A/N: Just a quick update for those people who read the first chapter, it looked like quite a few were giving it a go and the process of rewriting is going surprisingly smoothly now that everything is in place. The updates should come fairly regularly (I've already nearly finished three and might have time to start working on four tommorow).

Minor update here: This chapter was mainly inspired by a piece of fanart done by Marco (or SimpReal) of Simpsons Realities (. c o m) and LTS. It is titled "Sanctuary" (thus the chapter name) that he did several years ago. I tried to fit as many details from this drawing into the narrative as I could, see if you can notice them all. If you want to see it check out, here is a link to where it is officially posted:

h t t p : / / r e a l i t i e s . s i m p w o r k s . c o m / i m a g e / 4 0 5


Chapter Two: Sanctuaries

Lisa sat on her bed, blinking away the burning shame of letting her brother get the best of her while a solid lump formed in her throat around the base of her neck. She choked it back with an inaudible effort. Bart's words had hit hard. As she sat ruminating, slowly Lisa came to realize that she wasn't upset with Bart. (Well, maybe a little.) She was angry at herself for being unable to control herself better lately. This outburst was not the first she had fallen prone to, but up till now she could hide it behind a calm facade until she was alone. It also frustrated her immensely that she couldn't refute Bart's claims. Mostly because, deep down, she knew he was right.

Outside, the evening sky darkened prematurely as thick roiling cloouds quickly massed for what was bound to be an epic storm. Deep inside herself, Lisa couldn't be bothered enough to get up and close her open window. Good, she thought darkly, I could use a nice cleansing rain.

Instead, she scanned her room with new eyes and saw just how empty it really was. It was true, she noted, there was nothing to reflect her personal life except for the meticulously maintained medals and trophies she'd chosen to pursue rather than a real, active social life. Lisa had her reasons, everyone did. People bored her, she would argue sometimes. People could fail was another favorite, but there was nothing she could do about that. These awards, though, represented the one thing she had come to rely upon over the years, herself. Lisa prided herself on her accomplishments because no one could take them away from her. Even if a friend were to do something terrible and hurt her, even accidentally, Lisa always had herself to fall back on. That might sound selfish but, realistically, everyone did it.

Now, however, the hollowness of those small victories assaulted her and she was forced to balefully tear her eyes from them before their mocking gleam became too much. These awards would never be able to say anything to her but 'Good job!' or 'Congratulations, you were the best!'. Not exactly what she had in mind for a comforting friend. When the chips were down, there really was no one she could turn to for help except her family and maybe Allison. And even she would be taken away after she found out that Lisa was going to advance ahead of her starting Freshman year. All she really wanted was true companionship, a bond with another person that she could reliably fall back on. Okay, her mother and father were there for her, but she desperately sought acceptance from someone her own age. Bart didn't count, he only seemed to exacerbate the problem recently. Alex and Janey might fit the bill, but they too had proven themselves to be human over the years. A cute boy or fancy accessory would have them disappearing before you could even turn around to tell them 'stop'.

'Allison.' Her best friend's name rang through her head again. She remembered when they met back in the second grade and she was so upset with the girl for showing her up at every turn. Eventually she sunk to the lowest common denominator and asked Bart for help and he set it up so they could sabotage the diorama competition, but in the end she wasn't able to go through with it and ruined her chance to make a fool out of Allison. She remembered that even had she not interfered, her classmate Ralph Wiggum would have won because of their principal's overly fond disposition for original Star Wars figurines. After the competition she and Allison had spoken, had a good laugh over the circumstances and Lisa was forgiven for her actions. They'd walked home with an enthusiastic Ralph who managed to break one of his prize-winning figures. It was the teamwork between Allison and her that allowed them to fix Chewbacca for poor Ralph and that was when they came to the realization that they really made a good team. It had been a blast since then, but over the years Allison's personality slowly changed and they had been drifting apart for quite a while. Lisa was afraid she would lose her friend to the same materialistic obsessions as she often did with Alex and Janey.

She looked up from her knees for a moment and tried to find at least one picture of her with her friends that was not also attached to a newspaper clipping, but failed. Suddenly, sitting alone in her room, even surrounded by the familiar settings of her home and knowing that the other four members of her family were only a few moments away, Lisa was set upon by a vast sense of isolation. It seemed to her as if she was destined to be stuck in this rut forever.

Lisa's eyes finally settled on the one thing in her room that radiated any kind of warmth, her desk. For years she'd retreated there to lick her wounds after a fight or pour her soul out into her diary where she could hide it from all the eyes in the world. She even practiced her saxophone in front of the mirror that sat on top of it.

Sluggishly she got up and wandered over to the desk, her final sanctuary. In the peripheral reaches of her mind Lisa dimly registered the gathering strength of the storm outside, making the air positively crackle with it's pre-rain excitement.

*******

Maggie watched her sister's self-inflicted torment from her lofty perch in the old tree house above the back yard. The longer she sat, the less she found she sympathized with Lisa. Her overridding thought being, 'C'mon Lisa, you're stronger than this!' Presently, however, that was being muted as she considered if, in fact, Lisa was.

