hey guys,
wow! i'm actually updating and it hasn't been several months, actually i'm not really sure how long its been. gee i loose track of time so easily.
anyways, like always i am eternally sorry about not updating lately, as i said before, time seems to get away from me. but you should be all glad to hear that i had a student free day today, which gave me a chance to do some writing, yay for no school!

recently i started a creative writing course out of the adult ed book things, so far its been really good and i've learnt alot. i realsied as i read through other fanfics and then my own, that my writing style is really in need of repair, to put it nicely. so i have decided to try and improve my writing, sorry its taken me so long to realise this. although i have no idea how long this will take, we can only hope.

i really hope you enjoy this chapter, please tell me what you hate and like about it and any improvements my story needs.

thanls BlueBB

There was something in the grey light which flooded through my window. Something in absence of all the birds that usually sang their hearts out at this time in the morning. Something in the loud bang I heard coming from down stairs that told me today was going to be horrible.

As I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes I looked out the window to the sight of ominous grey clouds floating by. The tree which obscured about a quarter of my window was vacant of the usual birds that called it their home. Both of these things pointed to an impending thunder storm.

I yawned and stretched my arms out, trying to mentally prepare myself for the day ahead. I had just about worked myself out of bed when the sounds of someone singing reached my ears.

The sound was scratchy, unbearably high pitched and hurt my ears, whoever it was couldn't sing to save their life.

Already aggravated at the noise I put my iPod on the speakers and decided to show this person what real music is, not the song Over the Rainbow, which they seemed to be singing.

Turning the volume up to maximum, I put the song Dance with The Devil, by Breaking Benjamin, on. I got out of bed, grabbed some clothes and headed to the shower, using my favourite song to motivate me.

The music did it's job, drowning out the sound of the unsightly voice and calming my mood, relaxing my mind.

Half way through my shower the song changed to Let it Die by Three Days grace, another favourite. Singing along to the lyrics I got myself ready for the day.

I walked out into my bedroom, switched the music off and was relieved to hear that whoever had been singing before had finally stopped. Hesitating for just a second, I opened my door and took the first step into the new day, trying to stop all the images flashing through my head of what could go wrong.

I met no-one on the way down the corridor, voices from the kitchen and lounge room reached my ears as I made my way down the stairs.

The looks I got when I walked out into the kitchen told me I had obviously woken everyone up with my music. The only one who smiled at me was Emily, who I knew would have been singing along.

I laughed to myself; for once it was me pissing them off, not the other way around.

"Good morning Crissy, good choice of music this morning, I absolutely love Three Days Grace," Emily said going on about some of their other songs.

"Well some of us don't, hm. Especially at seven in the morning," Deidara said with a scowl on his face, obviously he wasn't a morning person either.

"Yeah well some of us don't like being woken up by someone screaming their lungs out," I counted, stepping in for Emily, who's face had fallen at Deidara's comment, she took everything he said so seriously.

"What was wrong with my singing?" Tobi asked in an insulted tone, oblivious to the fact he couldn't sing.

"Well for a start you can't even sing." I started, all the other Akatsuki members nodded their heads in agreement, "and your pitch was way too high, it hurts my ears just thinking about it."

"Well, Tobi doesn't think he's that bad, maybe Crissy should get her ears checked," he counted.

I sighed in exasperation; this is not how I wanted to start my morning. I muttered a whatever to close the argument with Tobi and went to make myself breakfast. I opened the cupboard to get a bowl and instantly shut the door. Closing my eyes I tried to fight the anger rising in the pit of my stomach.

"Who. The. Hell. Did this?" I managed to choke out over my anger. My hand still gripped the handle; I wouldn't be surprised if it was bent out of shape.

"Did what?" Tobi asked innocently. Too innocently.

"Who the hell broke all of the plates and bowls?" I yelled across the room. Infront of me, behind the cleverly carved wood, sat a pile what was the only dinner wear we had left. It was now a pile of broken shards, different patterns all mixed in together. I guess this explained the bang I heard this morning.

I turned around to glare at the suddenly silent room. Tobi wasn't there.

"Don't hide behind me," came Itachi's annoyed voice from the living room.

I looked around to see Tobi trying to hide behind Itachi, Konan had a scowl on her face and Zetsu looked like he was trying not to laugh.

I closed my eyes, once again having to suppress the boiling anger which was about the burst. I usually didn't lose my temper this quickly; maybe it was a side effect from being around Tobi so much.

