GUYS! I MISSED YOU ALL. (Except that one reviewer who made me feel extremely bad about not updating, that wasn't cool. At all.) Anyway, here's a thing, I hope you all like it….It's kind of short…. Please review? They are the only thing that keeps me going. 3 Happy reading.

EDIT 10-8-14: I edited it slightly because I forgot to put the date, and I entered her age wrong in the text.

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Chapter 6: Surprises, Surprises

December 19th, 2011

Penelope sat, half dead and hungry, as the seconds ticked by on the clock in the front of the room.

'57 more seconds'

This was her last class for the entire semester, and she was more than ready to be done with it.

'42 seconds'

After this she could finally start working towards the degree she'd been striving towards for years.

'35 seconds'

She'd always had a fascination with numbers and breaking things down, and considering her quirk, it only seemed natural that she'd go for something in engineering.

'23 seconds'

But did she really need a PhD in the field? She was only 20. Considering the fact that she'd most likely only use her degree for teaching, it would probably be awkward instructing students who were pretty much the same age as her...

'15 seconds'

It wouldn't be hard. She had a fairly fast (Even when not having those times.) thought process. But the question was: Did she really want to spend all this time on a PhD?

'8 seconds'

She looked around at all the wary faces of her class mates.

'5 seconds'

Did she really want to resign herself to more stressed filled days for the next few years?

'4 seconds'

She thought of Rosa, who'd tell her to go for it.

'3 seconds'

She thought of Torin, who'd smile that killer smile and would tell her to do whatever she thought was best. Then most likely crack a joke that'd have her sporting a smile of her own.

'2 seconds'

She scrubbed her face and sighed.

'1 second'

"What the hell," she muttered to herself, "we only live once right?"

"What was that?" the guy next to her mumbled. Penelope flushed at his attentions, and pretended that she hadn't said anything at all.

The professor glanced at the clock, and turned towards them with a relieved smile. He was as ready to get out of there just as much as his students.

"Class dismissed."

When she got home she was in high spirits. Grinning to herself, she walked into the kitchen and immediately pulled out the flower.

As she did so, the kid sitting at the table glared at her. The other girl had hair dyed black, black nail polish, black clothes, and while Penelope was all for the fabulous dark color, the girl also had a sour attitude typical of an over angsty teenager.

The girl was nearing six feet tall, even at 14. Personally, Penelope thought she was very pretty, but she'd never tell her that. The girl was new to the system and mean to her core, so she'd probably punch her in the face for the compliment.

So she ignored her.

That is until the brat came up behind her and boxed her in. Light brown eyes ringed in over exaggerated black eye liner narrowed menacingly, and Nel simply blinked.

"Look, I've been watching you since I got here, for some stupid fucking reason that old blonde bitch loves you. She hates me for no fuckin' reason. So here's what's gonna happen, you're gonna leave your door unlocked so I can use your shit since that bitch won't buy me anything, and you're also gonna give me your snacks that you hide like a fuckin' pig since that bitch starves me."

As she said all this, Nel simply stared at her. She sounded dead serious, and Nel had to fight the urge to laugh. Ms. Liv didn't hate the girl, she just hadn't gotten any reason to trust her. Hence the fact that she hadn't wasted any of her valuable, hard earned money buying the moody, foul mouthed teen iPods and laptops. She had, however, been buying the girl food and clothes. She just hadn't felt that she'd earned Cheeots and chocolate and all the other crappy stuff the girl wanted to eat.

But instead of telling her this, Penelope decided to let do it.

To her left, standing in the kitchen entrance, was . Penelope smiled brightly at her, and the girl snapped her gaze in the other direction. Her mouth dropped open as smiled softly at her. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened, and Nel knew that when there was a new kid in the house, always made sure they were never left completely alone with Nel. She was a pacifist by nature, and a fight would not have ended well.

Penelope slipped from under the girls arms as berated the girl with a smile on her face and a voice like ice. Sad that she wouldn't be able to bake her snacks, Nel walked quickly back to her room. There was no way she was staying in this kitchen any longer.

