A.N: Thankyou to everyone for the reviews! Hopefully I've answered some more questions, otherwise do ask them and I'll make sure I answer them in the next one. Sorry I've taken such a long time to update..

So what do you think of the Winter, Summer and Rowan love triangle? Tell me :)

Chapter Thirty – Five

The days passed slowly, slower than they'd ever passed before. Each day was a blur, school was unimportant, reality was disappearing, the supernatural was taking over everyone's lives. Soon the real world would be a thing of the past, change was coming and people around Sam were starting to wake up to it.

Winter was at her wits end, she didn't know what to do. Sam and Vixen could see she was struggling to hide behind her calm, cool facade, but with Rowan walking around the school like nothing was wrong, she was finding it difficult. Of course she still loved him, but the love was turning to hate and her life had gone from good to awful in a few days.

Finding out that her boyfriend, the boy she was madly in love with, had been in love with her sister the whole time and had never loved her in the same way, was devastating. Especially when he'd then murdered her sister and claimed it was because he loved her so much. Winter had lost the two most important people to her, and she didn't know what to do. Cal had reported that Table A was incredibly mad at Rowan for what he'd done, but was never the less supporting him, protecting him.

Winter had threatened to tell the police exactly what had happened, but with the most popular Vampires championing him, what could she do but keep quiet? She knew there'd be a price to pay if she said anything, perhaps someone else she loved would die, perhaps she would, and even if death looked appealing, she was too scared of it to go there.

She also knew that for now, her mum was better off believing that Summer could still be alive. Time was at a standstill, nothing was moving on, Winter was stuck in a time zone where in her mum's mind Summer was not gone, and she was keeping up impressions that she was still wholly Table A, not being able to face her old group. She was completely lost, and no one knew what to do.

Rowan himself seemed no different, but Cal assured Sam that inside he was a mess. Each time he said this Sam turned away, unable to believe that he was still associating with Rowan, Summer had been one of her best friends and he was talking to her murderer. Cal said that he couldn't overrule the people on Table A and that Rowan was far too important to higher supernatural beings for them to do anything about him. They had no choice but to protect him. It was still hard to hear.

Rowan would walk around the school acting as normal as one would expect him to, usually with Alex or Cal, or talking with Roseanna and no one in the school suspected that he was anything but cut up about Summer's death. But of course not too cut up about it. Everyone heard that he and Winter had split up, it was said that it was because Winter was so torn up that she couldn't deal with a relationship and they'd taken a break. Who really knew how Rowan was feeling inside, he was impossible to read.

When looking at him his eyes were glassy, there was no way of knowing if everything he'd said to them was real, or if it was a lie. In Sam's mind you couldn't love someone if you murdered them, but then she remembered the pain she'd been in when she couldn't have Cal and thought about it. Imagine loving someone so much but not being able to have them, knowing that they truly hate you, even if you deserved that hate. Sam could barely imagine how it would feel, Rowan had been caught in a situation that he couldn't get out of. He could never have Summer. He'd snapped, gone mad at the thought of never being able to have her again. It didn't condone it at all, but it shed some light on why it had happened.

The rest of Table A went on much the same. Except Alex was different, Cal said that Alex was finding it difficult to accept that one of his best friends, the three of them had been close since they were young, had done such an awful thing.

Alex had known about Summer the whole time, they hadn't told Cal because Rowan was afraid that Cal would have a problem with the relationship and then everything changed and Winter came into the picture. Alex had been slightly more distant from Rowan than usual, he hadn't really known Summer but the thought of killing someone you supposedly loved had hit him hard. Cal said it had something to do with an event in his past, and Rowan's actions had struck a nerve. He'd been very mad, found Rowan's actions inexcusable and not at all understandable. Perhaps there was something human in him after all.

'The whole world's gone mad.' Vixen sighed, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. 'Nothing makes sense anymore, nothing. How can someone so good, so pure, be taken from this world?' Sam didn't have an answer, but Cal looked thoughtful.

'Wait a minute,' he said. 'I have a book about a woman that had an idea why things like this happen. It might comfort you or it might scare you, but it's some sort of explanation, whether you believe it or not.'

He then disappeared, and when he returned it was with a book, thick and old with a pentagon on the front.

'What is it,' Vixen asked, intrigued.

Power seemed to live in it's pages, Sam could feel it, it was strong.

'The book of Witches,' Cal smiled, looking down on it. 'In our Underworld there are Seven Realms and each Realm has a book about the species that lives in it, that makes a collection of seven books in each realm dedicated wholly to each species in the Underworld. This is the Witches book that lives in my Realm.'

'How do you have it,' Sam asked, looking up at him. 'Wouldn't something like that be very important and kept in a safe place?'

'I was allowed to borrow this one to study it,' Cal said without looking at her. 'That's how I found what I'm going to show you.'

