A/N: HOLY FUZZ! It's been soooo long since I've written something for FF! And the first thing I write is this? -_-

Any who, I have reasons! Reasons for why it's been so long! OK, first, school started up, and if that didn't keep me beyond busy, I got really sick a few weeks back. And, to top it all off, my computer won't start :'(

So now I'm stuck using my dad's old laptop (no complaints)! The bad part about my computer not working is that I had the… seventh…? Yeah, seventh chapter of On the Way Down on it, and I can't get to it -_-

I'm working on updating everything I need to on this site, as well as publishing new things (like this thing you're about to read, unless I've bored you). It's gonna take a few days, but I swear I will get it done…. Hopefully.

Disclaimer: They killed Jasmine -_- There's no way in hell I own it

"He's dead."

Chloe's own heartbroken voice resounded in her head as she and Alek morosely shuffled into the San Francisco Cemetery. Chloe held a bouquet of flowers one wouldn't expect to be a bouquet. Amy had told her meanings of flowers a few years back, and it was something that stuck with her.

Clutched tightly in her left hand were pink carnations, meaning "I'll never forget you," cyclamen, meaning "resignation and good-bye," a few large dead leaves, meaning "sadness," purple hyacinths, meaning "I'm sorry" and "Please forgive me" and "sorrow," dark crimson roses, meaning "mourning," sweet peas, meaning "good-bye" and "departure," and mixed zinnia, meaning "Thinking (or in memory) of an absent friend."

The gates slammed shut behind them, creating a horror movie feeling to shoot through her as the thunder cracked. The sky was slowly darkening, warning the Mai couple that if they wanted to stay dry, they could only stay for a short while.

Alek's hand was entwined with her much smaller right one, slightly guiding her throughout the cemetery. When they got to their desired headstone, Chloe kneeled down, dragging Alek with her and making him do the same. She leaned forward and brushed away the dirt that had accumulated since the last time she had been there a year ago.

Slowly, she read the name that used to send a sharp pain into her heart and tears prick into her eyes.

Brian Rezza
Beloved son and friend
1991- 2011

The now twenty-four-year-old Chloe King laid down the bouquet of flowers, directly under the inscription. She smiled softly. It looked better like that.

It had been eight years since the events in the theater. When Amy and Paul had shown up, Chloe was still in shock. Paul made her slide out from under Brian's lifeless body and zip up her jacket to hide the blood that had finally stopped flowing from inside her body and out of her bullet wounds.. Amy was busy calling an ambulance, already setting up a false story.

It wasn't until she was home after slipping past her mom did she snap out of it. When Amy said she was going to call Alek, Chloe snapped and started yelling and crying, begging her not to. Amy consented, but told her she would if she had to.

Chloe was still crying long after Paul and Amy had left. She sat curled in a ball on her bed.

And that was how Alek found her.

He looked tired and worn - clothes torn, cuts on his face, and blood on his shirt, just like her. He walked with a slight limp and his usually bright-as-lightening hazel eyes were dull. His hair looked as if he fought his way through a tornado.

He saw her and ran forward, automatically wrapping an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. Alek let her soak his bare shoulder (the sleeve was torn off) with her tears as she sobbed, eventually falling asleep.

The next morning, Chloe woke up to find herself bundled in a thick blanket and Alek asleep on a chair right next to her bedside. Not having the heart to wake him, she stayed where she was because, knowing him, he'd jerk awake the minute she moved to get up.

Not even twenty minutes later, his eyes fluttered open, the sadness that was present the night before still remaining. It wasn't a look Chloe liked to see on him, but one she had seen on him already. She wanted to make it go away, but, with the way she was feeling, she would only make it worse.

"Chloe…" He said quietly, taking a deep breath, as if preparing to tell her something. "I have some bad news. Last night-"

"I know." Chloe interrupted, her voice as dead as Brian. "Brian's dead."

Alek sighed sadly. "No, Chloe. It's… worse than that. Much worse."

She glared at him. "What could be worse? Brian's dead! And I killed him!"

He returned her glare. "There are much worse things."

"Oh, yeah? Like what?"

"Valentina and Jasmine are dead. I walked in to the apartment to find them murdered. I didn't get there in time to save them, but I was there to… dispose of their killer. You want to know who that was? Hmm? Zane."

At Chloe's disbelieving and shocked look, he continued on furiously, with each word the volume growing until he was practically shouting at her. "That's right. Zane. The same Zane that Jasmine was 'dating'. The same Zane Valentina approved of. The same Zane we all accepted as a friend. The same Zane who, right before I killed him, revealed he was my brother. Can you believe it? My brother, whom I had no idea existed, killed the only family I knew. And now I really have no family left, considering I killed my brother!"

He plopped down onto the edge of her bed, burying his face in his hands. The next words came out muffled. But Chloe could still understand him. "Dead. Every one of them. Dead." His voice broke on the last word, and his shoulders started shaking with silent sobs.

Chloe kicked out of her blanket cocoon and, with great effort, pulled Alek completely onto the bed with her. His head was now buried in her hair, and her cheek was resting on his chest. Her arm was thrown of his shaking stomach and his arms were wrapped around her form.

As what Alek had just ranted finally sunk in, Chloe started crying with him.

