Warnings: Dark themes, lots of mentions of death, strong language, human experimentation, experimenting on children, child abduction, graphic descriptions of experimenting, lots of needles, lots of violence, poor descriptions of panic attacks, descriptions of blood, rated M for safety.

*If I need to add anymore warnings please tell me in the reviews or a PM and I'll be sure to add it!*

Chapter 57: The Second Half

There was a tense silence in the room as they waited for Sabo to continue the story of the brothers' experience in the facility.

"Then year four came." Sabo started, taking a deep breath. He knew this was a long story, and they were only a little halfway through it, but he was becoming exhausted with living through these memories once again.

"Year four definitely comes in second for being our worst year there. It started normally, with tests one after the other, but then they began doing tests exclusively on Ace and Luffy. These tests were devil fruit-based and they would drop them in tanks of water, forcing them to hold their breath as long as they could, and only stopping once they'd reached an 'acceptable' 5 minutes." Sabo said with a grimace, remembering sitting in his cell and hearing Haru berate them, pushing them back in over and over again until they did.

"But humans can't hold their breath that long," Namur said in confusion, causing Ace to scoff and Luffy to look down, kicking his feet against the floor.

"Yeah, well these humans can thanks to that insane bastard." Ace said, jutting a thumb out to point to Luffy and himself, remembering how his vision had been spotted with black and the lack of oxygen had made him dizzy.

"It wasn't long after they'd been returned to the cell that there was an explosion. The Doctors had been working on something and it backfired, causing a massive fire to roll through the halls and begin killing the children locked in their cells." The brothers once again had dark looks in their eyes, remembering the screams.

"It eventually got to our cell as well, and I was honestly convinced we were going to die. At this point, both Ace and Luffy were restrained with sea stone constantly because the doctors feared that, without it, they would be able to do some serious damage. And they were right. This meant, however, that they were constantly in a weakened state, and now we were in a cell with no escape and a roaring fire coming our way. Ace managed to control the fire despite being held in sea stone and kept it from harming us thanks to a drug the doctors had used on him earlier that day. I'm pretty sure the doctors were convinced we were unable to die." Sabo said, and it seemed that way. It was deathly silent as the Commanders and Captain took in the information, knowing there was still more years to come, and apparently an even worse year according to Sabo, but it seemed as if this was something you would hear in a work of fiction, not in real life.

"Due to the fire, all of the children being held captive were killed, along with a few doctors too, and they had too 'restock' the entire facility. Within the time of having no children to spar against they opted to just do regular tests on us. They did specific ones on Ace and Luffy to the point where they can both hold their breath for ten minutes, and last another two after that before passing out. They can also resist the effects of the oceans for two minutes, which means that they can tread water in that time until they become too weak to do it anymore, explaining how Luffy was able to misdirect you into thinking he could swim." Sabo explained.

"I didn't think anything like that was possible," Marco said, clearly intrigued by the aspect. Sabo chuckled dryly at that.

"Yeah, well, they had a knack for making the impossible possible." He said before deciding to continue on with the story. It had already been extremely lengthy so far, more so then it had been when they told Shanks or Garp.

"The tests they did also allowed Ace and Luffy to have better control over their fruit, even when in sea stone, and somewhere along the way they had given Ace a more mild version of what they had given the child with regenerative abilities. Ace heals much faster than normal, but not instantaneously like the other child had. Deep wounds that take weeks to heal only take a few days instead." Understanding showed again as they realized this was how Ace had baffled Whiskey when his wound had miraculously healed at an exceptional rate.

"Year five was the year of even more tragedy. They, like usual, were testing on us, and they decided to try a new test on Luffy. One involving poison. They injected multiple types of poison into him with the idea of creating an antidote that could cure multiple types of poisons at once. Long story short, it didn't go well. Like with me, Luffy began failing fast and they had us all taken out while they tried to use the antidote. It didn't work, and Luffy died for a few minutes to the point that they gave up trying to revive him, but as they were cleaning up the antidote worked and he was alive again." The Commanders shared a look as they realized that not one, but two of them had died at the hands of the doctors, not to mention, they had nearly died multiple times throughout this whole experience as well.

"Then, the worst year came. Year six." Sabo began, looking over at Luffy. Every other time he told this story, this was the part where Luffy left. In fact, Ace was already nearly out of his chair in anticipation, waiting for Luffy to stand and leave. The Commanders and Captain watched, understanding that something bad, something worse than everything else, was coming up.

But Luffy didn't stand, and although he looked like he wanted to leave, he remained seated.

"Are you sure, Lu?" Sabo asked softly, not knowing if he should continue with Luffy in the room. It had always been hard for Luffy to come to terms with what had happened during that year. He had changed drastically because of it, and it was almost like they had left them with a husk of their brother after what they had put him through.

