Author's Notes:

Woo, another chapter done! I got momentarily distracted with some other things this week – the Islands in the Stream/Tears are Not Enough arc never fails to kill me dead, and I usually have to write some fluff to recover, haha.

My reviewers, as always, are awesome! Thanks to degrassifreak87, PaperclipsAreEvil, and Anne! You rock. (: You really really do!

I know I promised Tim in this chapter, and I delievered, kind-of. You'll see more of him in the upcoming chapter five, along with Liberty, JT, and more Paige. And a trip to the CineSquare! And maybe some Alex too, if I can swing it. Look for chapter 5 soon.

In the meantime, here's chapter four. Enjoy, and review, and all that. Cheers!


"Around The Sun"

(Chapter 4)

There were still lights on when I got home, and I wasn't surprised to walk in and find Kate still awake and doing something at the computer. Ashley went through her gothic phase a few years ago and everyone joked that she was a vampire, but if anyone of my family's something supernatural, I'd put my money on Kate any day because she's the one who never ever sleeps. Every time I wake up in the middle of the night, she's always up too, watching infomercials or playing solitaire or surfing gay porn on the net. All right, I'm mostly kidding about the gay porn, but whatever she was doing on the computer that night, she clicked out of it at the speed of light and blushed a lot. As far as parental figures go, Kate's pretty cool. She's better than my real mom, not that that takes much.

"Were you waiting up for me," I asked, sneaking up behind her to peek at the computer screen. No gay porn tonight, just an instant-message box and something on notepad.

"Nope, just chatting to Robert in London," she replied, rapidly typing something in. The instant message chimed, and then she looked up at me with a smile.

"Say hi for me?" Robert Kerwin is one of the most interesting people I know. He has the greatest job, near-misses with explosives and shrapnel notwithstanding. He's actually, come to think of it, one of the biggest influences in my career-choice as journalist.

"Mmm-hmm. I told him you were out on a date and he was so proud of you!" Kate said, laughing and typing something else to Robert. "Did you have a nice time?"

I could feel myself blushing. "It wasn't a date," I mumbled, "Just a friend kind of thing. That's all."

"I see," she replied, using that patented parental tone of disbelief.

"Seriously. Her girlfriend just dumped her, and she needed someone to talk to." I used the word 'girlfriend' like a weapon in my defence, and to my surprise, it seemed to work.

"Oh, Toby," Kate murmured, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. I was just happy, you know? It's been a long time since you've been out with anyone."

Ha. Yeah. Since Kendra dumped me, what, two years ago? It's not like I didn't want to date, just that the only people I ever liked were…they were like Emma Nelson, untouchable and unobtainable. And not to mention, completely and totally uninterested, and who could blame them? "…yeah, I guess."

"Well, if you wanted to bring her, or even a real date if you wanted? To your dad's concert this weekend. We've got an extra ticket."

"Ash bailed?"

"Plans with Ellie, apparently." Kate paused for a moment to type something else to Robert. "Going to these things alone is horrible, Tobes…bring JT if you have to, or come alone, just please come?"

My dad's a concert cellist. We go to the symphony all the time, and to be honest, the excitement wore off a long time ago. I mean, I like the symphony, but if you go every week, it gets kind of dull. Things were a lot more interesting when he still played in that jazz group. Kate goes all the time, to support my dad. I hadn't been in a while. It'd be more fun if I had someone to go with, and then I started thinking about what the chances were that Paige would be into a trip to the symphony. It didn't seem very likely. I wished I dared ask Liberty, because I knew she'd appreciate a fancy night out, but that would be too much like a date, and JT would never ever go for that. Ever. "Sure, I'll come," I said, finally, because I had the rest of the week to figure out who I should ask to come along with us.

I yawned, and Kate noticed. She laughed. "Past your bedtime, I think," she teased. "You've got an appointment with Dr Freid at 12:30 tomorrow, don't forget."

"Yes, Mommy," I joked back. Kate leaned up, kissed my cheek.

"Sweet dreams," she said.

"You too. Say goodnight to Robert." I walked up the stairs to my room, listening to the sound of Kate's rapid-fire typing.

Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep, but this time, I fell right to sleep. I didn't even dream, and that's kind of odd. I'd been having reoccurring nightmaresque dreams about the smell of gunpowder and nosebleeds, horrible things that were enough to break out the unisom, but no dreams that night.

I must have turned out my alarm clock in my sleep, because I slept for twelve hours and awoke to the sound of Kate knocking on my door. "Get up, I'm on my way out and you're due at Dr Freid's in an hour!" she called.

"Okay," I said, without opening my eyes or getting up. I'd hoped she'd go away and I could go back to sleep, but she knocked again and then opened the door and glared at me. "Up. Now," she said, no-nonsense. I whimpered, but did what I was told.

I hate mornings.

An hour wasn't much time, but it was enough for me to take a quick shower and brush my teeth and get dressed; in no time at all I was out in the driveway trying to convince Bubbe's Car that it wanted to start. My Bubbe is the most stubborn person on the planet. She moved into assisted living a few months ago, and I inherited her car. Unfortunately for me, the car's about as old and irritable as my Bubbe herself. I dare to take it to school and to Dr Freid's, but that's about it.

But it must have been my lucky day, because it only took a few tries and then the car started and I was on my way down the highway to my shrink's office, singing along to the mixtape in the cassette player. I only sing when I'm alone in the car; my father and grandfather might both have been musical geniuses, but that's one quality I didn't happen to inherit, despite all the music lessons they tried when I was little. At least he got Ash, I guess. It's funny, but that was one of the things I was most jealous of, when Kate and Ash came into our lives…dad learned she was a musician and he doted on her, he bought her this fancy electric keyboard and introduced her to all his musical friends and he was just so proud of her. It really hurt, but I guess Kate made up for it with the new computer and trips to the comic-book store and extra desserts and letting me stay up past my bedtime. In retrospect, I guess we must have been even.

There was no time to spare, but I was in a good mood and the song wasn't over, so I sat there in the parking lot, singing along, drumming with one hand against the steering wheel to accompany my off-key voice, and that was just a dream, just a dream, dream, dream. It was one of my geekier moments, I must admit, so I was rather embarrassed when I turned off the car and noticed someone in the parking lot smiling in my direction. Oops. Busted.

"Hi Tim," I called, waving with one hand and swinging the car door closed with the other.