Life After High School - Ten Years Later

By Risty Maskell and Silver15

Disclaimer: Hell, I dunno.

Summary: see above.

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(Kane's POV)

As I went to bed, I noticed the white envelope on the other side of the door. It was sealed and it had my mum and dads names on it. I held it for a second, wondering who it could possibly be from and whether I should take it downstairs to dad. However, I didn't need to because my dad suddenly appeared behind me.

"What's up, Kane?" he asked. "What have you got there?"

"It's a letter for you" I held it out and he took it, his expression unreadable. "I found it on the floor. I think someone pushed it under the door."

"I'll read it later and see who it's from" my dad said wearily. "Now are you going to be all right up here for a while, or do you want me to stay here with you?"

"I'll be okay," I told him. "You will be downstairs though, won't you?"

"In the bar with Benny" he promised. "At least one of us will be down there. We won't be long anyway, we have to start out very early tomorrow."

He gave me a quick hug, told me to sleep well and went back downstairs. After he had gone, I sat at the window for a while looking out across Hobbiton. It was dark and lots of houses had their lights on. It was very pretty and it reminded me of my mum because my mum always liked pretty things. It would be just one more night until I would see her again and I could not wait. I liked going away with my dad, but then I always worried about my mum while I was gone. I even missed my brother and sister, believe it or not. After about ten minutes, I got into bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

(Damon's POV)

As I sat back down opposite Benny, he must have seen that something was wrong. Benny is always good at seeing right through me, it's impossible to hide anything from him.

"What's wrong Damon?" he asked. "It isn't Kane…?"

"No, Kane's fine" I told him. "He's gone to bed."

"Then what?"

"Kane found a letter that had been pushed under our door," I said quietly. "It had our names on it, mine and Emma's."

"You think it's from Jaime?" Benny asked, immediately catching on. I nodded, knowing that there was only one way to find out for sure. Taking a deep breath, I opened it and turned it upside down. A folded up piece of paper and a photograph fell out. I picked up the photo first. It was a picture of Jaime, Frodo, Ria and three other kids I had never seen before. I handed it to Benny and picked up the letter. It turns out that I was half right. It was from little Ria. Apparently Jaime and Frodo wanted to end our little 'feud' and young Ria wanted us to come to visit. Well she had another thing coming if she thought that we were going to forgive and forget. Things had changed since then and the way I saw it, there was no point in dragging up the past.

Pushing the letter across the table to Benny, I put my head in my hands and sighed. We did not need this, neither of us did. After about three years of feeling guilty over what had happened back then, Emma and I had decided that enough was enough and that we didn't need them. After about eight years of moving around, we moved back to Silverwood and purchased Bernard's bar. Above it was our living quarters; mine and Emma's, our three kids, Benny's, Benny's daughter and Lucas. Underneath the main bar were the hidden levels and that was the new hideout for the 'Howling Wolves', Lucas' thieving group. It wasn't very big now, me, Benny, Lucas, Blaze, Forrest and a handful of others, all trustworthy and completely skilled in what they did, did the major jobs. Benny and I ran the bar as well as doing the occasional job for Lucas now and again. Sometimes Emma and I had our arguments, sometimes things went wrong. But we were happy most of the time. We didn't need Jaime. When things first went wrong, Jaime twice tried to get in contact with Benny and Lucas but her letters went unanswered by them both. They were on our side in this matter, they always had been.

"What are you going to do, Damon?" Benny asked. There was only one thing I could do, although a very small part of me did not want to do it. With Benny's encouragement, I tore the letter up in pieces and the photo in half and put it back into the envelope. 'It's too late!' I wrote on the front. 'We want nothing more to do with any of you so leave us alone!'

Early the next morning, while Kane helped Benny with the horses, I slipped off to Jaime's house and pushed it through the letterbox. Then we rode away from Hobbiton and I didn't look back…