Hey again everyone. I have a break tonight considering it is the weekend and my next exam isn't until Tuesday. Everyone who has reviewed rocks and I thank you all so much especially mi kear, kiks say avie (my twin, sister and auntie!). Thanks everyone for your constant support.

Disclaimer – You should know it, I don't own any OC character.

Sandy continued to look at the glossy photograph in his hand as Seth continued to ask him what is was.

'Why did I not think of this place?'

Why?

She loved this place.

She told him that whenever she was sad she could find happiness in her room.

Her domain.

Her sanctuary away from her father.

"Dad!"

Seth's voice interrupted his reverie and he looked to the younger version of himself.

"Where-has-mom-gone?" he asked slowly.

"Here," Sandy answered meekly as he handed his son the photograph.

Relieved, Seth took the paper and looked at it.

Once he looked at it, his mouth opened in confusion and amazement.

"She went here?"

"Apparently."

"Ryan look," Seth said handing the message from the past to Ryan and picking up the envelope.

As Ryan studied the photograph, Seth fiddled with the envelope to see if his grandmother had left anything else in it and he was about to toss it aside when something struck the glass surface of the table. All the men looked at it and Sandy picked it up.

"It's a key."

"Very astute Seth," Ryan commented.

"Ha-ha Ryan, see dad, Ryan's sarcastic now."

"It only took two years but, Ryan has succumb to the ways of Sethela Cohen."

"Dad!"

"Sorry, the ways of Seth Cohen."

"Thank you . . . God, good thing the Nana isn't here."

"So when are we gonna go get her?" Ryan asked changing the subject back to Kirsten's disappearance.

"Well this is the key to Caleb's 'old' house before he moved into the mansion on haunted hill as you kids like to call it . . . but I think we should go right now, Kirsten deserves to know about her father."

"Are you sure? I mean mom is kinda . . . well fragile now."

"I know, it just hasn't been her time recently but if our places were reversed she would do the same thing . . . this will devastate her and I don't know what her reaction will be, but she deserves to know. I have to tell her before she hears it from anyone else," Sandy elaborated.

Putting the key in his pocket, Sandy headed out of the room and jogged to the front door.

"Dad wait!"

Sandy stopped on the steps to the door and turned to see Seth and Ryan catching up with him, "What?"

"We wanna come with you."

"Seth-"

"Dad, look . . . we wanna come, we need come . . . mom needs us all right now . . . we wanna be there for her."

"Boys, I don't know what her reaction will be."

"We don't care," Ryan answered.

Sandy walked silently towards the door and picked up his car keys and opened the door.

Then he stopped.

Turned to his sons.

He opened the door even further and moved to walk out.

"Well?" Sandy asked looking at them.

Ryan and Seth simply stood where they were.

"Aren't you coming?"

Seth and Ryan didn't need to be asked twice and they ran out the door followed by Sandy as they climbed into the Beemer and drove off.

Passing the houses as they drove towards Caleb's mansion and the house Kirsten grew up in, Sandy lay down a few ground rules for when they arrive.

"Ok, boys listen to me here," Sandy said looking at Seth to his right and Ryan in the rear view mirror, "I'm gonna park the car in a place she taught me when I first came here ok, and then I'm gonna go in with you following me but I want you to remain downstairs in the living room while I find her . . . she'll most likely be in her bedroom."

"But what if she's downstairs?" Seth asked.

"Duck! That's all I can say."

"Ok, or we could hide in a room she wouldn't go into," Ryan suggested.

"Yeh the dining room or somewhere like that."

"Sure, just make sure she doesn't see you before she sees me," Sandy ended.

At the house, Kirsten went to the box she had packed hesitantly and opened it meekly placing the glass next to it on the dresser.

Lifting the lid, she took out the unlabelled bottle from it.

Small white tablets could be seen through the tinted glass.

Twisting the cap off she spilled several tablets onto her palm and looked at them in the light. The light bounced off them making them look even whiter than she made them out to be, and stared intently at them. They were so small. She remembered reading in the instructions that it took half an hour for them to take effect.

Half and hour.

Thirty minutes.

She could wait that long.

