It's been awhile so I'm sorry since I'm sure a lot of you might not even remember this story. Well, it hasn't been quite that long but I'll give y'all a quick recap anyway.

So there's Chelsea who was taken away with her twin brother at childhood to act as child soldiers in a secret section of the military, they were tricked to kill there own parents after implied to have taken some weird drug in the form of candy... Wow this is the riskiest story I've ever written. Seriously, I usually write light fluffy comedies. Anyway she escaped and is a farmer on sunshine island now.

Mark, has recently appeared and he is Chelsea's twin brother who does not remember her or anything due to amnesia. She harbours a deep grudge and mistrust for him though because he betrayed her trust when they were forced to fight by slashing her even though she was insisting they don't fight. A large scar remains on her chest. She does not realize that he did it to protect her. Seems to be into Natalie who's been trying to help him remember stuff.

Vaughn, who has admitted to liking Chelsea but has some dark past that he's not revealing to us that holds him back form ever telling her.

and an OC, Ruth whose a kid who Chelsea met and sort of mentored while in the army. She has monstrous strength for her age and is kind of emotionless.

I watched a lot of anime before I wrote this story so parts hold the same kind of unrealistic-ness as an action manga. Like, rather than like in a regular army, Chelsea used a scythe 'cause scythe's are awesome. Like in Soul Eater. There really are some part's you have to stretch your imagination.

She awoke slowly and wearily. She was not immediately anywhere she remembered. Not in the warm embrace of her loving bed back at the farm, but not laying in a muddy trench or rotting cot which was a good sign. Rather than what she saw through her open eyes, it was the smell of leather and it's cool touch where she placed her hand that reminded her she was on Vaughn's couch in his apartment.

It wasn't hard to force herself upright. The couch wasn't as alluring and unrelinquishing as a bed, It was too cold to the half-asleep farmer and too disgustingly warm where she'd been lying after absorbing her body heat overnight.

She had had a bad dream. Obviously. She didn't have even the faintest hint of what it was about that night but it was obviously bad because she had never been welcomed with anything but nightmares every time she slept. There was also the resounding hollowness in her gut associated with dread, lingering from whatever she had just escaped from in her dreams.

Breakfast was quiet. They had gotten over whatever little feud they were going through the day before but there was still an awkwardness. She had tried to break through it with empty-hearted jokes but as they were not working for Vaughn who was clearly not a morning person, she eventually gave up.

"So." She finally said, "goin' to work today?"

"No." He responded. There was a silence long enough that she figured that was probably all he had to say but just as she was beginning to form more words in her mouth he continued, "I have the day off."

"Okiedokie." She said, "wanna buy stuff with me? I'm going to be honest, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing yesterday."

He sighed but nodded nonetheless.

Gannon rubbed his giant hand over the back of his head apologetically. "Sorry Eliza had to get sick and all. I know this old man isn't much company." They sat at the carpentry's wood table, Eliza was upstairs mewling like a dying kitten.

"It's fine." Ruth said, "Neither am I."

They had already eaten and Gannon was preparing to go work. He was to repair Taro's roof today.

"I'd better go." He said lifting his massive tool box. It was nearly the size of the girl herself.

She was finding herself curious about his work, maybe just because she had nothing better to do. "Could I… come?" She asked.

His laugh boomed and, standing so close she almost wanted to cover her ears. "Sorry kiddo but this is strong men's work. Dangerous too."

She looked at him blankly, "I'm not a man… but I'm strong will that suffice?"

He chuckled and placed his kit to the floor, "Tell you what, If you can lift this, you can help me out."

She looked at the kit but at first didn't make a move which he initially took as immediate surrender as was to be expected. No little kid could lift the toolbox, some grown adults even couldn't. Ruth was mature and wouldn't be the type to walk over and screw her little face up in concentration as she tried to do the impossible. She seemed like the calculating type who would realize immediately that she met her match.

Or so he thought. She walked over and used one hand to clasp around the handle. Then she lifted and the box rose from the floor.

Gannon's eyes could have bulged in his shock but they didn't and instead he gave his signature sloppy grin, "Well, I might make a fine carpenter of you yet."

Ruth nodded and they headed out, her carrying the kit along with them effortlessly.

