Author's note: So this isn't the most exciting first chapter I could have written but I felt it was needed to round some things up from Love & War, as well as to just introduce you to Blue's and Zed's family and home lives.

Please read and review :) xo

6th September 2013

Her new bedroom was light blue; she hated the colour blue. Her new house was up on the ski slopes with acres of woods as a back garden; she was used to either the seclusion of Rosewood Rehabilitation Centre or the busy and noisy street her old house had been on. There was only one other house in the area, belonging to the Benedict family seeing as they owned and ran the ski slopes; she'd never been skiing in her life and the two houses were close together, with only a thin rowan tree separating them, that when she looked out of her bedroom window, she could see straight into a bedroom that had dark blue walls which meant they could see straight into her room. Ugh. Her father and sisters were thrilled with her being home; they were practically smothering her with love and attention, making sure that one of them checked on her every ten minutes as if she were a child incapable of looking after herself.

Blue should have been happy to be home, and she was, kind of... But she was also frightened. Frightened that her therapist was wrong and she wasn't ready to face the world yet. She'd gone to Rosewood in November 2012 and it had felt like a lifetime when she was in there. But she really wouldn't have minded staying longer. What if the pressure of going back to school and dealing with all the gossip and not being in hiding, made the incidents happen again? What if it would be worse this time and she'd go crazy? Due to the loss of her soulfinder, Blue's mother Judith had lost her mind and was now in a psychiatric hospital. And her aunt Nora was a mentally ill murderer. Insanity ran in the family, what if she were next? Nobody would really be surprised, would they? She'd turned seventeen last month- that was still considered young in most places of the world, and she felt too young to be dealing with all this rubbish that was being thrown at her.

She went over to the row of bookcases that covered an entire wall of her bedroom, running her fingers along the spines of one row as a smile grew on her face. Reading was her favourite thing to do, simply for the reason that she could escape from her world and lose herself in somebody else's, becoming close to the characters and getting emotional when something bad happened to them. Elliott had brought all of her books from the old house here along with the books she'd taken to Rosewood, and had even spoilt her by buying at least fifteen new books to occupy her free time.

"I knew you'd like the books," Elliott said from the doorway.

"I do. But you didn't have to spend so much money on me dad," she replied, turning to look at him. Elliott wasn't her biological father but he'd been a dad to her all of her life so she wasn't going to stop calling him dad no matter what happened. "I know that you don't have that much money." Which was the truth. Although Elliott had been proved innocent, his boss had fired him and claimed it would be bad publicity to have him working there. Elliott had looked for other jobs but nobody wanted to associate with someone that had been in prison. Blue had complained about this to Victor Benedict - who had been visiting her since April and now felt like a good friend, or even a big brother, to her - and he'd gone away and talked to his family; he'd got Elliott a job working at the ski slopes but it still didn't bring in that much money. The Benedict family even owned this house and were helping them out by letting Elliott rent it for cheap, having said that savants should help each other out and they thought Elliott was worthy of their help.

"Nonsense," Elliott waved a hand in the air. "I had some money saved up and me and the girls all thought that you deserved a special something as a welcome home gift."

"You mean on top on top of the 'Welcome Home' banners, the balloons, and the buffet of my favourite foods that are downstairs?" Blue raised her eyebrows. She was unhappy about coming home in certain ways, but she couldn't help smiling when she was around her family. They really did make everything seem like it would be okay.

"Of course," Elliott laughed. "Come downstairs, Blue. Don't hide away in your bedroom, we want to spend time with you. Poppy's brought down her Despicable Me DVD, we all know you love that film."

Blue hesitated and awkwardly said, "I think I'd rather just stay up here in my bedroom."

"Blue, you've spent the past ten months or so in a bedroom on your own. You're out of there for a reason: they think you're ready to get back to your old life."

"Well it's not exactly my old life, is it? We're in a new house, mum's in a psychiatric hospital and you've been in prison. I feel like it's not even a good life to come back to," she answered honestly with a sigh. "Part of me feels like I should just go back to Rosewood so I don't have to deal with all these changes. I'm not good with change, dad."

Elliott came over to her and wrapped his arms around her as tears began to spill down her cheeks, surprising Blue as she hadn't even realised she was crying. "But change is good sometimes honey," he said as he let go of her and brushed a tear from her skin. "And I know everything seems like a mess right now but I promise things will get better. We'll make this a good life, okay?" Blue nodded silently. "So. Despicable Me?"

"Sure," she smiled. "As long as I get the marshmallows to myself."

Elliott laughed. "And there's the Blue I remember. Welcome back, princess."

Zed laughed at Xav's joke, the room filled with the laughter of his family too. All of his family were at the house, having the first family meal they had had in months. It was at Karla's insistence that they all turned up today and they all knew they couldn't say no to her. Trace and his wife Georgie had even brought both of their children along with them: Georgie was sat across from Zed, somehow holding and feeding baby Mark - named after Georgie's late father - a bottle with the same hand, while using her free hand to eat her own food, and Gracie was sat next to Zed.

He looked down at the nine year old and saw her frowning at her plate as she moved the food around, taking a bite now and again. "Hey," he bent forward so he was at eye level with her. "What's wrong with you, moody? You should be happy, you're next to me, your favourite uncle."

That usually made Gracie laugh seeing as she didn't have a favourite uncle but liked how they were all competitive over it, but it didn't even get a smile out of her this time. In fact, she didn't even react to his words at all. Trace, who was sat across from Gracie, must have noticed this because he spoke up. "Zed, just leave her be. She's been in a mood all day because we grounded her and won't let her go to her friend's birthday party."

