Chapter Twelve:

Amidst This Drop of Time Gone Dry

Disclaimer: You all probably know the disclaimer already.

Sunlight drifted in lazily through the curtained window of the oriental style room. It crept across the littered floor and up the side of the bed. It then finally came to rest on the nude occupant, who was trying her best to stay asleep as long as she could.

Robin groaned, knowing it was no use hiding under the covers. She let her green eyes flutter open slowly.

"Gods, my neck..." She whispered softly, wincing as she rolled over on to her back. The left side of her neck was twinging with pain and it seemed to cry out with how much it had.

Robin sat up as slowly as she could without jarring her neck. Once she had gotten herself situated, she hesitantly raised a thin hand and touched the scar that now decorated her skin. As soon as her fingertips brushed it, a white-hot jolt of pain shot through her.

The young girl gasped, quickly bringing her hand away from her neck. Tears were brimming at the edges of her bloodshot eyes.

"It burns..." She breathed out, trying her best to choke back sobs. She then began to wonder why it had not hurt so much before. It had been fine just last night. Last night...

Robin looked around the room, sniffling as she did so. Everything was in decorated in a Chinese style. Dragons and phoenixes adoned the walls, the lamps, and the chairs. They were even pictured on the bedspread.

The young witch looked down at the red and gold bedsheets covering her naked body. They had become twisted around her in the night and about half of them layed on the floor. One, maroon pillow had somehow ended up on top of the orange dresser in the corner of the room.

Robin sighed, bringing her hands up to rub at her eyes as the events of the night before suddenly came flowing back into her head. She remembered walking home. She remembered Akamu and how he had tried to attack her. She remembered how Andy had come to her rescue.

Robin slowly removed her hand from her face, brought her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them.

She remembered Tera.

She remembered Andy teleporting them all back his home, which was a small penthouse in a Chinese hotel. She was somewhere in downtown San Francisco, where Chinese culture has a big influence

Another groan escaped the young witch's lips and she buried her face down into her knees. It wasn't that she was grateful for Andy's hospitality. In fact, it was he who had graciously sacrificed his bed for her to sleep in and he had taken the couch. It just that she had never spent the night in a man's apartment before and it made her a tad uncomfortable.

Thankfully, Andy had respected her need for privacy and left her alone.

Robin raised her head. She knew she had to thank Andy somehow. Some way. She would figure out how. But right now, she had to focus on the current situation at hand.

Amon was in danger and she needed to get back to Japan to help him. But how was she going to over there? Andy couldn't teleport her there and she certainly did not have enough money to get there on a plane.

But she had to get back. Back to her home. Back to Amon...

Jutting her jaw out in determination, Robin threw the covers back and nearly leapt out of the bed. Running over to the window seat where her clothes had been placed, she grabbed her undergarments and quickly threw them on. She then fumbled into her black, victorian dress and hurridly put her hair up in the usual way.

Glaring at the mirror, the young girl checked her appearence to make sure she did not look like she had been in a rush to get ready. She nodded at her reflection in satisfaction when she saw that nothing was out of place.

She then, however, spotted the ugly scar on the side of her neck. It was caked over in dried blood and had begun to turn a dark pink around the edges. It was rather large and covered the whole left side of her neck. A few, jagged angles even came down near her collarbone.

Robin sighed, turing away from the mirror. She would just have to deal with the scar later.

After quickly grabbing her jacket and her glasses from the green painted desk that was in the room, the young witch walked over to the door and opened it. She turned, getting one a last look at the bedroom before heading out into the hallway.

"Good-morning, Robin. Did you sleep well?" Andy asked as soon as Robin had entered the small kitchen that was in his penthouse. His long, brown hair was down and was flowing over his shoulders in a waterfall-type fashion. His face was drawn, which indicated that he had not gotten much sleep.

Robin looked over at him and grinned timidly back.

"Yes, I did. Thank-you." She said softly, placing her belongings down on the table in the middle of the room. Andy gave a single nod.

"Good." He said simply before taking a sip of something out of his green coffee cup. As he was drinking, he gave another glance to Robin, who, without realizing it, was staring with envy at his mug.

