From the Author: The rights to the concept and game of the Sims 2 is held by Maxis. Therefore, I can only write this by saying "Made with the Sims 2" up front. Enjoy!

The following is a true story.
The events portrayed in this story are real, only slightly exaggerated,
and happened to real Sims, real virtual people.
Did I mention that the story was real, true,
and altered in only the slightest (well, maybe a little more than that)?
Thank you.

Chapter 1

Jamie lied in his bed, tossing and turning, his messy blonde hair tangling up as it rubbed back and forth across the pillow. Patchy looked up from the floor, his tail wagging, a hopeful look on his long face. Jamie spun back over to face the wall of the bedroom again. Patchy whimpered, lowering his head to his paws again, waiting for Jamie to awaken.

Through the kitchen door, a phone rang. Patchy's head sprang up to listen to the ring of the phone. Half way through the third ring, the phone stopped as it was picked up. A man's voice could be heard answering on the other side of the door. Patchy excitedly jumped up and moved to the door. The golden colored dog looked back at Jamie's restless figure one last time before he pushed through the door with his snout.

Jamie, meanwhile, spun in his bed. He was sitting on the floor of the bedroom, Patchy at his knee. His hand stroked the dog's nose as he listened to the angry words flying through the bedroom door.

"Why are you so concerned about the way I run things?!"

"Why do you care?! He's not just your son!!"

Jamie flinched, rolling over in bed, as Patchy whimpered at his knee. Jamie put his finger to his lips to shush the dog, though the yelling rang loud and clear over the whimpering.

"I don't see what the big DEAL is!! I just want—!!"

"You are trying to take OVER, Aren't you?!"

"What on earth are you talking about?!"

"I want nothing to do with you!!"

"JACOB!! Be Reasonable!! The house is a mess and Jamie is—!!"

"OUT!! GET OUT!!"

Silence reigned. Jamie could hear his own rattled breathing dominating the room. Jamie spun over and threw his pillow over his head as the quiet words of his mother floated through the kitchen door.

"what?"

"Get OUT! NOW!!"

"Jacob you can't—"

"I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE, NANCY!!!! NOW GET THE HELL OUT!!!!"

Jamie's voice was horse, his muscles stiff. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe. "no…" Patchy looked up from his knee with a questioning look.

"Fine…" the female voice said from the other side of the door. The voice was also horse, a raspy and sad quality detectable in it. "Fine…" she said again, "I'll—I'll leave…"

"No…" Jamie's voice was louder now. Jamie tossed the sheets off him as Patchy's ears drooped, the word coming to his understanding finally.

"GOOD!!" his father's voice called after the click of heels approaching the door. The bedroom door burst open and Jamie's mother pranced into the room, her eyes red and puffy. Jamie could still picture it clearly. A picture perfect image, made crystal clear by the lightning flash that lit up the house at that very moment. Nancy was wearing a red dress with a suggestive cleavage line. Her long blonde hair was mangled and wet from tears. Her red, four-inch heels sank into the carpet of the bedroom. A silver bracelet upon her wrist shone in the lightning, and a gold ring around her finger glimmered in the dim lights filtering from the kitchen.

She paced into the bedroom and grabbed a few things from the armoire. She slung it into a bag and turned around. Only then did she see Jamie, stone-faced and frozen, sitting cross-legged upon the floor in his blue, bear-patterned pajamas. Jamie's mother stared at him for a short while, a pleading look in her eyes, as if to apologize for all the grief and all the misery she had caused him. She flinched, almost taking a step towards him, but she didn't move further. She took a ragged breath, like she was about to say something, but her words got caught in her throat.

Then, as if deciding finally on what to do, she reached with her right hand to her left hand and pulled the shiny round golden ring off her finger. She tossed it onto the pillow on the bed beside her and then moved out of the bedroom, her neck stiff with the strain of trying not to look at her son.

