It took two weeks before Ivy could walk normally again. During the first week she slept in late and went to bed early, finding that she was completely exhausted despite having done nothing. The only thing that interrupted her sleep was the strange banging noises that were started to come from the basement towards the latter half of her recovery. It was in the second week where she stopped being so tired that she started to worry. Firstly the fact that she had no social life anymore was a bit of a sore point for her. She had gone anywhere in the last six months, and she could probably recite the full names of every single days of our lives character besides her amazing new analysing talents which she had learned from Dr Phil. Yes, her social life was officially dead. Ace on the other hand seemed to be having the exact opposite problem. Whenever she woke up he was always gone, and even if he did happen to come home he was too busy to even talk to her for more than two minutes. At first it hadn't bothered her because she had been sleeping most of the time anyway, but now that she was recovered she realised just how completely tedious life was without him. Queen and 7 would come to her room sometimes, but it seemed as though right after she came back everyone had gotten unusually busy.
4 was the only one who seemed to be as bored as her, and until about two days ago, she had been spending most of her time in Ivy's room watching TV with her. Lately though, she had suddenly stopped coming, and as much as Ivy was bored sitting alone in her room, 4 hadn't been too much fun lately anyway, mostly moping because 10 hadn't been allowed out of hospital yet. The nicest thing about having 4 visiting her was that she got regular updates on how much snow there was outside. The last year seemed to have flown by, and until 4 had mentioned it, Ivy hadn't realised that it was almost Christmas time.
Ivy's other problem which she had found occupying her mind was the mirror that was sitting across from her bed. Well, not the mirror exactly, but more what she saw in the mirror. Her hair had begun to grow out and she now had a line through her hair where the black suddenly changed to a pale shade of blonde. Besides that her tan which had perfected itself while she had been at Camp Green Lake had faded so she was now a dark shade of ivory that made her look washed out at the best. She had considered smashing the mirror so she didn't have to see herself anymore, but at first she had been too tired, and after that she was too bored to care. Once she was better however, she found that she couldn't ignore the horror that was staring back at her any more. She couldn't do too much about her tan, but the hair was something she could definitely fix.
Ivy climbed out of bed, relishing the painlessness of the movement and wandered down to the kitchen, which was- unsurprisingly- empty. On her way, she passed what she thought must have been thousands of decorations. Sparkly red and green tinsel hung from the roof, and there were tall perfectly decorated Christmas trees in almost every room. Someone had even stuck fake snowflakes to the walls and hung them from the roof, and there were lights strung up along all of the hallways.
The biggest surprise however, came when Ivy walked into the dining room in her search for other human life in this house. The sight that met her eyes made her jaw drop to the floor and her eyes practically fell out of her head, they went so wide. The lights were crossed all across the roof in here, and the table was decorated with red and green everything. But the greatest thing she saw was the enormous tree which stood in one corner of the room. How they had managed to get something so gigantic into the house was beyond her, but however they had done it, she was impressed. The baubles and ribbons and lights that adorned the tree were spaced perfectly, as though it came straight out of a catalogue. Everything was red and silver, glowing brightly in the well lit room. The only thing that ruined the picture was the ladders that were leaning up against the walls on either side of the tree. 7 and 4 were both standing on the tops of them, trying to place a giant black and gold spade shaped decoration on the top of the tree. That was definitely a first. Ivy grinned at the sight of 4 in her doc martins and combats, with a fluffy Santa hat falling down over her eyes. There was a lot of yelling and complaining coming from both sides of the tree and when she caught some of what they were saying she couldn't help but laugh.
When they heard her, both of them stopped yelling at each other to turn and beam at her.
"Ivy! Thank god. Will you tell this idiot that the spade needs to move to the left?" 7 sighed exasperatedly.
"You're the idiot 7, are you blind? It needs to go right!" 4 snapped back, before turning back to Ivy. "Are you okay to be walking around? Shouldn't you be resting?"
Ivy grinned and shook her head happily at 4. "I'm all better. Can't feel a thing anymore" she explained. "And it does need to go to the left".
4 muttered something under her breath and pulled the spade in her direction a little roughly. A little too roughly. Her hand jerked right back and hit her squarely in the forehead. With that movement, her ladder began to wobble dangerously and she let out a loud high pitched scream, grabbing the tree in an attempt to steady herself. 7 swore and reached around the tree to try and grab 4, and stop the tree from falling at the same time.
