Note: This post has been included in one of the new Chapter drafts, please refer to the Index for the current draft of the story.

Please note, this is currently a very rough draft from NaNoWriMo 2007. There will be spelling and grammatical errors afoot as well as flat out bad writing, info dumps, plot holes, flat out contradictions, and uneven characterization and pacing. (Content is also subject to constant change as I take an editing chainsaw to the story.)

“Bethys here.” Trish glared out from under overgrown blond bangs, the combination of cute and gloomy reminding Jon of a goth carebear. “I’m living at your house instead.”

Jon declined to comment and fished his tools out of the back of the car, leaning in through one of the side windows (the door had permanently locked about a month ago and he still hadn’t gotten around to taking it down to Tod’s Dad’s shop and getting it fixed). He started heading up the wooden steps to his front door over the garage, but Trish sat stubbornly in the middle of staircase.

“I am.”

“Mom won’t let you.” Jon stepped over his cousin (carefully) and tried to get his keys back out of his pocket without dropping anything.

“Mom‘s not here”

“Fine then, Aunt Patricia won’t let you.” He headed in to the Apartment, Trish trailing along behind him. “Besides she’s not going to be home for that long.” He headed into his bedroom to change clothes. “It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, because you live here.” She collapsed dramatically on the well-loved soda. Then leaned forward to turn on the game console that was sitting on the coffee table. “Besides they won’t look for me until dinner at least.”

“Only till dinner then,” Jon reemerged in an almost identical set of clothes, only sans the dirt. “It is family night again then?” The Black family gathered twice a week for sinner, which was less impressive than it sounded since all it meant was Jon came down from his apartment and Uncle Tony drove a whopping four minutes from his house. The rule was simple, if family was in the area, they came to dinner. Which meant no going out (unless the whole family came), and no claim of ‘other plans’ would be honored. Jon actually still ate down at the house more nights than not, but as long as Bethany was home, he planned on avoiding it as much as possible.

“You’re not leaving me alone!”

“She’s not that bad.”

“She wants me to be a lawyer.” Trish sniffed, as she fended off another wave of incoming alien hordes. “Lawyers are boring.”

“But you like Law and Order.” Not that he was defending Bethany’s drive to make sure her relatives led ‘fulfilling lives’ (her definition of fulfilling of course), but she really did seem to love the legal classes she was taking.

“She’s gonna be on Law and Order??”

“Um, no, she’s not an actor.”

“But she’s gonna be a lawyer.”

“She’s still got a lot of college to finish, then law school, then a bunch more years working as a paper-pusher, but yeah.”

“I’m gonna be an astronaut when I grow up,” she neatly dispatched another wave of incoming enemy fighters, “and a cat burglar.”

Jon rolled his eyes, made a noncommittal noise, and wondered once again why nature had allowed Aunt Harmony to have kids. Or why the legal system had allowed any theoretically sane adult to change their name to Harmony (when their spouse’s name was already ‘Peace’). But an astronaut cat burglar was slightly better than the vampire bounty hunter that she’d decided on two months ago.

He couldn’t remember what he’d wanted to be when he grew up, but Jon was pretty sure that ‘construction’ probably wasn’t one of the answers. He flopped down into couch and grabbed the other game controller.