I waited a moment, then once I could tell that Travis couldn't see us I stepped back and grabbed Nico's hand again, pulling him back to the room where the fireplace and bed were, not letting him see the room of doors.

Nico shivered. "We're back."

"It's almost morning." I gestured toward the windows.

He shook his head. "This is amazing, Cassie. I mean, not all of it is good, as we've seen, but…it's still amazing. We didn't see you in that world though."

I shrugged. "I thought about it. But if my mom had been alive, I wouldn't have been able to handle it."

He grimaced. "Yeah, that would have been bad." He then seemed to stop himself from saying something more.

"What is it?"

"Earlier you said you had a nightmare, about people in danger, and a monster in a creepy place?"

"Yeah. I did." I shivered a bit, remembering it.

"Maybe it was the Winchesters. I mean, they're always fighting monsters, right? It doesn't necessarily have to mean that it's demigods." Nico sounded like he hoped that was what it was.

I blinked slowly, feeling a sort of tug at my consciousness. "Nico, you better go back to your own dreams."

"Why?"

"Because, I'm being pulled back to mine." A cold breeze whipped through the room and a scream pierced the air.

Nico's eyes widened, but he faded out of view.

It seemed like forever later that I jerked awake, gasping for breath. The monster again, the group of people. They were still in trouble.

I heard the door open more than I saw it.

Travis poked his head in, as if he was just checking on me, but when he saw that I was sitting up in bed he stayed in the doorway. "Happy birthday."

I blinked at him, then groaned and flopped back, pulling one of the extra pillows over my face and holding it there.

"You okay?" He asked, tapping my hand.

"Can I die?" I asked through the pillow.

"What?"

I groaned again and moved the pillow, half-glaring at the ceiling. "I don't want today to be my birthday, I want today to be the day where I hide from the world, and the world hides from me."

"Okay," He responded lightly.

I looked at him incredulously.

He shrugged. "It's your birthday. I'm not about to rain on your parade. There are people in your house which makes things even more stressful. I'm willing to sneak your cake up to you once I get it if that's what you want. I also need to know what you want for dinner."

I looked at the ceiling, then back at him. "I can have anything?"

He nodded.

"Olive garden?"

He laughed and nodded. "Anything, and anyone you want to go with you."

I shook my head. "I'm not getting dressed up for it. I'll order carryout online."

"That…that works too. You can do that?"

I nodded. "It worked out great for me and mom."

"Well, I'll be near that part of town anyway to pick up your cake."

I grinned. "You got it from Pâtisserie, didn't you!?"

"Your favorite is the Chocolate Supreme, right? I also got a variety of cupcakes."

"What kind?" I sat up, excited.

"White chocolate raspberry, chocolate velvet, Boston creme, chocolate strawberry, and white velvet. A little overboard, maybe, but as long as they get eaten, who cares, right?" He looked at me and his eyes widened in alarm. "Hey, don't cry! I can make sure you never see them!"

I laughed. "I'm not crying."

He gave a little laugh and wiped some tears from my face. "Are you stress-paralyzed or something?" He was referencing one of my movies.

I wiped at my own face. "I like at least half of those flavors and have been meaning to try the others."

He nodded. "Well, there should be plenty, even with the extra people. I can get rid of two of them, but not the other two."

I frowned slightly. "Rachel and…?"

"Johnny ended up crashing here. It was so late by the time he finished helping Eithne and Aaron mediate that I told him to crash here. He didn't want to, knowing it was your birthday today, but I didn't want him to get in a crash or anything because he was tired. Nico's taking Rachel back around lunch time, actually."

"Oh, I don't mind Johnny being here."

Travis nodded. "Even after his comment last night?"

I blinked a couple times, trying to remember what was said. "Oh, wow…"

Travis laughed. "You just now processed that?"

"Well, I was tired." I smiled. "It's actually kind of funny in a sad sort of way."