"Phew!" The brunette called throwing her arms out in victory as they walked down the side walk, "Everything finished! At this rate I can head back to the island tomorrow." Vaughn simply grunted, following behind her silently. A couple walked by giving Chelsea a wide berth after her outburst and he reached to tilt his hat down over his eyes in embarrassment only to grasp at air. He kept forgetting he didn't wear his hat in the city.

Chelsea stopped suddenly and he walked into her. "What-" He started in anger but she wasn't listening. The park next to them was giving her an odd feeling, one she simply could not place. She didn't often experience emotion that cut right through her, gnawed at her from the inside out, positive or negative.

Since the day her brother, her last life-line cut her off, she had only occasionally felt the ghost of feelings she once experienced. This one was not necessarily a bad feeling, but it was uncomfortable, she felt confused or like she did when something was just at the tip of her tongue and she just couldn't place it.

Nostalgia. She suddenly realized. "I think I…" She started to say out loud but it ebbed away in doubt. She was going to say, I think I know this place. Fragments were coming back to her slowly like puzzle pieces. Part of the park was obscured by the stone wall but if she took a couple steps forward, she'd be at the gate opening and would be able to see further in. There should be an elephant slide next to the sand pit. She thought and then walked a couple tentative steps forward to check her prediction.

She grasped the rusty metal of the front gate's door. Not because it was closed but that the open door was the first thing in reach to steady her suddenly wobbly legs. The elephant slide was not as large as she remembered it being or at least she had pictured as a towering and impressive figure but it still stood as the tallest thing besides the trees in the park. It watched protectively over the children laughing at the swing set.

"I do know this place." She said in wonder.

"You do?" Vaughn asked. She jumped, she'd forgotten he was there but she quickly ignored him again, letting her gaze wander from the park to the sidewalk in front of her. It wasn't quite a full memory, or even a flash back but she thought she remembered walking down that way with her father hand-in-hand, Mark on his other side.

As she thought of it the image became clearer and more dimensional. She could almost smell her dad's cologne and feel the warmth of his strong hand, things and details that she thought she had long forgotten. This only validated her suspicions.

She began to walk forward in a daze. Vaughn followed her with mixed curiosity. She led them down several smaller streets until their final turn where she stopped and prepared herself for what lay ahead, their street. When she turned this corner what would be in clear sight would be… home.

Her house would be there in all it's splendor, It's lush garden out front always abundant in bees and butterflies, the former of which stung her on several occasions. It was hard to even fathom that once, her greatest problem and pain were a couple measly stings from a bug.

She was beginning to remember a lot that she thought were memories to be lost forever. She used to cry, not because the stings hurt her but because she had heard once that bees died after a single string and that somewhere in their garden, the fuzzy little yellow and black creature was curling up to die and would remain a lifeless corpse that she hoped she would never accidentally stumble upon.

She was stalled for quite a while at the corner simply remembering and so Vaughn tentatively reached a hand out and shook her shoulder. She quickly grabbed his hand and held it like she used to hold her dad's. He made no move to remove it from her grasp. She looked fragile at this moment and so he kept his hand hold gentle yet she squeezed it tightly for reassurance and began to walk once again and turn the corner.

In the neat row of houses that stretched out in front of them, there appeared to be an empty gap. Exactly where her house used to be. She picked up her pace considerably, pulling the tall man along with her. She stopped in front of the lot. Well, it wasn't quite a lot. The entire space was a garden. Not the immaculate garden that had been in front of her house but a much larger and wilder one that took up the whole space. A plaque lay in the center accessible by a series of stepping stones that had become dirty and laced with moss.

An old lady who was fumbling with her keys next door noticed the pair and slowly walked over, relying heavily on a cane that made a slow clack, clack.

"Admiring the garden?" She asked in a cracked voice.

"Why is there a garden like this in the middle of the street?" Vaughn asked in wonder.

"This is a memorial garden for the people that lived here." She told him. "Lovely family I tell you, with two little angels, god bless them." She chuckled sadly, "Well at the time they weren't always necessarily looked at as angels, the twins could be quite the little rascals but all of us here loved them dearly."

Vaughn was a pretty smart man, and he could tell by Chelsea's expression that she was not simply hearing this story, somehow or another she was involved and so he listened to the woman ramble on intently.

"The husband was a brilliant florist, he had the nicest garden not just on the block but anywhere I had ever seen." She eyes were milky and distant as if she were looking not on the messy weed-infested garden in front of them but back through time at what she was describing.

