author note - thanks for all the great reviews! Here's two chapters to make up for the wait. Oh, and of course I own none of the 7th Heaven characters, but Xavier and Ruthie's friends are mine, as is Naomi. :)

Xavier

A couple of hours later, a knock came at the door, and my Goth boy came waling in. Xavier is tall, pale-skinned, dark-haired, and always wears black or white with the rare touch of red. When my parents first met him, he had spiked hair, and they decided he was normal enough. After all, Simon, my next-older brother, has spiked blond hair and an earring, and he never changed from his usual, semi-nerdy, money-genius Christian self. How much more radical is a leather vest with spikes, right? When he had gotten wilder, growing his hair out, wearing eyeliner, I'd worried how my parents would react.

Now, as I hugged my leather and denim clad boyfriend, with his waist-long hair, three earrings per ear, nose stud, lip ring, back and upper arm tattoos, kohl-lined eyes and knee boots with spikes, chains and straps, I couldn't wait for them to see how far I'd gone from the sassy horse-loving young girl they still thought of me as being.

"Any time for me to get my nose pierced?" I asked Xavier after a long kiss.

"Love, as much as I like the sound of that, I have to ask why you want to know?" he said in his sharp London accent.

"Parents," I grumbled. "Family thing."

"Ruthie, look at me. In the two years we've known each other, you have never been like this. Something is bothering you, and I won't rest til I know what it is." He sat on my bed with me, and held my hands.

I started crying.

"Oh, love, what is it?" he fretted, chafing my hands.

"Everything I know was a lie. I don't know my real parent. I was taken from my real mother as a baby. Why? Why did they do it, and so badly? They said I was theirs. Not adopted, just theirs. A brown eyed baby born to blue eyed parents."

"So, how did you find out…" I shoved the letter at him, and he took it and read. "Ah. And, might I ask, what are you going to do with this?"

"I hadn't gotten past confronting my parents," I muttered.

"So do you want to meet this woman, your birthmother?"

Funny how you can, all of a sudden, want and need someone with a passion, when hours before, you didn't know they existed, let alone were missing from your life. "She gave birth to me!" I cried out. "She says she misses me still. She says she wants to give me back my real life. And now I have all these questions. Do I look like her? Who is my birthfather? Do I have any brothers or sisters? How old are they, and what are they like? What are my grandparents like? And I also wonder, what would it have been like to be raised by them? In a real city, even? New York! Would I have been happier with them, or was it good that Mo- Annie and Eric took me. Why did they take me? For greed? For love? To save me? I have all these questions and no answers!"

"So confront the parents. Get their side. Then go to New York with me and see what your birthmother has to say. Between the two sides, you should find the truth." He kissed me lightly. "And know that I will always be at your side."

I kissed him back. "Xavier, you are a wonder," I sighed, leaning into him.

"Yeah, I know. Can't help myself."

I looked up at him, saw his roguish grin, and had to start a tickle fight. Keep down the ego, you know? Soon we were laughing and rolling all over the bed, and tickles turned to touches. Deeper kisses. Until I had to sit up and reassemble my outfit, breathless.

"Sorry," Xavier said softly.

"No," I said, feeling a bit odd. "I'm sorry. I'm the one pulling the brakes when I don't want to. It's the way I was raised. A ring, or nothing."

"In a few years," he began.

I looked at him with huge eyes. "But what if I don't want to wait? What if I don't like a ring or nothing? What if I just want to try out being with you first, and see if that deepens things?"

He shook his head. "Til we figure out who you are and where you're going, love of mine, I won't be pressing for more than what we have. Last thing we need is to throw that sort of complication to the mix. Just know that I've got your back, so to speak."

I leaned to him again, smiling a little. "I know, Xavier, honey. I know. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart." He hugged me tightly, and we sat together until it was time to bring our bags down and catch the shuttle to the airport.