"Let go of the tree, you're going to pull the whole thing over!" 7 screeched, while the perfectly positioned tree creaked perilously, leaning over in 4's direction until Ivy was certain that it was about to fall. Suddenly, and with a sharp, cracking noise, the branch that 4 had grabbed snapped off in her hand and with another scream, the ladder tipped sideways, depositing 4 and the spade on the floor.
Ivy put a hand to her mouth to try and hold back the laugh that was threatening to erupt from her, while 7 swore quiet profusely at 4. 4 managed to completely ignore 7's abuse, as she disentangled her limbs from the ladder and rose crossly to her feet, dusting herself off and glaring at the Christmas tree venomously.
"That's it!" she announced, striding purposefully towards the towering tree. "This stupid thing is coming down right now". 7 let out a small indignant gasp and scurried down her ladder to jump in between 4 and the tree.
"Don't even think about it" she said, looking about ready to kill 4 if it meant saving the tree. They stood glaring at each other silently, almost as though they were sizing each other up. Ivy could feel the tension rising in the air as 4 glared steadily at 7, while she looked back with a 'try me' expression plastered on her face. Suddenly, without any warning, 4 made a mad dash for the tree, dodging to the left of 7, who literally dived sideways and tackled the miniscule girl to the ground. They flailed around on the ground for a few seconds, as 4 tried unsuccessfully to get 7 off her. Quite quickly though, the removal attempts turned to hitting and scratching. Shortly the girls were practically attacking each other, rolling around on the ground with discarded decorations flying everywhere. Ivy stood watching them incredulously in the door, before deciding to step in.
She walked over and grabbed both of them by the hair, pulling upwards until they both let out loud shrieks and clutched at her hands, trying to pry them off. She tugged them apart, pulling until they were standing opposite each other glaring furiously at one another. 4 had screwed up her face rather unattractively in a rather animal like manner and 7 had her teeth gritted, while she wiped blood off a small scratch on her face.
Ivy sighed irritatedly, not releasing her grip on either of them. "If I let you two go, then do you promise to stop acting like children?" she asked in one of her more condescending tones. They exchanged glances before answering simultaneously;
"No."
"Fine, then I guess we can just stay here forever, because I'm not letting go until you do what I tell you" she answered, making sure that she sounded convincing, even though she didn't mean it in the slightest. She didn't care about their tree, they could do whatever they wanted with it. For all she cared they could keep fighting until they passed out from exhaustion, but to be honest, she felt a bit bad watching someone as small as fighting with someone who was fully grown. It just didn't seem right.
"Tell her to leave my tree alone" 7 replied snappily while 4 glared at both of them.
Ivy looked at 4, who stared back at her angrily. For a few seconds they held eye contact and finally 4 looked away stroppily. "Fine. Whatever. I don't care about the stupid tree anyway"
"Good. Then you won't mind not touching it anymore" Ivy said, slowly and carefully releasing both of them from her grip. She eyed them carefully, waiting for something to happen, but surprisingly nothing did. 4 simply pouted and turned her back on the terribly offensive tree huffily.
Ivy sighed, relived and turned to leave the room. She was completely tired out already just from being with these two for the last five minutes. She should probably go back up stairs and get some rest. That would probably be the best thing for her and her ribs right then. Just as she was preparing to leave, 4 interrupted her train of thought.
"Ivy, will you take me to the hospital?" she asked suddenly, sounding not the slightest bit angry anymore. Ivy scoffed a little at that and turned back to look at 4.
"Honey, I'm pretty sure 7 didn't do that much damage before" she chuckled, at which 4 rolled her eyes.
"Not because of that, stupid. 10's allowed to leave today and I want to go and pick him up. Can you come?"
Ivy thought about it. One the one hand, it would be nice to go upstairs and sleep, because she was feeling about ready to collapse at that moment. On the other hand, she hadn't seen 10 in forever and he must be getting pretty sick of being stuck in the hospital by himself. And besides, it wasn't like there was anyone else to go, because the others were all out and 7 wouldn't want to be stuck in a car with 4 for quite a while. But then again, did she really want to go out looking like a wrinkle-free Cruella de Ville?
"I'd love to" she decided, "But, there's something I need first" her eyes drifted to 7 who looked back interestedly. Ivy pointed a finger accusingly at her hair and 7 grinned.
"Well... How could I say no to someone so clearly in need" 7 giggled, taking Ivy's hand and dragging her back up to the wonderful green room the she inhabited.
...
