He hadn't known what else to do. He didn't have her number, and she had left before he and Sophie even rolled out of his bed. So Teddy did the stupid teenage thing and found her on face book. He'd had to ask Sophie what name she used for her personal account after she informed him that Phina's public account was kept up by a tech team at the record company. He waited all day for a reply, but none came.

She returned from her interview, had lunch with her mother, and promptly left again. The only thing he could do at this point would be to ask everyone if she had seen Phina, or knew where she had gone; but that would cause to many questions. He didn't pay any attention to the simpering Sophie who had tried to talk him into taking her on a picnic. He hadn't looked at the case files he had brought with him to go over. Teddy had spent the entire day watching out windows for Phina's return.

He wonders if this is how his father feels all the time. He knows that Christian is unconditionally and irrevocably in love with his wife and that he worries constantly. Does dad get this same tight feeling in his chest whenever he is away from mom? Ted is sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, staring intently at his computer. He has headphones on and is hunched over, he looks like a teenager again.

"What ya doing?" Ella sidles up to him and looks over his shoulder before he can snap the laptop closed.

"It's none of your business, you little blood hound." She shrugs but doesn't argue with him. She had always been nosy about what her big brother was doing. She had thought he hung the stars in the sky and wanted to be with him all the time, almost as annoying as the brat.

"If you want to see her music videos they are all on her website." she gives him a guileless smile. Damn, she read the title bar in his search engine.

"Really?" He's not even the least bit mad that she snooped. She would know better than any one how to find information pertaining to Phina. He opens the computer back up, "Show me, please." The pleas is almost an after thought, but she doesn't comment. With a few quick keystrokes and a click of the mouse there is a list of song titles up on the screen next to tiny little windows with pictures of Phina. "See?" She demands with a triumphant smile on her pretty face. Ella looks like a feminine version of their father, with his gray eyes, copper hair, and tall build.

"Are these really the names of her songs? 'Wasting away inside', 'Vampire's bite', 'Imagining you love me'?" He is looking at her with disbelieving awe.

Ella nods. "She caters to a specific crowd, namely emo kids who cut themselves while listening to commiserating artist who are all 'woe is me'." She flashes him a grimace. "Click that one." She points to a song titled 'The color gray'.

Ted unplugs his headphones and clicks on the requested song. A piano's sweet high notes tinkle in the background of a quartet of slow haunting strings. The camera looks down on Phina standing in the middle of what looks like a field of wild flowers, it moves slowly down to be even with her face and circles, revealing that the meadow is enclosed inside a tall gray stone wall with no door.

Phina's stunning voice overpowers the instruments, she sings about gray clouds over her gray walled prison. Slowly the color of the flowers around her fades and they turn from vibrant to dull sepia. Phina sings about gray sucking all the color from her world until there is noting left for her but gray. The colors dull more and every thing in the frame, with the exception of the singer herself is gray. By the time the music stops Phina too has turned gray. The camera has moved back up and looks down on Phina as the gray walls move in until they consume her.

"Well that was..." He searches for the rite word to use.

"Bleak?" Ella suggest. He nods. "Leaves you with a dull aching feeling doesn't it?" All he can do is nod again. He can't understand how Ella hasn't guessed yet that this song is about him. Sophie must know, but she hadn't said anything. Then again they hadn't really done much talking last night. They hadn't been doing what Phina thought either.

"Wanna watch another one?" Ted jumped, he'd been so lost in his mixed up thoughts of the two beautiful sisters that he'd forgotten his own sister was standing behind him. Ted clicked on the next song. It was just as sad and depressing, but beautifully written and Phina's voice was incomparably amazing. He'd never heard anything like it. "She is good huh?" Good didn't begin to cover it.

"Unbelievable." Ted chokes out. Ella is grinning from ear to ear. "What?"

"You like her, don't you?" It is more of an accusation than a question.

"Of course I like the brat, she has been like a little sister to me." Ella is shaking her head, that smile still plastered on her face.

"You don't look at me that way, if you did I'd be all sorts of creeped out. You like her like her."

"What is this, first grade? How old are you that you still use 'like her like her' as a way of expressing admiration in the opposite sex."

"Oh, breaking out the big words now are you?" She is laughing at him. "admit it, you really do like Phina." She nudges him with her elbow.

"Yes, I do."

The pumping beat blasting from the club's large speakers has the sea of body's occupying the dance floor moving and swaying to the beat. Phina watches with disinterest, her old friends (or what passed for friends) were out in that crowd rubbing against each other and strangers. She'd never really felt the inclination to join them. She hadn't spent much time with her so called friends in the past twelve years.

She had avoided coming home as much as possible, and when it inevitably came time for her to return, lest the family become suspicious, she'd made sure Ted wasn't going to be here. How had she over looked it this time? She blamed her lack of foresight on the fatigue the record company and Sophie claimed she had after a year and a half on the road.

