OK! New year, new story, well, not so new, but I will try to get back to this story. I know it's been... what? 10 months? Pish, that nothing. Anyway, I know I'd be upset, but I'll try to at least get something up every 2 weeks (no promises but I'll try really hard)! There's my new years resolution, yeah! Lets go!

So the story will continued from this chapter which I have edited and done such to in order to fit what I have planned. The chapters that I already have will also be changed as needed.

See ya!

Luxa

Gregor straightened up from tying Ms. Cormaci's shoe, "There you go," He looked around at all of the other elderly people in the Mt. Sinai Senior Center while Ms. Cormaci said her thanks. He'd started working there just over two months ago, when his mom had gotten a job as a receptionist at the children's hospital there. Ms. Cormaci tagged along with Gregor and his mom now just for, as she put it, 'the sake of being old'.

Of course he would have to go back to school in September, but it was still worth at least being near his grandmother, mother and although he was forbidden to speak about it, the Underland.

It had been three years now, since Gregor was twelve, and he and his family had been sucked into the warfare and numerous other problems of the Underland, a place far, far below New York City. He was fifteen now, a few weeks to go until he was sixteen.

He sighed, looking out the window now at the leafy green trees across the street in Central Park. Of course they had had to stay in New York when his Grandmother had had a heart problem. Now, three years later, she was improving, but Gregor's family was definitely now where close to moving, at least not out of New York. Pus the family house in Virginia had been sold to a couple with a son and younger daughter. The vast woods and fields were not theirs to rome and claim anymore, they were another families now. He vaguely remembered being told that the son's name was Maxwell, and the daughter's Heidi. He thought they were strange names at the time, but now looking back on it, the son and daughter would have thought that his name was weird too.

They were however making progress, between Gregor and his mother working at the hospital, and his dad working at a small book shop down the street from their apartment, the rent was getting easier and easier to pay, they even had a little pocket money sometimes.

"Gregor," a young woman, a teen really, called from the doorway leading out of the senior center, "Gregor, your mom would like to speak to you," she pushed back a lock of her strawberry blond hair, but Gregor wasn't paying attention to her flirting, he was trying to figure out why his mom wanted to talk now. Did he say something that related in some way to the Underland in some way? Was Maggie making cockroach clicks again? She did do that sometimes when she was angry or upset. But what was she upset about? Did Lizzie have another attack at school? Gregor quickly shuffled through all of the possibilities of what might have happened.

They walked quietly down the long halls. Gregor was looking straight ahead and the teenage girl was looking... at him. And thus they made their way to the children's hospital.

When Gregor was finally deposited at his mothers front desk in the children's hospital, the flirtatious teen was grouchy and unhappy with the fact that Gregor was paying no mind to her. She handed him a clipboard and then slumped out of the glass doors, her golden-red hair swished back and forth on her back that was scantily covered by a thin tank top. His mother was checking in a small boy, about seven or eight, who, by the looks of the small red dots covering his face and arms, had gotten the chicken pox. He had light brown shaggy hair that stuck out all over his head, as if he had just gotten out of bed, looking to Gregor a bit like the shell of a chestnut.

The small boy looked up at Gregor in earnest and scratched very slightly at a small red pox on the side of his nose. Gregor smiled and shook his finger a little at the boy, smiling, motioning for him to not itch at his pox mark, then waited patiently for his mother to finish her business with her patient.

He watched the doctors come and go in and out of the doors leading to the patient rooms, reviewing their notes. The doctors all reminded him of his friend Howard in the Underland. Gregor sighed unconsciously again as he thought of the Underland.

He had tried his best the first year to not always think of the Underland because he had known that they might have moved, but since they hadn't moved because of his grandmother, Gregor found it very hard to not think of the Underland. Everything that he saw, that he did, reminded Gregor of the Underland and of all that had happened there. He also knew that the same was happening to Lizzy his ten year old sister.

At the moment, Lizzy was at summer camp, have fun with friends that she could only see once a year. Maggie for the first time was also there, but she came home everyday at the end. It was a long ride, but the camp had a policy of seven and under going home everyday. It was hard for Lizzy and him to get by without thinking about the Underland, but for Maggie it was much easier. Small toddlers didn't remember what had happened to them at such early ages. Maggie only remembered that she liked bugs , big bugs, a lot. Especially beetles and cockroaches. She also click occasionally when she was angry or upset.

"Gregor," started his mother who was, by now done with the patients and was pulling him out of his own little thoughts running around his mind, "your father and I were thinking and," she paused with a sour look on her face that clearly stated she had not been the one to come up with the idea. "And we thought that maybe you would like to help us pick out the new house. You know, take Lizzy and Margaret to a few different apartments in Manhattan that have an affordable price range... so we know what you guys would like." She added as a side note to make the suggestion seem more like she was in charge, and not her son, of choosing a new home. Grace eyed her son warily as his face broke out into a smile.

Gregor cross the desk threshold and scoped her up in a strong embrace. "Does this mean that..." he trailed off excitedly, and his mother held back a smile , which was in any case was slowly creeping back onto her face.

His family had been saving money ever since they had gotten back from their final Underland exertion. Originally the money was being saved for a Virginia, then a new apartment in Manhattan, far, far, away from Central Park. But since none of her children had made a break for the Underland or spoke of it (she had banned the speaking or referencing, but sometimes in the dark silence of the night he spoke with Lizzy about it and their friends there. How they must be and look like now).

"I know how Maggie loves the playgrounds at the Park and it is rather beautiful there." His mother went on babbling about the park, but only one thing was running through his mind, she agreed to let him chose an apartment on the West Side of Central Park. His thoughts drifted to an apartment he'd seen in a flyer at a local supermarket. It was very old and an attic like penthouse and a small portion of the top floor. Nobody seemed to have wanted it-not even the owner of the building, because it was so run down.

"That would be great mom!" he said excitedly and hugging his mother tighter still. "I just have to help sort out something with one of the newer nurses." he said looking down at the clipboard that the other teen had given him and strode away, feeling better than he had been in a long time. He was ready to go home and tell Lizzy and Boots all about it, "But then," Gregor thought, "I'll have to stay at work till my shift is over and then even longer till Maggie comes home. Then with any hope, she would blabber it all to Lizzy." Maggie loved to talk and blabbered all the time to anyone that would listen. It was one of the upsides to her not being able to remember to Underland.

In spite of being almost right outside of the trauma ward, Gregor flat out laughed with happiness and he thought of all of the new plans for his family, they would be safe and healthy.

Then picking hiss pace up, he walked down the hallways of Mt. Sinai Hospital. He would have to do a few things before ensuring his family's safety, like getting money. And his job right now was to help out a nurse with a hyperactive patient and her sister, she seemed to have had amnesia. He checked the clipboard the strawberry blond haired teen had given him.

At least his job paid a fair amount of money, even if what he did was more then he was paid for.

He let out his held breath and stopped outside of the room. It was number 214, F 10. Then carefully he carefully he pushed open the clean, white door, into the clean white hall with the CAT scan room and that poor girl in it.

All righty! So glad to have that done, lol, I may put another up this week just because it shouldn't be hard to alter Luxa's chapter as it has nothing really to do with Katniss or Gregor... yet! Ah Ha!

~Luxa