Antonia, when she saw me for the first time, didn't break stride as she continued to pin and tuck the folds of a skirt she was working on. When it was complete, she pulled extra pins out from between her lips and stuck them in a pin cushion before flicking her eyes over my outfit.

"Well, it's an improvement over that horrible tabloid photo, at least." she sighed. "I don't care if the paps are catching you first thing in the morning, after you've spent all night doing lines of coke and ******** anything in sight--a matter which we'll get around to after I'm done reaming you about your wardrobe--I taught you better than to be caught dead looking like some kind of nicole richie, paris hilton wannabe brittney on a drug binge." she rolled her eyes before adding, slowly, "even if that's the reality of the situation."

"I didn't…" I sighed and gave up, too frustrated that even my friends believed what they'd seen in the papers to even try to defend myself. My own mother had sold me out to hold on to her own good name. Not for the first time, I wished that I looked a little bit more like the father I'd never met and a hell of a lot less like the mother that still behaved like a teenager.

"Chose your own outfit that day?" she finished for me, smirking a little. "I'd dearly like to believe that, young padawan."

unable to help myself, I snickered at her Star Wars reference and forced the tension clawing through my muscles to subside. The anger and horror returned for a minute, in the silence between her reference and my laughter and our next interaction. It built while she stared at me, searched me for answers, begged me silently for some kind of a sign, some kind of reason why I'd done the unthinkable. And gotten caught. Instead, she just smiled a little, a wavering, delicate spiderweb of a smile and cleared her throat, looking away from me and returning to what she'd been doing before. It was her routine, after coming back from breaks, to go through all of the costumes in the department. To check for damages, outdatedness, fix what she could, update what needed it, get rid of what she couldn't fix.

"Uniforms," she informed me, sniffing delicately "Are for the fashion-challenged and the scholarship students."

"Sissies," Animal added, absently.

I stared at them both for a moment before realizing that the only people I'd seen in the green and white of our uniform had, in fact, been probably on scholarship. None of the cheer sluts had worn it.

"Huh," I raised my eyebrow at the idea and then shrugged a little, picking up a scarf from the pile of costume pieces Tony was going through. I ran it through my hands for a second before shrugging and tying it around my head like a headband. Tony had already ignored me again, in favor of looking through the rest of the box, inspecting each piece for damages made by poor storage or careless actors and then separating them into piles.

"So, Are you back?" she asked, eventually, looking up at me. 'Or is this just some kind of visit? Nostalgia bite you in the a**? Or you came to see chris, get your fix, and thought you'd check in on the scooby gang you left behind while you were here?"

Shock had me staring at her in hurt silence for a moment before I attempted to speak. Anger had me stopping to count to a hundred before saying what I had started to. Understanding had me sighing a little bit and twisting the ends of the scarf I'd tied to my head into a pretty bow before I nodded. It was still there, inside me, the anger and the twisted, dark, need that I'd run to california to escape. It took effort, but I'd learned to ignore it, so I bit my cheek a moment and then waited until it either built up too much or cooled back down enough for me to deal with. Antonia stared at me the whole time, waiting for my response. It wouldn't be good enough, I knew. Nothing could have been. When I'd left for the summer, I hadn't told any of them I wasn't coming back in the fall. I deserved her anger, and probably more of it than I was getting. I certainly hadn't deserved Animal's happiness at my presence.

"I'm back." I eventually said, slowly, wondering if it was even the right thing at all to be saying. Most people would have gone with an apology or an explanation for their behavior. But then, I knew she didn't really want either one of them.

"You're an idiot, is what you are." she snorted, cheerfully. "An idiot who doesn't deserve the few friends she's managed to obtain. That was a s**t thing to do, a childish little s**t thing to do and you know it."

I didn't know what to say. I had known it. Even when I was packing up to move home, I'd known it was stupid to not tell anyone. How could I though? No one would have understood my need to be home, in the sun, near my mother. The need to get away from the school and them and the pounding headaches that their faces sometimes left me with. One or all of them would have talked me out of it. Guilt had me looking down at my feet while she continued.

