Kyle woke up shortly after four, for no real reason. He lay there trying to will himself back to sleep, but to no avail. A few minutes later her heard a door open and someone going down the hall. Instinctively, he knew it was Liz.
Curious as to why she was up and out of her room, he got up. He put a tee shirt on, then his bathrobe and walked to the door. He softly closed it behind him as he followed Liz's path to the back stairway, where she sat on the top step.
He hesitated for a moment then walked up behind her. She seemed to be smiling a little bit now, but there were traces of tears on her cheeks.
Kyle decided that maybe he should try again to get her to talk about Max. He steeled his resolve and spoke, startling her. "You couldn't sleep either?" he asked as he sat down beside of her on the top step.
"Must be the time change," she suggested, trying to keep the topic neutral.
"Or the nightmares," he countered.
"What nightmares?" she asked, trying to sound casual.
"I don't know what your night mares are about," he started, brushing away the remnants of a tear from her cheek, "but I have a fair bit of experience with my own. You know the run of the mill, semi-boring, unless you are actually in the dream, stuff that nightmares actually are. Naked in class on exam day, falling or football practice without pads, those are the usual ones.
"But the ones that frighten or hurt the most are the ones you actually lived through, then relive over and over again." Kyle couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice as he said, "Getting beaten up or shot, finding out that you go to high school with little green men…"
Hermione heard voices in the hall. In fact they were what had awakened her. Quietly, so that Ginny wouldn't wake up, she got up and went to the door to check out the noise. She opened it just a crack, but froze when she heard Kyle say somewhat loudly, "…go to high school with little green men, sure they saved our lives but I would have never been shot in the first place if it weren't for them. Or more to the point, him."
She then heard Liz sigh heavily before spoke. "Kyle you know that good things also came out of that. We're both here because of him."
"And you are monumentally unhappy because of him. Look, I don't know what happened that day, but you have this summer to convince me that he's not part of some Martian Mob. Especially since I know that agent is dead."
Hermione gasped then covered her mouth quickly, hoping she hadn't been heard.
Liz exclaimed in a fierce whisper, glancing around suspiciously, "Kyle! Keep your voice down. Actually NO. We are not having this conversation. Good night Kyle."
Hermione heard Liz walk back down the hall to her room in a huff. She also heard Kyle sigh and slowly return to his room as he mumbled, "Why couldn't I have left it alone?"
She let out the breath she'd been holding and shut her door gently. Returning to her bed as quietly as she'd left it, she lay awake concerned by what she'd heard. She asked herself, "Are these Americans evil? How else would you explain killing someone, an 'agent'?"
She pondered what to do. If anyone else had repeated to her what she'd just heard, straight from their own mouths, she'd never have believed them. They admitted to helping kill someone or at least being involved with them. Maybe this was a sore subject owing to Cedric's death weeks earlier and the effect it had on Harry. How could they not be evil? But Gryffindors don't turn evil. Well, Pettigrew excluded. She sighed heavily and decided to keep this to herself for now. But she was also going to investigate this further.
Finally, she drifted back to sleep, just as dawn was touching the morning sky.
Kyle nearly kicked himself when he returned to his room. How could he have put Liz on the defensive like that? She needed a friend and all he'd been was a complication. Well, that and a pain in her…um, rear.
He lay on his bed and tried to rest. After a few minutes he gave up.
Opening the his trunk, he reached into the bag he'd brought for football camp and pulled out a book his longtime friend, Joe Hill, had given him, Buddism for Beginners. Joe had gone to West Roswell until the year before when his parents had divorced and he had been forced to move. He said that he had found help and personal balance in those chaotic times using things that the book had taught.
Kyle lay back down to read, chuckling as he decided that even if the book didn't help him calm down, it might help him fall asleep. After an hour he put the book down and did just that.