Howdy y'all. It's been a while. College and life get in the way, but y'all don't care about that! Here's this rare chapter to hold you over till I get some more creative juices flowing.

School. Who knew that having to go back would elicit such strange emotions from me. On one hand, I was annoyed that I would have to go back at all, and on the other, a part of me liked the normalcy in my very un-normal circumstance.

Luckily, I just had to finish out this last few months and then I would be home-free from the unnecessary drama and stress. And to be honest, Happy Harbor High wasn't all that bad. Yes, I caused a bit of a stir when I dropped in during the middle of the school year, but teens that haven't been through life-changing experiences tend to over-dramatize the mundane, and then are soon off to the next bit of gossip.

Having Conner and M'gann there as well helped immensely. M'gann was the social butterfly that enjoyed introducing me to everyone she knew, which helped in the long run to kill all the 'first-day rumors' and gossip, and though Conner was more of the 'silent and broody' type, he would often come and sit with me during lunch or if we happened to have a class together. It was nice to feel accepted enough to be included and was a nice added bonus that he could act as a body-guard for some of the unwanted personal attention I seemed to have acquired with the high school boys.

It wasn't anything major, just a few remarks and wandering eyes, and once a cat-call when I was stretching before gym, but I seemed to be getting more attention from the male population here in this cartoon world than I ever did back where I was from. Conner was usually there to add his aura of 'don't even think about coming any closer', and it seemed to follow even when I wasn't around him, which was perfectly fine by me. My life was already pretty complicated, I didn't need to add boy drama on top of it.

Well, at least not more boy drama.

Conner outside of school was still just as reserved and hard to read (like I knew he would be for a while) but he was adapting to socialization and making efforts to hold conversations, so that was nice. Robin was hardly around due to his life outside of the Cave and spending most of his free time with his mentor. Wally was Wally, as always. Making jokes and causing a commotion whenever he was at the Cave, hopelessly flirting with M'gann (which was something I wasn't going to mess with, love problems were out of my zone of 'intelligence' and duties as a teammate as far as I was concerned), while sometimes making passes at me as well, but I could tell these were more out of fun than seriousness.

Kaldur continues to show me that there are more ways than I thought possible to fail in training exercises. He's even better than me at the basic things, like running and jumping! The added pressure from living in the ocean gives him more stamina than the typical human, or at least that's what he told me when I complained about it once.

Things with Kaldur have been shaping...differently than my relationships with the other boys on the Team. 'Which is to be expected,' I remind myself when I catch my mind straying for too long on the subject, 'he's my mentor and I spend more time with him than any of the others, why wouldn't it be different?!'
I still can't quite put my finger on just what it is that's different, so I usually just try and sweep it from my mind. There's not enough time or energy in my day to try and figure non-important things like defining feelings that barely make a 'beep' on my radar. But it's there, and the unwanted thoughts are starting to pop into my head with more regularity then I cared to admit.

We mostly just see each other during our mentor-trainee sessions, as I'm usually at school while he's off doing goodness-knows-what in Atlantis. He is nothing but professional during our time together, and any touching we have to make is minimal due to the threat of my powers manifesting. We hardly even tease each other or make small talk that's not related to the move or technique at hand! And yet, there is something I still can't put my finger on...

A few weeks pass in the same routine; Sleep, eat, school, train, repeat. Often there are times that I am able to socialize with the Team and moments of surprises, but it is no doubt that my life is falling into a routine, one that I at first had to adjust to, then anticipated, and finally, start to love. I catch myself relaxing more and more into this routine. I smile more, can hold conversations that last longer than three minutes, and have even laughed a few times, (shocking, right?), but for me, these are big steps toward a place I didn't think I was going to be able to return to.

With this comes the realization that I'm improving in more ways than just the social & mental. My training, even though I complain about it, is coming along nicely if I have anything to say about it. My endurance is getting better, and it takes twice as long now for Kaldur to get me on the floor then it did in the first few practices. I'm no-where near ready to go out on missions, but it's nice to know that if there was an emergency, I wouldn't be a complete embarrassment. Also, all the running has helped tone out some of the areas all girls tend to worry about. That in its self is a real confidence buster.

