HockeyGurlRox: Wow, I have a Michael/Holly fan already and they've barely done anything :D I'm glad you like Kelly and Rob as well, Rob is a fantastic man and definately deserves someone, shame it can't be one of us, but still.Trust me, lots of stuff will come out when they start working on the play, yes Holly does have a small attraction to the Phantom, but Alex and her 'brothers' will soon sort that out.I'm especially happy that you liked the Stella and Charlie bit, it took me like 4 hours to write in the morning so I'm really happy with it.

Darkdestiney2000: I'm definately going to go ahead with the story of Stella and John, but it will probably be the longest one I've ever done because I'm going to do it from the age of about 3 until John dies or until the end of the heist, so it'll be pretty long. Hm...Shaving cream...now thats an idea writes that down and puts it somewhere safe whilst cackling evilly hehe, thanks for that, you just might see it. Oh yes, I have a strange liking for Charlie in his red shirt, leather jacket and cheeky grin (I want it so much in a frame on my wall). I think Rob definately looks best when he's doing his freeway chase to set the record :D Also, I read your profile recently, and very much liked the quote with Jeb and Whitney in a theater talking about porno for three year olds, that made me laugh for about 10 minutes.

I was doing some research the other day on the Italian Job sequal, a.k.a The Brazillian Job, and found out a lot, including that during driving in the first film, Marky boy threw up and Charlize had a right dig at him.It's being shot in Rio de Janeiro, and has the same Director, but a new writer! David Twohy! He wrote Chronicals of Riddick and Pitch Black, which I haven't seen but my brother says are amazingly written. As far as I know, Ed Norton isn't going to be involved, but Wahlberg, Theron, Statham, Def and Green are definately up for the ride :D Also, I heard something somewhere about Stella going under a car! I know, it sounded crazy to me, but it was something my cousin told me. She doesn't seem like that sort of person to do something silly like get hit by a car on a job, but hey, I can work that to my advantage maybe. It probably isn't true anyway becauase she hates Stella and Charlize Theron. Don't see why, personally, she's a terrific actress, and a big inspiration to me.

For my other Italian Job fics, there's a new chappie up on Hold Onto Her Forever, which was originally titled The Proposal but changed because I continued it. And I hate to ask, but could somebody please review Woman in my Arms, I know it's a Charlie/Stella and sometimes people prefer Rob/OC, but I'd really like to know what people think because it's an adaption from an email I got. Thank you, HockeyGurl, for reviewing both of these, your comments really help, thank you.

Anyway, I think I've blabbed on enough, Here's the next chapter. Hope you like it, it has Rob topless followed by Charlie topless. :D This shows a lot into Stella's past in this chapter, and I've included Rob in it as a savior kind of thing.

Sam

xx

In the kichten the following morning, Rob came downstairs in just a pair of cotton sleep pants, making Kelly smile at the sight of her boyfriend's perfectly formed chest. He helped her make some breakfast, seeing as she was making enough of a fry up to have to feed them and the six children. It took half an hour to prepare and figure out what each of the kids wanted, which in the end Rob gave up on memorising and wrote down like some kid of waiter (and a topelss waiter at that). When he took their breakfast into them, he found them all awake and watching Nick and Nathan play two player on the PlayStation console. They seemed to have taken sides and started cheering, all except Holly, who was sitting quietly in the corner of the couch. Having taken in the last two plates, giving them to Alex and Nathan, almost drooling from the smell of fried bacon, he ruffled her hair as he walked beside her. She jumped when he did, as she had been staring so blankly at the television screen she had barely noticed him walking in front of her.

"Here," He said, "What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "Nothing." She whispered.

"Come on girl, I know you better than that." He said with a smile, and sat down beside her on the edge of the chair. They boys were now so involved in what the twins had put on the television that they didn't hear Holly and Rob's soft conversation.

"I was just thinking." She said, giving him a reassuring smile like Stella did when she was trying to convince them that she was fine. And, alike Stella's, he saw right through it in the same way he did to hers: the smile never reached her eyes.

