the eye. She had the same, caramel-swirled latté coloured skin as her mother, maybe just a shade darker due to all the extensive sunbathing she seemed to be doing. She had very much the definition of 'bedroom eyes,' and they were big and almond-shaped, with deep amber irises and long, thick curling lashes. Her hair was long and dark, with an insanely glossy sheen, but that night she'd chosen to tie it back in a pony-tail that accentuated her dynamic bone structure. Lara also had the benefit of inheriting her mother's good physique. Like a cheerleader almost, Lara was not skeletal, but she was slim, more dancer-esque, and she positively oozed allure and irresistability in the pink cashmere sweater she was sporting.

"And," Lara sighed, a smile playing across her lips. Those lips Cam couldn't take his eyes off, because they were, essentially, the perfectly heart shaped. "That's New York. Well, my take on New York."

"Sounds great," Cam adlibbed, hoping to make it sound like he was paying any attention. Lara just smiled and looked wistfully down at her knees, her legs swinging off the side of the wall she was perched on.

"I miss it a lot," she said quietly, "here…it's just so different…"

She did not hear a reply but she felt an arm slide around her shoulders.

Hold on a second.

"Wh –" she turned, looking at him incredulously.

"You're so pretty," he said.

"Yeah, thanks," she tried to shake his arm off but it seemed to weigh a ton. Probably because of all those weights she'd seen him pumping after school.

"No," he insisted, moving closer, "really pretty."

"Where are you going?"

Chase looked up lazily from his bed to see Logan standing at his wardrobe, pulling a sweater over his head and slipping his feet into his sneakers. There was something oddly robotic about his movements, something ghost like that always made Chase shudder. He'd noticed it began around the same time Dana Cruz left for that foreign exchange programme. He'd tried to ask Logan about it, but it seemed Logan never had time for help. Not between picking up girls and dropping them.

"Where are you going?" Michael repeated.

"Out," Logan replied, stilted.

"Where to?" Michael persisted.

"I don't know," he said, irritably, "just out. What, do you want me to give you a call or something, Mom?"

"Hey," Michael held up both hands in surrender, "I was just asking."

"Yeah, well," Logan pushed down the door handle and pulled the door open, slamming it behind him before he shouted down the hall, "don't!"

Knock knock.

"Coming! Hang on!"

Lola Martinez rubbed the towel through her soaking wet hair one more time, chucking it onto Zoey's bed as she re-tied the knot on her dressing gown. She was still damp from the shower she just had, but since Nicole and Zoey were down in the girls' lounge revising for Nicole's big tests, Lola was left alone up in her dorm. And that included being left alone to answer the door.

Her wet fingers fumbled on the door handle, but finally, on the third time (you know, they say it's the charm) the door popped open.

"Oh," she smiled, beckoning the girl in, "hey Joanie."

Joanie Feretti was one of those girls who could go out wearing a potato sack, and then everybody would be copying it the next day. She was best friends with Lara Monteiro, and they both stayed in the room next door. Lara had a key to Lola's dorm, but Joanie was always way too out of it to be trusted with something of importance, like a key. Infact, she didn't even have one to her own dorm. Lola had often returned to her dorm with the girls to find Joanie sitting outside the door to hers, waiting for Lara to come back and open the door.

"Hey Lo." Joanie stepped inside the room and clicked the door behind her as Lola padded across the room and back into the bathroom, but leaving the door open so she could still hear Joanie.

"What brings you to my humble abode?" She called.

"Have you seen Lara?" Joanie's voice rang, "I can't find her anywhere."

"Try her cell."

"She left it in our room," Joanie sighed, "I'm kinda worried."

