A/N: Yay for 20 chapters! And for our favourite movie turning 30! I was so determined to have this update finished in time for the movie's "birthday". Thank you so much to everybody for all of lovely supportive reviews, and for favourite-ing/following/actually being interested enough to keep up with the story despite the long breaks between chapters.

I'm also thinking of posting an alternative ending to The Good, The Bad, and The Undead – I'll include details at the end for those who are interested.

Time seemed to come to a standstill as they all stood silently in her bedroom in a vaguely triangular formation. It was like a goddamn Mexican stand-off; Tara by her desk with Emma in her arms, her father in the doorway giving her a look that would freeze a goddamn polar bear, and Dwayne by the window, looking more thoughtful than embarrassed. Tara stared at him in dismay, as though he could fix the situation they'd found themselves in. Briefly, she wondered if her sister could feel how hard her heart was pounding.

"Oh jeez, didn't I tell you about Tara's new boyfriend?" Carolina came swanning into the room as if she hadn't noticed the tension "How are you sweetheart? You brought her home a little late, I think."

"Uh…Sorry," Dwayne played along slowly, maintaining a surprisingly straight face "Left my watch at home."

The Lost Boy seemed more bothered by being caught in the middle of the very complicated situation that was her home life, than by the livid gaze of her father. In fact, he returned her father's look coolly. If Tara wasn't so shell-shocked, she'd likely be impressed. Emma wiggled in her arms, turning to appraise the stranger shyly. Arms beginning to ache with the strain, Tara let the girl slide slowly from her grip, kneeling in front of her. She was very aware that her father still hadn't spoken. Emma was dressed in Disney princess pyjamas, her hair mussed from sleep as she beamed at her. If not for Dwayne's presence, Tara didn't doubt that the kid would be talking a mile a minute.

"What are you doing here?" she forced a smile onto her face as she smoothed her hair.

"She was dying to spend Halloween with you. We thought we'd pay a visit and surprise you, but you were…out," her father spoke for the first time, voice stony.

He thought he'd ambush her and catch her off guard, more like – and he'd done an outstanding job of it, too.

"They were all out celebrating your daughter's latest achievement," Carolina defended, exasperation showing on her face.

Tara thanked every deity known to man for her aunt's existence. She doubted that her father would be more comforted to hear she'd spend the night with four guys (and one girl) rather than just one, but Carolina tactfully left that out.

"What achievement?" he looked unimpressed, turning his question to Tara as she stood, a hand remaining on her sister's shoulder in an attempt at comfort in the awful atmosphere.

"Dwayne, it's getting late. C'mon, I'll show you how awesome the front door is," she switched her attention to Dwayne before the conversation could continue "We can, uh…get back to this when I return."

The relief was clear on the Lost Boy's face as he nodded, gesturing for her to lead the way before grabbing his jacket from the floor. Her father accepted this and moved aside but only enough so that she still had to shrink in on herself and duck past him in the doorway. Her "boyfriend" didn't bother, and she winced as she heard their shoulders connect. Although she was a little impressed that he still managed to have a slight swagger in his walk whilst shirtless. Maybe it was one of the rules of being a Lost Boy – "one must always strut". It wouldn't surprise her.

Silently, she led him through the apartment, then down the stairs and through the café below. Only when she unlocked the door did he speak up.

"You had no idea they were coming, huh?"

"The plan was that if Julian caught wind of something of the sort, he'd let me know. Of course, considering everything I can't really blame him for, well, not doing that."

He nodded as she opened the door and held it for him before he spoke up again, a little unsure this time "…You okay?"

Exhaling loudly through her nose, she carefully looked away.

"It's gonna be a long night," she settled for, already steeling herself for the battle ahead "Like I said…Consider me fully put in my place."

Dwayne hesitated for a moment before clapping a hand on her shoulder "You got us, doll. We'll swing by tomorrow – Cat'll probably be first but she's the cute, innocent one anyway."

As cute and innocent as a Lost Boy could be, at least. After what had just happened, it would be like trying to fix a pothole with duct tape.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she mustered a tight-lipped smile, patting his arm in return.

