Author's Note: I'm not finished with Part 3, alas. But, I do think I have a portion of it I can release to everyone. I have a run of about seven chapters that help set up Part 3 and the bulk of it's characters. I am posting these chapters every few days, just to give them space to breath.

As I mentioned before, I plan to make a complete divergence from normal canon for my story, but I am hoping the essence of the show is retained. I am pulling in characters that only show up in the books, (Sasaki and their crew) but I am trying to give them as much development and fair representation as they are given in the books.

Readers of the books, please feel free to point out where I have erred, as this is an ideal time for me to orient myself for the rest of the story. Some of my stuff will be non-canon explanation, but I am striving to keep everything in-character for the context of my story, if not in-canon.

Non-readers of the books, please don't hesitate to tell me if I have left things vague, confusing or otherwise unuseful.

Fans, one and all, thanks for all your patience and interest. Never forget, all authors love feedback. I invite it all, via reviews or PM, both positive and negative, as it spurs me on to write more and write better.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy!

Part 3, Chapter 2:

I didn't sleep well.

There weren't any more strange occurrences, thankfully, but I wasn't for lack of things to distract me.

I got home and snuck back into the house via the back door. No one woke up, no one questioned me, and I got back to my room before the creeping vestiges of pre-dawn light could appear on the horizon. Mentally exhausted, I took off my outer layers and crawled into the relative safety of my bed.

Safe but not sound, so to speak. Never once had I endorsed Haruhi as a god, or a force of nature, or some evolutionary keystone. But apparently she wasn't even the only source of supernatural?

Would Yuki really be okay after one small session of group therapy, which mostly consisted of sitting in a room while friends played board games in the middle of the night? Who would be stupid enough to think it was that simple? Of course, she might be okay right now, but no one got over their issues by simple virtue of being near friends during a single moment of need.

Of course, there was no respite this weekend either. We were meeting with the other time traveler, and with that came a whole other set of problems. What was Sasaki doing with a time traveler, an esper and an alien? Itsuki promised he would explain, but there hadn't been time these past few days.

He was busy trying to keep Haruhi's subconscious from subsuming the world. We all were, in some manner. She hadn't make plans for anything exciting since the Halloween party. Part of that might have been just the normal downtime between events, but something told me she was spending most of her time stewing on what I told her she didn't know about us.

We were keeping secrets from her, and she knew it. She knew, without any shadow of doubt, that the universe was keeping mysteries from her, and she simply had to look hard enough to find them. But which was worse? An uncaring universe coincidentally keeping secrets, or close friends refusing to share something important.

Of course, the universe kept secrets from Haruhi's friends too. Tsuruya was some sort of magical girl, or something. She kept supernatural things from everyone, apparently. What was next?

Was Taniguchi secretly a shonen hero, competing in secret supernatural fighting tournaments?

That last idea was too stupid to even consider, but even Haruhi's friends kept secrets from one another. There was Itsuki's shadowy Agency, Mikuru's time traveling confidential background, and Yuki's mysterious and seemingly vast Integrated Data Thought Entity. And now I had to keep Tsuruya's secret from everyone else.

How was Haruhi ever going to learn to trust us when we all had so much we couldn't say to each other?

Needless to say, I had a lot on my mind. There was a certain point where I just realized I wasn't going to be able to sleep. I hope the others did. Yuki deserved to, of all of us. As I lay awake, I realized Yuki suffered summer for nearly two thousand years, and it hasn't even been seven iterations worth of time time since we got free. I don't think I will ever complain about boredom again, given that frame of reference.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up. My alarm hadn't gone off. Shamisen turned his head to glare at me, before shifting into another position. He knew full well that he had another thirty minutes before my darling little sister decided to wake us up. I don't even know if she was up yet.

I got dressed and cleaned up well before the time I was usually awake. Using the upstairs bathroom, I never saw anyone, so no one questioned me about being up so uncharacteristically early. I sat on my bed, hunched a little, petting our calico cat idly for several minutes, lost in thought and tired.

My alarm went off, and I tapped it quickly to end the usually incessant noise. I continued petting Shamisen for a few more moments, before hearing a knock. My sister then promptly opened the door, only to stand shocked in the doorway, stunned at my awoken status.