"You know, for the first three weeks we just thought you wanted to continue summer vacation? that we kept sitting together at lunch, hoping that one day you'd just come sauntering back into the room and plop yourself down at the table like you hadn't missed a thing? Like you'd laugh at us and ask what the hell we were staring at. It was hell, Kaylyn, sitting there and wondering if you'd come back or not. We hate each other without you, you know. Animal is a ******** annoying know it all and Brennan has s**t for brains sometimes. You know he almost got his a** suspended for fighting? Chris is alright, for a petty drug-dealer, but he doesn't go here anymore and besides that delights in all the stupid s**t we do. But the point is, without you there wasn't anyone to moderate the in-fighting, no one to pull our punches for us and just an endless amount of waiting. We didn't know what else to do, so we just kept sticking together. Did you know that Caine just spends most of his time high now? You were one of the only people he could count on, one of his only outlets and I just think it's absolute crap how you treated him like he was meaningless. You left." she paused "You left and you didn't have the decency to call any of us."

There was a thick, heavy silence when she was done. I felt like I'd been slapped, my face was hot, the skin too tight and uncomfortable, my stomach churning angrily. The worst part was the need coming back, the endless, horrible need that drove me to do and say awful things. It was happy with her anger, her unhappiness, the remembered pain and uncertainty. That part of me wanted to sling horrible words back at her, wanted me to say things I wouldn't be able to take back, things that would hurt her more and probably irreparably damage our relationship.

'So, when are you gonna buy her dinner?" Leighanne's voice interjected into our silent stare-down.

I'd forgotten she was even there for a moment, my hurt and the need to hurt her back closing out everything around us. Even Antonia'd probably forgotten about her. We both stared at her for a moment, somewhat blankly, trying to figure out where Antonia buying me dinner had factored into the argument. She stared back for a second before shrugging nonchalantly.

"What? I just figured, you know, since you're riding her so hard, you ought to buy her dinner or something. Call me old-fashioned." she smirked at our silence.

"Imagine that," Tony snorted eventually, rolling her eyes. "The Animal standing up for her master."

"Hey," I snapped immediately, not needing to look to know that Leighanne was hurt and gearing up to attack right back. Animal wasn't just a cute nickname given to her because she happened to play the drums and remind me of my favorite muppets character. She was like one, in her own ways. We all were, really. "That was way out of line and you know it. Back off. You wanna be mad at me, fine, take your pound of flesh out of me and leave Leighanne alone."

"She's the one who dragged herself into this. She should have stayed out of it, but like usual, she just has to stick her damned nose where it doesn't belong. Don't you ever get tired of having such a faithful little lap-dog. I bet she just rolled right over and begged to have her belly scratched when you walked in to school today."

"b***h, you don't want me airing your dirty laundry," Animal warned in a throaty growl.

The need pulsed through me, hot and headachy in its power, the need to watch them tear strips out of each other weakening me a little. For a moment, I thought I might give in, let them fight it out and draw blood from each other. Then I recovered, remembered that I was better than that and I wasn't going to let my friends bicker like this.

"Leighanne, remember the rules." I said tiredly. "We don't gossip about each other unless I give you the go ahead. Tony's still our friend, and she has a right to be mad." I paused, rubbing my head for a moment in the vain hope that the headache would subside. It wouldn't, I knew from past experience, until I'd done something violent or dangerous, fed the need and desire pounding away. I needed to think though, needed to get past the pain and figure out what, exactly, had my normally sweet-tempered friend tearing a strip out of my hide. She'd mentioned the others before, in her opening rant. But it was caine, I think, who she was most upset about. Brennan had Chris to watch out for him and Leighanne could take care of herself, even if she didn't always act like it. Caine, then, I sighed, shoulders slumping miserably.