Placing the cup down, Andy gestured over to the counter near his refigerator, where a fancy coffee maker sat.

"There is some coffee over there if you want some. The cups are in the cabinat above it." He said with a grin.

Robin grinned gratefully back at him before bustling over to the coffee maker and quickly preparing herself a cup. After she had finished, she sighed contently and sat quietly at the table next to Andy.

The boy smiled.

"You seem to be troubled. Do you want to talk about something?" He asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing is arms over his chest, which was covered in a plain, grey T-shirt.

Robin sighed and began using her pointer finger to draw imaginary pictures into the smooth, green wood of the table.

"I had some disturbing nightmares last night. Nothing much." She said quietly, looking at him. Andy stared back at her with an expression that could have been discribed as hurt. He leaned forward, as if to look at something he had just seen on her face.

"Robin. You know that you can talk to me if something is bothering you, don't you? We're friends, aren't we? Please, I need to know if you are unhappy about something." He said, placing a large hand on hers.

The young witch sighed, looking down at Andy's hand on top of hers. She now knew what she could use to thank him for his hospitality.

Taking a deep breath, Robin raised her gaze back to Andy's face.

"It's Amon... He was...a friend of mine back in Japan. I'm afraid Akamu is going to harm him and he is very important to me. I need a way to get back to Tokyo and don't have enough money to pay for a plane ticket." She paused, lowering her eyes once again to their conjoined hands.

"Please, Andy. I need your help to get back to Japan. Amon could be in great danger." She whispered, tears springing to her green orbs.

Andy stared at her for a moment before sighing and standing up, getting a thoughtful look from Robin. Smiling down at her, he jerked his head towards a door that lead into the living room.

"Come here for a moment. I think I have a solution to your problem." He said, helping her up from her seat and guiding her through the door.

It didn't take Robin long to figure out something was up; especially when she entered the living room and saw Ian leaning leisurely against a wall next to a window that looked out over the city.

The blonde man smiled in amusement at the young witch's obvious confusion and he pushed himself away from the wall. He then bent low into a graceful bow.

"Robin, it's good to see you again." He said softly as he straightened himself back to his normal stance. His smile was still apparent on his thin lips.

Robin gazed up at him, slight shock and utter confusion filtering through her green orbs.

"Ian... What are you doing here?" She whispered, only to be startled by a young girl around her age as she sidled in from the bathroom. She had medium-length, strawberry blonde hair that was layered and had white blonde highlights. Her intense, violet eyes shown with a carelessness that seemed familiar to Robin.

"Hiya! I'm Kitten." She said cheerfully, beaming in the young witch's direction. She seemed to be rather childish in her movements and in her tone of voice.

Robin stared back at her, her green eyes now wide with surprise. She then turned to gaze at Andy.

"W-what's going on?" She stuttered softly, gasping when she heard the outside door open. Whipping her head around, she let her mouth drop open when she saw Rain walk in with a another young woman next to her.

This girl seemed to be rather aloof. Her long, black hair with purple-highlighted bangs waved around her shoulders in a nonchalant type of way. Her black eyes glared at the other people in the room.

Rain, grinning broadly, turned to Robin and waved.

"Good-morning, sleepyhead. Did you sleep well?" She asked with air of giddyness. This behavior was seen by Robin as strange, considering Rain was hardly ever as cheerful as this.

Now lost beyond all reason, the chestnut-haired witch gazed back and forth between all of the people that were now in room.

"I-I don't understand. Why are all of you --" She trailed off, turning to stare with a slight aggitation at Ian. The blonde-haired man shrugged.

"We're here to help." He said simply, sounding even more like Amon than before.

Robin frowned, bringing a small hand to her chest, as if for comfort.

"Help me? With what?" She asked, her voice edged with a barely detectable, annoyed tone. The sound of someone clearing their throat gruffly caught her attention and she turned to the black-haired woman.

The woman huffed and she took a step forward so that she was staring down at Robin, who was a few inches shorter.

