Hey, hey, heeeeeyyyy! :D I'm back. OBVIOUSLY. ^^ Anyways, I'm so sorry for the wait and stuff. I feel like I'm apologizing every single chapter now because of the wait... Which, I probably am. :/ So, I felt obligated to tell you my writing methods.

First, it takes a couple days to plan the chapter inside my head, so I get the gist of what I want to put in that specific chapter. Then, I'm lazy for a few more days. After that, it takes about a week to actually write the majority of the thing. And finally, I procrastinate for a really long time until I finally finish the chapter and post it that night... And somewhere in that mess I usually read my last chapter.

So yeah... Now you know how lazy I am... :'( I'm trying to change! D': I swear!

Disclaimer: *starts bawling*

~L~

The explosion knocked Drew and Julianna from their standing positions. Pieces of shrapnel sliced through the canvas walls of the medic tent and showered the two in a sharp, deadly rain. They covered themselves with their wings, just happy that the actual explosion didn't reach them. When the shrapnel stopped coming, Drew sat up and turned to his friend.

"You okay?" he asked.

Julianna didn't answer. Her eyes were fixated on the air in front of her, looking but not seeing. It was as if she was looking at something far beyond the ability of her sight. She started to hyperventilate.

"Are you okay?" Drew repeated. The medic slowly shifted her eyes to look into his. They were clouded with an intense pain and terror. "What happened, Julianna? Did you get hit by shrapnel?"

She shook her head slowly. "You need to find Abbigale," she told him in a ragged voice.

At her suggestion, Drew's senses were suddenly flooded with the urgent need to see Abbigale and hold her in his arms. The feelings were so sudden, so intense that he was knocked back onto his back. He knew this feeling wouldn't go away or even lessen until he was with his Seraph. It was all he could do to keep himself there to make sure his friend was alright.

"Go find Abbigale. I'm fine, Drew." She finished off her statement with an unconvincing smile. It looked more like a pained grimace, but he was too distracted to even notice. He nodded and hurried out of the tent to go find the brunette that so urgently called to him through her emotions.

Looking back, he knew he should've stayed just a bit longer. He knew he should've notice how sickly pale Julianna's face was...but he didn't. Or how she was twisting her ring around her finger like she did when she was trying to suppress something...but he didn't. Or how silent, crystalline tears streamed down her lightly-flushed cheeks, indicating that something was very wrong...but the harsh truth was, he didn't. She wasn't injured, that he knew, but something was terribly, horribly wrong.

~L~

Abbigale paced back and forth in the lush grass that tickled her ankles. She didn't notice this, though. All she could think about was Drew. Was he okay? Well, of course he was. If he wasn't, she would feel it. But still... she couldn't help but worry about him.

Suddenly, she felt his presence, and she looked up to see him approaching her with a wide grin on his face. She mirrored his smile and sprinted over to him, crashing into his body. He wrapped his arms around her and inhaled her lovely scent.

"Never ever leave without telling me, okay?" the brunette said into his chest.

He chuckled, and with her ear pressed to him, Abbigale could hear the sound reverberating in his chest. "I solemnly swear," he promised.

"How's Juju? Is she okay?"

"Uh..."

"Drew, is she okay?" Abbigale repeated, a more steely tone coming out in her voice.

"Well, I sort of left in a hurry, so I'm not exactly sure."

She glared intensely at him, the fluff of the earlier moment simple memories floating above them like dust particles.

"She's not injured, though!" he reassured her, holding his hands up in a humbling position.

"We need to go find her."

Drew sighed. "Okay, okay... Wait! Let's go find Austin first, so we can all go check up on her at the same time."

Abbigale nodded in approval at his idea, and they headed over to their group leader to ask where to find Austin.

"Excuse me?" the brunette said, catching their leader's attention. "Where can we find Austin Gunther? He's in battalion three, group eight."

Their leader's bright face suddenly turned dark. "Battalion three, group eight?"

"Yes."

"Haven't you heard? There is no group eight in battalion three anymore. The bomb dropped straight down on top of them. Every single person in that group was complete annihilated."

