Sooo tired. I was doing great until just before Dresden got back. I'd just finished helping Charity set the guest room up when the world did a barrel roll and my feet left the floor. By the way, it's probably a good idea to rest now. Stupid voices.

"Claire? Are you all right?" Charity looked worried; I should tell her I was just tired.

"Hnnng…" Well. I'm sure that made her feel better. What was going on? Charity told me not to move and left. I couldn't focus my thoughts enough to guess where she was going. You used magic today and now you're exhausted because you've never done it before. What? I would have noticed if I'd done magic. The voice was talkin' nonsense now. Idiot, you got transported into another dimension! Did you think that just happened on its own? There was a rational argument against that… and it was… Sam! Sam wasn't passing out, at least I didn't think she was. There was the impression of a sigh the portal took some of both your energies to create. You'd be fine now if you hadn't argued with the captain. That happens to be one of your abilities, you can convince people that your argument makes sense. And-it cut off the forming rebuttal you don't have control over it yet. Which means you use more power than is necessary. Oh, reason is a superpower now? It didn't matter. I really just wanted to sleep. I'd worry about a prophesied super-power later, for now I needed to get my contacts out. Somehow. I tried to stand up and succeeded in almost passing out. I concluded that that was a bad plan, but before I could come up with another one Charity came back with Sam and Michael who picked me up and set me on the nearest bed. That was nice of him. I drifted off shortly after he left, I heard Charity and Sam talking but the words didn't make sense, then I knew nothing until the next morning, when I knew blinding pain! The headache started to fade almost immediately but I had a feeling it would remain a nuisance all day.

"GOOOOD MORNING!" I was going to kill her. She needed to die. Just as soon as I could see through the pain…there she was.

"I kill you now!"

"Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed." Yep. I was going to murder her painfully. "Well, I have something I bet will cheer you up."

"I didn't end up sleeping in my contacts?"

"Well, yes. But that's not the good news." dramatic pause "Michael's going to teach us how to fight! And I got coffee, which is the only reason I'm even functioning at this point. But we'll do the fighting thing later."

"Someone was actually dumb enough to give you coffee after you slept", I asked, looking with horror at my overly hyper friend.

"Yep. Right now you need to get ready, Dresden will be here to pick us up any minute now so we can talk with Captain Luccio", she said happily.

"Oh. Joy. Confrontation, exactly what I needed."

"Shut up and change." She threw a change of clothes at me. I had slept in the ones Charity had given me yesterday.

"Fine. Now shoo fly." she stuck her tongue out at me as she left and I used the brief moment of quiet to gather my thoughts. Reasonable argument or not I didn't think Captain Luccio was going to support the destroy the council plan. Well, that was her problem, my problem was that she would probably try to prevent us from implementing it. Well, that, and finding people who would support us , but I wasn't going to think about the logical flaws in my plan right now. Not even the gaping ones. I finished changing, considered putting my contacts in and rejected them in favor of glasses, and wandered downstairs just in time to hear the doorbell ring. Since I was the closest to the door I opened it revealing Dresden.

"Good morning Claire. Are you feeling any better?"

"Yeah, I'd be a hundred percent if it wasn't for the headache."

"Good. Captain Luccio arranged to meet at a café near the lake so we can head out whenever you two are ready."

"We can go now." Sam had snuck up behind me. "Ow! Claire, that was my face!" She really should know better than that. I ignored her whining about how she uses that face for…facey things and turned back to Dresden.

"Yeah we can. Just let me tell Mrs. Carpenter." I took care of that quickly and headed out to his car. I got the front seat this time, realizing as I buckled my seatbelt how out of it I must have been last night not to process that I got to ride in the Blue Beetle that was no longer very blue. Have you decided what you'll do if the Captain decides to have you arrested? Actually I had. I was going to run. Very fast. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.