AN: Woot! The first real chapter is here and thank God. Today's my grandpa's birthday so I don't think I'll be able to do too much before I'm am physically forced into the car and chained to a chair to listen to my aunt go blahblahblah for now and evermore (or so it seems, but most likely it'll be three hours). No, I don't actually get chained. But they might as well. Anywho, thank you AnimeCrazy88 for your review. I'd like to see more people reviewing (and reading).

Disclaimer: HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO DO THIS BEFORE YOU PEOPLE GET IT?? Ah screw it. Don't own characters, but own OCs, plot, story and blah blah blah, blah blah.

Song: Handle This - Sum 41

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Chapter 1 - Home Again

Sunday dawned in Rally's flat slowly as usual. Her habit of leaving the blind only half open meant it took quite a while before the sun hit her face, shrined in long blonde hair. Her eyes fluttered open, to be blasted by the light powerfully. Grumbling and muttering something about 'why me, and why today?', she scrambled out of her bed, swinging her legs over towards the edge before setting her bare soles on the cold linoleum floor. Rally recoiled quickly - the floor was pretty cold, and with good reason, since the window had been left open a crack the night before.

Birds twittered and sung their morning songs with gusto whilst filling the air with harmonic sound. "How can they be so jolly? It's too early to be happy today..." she almost chuckled at her own joke as Rally slowly began her morning routine. She got up and began to make her way to the bathroom for a lovely cool shower. She couldn't figure out why other people liked hot showers - Trixie, for instance, had loved scalding hot showers because she said they cleansed her 'inside and out'. Whatever the hell that meant. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. Sighing she turned the shower from icy to cool, and stepped underneath the refreshingly bracing spray. Water trickled from her hair down her back and along the curves of her legs, finally coming into contact with the white porcelain shower bottom, covered in a plastic mat. The cool water stimulated her body and washed away the last sand grains of sleep from her eyes. Rally savoured every moment, knowing that each shower was a cool and calm embrace from the usual hectic hustle and bustle of everyday modern life in the city.

Getting out she wandered over to her room and the bed, where a small selection of clothes lay, strewn, just on the edge. She'd gone shopping the day before and had been experimenting with different clothing combinations. It had only been a matter of time before she had laid down in her underwear for a short nap, which in turn became a whole night's sleep. So often now she tried to avoid the encasement of dreams, knowing full well they could turn into nightmares. Which had been all too real not too long ago...

Rally shook the images out of her head. No, she told herself firmly, Now is not the time to be missing Ember and the Bladebreakers, it is the time for moving on and finding my identity of self, a family...she stopped dead in her tracks, her cream blouse halfway on and halfway off. Then once again, the tears came. They always did. Rally sat on the bed and sobbed, even convulsing motion her way of screaming to the world that for once she, Rally, was not okay. She was the one everyone came to when they had problems that needed solving or someone's shoulder to cry on. If only they could see their heroine now, sobbing like a three year old child that misses its mother. At the thought of her parents she cried even harder. Their memories were still faint, but they were there, haunting her like a predicit. At least when Ember had been here, she could share her pain.

Imagining her friend she smiled softly, the sobs slowly coming down to the occasional hiccup. She was probably living the life now, or at least trying not to miss them as much as Rally missed her. Ember was like a sister to her, someone to help through the hard times and someone to laugh with in the good times. Of course, the redhead was also the one completley oblivious to the fact she had a certian Bladebreaker hopelessly in love with her. Kai must have grown so much...and Damien...a small blush came to her cheeks at the thought. Damien was someone special, she had always had a weird feeling around him that everything might just be better than it was before. She'd come to accept that she had a small crush on the young blader (who must have been around nineteen by then) but now that he was gone Rally realised just how much Damien meant to her.

Her thoughts were interrupted with a knock on the door. "Coming!" she called out, quickly doing up the rest of the buttons on her blouse and slipping into a white miniskirt. Padding barefoot to the door she wondered who it could be at this time of day. It was hardly likely to be her landlord, and she had already paid up for the next three months, so what business was it of his to be doing there at seven thirty in the morning?

"Hello?" she asked, opening the door. No-one. Slightly freaked out she closed the door and walked a few paces away, before coming to a stop. Something was out of place. not quite right. There was something that hadn't been there a second ago that now was there, and for some reason she just knew that it was of utmost importance. Turning around her eyes fell onto the small bristly doormat she had lain there just a few months ago. On the mat was an envelope. Curious Rally opened it and found a tiny note, written on blue paper the colour of the cloudless sky outside. Reading the Japanese letters in front of her, her eyes widened when she saw the name at the bottom of the note.

Trixie.

Rally hadn't heard from her in what seemed like forever. Ever since she had left a year ago there had been only her and Damien, and with his dissapearance six months earlier it had only been her left. She hadn't managed to get into contact with the Bladebreakers due to all the tours they kept having, and it was rumoured that they had not been in town for the past two years. But now Trixie was back, apparently, and wanting to meet her at the park in town she no longer felt alone. Her friend had come back. If only Ember would follow...

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The blonde stayed on the sofa, looking across the orphanage lounge with disdain in her eyes. She couldn't see why after three years, Ember would pick now to come back...Rally was worried. Her thoughts jumbled about, thinking of the redhead, when all of a sudden an arm wrapped around her. She looked up into two, bright sapphire eyes, and realised who they belonged to. And when she did, it was all she could do not to scream. "It...it is true...what Trixie said..." Tears welled up in the eyes of the blonde as she wrapped her arms around Ember and cried into her shoulder. Everything that she had not been able to share with her sister came out in that wave of tears, spilling like water from a cracked jug - first slowly, then flowing relentlessly.

Trixie joined in, everyone crying that their reunion was here at last. The Team Dragoness girls were back.

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AN: ARGH! Hasn't been an update in FOREVER! I want to scream. I wanted to update all of this time but never had the time or the pure power to do so. Plus my computer is screwing up more often than it usually does. Which is a lot to start off with anyway.

Sneak Peek

Kai didn't know what to do. He had put his life on hold for her when she so obviously wasn't coming back. He had tried to reach her so many times and failed miserabley. If only he could hold her in his arms right then, he would kiss her face off and tell her that he loved her too much to ever let her out of his sight ever again. He didn't know that the oppurtunity for so was right behind the corner, or should we say, behind the door...

AN: Thank God I finished this. It's not really a chapter. More of a whole 'connection with later plot' kinda thing. Damn I hate the early chapters of my fanfics...they always start so crap then end up getting not quite as crappy near the ending when I wanna continue them on. Grr...ah well. R&R, me wants to see some LOVIN'! Of the reveiwing kind.

Tyrila Anios xxx