Hi readers! Thank you for stumbling onto this fic! This is an AU story so the characters are very OCC but the characters we all know and love will definitely be coming in from time to time. Anyway I hope you enjoy it! :)

Hello.

I'm not too sure where to start, seeing as I'm not sure what to call you, in fact it's taken me a while to even decide on "hello" seeing as we hardly know each other. Or don't at all. If it makes you feel any better if Mrs. Henderson has her way, (and she always does), I'll soon be greeting you with "my most wonderful friend" or whatever the informal significant is. For now I'll greet you the way I find most appropriate, and carry on the way I began, because it's common knowledge that changing along the way only irritates and annoys; it causes more problems than it's worth so I tend to carry on the way I always have. So here it is; a formal introduction; the most appropriate greeting.

In school we've been learning to use a thesaurus as often as possible and yet I'm not too sure how the words I've come to know can be used in everyday conversation, or, how using them would result in anything more than my partner in conversation to pull out their own thesaurus so that they can fully understand. In my mind the whole thing seems a total waste of time which I'd rather spend doing other things. Recently I've had reason to question whether in fact it is as pointless as it seems, though I guess that at least when I write to you I can use the language I've learnt without worry, you are, after all, only a stranger.

I'm not sure what to tell you really. I doubt you'd care for my name as it means little more than a title to call me by... And if all goes well you won't need to know me by so little as a word. And seeing as I've already messed up the introducing part of this letter I see little point in redeeming myself now.

I can tell you that I'm a lover of classic rock and chocolate chip cookies and that'd tell you a lot more than my name would. So that's me, the stranger who loves good music and sweet deserts. I'd prefer it if you knew me so simply rather than with a defining one worded name that means nothing. You'd probably also like to know that I like my words to mean something even if no one reads. Which is why I even agreed to write to you, no offence.

You see most people I know are strangers. Most people I don't know are too. I'd like to know someone; I'd like to know what makes them laugh and what makes them cry; I'd like to find someone who won't change through time. And who won't leave me. I figured if you're never really here you can never really leave... Sometimes I wonder why we risk life for death, when it could all be over in a heartbeat. You probably think I'm dead depressing, but the fact is that I have reason to be, maybe one day I'll have reason to believe life is more than a beginning and an end; written in black and white. I hope there's more than what I know, but I won't think it that way when there's no reason to.

Oh right, I forgot to tell you why I'm writing this... Well it's a long story actually. One which I'd love to tell but that'd waste far too much ink. So I'll just say that it was my social worker Mrs. Henderson's idea.

You see I'm only telling you her name because there's little else to say. She's a particular old woman; round faced with pointedly beady eyes that I still can't work out the colour of, and though she smiles a slightly yellow grimace I don't know who she's kidding... Even her equally sour faced colleagues can see past her lies, though they're either too scared or too selfish to care.

Her round cheeks glow a desperate crimson, as if she's constantly embarrassed... perhaps by her dress sense, which is the most ridiculous of sorts; dreary, tired colours that show no remnants of life hang lifelessly on her shapeless form, almost as sad to be worn as they are to be seen. I'm pretty sure she gets dressed in the dark and some days I pray to god she does and that's not just what she chooses to wear...

She talks about rock&roll and "The King" as if she's a close friend of the fifties, (though I doubt she has any other friends...), and as if time has not in fact moved on simply because she won't... Because I'm sure it must be easier to tell herself that she is in fact still a girl and not a discreetly aged prune, (I'm sure more wrinkles lie beneath layers of coloured powder), and that if she turns on the radio she'll hear "rock around the clock" and not some annoying pop number I'm sure I've heard at least a thousand times today... (Like I said I'm more one for classic rock). But that's not the truth; I'm sure she knows that deep down and that's why she chooses to help people like me, teenagers whose pitiful lives make hers seem just a little bit less tragic.

She's one of those people who need an entire page of description, or her definitive name. Like I said; she's a particular old woman.

