Soon enough, Andie was sitting in her living room with Bane and the girls.

"Where's Zarias?" Isabelle asked.

Jessica and Andie cast her a surprised glance.

"At home," Bane said. "He said he had a headache."

"Not much point in him coming anyway, really," Andie put in, mainly to distract them from Isabelle's question. "He's not going to college."

"Speaking of, do you know what will happen when you leave, Bane?" Emily asked. "Will he stay at your uncle's?"

"I don't know..." Bane admitted. "We haven't really discussed it. We don't talk much about anything, really."

"Anyway, we're not here to talk about him,' Jessica said huffily, dropping a pile of papers loudly on the table.

"Hey, easy, this table is worth a lot!" Andie said.

Jessica ignored her.

"Well, I know where I'm starting. Princeton, here I come."

"You know, I don't think you should stick to Princeton." Isabelle said.

"I want to go to Princeton, I'm applying there," Jessica shrugged. "What's wrong with that?"

"What I mean is," Isabelle replied patiently, "What if, for whatever reason, you don't get into Princeton? Or the tuition's too high?"

"I'll figure something out," Jessica answered with a shrug, but they could see the concern seeping into her eyes.

"We know you will, but she's right," Andie intervened. "You should consider other options. There are tons of great schools."

Jessica sighed.

"Yeah, you're probably right... okay, show me your brochures..."

And she began browsing through them. Satisfied, Isabelle turned to Emily.

"How's yours coming, Em?"

"Oh, I have about five schools in mind with fashion design programs. I hope I get into at least one..."

"Of course you will," Andie smiled. "What about you, Izzie? What are you aiming for? Harvard, Yale? Stanford?"

"They're all on my list," Isabelle admitted. "But a smaller school would be a possibility, as well. You know, if I didn't get in to my first choices."

"Nonsense, I'm sure the Ivy League will be dying to get you to enroll."

Isabelle smiled.

"What about you two?" she asked. "You figured out what you want to do?"

Bane leaned back, his arm loosely hanging over the sofa behind Andie.

"I've been considering more and more seriously going to art school, actually." he said. "Columbia University has a good art program, for example."

"You would look at the one school that's all the way across the country!" Andie laughed.

"I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and drawing's what I feel most passionate about."

"Really? I'd pegged you more for a trainer of some sort," Emily said.

"Oh, no, I've had enough training, thanks!" Bane chuckled. "I think I'd like a quieter profession, honestly."

"You and me both!" Andie said.

"So, you thinking of going to college together?"

Andie and Bane looked at each other.

"I figure the best thing to do is let the schools decide," Bane said. "If one of them accepts us both, we will. If not... we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Andie glanced curiously at him. Honestly, she hadn't even thought of doing it that way. But it was the best solution, now that she thought about it. No matter which way she looked at it, she would never be certain of the decision until she took one, and then it might be too late. Hopefully, "fate", if there was such a thing, would help them just a bit. They'd earned it, hadn't they?

"Is that okay, Andie? You don't look too sure..." Bane said, tugging her back to reality.

"Oh, uh... no, I'm fine with it. I just hadn't thought of that."

"Any idea what you want to study, Andie?" Isabelle asked.

Andie sighed.

"Not really..."

Bane put his arm around her.

"Don't worry, we'll work it out together."

It took most of the day, but by dinner time, they had finished most of their applications. It was getting late, so they decided to call it a night and finish later, but it had been a pretty productive day. Emily was aiming for several schools that offered fashion designing classes, Isabelle had applied to more schools than the rest of them combined, and still had half her list to go through. Jessica had focused on perfecting her Princeton application, but had three alternatives, just in case. Bane had prepared applications to send to all the best art schools in the country.

As for Andie, she was going to follow Bane's lead, except for one thing. She'd not specified any major yet. She couldn't decide. Of course, she knew she had to, but she still had a little time to think about it. No use panicking yet... When her friends had left, she spread out the various brochures on the coffee table in front of her, hoping maybe one of them would inspire her. They all were good schools, but Andie still couldn't figure out what she wanted to do. Her chin resting on her hand, her cat on her lap, she sighed. After a while, she heard the door open.

"Honey, we're home!" came Hank's voice.

"Hey, guys, I made some tea, d'you want some?"

"Oh, that sounds perfect," Lauren said tiredly.

"I'll go get it. I can put some leftovers in the microwave if you're hungry," she added.

"Thanks, sweetheart, but we're fine. We ate at the office." Hank told her.

So Andie simply brought a tray of tea with a plate of cookies. Hannah had gone to bed a little earlier. Or in fact, a lot earlier, Andie saw when she glanced at the clock.

"You're home late, are your cases not going well?" Andie asked.

"No, we simply needed to fine tune our strategies," Hank told her. "It just took us longer than we had planned."

"You'll work it out," Andie said confidently. "You always do."

Stella came back and hopped on Andie's lap again. Andie smiled and stroked her absently.

"How are your applications coming?" Lauren asked as she sipped her Darjeeling.

Andie sighed. Or groaned. Unless it was mixture of both.

"Not as well as I'd hoped," she said. "I filled in all the forms, started outlining the various essays... but I can't figure out which major I want to pursue."

"Well, you know my point of view," Hank said.

"And I knew I wanted to be a lawyer when I was eight, so I'm not sure I can help much, unfortunately," Lauren added.

Andie stifled a yawn.

"Maybe a good night's sleep will give me some clues..." she said.

"Can't hurt to try," Hank said, smiling fondly. "You go to bed."

"Night, Mom, night Dad," Andie said.

"Night, honey."

So Andie picked up Stella, and carried her up to her room, where she fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.