Hey everybody! A couple of notes....This story takes place two years after Necropolis, and runs kinda parallel to my other story, which you do not want to read. Trust me, I reread it, and it's horrible. Anyways, what basically happens in the other story is that Jamie reads Matt's mind. Also, this is the modern Gatekeepers, not the other one with Sapling and Flint, but with Scott and Jamie. Does that make any sense? Oh well, just read the story, I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually.....

Matt held his head in his hands. He'd just awoke from yet another nightmare; one he had already dreamt before, but had no desire to repeat. Matt was sixteen now, and had seen more than anybody in the camp, even more than the rest of the five, and he was tired. He was very tired.

"Matt?" He lifted his head into the gaze of a slightly worried, slightly embarrassed Jamie. "Are, um, are you ok?"

Matt nodded. "I'm fine."

Slowly, Jamie nodded back. "Well, they're going to start the meeting in a bout five minutes."

"I'll be there." Matt waited until Jamie had left, the stood up. There was no need to change, nowadays, everybody just slept in their clothes. It was easier in case there was an emergency, and goodness knows there were quite a few of those.

Running his fingers through his hair, he made his was over to the largest tent where they had unofficially placed all their meetings. Matt hid a smile when he saw Pedro waiting outside. It seemed that he'd not been the only one waken from sleep. Pedro looked like he's just rolled out of bed and stumbled on over. 'Then again,' he mused. 'That's exactly what I did.'

"Hey," he said. Pedro started, then he saw it was Matt and relaxed.

"Oh, it's you." Pedro had finally got the hang of English, after about a year and a half, although his accent was still pronounced. He yawned.

"Late night?" Matt asked sympathetically.

"I just woke up a minute ago. What about you?"

Matt shrugged. "Just woke up myself. Nightmare."

Pedro looked at him and started to say something else, but at that moment, Scar poked her head around the tent flap.

"Guys, we're waiting for you two."

Matt exchanged a glance with Pedro, and then slipped inside.

"The Old Ones are gathering on the Eastern Plains," Scott said without preamble. He pointed to the map. "If we come around to the Proclivia Slope, and if we have the element of surprise, then we might be take them down."

"We'll never be able to move our forces in time," Scar objected. "What about the old, and the children? We can't leave them here. The enemy has laid false trails before. How do we know this isn't one of them? We should wait until they come to us."

"That could take months, or years," Jamie piped up. "We should take them by surprise, or at the very least move our camp. We've been here for two months. We need to have the upper hand and we're doing nothing by sitting here."

"But until we can guarantee the enemy being there, I say we wait. This could just be another trap, like last time…." Scar glanced at Matt, who conveniently chose that time to be studying his hands. He remembered the last time all too clearly.

Scott cleared his throat. "But as that may be, we need this chance. We need to decide now, before their armies shift again. Who knows how long they will stay there?"

"Then maybe-"

"I say-"

"Perhaps-"

"We stay." It was the first time Matt had spoken that day, and they all fell silent. "We stay. It's too risky otherwise. See here," he pointed to the map. "If we decide to try and surprise the enemy, they could hide in the Silvae Forest. It's positioned that you can see all that's happening on one side without being able to see on the inside. Or here, by the lake, there's a million hiding spots. And," he showed them where nothing was on the map. "There are caves right there. I would know. But I do agree that we need to move our camp. We're getting too cozy here."

Matt looked up and was relieved to see Scar, Jamie, Pedro, and even Scott nodding.

"Then where do we go?" Pedro asked. They looked at him, a little surprised, as he'd been literally falling asleep at one point.

"Here," Scott pointed to a forest a good day's hike away. "It's far, but not too far for the children and grandparents."

Matt nodded. "I'm fine with that. Any objections? Jamie? Pedro? Scar?"

One by one, they nodded, showing their acceptance, if not approval.

"Good, we'll leave in the morning, as soon as everyone's packed." Scott stood up and left, looking slightly more satisfied. Jamie hesitated, then turned to Matt.

"Come with me for a second." He led the way through the camp, then to the forest on the left and disappeared into it, Matt following carefully behind him. Finally, he stopped and faced him.

"I'm worried about Scott. There are so many emotions in him, some days. I'm afraid he's going to explode or something. And he never confides in anyone. Plus, I don't think he ever recovered from the torture-" Jamie faded, remembering who he was talking to.

Matt nodded. "That's understandable. Torture does that to a person-" he flinched when Jamie placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping abruptly.

"Hey….Matt…are you sure you're ok?"

Matt avoided his eyes. "I'll live."

Jamie shifted awkwardly. "I read your mind." He blurted out.

"WHAT?! When?"

"Almost two years ago. When we were looking for Scar and we were in the cab and passing by your old home." Jamie was rambling aimlessly.

Matt leaned against a tree for support. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Jamie shook his head. "I didn't want you to know. I thought you would judge me…"

"But still," Matt said angrily. "Two years, Jamie. Two freaking years. You had almost seven hundred other days you could've told me."

"I'm sorry, alright?" Jamie pushed himself to his feet. "It was a long time ago, and I was stupid, and naïve. Look, just forget it, ok?"

With those words, he was gone.

Hey again! Glad to see you read it! That makes me very happy... So I have the other half of the story, I just need to type it out, which I might do today. You see, I write all my FF stories down in a little black lifebook/journal, and if I think they're good enough, then they end up on Fanfic.

So what did you think of the story? Of my writing? Any spelling/grammer errors? Please let me know!!