Once he was gone she closed and locked the door behind him before moving quietly to lean against one of the tables. She listened to the sound of Dwayne's bike departing, and took the time to mentally reassure herself that, realistically, there was little her father could do – especially not with Carolina backing her up; although she was sure she wasn't totally off the hook with her aunt. Luckily in the grand scheme of things, being on Tara's side against her father seemed to be higher on her list of priorities than giving her grief for finding bikers in her bedroom. Yeah, she was lucky to have her aunt. Only when she was sure that leaving things longer would make things worse, she returned to the apartment with dragging feet.

Emma was waiting for her in the doorway.

"Were you surprised?" she asked excitedly, shyness a thing of the past as she took her hand.

"Of course I was! You really got me!" she feigned delight, noticing that her dad and aunt hovering by the sofas "Hey, why don't we share my room tonight? Go get comfortable, pick any book you want from the bottom shelf and I'll be in soon, yeah?"

"Two minutes?"

When she registered the pure happiness emanating from her sister, Tara's smile became a little more genuine.

"Give me ten," she laughed, squeezing her hand before giving her a gentle push in the direction of her bedroom.

Her father waited until the door was closed and Tara had taken a seat in the armchair to begin his tirade.

"Is this what you think I let you come here to do? To sneak men into your aunt's home in the middle of the night? I didn't expect her to work miracles with you overnight, but this?"

It took more energy than she knew she had to not lash out at being referred to like some kind of faulty car. Work miracles with her? Tara's jaw clenched. She had not missed home.

"Dwayne shouldn't have been here," she raised her hands in surrender, speaking calmly and evenly "I got a job interview, kinda, and we were out celebrating – a big group of us. I got carried away. I'm sorry, Aunt Carolina."

Carolina shot Tara's father a pointed look, but he didn't defrost.

"What job interview? You already have a job."

"I can still work here on my days off-."

"I'm happy to have Tara here so long as she wants to stay," Carolina interrupted "Even if she's not working for me, she's a great help around the apartment, and her jewellery has been a big hit in the café."

The phrasing was a little generous, but that didn't make Tara any less grateful. Not looking convinced, her dad at least deflated a little as he took a seat on the sofa.

"Where's the interview?"

Tensing, Tara hesitated. This part could easily undo all of their progress so far.

"The local tattoo parlour," she forced it out, gnawing on her lip as she stared at the carpet beneath her feet "I'll clean the shop, play admin, practise my art – in the end I could do really well. Tips, commissions for designs, hourly rates…"

He sighed loudly.

"And the boyfriend? You don't think that's a little fast?"

"Bit rich, coming from you," she stared him straight in the eye as she said it.

He stiffened visibly as one of her eyebrows twitched upwards of its own accord. She'd back off on a myriad of issues to save time and energy, but she wouldn't allow him to lecture her on relationships – fictional or otherwise. Carolina's brow furrowed as she looked between the two of them curiously. Much to her surprise he didn't begin yelling. Instead he became strangely still, regarding her expressionlessly.

"You go down this road, there's no going back. You'll no longer have a home with us in New York."

"Frank-," Carolina began, visibly shocked.

"Nothing new to me," Tara cut her off with a shrug, extinguishing any hurt with the reminder that she knew better than to expect more at this stage.

"Your sister will be waiting."

With that, she left them to their inevitable argument.

The others were still outside when Dwayne got back home.

"That didn't take long," Marko snorted upon noticing his arrival.

"Change of plans," Dwayne muttered grimly, taking a seat on the cooler "Her goddamn dad walked in on us."

The laughter that this revelation was met with was practically unparalleled, most of them doubling over with tears in their eyes. Even Dwayne had to admit that if it had happened to any of the others, he'd be laughing his ass off too. But now he had no way of poking around her room for that goddamn page for any of the foreseeable future. That was enough to take the humour out of the situation for him.

"I thought her dad lived in New York?" Cat was the first to recover enough to talk.

"Yeah, so did we," he muttered, running a hand over his face and accepting the beer that Paul offered.

His brother would've almost looked sympathetic, if not for the giant amused grin on his face.

"Seems like a real asshole," he continued "Dunno if she'll be hanging out with us tomorrow night."

"I'll put on my cute, cuddly human face early tomorrow and head over to find out," Cat shrugged "Bummer. I guess we could always postpone it? Have a late Halloween? I don't want to be the only idiot dressed up."

"Hey, you'll never be the only idiot," David teased, earning mock-offended looks from both Paul and Marko.

David had no idea how right he was, Dwayne thought with a humourless laugh "Well, watch out for the dad. Like I said – asshole."