"Kay?" Tony asked after my silence finally got to her. She was wondering where my response was, where the return fire was, when I was going to tear her down or maybe split her lip again. The old me would maybe have thrown a punch at her or cursed or even just walked away and thrown something breakable later. The new me was just too tired of fighting the need back to do any of those things. I let out a weary sigh and just shook my head.

"I'm just too tired of fighting, Tony. Can we please not?" I asked quietly after a minute, looking up and catching the surprise that flickered across her face before she could stop it. Slowly, she nodded, something like suspicion lingering in the look she had trained on me. "I'm sorry for cutting out without a word wont mean s**t to you. I can't apologize because it doesn't change the fact that I did. I knew it was a s**t thing to do and I still did it. And I'd do it again. I'm just… too tired to deal with the rest of it." I sighed again, rubbing away at my head.

"Way to go, assface, you gave her a headache with your shrewish screeching." Leighanne muttered resentfully.

Before Tony could reply, I raised my other hand in a silent gesture for both of them to be quiet. "Could you just not bicker for like, ten minutes?" I begged. "I forgot how ******** annoying keeping the peace between you two was."

"Well, I guess if you're going to be sticking around, we should probably agree to play nice." Tony sighed, slowly, keeping an eye on the hand that was rubbing my forehead still.

Grateful for what she hadn't said, I smiled and nodded, dropping my hand and standing awkwardly in her costumes room, looking at the walls. They always seemed to be different, some new prop or a different arrangement of the old ones tacked, nailed or otherwise applied to the wall so she could find them with ease. No one else was allowed to touch her walls or her room, not even the head of the theater department, Dr. Elliot Goodwin, who surprisingly left her and her costumes the hell alone. In every other aspect of the theater and music departments' running, he was a tyrant, always unhappy, always fixing and always barking orders. Probably the only person who was more obsessive-controlling over fashion and costumes was Antonia herself, which was probably why they got along so well.

"I'm trying to sort out the rest of this stuff. Elliot's got a new project, so some of it might be okay enough to donate to her cause, poor soul." Tony interrupted her thoughts with the kind of offer that she rarely extended.

It wasn't often that she trusted anyone else to handle her costumes and props. Even the actors who had to use them were treated to a severe mistrust and the kind of horribly confidence-crushing kind of dressing down that only Antonia could deliver at the slightest indication that they were misusing her toys. It wasn't entirely unheard of for her to walk up to a complete stranger and tell them that they weren't wearing some designer or other correctly and that they should pick up a ******** fashion magazine before inflicting their poor taste on the world again. She'd made a twelve year old girl cry once in the mall when she'd cooly informed her that leggings were not, in fact, pants and that furthermore, her brown UGGS should have never been anywhere near the jean tunic-shirt she'd pulled on with it, which was a separate issue from the fact that she'd mixed brown and black together. "You look like a cow. So pick one, cow, either you're warm enough to wear a shirt and no pants, or cold enough to wear ******** fur boots." she'd concluded herself, rolling her eyes and thrusting a pair of jeans at her. "Put on some pants and don't come anywhere near public again until you learn to control the bad fashion choices."

I smirked at the memory and shook my head, recalling that Tony had been legitimately confused as to why everyone else was so horrified. I had simply laughed and slung my arm around her shoulders, steering her out of the paths of more potential victims and into the movie theater next door. Maybe in the dark, I had figured, she wouldn't be able to see the poor choices regular human beings made. Elliot had similar problems with poor fashion choices. He just didn't have it in him to be quite so mean as Tony could be, I thought. Sure, he terrified most people on an instinctual level, but most of the time I just fought the urge to pinch his cheeks a little or pat him on the head. It wasn't that he was particularly silly to me, it was just that authority problem that I had again, I figured. In any case, Elliot chose one poor lucky b*****d a year to be his project and turned them from fashion duds into walking masterpieces. It was almost always a scholarship student, so Tony almost always helped out with one of a kind creations or items that she deemed unfit for her department anymore, but good enough to regular people to use. It never made sense to me, but she'd always had a bit of a soft spot for Elliot, would do pretty much anything he asked, so long as he kept his cigarette smoking far, far away from her clothing.

