"The drills went pretty well, except when Ryan got confused and punched with the wrong hand."

"Aren't you supposed to be able to handle an attack from either side?"

"It's a drill, not a mugging."

"So are you going to ask the mugger to please punch with their right hand when they try to take your wallet?"

"Yeah, basically. If they get it wrong I'll just yell at them. 'You idiot! Can't you tell your right from your left? You're too stupid to be a criminal; go home!"

"It's a tough life," Starhawk remarked, shifting a canvas grocery bag into her other arm as she pushed the door open. "But I guess someone's got to live it."

"You know," Traveler said as she followed her into the apartment, "I don't think you have quite enough people in here. Maybe you should invite some more."

"I don't invite them." Starhawk stepped around Kerone and Ashley and made her way into the kitchen. "They just show up."

"Hey, Zeke," Amanda greeted her. "Did you get your orange juice?"

"Orange-strawberry, yeah," Starhawk answered. "How's it going?"

"Aside from the fact that our apartment looks like Neil's on a Friday night? Good. How are you?"

"Undercharged," Starhawk said, tossing her receipt in the recycling bin. "Do you know how much it costs the environment for Tropicana to make this juice?"

"A lot?" Amanda guessed.

"A lot," Starhawk agreed. There was the sound of an explosion from the living room, and she frowned. "Tell me they aren't watching Power Rangers."

"It was that or '10 Things I Hate About You'." Amanda put her pencil down and rescued the grey kitten from the floor.

"Hi," she said, patting him gently. "Want to help me with my conducting?"

"I thought you were going to do Easter crafts with us," Starhawk protested, folding up her grocery bags and putting them away. "You don't have to be studying to take a study break, you know."

"Yeah, but I skipped on Friday to go home with Jared, so now I have to make it up."

"Oh," Starhawk admitted. "That's a good excuse."

"Dude, why is it so cold in here?" Traveler demanded from the living room. "It's warmer outside than it is in your apartment!"

"Believe me, I know. You should have been here last night," Starhawk told her. "They turned off our heat because it's 'springtime'." She made little quote marks with her fingers.

"So did you burn the Easter decorations to stay warm?" Traveler wanted to know. "I can't find them anywhere."

"We did talk about building a fire pit in the living room," Amanda offered.

"They're by the stereo with the construction paper." Starhawk looked away from the TV long enough to point. "Next to Adri's feet. Why is the stereo playing while the TV's on, anyway?"

"Garth," Adri mumbled, but she didn't move or open her eyes. It was hard to tell whether she was actually awake or just responding automatically to a question about "Fresh Horses".

"Hey, Tess?" TJ asked, looking over his shoulder to gaze out the window. "How many eggs did we give them, exactly?"

"Someone's hiding eggs already?" Traveler leaned against the back of the couch to look out. "Easter's not till tomorrow, you guys."

"Well, no one will be here tomorrow," Ashley pointed out from her place on the floor. She and Kerone were still engrossed in the "Power Rangers in Space" movie.

"You don't know how glad I am to hear that," Starhawk informed her.

"So who's hiding the eggs?" Traveler wanted to know.

"Aura and Carlos are supposed to be doing it," Tessa answered, joining the two of them on the couch. She squinted out the window. "They left at least half an hour ago, though. I can't remember how many eggs there were, but there weren't *that* many."

"We stuffed 33 plastic eggs." DECA looked up from where she was helping Amanda in the kitchen and added, "Minus the one that Zhane broke and the two that were sacrificed to the kittens."

"We stuffed 34," Kerone corrected. She didn't look away from the TV. "I stuffed that one before Zhane broke it."

"Oh... I forgot my sticky tack." Traveler put the construction paper down and glanced around as though some would mysteriously appear in front of her.

"I have some," Starhawk offered. "I found it last night in my calculator."

"*In* your calculator?" Traveler repeated.

"Don't ask."

"Don't count on being able to get to your desk," Amanda warned, as Starhawk headed for the bedroom.

She returned a moment later, sticky tack in hand and a mildly amused expression on her face. "Andros and Zhane are playing 'Space Cadet Table'. Somehow I find that appropriate."

"Where's your stalker?" Traveler wanted to know as she took the sticky tack. "Thanks, by the way."