It was almost two hours later that Ivy found herself walking down the halls of the hospital in the direction of 10's room. With her newly blonde hair and sunglasses, she felt a lot more like herself. She had to admit that was quite a nice feeling after such a long time of feeling like someone else entirely. She had missed being blonde. For some reason being blonde made her happier. Probably because when she felt like herself, she felt prettier. Or it might have had something to do with Ace meeting her when she was blonde. Perhaps she was scared that if she changed too much he wouldn't like her anymore. Or at least, she had thought that, before last night.
The thought of last night still made her heart flutter. No one had ever said anything like what Ace had said to her then. It made her feel weak at the knees even thinking about it. Ivy had never picked him as the romantic type. Come to think of it she still didn't, but the boy sure could come out with some stuff when he set his mind to it. He had even called her Ivy. She wasn't sure why, but it seemed like the most important thing he had said. Like she wasn't just the girl from camp anymore. The girl who had been bratty and selfish and shallow and maybe even a bit slutty. Maybe a bit more than a bit. But if she wasn't that girl who was she? How else did Ace know her? Was she the rich girl from Hollywood? The girl from the mental asylum or the girl on the news? Or maybe now that she wasn't Rocky anymore, perhaps she could be herself; that girl that Ace just might have been in love with since the first time her saw her.
Her heart leapt at the memory of those words. The words she had been sure he wasn't going to say. Only he did say them. He loved her. Nothing in her entire life had ever made her happier than when Ace said that to her. She had never been in love before. Not properly, like she thought she was now anyway. Sure she'd done the young love thing a million times with a million different boys, but it had never felt like this. Like she would give up anything at all, even herself just if meant being with him. For some reason that thought didn't scare which was strange, because usually it would have. Self preservation was generally number one on her list of important issues. Now that Ace had taken her place at the top of the list, she felt surprisingly okay with it. Honestly, she would have been okay with anything right now. She was feeling quite elated. Something which 10 didn't fail to pick up on when they arrived at his room.
He greeted them warmly enough, hugging them both tightly before he began to good-naturedly abuse both of them for not coming to visit him more often. It was unacceptable, he told them firmly as they walked him back to the reception to check out, how they had left him alone in the hospital for such a long time.
"It was only two weeks" 4 muttered, but Ivy could tell that she felt bad. Which in turn made her feel bad for not taking her, despite her perfectly valid excuse.
"It doesn't matter anyway" 10 said, obviously feeling guilty about upsetting 4. "I'm out now". With that, he gave Ivy a funny look and turned to 4, speaking in rapid Spanish to which she replied just as quickly, a small smirk on her face. Ivy scowled; she really should have kept taking Spanish at school. Scratch that actually, she really should have kept going to school. After about a minute of their glances and laughs, Ivy gave up trying to be polite. She wasn't about to sit there and be laughed at when she had no idea what was going on.
She was about to interrupt when something in the corner of her eye made her stop. She had a sudden strange feeling in her stomach, although she couldn't work out why. Her eyes drifted slowly to the left, the direction in which the open door that had caught her attention was situated. There was nothing particularly special about the room that she found herself looking into. In fact, it was probably one of the more boring rooms in the hospital. It was empty except for one boy, who lay asleep on his bed snoring softly. The room was decorated with some tinsel around the window and mistletoe hanging from the roof.
At first glance nothing seemed too familiar about the room. She didn't know the boy and there was no one else in the room. It was then that she caught sight of the sign over the door. The sign she remembered all too well from her last visit to this place. The stiff block lettering that read 'long term residents ward' made her feel slightly sick. There was something missing from this picture. Something big. Namely, the boy that should have been in the across from the door. The boy who had freakishly resembled her brother, minus the club on his arm. Where could he be? She was pretty sure that long term patients didn't leave all that often. And the only other option was that he was... She didn't want to think about it. Not until she was sure that the boy wasn't her brother. Once she knew that, then it didn't matter anymore. Until then, she was going to keep all thoughts of death well clear of her mind.
4 and 10 had stopped a little way up the hall and were looking back at her worriedly. She could hear 4 muttering to 10, who simply shrugged. Ivy blinked, bringing herself firmly back into reality, where her brother was dead and that boy was most definitely not him. She shook her head slightly to clear it before looking down awkwardly and walking straight past the others who exchanged another glance and then followed her.
Neither of them asked her any questions which was surprising, but not unwelcome. She wasn't sure if she wanted to deal with any questions right then. It was Christmas, she was meant to be happy, and here she was worrying about her little brother being dead. Again.