Cal sat on the floor and Sam went and sat on the floor too. Vixen scrambled to the floor after her so that they made the points of a triangle on the floor, the book in the middle. He flipped carefully through the pages until he reached the one he wanted and stopped on it. There was a large picture of a woman, a beautiful woman with dark hair twisted up into a bun and large brown eyes. Her lips were curved into a soft smile and around her neck was a locket.

'Whose that,' Vixen breathed, reaching out a hand to stroke the picture. Before her fingers made contact she flinched away. 'Ow.'

'It's a very powerful book,' Cal said apologetically. 'Only the supernatural can touch it, it's too strong for humans. Are you ready for a lesson in Underworld history?' They nodded.

'This is the First Witch,' he said pointing at the picture. 'She's the most powerful Witch in the history of Witches, the best one they had and far more good than any after her, she's very respected in Realm Six of the Witches. In ways she set up their whole lifestyle, how they were going to live, traditions that have carried on until now, she was their Queen, and was frighteningly powerful, some think so powerful that it was dangerous that she existed.

She reigned at a time where the Realms were at peace, or so it was thought, this was at least five thousand years a go and each Realm had to swear not to harm another. However the Witches considered themselves more honourable than the other realms and instead of just signing the papers of consent, the First Witch took a blood oath not to harm another Realm with her magic and this meant that none of the Witches in that Realm could either, they had to make the oath to. A blood oath is more binding than the promises that the other Realms made, as each Realm respected the other's words and respected that they would not go back on them, but the blood oath meant that the Witches could not go back on their word, they physically could not harm another species with their magic, which for them was very dangerous, but they trusted that the other Realms would honour their promises.

The blood oath would last until the First Witch died and then the new Queen could set in order a new oath if she so wished it. However one Realm did not keep their word, Realm three of the Werewolves. Legend says that the King of the Werewolves had found out a way to drain a Witch of her power, but it was so difficult that he could only drain one Witch. With a strong Witches powers he would be invincible and able to do what he really needed to do: take over the First Realm, the head Realm of the Underworld, Realm of the Vampires.

So one night he took an army into Realm Six of the Witches and began battle, his sights set on the First Witch. Many were injured, the Werewolves were strong and the Witches were unable to use their magic to attack, they were at a horrible disadvantage. All they could do was use their magic to heal each other, but even so there were terrible casualties and some deaths, it was a battle like any other.

However the First Witch had seen what was happening and knew that the King was coming for her, so for the safety of her Realm and all the other's she made a very noble and honourable choice. She sacrificed herself, but turning her magic on herself, so that the King might never get the power which he sought. As soon as she died it is said that her magic burst out of her in a flash of light and knocked down all the Werewolves with its power. The Witches were too made of magic and able to withstand it but the Werewolves were injured and had no choice but to return home and recover, and now the entire Realm's would know of the King's evil plan, he would not get another chance like that one.

The First Witch's magic is said to have settled into the Earth where Witches might call on it's power when they need it.' Cal looked at Vixen and Sam expectantly.

'You can't really believe that can you Cal,' Vixen asked uneasily. 'Surely it's just a story.'

'Perhaps it is,' Cal shrugged, 'but the Witches say she existed, who am I or you to say she didn't.'

'It's a beautiful story,' Sam said, 'but what does it have to do with Summer?'

'Oh yes,' Cal said. 'Here in this book it has a very famous quote of the First Witch. Many were questioning why such a good woman had died and they found something that the First Witch had once said when a huge battle 'the War of the Witches' killed many good Witches. It is supposed to be one of the first things she said when she took the throne, after having defeated the evil Queen that reigned before her. She said:

'The world isn't as far as we'd like to believe. The innocent die, the evil live and all the time we wonder why such a thing should happen, it isn't right or fair. I'll tell you why it happens, it's so that we never give up, so that we keep fighting to make the world pure again, now that it's so tainted by darkness. The good people are too good for this life and that is why they have been taken, because they are going to a better place, so that they don't have to fight the evil that lives amongst us, so that they might be repaid for how truly and honestly they have served the greater good. Now my people listen to me when I say this, and I do not know if this will comfort you or make you uneasy, but it is the honest truth. The good people, not just any person, the best people get taken, when life is becoming too dangerous for them to stay.''

Vixen shivered and rubbed her arms. 'Is that supposed to be inspiring, good people get taken all the time and the world hasn't descended into darkness.'

'Not just anyone Vix,' Sam said thoughtfully. 'The best people and I guess there aren't that many of them.'

'Would you say Summer's one of the best,' Cal asked.

'Definitely,' Vixen said. 'She really was.'

'Then, according to the First Witch, Summer has gone because she is too good to stay here when thing's are getting bad.'

'You think things are getting bad?' Sam asked, fighting a shiver.