"You're welcome." Starhawk crouched down beside her and helped gather up the construction paper designs and pipe cleaner stars. "He and Cassie are sleeping; I don't really want to know why. Jetson's with them."

"Are those the pipe cleaners from my Advent wreath?" Amanda asked, watching them from the kitchen.

"Yeah. We couldn't let something so sparkly go to waste. Traveler, could you pass the scissors?"

Traveler handed them over before shooing TJ and Tessa off the couch. "You can help or you can watch, but no sitting in front of the window while we're trying to decorate it."

"Maybe we should go look for Aura and Carlos," Tessa suggested, perching on the arm of the other sofa. "They couldn't have gotten lost, could they?"

"They weren't supposed to go far enough to get lost," Ashley said, giving the window a token glance.

"Although, with Carlos' sense of direction..." Kerone let the sentence trail off, a small smirk on her face.

"You're not going to let him forget that black hole incident, are you." Ashley sounded amused.

"I think the sun should go right there." Starhawk slapped two pieces of yellow construction paper against the window, then let them fall with a shrug. "Actually, that looked pretty good. Too bad there wasn't any sticky tack on it."

"Good," Traveler commented. "You can help me with the grass."

"My stego-grass, you mean?"

"At least yours looks like a dinosaur. Mine looks like swords. The bird's going to be in trouble if those killer raindrops knock him out of the sky."

"The raindrops have to be big," Starhawk insisted. "People have to be able to see them from the road."

"This raindrop is bigger than the sun!"

"So they're representing the water cycle. There's a lot of water on Earth."

"Not enough to block out the sun," Traveler informed her.

There was a knock on the door and Amanda bounced out of her chair, conveniently forgetting about her conducting homework for the fifth time in as many minutes. She opened the door to reveal a tall boy in a flannel jacket. "Oh, hi Brian!"

"Hi?" he said politely (which was the only way he said anything) and with a question mark (which was the only kind of punctuation he used).

"What are you doing here?" Amanda asked, in a way that might have been rude if she weren't the four-time winner of the World's Nicest Person award.

"A very brief cameo?" Brian suggested. "I should get back to the church?"

"Oh, I'll go with you," Amanda said quickly. "I want to talk to my car before I go home for Easter."

Over by the window, Starhawk rolled her eyes. "Sometimes I wonder which of us is the weird one."

Amanda shook her head as she stepped out into the hallway. "I have one word for you, Zeke. Penguins!"

"Whatever," Starhawk muttered.

"Is that supposed to be a realistic representation?" DECA inquired, regarding their progress on the window from the kitchen doorway.

Traveler paused, looking from her to the window and back again. "What could possibly have given you that idea?"

DECA shrugged. "I only ask because there seem to be a large number of stars for a scene that clearly includes a sun."

"I like stars," Starhawk told her. "Stars are our friends."

"Ashley," Andros interrupted, emerging from the bedroom with a bundle of brown fur. "Your cat wants to spend some time with you."

"It's funny how they become my cats whenever they're in the way," Ashley remarked, holding out her arms.

"He's tries to chase anything that moves on the monitor," Andros complained. He paused then, catching sight of the TV screen. "What are you watching?"

"You," Ashley answered sweetly.

"Did you know that you yelled 'bring it on' three separate times in this movie?" Kerone added. "I don't think the Psycho Rangers needed any encouragement, personally."

"At least I didn't say 'listen up, you Psychos' every five minutes," Andros retorted. "Let me know when you get to the end; I like that part with you on the box of cereal."

Ashley tried to stifle a giggle and failed.

"Hey, Zhane," Kerone said, raising her voice. "Who's winning at pinball?"

"I am!" he called back. "Andros can't get promoted past 'ensign'!"

She smirked at Andros. "Sounds like you'd better go practice."

"No, don't put the daisy under the raindrops!" Traveler sat back and considered the window. "It has to be near the sun, so the colors are more spread out."

"I haven't even put up the rainbow yet," Starhawk objected. "How do you know where the flowers go?"

"Hello, the rainbow can go anywhere!"

Starhawk promptly turned the rainbow upside down and held it up in the middle of the window.

"Except there," Traveler finished. "If we put the red flower in the middle and the yellow flower on the left, then the rainbow can go right in between the sun and the raindrops. That works."

"What about the bird?" Starhawk wanted to know. "He'd better go above the raindrops, or he's going to feel threatened."