He leaned closer to her. "If you want to talk to me about it, you know you can." He assured her.

She nodded. "Yes, thank you." She said, but then glanced over at the boys.

"It's all right, I have an idea." Rob said, understanding that she didn't want the boys to know. She smiled at him as she winked.

Nothing more was said between them, except the occassional laugh on the television programme, until they had finished their breakfast. Nathan and Nick gathered up the plates like Rob had told them too, and took them into the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher. Luckily, for once, the clumbsier of the two, Nick, had not dropped anything, or smashed anything, or thrown anything, which Rob thought was an acheivement. They went back to their game for a while, and were once again engrossed. This time, they put in the multitap and started playing 4 player, leaving Michael to take the place of the loser of that race in the next one.

During this time, Rob and Holly went into the garden. They sat down on the wall that lined Kelly's rose beds, and Holly put her hands on either side of her. Rob sat sidewards. "What is it?" He asked.

She was quiet for a few minutes, trying to figure out her wording and finally settled on. "Uncle Rob, who's Steve?"

Stella awoke the next morning back at home with Charlie. After being on the beach for most of the evening, and she had fallen asleep for about an hour, they had finally got home at 2am. She had a wonderful evening, and felt extremely refreshed after the stress of work the previous day. She had to admit, Charlie really knew how to make her feel loved. She curled closer to him, her head resting on his bare chest, and his arms tightened around her, signalling that he was now awake like her.

"Good morning." She whispered huskily, her voice still thick with sleep.

"I love you." He replied and kissed the top of her blonde hair.

"Charlie Croker, you are a hopeless romantic." She declared.

"It's your fault." He retorted. "I wouldn't be if it weren't for you."

"Well, I hope it stays that way." She told him. "Because I rather enjoy all of this." Smiling, she propped herself up on one arm so she could look at him.

"As long as we're together." He promised her. "Which will be forever."

Rob sighed. Steve, well, where did he begin. Holly knew that their money had come from gold, but, as she was so young when Steve appeared again, they hadn't told her the full story as they had the boys. She knew that John had been killed by another man, but she didn't know about Steve, so what was making her ask? He knew that Charlie wouldn't exactly be happy about Holly knowing, but she had asked, so he had to tell her. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe she had just overheard the boys talking? But why would they be talking about Steve now?

"Steve..."Rob began, but then backtracked. "You remember how we got all out money?" He told her.

"From the Gold."

"Yeah, well, it was Steve's gold. Well, it wasn't, it was ours." He sighed. "I'm not explaining this very well am I?"

"No." Holly agreed. "But I'm having fun watching you try."

"Ok, I'll start at the beginning." He told her, and she moved so she was sitting sideways on the wall, listening intently to his every word. "Your Dad had been a theif all his life, and he was brought into our crowd by a man called John Bridger."

"Grandad?" She asked.

"Yes. John taught him how to plan his thefts, and soon they had come up with a heist large enough to make them both rich enough to last a lifetime." He smirked. "Trouble was, they needed help. So that's where Me, Left-ear, Lyle and Steve came in. He found us, and we helped him, but something went wrong, John had already been in prison for different thefts; mainly small scale ones, but whenever he went inside, his daughter-"

"Mom?"

"Yeah. She had to go stay with her mother. Problem was, she didn't really get on with her mother."

"I know this part." Holly told him. "Her Mom wanted to get rid of her when she was born but Grandad kept her, so her Mom hated her."

"Who's telling this story?" Rob said with a laugh.

"You are, carry on."

"Right, well usually it was only for a few months, but once, John went inside for five years. He was let out after 3, though, for good behaviour, which was probably a matter of life or death in the end." Rob explained.

"Why?"