Before the room got torn apart by my own hands, I walked out the front door, needing to put as much distance between myself and the house. The outside air was humid, and the clouds above were definitely darker than they were when I got up.

"Hello Crissy, how are you feeling after yesterday?" came an over friendly voice.

My head snapped up and I stopped dead in my tracks, looking in horror at the person who had spoken.

"Are you ok Crissy? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I-" I couldn't speak, the words were stuck in throat, my mind was blank and I couldn't think.

"Crissy," he said my name with worry now. Coming over to me he put his hand on my shoulder. "Can you hear me? Its Jake, are you ok?"

The sound of his name and the touch of his hand made my mind suddenly snap to reality, making it work twice as fast.

"Jake! What are you doing here?" I said, almost shouting his name, my anger forgotten and replaced with shock. He stepped back at my sudden out burst; I hoped he wasn't the only one who heard it.

What was he doing here? Suddenly the memory from yesterday with him telling us he'd come back to check on us came flooding into my mind. I can't believe I forgot, I really hope the others heard me.

A crash sounded from the house, relaxing my nerves just a bit; hopefully that was the others realising what was going on.

"What was that?" Jake asked alarmed, moving towards the house.

"Nothing! It's probably just Emily being clumsy. So tell me, did you find the criminals?" I asked, trying to delay him as much as possible.

He turned his attention back on me and scowled as memories of yesterday's chase came back, "no, they escaped. We're still searching though, hopefully we will catch them within the next few days." he said the last bit with a sense of hope and smugness, it looked as though he was pretty confident. But then again he was confident in everything he did, and then he would be really smug for the next few days if he did well or got it right, it really got on my nerves.

I smirked to myself knowing he wouldn't find Itachi and Deidara. "Yeah, hopefully you will find them," I agreed, keeping my voice earnest. "Do you know what direction they went in?" I asked, my voice now hopeful.

"Well we followed your directions from yesterday, they went out of town but then stopped dead. So far we have no leads, so we're going to search the forest again, just incase they tricked us. Oh, and that reminds me, I need permission to search your land as it comes quite close to the investigation area." He said, dropping this latest bomb shell on me once again when I didn't expect it.

"You need to search our land?" I asked, making it look like I hadn't heard properly. My mind was racing, I couldn't say no, but if they searched our land it would definitely lead them back to the house.

"Yes that's right, just incase they're hiding out here or passed through the area." He said, sounding really professional.

"Instead of wasting your time, why don't we search our property ourselves, that way you'll have more time to search elsewhere. Anyway, we know our land a lot better, we know all the hiding spots and all the trails." I tried to sound convincing, they couldn't be allowed to look on our land.

"Hm, you have a good point, I'll talk to Emily about it and see if she agrees, then I'll put it to the boys. It's certainly a good idea though." He turned towards the house again, this time I didn't stop him.

We stepped inside and I was relived to find it Akatsuki free. Emily was sitting at the dining room table, reading a magazine, looking quite flustered. Her head came up and a forced smile lit her face.

"Oh, hey Jake, I forgot you were coming over." She said.

"What, how could you forget about me? Anyway, I just came to see if you were alright, I was worried about you after yesterday." He said, oblivious to her forced expression.

"You don't have to worry, I'm perfectly fine." She tried reassuring him. Her smile at this point looked painful.

"That's good to hear. What was that bang I heard coming from the house, did anything happen?" he asked with worry in his voice. I mentally gagged, the way he swooned over her was ridiculous.

"Oh no, nothing happened, I was just careless and knocked over the stool." She said a little too fast, of course Jake didn't notice. I looked to the kitchen stools, only to find a slight dent in one of them. That wasn't so bad, until I looked at the floor to see a matching dent, the anger from before started to come back, I knew Emily wasn't that careless.

"Well I'm glad you're ok, if anything happens make sure you call me and I'll be right over in a second." He said in a sickly sweet voice.

Emily managed a laugh, "Ok, I sure will."

Jake laughed along too, "I'll be your knight in shining armour!" he proclaimed, taking it way too far.

The right corner of Emily's eyebrow twitched slightly, "Yeah sure."

"Ah, don't you have to ask Emily about searching our property?" I cut in, anxious for him to leave.

"Oh yeah," his face fell slightly, probably annoyed that I had stoped their 'fun', "we were unable to find the culprits on the original path that lead out of town, so we have decided to search the forest again to see if they tricked us. Because your property overlaps the search area, we were hoping for your permission to search the property, just incase they're hiding here, or if they passed through."