"I think they're really lost," Tessa was telling TJ. "I'm going to go look for them."

"I'll come with you," he offered gallantly, getting to his feet. "Is the door unlocked, Starhawk?"

"Has that ever stopped you before?" she retorted.

"Just checking." He held it for Tessa, and the two of them wandered out in search of their lost teammates.

"Did I tell you that Adri thinks this song is about Cassie and Phantom?" Starhawk asked idly, as "That Ol' Wind" started to play.

Traveler listened for a moment, watching the rainbow get pressed into place. "Really," she said at last.

"Really."

Traveler glanced over at Adri, who still hadn't moved. "Does she know there's no singing? No bus? No money, no kid... I'm not seeing the similarities."

"We'll just skip to the end," Starhawk said, pointing the remote at the stereo. "So I can listen to 'Ireland' for the fifty thousandth time."

"Now *this* is a Cassie-Phantom song," Traveler commented, picking up the bird.

"Thank you!" Starhawk exclaimed. "That's what I say!" She paused, then added, "Except for that whole Ireland part. I guess that's not really relevant."

There was a knock on the window, and Starhawk raised an eyebrow. "What happened to you?"

Carlos motioned for her to open the window. Aura was dripping wet from the waist down, and as Starhawk cranked open the side window she asked, "You didn't happen to go near the railroad tracks, did you?"

At the look Carlos gave her, she cleared her throat. "Well, I *meant* to warn you about that."

"I don't mind," Aura assured them. Her tone was that of someone repeating the same words for the dozenth time. "Really, it's all right."

"It's the principle of the thing," Carlos told her, in exactly the same tone.

Traveler frowned through the window at them. "What were you doing hiding eggs by the tracks in the first place?"

"That doesn't have anything to do with it!" Carlos exclaimed indignantly. Starhawk and Traveler exchanged knowing looks.

"Hey, if you're here," Ashley said, looking up from the TV, "where did TJ and Tessa go?"

It was Carlos' and Aura's turn to glance at each other and shrug. "Did they leave?" Carlos asked.

"They went looking for you," Traveler told him.

"Speaking of missing persons, where's Jeff?" Starhawk wanted to know.

Carlos gave her a strange look. "Was he here?"

"No... that's why I'm surprised."

"I think he's still recovering from that whole virtual thing," Ashley offered. "That was a little weird, even for us."

"That hasn't happened yet!" Starhawk protested. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth when Ashley looked at her. "Sorry."

"Are we hunting for Easter eggs now?" Zhane asked, poking his head out of the bedroom.

Kerone looked up from the TV, but Zhane didn't wait for an answer. "Come on!" he said, grabbing her hand with a grin and pulling her up. "Let's go find some candy!"

"Hey!" Ashley objected, scrambling to her feet. "Wait up!"

Zhane just laughed, trying to yank the door shut behind them, but DECA caught it before it could close all the way. "Not so fast," she said calmly, keeping the door open without effort.

"Thanks!" Ashley was right behind Zhane as he gave up and took off, but Andros paused to pull DECA out into the sun with them.

"Here," Starhawk said, handing one of the pipe cleaner stars to Traveler. "Have a star."

"Are you taping these?" Traveler held it against the window by its string. "Rakishly, or non-rakishly?"

"Yes, and mine are going to be rakish," Starhawk answered, taping one of the strings halfway from the end so that it hung down next to the star. "Except for this one," she added, poking the string. It refused to curl. "It's a rebel."

"Rakish and eccentric," Traveler observed, taping hers to the window on the other side. "That's appropriate. Should we wake her up?" she asked, climbing off the sofa and nodding toward Adri.

Starhawk taped up another star, this one with a curly string, and glanced over her shoulder. "Probably not," she said, standing up. "The only thing she needs more than sugar is sleep, so she might as well stay."

"Turn the stereo off?" Traveler suggested.

Starhawk grinned. "I'll just loop that wind song. She won't even notice."

There was a thump from the direction of the bedroom, and a moment later Jetson padded into the living room. He glanced at the open door, then wandered over to lie down at Adri's feet.

"Huh," Starhawk said noncommittally. "He knows who's looking out for him."

"Good. Let's go look out for some Easter eggs."

"Good plan. Hey--nice window, Dude."

"Very," Traveler agreed. "Good job."

"You too."

They closed the door quietly behind them.