The thunder rolled through the quiet, darkened house as the dark gray clouds seeped into the blueness that covered the sky. A few splatters decorated the sidewalk as the rain gave a half-hearted attempt at wetting the ground and the trees had began to sway back and forth with a bit more force than the pleasant afternoon weather had afforded them.

A particularly large oak was scrapping its branches along the outside of the Zeta Beta Zeta Sorority house as if it were tapping on the windows trying to gain entrance.

Leaves had begun to scatter across the road, decorating it in a array of browns, oranges and even a smidgen of green.

Casey Cartwright sighed deeply as she watched the weather taking a turn for the worse and wished, not for the first time, that the latest love of her life hadn't picked that weekend to visit his family. She had never been a huge fan of thunderstorms and the one that was quickly approaching looked to be a big one. It only made it worse that she had insisted he go. Max had asked her at least a dozen times if she wanted to go with him, but a stack of classwork and a list of pledge educator duties had proven more persuasive than he was.

So she was alone, uncomfortably alone. Ashleigh, her best friend and sorority president had taken off for the weekend with her new boyfriend, Fisher. Rebbecca Logan had rounded up the new actives and pledges and taken them to her family's summer home in the Hamptons for a bonding weekend. Casey had also opted against going along for that ride. She and Rebbecca had come to shaky sort of seize fire and Casey didn't feel it necessary to push their relationship too hard at the moment. It was nice getting along with her. She wanted to keep it that way for a little while longer. She was pretty sure that after a weekend getaway together, they would be back at each others throats by the time they got home.

She was faced with a circumstance that was absolutely not the normal in a house where forty girls resided under normal conditions.

She was alone. There was not another soul under the roof. The quiet was deafening. It was the perfect opportunity for her to get some real work done. She should be attacking her classwork and the paperwork for the house that had been building up for weeks. But she couldn't seem to shake the miserable melancholy that had settled over as surely as the darkness had settled over the sky.

She could call Rusty. Her brother would come over and keep her company without a second thought and he wouldn't ask her a thousand questions about why she was feeling so down. Rusty was an expert at knowing when to ask questions and when not to. Socially awkward to the point of ridiculous, Rusty still had a way of reading people that she would never understand. Somehow he just seemed to know when to talk and when to just shut up and be there.

But Rusty had his own life and his own heavy class load and at the moment, she was sure, he was either, locked away in his apartment, catching up with it all, or he was at the Kappa Tau Gamma Fraternity catching up with it all. Either way, she didn't want to disturb him without a good reason.

The thought of the KT house brought to her mind an unwanted and a little unexpected vision of its president. She had finally manage to reach a point in her life when Cappie wasn't on her mind all the time. Now a fleeting thought of him once or twice a day was the norm and she was positive even that would fade eventually.

She was finally learning to put her past behind her and despite her very volatile history with the messy-haired, blue-eyed Cappie, Max was her future.

She was happy, or at least she was content. Content was a good thing. A nice quiet life with a man that added to her peace and didn't contribute to her drama.

It was something she had been searching for, for a very long time. She had even begun to think that maybe the right guy just wasn't out there for her. But then Max showed up.

Even more socially inept than her brother, smarter than anyone she had ever known and the complete opposite of every man she had ever been with, Max hit her out of the blue with a blind-side attack that took her breath away.

Max was calm and peaceful and inspired those feelings in the people around him. Something Evan, her last boyfriend, could never claim. Evan was uptight and intense and took every part of life far too seriously. Max tended to take things pretty seriously as well. But fun was for children and sooner or later everyone had to grow up.

That thought sobered her just as a particularly loud clash of thunder rang out across the campus. She honestly couldn't remember the last time she had done more than chuckle at anything. She couldn't recall the last time she could really say she had fun, the kind of fun that made her face hurt from smiling and her sides ache from laughing so hard.

She realized suddenly that she had somehow become everything she hated about Evan. She herself had gotten into the habit of taking life far too seriously.

Who was it that said that 'anything can be fun and everything should be fun' ? She racked her brain for a minute trying to remember the author of that famous quote. She had read it somewhere, or heard it during one of her lectures. It was right there on the tip of her tongue.

She huffed, the author's identity was going to drive her crazy now.

Then, just as a flash of lightning lit up the entire sky, it came to her. It wasn't a famous author, or even a famous quote for that matter. The image of him holding out a fork filled with apple pie and tempting her with it, came her instantly. ' What could be the harm in taking one little bite of an apple ?' He'd said with eager eyes and a hopeful smile.