With the pace Ivy was setting they reached the front desk quite quickly, where a girl with badly dyed yellow (not blonde, yellow) hair and a bored expression sat, tapping her pen disinterestedly against the wooden table. She blew a bubble with the gum she was chewing and then popped it loudly when she saw the three of them standing looking at her expectantly.
"Name?" she asked, looking at them as though she could think of a thousand places that she would rather be at that moment. Ivy looked at 10, unsure of what name they had given.
"James Smith" he supplied with a small grin and Ivy tried not to giggle. The girl looked first at 10 and then at all of them as though they might possibly be completely insane. She tapped a few things into the keyboard without looking away from them, and then printed off a sheet.
She handed it over to them with a fake smile. "There you go Mr. Smith. Anything else I can help you with?" she asked, her eyes flicking to the door where someone new had just entered.
"Actually there is" Ivy said, rolling her eyes as she waited for the girl's attention to return to her. It didn't, although she managed to mutter something unintelligible to show she was listening, her eyes stayed transfixed on the person who had come through the door. "I need some information about a boy who was in your long term patient's ward?" Ivy had to stop herself from snapping her fingers in front of the girl's eyes. This was ridiculous.
"Name?" the girl asked, finally looking away from the door.
"Um... I don't really know" she suddenly realised that this was completely futile. Even if her brother was here, he wouldn't be checked in as himself.
"You don't know?" more tapping of the pen.
"Mac... Or Stallone? Either of those. He's 15"
The girl tapped away on the keyboard for a few seconds and then looked at Ivy with a shrug, her eyes drifting back to the person who had come in through the door way.
"There was a Michael Stallion. Same age" the girl told her, sounding unsurprisingly indifferent.
"That'll do, Where's he?"
"Gone"
"Gone as in died?"
"Gone as in checked out. Three days ago" the girl shrugged.
"Checked out?" Ivy felt a lurching feeling in her stomach. "Where to, where's he gone?"
The girl looked at her dubiously, as though she just might be a little insane. "We have privacy rules here you know. I can't just go giving out personal details to anyone"
"I'm not anyone, I'm his sister" she hoped she was at least. If this boy wasn't her little brother, she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to deal with the disappointment again.
"Prove it"
"I can't"
"Well then I'm really sorry, but I can't tell you anything." Ivy had never heard anyone sound less apologetic in her entire life.
She pursed her lips and flicked her hair over one shoulder, turning to go. "Yeah, I can see it's really breaking your heart. Thanks for the help." With that she strode from the room, followed by the rather stunned duo of 4 and 10. The Spanish had started up again. She wasn't interested enough to be annoyed anymore. Not at them anyway, but she could have hit the girl. The one person who had access to the possible whereabouts of her potential sibling and was refusing to give it to her because of some stupid privacy laws. Did she look like some kind of creepy stalker? This was completely ridiculous.
Ivy spent the walk to the car silently fuming and the drive home pondering. Perhaps, after thinking about it, she shouldn't have been so mad. Her brother- assuming this was her brother- was alive which was a hell of a lot better than where she had thought he was only the day before. And how far could he have gone in three days? He might have been out of the hospital, but he couldn't be completely better; it wasn't as though he was going to be flying anywhere. All she had to do was think it out, and she could work out where he was. It couldn't be that hard. And even if she couldn't work it out, the boy was running around with a giant club on his arm, meaning that there was a good chance that Ace or someone else would know where he was. The night 10 had been shot, ace had even been at the clubs headquarters. Really finding Mac was going to be simple. All that she really needed was a few days to come to terms with everything.
She would wait until after Christmas, and then she could start looking. That gave her three days before she would finally start the search for her brother. That sounded like a pretty good present to her.
The troublesome tree was finally finished when they walked through the dining room. 7 was proudly in front of it, admiring her work. Some neatly wrapped presents were already sitting under it, looking extremely small next to the enormous tree. 7 turned when they came in and smiled at 4 triumphantly as if to say 'look what I did without you'. 4 screwed up her nose distastefully but kept her mouth shut, much to her credit. She contented herself instead, with stomping from the room trying to make as much of a racket as was humanly possible. 7 looked at Ivy and an even more proud beam appeared on her face.
"Do you know how amazingly fabulous you hair looks? It's so Posh before she went completely anorexic"
"You know what I want to know?" 10 said with a snicker while Ivy grinned. "Is how someone who talks about Posh spice and her hair ever got to be in a gang"
"I don't know 10. Maybe it's because even though I talk about Victoria Beckham I could still kick your ass"
"Of course you could Querida, I would never hurt a girl" 10 said, seemingly offended by the idea because he added a rather hurt sounding sentence in Spanish after that. 7 didn't respond very sympathetically.