He was only just beginning to heal from it, and now he was about to sit and hear about it all over again?

"I-I... I wanna stay... to watch t-the... the colors... to make s-sure..." Luffy said in a shaky, hesitant voice. He was clearly divided on this decision, and the older two could understand why. Luffy was the only one who knew if the Commanders and Captain would be affected by the story, and if he left, Sabo would be left alone with them, with no way of knowing if they were going to turn on him because of what happened during that year.

But on the other hand, it was an extremely painful thing for Luffy to go through again, even if it was just words retelling a memory he had replaying constantly in his mind.

"If you have to leave, don't worry, just leave," Sabo said, grabbing Luffy's hand as he spoke. He knew that Luffy would try and stick it out, but Sabo wanted him to know that, at any time, he could leave. Even if Sabo wouldn't have the advantage of knowing how the Commanders were feeling or if their auras suddenly turned grey, he would rather be stuck in here with them then force Luffy to relive a past he's still having a hard time coming to terms with.

Ace seemed to share his sentiment because he grabbed Luffy's other hand, giving it a comforting squeeze.

Prepared for the worse, Sabo drew his attention back to the waiting Commanders and Captain, getting ready to tell their story once more.

"Year six. It started out normally. We had learned about haki when we were forced to fight, so throughout the beginning of that year, we trained even more in it. We sparred, we were tested on, and we were the perfect test subjects. Everything was the same as it had always been until the doctors once again came up with a new test." The Commanders and Captain listened closely, a heavy tension filling the room as anticipation grew within them.

"They took Luffy, only Luffy, and brought him in for testing. We don't know what drug they gave him, but the effects were immediate. Whatever they gave him also gave him the ability to see someones entire memories by just looking into their eyes. From birth to present." Sabo explained. Noticing the wide, nervous eyes on some Sabo smiled.

"Don't worry, he's not exactly fond of going through peoples histories like that. At first, he had no control over it and had to stare at the ground a lot, but he learned to control it so that he can look into eyes without worrying about it." There were sighs of relief from some of the Commanders who didn't exactly want their pasts to be known without their permission.

"That wasn't all they did though. The doctors had created a series of tests that they wanted to try out, and that was only the first one. The next one, another injection, gave him the ability to feel peoples emotions. Whatever they're feeling, he can sense it. That one, he can't exactly just turn off." Sabo said, rubbing the back of his head as the Commanders came to terms with his words.

"What, so he can feel what I'm feeling then?" Vista asked a single eyebrow raised skeptically. Sabo nodded, tightening his grip on Luffy's hand, Ace doing the same. Before he could speak further on the matter, Luffy spoke up instead.

"You're confused. All of you are, and some of you are worried about us. There's also anger, but it's not directed at us, it's directed at the facility. There's also a lot of warmth, but I'm being careful with it." Luffy said, saying the last bit more to Ace and Sabo rather than the others, to reassure them that he wasn't going to let it influence him.

"Warmth?" Blamenco asked, confused. He was willing to bet that what Sabo had said was true and that Luffy really could feel their emotions, but what kind of emotion was warmth?

"That, we don't know much about. We know that good people can possess another emotion which Luffy can only describe as warm and nice, and Captain Whitebeard possesses a lot of it." Sabo said, nodding to the Captain who was listening with interest.

"Its a particularly... nice feeling to Luffy. Anyone feeling an emotion strong enough can influence the way Luffy feels. Say, for example, one of you got really angry right now. Luffy would feel that feeling and it would begin to influence the way he feels, making him inexplicably angry, even if he had been quite cheerful a moment ago. For Luffy its hard to not let in feelings of happiness because, in his words, they're nice feelings and they feel good to let in. This, however, means that he gets easily influenced by them." Sabo began explaining, the Commanders and Captain trying to keep up.

"This warm feeling is like... a drug to Luffy," Sabo said, trying to find the right way to explain this.

"In large quantities, Luffy can easily let that feeling overwhelm him. You've all seen it happen before, in fact." There were more looks of confusion as the room tried to figure out what Sabo meant. The blonde smiled, chuckling a bit.

"When we were in the galley eating, Luffy had felt for the first time that one of you possessed a large quantity of the feeling. He had stopped eating and was looking around trying to pinpoint who had the feeling, and it turned out to have been Whitebeard. He'd never experienced that much warmth at once. Ace and I also possess the feeling, but we cant produce as much as Whitebeard can. Luffy let too much of it in, and he became so relaxed by the feeling, so influenced by it, that he began falling asleep." Luffy smiled sheepishly, remembering when he had scared everyone when they thought he was hurt.

"I remember that! You said he was just tired and you took him to your room. We thought something was wrong." Jiru said. Ace scoffed again while Sabo just nodded.