Separating all but two tablets, Kirsten let the others sprawl themselves over the surface of the dresser. Quickly she let the pills fall in her mouth from her palm but she didn't have any water to wash it down so she took a small drink from the vodka and threw her head back as the tablets fell.

Placing the bottle back on the dresser, she left her room and went into her parents' bedroom and looked at the pictures that her mother used to decorate the room.

Sitting on her mother's side of the bed she picked up the picture in the silver frame she admired as a child and tried to remember the happy family in it. Kirsten was eight years old and sitting on her mother's knee as her father stood behind the 'two girls in his life'. She ran her fingers over the glass protecting the memory. Then she looked at the next picture. It was of Kirsten at eighteen holding a four year old Hailey with her mother to her right and her dad to her left. It was a wonderful day then. Kirsten actually had a reason to smile because Hailey was not bothering her and she was about to leave for Berkeley.

Kirsten quickly got absorbed in recapturing and remembering the memories that were locked in the photographs her mother prided.

Sandy quietly pulled the car into the lane that she taught him how to drive down without being seen by her parents. Firstly he had to turn the lights off and drive very slowly. Seeing as there wasn't any rocks or unseen obstacles he could just casually drive down.

But as he climbed out he didn't slam the car door; he slowly closed it and then when it was a centimetre nearly closed, he quickly pushed it closed. Ryan and Seth did the same.

Then they walked around to the front of the house and Sandy quietly and slowly pushed the key into the lock and masterfully turned it open without making a sound except for a faint inaudible click.

Cautiously they stepped into the darkened house and Sandy looked up the stairs beside the foyer to see a light filter onto the carpet upstairs. Sandy pointed to the living room and Ryan and Seth obediently tip-toed over to it and sat on the floor at the foot of the couch.

Sandy on the other hand walked up the carpeted stairs to the first floor silently avoiding the floor boards that squeaked. Kirsten had expertly trained him to by-pass them considering as she had taught herself when she snuck in after curfew.

Leaving the boys downstairs he walked to her bedroom and walked in. The first thing he noticed was the bottle of vodka on the dresser and he sighed disappointedly but then he saw the pills he became worried.

Were they ecstasy?

Some sort of narcotic drug?

He didn't know.

He wasn't disappointed about the vodka to be honest, he was actually concerned but in a way, it built up and secured his love for her.

Sandy looked at the picture of himself and Kirsten when he first came to Newport and her mother suggested taking the photograph.

He heard footsteps coming down the hallway and he quickly stepped into the closet and hid behind the door but manoeuvred himself so he could look at her enter the room.

What he saw, was not what he expected.

She was wearing baggy jeans that a punk would normally wear, a see through purple t-shirt that he had not seen her wear since she was nineteen when he met her with a black tank top underneath, pink Converse sneakers and brunette hair.

Brunette hair?

Bru-nette.

Hair!

Kirsten came back into the room and tucked her hair behind her ear and quickly folded the top she had discarded on the bed and packed it into her bag.

"I never would've imagined you as a brunette," a voice came from the closet.

Kirsten whirled around placing her hand over her chest startled as Sandy appeared at the mouth of her closet. She began to breathe quickly and balanced herself again her bedside table as Sandy stepped towards her.

Instinctively she asked, "W-what are you doing here?"

"Same reason you are."

"Oh and that would be?"

"To find you."

"Well you wasted your time, Kirsten is nowhere to be found," she laughed sadly moving to the dresser.

"Oh I think she is," he whispered as he approached her gently, "Kirsten, can I ask you something?" he asked as he looked at the pills.

"Yes I have been drinking even though I said I was through with it."

"No not that, what are these?" he asked fingering the tablets, "You planning on doing something?"

"Going to sleep hopefully . . . they're to help me sleep . . . because I can't."

Aware, that she was having problems sleeping he was sceptical to give her the 'news' about her father.

News!

Kirsten your father is dead.

That isn't news.

It's a heartbreaking sentence.

Statement rather.

"Kirsten," he began, "I have something to tell you."

"What?" she asked looking at him through sad eyes.