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The moment she got back to her room, she noticed the open window with Torin's distracted face immediately. Every time he'd sent her an invite for video chat, he'd simply waited for her response. This was new. She was slightly creeped out and oddly impressed for about ten seconds before she plopped down in front of the screen with one critical thought: 'Note to self: never leave cam uncovered when changing.

Not that he'd ever want to see that.

Clearing her throat quietly, Penelope watched with fascination as Torin's emerald gaze sharpened, and she could tell he was now entirely focused on her.

"Hey," he said, friendly smile on display.

"Hey," she replied softly.

And just like that they settled into a comfortable silence as they studied each other. She hadn't been up for a face to face since their talk about Rosa all those months ago, and she was eager to see if he'd changed in the time since then.

He hadn't. Too green eyes, too pale skin, too full lips, and too white hair all came together to form one beautiful being that made Nel feel entirely inadequate.

Self-consciously, she brushed back one stray curl that had escaped from her tight fishtail braid, and she shifted uncomfortably as Tor's eyes followed the action.

"You're hair's longer," he said.

Penelope raised one eyebrow, and just couldn't help herself.

"I'm trying to become Rapunzel. Looks like you already beat me to the punch, though."

The words were quiet and quickly mumbled, but as always, the sharp man heard her.

"You're just jealous of my lustrous locks," he stated, lips twisted in a teasing smile.

She rolled her eyes at him, and held her hand to her heart in mock distress.

"You caught me. What ever shall I do now?"

He laughed, but kept up their charade.

"Tell you what, you send me another one of those pumpkin cheesecakes, and I'll tell the secret to silkiness."

Penelope let her sleeve covered hand hide her grin as she wiggled her eyebrows at him.

"Oh, so you liked it did you?"

"It was okay."

She gave him a pointed look that said 'I see BS and I'm calling you on it.'

"Sorry babe, pumpkin's seasonal. You're gonna have to wait till next holiday season. "

She didn't mention that the cheesecake had cost her a butt load of money because it was a cold item going all the way to Budapest. She didn't want him to feel bad.

He frowned briefly before his eyes lit up once more.

"What about those little brownie things that you make with the chocolates in the middle?"

He looked so excited and she couldn't help but nod. Jesus but the guy had some damn good puppy dog eyes when he needed them.

"Awesome!"

Nel shook her head softly and just smiled, but then she asked a question that had been burning at her since she walked in.

"How'd you do, well," she gestured to her screen so he'd get the point.

He winked and gave her that sinful smile.

"A magician never reveals his secrets."

So she glared at him.

"Also you need better fire walls."

She glared harder. They had a staring contest for a solid five minutes, him smiling and her glaring.

"So how did your last day of class go?" he finally asked.

Still mad that he'd insulted her computer skills, she shrugged.

"Oh come on Nel, the only reason I opened up the window myself was because I wanted to be there and surprise you for your last day. Since I couldn't, this was the next best thing."

She didn't want to, since it was still an invasion of privacy, but she softened anyway.

"Thanks," she murmured, cheeks suddenly hot.

"Anytime. So do you know what you're doing for your internship?"

At this, Penelope could practically feel the tables turning. This time, she was the one with the smirk on her face.

Startled by her sudden mischievous expression, Torin looked at her warily.

"What?" he asked.

She couldn't help but giggle, and this made the pale man scoot away from the screen a few inches.

She was all out laughing now.

"Why do I feel like you're about to do something horrible?"

Nel shook her head, and simply grinned once her laughter died down. She couldn't wait to see how he'd react to this. She hopped he'd be happy. She sure as hell was.

Sleeve still in front of her face, shielding her smile, Penelope tried to still her features so she could appropriately gage his reaction.

"There's this really promising internship, and they've already accepted me. If I finish this, it could be a huge help to my career, simply because of the location. "

He snorted.

"They'd be fools not to. With an IQ like yours, you could get into anywhere. Where is it?"

She blushed at his praise and glanced away from the screen for a second to cool down. Then she took a deep breath to steel up her nerves. She closed her eyes, and counted to ten. Once she was done, she opened them and stared straight into Torin's emerald gaze.

"That's the really cool thing about it, it's out of state. Out of country really."

At this, Torin stilled.

"Where?" he asked, voice steady.

She couldn't help but smile.

"Budapest."