"Exactly. Ever since then Luffys made sure to limit how much warmth he allows in. Its good in small quantities, and Ace and I make sure to send him some to calm him down, but we have to limit how much we give him. Now, as I mentioned before, warmth is a feeling that only good people can possess. In spite of that, there is a feeling that only bad people can possess." Sabo said grimly, frowning along with the brothers as the room became tense once more.

"We don't have a good name for this feeling either, but Luffy describes it as a darkness. A heavy, suffocating, slimy feeling that he doesn't like. We've only found a few people outside of the facility that possesses this feeling. Haru had an... abundance of it as well, and it was difficult for Luffy to block the feeling from coming in." The blonde explained.

"We'll get to that later though. For now, let's discuss the last test. The worst one. All of these tests fell under a single experiment that the doctors were running, an experiment that they called the 'Pure Souls' experiment. This last test made it understandable as to what this meant. After another injection, Luffy began seeing colors around people. They ranged from a light blue, to grey, to a completely pitch black. I overheard the doctors saying that he was now able to see auras and that they were a representation of someone's soul. It didn't take long to figure out that the light blue, which only surrounded, Me, Ace, and the rest of the children, meant those people had good souls, while the darker and greyer it got, the worse the soul was. Needless to say, Haru's color was completely black." Ace scowled at that while Luffy shrunk back in his seat.

"What about Teach, yoi?" Marco suddenly asked, and Sabo had to commend the man on his intelligence as he and Ace shared a look, Luffy sinking even further back.

"Ah, that. We'll get to that, but let's just say, it's a good thing you took our warning to heart," Sabo said with a half-smile while the other Commanders looked around in confusion.

"Teach? What about him? Is he alright?" Thatch asked with concern, and the brothers knew that that concern was misplaced.

"Again, we'll get to that, don't worry. Anyways, Luffy was able to see peoples souls, and like seeing peoples pasts, he could... turn off the ability to see the colors. The final thing, though, was what the Doctors called bridging." Sabo said solemnly, and Luffy shivered, knowing what was coming next. The Commanders noticed, and they didn't like it one bit.

"Are you sure you don't want to leave Luffy?" Ace asked, squeezing his brothers hand in hopes to give him a bit of comfort.

"N-no... wanna... wanna stay," Luffy muttered quietly, looking at the Commanders' and Captains colors, watching for even a speck of grey. Ace and Sabo frowned, sending each other another look before Sabo hesitantly continued on.

"Well, the doctors wanted Luffy to bridge his soul to other children's souls. Connect them. They sent children in, had Luffy try and create the bridge, but... it didn't work. No matter how many children they tried, every time Luffy would try, the child would be in immense pain until they ended up... well... dying." Sabo said, trying to be as gentle as possible, knowing that Luffy was going to have a difficult time hearing this.

"They forced him to keep trying it on more and more children until they finally ended up sending Ace in. They made him try it on Ace, but instead of dying, it was successful. Luffy had bridged to Ace and, in doing so, created what Luffy calls a wave. Luffy can see a wave connecting him to Ace no matter where he is. They had him try a few more times on other children, but they all died as well until they had him do it with me. Obviously, it was also successful and he was able to create a wave with me as well. Ace and I cant see these waves, only Luffy can. We don't know if there's a range to them seeing as we've been together ever since, but they do seem to be linked to our health. The closer we get to dying, the more transparent the wave becomes." Luffy managed to sit through the entire thing, but that didn't mean he was unaffected by it. He had been allowing himself to let in warmth from Whitebeard, helping to cease the painful thoughts running through his mind about how much of a monster he was.

It helped that Ace and Sabo were both right there with him, holding his hands tightly and sending him their own pulses of warmth.

"I wish I'd been able to fight more doctors," Atmos muttered darkly, all of them feeling the familiar burning of hatred for the doctors that they had let off a little too easy now that they knew everything they had done to poor defenseless children.

"Trust me, no one wants to fight them more then we do." Ace growled out, his free hand clenched tightly into a fist. Sabo sighed but didn't say anything to disagree.

"The doctors found that Luffy had to know and trust the person he created the bridge with, or else it would fail. After that Luffy became much more... distant. It was harder to get any response out of him really. The only thing we had to look forward to was year seven. We had promised, back when Emily died, that we would escape when Ace and I were seventeen. If we couldn't manage it, then... who knows what we would have done. We worked on making escape plans for years, and it was all finally going to happen." Sabo said, his tone becoming lighter as he remembered the fact that they weren't there anymore. They had escaped.

