A/N – Woo! 5 reviewers. That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Sorry it's been a while since I updated, I promised I would try and do it frequently but I discovered this neat little thing called Facebook that is extremely addictive. I also advance apologize for any spelling and grammar mistakes. I don't own Sky High, Disney or the most amazing band, Aqualung. The Title of the story is form a song, and same for the chapter titles. Can you guess which ones?

Strange and Beautiful – Aqualung

Chapter 2. But I fear I have done you wrong // Because I've failed you so far

Numb.

It was the best way to describe how I was feeling right now. I felt isolated and alone, but not sad or overly emo. It had been like this for me since the morning at Emily's house. Every movement and action of mine felt automatic, robotic. It had been two weeks since that morning and I still had no idea what was wrong with me. Maybe I was trying not to feel guilty about Kate. Maybe I was feeling guilty and I was repressing everything for so it could resurface later in a midlife crisis or drunken binge. Maybe I wasn't even guilty? I knew that this could be a very real possibility. A small part of me acknowledged that it was debatable whether I was the cause of Kate's comatose state by association; the problem was very few people realized that, like Kate's parents for instance or the student body at Sky High.

I had gone to school with stares and whispers trailing after me like I was the father of Anna Nicole's baby or something. Not that anyone ever talked to me about it though. My father had had given me more than a few well meaning looks, and frequently asked if I was "okay." None of my friends at Sky High had brought up the topic; I myself hadn't the courage to bring it up. How was I even supposed to try?

"Uh hey guys, you know I indirectly let Kate go comatose?"

"Yeah…."

"Are you okay with that? Do you blame me? Are we even still friends?"

See, it just doesn't work out. It turned into the elephant in the room, or cafeteria more specifically. In my classes I didn't have a problem with not talking to anybody, I could bury myself in work. But lunch, in the cafeteria seemed designed to separate the popular from the unpopular. I wasn't the over-friendly type but I wasn't the recluse either. I had my fair share of good friends, who just happened to be treating me like the black plague right now. It started with the small smiles and avoidance of conversation in the mornings, and during class. Then it progressed to the all out exclusion of me at lunch. It was like I was invisible. Everyone chatted, and smiled, and laughed, it's just that none of that was directed at me. In fact I had been pushed to the edge of the table so from an outsider's point of view it would seem like I was sitting by myself at the edge of a table populated with people.

What made the situation worse, yes it got worse, was that during that spare time I had, not being engaged in conversation or anything, I stared at Emily. Just stared, sometimes I would look back and forth between her and Will. Now, I had never seen Will and Emily together before, but I guessed that they must be acquaintances from the Hero class. I tried to watch them as a completely objective third party observer, but from my observations they acted like they didn't know each other at all. It was baffling how they even progressed to secret…lovers? I hadn't even witnessed a hallway greeting. What I had witnessed was a handful of PDA's from Will and Layla and each one made me sick. I wanted to say something but that would mean confessing to Kate I had been spying, but saying I saw it in a vision could easily cover that up. The real problem lied in where my loyalties were. If I told Layla, my friendship with Kate would be over, and while it might be over already I was desperately clinging to the remnants of it hoping in time it could be salvaged. I didn't enjoy being the school's new pariah. Not to mention even if I was ready to tell Layla, I wasn't sure if she would believe me. Two weeks ago I wouldn't have believed me.

These were the circumstances that pushed me to my current location, the back corner of the library. I had begun the habit of eating my lunch throughout class and then hurrying to the library so I could bury myself in a book. I had gotten through some pretty good ones too, The Importance of Being Earnest, Twilight, New Moon, Alpha and Omega.

"Bethany?" It was Layla, God the things I wanted to tell her.

"Hey Layla, long time no see."

"I know hey I was just looking for a book to help with my Mad Science report but now that I found you there's something I want to tell you. I know everyone in the school is blaming you a bit for Kate's…accident. But I know it's not your fault. You did the best you could."

I would have hugged Layla in that moment if I knew it wouldn't result in some sort of awkward explanation. As it was I broke eye contact and stared at the wall, it seemed I had something moist obstructing my vision…..

"Will has told me all about that night, and he doesn't blame you either. And, well, uh, I've noticed that you haven't been sitting with your friends lately and I was wondering if you wanted to come sit with me at lunch tomorrow. No one at my table shares the sentiments of the rest of the school."

"Sure Layla that would be cool."

We both smiled, and then she walked off. Just to feel a little more comfortable at rejoining society tomorrow I concentrated on getting a vision of tomorrow at lunch and saw myself chatting away happily. That's good, if I would have seen anything resembling awkwardness I would have had to find a new place in the library to hide.

- x -

"Hey Bethany? I've got a great joke for you. Okay, two guys walk into a bar—"

"Oh Zack not the bar jokes again!"

"Give it a break man."