~L~

Julianna crouched in the darkest corner of the medic tent, rocking back and forth on the balls of her toes. This type of position always helped her think more clearly, and combining this position with motion, she was sure she could figure out why the world had killed her Guardian... again. She couldn't think of anything, though. Her mind was so clouded and foggy that she could barely even control her own body, much less think on the level that she once had, before Austin died... before Carter died...

She decided that lingering on the reality would only bring her into a deeper depression, so she tried to remember brighter days. A lot of things came to mind, but one in particular came back to her, fresh in her mind.

~flashback~

The tree they were sitting in rocked back in forth with the strong wind that howled through the forest. He had his arms around her, though. She felt safe and warm in his long, strong arms. He was sitting on a thick branch with his back to the trunk of the tree and her back to his stomach. He kissed the back of her head lightly, causing warmth to radiate all throughout her body from that one contact point.

"Name a shape," he whispered into her ear.

She giggled. "Okay... an umbrella."

She felt rather than saw him smile. "You always did think outside of the box, didn't you?"

"I suppose... Now, why did you ask me to pick a shape?"

He slid his smooth hand down her right arm and enveloped her hand in his. Then, he balled up her fingers into a fist except for her pointer finger. He lifted her arm up with his as he pointed to the stars up in the velvety-blue night sky. Slowly, he began to move her arm in strange motions, and for a bit, Julianna had no idea what he was doing. Then she saw it. He was tracing the outline of an umbrella in the stars. She gasped slightly.

"Wow..." she said. "I thought that there were only the basic constellations."

"The stars can be anything you want them to be. You just have to use a little imagination. Which I knew you had plenty of."

She laughed and rested her head back on his left shoulder. He leaned down and kissed her right temple. She sighed contentedly.

"Do you have strong feelings for me?" she asked hesitantly.

"Do I have strong feelings for you?" he repeated, seemingly in shock. "Julianna, I love you."

"What about me do you love?"

"Everything. I love how your feathers bristle when you're cold or how you make a funny face when you're thinking really hard. I love how you like to eat your soup using crackers in the place of a spoon, and I love how your eyes sparkle when you talk about horses. I adore how you'd rather read books all day in the corner than talk or be with people. I'm captivated when you speak about something you're passionate about because your eyes always take on a forbidding glow, daring anyone to oppose you. I love your perfections and your flaws because they're the things that make you beautiful."

She smiled and tilted her head so that her forehead rested on his neck. She inhaled deeply. He smelled of cinnamon and the forest. Deep, deep down, though, he smelled like her. His scent was mixed in with hers, and it smelled good. He tilted her chin up with his pointer finger and looked into her eyes.

"Gosh you're eyes are so beautiful," he whispered.

"No they're not," she whispered back. "They're dingy and dull and never stay the same color for long."

"They're full of life and hope, not dull and dingy, and I think it's exotic how your eyes always change color," he said, giving her a drop dead smile.

He was a handsome boy, that was for sure. His stunning blue eyes sparkled brighter than the stars themselves even in the darkness of night. His raven black hair created a shocking contrast to the lightness of his eyes. It was shocking and beautiful. He was far from being perfect, though. His lips were slightly too thin, and his mouth was altogether a bit too small. His nose was slightly too big, too. These things had never mattered to her, though. He was still absolutely gorgeous.

He leaned down and lightly brushed his soft lips against hers. Then, came back with more of a kiss the second time. Julianna inwardly sighed. She wanted it to stay like this forever. She wanted to freeze herself in this very moment and live in it until the end of time itself. They broke off from each other, and she looked into his striking blue eyes again. Then, she uttered the very words that had been catching at the back of her throat for what felt like a century.

"I love you, too, Carter."

~end flashback~

Julianna smiled bitterly to herself. If only she'd known then what she knew now. If only she had guarded her heart. If only... If only... Now she was sitting there with a broken heart for a second time, repeating the same two questions over and over again in her mind. Why me? Why again?

~L~

Yes, yes. Austin's dead. And yes, you have now officially met Carter. ^^ I know it wasn't very eventful in the action category, but it's longer than the last two chapters, and I had a major case of writers' block! D': It. Was. Horrible. O.O

And now, an appearance long overdue... LET IT RAIN JARS OF PEANUT BUTTER! XD

R&R NOW! Pless? :'O

~Sugar