"We're here to help with your problem. We all pitched in and are going to get you a way back to Japan so you can save your boyfriend or whatever he is." She said in a deep voice that could have easily been mistaken for a man's.

Robin stared up at her, her eyes still just as wide as they had been before.

"And...who are you?" She asked softly, smiling up at the girl. The young woman smiled back awkwardly. She held out a large hand, which had the nails painted over in black nail polish.

"The name's Bree. And you must be Robin. Andy told me about you." She said as she took Robin's hand and shook it.

The young witch nodded politely.

"Nice to meet you." She whispered. She then looked over at Rain.

"And what are you doing here? Are you with them, Rain?" Robin asked quietly, getting a nod from the older woman.

"Yes, I am. We are from a program that protects witches from witch-hunting groups, such as the STN. It's called the WEWPS. The 'Wolf's Eye Witches Protection Society." She paused, gesturing over at the strawberry blonde standing next to the bathroom door.

"This is Kitten Garrison. She's the one who usually goes undercover in a case. She's a pretty good actor, if I do say so myself." The girl named Kitten giggled girlishly and waved at Robin a second time.

Rain smiled at Robin's confused look and she motioned towards Bree and Andy.

"Bree Thomas and Andy Dickinson. Our top computer experts and top hackers." She said with a large grin. The two people in question beamed at each other with pride.

Robin stared at everyone with idle curiousity. She then turned back to Rain.

"And what do you do?" She asked. Rain just shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest with what seemed to be an air of slight arrogence.

"I'm the captain. Or at least I am for this particular team." She said with a cocky grin. She seemed as if she were rather proud of this fact

Robin gazed at her with a expression that couldn't be placed and she opened her mouth to ask Rain another question. The older woman was already prepared for it, however, and answered before poor Robin could even get a word out of her mouth.

"And before you ask, I didn't lie about the fact that I'm not a witch. I'm not even a Seed. The only witches in my group are Andy and Bree." She said, gesturing over once again to the said people.

Only after Robin had stared hard at them for five minutes did Rain motion behind the young witch.

"And of course, there's Ian; my best employer and the only Seed in my posse." She said, chuckling silently when Robin whipped her head around to face the blonde-haired man.

Ian stared back at her with an expression that could have been seen on a mask. Then, after a few seconds, his thin lips spread into a smug, closed-mouth grin that gave the young witch in front of him a suspicious feeling that he was mentally laughing at her and her curiousity.

Robin glared hard into his silver eyes with her green ones. Though her face didn't show it, she was clearly surprised at finding out that Ian was a Seed. In fact, it absolutely awed her.

Amon is a Seed... She thought to herself, as if the idea was something completely and utterly new.

"I swear, you two have got to stop giving each other those goo-goo eyes all the time. You're both starting to creep me out." Andy's voice piped in, drawing Robin's attention back to reality.

Robin's shook her head and turned to look at the young, brown-haired teen standing at her right elbow. Andy was smiling at her and Ian, as if he knew something that niether of them didn't.

Ignoring his sly stares, Robin turned back to Rain.

"Why are you all helping me? I really don't think I deserve all this. Do I? I mean, I'm really nothing but a witch..." She trailed off lowering her gaze from the older woman, as if she were afraid Rain would strike down on her.

Rain, however, sighed and walked straight up to Robin. They soon were only a few inches apart.

"Robin, listen to me. We are helping you because what the STN is doing to witches is morally wrong. You can't just go out and kill them. I mean, I know it's leagal, but's it's almost the same as going out on the street and killing a random person for just being a Jew. If this Akamu guy that Andy called and told us about is a Craft-user for the STN-J and he's out to hunt Amon and you, then we're not just going to stand by and watch. That's why we're all pitching in to help you out and get you on that damn plane back to Japan. Right guys?" The other four people in the room answered this with murmured agreements.

Robin stared around the room. All of these people, two of them she never even knew until now, were going to help her get back to Japan? Was all of this true? Or was it a dream? A quick pinch to her right arm told her that it was not.

Tears suddenly welled up in the young witch's eyes and she threw herself into Rain's arms. She was sobbing uncontrolably and her shoulders were shaking nonstop.

