A/N: I got some bad news at the start of summer, and honestly didn't write anything at all for a solid six or seven months after that. But I'm back, and I must make writing a top priority now. It helps that I'm back at uni and have writers as teachers inspiring and encouraging me nearly every day of the week.

Life in Santa Carla was good. Hell, life anywhere away from her father was fucking golden, as far as Tara was concerned. But Santa Carla? She'd been there a week and already fallen in love with the place. The beach, the boardwalk and its quirky stores and stalls, the ocean view that followed her no matter where she went. The undisputed winner, though, was her aunt's cafe.

Fittingly named 'The Hideout', the small cafe (or 'tea shop, as Carolina insisted on calling it) was just towards the end of the boardwalk - near enough the chaos to draw in customers, but not close enough for it to be chaotic itself. Carolina, an early bird, had given Tara 'the night shift', four pm until ten pm, with three days a week off. Tara barely even considered it a job. The end of the day was a little busy, with tourists stopping in for a snack and a drink before going back to their hotels to get changed for the nighttime, but other than that the place was a graveyard for the most part. Just enough regulars stopped by to give Carolina the incitement to keep it open that late.

The best thing about The Hideout was its history. Before Carolina had bought it, it was some kind of terrible 50s style diner (Tara still shuddered at the memory of the 'before' pictures her aunt had shown her), and so the task of transforming it from the garish nightmare it used to be, to the cozy and warm shop it was now wasn't something one person alone could achieve, but Carolina had pretty much been dead broke because of the price of the shop alone, and paying guys to renovate it for her wasn't an option. So one summer the phone had rang, and Tara and her mom had both been invited to spend the summer in Santa Carla to give Carolina a helping hand gutting the place and changing it into something that wouldn't leave her customers with nightmares or bleeding eyes.

That summer had easily been the best one of Tara's life. Her dad, although they'd still been close back then, had stayed back in New York to care for Emma, who was a toddler at the time, so it had just been her, her mom and Carolina. They'd spend the days working their asses off, and the nights being too tired to do anything other than order pizza and watch movies. The downside of this was that they hadn't actually seen much of Santa Carla itself, or its famed nightlife, but in hindsight the time with her mom was more than worth that. Tara suspected her mom had feigned a lot of the tiredness on purpose, to try and keep her off of the boardwalk- she hadn't missed the concerned stare her mom would always give the 'MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD' graffiti every time they passed it. However at that time, she'd already been sick and "cured" once, and if her mom said she needed to rest and would rather watch a movie with her than go out, nothing could make Tara question it. At the end of the summer, Carolina made them promise they'd come back the next summer - this time with her dad and Emma - and they'd all truly experience Santa Carla together. But by the next time summer came, her mom started getting sick again. This time none of it was feigned.

Tara shook her head, dispelling those memories before they could fully hit her. She'd much rather focus on the ones The Hideout held. The little smudge of burgundy paint on the edge of the ceiling, caused by her mom when her hand had slipped as she laughed at one of Tara's jokes. The booth in the corner that they always sat at in the afternoon - mainly because for a while it was the only one that was there. The quirky red chandelier that had a couple of strings of crystals missing, because Carolina had caught her admiring them and detached them to make into earrings for her. Tara still had them.

Perhaps creativity ran in the blood of her mom's side. God knew they were the only ones who supported her. Her dad used to. Now it was just Carolina. Luckily, her aunt took 'supportive' to a whole new level.

The only thing that was different about the cafe when Tara arrived, was a small but charming wooden vintage jewellery stand, sitting on the corner of the counter where customers would go to pay. At first she hadn't batted an eyelid - Carolina was like a magpie. Anything that she found pretty, she gave a home on some part of flat space, either in the cafe or in the flat she lived in above it. Then her aunt saw what she was looking at.

"It's yours," she said, gesturing towards it as she led her towards the counter.

"I...Thank you?" Tara replied, a little confused.

It was gorgeous, but a jewellery stand was an odd gift, and the fact that she'd brought it down to the shop was even stranger.