Seeing him standing there had been a shock. Feeling his arms wrap around her while she cried and then watching him do what he'd always done, leave her to be with Sophie, had hurt more than she thought she could hurt any more. She had shut her heart down thirteen years ago, refusing to care for any one more than absolutely necessary.

The adoration of her millions of fans served a a sort of replacement family. She gave them every thing she had in her songs. She gave up her money too, much to Sophie's horror. While Sophie basks in the glow of her sisters fame and enjoys the wealth she earns being her mangier, Phina anonymously donates the majority of her earnings to several charities. Keeping only what she needed to lead a comfortable life.

"Phina, come dance with us!" One of the girls is waving towards her like a mad woman. She shakes her head and holds up her drink. It isn't the frozen concoction of fruit and alcohol she usually sips but a gin and tonic. Her third to be exact. She's already indulged in two cosmos and a shot of bourbon.

Saraphina trudges up the stairs, careful to miss the squeaky step at the top. After hitting decline on Ted's friend request she had given her interview, eaten lunch with her mother as planed, and gone back out. She didn't want to see him, didn't want to eat dinner with the family and watch Sophie make goo-goo eyes at him across the table. She'd called some old friends and informed them she was in town. It was only natural that they insist she join them for drinks.

Her bedroom door opens with a 'creek' that has her cringing. Neither of her straitlaced parents had ever been happy with her party hard lifestyle, but that was the life of a rock star. Honestly she doesn't like the lifestyle either. Phina puts on a good show, joining her band mates at the after parties with a fake smile on lips. Sitting in the V.I.P. lounges and sipping fruity girly drinks, pretending to be the rock n' roll party girl.

Tonight had been different, she'd wanted to drink till her mind was numb and she couldn't remember any thing about HIM. Till his beautiful image was blurry in her mind and she couldn't recall her own name never mind his. She had succeeded. "Shit!" She exclaims as she bumps into her dresser, the perfume bottles rattle as they clank together and her hairbrush lands on the floor with a 'thud'. "Shh!" She hisses at her self and gives an inebriated giggle.

A hand claps over her mouth and a strong arm wraps around her waist lifting her off her feet. Whoever is holding her kicks the door closed. Phina knows she should she scared. She should be wetting her pants! But she can't work up enough braincells to form a coherent thought. The hard chest pressed behind her is flat and warm, the man holding her smells good. She gives an inappropriate moan of pleasure, her attacker smells like Teddy.

"Do you want to wake the entire house?" A deep male voice whispers in her ear. She tries to shake her head but his hand is still over her mouth. Phina sinks her neat little white teeth into the man's hand. "Owe! Shit Phina!" He releases her and she sinks to the floor laughing. "Your drunk."

Teddy is standing over her, frowning down. Phina give another drunken laugh. "So?"

"Damn it Phina." He shakes his injured hand, rubs it on his jeans, and bends down so they are face to face. "What do you thing you are doing?
She blinks at him innocently, "Sitting on the floor." She says, not a hint of sarcasm in her voice. He runs his hands through his hair and she cocks her head to the side, watching him curiously.

"What?" He snaps. She doesn't answer, just frowns. He doesn't mean to sound so harsh, but he'd come here for a reason and it wasn't this. With his head full of Ella's advise he had thought waiting for her room was a good idea, she had to return eventually. He had thought that being in her territory would make her more comfortable and they could finally clear the air. But any talking Phina did tonight wasn't going to be comprehensible.

"Does your hair get greasy when you do that?" She is staring at his hair with interest.

"No, it doesn't." He says with a sigh of defeat. Drunk Phina was even harder to comprehend than any of her other crazy moods that change like the wind.

"Oh." That's it. Her eyes roll up into her head and she drops like a rock backward. Her head hits the floor with a thunk that has him cringing. She's gonna feel that in the morning. Without any effort he scoops her up into his arms and carries her the few step it takes to reach her tiny bed. It is the same bed that was here the last time he was with her in room. There hadn't been much room for him back then, it isn't any better now.

Ted lays her on the bed and removes the impossibly high heels from her feet. Do these things make her feet hurt? He's never had the guts to ask any woman if the break-your-neck-heels were as dangerous as they look. He'd been to afraid they'd take one off and impale him with it. With some exertion he tugs her skin tight jeans over her hips and down her legs. The black lace thong that does nothing to cover her sexy little ass has him in awe. How can she be passed out drunk and still stir him to passion?

Ted wonders if he should go through the venture of sitting her up, removing her shirt and bra and slipping on a nighty. He decides against it. She can sleep in the tank top. He peels off his own cloths, leaving on his wife beater and boxer briefs, and crams himself into the tiny bed with her. She isn't going to be in a good mood when she wakes up, but he'll have her trapped. She won't want to alert her father to his presence, and yelling for him would hurt her head to much anyway. He'd have her exactly where he wants her!