"Hi, Ebony, how's the coffin this morning?"

Selene scowled over her coffee cup at the annoying beast that was Gordon. "Choose your words wisely, fish boy, I've barely had a sip yet."

"Sorry, don't get your fangs in a twist."

Her eyes narrowed warningly and he wisely retreated. She nodded in satisfaction and took a long sip. Boys are weird, she had always known this. But couldn't he have picked a better time than seven thirty in the morning? Apparently not.

She had forgotten about his strange morning greeting by the time she'd had her second coffee and was so deeply engrossed in a dice reading that she didn't notice Alan sneaking in until it was too late.

"So, when you and John get married, are you going to be a Tracy?"

"Huh?" she glanced up, having caught around ten percent of what he had said. "What was that, bub?"

"I asked if you were going to become a Tracy when you marry John…" he had moved closer to catch her attention but now he had taken a step back, "or are you going to stay as a Raven-Way?" He ran before she could fully take in what he had said, or throw something at him.

"Raven-what? What is going on with these idiots today?"

"Not a clue," Virgil shrugged.

"Well you're no help," she huffed, taking a picture of her dice spread and tucking them back in their bag, there was no way she'd be able to concentrate now that they had weirded her out.

She found them both in the lounge reading something on a tablet and laughing. They looked innocent enough but she was wise to their ways and wasn't fooled for a second.

"Right, I want to know what the hell is going on, right now," she had crossed her arms, her foot was tapping in annoyance and a wise man would recognise the signs and tread delicately. The boys were not wise, Gordon does not possess the ability to be delicate. Neither, it seems, did Alan.

"Nothing is going on," Gordon promised, all wide eyed innocence.

"Don't bullshit me boy."

"All we asked was if you were keeping your own name. What's wrong, was your morning blood not warm enough?"

"I'm a witch, not a vampire, dumb ass, surely you know that"?

"Are you in love with Draco?" Alan asked slyly.

"Draco?" she was instantly distracted, having a love of all things classic Harry Potter. "You know I'm a Draco fan, it was all his parent's fault, he was a good boy under all that sass and bad parenting."

"Maybe John will change his name to Draco as a wedding present," Gordon grinned. "That would be perfect."

Selene's narrowed eyes darted in his direction. It was a look that should have shrivelled him on the spot, but Gordon was immune, he was puffed up with some secret knowledge, some joke that she was not part of and it was pissing her off.

"She got up on the wrong side of the coffin this morning, didn't she?" Gordon side whispered to Alan who sniggered.

"There is no coffin!" Selene screamed, getting thoroughly fed up. She turned on her heel and stomped out of the room before she gave in to the urge to kick one of them. Sure, she'd regret it later, because no matter how doofy and annoying they were, she did love them, but oh, it would be so satisfying.

There was only one person that could help her at that moment, the all knowing, all seeing one that she happened to call the love of her life.

"Johhhhn," she whined the second his hologram popped up. "Your shitty little brothers are picking on me again."

Ahh there was that eye roll that they all knew and secretly dreaded seeing.

"What have they done now?" he sounded slightly distracted but that wasn't unusual and she didn't hold it against him.

"They keep being weird and saying strange things to me that sound like insults but are really just stupid and I don't understand it and they are pissing me off," she ranted without taking a breath.

It took John a second to mentally rewind the conversation enough for him to pick through her words in order to properly respond.

"They're saying weird things? That's not that unusual."

"I know that! And if it was their usual kind of weird I wouldn't be bothered."

"What are they saying?"

"You have the same tone a mum does when one child is telling tales on another," she accused.

"No, I don't, this is my normal tone."

"So your normal tone is downtrodden soccer mum?"

"What did they say?" he asked again, ignoring her comment as he did almost all of the things she said.

