A/N: Skip this if you don't care about explanations about my disappearance! The lighter reason is that I started dating a new guy, and "sorry bb, I can't hang out, I need to write fanfic" isn't really a possibility, but there's also a more serious reason. Honestly, for ages I held off on telling you guys this because I figured if it doesn't interfere, it's not relevant...except lately it has been interfering with updates (blatantly), so I figure it's only fair. Basically I struggle pretty badly with anxiety and depression, and sometimes that makes it very difficult to even keep up with mandatory things, never-mind hobbies like writing, and recently it spurred on a big crisis that I had with my writing and whether I was being realistic in trying to pursue it as a career and spending so much time on it etc. etc...until yesterday, when I had to read a rough novel draft to my class at uni, and I've literally never heard anybody get such positive and glowing feedback as I got, which fully restored my confidence in my writing and that I'm on the right path...hence the update now, because from the reactions of my class and my hard to impress teacher, it now feels like it'd be a waste to not make a huge effort with this stuff. But you guys have played a big role in giving me confidence in my writing. If not for you, the last story probably wouldn't have been completed, never-mind a sequel, so thank you for that.


"Back, uh, when I was in high school, my mom got sick...The 'big C'."

There was a time when saying it would make her voice crack and hands shake. Not anymore. The fact that it was something she'd grown used to sent a dull streak of sadness through Tara's chest.

"That was before my little sister was born, so it was just me, mom n' dad. The three goddamn musketeers."

She paused to take a swig of beer, wishing it was something stronger. Remembering the happy times almost hurt more at this point. By now Dwayne had recovered from the shock and was no longer staring at her with wide eyes.

"You don't have to-."

"Not what you were expecting, huh?" She gave him a mirthless smile before sighing and allowing her features to soften "I've started now, may as well finish so you don't try to connect the dots yourself. Putting two and two together and getting five, y'know?"

He bit the inside of his cheek - biting back the apology she'd warned him not to make, Tara suspected. Then with a quiet sigh, he nodded and rested back against the tree trunk behind him.

"It was touch and go for a while. She got told she might not be able to have any more kids, which was a huge blow. I was a teen, and i don't think they even had any plans to give me a sibling, but there's something about the choice being taken away, y'know?" She glanced at him and he nodded silently, something flickering in his eyes but otherwise betraying nothing "Anyway, after pretty extensive treatment she actually started to recover. We all called it a miracle, but I wasn't surprised. I figured nobody so...so loving and generous and amazing could be taken from us like that."

Dwayne's eyebrow twitched as she gave a humourless laugh.

"She went into remission and before long she was back to her old self. Then she got pregnant with Emma, my little sister, and we all got even closer."

Taking a moment to pause, her hand trailed up to tug on the butterfly hanging from her earlobe. The nostalgia was hitting her harder than she expected.

"And then a few years later the cancer came back," there was no disguising the strain present in her voice this time "Only this time it was more aggressive. The treatment less effective. But she stayed in high spirits, y'know? We...We worked on projects together in her bedroom, marathoned movies, played with Emma, and then…"

Trailing off, Tara felt herself involuntarily beginning to tense as her sadness gave way to anger and more bitterness than she cared to admit.

"Then my darling father started to become distant. At first I didn't blame him - he was working to afford mom's treatment...Caring for two daughters and trying to deal with the fact that his wife and high school sweetheart was so sick. I shrugged it off and put my nerdy into my mom, Emma and my friends...and, of course, my art. It was cheaper than therapy."

She took another moment now, not because she was emotional, but to consider how to word the next part. After a few sips of beer and patient silence from Dwayne, she continued.

"Then...I started to notice things," she admitted almost begrudgingly "Emails...working weird hours...hiding with the phone in the hallway...minimising computer pages the second I walked into the room...A shitload of suspicious stuff. I suspected, but it was so far beyond the realms of what I wanted to be real, so I told myself I was being stupid. Paranoid. But y'know, the more shit mounts up, the less you can ignore it. My mom? She was a smart lady. She saw it. I fuckin' saw she saw it. Hell, she probably knew before me. Her life revolved around her family, and it was crumbling. Maybe she blamed herself. She'd been with my dad for so damn long and the only difference she could see was the disease - not the fact that her husband had become an absolute raging douchebag."

The anger was mounting now, and the final sentence came out as a growl. After a deep breath in a (failed) attempt to calm herself down, she went on.

"She started to deteriorate, and when she moved into hospital I stopped talking to him, and he...well, he stopped hiding it as much. Stopped giving a fuck - if he ever did in the first place."

Tara had never told the full story from start to finish before - she'd never had to - but his silent attention egged her on, and whilst it was difficult for her to begin, the words were now spilling from her in such a way that she wans't sure she'd be able to stop if she tried.

"I spent my all of the time I could at the hospital. Went home only when absolutely necessary, and pretty much never bothered with school. My grades went from As to Ds, mom got worse and I spent my nights couch-surfing so I wouldn't have to be around dad and his goddamn mistress. He thought I didn't realise he had her over when I wasn't there. Then...Then mom passed away and everything went to shit."

She still had a lot of difficulty with using the word 'died' in relation to the whole ordeal.

