Disclaimer: Um…not mine… all hers… don't sue…

A/N: W'sup? It's alive… mwahahaha… I know I've been ages but… well, I don't really have an excuse. Oh, and this isn't really supposed to be NK fluff, I know it looks that way, but I'm not that crazy. I know I take eons to update, but unless I post a little note on my stories saying that they're dead, I will still update at some time. Don't go calling the morgue on this one, it's very much alive. But, now to respond to a few reviews that I think need addressing…

VampireNextDoor: Rrrrr! Don't go screwing up my excuses!!!! Lucy Moses' fault, all their fault… arg, now I'm just desperate.

Venus Goddess Sailor Manga U: Wow, I spelled your pen name right on the first try! A miracle… ulp! Flogging! (Hides behind a tree)

The clock on Nita's bedside table read 7:50. The alarm began to buzz. Kit snapped his fingers at it, and said sharply in Speech, the equivalent of Shaddup! The alarm obeyed meekly.

Nita put her head in her hands. What's gonna happen? she thought desperately. I'm scared… She shook her head violently as if trying to send these worries flying out her ears, and turned back to her desk. A notebook sat open on it, a pencil lying across it. The page was filled with squiggles, boxes, and almost illegible written Speech. Nita picked up the book and read what she had so far. "Kit," she called.

"Eh?" was Kit's brilliant response. He had been dictating a spell to his manual in a soft voice, and his head snapped around at the sound of his name.

"This might work. Here, look it over." Nita tossed the notebook to Kit, who almost caught it, but dropped it and had to stop it in midair with a word of Speech and bring it back up to where he sat cross-legged on Nita's bed. He picked the pad out of the air and began to read what Nita had written.

Kit rubbed his neck and hopped off the bed. "Well, it's a little crude. The place where you plug in her data should have some kind of containment, and… You look terrible. You should get some coffee or something, or at least a chocolate milk. And… you know… tell your dad.

Nita nodded mutely. She had been dreading this, but knew it had to be done. "Keep working while I'm downstairs," she told Kit as she left the room. "We can't afford to waste time on this."

Nita went down the stairs slowly, not wanting to see the person who would be at the bottom. When she finally reached the dining room, she found her father sitting at the table with a newspaper and a cup of coffee. "Well, you're up early," said Nita, her voice as falsely bright as she could make it.

"Not my fault," he grunted. "I had a hard time getting to sleep, and then that darn phone call at 7:30. Who calls at 7:30?!

"Um, Dad… Daddy…" Nita stopped, swallowed, and started again. "Daddy… Something happened to Dairine."

Her father looked at her questioningly. "Who's Dairine?" he asked finally.

After Mr. Callahan assured his daughter that no, he was not joking, and that he had no idea who 'Dairine' was, Nita, barely containing panic, dismissed it by saying Dairine was a friend from school who she suspected had caught a cold, and dashed back upstairs for Kit.

"He doesn't know!" she said breathlessly to Kit as she slammed her door. "He doesn't even remember who she is! This is horrible, I think it was a memory blocker, oh, Kit…" she trailed off and slumped against a shocked Kit, who caught her and held her awkwardly.

Nita began to sob slightly into Kit's shoulder. Kit contemplated patting Nita on the back, but decided it wouldn't do any good, so instead, he gave her a brief hug, then stepped back from her and shook her by the shoulders. "Neets, snap out of it! I'm scared for Dairine too, I'm confused, I have no idea what's going on, but nothing's gonna get done about it if we stand here! Here, look at this spell."

Nita weakly took the manual from Kit, wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and flipped to the page where Kit had recorded his spell. Her eyes grew wider as they scanned the sheet of the manual's neat Speech recording. Her jaw dropped at the end of the page, her grip on the small red book slackened from shock. "Kit…" she said hesitantly. "Kit… Powers, Kit, this is amazing! Do you know what kind of spell writing this is? It's an advisory-quality at least!"

Kit shrugged as modestly as he could, and his face reddened slightly. "It just sorta… came to me."

"Oh, Kit, this is brilliant! Thank you, thank you!" For the second time in mere minutes, Nita flung her arms around Kit's neck. Kit pried her off as gently as he could.

"Relax, Neets, we still have to work the spell," he reminded her.

"Well, come on, we can't waste any time, but with a spell like this…"

"Where are we going to do it?" asked Kit, starting to pull out his "canned" Speech name from his claudation.

"Uh… Dairine's room, I guess." Nita frowned in concentration. "Yeah, Dairine's room. It might be easier to work the spell from there. C'mon."

Kit stuffed his name back into the pocket, zipped it, and followed Nita from the room, carrying the pad with the spell written upon it.

At the door of Dairine's room, Nita stopped abruptly, and Kit walked right into her. She pushed him back forcefully. "Geez, Neets," grumbled Kit as he leaned against the opposite wall. "I just walked into you. Why are you being so… weird?" Nita had moved aside and was investigating the doorframe; she ignored Kit. He shrugged and walked towards the open door again, but was stopped by Nita, who stepped in front of him.

Angry now, Kit shoved his partner out of the way and made for the door once again. Nita said several fluid syllables in Speech, and Kit froze in his tracks, unable to move.

Nita moaned. "Kit, sorry, I had to. Didn't you see it?"