Something snapped inside Jamie's mind, Jamie himself rolling in his bed, and he finally found the strength to jump up. He chased after her as she went through the house, the sound of his father yelling in the background filling his ears. She went through the kitchen, around a table, through the bathroom and straight into the living room. She rounded the TV, across the bedroom again, through the backyard and a long hallway and out the front door into the rain and snow, the clear sky shimmering menacingly from above. Jamie was hot on her heels all along the way, crying and screaming for her to come back. The front door slammed in his face and he got up on the toy box in front of him to look out the window at her walking down the walkway, passing his bedroom window as she went, the howling wind and blowing leaves flying through her hair as she left, walking down the sidewalk, stepping through snow and puddles of rain water, lightning flashing around her, arching over head. Jamie screamed and screamed for her to come back. His father's voice got louder and closer, closer and louder. He was screaming at the winds, the wife, the sun, and his Jamie, mad at everything, chewing and spitting everything like a monster come to feast at the Heorot. Jamie screamed for his mother to return and Jacob's rough hand reached forward and grabbed his arm, shaking him to stop screaming, "Jamie!", stop screaming, "Jamie!", quit screaming or I'll, "Jamie! Wake up!"

Jamie lashed out and suddenly he was two years older in his bed, the morning light rolling into the bedroom from the window somewhere above him. He looked up at the blank ceiling, finding the crack line in the ceiling that he traced every morning.

"Jamie!"

Jamie's head snapped to his left and found the happy face of his father, Jacob, above him. His blonde hair and prominent chin were lined with good news, his smile stretching from ear to ear.

"I got it!" Jacob said excitedly, his careful hand that was still holding Jamie's shoulder shaking him in excitement.

"Got it?" Jamie replied slowly. He tried to reach up to wipe his eyes of his tears, but found that he had somehow managed to tangle himself in his sheets.

"Yeah, squirt!" Jacob replied affectionately, "I got the job!"

Jamie managed to pull his one arm out of his sheets. He wiped his eyes and replied, "Which job?"

"The adventure job! I'm an intern to the ambassador! I got the job just now! They called just this morning!"

Jamie blinked. "That's… that's great!" He managed. His dad was positively beaming.

"I'm making us breakfast! Com'on, the toaster pastries are almost finished!" At that moment, the oven's timer could be heard from the kitchen, through the bedroom door. Jacob waved for Jamie to come as he rushed excitedly out the door. Jamie swore that if his father had been any happier, he would be clicking his heals together as he walked.

Jamie sat up with some difficulty. The sheets tangled about him felt warm and snug, a far cry from the dream he had felt minutes ago. He looked around the dismal bedroom. His bed was against the front wall, on the opposite side of the room from the double bed that his father slept in. The walls were cracked here and there and the carpet had a second layer made of dog hair, drink stains, and scattered toys. His toy box sat at the foot of his bed, the front bedroom window above it. The armoire hadn't moved since the day his mother left and still sat next to the double bed, full of Jamie and Jacob's clothing.

His sheets hugged him tight, as if to embrace him and comfort him from the terrors of the night. His right arm dangled free from the constraints of the sheets. With it, he leaned over behind the headboard into a little niche he built himself. From there, he grabbed the golden ring. The small gold band wasn't nearly as shiny as it once was; all the groping and touching he's done to it over the two years long ago wiped the shimmer it once had. He looked at the ring, examined it with a keen eye.

A tear fell onto it.

Just then, the bedroom door was pushed open and Patchy moved inside. Jamie looked sadly at the dog, who panted back happily.

"Toaster Pastries, huh Patchy?" Jamie said, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his green, duckie-covered pajamas, "that sounds like a… a real grand and fancy breakfast…"

Patchy looked apologetically at Jamie as he attempted to unravel himself from his sheets, the gold band still clutched in his clammy hand.

From the Author: Hello, everyone. I'm sure all of you who came to this story from an alert know me from my Harry Potter fanfic. The sequel to that is halfway done, but this thing called college got in the way (not to mention a writer's block – hmm… two patronuses or one?). This story is less "research intensive", so it is easier to write in the mean time.

Anyhow, this story is based upon a family of mine from the Sims 2. You will see quips about the game in this story (and maybe a hint or two). This story is based entirely on events from the game (obviously exaggerated) and if a basis for it didn't happen in the game, it can't happen in this story. Granted, some things are made up, but that's creative liberties at work.

Enjoy, and please review!