"I'm not done," Carolina smirked "I got it for you so you can sell your jewellery."

Tara's heart stopped and her jaw dropped.

Carolina continued "I figured you could make it in your free time and then hang it here. People are bound to take an interest - tourists needing souvenirs, etcetera, etcetera. Push it on 'em while they're paying, and whatever you make from it, you keep. Obviously."

Hugging her tightly, Tara must've thanked her aunt at least twenty times in a row, and Carolina graciously pretended not to notice how she was tearing up. A week in, there were now a decent amount of necklaces and bracelets hanging from the small ornate hooks, complete with small scrawled price tags. Every so often after one of her own shifts, Carolina would give her a handful of dollars, saying they came from jewellery that was sold whilst she wasn't there, but so far not much interest had been shown in them whilst Tara was there. She half wondered if Carolina was buying them herself to reassure her. Then again, her aunt probably had a better sales pitch than her almost non-existent one. Not that it bothered her. Tara would happily pay to be able to spend a few hours each night painting miniatures to go on necklaces, or stringing together trinkets for bracelets - and so far she was, considering her lack of profit. Nobody ever became an artist for the money, and it was a good job they didn't. There pretty much was none.

No, it wasn't money that Tara found herself seeking. It was friends. After everything went to shit back in New York, her friends became her new family. Night after night she'd lie in bed, listening carefully for the tell-tale signs of her father and Alison getting ready for bed, and then she'd sneak out of her bedroom window and down the fire escape where there'd be a group of at least five waiting for her down below. Usually she didn't bother returning until well into the next morning. Why should she? The only reason she was there at all was for Emma. Her group had been incredibly tight-knit, offering her a couch to crash on here and there when things got really bad. She still loved them dearly, but what good was that when they were all three thousand miles away? Talking on the phone wasn't the same.

The first week in Santa Carla was more than enough time to settle into a comfortable routine. After rolling out of bed at whatever time suited her (on the days she didn't have to help out with the baking for the cafe), she'd grab breakfast and work on her art for a handful of hours. Afterwards she'd wander the boardwalk, either the beach or the shops depending on her mood, and wait until it was late enough to call a friend or two from back home - they'd promised to try and give her updates on Emma if they could. It's not like her father would bother. After that it was working in the shop, taking orders, working the cash register, cleaning tables. Only one other person, Carolina's boyfriend, Johnny, worked in the cafe at the same time as her, and he dwelled in the kitchen preparing the hot meals when they were ordered, so she usually had the front of the place to herself. It was too dead during her shift to justify hiring more people for those hours. Luckily, the emptiness of the place meant she could usually read or work on more jewellery during her shift, only needing to keep one eye on the customers. Her time after her shifts were spent with Carolina, with Johnny making guest appearances, and whatever was on TV that night.

Tara did adore her aunt, and they were close, but she was just that. Her aunt. They couldn't get wasted together and snicker over dirty jokes. There was no opportunity to indulge in her immature, stroppy side without getting some kind of life lesson in return…and if she was being completely truthful, sometimes the similarities between Carolina and her mom made her too difficult to be around. On those nights she went to bed early. But how did one make friends as an adult? Usually the answer would be "at work", but she was shit out of luck there, and Santa Carla was too much of a touristy town for any of the faces to become that familiar. It was tough, but Tara knew she'd either get over it or find a solution. Those were her only two real options anyway.


The Lost Cave

Paul was making a series of noises into his pillow that sounded eerily close to a pissed off housecat.

"Didn't quite catch that," Cat snickered, tightening the laces on her boots.

The bedding rustled behind her, and a pair of warm bare arms wrapped around her torso "Come back to bed."

Leaning back into his chest, she tilted her head and grinned at him "Ohhh, that's what you want me to do. See, I didn't quite gather your meaning the first twenty times you asked me to."

"Think of it more as a demand, babe," Paul buried his face in her neck and began to slowly drag her backwards onto the mattress.

