I'M BACK! I didn't disappear. Blame a combination of writer's block, AP courses, and two failed NaNoWriMo's. Umm… I'm attempting to update all of my stories at least once per month now, so it won't be a year long wait again. ::smiles sheepishly:: Well, it might be. I give you what to write, you just write it in your head and not on the computer! I'll give you that one, Brit. I've had part of this chapter written since last DECEMBER, and the rest written since, uhh… June. I wrote it when my family went on vacation out west. I mean, Yeah! Disneyland, Vegas, woohoo!, but Joshua Tree National Park, endless driving through the desert? Not so much fun. Especially with no books and a broken iPod.
Also, a friend of mine read this story and asked me if this story will be Dani/Robert. Now, as no one else sees the future chapters except for me, my reaction to this was: "EW!" She proceeded to point out to me that the character's ages weren't described well. Dani, Beth, and Maria are all 16/17 (Dani's the oldest at 17, the other two are a little younger), and Robert is in his late 20's, like, 27, 28, etc. ::sigh:: On with the story!
±°±
Dani and Robert sat on a spare mattress in Maria's room at about 3 in the morning. Beth and Maria had just crashed, curled up in their spots. Dani and Robert sat talking under their breath while Dani used her laptop to update her website.
Robert leaned over to see what was going on on the computer. "So, what is this you're doing now?"
Dani's eyes flickered up from the lines of text she had been editing, flitting back down again before she responded. "This? This is the coding for my website. I'm redoing the layout, so I'm coming back through and updating the code. Why I have a hundred-so page site, I'll never know…"
"… I thought you were a Charmed one, not a webmaster…"
"Come on, you didn't seriously think that all that was on my laptop was music and pointless crap?"
"Well… actually… yes." (AN: That just sounded so Giles-y and British I had to put it in)
"Oh, ye of little faith. I've been on the computer since before I was two. Designing graphics since I was 12. Running my website since I was 14… It's not that hard. I'm a very Willow-y person when it comes to technology."
"I-I see…" Robert looked flustered at the way she never looked up from her code during this conversation. Dani raised her head and closed her laptop.
"So… What are we going to do about training and stuff? I've always wanted to learn to fight."
"I'll tell you if you tell me how you're awake still. Beth and Maria collapsed an hour ago, and you don't seem tired in the slightest."
"That? Oh, that's easy. I don't sleep. Well, I sleep, because it'd be impossible to survive without sleep, but I frequently pull all-nighters. I have trouble falling asleep before 5 AM. It's a problem, but I'm used to it. If I stay up all night, I have a better chance of getting at least one decent night's sleep during the week."
"Dani, that can't be good for you. Have you told your mother about your problems sleeping? She could try to get you sleeping pills."
Dani bristled slightly at the mention of her mother. Her eyes became stony as she responded. "She tells me that it's my fault I can't sleep, and I'd be able to sleep if I'd get up on time. Which I do. She doesn't realize I only sleep late on weekends because I can't fall asleep. Anyway, I don't want to talk about her, if that's alright."
"Dani, do you and your mother not get along or-"
"STOP!" Robert looked shocked that she would speak to him like that until he caught a glance of her eyes. They had a panicked look about them, the way a caged tiger might. He reached out to touch her arm, but pulled his hand back when she began shaking. Her eyes began to shine with tears. "I-I-I'm sorry… I didn't mean to yell… I won't do it again, I'm really sorry. Please don't hate me…"
Robert leaned down to look into her eyes. "Dani… Dani, I don't hate you. I was just startled that you'd shout like that, that's all."
Dani's eyes slowly focused. "I'm so sorry… I didn't mean to shout at you, I really didn't. I-I just… I don't want to talk about Mom, okay? Please, please don't think badly of me because of this. I would hate to think that happened."
Robert shook his head. "I don't think any worse of you, I promise." Sensing that she wanted to drop the subject, he moved on. "Now, you said you wanted to know when we'd begin training, right? Well, since school's already started for the year, we'll try to get you transferred as soon as possible… I don't even think that we'll need to do any training here. With any luck, we'll have you three at Delaine within the week."
Dani's face brightened at that. "Really? In a week? YES!" With a slight shudder, she straightened her shoulders (MN: Nice going with the tongue twister there, Steph. Shut up.) and pulled a new document up on her laptop. "How big are the dorm rooms?"
Robert shook his head at her, laughing under his breath. He could tell she was trying to hide her emotions. He decided once again to leave the topic be.
(AN Yes, I'm an AN-oholic this chapter: I thought about ending this chapter here, because I can't figure out how to end this scene. So, I'll probably go back and add in the rest of this scene later… But not now.)
±°±
The girls and Robert sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast. The trio had decided to make pancakes with sprinkles and food coloring in them. The girls were telling Robert stories of some of the… odder things that had happened to them.
"… and, somehow, Dani's and Beth's animals got their personalities linked! Between Dani's kitten Cherry and Beth's dog and cat, Argus and Anabelle, the two of them never had any privacy!" Maria said, giggling.
Robert laughed. "Oh, my… I wish I could have seen that… How could it have happened?"
Maria laughed harder. "We know how it happed, and it wasn't even anything cool, like a demon, or warlock, or anything! It was our-"
"-Your-" Beth and Dani interjected.
"-botched spell to try to get our animals to talk! Thankfully, it wore off on its on."
"Yeah, but not nearly fast enough. It was bad enough that the spell let them talk, but you try explaining away discussing yours and Dani's choices of clothing without having seen each other, not on the phone, and doing different voices!" Beth groused.
Dani grabbed everyone's empty plate and brought them over to the sink. "Well, thank God we won't have to try to explain things away from now on. I was tired of explaining why my stuff always got broken when y'all came over."
"Although, I have to say, I'll miss the challenge of coming up with good excuses off the top of my head…" Maria sighed.
Beth turned toward Robert. "Speaking of the school, what sort of classes are we going to have? Like, just magic, magic and regular…?" She trailed off.
Robert opened his briefcase and pulled out the real brochures for the girls. "Well, you will each have most, if not all, of your classes together. You will all have a half-hour class for your four core courses: English, history, science, and math. You'll each also have a half-hour elective such as psychology, sociology, government, etc. Those classes will end at 11:30 in the morning. Then there's an hour lunch.. After lunch, you'll have your magic classes. Those will change from day to day, and will go on until 3:30. You'll then have a two hour study hall/quiet conversation time. After that is dinner, and Dani will have physical training and weapons training for an hour or so, then patrolling. Weekends will bring five hours of physical training and two hours of weapons training, and an hour of language classes over the course of the day. Of course, Dani will also have patrolling on the weekends. So, all in all, it will be a pretty rigorous school, but there's not a lot of homework, and you'll have plenty of free time." He smirked at the girls' expressions – they were enthralled with the brochures. "So, what do you girls think?"
Dani was the only one who could form a coherent thought. "I think… we're going to be very happy there…"
±°±
Um… that's all I really have for you guys now. See my profile for a longer authors note/apology! I love you all, see ya!