Selene flopped back against the pillows on his side of the bed, having hidden in the bedroom to bitch about his brothers. She placed her comm down on the bedside table and reached for...yep, she had one of his planets again. She had bought him a small model of the solar system, which he loved, but each planet was made from a different crystal, which she loved. Jupiter was a tigers eye, Venus was an amethyst, Earth a pretty jade and so on. This time she had snagged the small red topaz that was Mercury and was rolling it between her fingers.

"First it was Gordon-"

"Naturally."

"He said something about my coffin and fangs and he called me Ebony."

John frowned. "That is weird. And not just Gordon weird. What else did they say?"

"Alan asked if I was going to take the Tracy name when we get married-"

"Well we haven't discussed it but it would but up to you obviously, you have built a reputation off your name after all."

Selene smiled. There were no outdated marriage ideas for her man. That was one of the reasons she'd changed her mind about getting married, the fact that he wanted it as a commitment for them, not as a sign of ownership where she changed her name to his and gave up part of her identity.

"You're amazing, I love you."

"I love you too," he answered. He had no idea why she suddenly felt the need to say it but he wasn't going to complain. "But getting back to the original conversation, surely that kind of question wasn't too strange?"

"No, the strange part was when he asked if I was keeping my maiden name of Raven-Way."

John blinked. "Your what now?"

"Exactly. So I tracked them down and asked them what the fuck was going on-"

"Naturally."

"There's that tone again, babe."

"There is no tone, you are imagining the tone, continue."

"They asked if I loved Draco and suggested that you change your name as a wedding present. They also asked if my blood was too cold this morning."

"They're up to something."

"I know! Now find out what it is, that's your job after all."

"It's actually not, I have a rather more important job than finding out everything they are doing."

"They are your brothers, therefore it's your job."

John sighed the put upon sigh of the big brother that really wanted some peace and quiet.

"I'll get back to you."

"Thank you."

"And make sure you put Mercury back before Armstrong runs off with it again because you've left it on the bed."

"That only happened three times…" his eyebrow raised. "Alright, five at the most. I'll put it back, OK?" She plopped it gently back into its little holder close to the center and the large citrine that was the sun. "There, it's back."

"Thank you. I won't be long."

Selene had only managed to read two pages of her book before he was back.

"I think I've found the origins of their comments."

"You have? Where? What is it? Did they tell you? Did they confess?"

"My tablet's in my drawer, I sent the link there."

"The link? Was it on the Internet? Are you telling me I could have just googled it?"

"You could, yes."

Confused but also very curious she retrieved the tablet and easily bypassed his passwords and security, they had no secrets, and located the link.

"What the heck is this? You know I'm not really a fan of fan fiction."

"Just read it, I'll wait."

"Are you alright?"

Selene stared dumbly at the screen, her mouth opening and shutting in horror.

"Sel?"

Her goldfish out of water impression continued.

"Selene? Are you broken?" She'd been staring into space for more than five minutes, having read the abomination, the utter abuse of the English language and anything that was considered good literature.

"I'll kill them," Selene growled, breaking her silence. John breathed a sigh of relief, his woman was a little on the dramatic side but he hadn't meant to fry her brain.

"Please don't, can you be content to just hurt them a little."

"Fine, but first I have to do something very important, I'll see you later at dinner."

"Okay, but are you sure you're alright?"

"Yep, I'm fine," she insisted as she swiped her comm off the side, slung it around her neck and left the room.

John's hologram bounced along with her as she stalked down the halls to the lounge.

"Hey, Eb, what's up?" Alan greeted her, earning himself a very rude hand gesture as she passed by without a word. John's hologram raised the pointy finger of doom at him in warning, his expression clearly saying 'look what you two have done, look what I'm dealing with now, sleep with one eye open'.

Selene went straight to the hangars and into her car.

"Where are you going?" John asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"You'll see when I get back."

"Ow!" Gordon yelped as he suddenly found himself the recipient of a smack around the back of his head from John as he passed behind the couch.

