A.N.: This chapter is dedicated to chiefhow for being the first person to review to my last chapter. I would also like to give special thanks to chiefhow, heatherika, and WannaBArtist for being my loyal reviewers.

chiefhow: Yes, your are right about feeling like outsiders, and I will get to that. I promise. And Mark without a shirt would be an enjoyable experience. Thanks for the review.

WannaBArtist: That sucks that practically everyone in your family takes your books. Nobody would ever dare take my books in my house without feeling my wrath. I usually end up reading a new book in a few hours though. And I didn't really have fun in Florida, but hey, I was visiting my mom. No happiness can come of that. Thanks for the review.

living2love: Yeah, I have problems with Adrian too, as you can probably see in my writing. I totally hate it when an author starts a story and it's really good, but they don't finish it. It drives me nuts, so I can understand your not wanting to read stories until their done. Thanks so much for the review.

StarFariey: She didn't tell them everything. She just told them that there's a problem and she and Mark are the only ones who can fix it, well and that they're Guardians, but nothing more than that. Sorry if it confused you and thanks for asking.

heatherika: Now that was a short review. I thank you for it though.

Sun: Thanks so much for the compliments. I appreciate them just as much as I appreciate the review.

tigerwhisper: Thanks for the review. I love your stories by the way, so you saying that mine is great is just awesome. Thanks sooo much.

NARY STONE: Thanks for the review.

CeeCeeCaffeine: Ha, I told you that this book was awesome. At least you listened to me. I totally love the book. Thanks for reading my story. The only thing new with me is that I just got a job at CVS, what about you?

PixiePam: Thanks so much for the review.

Mary Stone: I appreciate the review, thank you.

Everything And Anything

Replenishing The Source

Adrian came up to me right before Mark and I were planning on leaving and asked if he could speak with me. I looked over at Mark and he had raised eyebrows obviously wondering what was so important that he couldn't tell me when I got back.

Instead of saying what I really wanted to, I just nodded my head and lead him into the foyer. I heard Mark say behind me, "Don't take too long, we have to go Rosie."

"What do you want to speak to me about?"

He waited a minute if only just to make sure that my husband wasn't listening in. "Well, I just wanted to know why you never came back to London. I know we had our argument about you coming here, but I expected you to come back to me."

I stared at him in disbelief. This was what he wanted to talk with me about? "Listen, Adrian, I love my husband and I love the life I have now. And after the first month of staying here, I knew that I would never go back." He started to say something, but I held up a hand. "No, not anymore. And I can't believe you expected me to come back like I was some sort of puppy. I don't know why you came here, but you shouldn't be here."

I didn't even wait for him to say anything else. I just stormed into the kitchen where Mark, my loving husband, was waiting for me.

"What did he want?"

I just grumbled, "You don't want to know." I knew better than anyone that if Mark found out what Adrian said, some blood would be spilled. And it wouldn't be Marks'.

By the time we got going it was about noon, that means that if everything went according to plan, we could be home before ten at the latest. On our way to the garden, Mark wasted more time when he took a detour behind a tree and kissed me senseless. Too bad we didn't have enough time to do anything more.

It felt odd going through the maze again. The dance came naturally to me, but just going through the eerie place was odd. We finally got through the maze to where we had to go down the stairs to the room. We took our flashlights out and turned them on right before we took the first steps down. Mark held my hand the entire time. The feeling of the cave wasn't as bad as the first time we went down into it. The Mother hadn't drunk from the spring in sixty years then, it was less than a year now. Still, there shouldn't have been this much of a problem with the spring.

We reached the bottom of the stairs where we clearly saw the Mother on her pedestal and the spring. At first we didn't see anything wrong, but after a minute we saw the blackened water. Normally, the water is a pure color, but this water was a pure black color.

"This is not good." Mark voiced my thoughts exactly. "Is the Mother supposed to drink that?"

"I don't know. Is that poison?" This was kind of scaring me.

Mark wrapped his arms around my waist and turned me to face him. He put his lips on mine and slowly kissed my lips. He then pushed his tongue between my lips and entered my mouth with his slow undemanding manner. He leisurely pushed his hand up my shirt until he reached my breast. He pulled away gradually and looked in my eyes straight into my soul.

"What was that for?" I was breathing heavily and was having a hard time keeping my hands around his neck.

He didn't respond to me. I knew he had a reason for what he was doing, and he wasn't going to tell me until I figured it out. How sweet. Not.

Mark lifted my shirt above my head before giving me another kiss on the lips. I started unbuttoning his shirt just as he started moving his lips lower on my body. He reached out to undo the zipper on the front of my jeans before I lost practically all of me thought. Well, Mark could do that.

But I did have one last thought before I turned into a complete pile of mush: We had to replenish the Mother, literally.

A.N.: So, did you guys like it? Was thinking about putting a sex scene in here, but then I would need to up the rating and I really didn't want to do that. I had a little bit of writer's block as to what was exactly wrong with the Mother. Sorry it took me so long to write it though. To make up for it, I'll try to write faster if you guys review!