"This is America Javier. If you want to speak Spanish all the time then go back to Mexico" she told him, with only a small hint of humour in her voice. 10 laughed, while Ivy stared a little disbelievingly between the two of them.
Ivy jumped when she heard footsteps behind them; she hadn't even heard anyone come into the room, but suddenly 6 was standing next to 10, his arm slung around his shoulders glaring at 7.
"Man, why do you have to be hating on my brother here because he's from Mexico? You just have to turn everything into something racial. I bet you think just 'cause I'm black it means-"
"Oh god, not again"
"Man don't start on that"
"6, don't, please"
"7!?" the mystery voice came from the hallway, and made Ivy jump. She realised after about a second that it was Ace, not only because of his voice but because of the tense silence which followed, during which, everyone's eyes darted around nervously, as though preparing for something bad. Ivy frowned; what on earth could they all be so worried about?
What would worry 6 and 10 about Ace calling for 7... unless. Ace's head appeared around the doorframe. "What the hell have you done to my house?"
"I put up some decorations" 7 sure could pull off the innocent little girl when she tried.
"Some?" he repeated incredulously.
"Well, I just thought... I mean you said I could up some trees and stuff" she was looking down at the ground with her hands clasped behind her back. This wasn't good lying. She had expected more from 7.
Ace glared at her and took a few more steps into the room. "Tree 7, tree. Ain't no 's' in that word". 7 scowled, finally giving up her innocent facade.
"Oh or Christ's sake Ace, I thought you were getting over this"
"And I thought that you weren't gonna try and make the house look like the North Pole. But hey, what do you know, I was wrong too"
Ivy looked from one to the other feeling more than a little confused. Why was Ace mad at 7 for putting up decorations? What was wrong with that? She liked it, it was better than what they used to do back when she lived at home. Now it actually felt like Christmas time, and it was making her happy. Clearly however the same effect wasn't felt by Ace.
"Take them down"
"Ace-"
"Take them down"
Ivy saw a small glare appear on 7's face as Ace turned and without another word walked from the room. As soon as he was gone 7 stamped her foot and crossed her arms over her chest in a very childlike manner. She began to mutter things to herself, and Ivy caught a few of the words, although she would have quite liked not to. 10 was looking a little dubiously after Ace, and 6 was edging quietly towards the same door, as though trying to escape before 7 got too angry. She wasn't sure if she should ask anything, but she couldn't really help herself.
"What was that about?" she looked to 10,not wanting to risk upsetting 7 anymore than she already was.
"He doesn't like Christmas" he explained, as though Ivy might not have picked up on that already.
"Why?"
"Dunno. He just doesn't. Which means that none of us are allowed to like it either"
A frown appeared on Ivy's face as she thought this through. It didn't surprise her too much. Ace didn't seem a lot like a Christmas sort of person, but that didn't give him the right to ruin it for everyone else. That seemed so stupid and immature. It wasn't like it was going to kill him to have some tinsel around the house. Maybe she could talk to him, at least to work out what it was that he didn't like about Christmas.
"I'll have a word with him" Ivy announced, standing from her perch on the edge of one of the chairs. "Don't take anything down just yet 7".
Ace was sitting by the window- the top of which was completely plastered in mistletoe- talking to someone on the phone when Ivy found him. He looked up when she entered, but made no other acknowledgment of her. He seemed quite agitated by whoever was on the other end of the phone.
"Then go somewhere else" he said, sounding frustrated. This was followed by a long silence, where his expression grew more and more annoyed.
"It ain't that hard. Tell him to-" Ivy could hear the sound of someone yelling from the other end of the line. Slowly the noise died away and Ace stopped looking so irritated, and his eyes flicked to her before he sighed.
"I know, I know. Oh god, don't cry, you're making me feel bad. Look I want to, but I can't" he ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes briefly.
"Yeah sure. I have to go okay. Just think about it" he waited a few seconds and then hung up the phone and tossed it over onto another chair a little exasperatedly.
Ivy walked over and sat down next to him, tucking her legs under her. She smiled at him and he looked back a little tiredly. There was a sort of edginess to him as well, and Ivy figured that he probably knew what she was going to ask.
"Who was that?" she asked casually, leaning back against the window. He was silent a few seconds.
"No one" he said, ruffling his hair some more. She ignored her desire to ask again. Christmas was more important than a phone call.
"Okay. So what's up?" she saw a small flash of aggravation in his eyes.
