A Note From Lara- Ugh. I'm sorry I've been FF MIA for awhile guys. I've just been... really, REALLY busy. College applications. And Victoria's not helping, sitting there mocking me. Anyway, I promise there'll be a WTRL update soon. I've got it about half-written. I've just been procrastinating.

I plan on writing tons of Pemma over the next few days to make up for my absence, and in anticipation of The Art of Deception. This is just the first, though I must warn you, it's a bit rambling.

● Major Event ●

Peter had stopped measuring things by time. Things could change too quickly in the world that he lived in for time to have any real relevancy. It was just a matter of "what" and "who" now. "When" no longer seemed to really matter.

And so his life had become divided, not into hours and weeks and months, but into major events and the gaps in between. Into the things that would change his life, and the down time while he waited for his world to be uprooted yet again. There weren't many of those events, but a few stuck out:

Gaining his abilities (should have been wonderful. Wasn't).

Kirby Plaza (best left unremembered).

Losing his abilities (he tried not to think about why that had happened).

Regaining his ability (singular this time).

Losing Nathan (still a wound too raw to touch).

But there were others. Things he hadn't thought were significant at the time that suddenly gained massive importance in retrospect. As rare as the Big Important World-Shaping things were, the unimportant important bits were rarer. Maybe because the things he grouped into that category were mainly things that would only affect him, personally, and not the world as a whole. And that, of course, meant that most of them were tied to his personal life. His non-existant personal life. All things considered, there was probably really only one thing lately that he could actually put down as being really important to him.

Emma.

Thinking about her hurt. She had a right to be angry with him. In fact, she had the right to avoid him for the rest of her life, if she wished (and which she seemed perfectly content to do). He had been an idiot. But that wasn't what he meant when he acknowledged her as a life-changing event. It wasn't the effect that she might (no, she wouldn't. He wouldn't let that happen) have on the rest of the world that mattered most to him.

No, it was her effect on him that concerned Peter. Somehow, without even trying, she had slipped right in under his barriers. She understood him instinctively, without him having to say a word. She was his friend (dear god, it was pathetic how weird it was to imagine having friends). But that wasn't all Peter felt for her. He was captivated by her. Over the last three months of their acquaintance, he'd reconciled himself to the fact that he was falling for her.

And now she was gone. Not physically, of course. He passed the file room every so often and met her eyes through the glass and felt none of that warmth he'd come to associate with her gaze (no, she was a regular ice princess now). It was emotionally that Emma was absent. She refused to speak to him, refused his attempts at apology, refused to even hear what he had to say about Samuel being dangerous.

But Peter knew it wouldn't last forever. She was tied into it all now, and the next time a major event came rolling in like a wave determined to catch them all up in the backwash, she'd be there as well (he couldn't say he liked her involvement, but what could he do?). Eventually she'd have to talk to him and let him properly apologize. Eventually they'd have to reconcile. And Peter thought he might have to mark that day down as the most major event of all.