Cappie, that was twice in less than ten minutes. Well, she told herself defensively, she had been thinking about how she wasn't having any fun anymore. And if Cappie was anything, he was fun. It was his mission in life. The problem was and had always been, it was his only mission in life.

She needed more than that. She needed a focus, a goal, something to strive towards. Cappie's only goal was on trying to keep from having a goal.

She wondered, for a moment, if that was because of some deep-seated fear of failure. If you didn't set yourself up to fail, how could you possibly fail. But Cappie had never stricken her as the type of man that was afraid of anything. Maybe the happy-go-lucky attitude was really genuine. Maybe he really thought that the key to living life right was in finding the fun in every moment.

It wasn't a bad philosophy. It was working out for him rather well. And no one could claim that Cappie wasn't enjoying life.

She envied him quite often, envied him to the point of jealousy at times. He never had a problem he couldn't handle. Never let life drag him down with worry.

But it seemed to Casey that that way of living was really doing nothing more than coasting. It was certain that sooner or later, something would come along that would make Cappie take it seriously.

Another boom resounded and she glanced at her phone as she saw her hands were shaking. Rusty really wouldn't mind if she disturbed him. He might even be grateful for the distraction. Maybe he could use the break.

She snatched her pink cell off the bed where it was laying and punched in his number, just as the lights began to flicker. After the fifth ring it went to voice mail and she left a short message telling him that she was at the house alone and she would really like it if he came over.

The thunder was coming faster now and the rain was falling with a vengeance. She flicked on the television to a local channel and her breath caught in her throat when she recognized her little corner of the world lit up in bright red, signally a tornado warning.

She had never been in a tornado, though she'd witnessed the devastation on shows about them.

Ohio was not really known for tornado frequency and neither was Chicago, where she grew up. In her years at Cyrus, four of them now, she had never seen a tornado come close to where she was. She wasn't even really sure what to do if one should occur. In school they always said, get to the lowest floor of the house in a room with no windows and no outside walls.

Her hands were shaking violently now as she snatched a portable radio, a candle and a bottle of water and headed for the basement. As an afterthought, she grabbed her phone up as well.

Another bang of thunder vibrated her ears and made her heart stop for an instant as she rounded the corner of the staircase.

Spying the house phone on the small round table inside the front door gave her an idea and she quickly yanked her cell from her pocket and punched in the number for the KT house.

" Hello," A familiar voice answered on the first ring.

" Cappie, I need to talk to Rusty. Is he there ?" She bit her bottom lip anxiously.

" No, I haven't seen him all day. Are you okay ? Is there something I can do for you ?"

He was worried about the approaching storm, too. If he hadn't been, he would have added, ' or to you?" to that question. His voice was tight and sounded almost as anxious as hers and he was talking fast. She could hear a lot of movement going on it the background.

" No, I'll be alright. I was just hoping he could come here and keep me company during the storm." She answered, trying to sound casual and not make him worry about her.

Of course it didn't work. Cappie was better at reading her than anyone she'd ever known.

" Are you there alone ?" He asked, over the shuffling behind him.

" Yeah, but its fine. Really I'll be okay." She repeated.

" Come over here. We're all going to the basement to play charades until this whole thing passes. We'd love to have you join us." He offered.

" Charades ?" She chuckled into the receiver.

He paused and lowered his voice perceptibly. " Beaver gets a little distressed during bad weather. We try to keep him distracted." His voice returned to normal as he added, " From what I remember you aren't a huge fan of storms either. So get over here and we'll distract you, too."

She considered his offer. She didn't want to be stuck by herself if something bad did happen. The KT house wasn't her first choice, but it certainly beat being alone.

" Alright. I'll be there in a few minutes. Do I need to bring anything ? You have flashlights and candles, right ?"

" We have it all covered. Just bring you." He paused long enough to shout something about not needing to bring the beer downstairs. Then he came back to her. " Sorry, so you're coming, right ?"

" Yeah, I'll be there in ten minutes." She answered, gathering her purse and keys as she spoke.

" If not, I'm coming to look for you." He warned her. Then suddenly his voice lowered again he was extremely serious when he said, " Case, it's getting pretty bad out there. Be careful."

" I will be. See you soon."

She snapped the phone shut and jambed it into her front pocket as she opened the front door.