What the Heck?!? asked a furious Kit inside Nita's mind. You shove me around, no explanation, and then you freeze me! What's going on?

Nita slapped her forehead with her hand in exasperation. "I can't believe you didn't notice it." She muttered something, and she immobilization spell was lifted, but she still kept a hand on Kit's shoulder to prevent him walking forward. Nita said, softly, "Look at the doorframe. Don't touch it, but look closely."

Kit, now thoroughly confused, narrowed his eyes, staring at the entrance to Dairine's room. "Nita, what…?" he began, but stopped abruptly. He had just registered a faint ripple in the air, like a barely-detectable heat mist.

Nita fished a marble out of her pocket and flicked it at the shimmer. It vanished when it hit the area. "Okay," said Nita decisively. "Let's just do it in my room. We can use a crayola or something to draw the spell circles on the rug, and magic-laundry it later."

Kit groaned. "Laundry…"

Nita gave him a pained look. He sighed, and walked into Nita's room. At a nod from Nita, who had her manual open in one hand and was looking at the spell that Kit had written and 'm-mailed' to it, he produced a string of Speech characters from his claudation, an "airbrush" that Dairine had designed earlier that year. With a flick of his wrist, the shimmering characters flew together into a slim rod of an unrecognizable substance. Muttering directions to the wizardry, Kit drew the diagram from the notepad onto the rug, referring back to his original frequently to check his work.

Nita watched him in fascination. He knew her better than anyone else, and she him, but he was still a mystery to her. His dark hair was neatly clipped and he was wearing jeans and the navy windbreaker he had bought to replace the lime green one that he had outgrown, but somehow, as he bent over his complex, incredible spell with overwhelming concentration, care, and talent, he seemed different. There was an elegance in the way he drew the circles, and a sureness in the way he drew his name in Speech. "Are you sure that's right," she asked, looking at Kit's name, which seemed oddly long, and at the part of the spell that indicated duration, which also looked too complex to be right.

"Don't sweat it, Neets," he said casually. "Put your name in." Nita took the airbrush from him and wrote her shorthand name into the spell, several curly streaks of Speech and a lesser "knot" to finish it.

Now came the spelling. Nita, as an experienced wizard, knew the effects of casting a spell, but still couldn't get enough of it; as she and Kit read the spell together, the world leaned in to listen. The sounds of the day seemed to grind to a halt as nature looked on in wonderment at the two wizards. The silence grew to be like a noise, so unbearably silent that it was almost pain to listen to. But it wasn't painful at all; it was sheer joy, the delight of working a wizardry. She could hear the ever-familiar sound of Kit's voice, with that slight Hispanic accent, reading alongside her and playing their favorite game of trying to out-read the other partner, but it was impossible because the spell had caught them up, and was now reading them more than they were reading it. The silence built and built, and then… it popped so suddenly that the return of noise set their ears ringing. Nita staggered, weak from the loss of the energy she had put into the spell, and fell onto her bed, breathing hard. Kit followed suit.

"Nita?" A head poked around the door. Nita's father entered, a slightly puzzled look on his face. "What have you been… Nita!" For he had taken in the scene that Nita had just perceived herself; her and Kit panting on the bed. "And…" her dad continued helplessly, looking at the red marks on the carpet.

"Sorry, Mr. Callahan," cut in Kit swiftly, standing but still wobbly. "We were doing a big wizardry, and we just finished, so we haven't had time to clean it up. We'll get right on it. But it took a lot of energy out of us, so we were resting."

"What are you doing with my daughter, hooligan?"

"I told you, we were doing a wizardry –"

"What's all this garbage about wizardry? I don't want to hear another word from you, you… you… sex criminal!

Nita nearly jumped, but she couldn't spare the energy; her father had always rather liked Kit, but now he was acting as if he didn't know him… Ah! He didn't know him. If he could be spelled to forget his own daughter, he surely could be made to forget about his other daughter's best friend and wizardry. "Daddy," she said softly, "I'm really sorry. I have to do this. You'll understand later. We'll figure out how to lift that spell soon, I promise."

Her father spluttered, "What…?" but stopped mid-sentence as the only daughter he could remember, always a nice and normal girl, began to chant nonsense words. Kit looked questioningly as well, but took the hint and stayed silent.

Nita barely had the energy for the spell. Even as she spoke the words from memory she realized that the world was not going quiet to watch as it usually did, but the spell seemed to be working well enough. She came to the final phrase, and held the last word into a kind of song for one moment. Then her father crumpled.

Kit turned and made some attempt to steady him, but succeeded only in breaking his fall. "What did you do?" he asked wonderingly.

"Sleeper spell, nothing major," said Nita, although her heart wrenched at the thought that she had just cursed her own father. "But does this mean that our spell didn't work?" And then things began to fade out. Speak of the Lone One, she thought to herself as she tumbled forward into blackness, but then decided not to. Something tells me we won't have to get its attention; we should be seeing it soon enough…

A/N Again: Cliffhanger… ish, anyway. I'm so cruel… Was the viewpoint-switching confusing enough for you? Oh, it anyone thinks they know where this plot is going, say it in your review or e-mail it to me, because I'd love to hear them. I wanna see just how hard-to-follow this story is. Happy Thanksgiving!!!! (ness)