Looking up at the angry blackish-yellow sky, Maggie sighed and found that she could watch no longer. It was one thing to be fed up with her sister's behaviour, but another to be spying on her while she did it. She reached into a pocket in her well-worn jeans to extract a faded yellow note as the heavens opened before her and rain began to fall in earnest. The pleasantly looping style that the words were written in had always intrigued her, as they were not at all like her sister's handwriting.

She stood for a long time reading the four simple words over and over.

'You are Lisa Simpson.'

Maggie had secreted it from her sister's room months ago after discovering it in the back of Lisa's desk during a bout of curiosity. The very desk she could now see Lisa hunched over, tears pouring down her face in a macabre reflection of the outside world.

Those words were a blazing omen of the distance she could now see seperated her from Lisa. The answer to her confusion was suddenly and undeniably etched into her mind as clearly as the words on the scrap of paper in her hand. Her hand shook slightly as she looked at it again and she decided she didn't need to know who it was from.

"No," Maggie admitted with a note of profound understanding. "I'm not."

A stiff wind caught her off guard at that moment of revelation and claimed the note from her weakened grip, whipping it outside to the mercy of the storm. Maggie watched it disappear, then turned and retreated into a corner of the creaking shack where she lit her old camp lantern, a hand-me-down from Bart's Jr. Camper days. It soon burned fiercely against the gathering darkness and growing strength of the storm. A slight tickle of fear entered her mind as she recalled how bad the storms around here could get in a hurry and she decided to get back inside.

"I'm sorry, Lisa." She mumbled before scrambling down the rickety wooden planks nailed to the trunk of the tree and jumping down to skip the last four as she'd watched her siblings do countless times. Her mother stood at the open doorway admonishing Maggie for the slight risk taken, all the while wearing a kind smile. She grinned back and sprinted the short distance before the door closed behind her.

*******

Lisa found little solace at the desk. Flicking on the small lamp, she frantically opened the drawers and searched them for some tiny bit of evidence she actually had friends. She realized she was losing control again and took a deep breath before sitting down to help calm herself. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted her diary laying next to her computer keyboard. After paging through it for several minutes she gave up and, in frustration, tore several pages from it and hurled them out the open window.

"Why?" she sobbed at her reflection. "Why do I have to be so alone? W- what am I doing wrong?"

Lisa took a mental inventory of all the friends she'd made and lost over the years and realized she could probably count them on both hands. It didn't take long to arrive at the one loss that hurt the most, her mentor and idol, Bleeding Gums Murphy. How she wished she could talk to him now!

'No,' Lisa chastised herself for her weakness. 'He's gone, long gone. Don't do this to yourself.'

But the fleeting memory of the only other soul on the planet she'd ever connected to did it's damage and Lisa's calm fell apart like a house of cards. Before she knew it she was crying out at the world for the terrible place she perceived it to be. Whorls of pent up anger, desperation and even a little pride contstricted around her mind and sent her spinning into a confused descent. At the last moment she caught herself, once again, and pulled back with a scream from the brink that many teenagers don't have the presence of mind to avoid.

The wind outside intensified to match her howl of anguish and the curtain over her window billowed inwards, momentarily obscuring Lisa's view of the mirror. As the curtain slowly drifted away Lisa noticed a small sheet of paper stuck to the mirror. Her reason screamed in denial of what she was looking at.

'You are Lisa Simpson.'

"No..." Lisa squeaked. She'd lost 'that' years ago. "That's... not possible..."

Slowly, Lisa reached up and touched the rain-spattered relic of her early childhood. 'It's real?!' Her rational side told her to run, but her instincts told her this was too important to ignore. She delicately peeled it from the mirror and clutched it in both hands, recalling for the first time in years the circumstances under which another friend she'd nearly forgotten had given her this same note.

Mr. Bergstrom, the measure to which Lisa held herself up to as an academic. He had only been a part of her life for a few fleeting days but her favorite teacher still managed to leave an indelible impression on her. Even now, years later, alone in her room and staring at the vote of confidence he had once given her, Lisa felt as though he was still right here. In her head she could see him silently encouraging her to nurture and cherish the gifts she was blessed with, not waste her efforts feeling sorry for herself and foolishly spoiling any chance she might have at happiness with others. She realized she should focus more on sharing her talents with others than pursuing selfish endeavors.

Despite how bad she felt only moments before, Lisa couldn't help but smile weakly at the insanity of her previous line of thought. She was only thirteen for crying out loud. There was plenty of time for her to pull her act together and meet new people. Even if things didn't work out with her current friends there were plenty of others out there. Heck, her acquaintances from college told her that that was where all the real action was in any case. Whatever that meant.

She swallowed hard and held the faded note to her chest, letting the warm sensation bloom and spread throughout her entire body for what seemed like the first time in ages.

"Thank you." Lisa whispered, finally finding the center of peace and wellbeing she hadn't really noticed were missing until after they returned. She was ready for what life had to throw at her, she knew that now. The worries and burdens felt insignifigant next to the swelling pride and confidence in her abilities that were inspired by those four simple words.

Lisa looked into her mirror once more and, finally happy with what she saw there, wiped away the tears only to replace them with fresh ones as she fell deeper into nirvana.