Lola stuck her head around the door to look at Joanie. She was sitting on Lola's wringing wet towel that she'd thrown on Zoey's bed, but other than that, she was looking totally miserable. Joanie was a dancer, with Lara, and her lean, lithe elegant body showed tell-tale signs of her hard training. Rumors told that Joanie had once been offered a record deal, but she turned it down because her parents wanted her to concentrate on her schoolwork. It wasn't an unbelievable rumor, Joanie Feretti was every inch the pop princess. Very much a rebellious American Sweetheart. Her hair was sort of dual tone between black and blonde that she always wore messy, her clothes were always designed to fit her impressive figure (another dancer on campus), short skirts and accidentally ripped sweatshirts, that kind of thing – so she always looked like she'd just walked out of a steamy music video set, and not a math classroom. And for some reason, Joanie always seemed to be really hot. Not good looking hot (which, she was, but that was beside the point) but temperature hot. Maybe it was just yet another effect she put on herself to make everyone question about her. Maybe she'd smothered Deep Heat gel under her jumper, nobody really knew.

The point was really, that Lara and Joanie were piping hot, and everybody loved them, whether they liked it or not.

"Maybe she's out," Lola shrugged, "maybe she said something and you forgot." The 'again' went without saying really, even Joanie knew how forgetful she could be.

"Eurgh," Joanie hit her forehead with the heel of her palm, "I can't remember! This sucks! What if she's really hurt?"

"Lara?" Lola laughed, "Lara can take care of herself."

The night air fell around Logan like a thick fog. He had no idea where his feet were taking him, but he let them lead him away. Anywhere. He didn't care.

"Cam, get off me," Lara tried to push him away, but he was about three times heavier than she was.

"Come on Lara," he leered, "you know you want me."

"Actually," she panted, writhing around in his grip, "I don't. Joanie, probably does. I'm sure Nicole certainly does. But I don't, okay?"

He did not reply, but she could feel his grip tightening. No matter how hard she tried to escape, he kept hold of her. Tightly. So tightly that it hurt.

"Cam," she pleaded, "please…I don't –"

"Hey guys!" Joanie stood in the stairwell, facing out to the girls' lounge. She was looking directly at Zoey and Nicole, but everyone else had turned around anyway, just to hear what the infamous Joanie Feretti had to say.

"Have you seen Lara?"

"Lara?" Nicole tapped the pencil against her chin thoughtfully, squinting her eyes and looking up at the ceiling.

"Sorry," said Zoey, "I haven't."

She didn't want to kiss him. No way. If she did, she thought she might hurl all over his face. Being so close to him already made her feel nauseous, but kissing him! She felt his hands wander lower against her hip. She looked up at the sky, tears welling in her eyes.

Logan stood, looking out over the ocean, the cool night breeze whipping around him. The stars reflected onto the glassy water surface, the moon was full and round, glowing almost.

He knew the people around him were worried. But he could not help them. He could not console them, not when he was trying to push his own feelings away. When Dana left...every time her name was mentioned, his heart lurched. But he couldn't tell anyone. Not when he was supposed to hate her.

So he began trying to prove to everyone he didn't care.

All those girls written up on that board back in the dorm by Chase and Michael. They were just…diversions. They meant nothing to him. Nothing. Not even a –

His eye caught movement from the bottom of the hill. He squinted, making out two figures. Suddenly, one of the figures jerked back, crying out in pain. The second figure rolled away, and scrambled to their feet, sprinting up the hill and towards Logan. He was tempted to run, but it was too late.

Lara's heart was pounding, her mind racing as she ran as fast as she could uphill and away from Cam. She'd managed to sucker punch him, right on the nose bridge. She hoped that loser bled to his death. She hoped –

Bam!

She stumbled backwards, clutching onto her head where she'd just collided with something. She looked up.

"Lara? Lara? Are you okay?"

Her vision was slightly blurred, she could feel her heart hammering. In front of her stood a silhouette – an impressive one, she did note. Nice arms. – but she could not make out his features. Her head was spinning and she felt so dizzy.

"Lara?" The voice called again. She staggered to her feet.

"I'm fine," she insisted, but not very convincingly. She made forwards to take a step, but as soon as her foot left the ground, her mind when blank, and she could feel her body rushing through the air. She felt two strong arms catch her, and then, she remembered nothing else.

Hope you liked, next chapter up soon...hopefully. N x