Author's Notes: Well, that was one crazy Christmas I had! And to top it all off I ended up spending two entire days and a half in the hospital because of a kidney stone! Eee. Talk about painful. Luckily I've mostly recovered but man, that was NOT fun.
I'm getting a ton of ideas concerning what to do with this story, and I still haven't decided which route to take yet. Hmmm. I may have to change the rating of this story to Mature, but then again, I may not. It depends where I end up going with this story.
This update may be a little confusing at first, so let me clear things up: this is not the next day when Dave invited Remy to see the play. This is a week later and Remy is waiting on Dave to show up at the beginning, not trying to kill time before the play.
By the way, the song Remy is singing in this chapter is crushcrushcrush (yes, it's supposed to be spelled like that) by Paramore. And no, she didn't really lose her key.
In summary, I hope you had a good holiday! Have a great New Year too! Wooo-hooo! 2008! It's less than an hour and a half away where I live.

Now back to our usual scheduled madness.

Remy looked anxiously at her watch for the third time in the past two minutes and felt her jiggling knee run into one of the table's legs. 5:46. Dave had said he'd be here at 5:40; what was the holdup? But she shouldn't be too punctual, as he had said that he had things to do and could run a little late. Even so, she couldn't help but wonder what was happening and if he was alright.

Looking around the street and sipping on a soft drink, Remy noticed an old man nearby with several short women at his side, helping him walk. The old man had a number of wrinkles and gray hairs, and a frown that never went away. He kept barking at the women and complaining loudly; Remy heard him say, "All these tourists trashing the place up, it's a disgrace!" He looked very familiar, though Remy was positive she'd never met such an unpleasant person before. It had to be his dark eyes, though they seemed somehow different than her thoughts were consisting of.

"Hey, you," said a voice from behind her, and Remy let out a sigh of relief as he slid into the seat in front of her. "What's up?"

"What took you so long?"

"You mean what took me six more minutes than you expected?"

"Dave."

"Okay, okay. I was busy doing...stuff."

"Stuff? What kind of stuff?"

"Robbing banks, going to Mars, shaving off all of my hair. You know, the usual."

Remy snorted. "The usual? So, apparently, on a daily basis, you steal money, hijack rocketships, and become bald?"

"Sure do."

"Hmm. And you know what I think about that?"

"What?"

"You're a retard on stilts."

"Why thank you, madam," said Dave, incling his head slightly.

Remy listened to the old man still complain somewhere nearby and asked, "What's his problem?"

"Who's?"

"That old guy over there."

Dave turned around in his seat and back to Remy again. "Oh, him? That's Dottore Massimo. He's always in a bad mood. Don't ask why, I don't know myself."

Massimo? Remy raised an eyebrow at the mention of her surname.

"Is Massimo a pretty common last name around here?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Nothing." She searched her brain for another topic of conversation. "Anyway, I'm hungry."

"Congratulations. Are you saying we should go eat somewhere?"

"No duh, Sherlock. Now let's go to some restraunt." Remy stood up, smacking her hand on the table in the process. Dave noticed her wince and pinch her hand and said,

"Remy, you are the clumsiest person I know." Indeed, she was always tripping, running into something, or falling over. She seemed to be blind when it came to poles especially, getting her nose banged up all the time.

"And you are the ugliest person I know," she said back mockingly. "And most annoying."

Dave grinned at her as he walked down the street at her side. "Coming from you, that's a compliment."

"You're such a shit stirrer, Dave."

"And the nicest one you'll ever meet," he replied. "Who's paying for your dinner again, Remy?"

"Like I said: you're an annoying retard."

"And you love me for it."

"Sure don't." Remy smiled over at him jokingly. She knew the light lie behind her words, and Dave did, too. As the two made their way down the street in the setting sun, Dave reached over slightly and held her hand, wondering if she'd reject his advances.

She didn't.

Across town, a small group of teenagers stood in an alley, talking among themselves with an air of wonder, dread, and curiosity in their low tones, all mixed together at once. Their ragged clothes which desperately clung to their thin frames reflected the unfortunate lives they lead. Tonight was a special night for them, or at least, it would be if the rumors they were discussing were true.

"So he's back?" a girl with long, tangled carrot-red hair whispered, looking at one of the boy's faces, the one who'd spoken most recently. It did not need to be whispered for no one else was nearby and even if they had been, it wouldn't have been of any importance to them, but she felt like it was something to be whispered. "The Thief Lord is back?"

"He himself isn't back, or at least nobody has any evidence to say so," responded the boy with a slight roll of his eyes, chewing on his lower lip, which was covered in crisscrossing scars. "I've told you that a million times."

"Shut up," she snapped back.

"But how does anyone know she's his daughter?" another boy asked from where he was busy picking dirt off of his jeans. "We don't know her name, right? And just because she looks like him doesn't mean she's his daughter. Geez."

"You know his dad, Dottore Massimo? She's his granddaughter."

"And how do you know?" asked the girl.

"Library," the boy with the scarred lower lip responded smugly. "I had my suspicions, and I went to check out their family tree."

"You're a dork."

"Shut the hell up."

"Does he even know?"

"Know what?"

"That she's here."

"No. Shit, he doesn't even know he has a grandkid."

"Oh."

There was a second of silence, and the boy picking dirt off of his jeans broke it: "So does this mean that there's another kind of Thief Lord going around?"

