Hey guys, once again I'm so sorry that it has taken this long to get a new chapter up. It's been in a developmental stage for ages and this week I finally sat down and finished after finishing a particularly nasty essay today. I hope you enjoy this, there's a bit of plot development and hopefully it's moving a direction you all like. Well enough from me I'll let you get on and read it. Enjoy!


Flashes

Chapter 6

Arya cut the engine to her car with a sigh and stared at the large house in front of her with mild disdain. For a moment she remained motionless in the car, unwilling to get out. Only when the front door opened did she finally get out of the car. Closing the door she stuffed her hands in her pockets and made her way up to the house. As she got closer the woman standing on the porch gave a big smile.

"Arya darling!" she beamed.

"Hello mother." Arya replied despondently, stepping up she allowed her mother to give her a brief hug, after a couple of seconds Arya broke the contact and stepped back.

"How are you darling?" her mother asked as she guided her into the house.

"About average." Arya replied distractedly as she gazed around the hallway of the house she had grown up in.

"Average, what does average mean? Are you ok?" her mother pressed, Arya slipped off her jacket and hung it up on the pegs avoiding the question.

"Arya?" Her mother asked. Arya sighed and turned to face her.

"I'm fine mother! It's just the usual stresses of work." She said in an attempt to placate her mother.

"Are you sure you're not working too hard?" Obviously it hadn't worked.

"Well the hours are long and the work load is tough but I knew that when I signed up for the job." Arya said as she settled into an armchair. Her mother sat on the sofa opposite, watching her with concern.

They sat in silence for a few moments; Arya allowed her eyes to wander around the room. The mantelpiece was filled with pictures; many were of her mother and her late father. They were relatively few of Arya as a child, but there were more of her as she had got older, at her graduation and Christmas, in many of them she was with a young man, handsome and tall.

"It's the anniversary of your father's death next month." Her mother said eventually, Arya nodded. "Do you think you'll be able to make it?"

"I'll try my best, but it will all depend on work. We're starting negotiations with another big corporation so I'll be very busy." Arya replied, she saw her mother's expression fall and felt a twinge of guilt. Standing up she crossed to the mantelpiece and picked up one of the photos.

"I can't believe it's been 4 years already." She said. Her mother nodded sadly.

"He talked about you often in the months before." She said. For the second time in as many minutes Arya felt a twinge of guilt, she had loved her father dearly but she had been absent in the months before he had died. Her strained relationship with her mother had meant that she had often avoided going home, as every time she did it would invariably descend into an argument that would seem to only upset her father and cause tension. His death had made their relationship slightly better but there was still a lot to work on. It had taken a lot of phone calls and pleading to get Arya to come visit. Placing the photo back on the mantelpiece she settled back down.

It wasn't until after dinner that her mother brought up the one subject that she had been dreading.

"So have you been coping since...his passing?" Arya kept her eyes on the drink in front of her.

"I've been fine." She muttered, she could feel her mother's sceptical gaze on her.

"It's ok to grieve Arya, no one expects you to have handled it completely, and you can talk about it if you want."

"There's nothing to talk about! He died." Arya shifted in her seat.

"Exactly I would imagine that in itself that's enough to talk about."

"I don't want to talk about Fäolin!" Arya snapped back. "I don't want to talk about it and I don't want to keep being reminded of it either." She gestured to all the photos of her and Fäolin in the room.

"You loved him! You were going to marry him; he was like family to all of us!" Arya stood up.

"I should be going." She said stiffly.

"Arya please!" her mother said exasperatedly as Arya headed for the door. "You can't keep running from this!" Arya wrenched the door open, and turned angrily.

"I'm not running! Just because I don't openly display my emotions for the rest of the world to see doesn't mean that I'm not dealing with it!" without waiting for a reply she stormed out of the house. Slumping angrily into her car she slammed the door and started the engine and backed out of the drive without a second glance back. As the car sped off her mother watched from the porch, a great sadness in her eyes.

Fäolin had been her fiancé, more than that he had been her best friend; they had known each other since they had been small children. They had gone through school together and started dating when they were 16. She had loved him more than anything and had been prepared to spend the rest of her life with him. Her parents had loved him, her friends had loved him. He had seemed to be the perfect man for her, handsome, gentle, kind, funny, and looked set to become a high flyer in the banking world. He had proposed to her at Christmas, in front of her entire family with the exception of her father who had already passed away. Her mother had been delighted at the match and had insisted on a summer wedding. Eager to do things properly Fäolin and Arya managed to stall her until the year after to give ample time to plan.