"Hey, you shouldn't burst in whenever. It's rude."

She smiled unreprimanded, "Awwwlright. What are you doing up so early?"

I shrugged, "I get up early sometimes."

She laughed at that, as if I was joking. Hey, I got up early up... sometimes. Anyway, she skipped over to grab Shamisen and forcibly take him to the food bowl, singing idly as always. I waited for her to get out of sight before placing my head in my hands and rubbing my face.

First interaction of the day, and I was already exhausted.

I managed to get downstairs, eat a small breakfast and escape the house early, avoiding any questions about my unusual morning promptness from my parents.

I walked to school at a leisurely pace, and made it to the classroom in record time. I put my book bag down, pulled my seat out and plopped into the chair. I wondered if I could put my head down on my desk and try to take a nap before class started.

If I did, would Haruhi notice? Would she care? My mind, somewhat foggy but still active, ran through the possibilities of what she might ask, interrogate or question me about. I sighed. In my tired, dismal mood, in every mental scenario, she discovered all of my secrets like a KGB interrogation expert, including Tsuruya's secret, and everything became more complicated and worse than it needed to be.

I commend Itsuki for being able to act like nothing was wrong for so long, after so many nights of unrest. I am tired after just one night. I don't know how he manages it night after night, slaying Haruhi's personal demons, those Shinjin, while sane people slept.

I didn't lay my head on my desk, risking any questions from Haruhi. I did rest my head and my hand and stared out the window of the classroom, watching people stream by, going to and fro in their own lives. How many of them had normal clubs and normal lives? How many of them had secret double lives also kept from Haruhi?

"Hey Kyon."

I blinked, and turned my head to stare at Taniguchi's concerned face. He continued, "You doing alright man? Seeing you here before the class is completely full is like witnessing a miracle."

"Ha ha. You arrive nearly as late as I do most day, so you're one to talk."

He snickered, and said, "Yeah, well, I don't have the aura of the Suzumiya's group around me. Besides, I've been working after classes to earn money for a date this winter break so I need to sleep in a little. What excuse do you have?"

I rolled my eyes. Not because he thought he had more to do in his life. Mostly because he thought his chance of getting a date this winter was not measurably greater than the probability that he would become Santa.

I shook my head. "No excuse, just didn't sleep well."

Kunikida, who'd been sitting nearby and turned in his chair towards us, smiled sympathetically, "Sorry to hear that Kyon. Hope you aren't coming down with anything. I heard there's a really nasty bug going around."

Taniguchi smiled broadly, pounding his chest once and pronounced, "I have a strong immune system. I'm not worried."

I rolled my eyes again and asked how they were. A few pleasantries later, and Taniguchi went to his seat to sit down. I returned to my window gazing.

I was surprised myself when classes started and Haruhi didn't take the seat behind me at the last moment. I looked around for her a bit, as if she might be hiding behind someone else's desk, or the teacher's stand, but she wasn't in the room.

Strange. Haruhi might be almost as inattentive as myself in class, in spite of her amazing grades, but she never skipped before.

I wondered what was going on, just long enough to start worrying myself with outlandish possibilities, when the back classroom door slid open with almost violent force. Haruhi stood in the door, barely managing from keeping the door from banging.

She looked pissed, though I couldn't guess why. Haruhi stepped into the room and slid the door closed with that same force, barely managing to keep the door from slamming.

The everyone, including the teacher, fell silent at the sudden arrival, as Haruhi walked to her chair. She barely spared a glance for me as she took a seat and stared at the chalkboard, as if nothing she had done was wrong and that the board had insulted and betrayed her family personally. It was, in its own way, pretty terrifying. I wonder who that anger was really directed at. If it had been me, she wouldn't hesitate to stare me down.

The teacher, apparently having decided that it would be far from poignant to get onto Haruhi's case for being late, continued with a bit of a cough, as if he had never been interrupted.

I didn't really focus on classes that period. More than usual, as it happens. I don't think I could have said what went even if someone asked.

At the end of the class period, Haruhi was up and out of her seat before the bell finished ringing. As she left, I pulled my phone out and sent a quick text to the other three.

"Hey, Haruhi is in bad mood everyone okay?"

I got an almost immediate response from Yuki in the form of two texts.