'Who knows,' Cal asked, smiling and closing the book. 'I guess what it's trying to say is, Summer's gone to a better place.'

He stood up and walked out the room.

'What and he couldn't have just said that,' Vixen grumbled.

Sam didn't respond, so caught up in the eeriness of the story they'd just heard. When she went to sleep that night, she dreamt of the battle, saw the Werewolf King slaying people, saw Witches fall to the ground. She watched as the First Witch glanced out on the battle field and saw the destruction, watched as she struck herself over and over again with bolts of magic like lightening. The last thing Sam saw before she woke was the First Witch fall to the ground, the locket around her neck breaking free and clattering to the ground.

The next morning Sam couldn't get the locket out of her head. So she asked Cal what had happened to it, but he shrugged and said he didn't know.

The rest of the week went by incredibly slowly, everyone was worried about where Summer was, her disappearance had shocked the school. Finally Friday came and Sam was surprised when Michael approached her. She wanted to scream at him and hit him because Summer would have never run off if it hadn't been for him and then Rowan would have never got her alone. Deep inside Sam knew that Rowan would have managed to get her alone anyway, but it was so easy to blame people for things that go wrong.

'I just wanted to say that I'm sorry about what happened between me and Summer, I should have never said the things I said...'

'Your right you shouldn't,' Sam said coldly.

'But believe it or not,' he continued. 'I did actually like her. To begin with I didn't think she was anything but fine, but then when I got to know her I realised her actually fine she really was, and everything became really radical because I was with such a totally fine girl.'

'Right okay,' Sam said raising her eyebrows.

'Anyway I just wanted to say that I wasn't going to go through with it and that I really hope they find her.'

'Yeah,' Sam choked out, eyes welling up. 'Me too.'

'I hope it's not my fault that she went. She's one of the good ones,' Michael said, eyes sympathetic.

'I really don't know,' Sam murmured, running a hand through her hair. 'But yeah, she was.'

'Is, Sam,' he replied, eyes wide. 'She is one of the good ones. We have to keep believing she's out there, and that she'll come home.'

Then he walked away and Sam found it hard not to break down crying. So many people thought she would come back, but she wouldn't ever again.

Later on that day Sam and Vixen were walking over to Summer's house, they each had something they wanted to put in there. When Sam sat Winter talking to Cameron, she couldn't hear what they were saying, but all the same it unnerved her to say Cameron getting his claws into Winter, she didn't need him in her life at that moment. However it wasn't Sam's place to do anything, Winter would look after herself.

When they reached Summer and Winter's house, it took a few moments before they could knock on the door. When they did it took a few moments before it opened, and when it did the woman who opened it was an exact blend of Summer and Winter, she'd have been incredibly beautiful if it wasn't for the dull look to her.

'Oh hello Vixen,' she said, attempting to smile, but it was a sad attempt at one. 'And I guess you must be Sam... Is there something I can do for you both?'

'There's something that we would each like to put in Summer's room,' Vixen said. 'Just for when Summer gets back... you know.' Vixen bit her lip.

'Right yes,' Mrs Child's said brightly. 'When she gets back, of course.' She led them inside and up the stairs. 'Her room's just here... I was wondering is there anything you know, do you know why she might have gone or what might have happened to her? Anything? The police are going to start talking to students next week, but if there's anything you know I'd appreciate it...' She looked at them both and Vixen looked down.

'I'm sorry,' Sam said, her throat tight, 'we don't know anything. She always seemed so happy.'

'Okay, well thank you... that's fine, thank you both.' She turned to go, a tear sliding down her face. 'I just wish I knew why... The police have checked her diary but couldn't find anything, maybe you could see something they didn't, it's in her night stand... Take your time.'

They did look at the diary but what surprised them was that there was absolutely no mention of her and Rowan in it, it was as impersonal and so bland, it was almost not like a diary.

'That's so strange,' Vixen murmured.

The diary mentioned her falling out with Winter and everything else but nothing about Rowan.

'I wonder if she really did love him or if it was all lies, now we'll never be able to ask her,' Vixen continued.

Sam felt uncomfortable; it felt as if Rowan had had some obsession with Summer that she hadn't returned. Not love.

'We should get out of here,' Sam murmured, setting her bag down on the bed and opening. 'Let's just put our things here and go, it's so sad in here, pictures everywhere.'

Vixen took out a friendship bracelet and started to cry. It had her name on it, 'Vixen.' She lay it on Summer's dresser.

'You gave this to me Sum, I can't remember when. I don't know if you still have yours, wherever you are, but I want you to have mine, just so that a part of me will always be in here with you and you won't forget me.'

Then she broke down into tears. Sam had the picture of the two of them that had been taken at prom, the one that Summer had said she loved.