Unfortunately he had died in the spring before wedding. An evening out that had turned disastrous, a bar disagreement that had had got out of hand. Fäolin had been stabbed by a broken bottle; Arya had gone with him to the hospital and watched the life leave him. That had been two years ago, Arya had in her own way moved on and was living her life, but her mother was not so sure. Before Fäolin's death she had mostly left Arya to herself, preferring to get information about her life from Fäolin who she spoke to more often. But since he had died her mother had been adamant that she speak to Arya as much as possible and have her over to visit. Arya knew that her mother was lonely and trying to make up for lost time. But for Arya, there was a distance between her and her mother that was not easily overcome. Especially with her mother's devotion to the memory of her dead fiancé, in her mother's eyes Fäolin could do no wrong and a small part of Arya wondered if Fäolin was the child that Arya could never have been to her, and for that a small part of her resented her mother.

Her mother had not been the only one to hold a torch for Fäolin, everyone they knew thought that Fäolin was amazing, he could do no wrong in their eyes and believed Arya was lucky to have him. The problem was, Arya knew something that they all didn't, something that still loomed over her life like a permanent storm cloud.

Fäolin had not been the angel that everyone had believed him to be. To start off with he had been incredibly sweet, an amazing friend and an even better lover. They had been the best of friends and when they had got together it had seemed like a dream come true, and for the first couple of years it had been. She had immersed herself in the romantic lifestyle, dinner, the movies, romantic walks. Even a holiday to Paris. They had gone to university together and not spent more than a week apart for almost three years. They were the kind of couple that everyone envied, it seemed almost effortless for them. But just beneath the surface of this perfect relationship was a raging inferno of anger and problems. What a lot of people didn't realise was that Fäolin had a nasty temper, one that seemed to be dependent on company, when there were other people around he was the perfect gentlemen, polite, caring and attentive to her needs and those of the people around them. But behind closed door his temper was short and violent. It didn't emerge until they had moved in together, but manifested in small ways. A shout here, a glass thrown against the wall in anger, they became more frequent and more violent. Then the physical violence had started, grabbing her wrists if she disagreed with him, pushing her into a wall to intimidate her, a slap if he thought she was getting out of line. He was careful to never leave the bruises in a place that would show and alert the people they knew to what was going. At first she had taken it on the chin, giving as good as she got, if he pushed her she pushed him back, if he shouted at her she would shout back. Arya was not someone who was easily pushed around. But as the violence got stronger and the punches started she found herself afraid, scared that he would really hurt her one day, so she quietened down started to read his moods carefully and notice things that would set him off.

There were times when she wanted to tell her family what was going on, but Fäolin had always found a way to stop her. He had grovelled, he'd cried, he'd pleaded, he'd even threatened and every time she relented. Back then she had been naive to trust that he would change, but she had loved him and the idea of crawling back to her mother for help was something she could not do, in her eyes Arya knew her mother would be disappointed, and if there was one thing that Arya could not stand, it was the idea of being a failure. So she stayed with him, and kept up the pretence of a happy couple, ready to be married and spend the rest of their lives together.

The worst part of Fäolin's abuse however did not come until the final months before his death, as well as having a short temper he was also a lousy drunk. There would be nights he would come home and force himself on her; it was after these incidents that she shut down emotionally. It was if she had been broken, she had tried to stop him but in the end he would always win, and there was no escape from the nightmare that she had descended into. In those months before he died Arya resigned herself to the fact that this was to be her life, even though stupidly a part of her still loved him and believed that one day he would be the man that she had fallen in love with.

Fäolin's alcohol problem would eventually be the cause of his death. On one of their rare nights out Fäolin had had a couple too many, he'd taken offence to the way one of the men at the bar looked at him and lashed out. Unfortunately for Fäolin he had found someone who handled drink worse than he did. After a scuffle the other man broke a bottle on the bar and stabbed Fäolin twice, once and the stomach and in the chest. An ambulance was called and Fäolin was taken to the hospital, Arya sat by his bed and watched as the doctors tried to save him, unfortunately they were unable to stop his wounds from taking a toll and he slipped away. She had grieved of course, gone was her childhood friend and the man who had been her lover and best friend, but part of Arya knew that the childhood friend had been gone for a long time. She would of course have the memories of the good times that they had shared over the years, the games, laughter and the innocence of being in love. But there were many bad memories as well, of fear, loathing and desperation. Arya was known by many as hard skinned, seemingly impervious to the troubles of emotion, but she had not always been that way, it had been Fäolin's doing that had hardened her, made her mistrust men, and close her heart off.

Arya opened her door and chucked her keys on the table in the hall. Sliding her jacket off her shoulders she sank down on the sofa with a heavy sigh, glancing over at her answering machine she noted the red light blinking. Without leaving the sofa she leant over and slapped the play button.