"Paul, you asshole!" she giggled, trying to squirm out of his vice-like grip.

"Mmm, I love you too."

"Let go of me!" kicking her legs fruitlessly, she eventually gave up and allowed him to drag her back into the bed, boots and all.

"Thank you," he sighed dramatically as she curled up against him and they settled back down into the bed.

After a few moments, his grip slackened just the slightest bit and it was all she needed. Springing from the bed, Cat couldn't help but smile at his annoyed groan.

"Catriona. Light of my life, my love, owner of the finest rack in the world," he ground out sarcastically, sprawling onto his back and squinting up at her in the dim candlelight "It's the ass crack of dusk. Come back to bed."

"And they say romance is dead."

"Undead."

She couldn't not laugh at that, and he relented enough to give her a bleary-eyed, crooked smile. Reaching an arm out, Paul continued.

"C'mere."

"It's finally dark enough, early enough for me to make it there in time for the lunch menu," Cat shook her head "I swear I've been dreaming of those halloumi wraps all summer."

"What the fuck is a halloumi?" he muttered, clearly not appreciating her logic.

"Tasty enough for your wiles to be ineffective, I'm afraid," she snickered, shrugging her jacket on, making sure to stay out of his reach this time "If you're fast enough I'll save you some."

"You cruel, heartless woman."

"I love you too," she mimicked his earlier words.

After blowing him a kiss (and getting flipped off in return), she left the alcove. A couple of years or so after her brother had found out the truth, it seemed that the tea gods had heard Cat's prayers and saw fit to grant her what she wished for. This came in the form of a small, cozy tea shop called The Hideout. The boys still made fun of her reaction when she'd first tried some of the tea sold there ("I think that just did more for her than you ever have," Marko had snickered at Paul.) Since then she'd gone on an almost nightly basis, with the exception of the times she'd take pity on the boys, who tolerated the place for her sake, but made it clear it was hardly their scene, and keep herself away for a week or two. The last week had been one of those times, and she was dying to get back.

"Hey, Cat! Wait up!"

Dwayne's voice reached her just as she was leaving the cave. Out of all of her brothers, he was the one who least minded The Hideout. She half suspected he was glad she gave him an excuse to go without getting shit from the guys for it.

"Oooh, I won't be dining alone?" she paused, waiting for him to catch up.

"Knowing you, you'd just wind up in some kinda trouble if you did," he nudged her in the side when he did, barely dodging the half-hearted slap to his arm in response.

"I need to go to the post office first," Cat shook her head as they continued on their way "Jamie's letter should've arrived by now."

"Oh," Dwayne paused a little "If you want to be alone-."

"Don't be silly," she shook her head with a smile "It'll only take a second."

Other than immortality, the PO box that Paul had set up for her all those years ago had been one of the most life-changing gifts he'd ever given her. Since then, she and Jamie had been writing to each other relentlessly - although this meant that she usually only got a letter (or sometimes a parcel containing gifts, or things he'd smuggled out of her old room back home) once a month, by the time her response to the UK arrived, and then his response got back to her. Still, she would've adored it even if she only got a letter once a year. It had allowed them to maintain some kind of relationship, and gave her a source of information back home, so she didn't feel totally cut off from her family.

Her brothers were surprisingly awkward, albeit accepting, when it came to the topic of her family. She was unsure if it was because of all of the trouble that had been caused when Jamie showed up in Santa Carla, if they thought she wanted to keep it private and separate from them (which couldn't be further from the truth), or simply because they weren't used to one of them still having connections to their old life. The only time they'd get up and leave her to her own devices without question, or even really being asked, was when she had a letter from home in her hand. That was another benefit of The Hideout - it gave her a quiet place to read and reply to the letters. The cave hardly had a writing desk that she could use, anyway. The closest she could get to a writing space was the edge of the fountain.

"If you're sure," Dwayne shrugged, and with that they were on their way, Cat barely able to contain her excitement at the thought of another letter to add to her collection.