"Look Rock if you're gonna ask about what happened before then I really don't feel like-"
"I'm not" damn it, this was going to be hard. "I just wanted to talk to you. I never see you anymore". Ivy made sure to bite her lip and look away at the exact right moments to try and make him feel bad. She felt a little bad trying to play him like this but that was what he got when he didn't tell her things. The suspicious look disappeared from his face and he sighed, leaning back next to her.
"You changed your hair"
"7 did it. I haven't seen it properly, it's not terrible is it?" she didn't know where that lie had come from. Was she trying to test him or trying to bring the conversation around to the subject of 7?
He shook his head and gave a half smile. "It's good. It looks like you before"
She smiled, although she wasn't exactly sure what he meant. Had he meant it as basically as her hair colour the first time he met her? Or in his mind was there some kind of division between the her he knew first and the her after she left the camp? It would definitely make sense if that was the case. She was far from the same person that she had been when she was sent to camp. But if he liked it more, then did that mean that he liked her more when he met her than he did now? Or was she just being unnaturally paranoid? That must be it. She needed to stop stressing out over things.
"I've missed you, you know" she told him, uncurling her legs and laying them out over his lap. "This house is boring without you".
His finger began to trace a pattern on her calf, and she bit her lip to stop herself smiling too much. "Everything's boring without you"
"Not Christmas..." she trailed off hopefully. He looked at her unsmilingly.
"Rocky, don't" he said seriously, and his fingers stopped moving on her leg.
"Okay, okay. Sorry... It's just that-"
"Rocky"
"But Ace, why not? It's not like it's a big deal. 7 really-"
"Since when do you care what 7 wants?" he wasn't looking at her anymore, so her pouting was completely ineffective.
"Since I want it too" she looked down, trying to look sad. It seemed to be working, because Ace didn't talk for a long time.
"That's what you want? A tree?"
She looked up at him and bit her lip, shrugging. "It's not about the tree. It's about, I don't know, Christmas spirit and stuff. Do you know how long it's been since I had a real Christmas?"
He frowned. "What's so great about it?"
Ivy looked at him incredulously. What kind of person didn't know what was good about Christmas? It was only the happiest, best, funnest time of year. When everyone was smiling and hugging each other and laughing and singing. How could you not understand that?
"What's so bad about it?" she reached over and rested a hand on his leg. Surprisingly he didn't stiffen, or move her hand away, he just sighed again.
"It's just not my thing, alright. I... I've had a few bad Christmas' in my time. The idea doesn't exactly excite me?"
"Not at all?" she asked, smirking slightly when she remembered the mistletoe hanging over the window. He couldn't have chosen a better seat if he had tried. Which he most definitely hadn't. Ace shook his head.
She glanced upwards and smirked. He looked up and before he had even looked back down again, Ivy leant closer and pressed her lips against his. It took him a few seconds to respond to her but when he did, it was sudden and urgent. Not at all what she had been expecting. She had been aiming for the slow, tender approach. Clearly he wasn't thinking anything like her. His reaction took her by surprise, shocking her into an immediate and intense response. Ace's lips were fast and hungry on hers, his hands pulling her closer to him. She moved with him, shifting so she was straddling his waist. Her body was practically on fire. It had been far, far too long since they had done this. She pressed against him, wanting to be as close to his body as she could get, trying to in some way cool the heat that was consuming her. But the closer she got, the worse and better it seemed to get. Oh god, she wanted him. She wanted him so much.
His hands were moving all over her body, only serving to make her desire for him worse. Ivy couldn't breathe, but the thought of pulling away was almost painful. Before Ivy knew what was happening they had started to pull at each other's clothes, tugging whatever they could get at off. Ace's lips were kissing all over her, her cheeks, her lips, her neck, her shoulders. She moaned breathlessly.
Suddenly something seemed to clear in her head. What the hell was going on? What did she think she was doing, this wasn't what she wanted. Actually, that was very untrue, this was what she wanted, but not here. Their first time should be romantic, special. Not just some crazy accident that she knew she would regret later. She was in love with this boy. With some random guy this was exactly what should happen, but not Ace. With Ace it mattered. With Ace, it needed to be important because she needed to know that it still could be. Maybe it wasn't even about sex. Maybe it was just about being with him. She needed to know that it meant something to him. Because to her it was more than just something; it was sort of everything.
"Ace, wait" she told him breathlessly, leaning away and swallowing. "Wait"
Ace didn't stop, pulling her back in and kissing her again. It took almost as much willpower as before to pull away. "That means you have to stop kissing me" she muttered, looking away.
