"Rose Red," Annie answered him.

Rosey's face seemed to get ten times brighter with enthusiasm when Annie named her. Out of excitement, she launched herself off the ground and latched onto Annie, probably giving the girl an overly powerful hug. To Rosey though, she had yet to learn the difference between a simple hug and a backbreaker.

"Annie!!!" She sang when Annie reluctantly accepted the hug, even though her breathing pattern had been reduced to a faint squeak. When Rosey finally decided to let go, Annie took an extra long deep breathe to regain the lost air. Emery was speechless.

"...How?" he asked meekly, beginning to shrink inside an invisible shell.

Rosey blinked, confused just as much as he was. She lifted a hand to rub the back of her head sheepishly, giving a mild but somehow nervous laugh along with it.

"Um...I moved?" Rosey asked, trying desperately to make the pun less of one, although it was true. She was a house, and she had moved. A lot.

Emery stared at the girl, disbelieving what was said. A low growl and dark eyes dimmed his expression, as if he were practicing to be a guard dog on duty. The stare made Rosey draw back a few feet in shame. She lowered her head, hanging her neck low so her face wouldn't have to be gazed upon. Annie looked at her with what little sympathy she showed in her blank eyes, but even the smallest bit of emotion on that blank canvas was enough to show how much she cared. She paced up to her, leaning ahead to level her head with Rosey's.

"You got energy. Changed for moving. Hm?" Annie mumbled as best she could, regaining the lost attention of the wayward house-turned-girl. She was trying her best to phrase that as a question. Rosey glanced up at her with a weak smile.

"Yes, that's true. All that energy I consumed from the people that visited me finally paid off. Even though they tore me down, I was able to rebuild myself kinda... But all my energy lies in the last piece of myself that Emery has in his house. Before I actually changed, I thought I could stay on my land, but then the condominiums were built and all I had left was to track down some piece of myself since I wasn't whole. Thankfully, it led me here, but now I have no place to stay and moving in with any other stranger would just be odd. I can't go anywhere else..." Rosey explained ruefully until she was suddenly cut off from her story by a certain half man half rabid mongoose a few feet away.

"Bullshit! What did you really come here for you people eating, termite- ridden freak?! I don't want to hear your excuses!! So tell me now!" Emery roared, the year and a half of compressed stress finally letting itself loose from the soul workings of his inner "emotional bottle".

Rosey immediately gasped, shrinking back a few more feet before collapsing to her knees once again. It was obvious that Emery had to have practiced insulting houses, since calling her a termite-ridden home was a horrid thing to hear for a house that was so beautifully built. She took a small breath, but broke down for the second time, crying like a child.

"But...But I didn't mean to!! It's not my fault!!" she howled in between her whimpers. Even though she couldn't very well be proven innocent for what she did do, it was questionable at this point of whether or not she really meant it.

"I'd like to see you prove yourself worthy of anyone's trust! You're a menace!" Emery yelled, his intention on getting under her "skin" working perfectly, but was then hit with an odd perception which made him pause to consider, "Besides, how could that whole mess NOT be your fault?"

"It, it was her! It was them, always them! They made me do it, honest!" Rosey started, her once chipper attitude slowly sinking into what seemed to be a hidden anxiety. Almost an insanity, bringing more tears to her already waterlogged façade.

Annie's eyes suddenly widened, as if she had woken up from her neutral coma of lost emotions, turning almost tear stained eyes to Rosey as she fell next to her. Emery could only watch in shock and horror at the display. It was as if Annie felt the intensity of Rosey's madness overflow and was trying to split the pain between the two of them.

Silence followed the event for quite a while it seemed, none of them moving from their frozen positions. Emery, desperate to leave and escape the situation thought hard on what could break the ice.

"Well...Uh...What do you mean by...?" he stopped when realization hit him, staring for quite some time and it saddened him. He had answered his own question, "Ellen and Sukeena."

Rosey suddenly ceased her streams of tears to gaze up at him with wide eyes. Emery was struck with it. What he saw in her didn't remind him of the Rose Red he knew at all. Rose Red, he thought, was a cruel, evil and sadistic being bent on only its own personal gain and torment of anyone who was daft enough to cross its path. But this, her, those big bright eyes of hers were only filled with fear and sorrow, so much guilt and so much pain. It almost made him feel sorry for the poor ridiculous girl. Rosey, while he thought through this, had wiped her flowing tears from her eyes to shift her position to sit in front of him.

"If I could make it up to you and all the others who walked out of my old self alive, I would. I want you all to know how sorry I am and I want to prove to you this wasn't my doing. I need you to know that I am just as good as any other house, er, person that you may know. Let me prove myself! I know, let me reside in your home for a while, that way, you can see first hand that I am good! You will see!" Rosey begged, standing on unbalanced feet. She had been sitting on her knees for so long, the feeling had not yet returned to her legs.

Emery was dumbstruck.

"WHAT?!! YOU live in MY house?!" he yelled in shrill disbelief. "Never."

Emery was quickly met with a death glare from Annie who had returned to being the empty quiet girl that he knew. The stare was enough to send the cows' home and stampeding off again. It was plain to see that she wanted him to give Rosey a chance. Emery stepped back, slightly nervous of the two cold eyes, but cleared his throat to return her stare (just not as incredibly scary as hers).

"No," he repeated again.

-Minutes later-

"Thaaaank yooooou! Come back again sometime, okay? Bye!" Rosey waved hyperactively from the doorstep, Annie walking off to return to her own home. The girl waved back in response before making her way down the road and disappearing around the corner.

"Well, that was fun, huh? I can't believe your actually going to give me a chance to prove myself! This is too great!" Rosey continued after shutting the door, turning her attention to Emery, whose conscious mind had taken a little trip to Zimbabwe for a while. His outer expression had absolutely no emotion whatsoever.

Emery was in a complete overloaded shock. Not only was he just forced to share his house with a chick he hardly knew or cared for, but it just had to be Rose Red too. He wanted to kick her out, but he knew that he'd get the whole nine yards shoved down his throat and out his ass if he did. It was problematic in its own way. No one knew that Rose Red had survived, let alone become a human girl named Rosey and Annie had left that job totally up to him for introductions should any of his comrades ask. It wasn't something he was looking forward to. Namely because of the reactions he would get. For now, though, he would delay doing that for as long as possible. It was a unanimous decision and one he was left completely out of on his say in the matter.

Rose Red was officially living at his house.

((Well, I'm continuing after a few days of blank pages in the head. Hope its still going well!))