It was this grimacing hag who suggested I write to you; she said I needed to better my communication skills and in doing so express myself creativity, (simply because I accidentally set the shed on fire she thinks I'm a "troubled child"). She suggested I fill in the address randomly and send the letter to have "fun"... She even said she'd pay for the stamps... And so here I am, sat in the only quiet spot in this crumbling house, or out of this crumbling house; under the old sycamore tree and the darkening sky, breaking rule number one of any person's childhood; talking to strangers. But you see I'm not any person; I'm this person; with a childhood so deranged it missed the basics of care and sense.

However I see little pleasure in writing to someone who won't read my words. Or who will but won't see them; I see as much point in that as in the useless words I discovered in the thesaurus. And I see nothing as random anyway so it's pointless to say the word for the sake of this letter. I sent it anyway, or I will have by the time you read this, but I'm sure that goes without saying. Because like I said I'd rather write something meaningful with no one to read than say something useless to a crowd of roaring fans, (as many of the people I know choose to do; in this I find teachers much like those they teach: most seem not to care what rubbish falls from their lips if it's gathered by a listener with admiration in their stare).

I'm sure at least that there's one person who's different; that there's one person who won't listen, because they hear me loud and clear. I know that if you're that someone you'll be worth this letter and a thousand others, whoever you are, wherever you are; you might be closer than I know but this is the one way to find out. Because I know if you hear me you're worth every drop of wasted ink and every useless word I can never use; because right now I just need someone to listen, and I need someone to hear.

I guess in a way I've always been stranded on an dessert island, and finally I'm sending the world signals of distress, and hoping hopelessly that this bottled letter will be a loud enough cry for help, but knowing its more likely the world's as deaf as they are blind.

Because most people aren't like me. I'm not especially special, or maybe that's what makes me so. Whoever I am I'm no one you haven't met before. But we just don't know each other that well yet.

So I guess a good place to start is... With an appropriate greeting, disrupted in a way that's so familiar this could be home; finally,

Hello stranger.

"You know smoking is bad for you..." A soft voice interrupted my thoughts and the yellow lighter I'd been toying with the idea of putting to use, fell from my hand in a second of panic.
A mumble of incoherent curses tumbled from my lips and I turned to glare at the old tree tiredly, finding nothing more than the faces of ageing green leaves amongst branches that weave and wind in a dance so crazy, that the tree is simply impossible to climb. I sighed to myself, thinking the sound an echo of my continence and reached back down to retrieve my lighter from the ground when the unmistakable sound of rustling leaves caused me spin on the stop and stare back at the spectacle of stillness expectantly.

Just when I decided that I was in fact losing it a sweet voice drifted through the air: "you know people who swear only use the words they do because they don't have the vocabulary to use more intelligent adjectives."

I studied the angled face of the girl surrounded by a thousand thick leaves; her features were soft and gentle, her large eyes more gold than brown, and rimmed with a thick outline of black. Her hair was a mess of wild red curls that framed her delicate features in the most unruly way. But what was even more strange about the petite girl sat comfortably in the looming, ageing tree, was her choice of clothing; her small frame was wrapped in what looked like a hand knitted dress of emerald and jade; her legs dressed in thick yellow fishnet tights, and balancing haphazardly on top of curls that seemed to spill endlessly past her shoulders in relentless waterfall of red, was a purple fez.

The girl jumped from the tall tree with the kind of grace one would expect from a worldwide ballet dancer, and not an oddly dressed girl in a children's home, and took an even step towards me as I willingly forgot the lighter I'd left on the ground. A soft breeze ruffled her red ringlets softly, an air of sweet cherry and warming cinnamon floating ceremoniously in the light wind. One black tipped hand reached out to brush the silky red hair from her eyes, and I met her soft stare with my own when she grinned wildly and said: "Just in case you were too busy perfecting your skilful grasp on the English language to notice, I thought I'd let you know that the shed is on fire."

Before I had a chance to reply, although I don't know what I'd have said, she left abruptly, stepping lightly in her worn dock martins, allowing me to turn to the rapidly burning shed in panic, before she glance back for a fleeting second and called "I'm Emma, by the way."

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