She felt bad. It wasn't as though she didn't want to, she just wanted it to be important. But how could she explain that to him without sounding stupid? He wouldn't get it at all. She'd sound like she was trying to lead him on and she wasn't. She grabbed her shirt off the floor and twisted it nervously between her hands.
"What?" he asked a little roughly, looking annoyed.
"I don't... I don't know if this is such a good idea" she murmured.
"You're kidding me right?" he asked, and Ivy could tell he was pissed off. "Jesus Rocky, this is ridiculous".
"I just want to wait a little while..." she tugged the shirt over her head
"Wait for what? What's left to wait for? Seriously, explain because I'm not getting it"
"I want it to be special okay? Because I love you. Sorry if that's too hard for you" she wasn't sure whether to cry or be mad. She went with a mixture of both, glaring at him, while biting her lip to keep back the tears.
He looked guilty, and she felt bad for making him feel like that. "Damn. Rock, I'm sorry. That was a stupid thing to say" he was doing the hair ruffling thing again, and she felt a little better when she realised that he actually felt bad. "You're right, I'm just being selfish"
"No, no you're not. I mean, I know it seems really dumb because it's not like I haven't done it before and I'm probably just being really stupid"
"Rocky, stop. I get it okay. But maybe we should talk about something else because as long as we're not gonna do anything, I'd rather stay off the subject"
"Okay. I think I can live with that" she gave a half hearted smile. Ace didn't return the smile, but he didn't look angry either. "So... about this Christmas thing?"
Ace closed his eyes and groaned. "Is this honestly what you want"? Ivy nodded trying her very best not to look triumphant. He sighed, resting his face in his hands. "Fine. Whatever. She can keep them up".
Ivy gave a small cry of glee and wrapped her arms tightly around Ace. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you" she beamed, although the sound was muffled by his shirt. He wrapped an arm around her loosely and muttered a rather unenthusiastic reply. She ignored the depressed tone and rested her head on his shoulder. "We should probably tell 7 before she takes everything down".
Walking down the hall with Ace's arm draped around her shoulders was a surprisingly pleasant experience. Ivy had never felt like she felt right then. She felt safe and protected and most of all wanted. It was amazing what an arm could do. The whole lovely experience was ruined when they heard people talking in the lounge as they passed it. Usually Ivy would have ignored it. After all, it was far from uncommon to hear people talking in this house. But something about the voices made her stop, although she didn't know what it was.
She tugged lightly on Ace's sleeve and pulled him in the direction of the door. She pushed it open a crack and peeked through the gap only to see the very last thing she had ever expected. Ivy was so shocked she almost fell into the room. For a brief moment she considered the possibility that she was going insane.
There, right in the middle of the room stood 9 and Vinnie, kissing. For all of two seconds. Until 9 pulled away abruptly and slapped him hard across the face.
"Don't ever do that again 5"
He chuckled raising a hand to his face, but looking surprisingly merry despite the blow to the face.
"I mean it. Don't ever touch me unless I say you can"
"Aw, come on 9, you're just so hard to resist how can I not?" he was grinning but Ivy could tell he actually meant it which was actually quite alarming. She could hear Ace laughing from behind her. This was completely insane. Vinnie and 9... That was just too weird.
"You're going to have to, if you want to keep all of your limbs attached" she replied, before turning and walking towards the door that the two of them were hiding behind. They were gone from the spot in one second, walking casually down the hall, trying incredibly hard not to laugh. Ivy could feel 9's glare boring into her back once she came out into the hall, but she ignored it, making sure to keep looking straight ahead, in case she couldn't contain herself anymore. Laughing at 9 seemed like one of the more stupid things it was possible to do.
Instead she waited until her and Ace were safely out of hearing distance before bursting out laughing. This was definitely going to make things interesting.
Ace disappeared for the next two days, returning in the idle of Christmas Eve looking like he had just come back from a boxing match. Ivy was getting used to various house occupants coming home looking like that, but somehow it never got easier seeing him look like that. She didn't bring it up though, wanting to focus more on the positive of it being almost Christmas. Ivy contented herself with cleaning up the blood on his face and checking him out for broken bones. He was alright though, as he always miraculously turned out to be. Ivy tried to keep her mind away from what the other person might look like. She still remembered 8 after he had been saying things about her. That was a far from pleasant memory. She thought instead about how wonderful the house looked and how happy everyone was. Nice thoughts were easy to come by at this time of year.