"Arya!" Saphira's voice sounded through the speaker. "When you get this, call me! I need a drink!" Arya looked at her watch, she had been planning to relax and spend the evening on her own, but she could never pass up an opportunity to socialise with Saphira. Even if she shunned the rest of the world socially she could never let her partner down.

Half an hour later and Arya was sat in a pub with a glass of wine in front of her, Saphira was running late, as usual and Arya took a small sip of her drink as she waited. The pub was about half full, mainly young men out for a night with their friends. Some of them were eyeing her up appreciatively, but she ignored them and focused on her drink. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the men who had been drinking at the bar push away from the bar and start to move towards her, she didn't look his way and hoped that he would leave her alone. No such luck. With a cocky smile he slid into the chair opposite.

"Hey there gorgeous." He grinned. Arya ignored him, taking a sip of her drink she looked round the bar, anywhere but at him.

"Hey," the guy tried again. "Can I buy you a drink?" Arya ignored him again. The guy reached over and touched her hand, Arya's eyes snapped to him and she yanked her hand away from him.

"No." She said pointedly. The guy gave her a surprised look.

"Come on, I'm just trying to be nice!" he reached out for her hand again." Let me buy you a drink." Again Arya pulled her hand away.

"I said no." Her voice took on a dangerous low tone that he couldn't fail to miss. He opened his mouth once more.

"Do we have a problem here?" another voice sounded from beside the table. Both Arya and the man looked up to find Saphira watching them. She smiled at Arya, but this expression dropped when she looked at the man, ice in her eyes. "I'll say again, do we have a problem?" the guy stood up.

"No." He muttered, walking away he shot Arya a look over his shoulder. Arya nodded her thanks to Saphira as her friend sat down, Arya pushed the beer she had bought Saphira over the table and smiled as Saphira gulped down half the bottle in one go.

"Rough day?" Arya asked, arching a casual eyebrow, Saphira nodded taking another large gulp of her drink.

"Like you wouldn't believe!" she muttered. "Have spent my entire day off in the office trying to sort out Todd's mess with finances! I spent 2 hours going over the budgets with Ajihad and it' still not making sense. They accounts are fine when they leave Varden but something happens before they get to where they're supposed to be." she sighed exasperatedly, "it's taking up valuable time and resources, and quite frankly it's doing my head in." Arya gave a dry chuckle.

"I know what you mean, I've had four meetings with Ajihad and none of them seem to have made any difference." Saphira shook her head.

"It's ridiculous, don't think I've been home before 11 for the last week." Arya nodded sympathetically. Saphira took another gulp of her drink finishing it off.

"So where were you today?" she asked. "When I called your house you weren't there!" Arya took a sip of her wine.

"I went to see my mother." Saphira raised her eyebrows, she knew of Arya's rather strained relationship with her mother.

"How did it go?" Arya shrugged.

"The usual, I left feeling a lot guiltier than when I went in." Saphira shot her a sympathetic look. "She wants me to go to Dad's anniversary thing next month, I don't know if I can face it." Arya admitted a moment later. Saphira nodded.

"If you can you should, no matter how things stand with your mum you should get together to remember your dad."

"I guess you're right." Arya sighed.

"I'm always right." Saphira grinned, causing Arya to allow a small smile to stretch her lips.

They chatted absently about work for a while, Arya liked listening to Saphira, she was one of the few people who could manage to keep Arya's interest. Saphira's phone beeped, picking it up she looked at the screen for a moment before she placed it back down on the desk with a sigh.

"Who was that?" Arya asked.

"Eragon. He's staying at a friend's tonight." Saphira replied. "That makes the third time this week!" Arya picked up something in her tone.

"Is everything ok with you two?" Saphira hesitated for a moment before giving a slight shake of her head.

"Not really. We had a fight last week."

"About what?"

"His choice of friends, I don't like that Murtagh that he's been hanging around with. You know him, the delivery guy?" Arya nodded, she had met the guy before, he'd made a thinly veiled attempt to hit on her. There was something about him that Arya didn't like, he seemed like he was hiding something.

"I've seen him around. I wasn't aware that him and Eragon were that close?" Saphira looked at her phone and nodded.

"Yeah, I mean I guess I should be happy that he's found a guy friend to hang around with, but there's something about that guy that I just don't trust." She finished her drink and placed it back on the table. "But it's not really my place to say who he should and shouldn't be friends with." Arya nodded.

"He knows you're just looking out for him."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Arya didn't know what to say, it was not often that she saw Saphira like this, it seemed that when it came to Eragon, Saphira took things very personally.

"I'm sorry, I know you don't like all this moaning and stuff." Saphira said. She paused. "Come to think of it, neither do I!" this made Arya smile.