"I don't know. There hasn't been much stealing lately besides pickpocketing and stuff, according to the newspaper. But it's possible..."

Again, there was more silence as each person thought over this. The Thief Lord, even exposed as a fraud, was still considered a kind of legend. If his daughter was in Venice, that meant that things were going to drastically change for the thieves living on the street. But then again, why would she need to steal if her father was rich?

"I don't think she's a thief," said the girl. "She can't be."

"Yeah, you're right," the boy with the scarred lower lip agreed quickly, not admitting, even to himself, that he had begun to worry slightly that, if she was a thief, she would probably be a competition impossible to beat. There was no reason for anxiety. No reason at all.

What seemed like hours later, Remy stumbled out of the restraunt and giggled drunkenly as her vision flickered in and out of focus. Dave followed her with a frown on her face, smelling the strong stench beer on her breath and wrinkling his nose.

"Remy!" he scolded. "What did I tell you? What? I said don't drink anything! And now look at you!"

"Who cares?" she replied loudly, grinning and dancing around to the music the band inside was doing a cover to, nearly falling over. "Nothing compares to a quiet evening alone...Just the...something something...just counting on..." she sang, high-pitched and rather off-key, pausing at the parts she didn't know. Dave shook her head.

"Remy, let's go," he said, grabbing her wrist and attempting to lead her in the direction of her hotel. Remy stayed put.

"Dave! Come on! I wanna stay!" she whined.

"Well, you're not going to," he said, letting go of her wrist and crossing his arms over his chest, meeting her glare with one of his own. Remy eventually looked down, and then back up.

"Go away," Remy said. "I'm staying right here and you can't make me g----WHOA!" Dave had picked her up and was now carrying her down the street. "Dave, lemme go! Let me go!"

"No," he responded simply.

"If you don't let me go I'll---"

"Remy, shut up. We're almost there; it's not that far away."

"You shut up."

Dave ignored her constant stream of complains and brought her all the way to the hotel, sitting her up against the wall. "Good night," he said cheerfully and walked away, Remy glaring at the back of his head. He felt a pair of eyes on him and turned around to see her with her arms crossed over her chest angrily.

"Remy. Do I have to bring you to your room?" he asked as he approached her.

"No. I'm not going anywhere."

Nevertheless, Dave dragged her up to her room by the hand and, standing in front of the doors, went through her pockets. Remy didn't help him try to find the key; she still had her arms crossed over her chest and was staring at the door furiously enough to burn a hole in it.

"Remy, where's your key?"

"I don't know."

"Is it in your purse?" he asked, glancing at it from where it hung from her shoulder. He didn't think it was very polite to go through someone's purse, but if it came down to it...

"No. It's not. It's not anywhere. It vanished."

"Remy---"

"I don't know what happened!" she screamed at him hysterically; Dave was beginning to learn that she was very emotional when drunk.

"Okay. Okay, Remy. Double-check everything. And backtrack. Where did you last see it?"

"Dave?"

"What?"

"Can I go to your house? Pleeeease?"

"Uh...are you sure you want to?" Dave was skeptical about this.

"I'm sure! Pretty please, Dave? I'll love you forever and ever and ever!"

"You---"

"Great!" she exclaimed, already barreling down the hallway. Dave shook his head again and went after her.

They walked down streets, Dave's arm around Remy's shoulders to keep her from falling, while Remy happily yapped on and on about some romance novel she'd read lately. Her hair kept getting in her face, to her annoyance, and she eventually stated that one day she would cut off every inch of it.

"There's no need for that," Dave said, tucking it behind her ear. "See? Much better now."

They had arrived at his house, an apartment several blocks away. Dave lead her in and closed the door behind them, fumbling around for the light switch as they walked into total darkness. "Sorry about that," he said as it flickered on. Remy had been expecting it to look as though a tornado had blown through, the typical bachelor house, but it was surprisingly neat. Definitely a male abode, but tastefully decorated.

"Okay, so you can sleep in my bed and I'll sleep on the couch," he said, sitting her down on his bed once they reached his room. He thought she must be awfully uncomfortable with the slightly too-tight skirt she had on and dug around his closet, finally coming up with a pair of sweatpants.

"You can wear these---" he began, but she interrupted him.

"Dave? I gotta go to the bathroom."

He blinked at her. "Oh. Um. Bathroom's first door to the right. The green one."

Remy stood up and ran out the door, leaving Dave alone, holding the sweatpants. He set them down on the bed and waited for her to come back. After a minute, a door in the hallway opened, closed, and there was a the sound of Remy crashing into something. "Shit!" she said, probably loudly enough to wake the neighbors. "Damn wall."

Dave walked into the hallway and saw her rubbing the side of her face, which was slightly pink. "Let's get you to bed." He helped her back into the bedroom and said for the second time, pointing to the sweatpants, "You can wear these tonight."

"Okay," said Remy, picking up the pants, and Dave left, closing the door behind him. A short while later she opened it again, now in his sweatpants, with her skirt strewn on a chair behind her.

"Well, goodnight," he said as she climbed onto the bed and under the covers. "I'll be right down the hall if you need anything, okay?"

"Mmmm," replied Remy, already nodding off to sleep. Dave looked at her for a minute and then turned off the ceiling light. Then he exited the room and tip-toed down the hallway, listening to her soft, even breathing.