I was currently wedged between Zack and Magenta who were in the awkward post-break up phase. I alternated between listening in to Zack's jokes and making conversation with Magenta and Layla. It was noisy, and chaotic because everyone was talking and eating at once while assuming that they had the full attention of the rest of the group. In fact, the only person who wasn't talking or eating was Warren. He was looking through Will's iPod and periodically gazing up at his surroundings. The funny thing about that was I got the weirdest feeling from him. Like he was watching, no not watching but assessing me or something. Not that I ever caught him doing it.

"Magenta is free on the ninth, so we can get lunch and go shopping then too?" Layla asked.

I nodded my consent. I was surprised to find that for our diversity in styles we shared common interests when it came to books and movies. In fact I had booked almost all my spare time on weekends to go to bookstores, sleepovers, or to movies with them. I even found myself getting along famously with Will, Zack and Ethan. I enjoyed everything about this group of people, the diversity, Zack's blinding wardrobe, Ethan's human database memory, Will's good nature, and Magenta's sarcastic jibes. I loved it, and though I could literally see myself becoming good friends with the group in future I couldn't help glancing over at the table where I had once been so frequent a presence and mourn the loss of what had been such good friendships.

"So is it me, or is Warren kinda staring at you?" Magenta whispered conspiratorially.

My suspicions were confirmed by her observations; even still I wanted to catch him in the act. I looked down at my food tray while casually observing him out of my peripheral vision; as soon as his gaze turned to me I met it. Warren's stare was all intensity and assessment and fire, it was as if something had caught on fire inside of me when our eyes met. I felt like he could see into the very depths of my soul. His eyes were the color of raw sienna.

"You got a problem psychic?"

"Don't mind Warren Bethany, he doesn't refer to anyone by their actual name." Will offered teasingly. I broke eye contact with Warren and felt the tension evaporate.

Smiling at Will I answered, "I'll try not to."

- x -

It was the second last period of the day and by now the only thing everyone could talk about were the partner placements. Who picked who, who rejected who, why they rejected them, what powers their heroes had, what their assignment was. From what I could gather this year the students were taking over a bit of the responsibilities of the professional heroes of Maxville and had to track down and apprehend a minor villain to pass their senior project. After that it seemed they came back to school for finals, which consisted of the traditional senior level subject challenges. Those were always a subject of great speculation as well, what happened was each teacher of a senior level class like say Mad Science designed a challenge hat required the team, or partnership or whatever you called it to solve it using their knowledge of the course. Last year Medulla had the students disable a seismic wave-inducing device while dodging random fire from freeze rays.

What bothered me about this was that I had yet to be approached by anyone about me being chosen as his or her partner. It had been angina t me for quite a while now but more so that all of my new friends had been paired up along with everyone from the rest of senior class. Now their wasn't exactly an abundance of super powered individuals in the world, otherwise being a hero wouldn't be such a big deal. In fact, Sky High was only about 200 students in total, with about 50 in each grade level. Usually at the senior level when there were not enough sidekicks for the partnerships they allowed heroes to pair up or work individually in the case of odd numbers, when there were too many sidekicks some heroes got to pick two sidekicks, but sidekicks were never allowed to work alone. The more people talked about their partners the more I worried, what if they forgot to enter my name into the sidekicks pool?

I was in my fifth period sidekick self defense class. No one was practicing self-defense though; they were all too excited for Friday. Senior classes were officially "dismissed" Friday so that we had time to get with our partners and track down our villains. The school was still holding senior classes during that time but it was mostly for advice, training, or preparation for finals once the villain was apprehended. So the teachers just showed up but didn't exactly put a lot of effort into teaching these last couple days. The only exception was Coach Boomer. He had cancelled all his classes so he could close down the gym to get it ready for the STC (Save the Citizen) Tournament. The tournament was the part of this year that I was least looking forward too. It is a special senior class mandatory event that should start up in about two-ish weeks. It replaces the subject challenge for STC (thank goodness!) and the winning teams would be named valedictorians. The only catch to this was you had to compete in the tournaments in your assigned partners.

I sighed and looked down at the brochure in my hands. It was for the only university for super powered individuals like myself, InterniaU (IU). I could basically choose to pursue one of two careers offered there:

Researcher ( offensive and defensive technology or genetics)

Teacher (for Sky High or Eurostar)

Eurostar is the only (beside Sky High and InterniaU) power education institute in the world. I think it's located somewhere in Greece, Santorini.

I'm not overly fond of the idea of teaching, mainly because I knew if I tried I would just end up blushing, stumbling, stuttering, and in general making a embarrassment of myself. Researching I could see myself doing, the only problem with that was InterniaU was extremely competitive being the only hero university and all. I already sent in my application, and I checked the Sky High office everyday to se if it had come in (they didn't send things like that in ordinary mail, that's like advertising it for super villains).

A knock on door pulled my out of my reverie and as I looked up I saw Principal Powers. She asked me to come with her to her office and for the life of me I couldn't imagine why. I hadn't done anything worth reprimanding or commendation, could it be my application results for IU? I sighed dreamily. Powers seemed to hear me and smiled warmly as we stopped outside her office door.

