A/N: New Poll! Vote!

Duncan was coming back today.

I was excited. It was a Saturday – Claire watched the twins as I was at work, and Duncan settled for catching a cab.

I came back to Duncan watching TV. Surprisingly, he didn't have that spiked, leather choker thing on. I looked at him and asked, "Where's that spike-y thing?"

He pointed towards the backyard. I looked outside the window, and Trixie was playing soccer against Drew. She was wearing the choker.

I smiled and turned to Duncan. "Oh my God! That's cute as hell!"

He smiled, yet rolled his eyes. "I can buy another one at Hot Topic. Not a big deal."

I smiled. "How long have you had that thing?"

"Uh…" he counted to himself, and replied, "Like, twelve years."

"Holy shit!" I smiled. "That's so damn nice!"

He shrugged. "She wanted it. It was totally beat up. I decided I'd get a new one."

I smiled and asked wryly, "What if your lovable little daughter lost it?"

He paused. "She won't."

I shrugged. I mean, it was totally loose. She could easily loose it or get something caught on it. "You're trusting."

I sat on the other side of Duncan on the couch, and resumed reading the biography. Duncan looked at the book and said, "Vic said that book is bullshit."

Wow. I haven't heard from Vic in years. Ryan and Shaun, on occasion. I talked to Reaper, Pixie and Marilyn very often – I only talked to Michelle once in a while. However, I've definitely been preoccupied with the twins and my career and all.

"Well…it's for good reading." I shrugged. Changing the subject, I asked, "How was San Diego?"

"I think I was set up."

"Why? What happened?"

"Courtney. And Isabelle. I was about to kill myself."

I frowned. "Aw…the only way that could've sucked more is if Trent was there, too…"

"Thank God he fucking wasn't."

Later on in the night, after the twins fell asleep, sex was inevitable. I mean, he was gone for this long week. It seemed almost mandatory.

A couple of years passed – two boring, boring, years – until the twins were in third grade. Wolfie, Cherrie, Trixie and Troy were still really good friends (that red-headed kid moved out of the state). Drew had this cute, impromptu little girlfriend named Patsy. It was absolutely adorable.

++++++++Trixie's Perspective++++++++

We quit playing vampires and werewolves a long time ago. Now we focused on playing wall ball (smacking a tennis ball against a wall) and talking about music. We weren't into Disney music, like Selena Gomez "number one hit, pop music" crap (Mom yelled at me for "swearing", but I did it anyway). Going back to our morbid, dark roots, we tended to imagine Miley Cyrus's death. Often.

We all dreamed of dying our hair black or purple or green, and we were jealous of Drew for being born with black hair rather than me.

We spent our recesses sitting against the wall of the school, avoiding the basketballs that strayed over here from the court.

Yet sometimes, it was Drew tossing them over here. He always called me "inactive", and tried to get me to stand up and play with him. I fought back by pounding the ball into his chest, knocking him to the ground.

I had hidden strength.

However, I felt creepy chills. Soon after that, Wolfie and Cherrie were helping me throw up into a trash can outside of the door.

The next day, I was sick. Mom had to head off to work, yet Dad did, too.

"So…where am I going to go?" I asked between coughs.

"I can't bring you to work, hon, I'm sorry…it's cramped," Mom said sympathetically.

She turned to Dad and asked, "Don't you have a big office?"

"It's boring." He said quickly.

"So? Bring a few movies, a book, and she'll be okay."

I nodded. In defeat, he sighed, and agreed to drag me to the office building.

+++++++++Duncan's Perspective+++++++++

I was answering emails, making calls, and printing out stuff all while keeping tabs on Trixie. Everyone stopped by and asked if that was my daughter and why she was there. I told them yes, and she was sick, and all that shit.

Trixie spent the first ten minutes looking around and spinning around in the chair. She spent the next thirty minutes quietly reading, then poking around for a bookmark. I gave her a piece of paper and a highlighter for her to draw one, until I had to pick up a piece of paper I printed out.

She followed me, looking around and between coughs, asking, "So you do this all day?"

"Pretty much." I nodded.

"It's this quiet? Shouldn't there be like, phones ringing like nuts and water-coolers everywhere?"

I shook my head. "Not necessarily."

After I got the paper, she asked, "Is there like, a snack machine or anything?"

"Why?"

"My throat feels sore. I need like, water or something."