"Why d'you think she's here?" David pointed out "Show me one person with a perfect life who found their way to us."

Dwayne glanced at Cat, who did a good job of pretending to be oblivious as she subconsciously leant into Paul for comfort. Wisely, he kept his mouth shut.

Tara tried her best to quell the nerves building within her as she walked towards the tattoo parlour. She hadn't dressed up too much, simply plaiting her hair into a fishtail braid and dressing in a comfortable black dress, ripped rights, and combat boots. She brought her art along too, just in case.

The studio was almost empty as she walked in. The walls were painted a vivid lime green, which definitely would've been a bit much if not for the fact that they were mostly covered in photographs, artwork and mirrors. The man who she assumed was Jason sat at one of the chairs, shading what looked like a koi fish on who she recognised as a Surf Nazi.

"Hey, what's up?"

"I'm Tara, Carolina's niece," she greeted, offering a wave in place of shaking his hand, given his current task.

"Oh, great! Hey! I'm Jason. Take a seat and I'll be over in a sec."

Tara nodded with a smile, moving to the row of wooden chairs he'd gestured to.

He wiped at the customer's arm "I'll give you a break, man. Have a smoke if you want."

Jason was attractive, she noted objectively – not in the way that the Lost Boys were, where it just made them all the more intimidating, but in a way that was cute (as "cute" as a guy covered in tattoos could be) and made him all the more approachable. Removing the gloves, he threw them into a nearby bright yellow bin marked with a biohazard symbol before ruffling his dark brown faux-hawk as he took her in.

"Never realised my intern was the Lost Boys' latest prospect," he commented lightly, pulling a stool over to sit opposite her.

"Prospect? No!" she snorted, shaking her head "Cat showed me around when I first got here, and now we hang out from time to time…Definitely not one of them, though."

She ignored the slightly begrudged feeling that hit her at the admittance.

"Oh, my bad," he shrugged "Cat's a cool chick, I've done some work for her. Some touch-ups, too; her ink fades real fast – not too uncommon."

"Is all of this your art?" she gestured to the walls.

"More or less, yeah," he nodded, looking around before turning back to her with an amused look "Do I have your approval?"

It had a very classic style – lots of pin-up style women glancing over their shoulders suggestively or sticking their asses out, mostly in sepia colours but with splashes of vivid blues, reds and greens to give life to the designs.

"It's awesome," she admitted honestly, hoping she didn't sound like a kiss ass.

Giving her a cheeky grin in thanks, he pushed his thick framed glasses up his nose and lifted her portfolio from where it had been resting against her chair.

"You're from New York, right? I head over there a few times a year to work – I've got friends with studios all over. Travelling's a perk of the job for me," he made conversation as he leafed through her portfolio to refresh his memory "You got any tattoos?"

"Not yet."

"Well you gotta work on yourself before I'll even let you go near anybody else with a needle," he shrugged "So you have to be cool with that changing sometime soon. Not for a while yet, though."

"I'm more than fine with that," she nodded with a smile "So does that mean I've got the job?"

"Honestly, the only critiques I have on your work is on making your shading pop, which is easily fixed. Your ideas are original, you've clearly spent a tonne of time on your art, and you're dedicated….Plus, I haven't exactly got a line of applicants out the door."

Tara did her best not to gape under the praise that he gave her so matter-of-factly. It was one thing to be praised by her aunt, or her friends telling her that her "shit" was "cool", but a whole other thing to have somebody with any amount of professional authority saying the same.

"When do you want me to start?" she accepted the portfolio back from him, hugging it to her tightly if only to stop herself from jumping around in excitement "Thank you so much, man."

"Don't worry about it. How about Monday, eight am? Enjoy Halloween, it'll be your last weekend of freedom before I'm bossing you around – oh, and I'm open to bribery and ass-kissing, just so you know."

"Good to know," she grinned goofily and shook the hand he offered.

Paul roused almost as soon as Cat began to try and untangle her limbs from his. Noticing he was awake, Cat settled back down. She'd wanted to avoid waking him, but now that she had, she didn't see the harm in spending a few moments with him before she rose.

"Time's it?" he asked, voice gravelly from sleep.

"Sixish," she replied softly "I'm gonna go to Tee's and see what's happening tonight. Even if she can't hang, I kept my costume at her place because I knew you'd find it otherwise."