He shook his head. "Nothing funny about it. You sure you're okay?"

I shrugged a little. "I care about him. I do. I think maybe the timing was wrong. Maybe if we had waited until we were older or something. I don't know."

"And right after you talked about him at one of your events, too."

I groaned slightly and dropped my face into a pillow. "I can't even remember what I said. Was it stupid?"

He shook his head. "Don't think so. Pretty sure you summed up that you're both intellectuals and yada yada. Something about both of you focusing more on your own educations…"

"Well, I wasn't wrong."

Travis was quiet.

After a while I sat back up. "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"How long has it been since I thanked you?"

"What? For what?"

"For…everything. I mean, if it wasn't for you I'd be…"

He frowned and moved so he could hug me easier. "Don't go there. It's fine. I'm glad I'm here. In your life. It's cool having a little sister. Besides…you kind of saved me too."

"What?" I pulled away so I could look up at him.

He looked completely serious. "I was kind of at a crossroads when your mom contacted me about you. It gave me a purpose so I wasn't just spinning my wheels and hoping I moved. Because I was taking care of you after all of…that…it helped me realize just how much I like working at camp. I like being there and doing what I can to help them. Plus we wouldn't have found out that our mom…"

"Yeah," I responded softly. "I kind of expected a bit of a freak out for that, but neither of you have said much about it."

"Grandpa was heading up the search for where she might be."

I nodded. "Any luck?"

He shook his head. "Nothing yet. Only contact is the dreams…her helping us build worlds and such."

"She only came once, ever since then it's just been this feeling in my gut that's guided me," I whispered.

He nodded. "Same with me and Connor. Allison…I haven't had the chance to talk to her about it. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if she had already been part of the meddler world, or if it's not that different from her curse."

I remembered the first night at Camp Northpoint, all of the weird dreams we'd had. Possible futures that would no longer happen…

He nodded as if he knew what I was thinking. "Yeah, definitely like her curse." He glanced at the TV. "You know, you have a bunch of scooby-doo and Gilligan's Island downstairs."

I grinned. "Sunday morning TV with my big brother? Sounds good to me."

He smiled back. "I'll go grab them." He slipped out of the room.

I got comfortable again, turning on the TV and adjusting the volume. Some talk-show was on and they were talking about trending things.

"Talking about popular figures for teens, one of the big ones that took me by surprise was Cassandra Dellaro, the daughter of Juliet Dellaro, whose books we all adore. This summer, she spoke at a sort of memorial-book release event and she just capture the hearts of her mother's fans. But more recently, she spoke at a teen-empowerment conference in New-York and that video has gone viral as well."

My breath squeaked a little as I inhaled.

"It's funny you should bring that up because I was just watching it the other night. She has so many of her mother's mannerisms, and she really does capture your attention. She also comes across as extremely driven, and you can tell that she's not about to brag about her own achievements. She seemed much more comfortable on stage and she has this natural way of speaking. It's really refreshing to have someone speak so passionately and not have some sort of outline to her speech. Everything comes right from her head and heart to her audience and because of that, she's continually gaining fans."

I stared at the screen.

"You can tell she's thought about her stance on things, though. She's very concise and blunt about saying that she believes something and makes it very clear that…it is what it is, you know? She's not about to apologize for believing what she does because she actually has reasoning and logic for her reasons."

"Ah, her stance on gun control?"

Crap, crap, crap! It wasn't supposed to be taped!

"Yeah."

"Well, it might also be considered close-minded."

"But it's a fact that Juliet Dellaro had a conceal-carry license and she didn't have her weapon with her the one time that it would have been useful to have it. Considering what happened to her mother, it's actually a very solid ground for her reasoning."

"Thank you," I muttered to the host on my side.

"She'll have to be careful about her opinions in the future though."

"Oh definitely. But her book comes out next week, right?"

"This week, it comes out this Friday, just in time for the Christmas rush! It'll be interesting to see if her writing is as good as her mother's."