"T-thank-you. A-all of you. I don't know what I'd do if it weren't for the five of you." She stuttered pitifully as she drew herself away from Rain and went over to embrace Andy.

Andy, his face the perfect picture of arrogance, opened his arms wide and took her into them. He chuckled slightly whenever she flopped against his chest and cried into the fabric of his grey T-shirt.

"Hey, come on. You don't have to cry." He said, stroking her chestnut hair. When her sobs refused to cease, he glanced over at Ian and shrugged good-naturedly. He completely missed the icy glare that blonde man threw his way.

Robin let herself cry for a few more minutes before finally sniffing back her tears and raising her red face from Andy's shirt. Her green eyes were shining with leftover tears.

"We all done, now?" Andy asked, using a large hand to grip her chin gently and force her to look into his face. She let him raise her gaze and she smiled at him. After a couple of moments of staring into his blue eyes, she nodded with dignity.

Ian watched their whole exchange with an expression of indifference, but deep down, his blood was boiling. Though he kept his emotions hidden like a pro, he really did not like it when Andy touched Robin like that. It made him feel like the younger boy was trying to take what was rightfully his.

Snarling quietly to himself, Ian cleared his throat so that everyone, inlcuding Andy and Robin, looked at him. Once he had all of their attention, he narrowed his eyes.

"I hope you all know that we have very little time and we need to get Robin to the airport. I doubt that you have even packed, am I correct?" He asked darkly. This earned him a small shake of the young witch's head. He huffed.

"I thought so. Kitten, help Robin gather her things and we'll leave in an hour. Hop to it, girl." He said, snapping his fingers at the strawberry blonde girl's face.

Kitten gasped and jumped at the sudden noise. After regaining her composure, she glared daggers at Ian with her violet eyes.

"Geeze, Ian. You think you could have found a less annoying way to get my attention?" She snapped irritabley before taking Robin's hand in hers and leading her back towards Andy's bedroom.

Robin stopped herself from being pulled into the hall, however. She then turned back to Ian, shame written all over her face.

"All of my clothes were burned in the fire. I have nothing left." She said, lowering her gaze sadly. Ian cocked his head slightly, regarding her for a moment. He then waved his hand at her, as if he was swatting at a fly.

"Then just gather whatever belongings you might need on the trip. Rain and Kitten can take you shopping when we get over there." He said.

Robin stared at him for a moment, rooting herself to the floor a second time when she felt Kitten pull on her arm.

"Wait. What about Sky and Mauli? Who's going to look out for them?" She asked. This question was to Andy, who smiled reassuringly at her.

"It's already taken care of. They're both safely at the local, animal shelter and will be going to good, foster homes. I'll take you over there later so you can say good-bye to them before we leave. Now, hurry on and pack." He urged, walking over and ushering her and Kitten down the hallway back to his room.

Once the three of them had left, Bree, Ian, and Rain looked at each other expectantly. It was a long moment before one of them spoke, but it was Rain who went first.

"It'll be dangerous, but I'm sure we can handle it. She's a strong girl. I can tell." She said with confidence before turning and heading towards the kitchen. This left Bree and Ian alone in the living room.

All was quiet for at least five minutes. Then, Bree spoke out in her deep, manlike voice.

"You like her, don't you?" She asked, as if pointing out the obvious. Her voice seemed to fill the now silent room up to the ceiling.

"It's not your concern, is it, Breanna?" Ian answered coldly. His eyes were narrowed and were staring straight ahead, as if he were trying to see how long it would take before he looked at her.

Bree let out an audible sigh, which showed how frustrated she really was about the whole thing.

"I guess not." She said, knowing she was right and that she probably shouldn't have asked in the first place.

"Then drop it." Ian growled from right next her before he, too, went into the kitchen.

Bree stood in the living room, alone and in the middle of all of the furniture. She blinked only once. The rest of the time, she was as still as a statue. She let out a 'Hmm' noise as she thought to herself.

It was then that the sound of small raindrops hit the window, signaling the approach of another rain storm.

Me: I hope you guys like this chapter, because I sure don't...well, except maybe for the last part.