"Heh, true," he tightened the arm that was wrapped around her back as she began to trace light circles on his chest with her fingertips.

"Well even if we have a late Halloween, I think I still want to dress up tonight. Most of the boardwalk will too, so I'll hardly be the only one," she admitted "She actually got me excited for the whole thing."

"You're not the only one she's gettin' excited by the looks of things," he snorted.

"He was acting weird last night, wasn't he?" she commented, resting her chin on his chest to look up at him from under her lashes.

"If it was anyone else I'd say it was a bad case of blue balls," he snickered "But Dwayne's damn near unflappable. Somethin's up."

"And the only thing that's changed around here lately is…"

"Yup."

"Well. Shit," she murmured lightly "You think he's caught feelings?"

"Hope not – for his sake," he sighed thoughtfully, hand travelling upwards to twirl lock of her hair around his index finger.

"Oooh ouch," Cat teased "I'm hurt."

"We had a get outta jail free card," he snorted "If we didn't have this bond…thing, it would've been different."

She'd be dead for starters, Cat thought to herself somewhat detachedly as she remembered her first ever encounter with the Lost Boys. She'd had no idea at the time, but she'd only been inches away from becoming their latest meal.

"Thought he was smarter than that, though," Paul's comment drew her from her memories.

"The heart wants what it wants," she rested her cheek against his chest again.

"Ain't his heart he's thinking with."

"Hell, in another world I wouldn't kick her out of bed," Cat joked "Do you-."

"Shh, wait, just let me savour that mental image for a sec, babe," he interrupted.

"Pervert," she replied fondly, laughing when he made a sound of agreement "But do you really think that's what's bothering him?"

"What else could it be?" Paul shrugged as best he could whilst lying down "…But babe?"

"Hmm?" she perked up, surprised by the genuine turn his tone had taken.

"I know you two are close, n' you talk about a lot of shit, but this is one thing you should leave be with him," he admitted hesitantly.

"Think I'll spook him?" she asked curiously.

"I don't even think he's realised he's in deep shit yet," Paul sighed "When he does, it won't be pretty. Any of us putting our two cents in will just fuck it up even worse. Y'know back before I turned you, they all had a pact to not try to nudge you in any direction in case it made things go to shit?"

"It doesn't surprise me," she murmured "I know we joked about him liking her, but I never thought he actually would go down that rabbit hole. I was excited when I found out she was gonna be around for a while, but this? I don't think there's any way this ends well. Maybe I should never have made friends with her."

"Maybe," he replied simply "S'done now, though."

Cat loved that about Paul – his honesty. Sure, he comforted her when she needed it, but one thing he very rarely did was sugar-coat things, or mask his feelings for her own ease. She'd much rather that than somebody who told her whatever they thought she wanted to hear at the time. It was a quality all of the Lost Boys shared, come to think of it. Having a strict "no bullshit" policy made for an easier life, because it dispelled any worries that one of them might be keeping something major from the others. Of course, that only meant that on the rare occasion that somebody did deceive the others, it was ten times worse. Hell, after Cat had smuggled her brother out of Santa Carla, she'd been worried that David would throw her out on her ass because of it.

"Well, I won't mention anything to him. Promise," she spoke eventually before making an effort to lighten the mood "You sure you're not going to dress up tonight?"

"I'm going as a sexy beast," a crooked grin spread across his features.

Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, Cat shifted so that they were face to face and kissed him slowly. Only when she pulled away a little did she reply, a playful smile on her lips.

"And is Marko okay with you dressing up as him?"

Paul's response was to jab his fingers at her rips, causing Cat to shriek and writhe away, legs tangled in the blankets and worries pushed to the back of her mind.

A/N: This was going to be waaaay longer, but it's already a decent length and I didn't want to put off updating much longer.

So, with the alternative ending idea, back when I was writing the first story I basically had a choice between two options when it came to finding a way for Cat to stay in Santa Carla. I went with the more dramatic of the two, because plot, and it also made more sense to me in terms of loose ends being tied up. The alternative would have been to have her leave at the end of her holiday, with her friends alive, and then return to Santa Carla later and reunite with the Lost Boys later down the line. I've already been writing it for fun, so it's just a matter of if you guys want to read it. Right now I'm unsure if I'd post it on the story itself, or over on Eternal – but let me know if you'd want to read it!