"Sure," I smiled, sitting down in front of a set of drawers and pulling open the bottom one first, pulling everything out and into my lap before beginning to go through it. Tony had four distinct piles going, which I looked at for a minute before figuring were the keep, fix, donate and destroy piles. The destroy pile was probably the largest one so far, though none of them had much in it. People lived in mortal fear of what Antonia would do to them or their closets if they screwed up anything with her props. But then, Tony also had a higher standard for clothing and props than most people did. She'd destroy something the second it got a little bit too worn in for her tastes. Jeans that started out indigo rarely got past dark blue before seeing a seam ripper and her sewing machine and then their newest incarnation.

"Hey," she said quietly, touching my hair when I looked up and realized that she was now standing over me. "I like this," she added, with a small smile. The kind that said "I want to make up."

I was confused for a minute before my hand found the cloth of the scarf I'd repurposed and then laughed. "Thanks."

"That's just so cute. Seriously. But all this kissing and making up is seriously making me want to upchuck all over my chucks." Leighanne rolled her eyes at us from across the room.

"You're just jealous that you don't get to kiss and make up." Tony smirked, something baiting and mean in that sentence that I couldn't figure out but recognized for its malice. <******** you."

"Sorry, I'm not your fantasy girl." Tony laughed a little.

"Thought you guys were going to play nice," I sighed, pulling a pair of aviators out of the drawer and inspecting them slowly before dropping them in her Donate pile. They had a scratch on the side, near the earpiece. Nothing big enough that a normal mortal person would ever see, but Antonia would see it and she'd know it was there and it would bother her every time she thought about it. Still, designer shades were too nice to just destroy when some other poor unfortunate soul could still get use out of them.

"Sorry, I never agreed and I don't think I can." Animal sighed, turning and walking out. "Welcome home, Kay." she added, at the door.

I just shrugged and returned to my work. Thinking about my mother was useless, I figured, if only because there was nothing that I could change there. It wasn't the first time I'd packed her off to rehab. It was just the first time she'd been caught both doing drugs and checking in to rehab. That the papers assumed that I was my mother and that my mother was me, checking in unwillingly to a rehab center wasn't wholly surprising, just annoying. What was momentarily more troubling to me was how Caine was doing. He was kind of like an over-grown child. If you promised him something, he believed you, even if past experience told anyone sane not to. He trusted and loved me more so than anyone else in our group, if only because I was the one who checked in on him, made sure he was fed, that he didn't fail out of school for ditching too many classes, made sure that he remembered to put on clothes before leaving his room. I felt awful about how poorly I'd treated him, especially since I knew he didn't have too many people to rely on outside of our little group, and even within the group, he kind of stuck out. He was my baby more so than anyone else's friend, generally quiet and introspective around anyone that wasn't me. Large crowds scared him, so he kept mostly to himself. He didn't have parents or siblings to rely on, was in school on some sort of scholarship program and mostly used it to escape the foster system. I was never sure where he found the money for his pot, but I suspected that he had some sort of trust fund or life insurance money coming in from his parents still.

Facing him would probably be the worst. Not because he'd be mad, but because he wouldn't be. Because he would have the most reason of any of them to be angry and to hate me and want to ignore me. And he wouldn't do any of those things. He would probably grant me the biggest, brightest smile he could muster and hug me until I thought I would suffocate to death. He'd jump up and down and clap his hands a little and then he'd tell me something silly about a game he was playing, or a new computer program he was writing, pretty much for the hell of it. He would ask me how california was, but he wouldn't mention the pictures from the tabloids, and he wouldn't ask me why I was back or how long I was staying. He would be the easiest person in the world to settle back down into the swing of things with, and it would kill me inside to know that I had screwed him over by leaving him without someone to look after him. I frowned at my hands while I continued sorting and put off the inevitable, silently thinking about why Brennan had really called me back. He'd said it was some sort of family emergency, but so far the only emergency I'd seen was the fact that the family had fallen apart in my absence.