We walked downstairs to the lounge and looked at the huge array of water bottles. Every brand of water ever, every flavor of water ever (I didn't even know water had certain flavors) was there.

"Which one?"

"Ooh. Lemon. It's so fancy yet so cheap."

It was humor that didn't deserve a laugh, but some sort of understanding grin.

I got her the lemon water, and she immediately started sipping it. I went back to work and she kept reading. After she finished her book, she put on her portable DVD player and started watching this Beatles movie that Gwen had in her personal amassment.

Halfway through the movie, I could check out. She watched it on the way out as it relied on battery power.

When I brought her home, she asked, "So you just do that everyday? Nothing else at all?"

"Yeah," I shrugged, "nothing really else."

"Well, that's boring. It's unlike you."

I paused. She was eight. And she was deep. "…yeah. It is."

And the rest of the ride, she coughed and smirked complacently.

+++++++++Gwen's Perspective++++++++

I was lying on Duncan's chest, totally engrossed in my book. I didn't move very quickly because I wanted to absorb the information like a sponge.

After a silence, Duncan said, "By the way, I'm probably going to quit."

I froze. Why? Why the hell was this happening now? "But…it pays. Pretty fucking well."

"It's tedious. It's the same damn thing everyday."

"I know, but…it pays pretty fucking well."

"I'd rather work somewhere more exciting and unexpected."

"Like what?"

"I dunno."

"Doesn't sound promising…you can write?"

"I couldn't write shit worth reading in high school. Why would I be able to pull that off now?"

"You can critique stuff. I mean, you're talented at pointing out the stupidity and uselessness in people."

"Yeah."

"You can be one of those pre-audiences. You know, you watch the movie and point out the flaws and shit in it so the rereleased one won't be so terrible."

"They actually have those?"

"Duh. The pre-audience for E.T. saved the son-of-a-bitch from NASA killing him."

"…bastards."

The good thing about Duncan was that we both shared a hatred of E.T. – commonly referred to "The Slimy Son of a Bitch Alien from Way-Back-When". I mean, the thing was vomit-inducing. It was slimy and creepy and just…terrifying. People found some sort of liking in E.T. and watched the movie, finding some sort of family comfort in the film. I refused to ever let my kids watch that fucking film – no matter how much they beg or plead. It's a terror of a film. I found it more terrifying than Saw or Sweeney Todd – I assure you, I had no nightmares or startling reveries about a razor-welding barber, or a clown that looks like someone who'd be in Slipknot.

Yet I've had countless nightmares and frightening images in my head of a greasy-looking alien waddling to kill me in my sleep, or poke me with his creepy, wrinkly finger.

"Don't bring it up. I told you about how that thing ruined my childhood, right?" I asked.

"I know it did. Never told me how."

So I explained to him my fear of the goddamned thing, and the story of the Green Planet book.

The Green Planet novel is probably the only fan-fiction story to have ever been published. It's a long epic about what happens after E.T. goes back home to his native Green Planet. My sixth-grade teacher thought that it would be a good start for our first class novel, because "everyone loves and knows E.T."

Speak for yourself. I refused to read the book. I asked Pixie for notes on it so I didn't have to look at the goddamned book. Apparently it was disgustingly boring – a story about alien botanists and how much he misses Earth. It was a horror.

He ended up laughing. "Oh. My. God. That's terrible."

"I still have it. I stole it."

"Why?!"

"It was an act of teenage angst."

"What'd you do?"

I paused. He would not be happy: "My brother took my favorite jeans and ripped them up to decorate a poster for a project, so I took the damn paperback, punched a hole in his wall and stuffed it inside. Sort of like a curse."

He paused for what seemed like a long time. "You're fucking insane."

I shrugged, and he asked, "Is it still in the wall?"

I slowly nodded again. He sighed. "Shit…"

After our little detour, I asked, "So? Are you going to be a critic or not?!"

"…eh. Maybe not."

"What? I mean, you're going to sit around at your job for another forty years and just bitch about it?"

"I went to college for like, five fucking years for it. And I'm not going there for another period of time for another shitty job I know I'll hate, too."

I looked at him with a quizzical expression. He clarified, "What if the movie sucks? I'll have to sit through two hours of absolute bullshit."

I shrugged. "Okay. Whatever floats your boat."

I put the book on the end table, and simply fell asleep.