"Don't worry your not in trouble Bethany"

She opened the door to reveal Warren Peace sitting in front of her desk.

"Please have a seat Bethany" She gestured, " As you may or may not know after partner assignments I take it upon myself to check in on groups sporadically. As I was looking through the assignment list I noticed that the two of you had not picked up your information package yet." At this she paused and gave Warren a meaningful look. Wait, meaningful look? Something was definitely going on, it was almost like she was scolding hi silently.

"In an effort to help facilitate your best efforts at completing this project I decided I would present it to the two of you now and we can go through it together.

"Wait, I'm your sidekick?" Warren gave a noncommittal grunt and Powers a tight apologetic smile to both of us. Fan-freaking-tastic! Warren had known the whole flipping time and he never said one word. I practically ate lunch with the guy.

Powers delved into the contents of our info package explaining each document, form and expectation. Contact information for each partner, names of trusted seamstresses, and excuse list for social absences, a USB drive that contained all the information PIRRC permitted us to know to apprehend our designated villain, and a list of dates for when we had to show up for subject challenges (June), and the dates for the competitions in the STC Tournaments. She also gave us some extra stuff she had just happened to have lying around like a complete Hero and Support Team registration package for PIRRC (we had to register and detail our progress for them to communicate to Sky High). I never said anything, but I was confused about why Warren and I were receiving so much special treatment, I mean she picked up our forms for us. I knew that this hadn't happened to any one else from the conversations I'd had with Layla and Will about their projects. After she dismissed us back to out class I couldn't help but linger in the doorway of the main office and contemplate my bad luck. What heinous crime had I committed in a past life to deserve getting stuck with the hot headed pyro now.

- x -

When I turned the corner he was halfway down the other hall.

"Wait where are you going?"

"To my class…we still have the entire afternoon left you know." He answered still walking away. He was quite speedy.

"But shouldn't we talk about this? I mean we need to meet, and look for clues, and trails, and stuff..."

"Look, I don't work in groups, or partners, or whatever you want to call this. I don't need a sidekick, and I won't be the hero that catches this guy okay?"

"But—"

"But nothing. Honestly, psychic I'm surprised you didn't see this coming, I have no desire to be a hero."

Okay not only was he cutting me off now, but he wouldn't even stop walking and look at me! I was chasing him down and he's raising his voice at me. This is stupid why is he getting angry? I should be angry. I am angry. He knew this whole time that I was his sidekick and he intentionally snubbed me. And how could he not want to be a hero? Everyone wanted to be a hero deep down.

"You don't want to be a hero? Not at all?"

"No." He answered and continued to walk away.

I stood rooted to the spot fuming. Of course not I thought angrily. Of course he wouldn't. This was Warren Peace after all; he didn't want to anything in life but act sullen and intimidate people. He's just a bully, no better than Lash or Speed. The part that really got me was that I should have known. Now I'll never get a chance to be a sidekick or actually use my powers.

"No. Of course you wouldn't want to would you? It doesn't matter that we are responsible for catching this villain. Or that we are letting down the citizens of this country does it? No. And it doesn't matter that I have been waiting and training to be Hero Support for the last two years of my life!" By this time the tears were flowing freely down my face and I had no doubt that I was bright red in color.

"No it's my fault. I should have listened. I've heard all about you Warren Peace. Your just the son of a villain."

At this he stopped walking and turned. Even at the distance I could see the anger in his eyes, and as he moved closer I could make out steam rising from his figure. He stopped in front of me and leaned forward so out noses were only centimeters apart.

"So you know me do you?" He spat, and shoved me into the wall. "Well I know all about you as well. You're the girl who fucked up her vision and let her friend go comatose. The same friend who was originally supposed to be your assigned hero. Then there were no heroes left but me even though I was previously guaranteed permission to work alone. So I was forced to be your partner." Warren's words stung, each new one hurting more than the last but I was determined to hold my ground, or at least not break down till he was far far away. But this answered my unasked question about the special treatment Powers gave us in ensuring that we met and received our task instructions.

Warren's then continued, his voice dangerously low, and the heat rolling off of him waves. I mentally registered that this could very well be close to the end of my life so I shut my eyes in anticipation of a fiery death.

"But you, you know so much about me don't you? You know I'm the son of a villain and since you're psychic you should know what I'm going to say next."

I really didn't.

"I definitely don't need your Support, and I will not help you find this guy, so you should just run off and find another Hero for you to be Support to. Then you find this villain by yourself."

With one final shove he stormed off. I was pressed against the wall with my eyes shut, and when I opened them he was halfway down the hall again. Only this time I didn't try to stop him.

"Sometimes, the last thing you want comes in first,
Sometimes, the first thing you want never comes,
And I know, the waiting is all you can do,
Sometimes...."