God, he was able to tell Seth, but he was still stuck for telling Kirsten.

"Sandy? What is it?" she enquired in a small voice.

Refusing to look at her he spoke, "It's your dad."

"What about him?" Kirsten spoke nonchalantly.

"S-s-something happened last night."

That got her attention.

"What happened?"

The tone of her voice change and her eyes opened slightly more.

Sandy couldn't continue.

"Sandy? Is it his heart? Is he ok?"

"No baby, I'm afraid not. H-h-h-h."

Kirsten looked away from Sandy and stared at the dresser and at the bottle of vodka standing to attention. Before Sandy could react she grabbed the bottle and threw it across the room to the opposite wall. It shattered just like her heart and the vodka spewed from it just like her blood pulsed through her veins.

She grabbed the baseball bat she nicked off Hailey when she was young and swung it over the dressers and broke all her memories, and completely 'thrashed' her childhood bedroom. Photo frames flew in all directions, glasses shattered, tablets skirted across the floor and she screamed her heart out.

Sandy was afraid to go near her as of fear of being hit by the bat but he had to.

He approached her and grabbed her shoulders but she fought him at first but his grip became firmer and calming and she stopped fighting and fell into his arms collapsing to the floor crying into his chest.

Sandy held her to him in his strong embrace and running his hands up and down her back and 'shh'-ing her and stroking her hair softly and tenderly. Kirsten held tightly to the front of his shirt crying, "I killed him Sandy, I killed him Sandy! He died of a broken heart."

She repeated this to herself over and over again as Sandy swayed her from side to side attempting to calm her.

Downstairs, Ryan and Seth had been waiting to see if Kirsten would come out of the kitchen and walk past them but she never did. But when they heard a smash from upstairs and a scream they stood up immediately looking at each other. Then they heard more hysterical screams and more smashes and crashes and sprinted up the stairs two at a time but when they reached the top, it became silent.

Together they stepped cautiously towards the open door which the light ebbed out of.

As they approached the threshold, shards of glass littered the carpet and photographs lay under remnants of photo frames.

But as they entered the room they saw, Sandy on the floor with Kirsten holding onto him desperately crying her pain out to him.

Kirsten looked like a broken soul as tears streamed down her skin and her dark hair fell in front of her face.

"Is she ok?" Seth mouthed to Sandy who looked up at them.

With Kirsten in his arms, he simply shrugged, not knowing the answer to the simple yet extremely complicated question.

Seth and Ryan entered the childhood domain of their mother and crouched down beside her as she sobs slowly subsided.

Sandy gently moved back to see her face but her eyes were closed and she looked peaceful.

"Mom?" Seth asked.

"Ssh Seth, she's cried herself to sleep," Ryan whispered.

"No, I don't think it's that son . . . I think she took some sleeping pills and they are taking effect . . . come on let's get her home to bed," Sandy said gently gathering her up into his arms.

"We'll quickly get her stuff," Seth stated while gathering her backpack and her cell phone from the bedside table, "Got it, let's go."

Seth and Ryan followed Sandy as he gently negotiated the stairs down to the foyer and to the front door which Ryan opened and went ahead of Sandy. Kirsten had her arms unconsciously around Sandy's neck as he carried her into the night air.

Seth reactivated the alarm after turning off all the lights and locking the door, and quickly caught up with Ryan and his parents at the car.

"Ok, Ryan you go into the back seat and take her from me ok."

Ryan clambered into the backseat and accepted the unconscious Kirsten and made her as comfortable as possible in the Beemer as Seth and Sandy made themselves comfortable in the front seats. Sandy backed out of the car's hiding place and drove home.

Once there, Sandy took his wife back into his arms and took her to bed, taking her sneakers off and pulling the quilt up to her chin and tucking her in like her father did when she was a child.

He curled her brunette hair back behind her ear before kissing her on the forehead whispering, "Goodnight sweetie, everything will be all right, I promise I'm here for you, I love you."

With that he turned off the light and left her to sleep.

I don't know if I should leave it there, or continue on to Caleb's funeral and her acceptance and continuing self-destruction so to speak. Tell me what you think I should do. Like always, love yas!