A.N.- *Weeps for joy* yay, I got reviews! Thank you ashmandalc for reviewing, and I'm really happy you are enjoying the story. If you log in I can answer you personally :) I think I'm ok for a beta for now, but I'll let you know if that ever changes. I hope you like this chapter :)

A pretty little girl with big, pale blue eyes and brown curls sat on a tree stump and looked out at the horizon. There was a small stream just outside of her family's back garden. The day was scorching and she was desperate to run out, rip off her clothes and dive into the cool water.

But she wasn't allowed, all because of her stupid cry-baby sister.

"Polly!" her mother's voice called out. She rolled her eyes in response, "Polly get inside. I need your help with putting out dinner."

'What am I, her servant?' Polly thought bitterly. She stood up, her eyes still trained on the stream. It was so stupid that her mother wouldn't let her do anything just because Sarah was always so scared. It wasn't fair.

'When I grow up, I'll swim all I want and eat ice-cream every day,' she promised herself defiantly.

"POLLY!"

xxXXxx

"What's going on?"

Lizzy turned when she heard the familiar raspy, accented voice of Fred.

She looked at him with eyes full of tears and wished she was stronger in his presence. He stared at her and she stared back at him with soft, shocked eyes.

"It happened when you led the bird away…" she began, her voice soft and shaken.

Indeed it had. After Fred had left and Lizzy managed to make her way up the hill, she was preparing herself for the worst going by how viciously the bird had gone for Nigel and by everyone else's reactions. She arrived at the top of the hill and Janey looked at her.

"Lizzy, maybe you shouldn't see this."

"See what?"

She looked over and saw blood on the ground. Nigel was on his knees, gripping his arm. Blood was pouring from the top if it.

He turned and looked at her. His glasses were cracked and he looked stressed, "Lizzy…Lizzy…" he began but seemed to have nothing to say.

Lizzy frowned and, letting go of Natalie's hand, stumbled closer to him. He was hurt, but she couldn't understand everyone's shocked reactions. But it was as she reached her father that she saw…a few feet away further down the hill, her mother lay lifeless on the ground.

"She leapt on the bird," Nigel panted, "she tried to get him off me."

It was as if the blood froze in her veins. She hadn't known how she would react to her father being hurt, she didn't know him really. But her mother…she knew her mother.

Without thinking Lizzy slid down the hill, falling to her mother's side.

Polly was lying face down, so Lizzy pulled her up and rested her head on her lap. Polly was covered in welt and cuts and looked like she was going to be heavily bruised. Lizzy put her hand in front of her mother's mouth and relieved to find she was still breathing, but just barely.

"Mom?" she called quietly, "mom? Can you hear me?"

"We need to get help," she heard Janey saying, "you said that the University is not far right Nigel?"

"You can see it," Nigel said painfully, jerking his head forwards.

Sure enough, just over the rubble, the white Cathedral-like rooftop of the University could be seen.

"That's not even five minutes," gushed Mickey excitedly, "we can make it! I'm sure they'll have medical care there."

"What about Fred?" asked Annabella, looking up as the sky suddenly turned dark and the wind began picking up. "Shouldn't we wait for him?"

"We have two injured," Mickey argued, "I'm sure he can find us. We need to help them first."

Lizzy stared at her mother's face, half listening to the conversation around her. 'She won't make it,' she thought, 'mother won't make it to the University.' She closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath.

The others were trying to find something they could carry Polly on, but her father sidled up beside her.

"Your mother is a real Valkyrie," he said fondly, "I've always respected that about her. She had her faults, but she really was quite tough, and that's never easy for a woman to be. She saved my life, jumping on the bird like that, it was enough to stop it from giving me a vicious strike with its beak before your friend, Fred, came along and distracted it." As he spoke he wrapped his arm tightly with a strip of material Annabella had torn off the bottom of her shirt. "Even the whole business with Fred when you were little," he continued, "it was only because she loved you. She was frightened of the whole Fred thing. I wasn't…but she had a real issue with it. Everything she does is out of love." He touched Lizzy's hair and brushed his hand down it, "she'll get through this."

Lizzy blinked and saw tears were falling from her eyes. She understood what Nigel was doing, but she knew it wasn't true. Her mother hadn't liked her very much and she never had. Some things she had done to Lizzy were out of malice, not love, but that still wasn't enough to sever the deep love Lizzy had for her mother.

"She was there," she whispered, her voice hoarse, so Nigel leaned in, "even when you left, she at least, was still there."

Nigel moved away, uncomfortable. "I…I better go help the others. Keep holding her head like that, there's a good girl."

Lizzy looked up at the black clouds. They seemed angry and wild. Somehow she knew that Fred had summoned them. The wind lifted her short, dark hair and she wondered he was and if he was ok.

"Mother," she muttered, looking back at Polly, "mother I wish you had loved me more."

xxXXxx

The first time Nigel held Lizzy in his arms, he had cried. She was so small, with a thatch of dark hair on her head and bright blue eyes. He had always considered babies slightly ugly, like small, squashed old men, but Lizzy was different. Lizzy was beautiful.