Emily's face went blank for a second, obviously shocked as I was at his announcement.

"But I thought, seeing as how we know the property better, we should search it ourselves." I cut in, saving Emily from Jake's meaningful stare. "We could do the whole thing in a day if we took the horses, plus we know every little place they could possibly hide. That way we wouldn't take up their time with searching our property. And anyway, seeing as how well Jake knows us, we can obviously be trusted." I said, trowing the last part in there to put Jake on the spot.

Emily's face lit up as I gave her a meaningful look, "Yeah, that's a great idea. I would be happy to do that, plus you out of anyone know you can trust us," she said, coming around the table to stand next to Jake, looking at him with puppy dog eyes.

Jake looked torn between two things, finally he sighed and looked Emily in the eye, "I'll have to talk to the others about it, but I'm sure once they know how much I trust you they will agree. If, of course, that's what makes you happy."

Being over dramatic, Emily threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, "It will make me happier than anything, especially knowing I'm helping the community by trying to rid these awful people. Thank you so much, I know you will win them over." She almost squealed in delight. I gave her the thumbs up from behind Jake's shoulder, she winked back.

They came apart and Jake had an odd expression on his face, almost like blissfully happy. "I'm sure I'll be able to convince them. Anyway, I should probably go, it looks like a storm is coming in fast, I'll call you later and tell you what we decide." He said, leaving with a big smile on his face.

Emily waved enthusiastically back, a huge smile also on her face. As his car pulled out of the drive way she turned to me with a relived smile across her face.

"Wow, that was close."

I let out a big breath, "yeah, that was too close, we were so lucky." I said. Even though luck didn't seem to like me at the moment, it was still hanging around somewhere.

Suddenly there was the sound of something almost like thunder, and several bodies came down the stairs at once.

"Tobi you idiot, hm! You could of killed us," Deidara grumbled, somewhere among the pile of bodies.

"Get off me you great lump," Itachi growled from beneath Deidara.

"Shut up, yeah! Its not my fault we're like this, Tobi get off me!"

Itachi muttered something else that I couldn't hear and then Tobi managed to untangle himself, brushing his cloak off as he stood up.

"Wow, that was fun!" he said in his childish voice.

A growl escaped both Deidara's and Itachi's lips as they pulled themselves up, glaring at Tobi.

"Is it safe to come down now?" Konan asked from the top of the stairs.

Emily laughed, "Yeah, they seem to have untangled themselves now."

"Good," Konan said, laughing slightly as she and Zetsu both came down the stairs.

"Nice going, you almost caught us out," Itachi said, suddenly glaring at me with some unspoken fury in his eyes, why did he always look at me like that?

"What! I just saved your sorry ass from being thrown in jail. Oh wait, you would have just killed them all anyway, wouldn't you!" I said, letting my temper get away from me. I instantly regretted saying what I did, I knew the real reason he killed his family, I also knew he didn't like unnecessary violence.

His eyes seemed to flicker, losing their fire for a fraction of second, and then burning with twice the intensity. "What would you know, you're just some stupid girl who doesn't even know how to act." He said, turning away from me.

My whole body ached to yell after him, to tell him that I knew the truth, to tell him I knew how he felt, to know he wasn't alone, to say sorry for what I said. But I couldn't. I knew he'd just be angrier, and suddenly I didn't want him hate me; I didn't want to stare into those hatred filled eyes every time. I wanted to make him see that I wasn't stupid, that I was worth something.

This sudden realisation hit me hard, I wasn't expecting it, especially how strong it was.

I stared at his back as he walked into the living room, feeling defeated.

I sighed and headed to my room, wanting to be alone.

"Crissy, are you ok?" Emily asked carefully.

"Yeah I'm fine, I just want to be alone for a while." I said, smiling at her.

"Ok," she said, understanding flooding her face.

I shut the door to my room and sank down onto the bed putting my head into my hands.

I let of the emotions I was feeling roll through me, breathing in and out, releasing each emotion with each breath. I spent about an hour relaxing my mind, clearing it of any thought.

I had finally finished when the first clap of thunder rolled over head, breaking into my meditation. The thunder shook the house, its booming filling every room as the burnt air was pushed forwards.

A scream sounded from down stairs, I couldn't make out who it was, but I knew for sure it was going to be an incredibly long day, the second scream confirmed it.

so there you are, i hope you enjoyed it.

by the way, does anyone watch or has watched the TV show Man vs. Wild? I'm watching it right now and i was just wondering.

anyways, have an awsomely good week!