"I ended up dropping out. Hell, if I hadn't they would'a kicked me out, and the only reason I hadn't beforehand was because it would've broken her damn heart. Only even went home at all to make sure Emma was okay. My dad was livid. He'd had it in his head that I'd become a dentist, and outright refused to play any supportive role when I brought up art school. He'd really changed. Mom had always been the more enthusiastic one, but he'd hardly been unsupportive. I think it was Alison. She had it in her head that kids needed a firm hand - never mind the fact that she was barely ten fuckin' years older than me," Tara had to forcefully unclench her jaw to relieve the ache that was beginning to blossom "Anyway, I can hardly afford that shit myself, and a scholarship wasn't on the cards, not being a high school dropout...So I moved out here because I couldn't stomach another minute in New York with those two. Carolina to the rescue, I guess."

"What about your boyfriend?" Dwayne frowned a little "He couldn't help you out?"

"We were over the second my mom and dad fell apart," Tara admitted "If her high school sweetheart could do that to her after two kids, during a fight with cancer...what could this guy I'd met at some party through a friend do to me, given the opportunity? The solution was not to give him one. Or anybody one, really."

"Hence the 'physical only' thing," Dwayne nodded in understanding.

Tara nodded in agreement before giving a shrug "I don't need the distraction, anyway. What I do need is to focus on my art and figure out what I'm doing with my life. Build one that doesn't make me want to take a long walk off a short pier."

"Well...shit," Dwayne raised his beer bottle to her before taking a swig.

"You did ask," she muttered unapologetically, although internally she was already beginning to question how wise she'd been in opening up to the Lost Boy.

Although she'd have regretted it a lot more if he'd gotten soppy on her ass. Luckily, Dwayne proved her right in not being that type.

"I did," he conceded "Gotta admit, wasn't the 'finding myself' bullshit deal I expected."

"Do I give off that vibe?" She asked, mock-offended "I was going for 'struggling artist'."

"How masochistic," he snorted.

"How about sadism?" Tara countered "Your turn to tell me a story. How did you come to Santa Carla?"

"No story to tell," he shrugged easily "Came here with my brothers. Cat joined up later."

"You all came here together? I thought you were all born and raised here...Or at least first met here."

"Nah, we've lived together n' had eachother's backs for what feels like a lifetime," a ghost of a smile crossed his face - an unusually genuine one.

"And Cat lives with all of you too?" She couldn't hide her surprise.

"Very communal," he nodded in amusement "What's up?"

"I just figured she and Paul would do the conventional couple thing and live together. Seems odd, a girl so young moving to a different country to live with four guys she met on vacation. She seems too innocent to be that scandalous."

"What about any of us says 'conventional'?" The Lost Boy snorted "Why the sudden curiosity with Cat?"

"She's...different. Friendly and kinda vulnerable, but also managing to be a closed book, all whilst being my friend," she struggled to find the correct words to describe the Brit "All of you guys just seem so...strange, is all."

"Welcome to Santa Carla," he grinned.


The Lost Cave

"Stop worrying," Paul rubbed her shoulder as Cat gnawed on the corner of her lip.

"This can only end badly, darling," she warned, leaning into him.

"Not if we have Dwayne there," he argued gently "He'll get in close, stay there and stop her seeing anything she shouldn't."

"Feels sleazy."

"As if he wasn't gonna hit that anyway," David scoffed and they all couldn't help but make noises of agreement.

Cat sighed, which turned into a smile when Paul leaned forward and replaced the tape in the boom box. Soon The Clash blared throughout the cave. It brightened her mood, but it wasn't enough to ease her worry.

"What if she does find something best left unseen?" She couldn't help but voice the concern.

"Well kill her," Marko replied simply, words muffled by the joint between his lips.

"And her aunt? Who distrusts us at best, has a foothold here and knows Tara associates with us?" She frowned sceptically "What, we kill her too? Then the Frogs, I suppose - may as well, while we're at it."

Marko groaned, and Paul muttered an amused "I'm down for that." But David allowed her a quiet sigh.

"She has a point," the platinum blond admitted "Might be time we formulated an emergency escape plan."

The thought was a blow. The cave had become her eccentric little rabbit hole of a home; like a twisted Narnia. Where else could they ever live? Where else would they want to live? Would contacting Jamie still be possible if they moved? And then there was the matter of backlash-free feeding. Such a thing would be inconceivable elsewhere. No, Santa Carla was an absolute haven, and the prospect of leaving drove that point home. Life would get a whole lot more difficult if that had to happen, no matter where they ended up going.

"We've moved around before," Paul reminded her softly, sensing her anxiety "It's really no biggie, babe. A pain in the ass, sure, but we'll all be together and we'll all be fine. We always are."

She relaxed at the reminder of how long they'd all been doing this. Sure, she was hardly still a newbie to their world, but it was reassuring to remember that they were at a 'seasoned pro' status. Allowing herself to relax into Paul's side, what she didn't allow herself to do was voice the next worry that sprang to her mind. It was inevitable that they'd just tell her to stop being stupid...but she didn't want the most important people in her life to lose what had been referred to as 'their best set-up in decades' all because she'd wanted to have a girlfriend.

"Can't discuss jack-shit to do with that til Dwayne gets back anyway," David shrugged lazily "This is a democracy, goddamnit. May as well kick back for now."

"Here, here!" Paul grinned, raising a bottle of Jack with one hand and pulling her closer with the other.

A/N: This was going to be longer, with a lot more Dwayne/Tara, but it's hard to follow the heaviness of that with anything without it detracting from it, in my opinion. Plus, I just wanted to get some kind of update out there, on the off chance I have any readers left.