Travis blocked the screen to put the DVD in. "Why are you watching this trash?"

"I was just waiting for you," I squeaked out.

"Did you want breakfast?" He asked.

I thought for a moment. "I'm gonna get some bread."

"I can get it."

"No, I need to get Batman too."

"Okay," He replied. "I'll get this queued up."

I slid out of bed and trudged as quietly as I could downstairs to find my lazy dog and to get some homemade bread and a glass of orange juice.

Batman moseyed on over to me, wagging his tail.

"Were you on the couch again?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.

He looked away.

"Of course you were." I sighed and got my food and orange juice.

Johnny appeared, his hair a mess, and looking half-asleep. "Happy birthday."

I blinked at him, a little surprised that that was the first thing out of his mouth. "Morning…where were you sleeping?"

"Well, I did crash on the couch, then the dog tried to smother me, so I slept on his bed because I don't think I actually woke up."

"He never uses it anyway," I offered as consolation.

He shrugged a bit. "Either way, that's what showers are for."

I smiled a little, waiting for the microwave to finish warming my bread.

He looked a little nervous suddenly. "A-about what I said last night…"

I shrugged. "You weren't wrong. It was mostly exhaustion on my part, I think."

"You're not mad?" He seemed taken aback.

"Do you want me to be mad?"

He quickly shook his head. "It's just, most people wouldn't be okay with that especially the same day that…"

I shrugged again.

He didn't say anything for a while. "Anyway, happy birthday. I should head home."

"Stay," I said before I had even thought it through. "Travis got a whole bunch of cupcakes and cake from the patisserie in Saginaw and we're going to have carry-out Olive Garden. Besides…you're important to me. My confidant. First friend I made at school." I smiled at him.

He hesitantly smiled back. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." I kept smiling until he relaxed.

He nodded slowly. "Okay." Then he hesitated again. "What's wrong?"

I looked back at him again. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Travis came down earlier to get DVD's for you and him, so I figured he would probably have gotten those things and the dog for you, since it's your birthday, but you insisted on doing it for some reason. So what's wrong?"

"You have got to stop spending so much time with people," I muttered. "There was a segment on a morning show, they were talkign about me. Apparently, the speech I gave at the teen empowerment conference was recorded and it's gone viral as well."

"Oh?" He leaned against the counter.

"I talked about having a boyfriend, and answered a question about my stance on gun control."

"Oh…" He winced.

"So now I have to be extra careful about what I talk about. I'm sure the criticism is raining in and that was just a small taste of it." I shook my head a little. "Why do people even care so much? It is what it is. Just let it be. I mean, I'm writer, right?"

He nodded.

"I'm so paranoid about offending people that can't even bring myself to write a black character because I'm afraid of being called racist! But if I stick to writing white characters, I'll still be called a racist! One of my stories doesn't even take place in the same galaxy, and I'm still nervous about writing black characters because it's like people are looking to be offended by every little thing and I'm so sick of it and my book comes out Friday and I just…" I covered my face with my hands, trying to calm down.

"You're exaggerating," He said softly, gently touching my arm. "But I get where you're coming from. It's okay to be feeling some pressure. It's a big deal. You shouldn't have to worry about getting criticized. Not when you're in high school getting criticized by your peers."

I snorted out a little laughter, uncovering my face.

"Better," He whispered, smiling gently at me. "Go watch some Scooby-Doo. Don't worry about your book or the public. Just…focus on things that make you happy."

I kissed his cheek. "I'll return the favor someday," I whispered and hurried off with my food.

Why the heck did I just do that?

"Take your time," He called after me.

AN: So, there's a new story called Asters and Warhammers. It's because of some characters that came up in my one-shots, and their quest was mentioned in this story quite a few times, so if you're interested in their story, check it out! Also...I honestly didn't expect some of the turns this story took, so you'll have to forgive me. Sometimes it just sort of gets away from me...