"But everybody's going, it's not fair!" Gracie protested, pouting. "I didn't even mean to hurt Mr Harris. I only thought about it, I wasn't actually going to."

"What did she do?" Zed asked, Gracie's words making him curious. "Who's Mr Harris?"

Georgie answered him. "Mr Harris is our next door neighbour. He has a dog who barks all night long and keeps Mark up so Gracie decided to confront him about it. When he told her that he couldn't do anything to shut his dog up, Gracie used her powers to create a huge gust of wind that knocked him halfway across his garden and he hit his head, getting a bad concussion. We had to make up a lie about freak weather happening around here to explain how that happened."

"Well at least he got rid of the dog because he realised how annoying it was. And I didn't mean to hurt him, it just happened! I didn't even try and use my power," Gracie argued.

"Trace," Yves interrupted, he and the rest of the family now listening to the conversation, "maybe she just needs some help in controlling her gifts. Controlling the elements is a powerful gift, it must be hard to keep control of it. I was the same at her age, grounding her isn't the right thing to do."

"Yves, we're her parents and we decide how to punish her. You may be right and in that case you can give her lessons about control if you don't mind, but she still needs to know that her attitude and behaviour is wrong. End of discussion, okay? Let's talk about something else."

Out of the corner of his eye, Zed saw Victor and Hazel whispering to each other at the end of table, Hazel nudging Victor and him shaking his head. Hazel was a lovely girl, already like a sister to Zed, but it had rather been a mess how she had joined the family. She had been dating Uriel at first, until she found out that Victor was her soulfinder, and she'd eventually moved back to London, where she was from. Victor had gone after her in April though and Hazel had moved into Victor's apartment in Denver. It was still awkward when they were in the room and Uriel was too, but everybody was slowly getting used to it. Zed watched Hazel smile smugly as Victor stood up, leaning on his crutch. After being shot in February, Victor had had a shattered hip and he'd had to have an operation on it- for a while it had been okay, but in May he'd fallen onto the hip whilst doing a job and he'd damaged it again. Now he had to use a crutch for support when he walked and was having physiotherapy sessions. Victor had took it hard, now having to do office work instead of going out on missions like he was used to, but he was putting up with it so he didn't hurt himself even more.

Victor cleared his throat once he was stood straight, drawing the family's attention to him. "Well, I guess that's my cue to change the subject. Plus, Hazel's forcing me to be the one to tell you even though I can't understand why she can't tell you all."

"Oh just tell them," Hazel rolled her eyes. Zed smirked; Victor and Hazel had the kind of relationship where you argued constantly about small things but still loved each other at the end of the day. It was always amusing to see.

Victor smiled and shook his head, the news apparently too important to argue with his girlfriend over. "Okay, okay," he said. "Everybody, we have an announcement to make. Hazel is four months pregnant. With twins."

"Oh!" Karla was the first to respond, jumping from her seat in shock. She moved around the table and pulled Hazel into her arms, kissing her head. "Oh, congratulations! I mean, I'd prefer for you to be married first, but I guess that can come later."

The rest of the family voiced their congratulations' but fell silent when Uriel pushed his chair back and stood up. Zed's eyes widened and he prepared himself to be able to jump up to his feet at a second's notice to stop Uriel if he let his jealousy get the better of him. Looking around, he noticed that the rest of his family were all looking at his brother in the same way too. Uriel was a peaceful and calm guy but he was still a Benedict: everyone in the family could go explosive if they got angry enough. And this was enough to get Uriel angry: it was obvious to them all that he was still in love with Hazel, so he had a reason to get angry over the fact she was pregnant with his brother's babies.

But Uriel surprised them all. He walked over to Victor and clapped his hand on his back, giving him a hug before smiling at both Victor and Hazel. "Congratulations," he said, sounding sincere. "I'm happy for you both, I really am."

Everybody relaxed, breathing sighs of relief and the rest of the meal was eaten with light discussion and a calm environment. Later, Zed was in his bedroom, dropping flakes of fish food into his large fish tank of tropical fish. He'd left his bedroom door open which let Victor walk straight in. "Thanks for knocking," Zed said sarcastically, turning to look at his older brother. "What do you want?"

"Hazel and I are about to head home but I need to talk to you about something first," said Victor, folding his arms over his chest and leaning against the doorframe. "I need you to do a favour for me."

"Depends what it is," he grinned in reply.

"Blue Williamson left Rosewood today. You know that I've been visiting her, someone other than her family for her to talk to. She's a sweet girl Zed, but she's... Vulnerable. She's going back to school on Monday and well, I'm worried about how it'll go for her. Will you look out for her for me? Just make sure nobody gives her tough time."

The last time Zed had seen Bluebell Williamson, she was rather a large girl who used to mope around the school without any friends. Zed knew that she had been bullied, sometimes even by his own friends, but he'd never even spoke to her. He didn't bully people... But he didn't really do anything to stop others from bullying, as bad as that sounded. Back then, he wouldn't have dared talk to the 'biggest loser' in the school as other students had called Blue, because being popular was something he'd always been and he liked it. Talking to her would have effected his popularity status. He knew that made him sound like a complete idiot, but this was his way of surviving high school and it had worked for all of his brothers.

But with Victor asking him to look out for Blue, Zed didn't even consider saying no just for the sake of his popularity. He didn't know why she had been at Rosewood, but he knew about the problems her family had had this year and he felt sorry for her. She didn't deserve to have a tough time at school as well. Plus, Zed wasn't heartless- he would look after anybody that needed it. So he answered Victor by saying: "Of course. I'll definitely look after Blue at school, I won't let anybody give her a tough time. Don't worry, Vick."