Vaughn was interested, but he was also not very tolerant with strangers, and least not enough to listen to old ladies go on all day so he asked, "What happened to them?"

"There was a fire." She said sadly.

Chelsea who had been entirely vacant up to this point qued in, "a fire?" That didn't fit into the story she knew.

"Yes it was quite strange, they couldn't figure out what started it or why on earth the family couldn't escape the house in time."

"They definitely all died?" Asked Vaughn glancing at the farmer from the corner of his eye.

"Well the remains of the man and woman were there…" Said the woman unsure, there was definitely a 'but' in that statement, he waited for it.

"… but there was no evidence for the boy or girl. Completely incinerated the investigators decided. The two never showed up after all." She added. "We were going to rebuild the house since it was in complete ruins but no one wanted to live in a house where the previous occupants met such a gruesome fate. Then the neighbourhood hooligans began to come up with all sorts of ghost stories which did not help the matter one bit. I was part of the neighbourhood committee at the time, we finally decided to just turn it into a garden to commemorate the poor souls. Although no one tended to the garden after it was created and it turned into this mess. I tried to at first but my back is just no good at all."

Chelsea was not really listening to the story but she got the gist of it, after all, she was one of the main actors. The army must have burnt down the house to cover their tracks after they spirited them away. She could not tear her eyes from the plaque in the center. If she stepped over, no doubt she would see her name, her real name. Maybe even her birth year.

She didn't walk over. Instead she began to quietly walk away. "Chelsea!" Called out Vaughn in surprise he trotted over then matched her stride.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

"Yeah." She said quietly. It hadn't really affected her too badly, after all, she knew the true story, the much more tragic one.

"You don't want to see the plaque?" He asked.

"No." She shook her head slowly and picked up her pace a little, for better or for worse she was Chelsea now and no plaque could change that.

That night, Vaughn felt uneasy. He kept thinking about Chelsea who had seemed so… There was no word for it. To say broken or sad wouldn't be right as she had immediately perked up and went on as she always had yet he knew, something wasn't right. Something about the day though just felt off, like he'd learned something important and everything just shifted the slightest bit.

He wasn't sleeping so he got up for a glass of water, passing the couch on his way. He stopped in his track at the muffled cries. He knew it. He quickly went to the other side of the couch where she lay. She was asleep but twitching like she was having a nightmare. He thought of waking her up but remembered the time on her farm and thought better of it.

She thrashed to the side and whimpered. As she clutched her chest her shirt rose a little to reveal the beginning of a large scar across her torso.

When she began to quiver he couldn't take it anymore and gently tried to lull her awake, "Chelsea, Chelsea?" She didn't respond so he took her shoulders, kneeling in front of her, "Chelsea. Wake up."

Her lids snapped open a she sat up so fast he fell back. Eyes darted around to apartment in fright. "W-where am I?" She asked in a shaky voice.

"The apartment, Chelsea." She looked at him blankly, she wasn't sure who he was at first, what 'apartment' he was speaking of or who the heck 'Chelsea' was.

The darkness around the room felt like it was creeping in towards her, shadows danced in the corners of her eyes. She curled up in a frightened position, eyeing every recess of the room.

She suddenly remembered the pills but didn't have the self-control to reach for them. Like a gun just out of reach as you're being cornered.

A hand grabbed her shoulder once more and she flinched, but the hand was gentle. She looked back at the man with her head slightly lowered and looked at him quizzically. "Vaughn." She finally said.

"Y-yes?" He said in confusion.

She began to shake, "Vaughn I'm scared."

"Of what?" He asked.

"I- I'm not sure. I just am." She admitted.

He carefully slid up onto the couch and she leaned to him instinctively, a moth to a light. Wordlessly he slid her onto his lap and pulled the blanket around them.

This was working for her better than any pill ever had. His arms had slowly snaked around her to hold her secure and she held onto them with her own for dear life. She wasn't sure why but for the first time in many years, she began to cry.

He had been surprised at the tears welling up in her eyes and tried to brush them away but she was holding on to his arms tightly. So, more consciously than he'd care to ever admit he pressed his lips to her eyes, dissipating the tear beginning to fall.

She didn't try to shake him away at that action so they both sat there in one and other's comfort until they fell asleep. That was the first blessed dreamless sleep she could ever remember having.