"Your Mom was ten years old when he went away, and she had to go stay with her Mom again. She wasn't happy about it, I was sixteen then, and I was there the day when she said her goodbye to John, who was like a father to me as well. She only remembered it was me when I told her. I used to baby sit her believe it or not." Holly's eyes widened in mock shock and Rob laughed. "After only a year, she ran away. She went to stay with her Dad's father, who hated her Mom as much as John did."

"Why did she run away?" Holly asked, almost not wanting to know.

"Because her Mom used to hit her, and one day, Stella was hit by a car. Her Mom told the hospital that she was playing in the road, and that she told her not to go out, but no one was there to say a word against her. The driver disappeared, and John was allowed a day out to visit her in hospital, but she never saw him, because she was flat out of it all day. I don't know who he believed, but all I know is as soon as your Mom was able to, she climbed out of her bedroom window and went straight to her Grandfathers house." Holly was now listening silently, no longer asking questions. "The same day John was let out, it was the day after her thirteenth birthday, and she had been to visit her the day before, and he had told her he was coming out, and she was so excited. Then her Mom turned up. Tried to take her to England with her, but I was now nineteen, and had picked John up from Prison and had taken him to pick Stella up. When we got there, her Mom was dragging her down the stairs by her hair. Her grandfather was at the shops. But she had opened the front door thinking it had been him, so we found out later. She finally went, and John and Stella never saw her again. While she was dragging her down the stairs though, Stella slipped, and John's first three days out of prison were spent in hospital with your Mom."

Horrified, but wanting him to continue, Holly gulped. "Where does Steve come into this?" She asked.

"While John was inside, he started to plan the heist that led him to your Dad, and eventually to us. Steve had been the son of one of John's friends, so he already knew him pretty well. But when Stella was sixteen, she asked John to give it up, not wanting him to be inside prison again. He promised her he was through, and gave it up, leaving a fully capable Charlie in his place. Four years passed, and me and Charlie went to see John at work, at what is now your Mom's shop, to tell him the gold had been moved and we needed his help to find it again. John agreed, but he told us he wasn't going to be involved in the lifting, because he had promised Stella. This was when your Mom and Dad first met, and I could see from that first time she walked out of her Dad's office with a wrench in her hand that your Dad had fallen for her. We managed to trace the gold to Venice - in Italy."

"I know where Venice is Uncle Rob."

"Anyway, it took a further six years to plan how we were going to get into the place and override the security and such, but eventually we did it, and John was so thrilled at the idea of us getting so far, that Charlie convinced him to join us in the lifting."

"I bet Mom didn't like that." Holly said with a small choked laugh.

"John rang her on the morning of the heist. He had sent her a necklace from a department store, but she was upset that he was going back on his word to her. He promised that he was through, and he told her that that was his last job. What made things worse was that she knew that Charlie was right there with him, he always was."

"Sounds like Dad."

"We got the gold, and were celebrating in the mountains, we even got as far as to plan our shopping lists. Left-ear wanted his house in Spain - "

"With a room for his shoes." Holly and Rob said together. She had heard that part of the story thousands of times.

"Lyle wanted his stereo." Rob continued. "I only had one thing on my mind, the Aston Martin Vanquish. Steve said he was going to take one each of ours. John was going to share his with Stella, get her whatever she wanted, but she never really went for all the expensive things. Charlie, well, we never really found out what your Dad was going to spend his money on. We were double crossed though. Didn't make it out of the country with the gold."

"Steve?" Holly guessed.

"That's right. He tookt he gold for himself, and when John tried to stop him, he shot him."

Holly looked away for a moment. She hadn't known it had been that way. She wanted to believe that it was an accident that killed her grandfather before she had a chance to meet him, but now she couldn't. There was a sad expression on Rob's face as well.

"Somehow, the rest of us managed to stay alive, but it was your dad who pulled his body from the icy water and sat there for an hour, not ashamed to cry. Just seeing his face was enough to make you feel bad. Your Dad was always the youngest of us at heart, but in reality it was Lyle. But he looked like a kid when he was holding John's body. The first thing he said when he stopped crying, was your Mom's name. He felt guilty, because it had been him that pulled John out for one last job, and he had died because of it. All the way home he kept on saying that he felt like had killed him himself. You see," Rob explained, "Unlike the rest of us, your Dad had never known any death. We had all lost parents, friends, but your Dad never had, or at least, he'd never seen it. So the loss of John made him feel responsible."