"Next round on me?" she asked standing up, Saphira nodded eagerly.

The next day when Arya went to work, she was still thinking about what Saphira had said the night before. She knew in the back of her mind that she was focusing on this to avoid thinking about the visit to her mother. Going into her office she sat down behind her desk and linked her fingers together. As Arya counted Saphira as one of her closest friends she wanted to help when she was feeling down, but she wasn't sure how she should go about it. The most logical thing to do would be to speak to Eragon, but she didn't know if she should. It seemed out of character for her, and Arya was not used to doing things out of character.

After a few moments of restless thinking she sighed and standing up pushed her chair back. Heading for the door she flung it open and began to march towards Saphira's office.

"How do I get myself into these situations." She muttered.

Luckily when she got to Saphira's office Saphira wasn't there, but Eragon was. He was engrossed in whatever he was reading, and didn't look up when the lift door opened. Which was unusual, usually he was alert and always greeted those who entered the office with a smile. Making no noise as she crossed the space Arya came to a stop by his desk, he didn't look up until her shadow fell over the paper he was reading. Raising his head slightly he looked surprised to see standing there.

"Arya." He looked over his shoulder into Saphira's office. "I'm sorry Saphira's not here at the moment, I can call for her though?" Arya shook her head.

"Actually Eragon, it was you I wanted to speak to."

"Me?" he almost stuttered. Arya nodded again and retrieving a chair she sat down opposite Eragon. For a moment she didn't speak, he held her gaze for a while before looking down.

"Saphira told me about the fight." She finally stated quietly. Eragon looked up and for the first time ever she saw anger in his eyes.

"Did she make you come and talk to me?" he asked, annoyance evident.

"No." Arya replied shortly. "I came because I wanted to talk to you about it."

"Ok."

"Saphira feels...bad." Arya began.

"She should."

"Come on Eragon." Arya said, a little harsher than she had intended. She'd never had much patience and it was already wearing thin. "I know you two have had an argument, but you're so close to let something like this drive such a wedge between you." Eragon leant back in his chair and scowled.

"I'm old enough to make my own decisions. I don't need Saphira telling me who I can and can't be friends with. I would have thought she would be pleased, but it turns out she's just like Roran and Garrow."

"Nobody's trying to tell you what to do Eragon, she cares about you that's all." Arya reason. Eragon huffed and Arya knew she was making progress. "Look, you're both better than this and you know it. So why not just talk to her, straighten things out. You like and work together you can't go on like this, sleeping at someone else's most of the week."

"I guess." Eragon mumbled

"That's right." Arya said sitting back too. Eragon didn't speak for a moment.

"So will you talk to her?" Arya asked. Eragon nodded reluctantly. Arya allowed a small smile to stretch her lips. "Good. I'll see you later." Without another word she stood and turned to walk back towards the lift. Leaving a confused and somewhat disgruntled Eragon behind her.

Eragon didn't work up the courage to talk to Saphira until that evening. She'd been working late again and he'd decided to stay up and wait for her. He was sat in the living room, staring blankly at the wall when he heard her key in the lock and the front door open. She didn't call out like she used to, he'd not been at home enough for her to do so. He heard her moving around before coming into the living room. She looked surprised to see him sat on the sofa, an ice cold beer in his hand, and that hand extended to her.

"Eragon? What is this?"

"An apology." Eragon replied. "Listen I'm sorry, I shouldn't have reacted like I did. You've been amazing since I've been here and if it wasn't for you I would never have had this opportunity." Saphira slowly sat down next to him and pulled the top of the beer.

"I guess I should say I'm sorry too." She said. "Look I know you think I'm trying to tell you what to do, but I just don't want anything bad to ever happen to you. If you wanna be friends with Murtagh, that's fine." She paused and took a deep breath. "I guess maybe part of me was jealous as well that you'd found someone else who you were close too." Eragon smirked a bit at that.

"Friends?" Eragon asked, holding out his hand. Saphira grinned and brushing his hand aside and pulling him into a hug.

"Course we are." She grinned. Pulling back she ruffled his hair. "Right you. I'm off to bed." Standing up she walked away towards the door. At the door she turned and looked at him.

"What made you apologise? I know you; you're as stubborn as I am." Eragon was sipping the beer she had left behind, he shrugged.

"I had a chat with Arya. She helped me see the error of my ways." Saphira looked like she might say something, but closed her mouth and just smiled before leaving the room.


So I hope you guys enjoyed that. There's a development on Arya and some Arya, Eragon interaction. Let me know what you think, I love reading your reviews. Once again sorry for the delay between chapters I can't guarentee I'll have another one written soon but I shall do my best.

Pirate-x-Girls