They had named her Elizabeth after Elizabeth the first of England. He wanted her to have a strong name. He had decided that with a mother like Polly, baby Lizzy could use all the strength she could get.

Polly and Nigel had been on the outs for a long time, and until the pregnancy, he'd been preparing to leave. Nigel had been angry at first, and convinced that Polly had gotten pregnant on purpose. But as he held the small bundle of pure happiness in his arms all he could think of was how lucky he was and how everything was different. Not just his life but the entire universe, for now there was a new life in it. Who knew how Lizzy might affect the world?

For the first time in years of an unhappy marriage, Nigel had felt like at long last he and Polly had something to celebrate. He had turned to Polly, exhausted from childbirth, and handed her the baby.

It really was then that he should have known something was wrong. Perhaps he had, but in his own rapture he'd refused to see it.

Polly had taken Lizzy and just stared at her blankly. She wasn't even holding her tightly, but loosely in her arms.

"Isn't she beautiful?" he had whispered, sitting down beside mother and child and kissing Polly's forehead.

Polly had frowned, "is she definitely mine?"

He'd laughed, "of course she is!"

"There's been no mistake?"

"No," he grinned, feeling more love for Polly than he ever had before, "no, she is ours. Aren't we lucky?"

He had cried a little then, from relief and happiness.

Polly remained silent the whole time.

xxXXxx

Natalie sat on the top of the hill facing away from the rest of the group and waiting for Fred. She did not like how things were going. She didn't like that Fred could be seen by the others and that he was so clearly unhappy. She didn't like that her daddy didn't like him. She didn't like that Lizzy was sad, or that daddy was falling in love with another lady (again). She didn't like that Granddad Nigel was hurt or that it looked like Grandma Polly was dead and Lizzy was sad and all alone. She wanted Fred back, even if that meant sharing him with Lizzy.

Natalie glanced behind her and saw Lizzy sitting with Polly's head on her lap. Lizzy's head was bent.

Natalie turned away quickly, feeling like she was spying. Annabella walked over and sat beside her, "hey kid, you alright?"

Natalie shook her head. She glanced at Annabella. She was pretty. She looked like a Barbie doll. She was even dressed like a Barbie- only wearing some cut-off jean shorts and a thin top which she had ripped the bottom off, so now it was a crop-top.

"Waiting for your friend?"

She nodded.

"Why's he called Drop Dead Fred?" asked Annabella, who'd been curious about the name for a long time, and had only decided to speak to Natalie in the hopes of finding out.

"Because that's his name," was the reasonable reply.

Thunder rumbled over head, but it seemed as if the storm was fading almost as suddenly as it had arrived.

"Yeah, but why's he called that? Is he dead? Or does everyone want him dead?"

Natalie sighed like an adult before responding, "I don't know…"

Annabella shrugged, feeling awkward. She wasn't good around kids. She'd never wanted any of her own. However, the whole situation with her ex-boyfriend's children had made a large impression on her. The guilt still followed her everywhere and kept her up at night, despite her knowledge that there really was nothing she could have done. As a result, she began to notice children more, their presence was made known to her and she found herself paying attention to them and quietly wishing she was able to connect with them. Maybe if she understood children better, she'd be better at protecting them. After all, hadn't Fred been a protector of Lizzy? She wasn't sure he was very good at it, but thanks to him Lizzy had the strength to leave her ass-hole husband and defy her admittedly terrifying and over-bearing mother. He was like some sort of demented golem, a creature of childish destruction bought forth through the misery of its master.

"Look, what's wrong? You seemed happy before, but now you aren't."

"Too many bad things are happening," answered Natalie, unable to properly explain her feelings or fears. "I just want Fred to come back. I want him to look after Lizzy."

"Really?" Annabella was genuinely shocked, "you don't want him back to look after you?"

Natalie stood up and looked at Annabella, "Fred once said that he would have to leave me and I would have to make friends on my own. I was sad at the time, but now I feel ok. But Lizzy isn't ok."

"Lizzy's an adult," said Annabella, feeling frustrated suddenly with Lizzy, "she can look after herself- you don't need to be scared for her. Besides she has her friend and your dad to look after her anyway."

"My dad is falling in love with Janey," stated Natalie bluntly, "he keeps looking at her and touching her. You know that as well. It's not fair when somebody has no one who loves them. I'm ok with Fred being friends with someone else."

Natalie walked away to help the others who had found a large door which they could put Polly on. Annabella stood up herself and watched the child curiously. She had no idea children could be so selfless. Her traumatic experience with Sacha, Becky and Andy had taught her that children could be brave but she had always thought that they were essentially selfish creatures. She looked down at Lizzy who was sitting alone with her dying mother. It was true about Mickey and Janey, she had seen it herself. Maybe she should tell them to cool it, especially if the kid was noticing. But still, to think that Lizzy would be alone again. She had thought that Lizzy deserved it, that if someone as pretty as her couldn't keep a man that maybe something was wrong with her, but now Annabella felt like an ass- she couldn't keep a man either and she was also estranged from her closest family members.

xxXXxx

Polly, like Annabella, had never wanted children. As a child she had said that, as a teenager she had said that, and as a young woman she had said that.