It took years for Chloe and Alek to forgive themselves. Alek forgave himself the minute he did it for killing Zane. But he always blamed himself for Jasmine and Valentina's deaths. He continuously thought that if he had gotten there just ten minutes earlier, they would still be alive.

He finally accepted it wasn't his doing. It happened after a shocking person told him that he had no idea it was going on, and that, if he had, he would've gotten there. But there was no way for him to know. And that he had already gotten vengeance for them by killing Zane.

That shocking person had been Paul.

Alek's epiphany couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Chloe was slowly sinking deeper and deeper into a depression, just barely being able to fight off the numerous amounts of Order creeps trying to kill her for killing Brian. They were constantly reminding her of what she had done, making her depression worse.

Alek spent a few months trying to nicely bring her out of her depression, but, when that failed to work, he yanked her out of it, being there to catch her as she was yanked back into the real world.

"Chloe!"

She slowly raised her head as she heard that all-too-familiar British accent. He was quickly making his way across her roof to where she was sitting.

"What?" She asked with no emotion.

"You didn't kill Brian."

She winced at the name. "Yeah, I did."

"No, you didn't. You can try to find a way to place the blame on yourself, but it's not going to work."

"It doesn't need to work." She cried. "I kissed him, and now he's dead. It's my fault!"

"No it isn't! You didn't kiss him. You've done all you could possibly do to prevent that from happening. And when it did, you were almost dead and couldn't stop him! Now, I'm not saying it's his fault. It's because of the Mai curse that this happened. If you want to place blame on something, place it on that."

After that night, Chloe kept replaying Alek's words in her head. It took only a week for her to realize that he was right. She shouldn't blame herself.

Alek didn't try to pursue her anymore, thankfully realizing she needed more time than any one guy should have to give a girl. But Alek didn't date anyone – he just stood faithfully by her side. In the end, it was Chloe that ultimately asked Alek out.

She realized soon after it wasn't her fault that she was never really in love with Brian; she was in love with the idea of him, the idea of normalcy. She loved that he made her feel human, not some part cat freak that belonged in a circus show. She liked him as friend. That and only that.

It was only when Alek accepted that Chloe was completely and utterly over Brian that he gave in to her advances, going with her, Amy, and Paul to a carnival, much like the one they went to when it was the four of them with Jasmine and Zane.

As they reached the legal drinking age of twenty-one, Paul and Amy were on break and Chloe and Alek were still going strong. Chloe was down to five lives, and, now at a normal state of mind, able to fend off any other PO-ed Order members.

They attended the same college and were sharing a small apartment a little way away from it. Meredith King wasn't too thrilled when they told her, but knowing that Chloe would be safer with Alek around (they had told her about the Mai sometime after Chloe returned to normal), she eventually gave them her blessing, so long as they "didn't make her a grandmother at such a young age."

Alek proposed to her the morning after their graduation. He didn't make a big deal out of it, casually sneaking the ring on her hand before getting down on one knee and asking her. She answered 'yes' immediately.

They were married the next year in fall, with bright red, buttery yellow, fiery orange and chocolate brown leaves surrounding them. The wedding was small, only a few friends and family coming to it. Their honeymoon was spent in Italy.

Amy and Paul married shortly after they came back to San Fran. The wedding was much bigger than theirs, but that was because of Paul's huge family. Paul and Amy were now expecting.

When they first started college, Chloe finally worked up the nerve to visit Brian's grave. She went on the day five people died. Alek went with her, but he was so quiet it was as if she was there on her own. He made no comment as she spent an hour and a half talking to Brian's grave, apologizing for his death. Not for causing it, but for it happening.

She and Alek made it a tradition. On the day their friends and family died, they would go to the theater, then to Valentina's old apartment (Alek moved out shortly after their deaths, the memories being too much), then to Valentina's and Jasmine's graves, and then the end of their day was spent at Brian's.

Just like the first time, Alek crouched slightly behind her as she silently spoke to Brian. He still never said anything. Their visit was much, much shorter than their first one had been, thanks to the rain. They rushed out as fast as they could without disrespecting the graves of other peoples' loved ones.

And now they were curled up on the couch of their small apartment, the TV on but not being watched. The packed boxes all around them made the room much bigger than it had been. Every once and a while, Alek would kiss her temple, her forehead, her cheek, or her nose. She smiled every time he did.

A piercing cry rang out. Alek moved to get up, but Chloe murmured. "I've got it."

She hurried into a small room and over to a white crib where the crying was coming from. She picked up a small baby, with Alek's hair and nose and with Chloe's mouth and eyes. Chloe gently rocked the child back to sleep.

Laying the kid back into the crib, she tucked him in. Leaning down she kissed him on the head. She took a few steps back and just looked at him for a minute. She murmured something to him and left, quietly shutting the door behind her.

"Goodnight, Brian."

A/N: Aaaaannnndddd that's all folks! There's my one-shot! Could've been a lot better, but so could everything I've written. In reviews (if you leave them), tell me which story I should update first, or if I should publish something new. Either way, I'm doin' both. I just need help on which to do first ;P

Because I may or may not listen to them ;)

Ok, I'm gonna go now…. I mean it… I'm leaving…

Don't believe me?

WELL!