'You said that she loved this picture Sum, well I love it too and it only makes sense that you should have it. Keep it safe for me. We love you,' Sam said.

Then she kissed the photo and placed it on the chest of draws. However she lost her balance and knocked into the chest which sent the picture down the back of it. Sam let out a cry and got on her knees to retrieve it. There was small gap down the back between the chest of draws and the wall, and it was only when Sam had got the picture that she noticed that part of the carpet was raised ever so slightly. Acting on a hunch Sam pulled it a bit and saw a thin holed strip in the floor where a book was standing up. It had been completely covered by the carpet.

'Vixen! Oh my God.' Sam choked out, pulling out the book. She saw Summer's name written on the front, and knew that this was the real diary. 'It's another diary.' It soon became clear that it wasn't really a diary, it was a book dedicated to her feelings on Rowan:

'I don't really know how to explain my feelings for him; he just makes me so happy. I love him, I love him, I love him. I don't ever want to be with anyone else. At first I thought he was stupid and arrogant, but that's not true, he's sensitive and warm and when I feel bad he makes me feel better. I've never felt this calm and relaxed around anyone but Winter. I so want to tell people how much I love him, but I can't yet. But I'll wait because he means so much to me. We still haven't done it yet, I'm a little bit scared about it and I know Rowan wants to but he says he'll wait for me to be ready. He tells me that I'm his princess that he'll never love anyone like he loves me, that meeting me was the best thing that has ever happened to him. And I believe him, we just seem so perfect for each other, I feel so safe and loved when I'm with him. I don't ever want to lose him, I may be young, but I know that this is the kind of love you don't find again. For me, this is it. He's all I want.'

Reading that made Sam and Vixen feel like they were intruding on something private, but they couldn't stop reading. Rowan and Summer had really loved each other, it was so tragic. They came to another entry later on which made them burst into tears.

'It's over. Done and finished. I can't go on like this anymore. He refuses to tell people about us and I don't understand why. Sometimes I find myself questioning whether he really does love me, and I ask him but he always tells me that he really and truly does. And deep down, I believe him, the way he holds me and kisses me can't be fake, even if I do feel like some dirty little secret. So now it is over, even though my heart feels like it is going to break into a thousand little pieces. I'm crying whilst writing this. There will never be another like Rowan, but I can't stay with him unless he's willing to show he loves me by letting us be a proper couple. But he won't and I can't let him hurt me like that anymore. So tomorrow I tell him how I feel, and I won't back down unless he agrees to what I need. I don't think he will though. I love Rowan, with all my heart, but loving him is destroying me inside, and I deserve better... I think.'

That was when they decided to put the diary back where it had came from, they had seen what they had needed to and reading more would be intruding on the feelings of their best friend, feelings that she hadn't chose to share with them. But then they had chose not to share things with her too.

Just as they were putting it away a picture fell out of it, a picture of Rowan and Summer, faces squished up close, big smiles on their faces. They looked so good together, it looked so natural. On the back of it was a message.

'Every day is summer when I have you with me. I love you, Rowan.'

Holding back the tears, they put the photo back inside and put the book back where they found it.

'She really did love him,' Vixen whispered.

The diary was back in it's hiding place, there was no point giving it to the police, nothing would come of it. They weren't protecting Rowan, they were protecting Summer, because she'd hid it for a reason and even though she was gone, those feelings that she'd harboured so close to her, should still only be hers alone.

Rowan sat on the field gazing at the sky. He'd gone there a few times with Summer and now that she was gone all he could think of was her and how he could have her back. The only place he could think she'd be at, was the place he was in now.

'Summer,' he said hesitantly. 'If you're here I want you to know I'm sorry and that I'd give everything I have to have you back. I love you. Every day was summer when I had you with me.'

He then buried his head in his hands and cried, thinking of her.

He could see her in his minds eye, sitting on his lap, both of them looking up at the sky. He had his arms around her waist and she was leaning back into him.'I love you Rowan,' she said, the first time she had ever said it. She turned around and stared at him earnestly, eyes big and blue. 'Really I do...' She plucked a blade of grass and fiddled with it nervously. 'I've never felt this way about anyone before,' she continued, and smiled at him. He smiled back at her.
'I love you too,' he said, squeezing her tightly, and he really did. 'I really, really do.'

'I really really do,' Rowan cried, shaking his head. 'I really really do.'

'Let's just stay here forever Rowan,' Summer murmured. She leaned forwards and kissed him. 'I could be happy here, if it was you and me.'

'Don't worry,' Rowan whispered. 'I'll stay here with you Summer, forever, and you'll be happy because it'll be you and me, just like you wanted.'

He tried to feel her presence, but he couldn't, it was like she was gone entirely.

A.N: So another chapter over... What do you think? What do you think of Summer and Rowan's love story, any thoughts on who you think Rowan should have been with? Summer or Winter?