John's hand lifted to give Alan the same treatment but the youngest Tracy was quicker and used a pillow as a shield.

"What were you two thinking? Do you have any idea how insulted she is? I'm going to be talking her down for a week."

"Lighten up," Gordon huffed, still rubbing the back of his head.

"Yeah, it was just a joke," Alan added in their defense. "We didn't know she'd get insulted by it, we thought she'd laugh."

"Did you, did you really?" John was not convinced.

"She's going to kill us, isn't she?" Alan asked, suddenly looking terrified.

"Probably, not that I'd blame her."

"Where is she anyway?"

"I've no idea, she turned her comm off when she reached the mainland."

"What would she be doing there?" Gordon pondered.

"Stocking up on knives?" Alan shuddered.

"Eh, I'm not too worried, you know she loves us, we'll just say sorry and it'll be fine."

"What was that?" Alan jumped, hearing voices in the hall. "I think she's back."

All three of them fell silent, leaning closer, straining their ears to hear the conversation.

"Honestly, I love it, it's great," Scott assured her.

"You promise? I don't look weird? I'm still not sure about it, I don't really feel like me yet."

"I promise, you look great."

"Is he home?"

"Got back about ten minutes ago, want me to get him?"

"Yes please."

John was already on his feet before Scott entered the lounge, pausing to exchange a rather bemusing high five with Scott as his eldest brother tagged himself out of the situation.

John had no idea what to expect, in fact his mind had been conjuring up all sort of weird and not so wonderful scenarios of things that could greet him when she got home. Thankfully, out of all the things he had imagined, this was nowhere near as bad.

He stopped dead, his eyes taking in the sight before him.

"Wow, that's different."

"Good different or bad different?" she asked, tucking her hair behind one ear in the most self conscious gesture John had ever seen from her.

"Good different, not that you looked bad before," he hurried to add, worried that she might still be pissed off.

"You sure?"

"I'm very sure," he promised her. "Come here, let me see properly."

She stepped closer allowing him to study her from all angles. Her hair had had a trim, losing about an inch and tidying up the slightly feathery layers that had been growing out, giving it a sleeker and more grown up look. It flowed down over her shoulders in a silken wave, as straight as a ruler. But most surprising of all was the colour. Her hair was now a deep, dark plum colour all over, the black with lilac streaks a thing of the past.

"I figured I needed a change, you know."

"You didn't have to do this, not because of those idiots." His fingers tunneled into the soft strands, feeling the same heavy weight that he was used to as well as the smooth softness. He twirled a small section around his finger, caressing it with his thumb. He liked it, it suited her.

She shrugged. "I know I was annoyed at first but now I kinda like it. I've had that hair for a long time, I guess it was a bit of a statement at first, it made me feel more like me, like I was being true to myself and I just never had the guts to change it after that."

"You didn't have the guts? I find that hard to believe."

"I just worried that if the hair went, I'd lose a little part of myself too, the part that I've been fighting for for a long time. I felt like I finally loved myself, the hair was part of that."

"So why change it? Not that I don't like it, it's lovely, it's very you. It suits you."

"Because I realised something today and that knowledge let me know that it was time to leave the comfort blanket behind, because I have something more important than hair colour."

"You do?"

"Yep," she caught his free hand and tugged him closer, lifting her head for a kiss. "I've got you and I know you'll love me enough for the both of us if I ever have a wobble."

"I can definitely do that," he smiled, unable to resist stealing another quick kiss. It was going to take some getting used to, he'd never known her with any other colour hair, but it wouldn't be a hardship, she looked as lovely as ever to him, in fact, if pushed he'd say even more beautiful than she had before, something he wouldn't have believed was even possible.

"Good."

"So, in a roundabout way, Gordon and Alan actually did something good?"

"Yes, I'll admit that a little good did come out of it."

"So you'll go and put them out of their misery?"

"Hell no, I'm gonna make the little shits suffer for at least a week. How dare they compare me to Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way."