"I am doing fine. I cannot calculate any possibilities from my realm of influence that might have lead to this state of-

"-discontent. Please feel free to inquire further if there is anything I can do."

I rolled my eyes. She was trying to be funny, and while I was smiling a bit, I think that she could learn the adage, 'Brevity is the soul of wit.'

Still, it did warm my heart that she was feeling good enough to joke. And her relative calmness did remind me that Haruhi has been angry before without world ending consequences. Maybe I am just jumpy after last night.

I took a deep breath to calm down, eyes blissfully closed for a few moments, as I felt my phone vibrate again. I investigated, and it was Mikuru. I could tell by just reading the message. "hy i m gooood thaksfr warming"

I did snort at that. Mikuru was getting better at using her phone. She used to have trouble figuring out how to put spaces in the message. It became a game between Itsuki and I to decipher them. He was better at it than I was, mostly because he had been talking to her more regularly than I, trying to coordinate the time traveler meetup. Which was tomorrow? No…two days. We still had two days.

I closed my eyes again, trying to realign my thoughts. My brain wanted to jump from topic to topic, which was even more tiring.

I finally got the third text, but the message was not what I expected, "Koizumi will be getting to school in a few minutes, but thanks for the heads-up."

I stared at the message for a few seconds, before starting to type out a reply. The bell rang and the door at the back of the classroom opened in a flash at the corner of my eye. I put my phone away, and Haruhi stomped to her seat as class began.

A glance back at her revealed she was not quite as annoyed as she had been during classes. Strange. I wonder what changed.

I was able to concentrate a little more on class this period though my heart and mind weren't into it. My eyes ached at the lack of sleep and while I was entering a slightly less tired period.

This time when the bell rang after second period, Haruhi didn't instantly fly from the classroom. Instead, she poked me with the eraser end of her mechanical pencil. The fact that she didn't use the pointed end was a surprise that got my attention immediately.

Haruhi stared at me with the intensity I expected she would bring to the sequel to the islands murder mystery case. "Koizumi wasn't here this morning. He said he forgot to set his alarm and slept in."

I blinked, "He forgot to set his alarm?" That was really out of character for him.

She nodded, "Yeah. Sounds like something you'd do, not him."

I rubbed my eyes and turned back to the front of the class, "Wouldn't help me any. My sister would wake me up even if I forgot, so I never get to sleep in. Lucky bastard."

Haruhi gave a noncommittal noise, "Hmmm… Maybe, but he has to work to support his family, so you don't have it too bad." I shrugged and nodded at this, but she continued, "Why do you look so tired Kyon?"

"Eh, didn't sleep well," I lied through my teeth, still facing away from her.

"Oh," was all she replied.

She stayed in the classroom that break, so I didn't really have a chance to text Itsuki to see what was up.

Thinking back, it had been a long time since she had stayed in the classroom long enough to talk. It took some effort for me to actually remember the last time she was here in the room with me between classes. Probably once or twice right after summer ended, but then she got wrapped up in researching stuff for her movie, then the movie itself took up all her time.

Even after the movie was done and gone with, she had basically been out of her seat doing something around the school, most frequently working on something on the club room computer, according to Yuki.

The fact was, she didn't stick around in the classroom nearly as much as she had before summer vacation, when we first started bonding and just started the club. Funny how things change.

I could kind of sense a tension in the air, like she might have wanted to talk about something. But I was tired, and I wasn't sure if she might press the issue of my sleep.

Finally, I turned sideways to look at her. She was resting her head on one hand, her elbow on her desk. She was looking outside, but her gaze flicked to me as I opened my mouth. I was just about to say something and the school bell rang.

My mouth closed, and I gave her a wry smile, but her eyes had already drifted back out the window.

I turned to the teacher just starting class and sighed. Soon, tests would be here too. I don't know when I would find time to study, and I was actually a little concerned about it. If my grades slipped much more, the threats of cram school would come again, and in my lifestyle of managing the precarious balance of classes, clubs with unimaginably huge consequences, sleeping, and managing a precarious "close" friendship with an alien, I didn't have time for cram school.

Thinking about what I should be doing beyond the next three days never happened to me before the summer. Now it's all I can plan for. If I started to fail classes here, I would end up back in cram school.

Of course, cram school was where I first really got to know Sasaki.