Hello all,

I apologize if I've gotten your hopes up and you thought this was a new chapter. I had received some reviews recently and I feel horrible. It has been so long and I don't know how to begin to explain why it has been so long. But, I do hope that you all will read through this entire note before closing the page and that you aren't angry with me.

I started writing this story in the summer between Season 2 and Season 3 of "Glee." I had caught the show during one of those marathons where they show several episodes at once and the writing spark had hit me. I watched every episode to get a proper idea of Santana, Brittany and the whole gang and then began to write. I shuttled out two stories, one dreary and the other sweet, just to get my feet wet. Then I began with the chaptered story that this very note is in.

When I started writing this story, I was naive. I thought I "knew" Death. I had seen the shows and watched the documentaries and read all the sad, sad stories of those who were ripped from life too soon. I thought I could make Death human. Partly because despite the research, I didn't really know it and partly because, like most, I was curious and afraid of it. I had never experienced the trauma that was death. I had lost a great grandfather when I was very young, but he was very old and I was not sat down and talked to about it. One day he was there, the next he wasn't and when I asked, my parents told me what every parent tells their child, that grandpa had gone to heaven and he was "in a better place."

So when I wrote about death, I wrote of him like I would any other character. I took what I knew from research and took artistic liberties and made Santana meet "Death" in a somewhat human form. She can only see him, but they interact. He talks to her. He guides her. He tries to help her see that not everyone has the time they think they have. That it can be snatched away at any moment. Of course, Santana, in the story, gets the chance to know when her time is up and gets the opportunity to steer her life in the right direction. To get to change her ways and experience her own version of happiness before it's all taken away.

And I wrote with fervor. I wrote it with passion. Even when there wasn't an update, I was writing scenes and changing timelines and coming up with new ideas. This story was my project and though I was borrowing most of the characters from "Glee," the character of Death was mine. The character of Death was mine to control. I thought I had him to control, anyway.

And then he stopped for a visit.

And when he left, he took my aunt with him.

My aunt, who I had known since birth and with whom I shared a home, suffered from epilepsy. She suffered from epilepsy since she was a child and it was always controlled by medication. In the last year or so, the medication she had taken all her life wasn't working and her siezures were getting worse. She was on new medication but it worked on and off. When we found her that morning…I truly understood that Death was not something anyone could control, in reality, in fiction or otherwise.

After my aunt, I was lost for a while. That was one of the roughest times of my life. It was hard but I, and my family, struggled through. (It's still hard from time to time.)

But He wasn't done with me yet.

I went to the dentist a few months after my aunt had passed for just a regular check-up and it was anything but. I, like my mother and her mother, had developed periodontal disease and needed antibiotics to cure the infection. My dentist wrote out a prescription and sent me on my way. Four days into my antibiotic regimen, I was on my way to the hospital. The antibiotics made me terribly ill and I could not keep anything, solid or liquid, down. I was dehydrated to near kidney failure.

After that, I had no passion for writing. I also hadn't the time. Season 3 came and went, and then Season 4 with the whole breakup debacle made me lose motivation for the story completely. I still read stories and wrote some reviews but I never got back to writing.

But I'm trying. And I'm toying with the idea scrapping what has been written and reworking the story from the beginning. (Your opinions on that idea would be welcomed.)

I don't want to disappoint anyone and I didn't want to leave you without answers. Know that I am trying though. And I am reading the wonderful stories on this site every day.

I appreciate all of the reviews I have received and all of the favorites and follows as well. I hope that you will be patient as I try to work my way back into writing.

Thank you,

A.