Then she met Nigel.

She had been sitting in the University library pouring over a book and desperately trying to understand it. Unbidden a thought whispered, 'Sarah would have understood this…' but she brushed it away quickly.

There was a loud sound behind her, which made her turn and look. A young, blond man stood with a furiously red face. Several large tomes were at his feet in a crumpled heap.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his accent instantly recognisable as English, "I didn't mean to make all that noise." He picked up the books quickly as she watched in fascination.

He was thin and looked like he belonged at Oxford University prancing around with tutors who wore black Graduate cloaks. He was bookish, and clearly awkward, but endearing and oddly handsome in an angular manner.

Polly had never had any luck with men. She tended to go for very American, broad boys, but they never were attracted to her. She was pretty, but she was mean. As it was, she was in university and twenty-three, but she had never had a boyfriend.

"I'm Polly," she smiled, feeling strange as her heart beat raced at her daring to speak to him. He looked up at her with soft brown eyes.

"I am Nigel," he grinned. "Pleased to meet you, may I sit next to you?"

"Of course," she whispered. No one had wanted to sit by her before. She thought of her hair pulled up in a ponytail and her unattractive polo-sweater; why hadn't she worn more attractive clothes?

"May I ask what you are reading?"

"Oh, umm, it's Beowulf. I don't really understand it." She felt stupid admitting her ignorance, but she had seen pretty girls acting dumb before, and it seemed to always attract guys. Maybe this is what she needed to do, change herself for a guy? It was anti-feminist, which was launching again in sixties America, but she really liked this guy.

Nigel laughed softly, "well it's a different language, so that's ok. I studied it in school and can speak a little Anglo-Saxon, shall I help you?"

From then on the pair began dating. Polly did her best to conceal herself. She smiled and giggled and twisted her brown hair around her finger. They went to café's and listened to Beat poetry. They visited Jazz bars and listened to Folk Music at independent music festivals. They went on a number of rallies together and both began, and failed, to be vegans at the same time as one another. They went to see Angry Man British Cinema films. They were best friends and lovers. They were part of the sixties, part of the New Wave and together they were helping change the world. Polly didn't want that to change.

Finally, in 1966 they got married in a small registry office. There were no family, Nigel having no living relatives left, and Polly being completely estranged from her own.

Nigel was happy, with the woman he loved. Polly was exhausted.

For three years she had been pretending to be someone she wasn't. She had tried little experiments, letting her true self slip through the cracks now and then to see if Nigel accepted her anyway, but that wasn't the case.

For example, she'd say something mean about a film star or about the quality of a musician. In response Nigel would cock his head and quietly admonish, "come on Polly, this isn't you."

Polly loved Nigel, even when he irritated her with his naiveté or his laissez-faire attitude, but Nigel did not love Polly, he didn't know her.

The first night of their wedding, spent in a cheap hotel, while he slept peacefully, she had wept. What was she going to do? Could she keep up the charade forever?

The answer was no, of course.

The first argument had been but a month into the marriage. She was tired and angry and he was being- to her mind- stupid and difficult. He had been horrified by her behaviour, and had left the house.

Polly felt like her heart had been ripped out when he left. Nigel was her first and only love. She had been alone almost all her life. She hadn't any friends; her family hadn't liked her and there was too much past drama there that no one could come back on; no other man would take her and she knew that. She had put too much work into capturing Nigel to let it all fail now.

She sat in the living room, a young woman still, and realised that if she lost Nigel, then she really was lost. It would mean that she had no one. She could not handle that.

Polly won Nigel back eventually; it helped that he desperately wanted things to work out. Polly couldn't always hide her true nature, which repelled the soft-hearted Nigel, but the following five years she would find ways to get him back. She faked illness, she made him jealous by pretending she had started dating someone else during one of their break-ups, she even faked a pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage.

It was the last nasty trick, (which had devastated Nigel who had been keen to be a father,) that gave her the idea of getting pregnant for real.

She hated the idea of getting fat and useless and then having a wailing brat taking up her time and money, but if that child was part of Nigel, part of herself and the thing that kept them together, then it was worth it. She would even love the baby, she was certain of that.

Polly began to dream of a little boy; preferably a little blond like Nigel. He would be her little man, her little soldier. He would have Nigel's sweetness so he could have the popularity she never had, but he would have her steel so that he'd never be anyone's fool.

She loved the child she dreamt of in her head. She could see Nigel reading him bedtime stories, and the pair of them falling asleep as she watched from the bedroom doorway.

But life, like always, pulled a nasty trick of its own on Polly.