"Your butt is looking good!" exclaims Zatanna one afternoon as we are lying on her bed in a rare moment of 'girl time'. M'gann and Artemis are here as well, one watching a re-run of an old sitcom on a small halo-pad, and the other seated on the floor fiddling with her arrow tips. We haven't been able to hang out together for more than an hour since we went on our shopping spree, but after the unsavory events of what happened a few nights ago to Zatanna and Artemis on Halloween when they tried to have a night out, it was deemed safest to keep our 'girls day' inside the safety of the Cave.

Both girls on the floor look up with Zatanna's comment.

I'm laying on my stomach with a pillow under my chin facing the end of the bed, so, with an eyebrow raised in amusement, I shift so that I can take a look at my own backside. Turning around with an only-slightly embarrassed chuckle I respond with a "Thanks?" ending in more of a question than anything else.

"Seriously though," Zatanna continues with a wiggle in her eyebrows, "all that training is doing something right!"

"Speaking of training," Artemis says before I can say anything, "how's it going with you and our Fearless Leader?" she asks with a smirk.

M'gann squeals and puts away her halo-pad, "Yes gossip time! This is just like episode 23 of Hello Megan when Megan and the cheer-leading squad get together for a sleepover and talk all things boys!" She's practically bouncing up and down in her chair. I snort and take the pillow I've been resting on and fling it at the squealing martian. My aim must also be improving because the offending pillow smacks into M'gann's face with a slightly satisfying 'poof' and then lands gently in her lap. M'gann is still smiling though and takes the pillow to squeeze to her chest, and I can tell she's gearing up to start sending rapid-fire questions my way.

Before she can start though I interrupt.

"There's nothing to talk about other than the fact that I don't know what you're talking about. It hardly feels more than him being my mentor and me being his trainee," I say sitting up and leaning against the wall that the bed is placed against. I decide against telling them about my nagging thoughts because even I don't know what I'm feeling, so why try and make something out of nothing?

"...but what's up with you and Conner?" I ask with a satisfied smirk as M'gann's face goes from green to red with an embarrassed blush. She starts to slowly duck her head behind the pillow clutched to her chest. I said to myself that I wouldn't get involved in anyone's love-life, but that doesn't mean I can't have some fun with it.

"Nothing!" M'gann squeaks out quickly.

I smile with a breathless chuckle as Zatanna laughs and Artemis scoffs as she replaces an arrowhead to its correct place on an arrow shaft.

"I- uh, we are just- nothing…" M'gann stutters, unable to form a coherent sentence, but she's smiling behind the pillow and seems not too upset about the sudden question. Before the real teasing can begin, the distinct sounds of an aircraft makes it's way to us through the slightly open door of Zatanna's bedroom.

"Saved by the bell!" Says a cheery Zatanna, "That will be my dad with the supplies. Come on guys, let's go see what they brought," she says while standing from the chair she had been sitting on at her vanity.

I follow behind M'gann and give her an affectionate nudge with my elbow as we follow the entourage out the door and down the hallway, headed for the hanger area and the waiting ship. It takes a moment for the situation to catch up with my brain, I am too caught up in the story M'gann is telling me about and trying to keep my laughing to a minimum for me to realize what we all are about to walk into.

It's the moment I've been dreading since I joined the Team. The first time my 'knowlege' will be put to the test, and I'm not sure what counts as too much involvement, and not enough.

I freeze in the doorway to the hanger, realizing that the scene is heart-wrenchingly familiar. Leaguers are helping some of the Team in unloading supply boxes from the cargo hold of the ship, and everyone is off making conversation with each other.

Ahead of me, I can see Wally digging through the groceries, talking with M'gaan and saying something to make her laugh. Conner is lifting huge boxes and placing them in a pile at the far end of the room next Kaldur who looks to be discussing something with Batman, while Zatarra and Red Tornado are using their powers to help move the heavy shipment. To my right, I can hear Zatanna talking with Artemis about her issues with her dad, and that's when I realize I'm too late.

"...I just wish he would give me some space!" Zatanna says and cementing my fears.

"NO, Zatanna!" I shout in a panic, my hand reaching out toward the teens and my body tensing to run. To what? I'm not sure. But it's too late. It's not like I could have stopped it anyway. These events needed to happen if the Team was going to be what the world needed them to be, but that didn't stop my heart falling into my stomach as a strange white light enveloped all the members of the Team, and in the next moment, they were gone.