She spent the rest of her day sitting with the others, loving listening to their talk of old Christmas'. They talked about what presents they had gotten or given or where they had gone. They talked about food and family and making snowmen or ice skating. Queen turned all the lights on, on the trees before 7 put on a Christmas CD and proceeded to make 8 and 3 dance with her. It was one of the best times of Ivy's life. She wished she had more memories like this from her past Christmas eve's . Instead she remembered being alone in the house with her brother, while her parents attended to urgent work over in Tijuana or wherever the hell it was that they used to go to. She didn't know and to be honest she didn't care. All that mattered was now she had a family of sorts. And she was having fun with them. She 'd never been in a house listening to Christmas songs with the smell of things like ginger bread and fruit cake filling the house. Who would have guessed that this house would be like this on Christmas Eve? Holiday spirit and gangs weren't usually two words you heard together in the same sentence.
It was about 11 o'clock when Ace came down stairs, looking less tired and bloody , but still not that great. Ivy didn't care. She was just glad that he was there. It was nice to know that when she looked back on this time, he would be in the memory. By this time 7 had managed to get almost everyone dancing and it was one of the funniest sights Ivy had ever witnessed. There was 7 and 3, doing what looked like a very bad version of the twist to 'Jingle bell Rock', while 4 seemed to be trying to teach 1 how to do the Macarena. 2, 6 and 10 were laughing hysterically while trying to do all the disco moves they could think of and looking unbelievably stupid, while Vinnie was spinning 9 around as she tried to make him let go of her. A little off to the side Queen had her head resting on Kings chest, while they swayed slowly to the music. Queen had her eyes closed, while King had his lips pressed to the top of her head. Ivy sighed, a smile appearing on her face. She wanted to freeze the moment for ever, with everyone having so much fun because it looked so perfect. It made everything seem so normal, even though they were so far from it.
The magic of the moment was ruined almost completely when Queen moved back, standing up on tiptoes to kiss King, which soon turned into a full blown make out session. After about two seconds King grabbed Queen and half carried half dragged her from the room. Ivy bit her lip and grinned. Only those two would be so blatantly obvious about what they were going to do.
Much to her surprise, Ace stood up from his seat next to her and extended a hand. "Come on Rock. You know the picture ain't complete without at least one ridiculously sappy couple". She giggled, trying to hide just how happy his offer made her. Ace never did things like this. And besides that he hated this time of year. This was probably the most selfless thing she had ever seen him do.
She took his hand, moving over to take the place of King and Queen just as the song changed. The high pitched crooning of Mariah Carey's 'All I want for Christmas is you' filled the room and Ivy tried not to look too pleased. This couldn't be more perfect if it tried.
Ivy's head rested on Ace's shoulder, her eyes drifting shut as she drank in the deliciously familiar smell of his skin and hair and clothes. His hands were resting on her hips, his thumb stroking small circular patterns through her shirt while his face was buried in her hair. She couldn't have asked for anything better.
Neither of them noticed that a few of the pairs of eyes in the room were now focused on them. It didn't really matter.
"Did I mention that I love you?" she murmured softly, shifting her head so she could look up into his eyes.
"A few times" he chuckled quietly, before adding; "I love you too Rocky, you know that right?"
She looked up at his face and everything was suddenly right with the world. She couldn't imagine anything ever going wrong again.
"This is pretty romantic you know"
"You think?" she could tell he understood what she meant from the tone of his voice. "I was kinda hopin' you would say that"
"Do you want to go upstairs?" she murmured, her head now in the crook of his neck.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah"
"Then yeah"
"Come on" Ivy took Ace's hand and slipped silently from the room with him following behind her. She felt a little nervous, and his hand felt the slightest bit clammy in her hand. She wasn't sure whether to be worried or excited. What if it wasn't what she had expected? Or what if was a thousand times better, and she was just being paranoid. She bit her lip and cleared her mind completely.
She took a deep breath, turning to look at Ace one last time, before leading him slowly up the stairs.
...
Okay, it's 2. 30 am, and I have to get up super early tomorrow, but i wanted to make sure that it was up before X mas.
Enjoy, it's really long, but i think quite a lot happens. I'm quite proud of how long it is actually, but the writing isn't fab and it isn't edited, sorry, but I won't have time to chekc it tomorrow even if Em dos finish editing it by then because it's X mas eve for us, don't know about the rest of you guys. lol
Anyway, merry christmas for real this time and enjoy.
ps. I hope everyone got what going upstairs meant? If you didn't actually though then you're pretty slow. lol
night.
xoxo
Bee