"It was him that told Mom, wasn't it?" Holly said, understanding. "She told him that she never wanted to see him again."

"And for a year, she didn't. Until he turned up at her shop telling that he'd found Steve. Me and Charlie worked for a year to track him down, and finally found him in L.A, in Hollywood. She said she didn't want anything to do with it, but later on she rang Charlie and said she was in, for revenge. She never wanted the gold. She only wanted to see the look on his face when he knew that we had it."

"Sounds like Mom." Holly smiled.

"He thought we were all dead, except for Stella, who we sent undercover as a cable-repair girl to get inside footage of his house. It worked, and he even asked her for a date. Of course, she hated him, and although she wouldn't admit it, she was scared. We planned to go in whilst he was out, and the idea was that we'd be halfway out of the state by the time he figured out she'd stood him up, but his neighbour was throwing a party, and we couldn't do it, so she had to go through with the date. He figured out who she was, and when he appeared, he provoked her by saying that John begged for his life. We took her out of there, but Charlie stayed, came back a few minutes later having punched Steve in the face. I don't know what else happened that night, but something got Stella more determined, and eventually, we got the gold in the back of three mini-coopers, and got it out of there."

"What happened to Steve?"

"The cousin of a man he killed took him to where he worked to punish him, but some how, he got away. We didn't know it, but he was watching us. We all got settled down, had you kids, and all the while, he was watching us to the point that he knew your names." Rob admitted. "The twins were six at the time, which made you three, when he came. We were all in your garden, and the boys were playing in the tree. You were asleep with your Mom, and we were cooking." Rob was suprised at how much it only seemed like last week. "The boys started screaming, we went after them, and sent you and your Mom inside, just incase. The boys were being chased up the tree by Steve's new henchmen, but we managed to get them safe and unharmed. What we didn't know, was that Steve was in the house."

"I was asleep." Holly repeated. "Steve was there."

"How-" Rob began confused.

"He said I was beautiful, Mom didn't say anything." Her face was distant, and she was no longer looking at him. "She asked him how he got in. He said he got past the security, he pulled a gun out." Rob was watching her with an astonded but worried face. "He said he wouldn't hurt me, but he would hurt Mom. She wanted Dad there. Steve said he wanted me, Mom and Alex. Dad was angry. Really angry. I woke up. We went into the kitchen, but I couldn't see over the boy's heads. He called me Princess, and Dad hit him really hard. Steve said whatever Dad did to him he'd do to us. Dad took the gun, Mom made us sit on the floor so we wouldn't see., but he couldn't do it, could he?" Holly asked, snapping out of her trance like state. "He wanted to, but he couldn't. So you took him."

Rob could only nod, amazed that she could recall it better than he could. Amazingly though, she could recall what happened when she was asleep, but he wasn't sure if all that was true, he's have to ask Stella, which she wouldn't be happy about reliving.

"Dad said he'd never let anything happen to me, and all the boys said they'd look after me as well." She smiled a little. "They were right, they have done. Twins called Lyle a wuss because he couldn't have climbed as high up the tree as they did."

Now it was Rob's turn to laugh. "Sounds about right." He turned serious again. "Anyway, why do you want to know about Steve?"

"There was a man at school talking to the visiting talent scout yesterday, and I recognised him. I was walking past with the boys on our way back here, but he definately looked as us. I was the only one that saw him do it, but he stared and watched us walking past until we were gone. I thought for ages on the way home about where I knew him from, but last night, everything I just remembered, I dreamed." She told him. "It's sounds silly, I know. But I was standing there, not me, but watching me." She told him. "I think Steve's come back to do what he said he'd do."