"Ace and I knew it would be difficult to escape, what with all the guards and doctors, and not to mention the extreme disadvantage we were at seeing as Ace and Luffy were cuffed in sea stone twenty-four seven and the fact that we were all only fed the same gross soup for our meals. We only really planned on getting Luffy out, of course, we didn't tell him that." Sabo said, ruffling Luffy's hair, ignoring the glare Luffy sent him. The youngest still wasn't happy that they had done that.

"And it managed to work. Luffy got out, but Ace and I were caught. It was pure luck that Luffy managed to find you on the island. The rest, you know." Sabo finished, taking a deep breath, knowing that there was still many questions and things they needed to discuss. There was silence for a moment as everyone processed the lengthy story.

"That was... unexpected, but I'm glad you three made it out of that situation," Whitebeard said sincerely, Ace and Luffy nodding to him while Luffy allowed himself to absorb a little more of the warmth from the man.

"I understand that you guys have some more questions. We'll try and answer them if we can." Sabo said honestly, and there was an uproar as everyone began speaking at once, all of them wondering something different.

"One at a time, yoi," Marco said, calming the group back down, muttering apologies.

"So... you guys do know haki?" Thatch asked, the question having been bothering him for weeks. Sabo laughed, having known about Thatch's curiosity about that.

"Yes, Thatch, you were right all that time that we knew haki, but that's not how I always knew you were at the door. I could hear you coming." Thatch looked triumphant about that. Even if he wasn't exactly right, he had been right in the end.

"Luffy has Conquerors Haki too, right? I remember him using it when we rescued you guys." Izo said, and Sabo frowned a bit, nodding.

"Yes, he does, though that was the first time he's ever used it. Ace possesses it as well. He's had a bit of practice with it but not much." Sabo said, Ace muttering about it not being a big deal when everyone gave them looks of shock.

"That's impressive, but what was it you mentioned about the warning about Teach?" Jozu asked, and the brothers became grim again.

"Teach isn't a good guy. He's got the bad color and the bad feelings." Luffy said darkly, shivering at the memory of the feelings.

"Luffy noticed it before Teach even arrived on the Moby. Teach has a strong feeling of darkness, and not to mention his aura is almost darker than Harus." Sabo explained with a frown. Ace was glaring at the table, doing his best not to start cursing the bastard.

"Really? Are you sure?" Curiel asked, and Sabo understood why he was asking. After all, these were people who had probably been with the man for years with no suspicion that he was a bad guy.

"Of course we are, that damn bastard's planning something and I don't like it." Ace growled out angrily, wishing he could punch the man already and get it over with. Sure, Teach hadn't done anything yet, but he would, there was no doubt about that.

"Ace." Sabo hissed, trying to keep his brother from angering them.

"Don't mind him, he gets irritated easily. But it's true, Teach is definitely going to do something sooner or later, and whatever it is, it won't be good. When we warned you about him, we didn't know yet if we were going to stay. When Teach came, we were actually prepared to leave, because nothing good comes with staying near someone with that level of darkness, but seeing as you took our warning seriously, we decided to stay." Sabo said to Whitebeard and Marco who were both frowning in thought.

"Seeing as he's yet to do anything, we won't do anything either. However, I want everyone here to keep a close eye on him. Don't let him know were suspicious of him, but don't let him do anything that we don't know about." Whitebeard ordered firmly, everyone nodding their agreement. Another silence lapsed over the room as everyone took in this information before Marco spoke up.

"You three tap a lot, yoi." He started, saying the words more as a fact than a question. Sabo smiled, remembering his previous thought that the man was extremely smart.

"We do, and I know you've been curious about it," Sabo said plainly, already knowing what the question would be. The Commanders watched in confusion, some having noticed them tapping a few times while others hadn't noticed at all.

"Why? At first, I thought it was a habit or a nervous tick, yoi, but I never knew for sure." Marco said arms crossed over his chest.

"Actually, its none of that. In the facility, we were always around other people, unless we were in our cell, and even then, noises echoed easily in those halls, so to make sure no one caught on to our escape plan, we learned how to communicate silently to each other. Through a series of taps and other noises, Ace, Luffy and I can have full conversations without having to speak to, or even see, each other." Sabo explained, rapping his fingers on the table a few times.

"No way, so you've been having conversations right in front of us and we had no clue?" Rakuyo asked in amazement. The brothers all grinned proudly, nodding.

'And these idiots were none the wiser.' Ace tapped in amusement, making sure it was clear to everyone that he was communicating to his brothers. Luffy laughed to himself while Sabo smiled, tempted to laugh as well but opting instead to hit his brother's shoulder.

"Ace, be nice, it's not like they had reason to believe that's what we were doing." Sabo scolded lightly, only making Ace snicker.

"What'd he say?" Fossa asked, the Commanders watching curiously, all wanting to know as well.

"Oh, nothing all that important," Sabo said with a smirk, the Commanders only more curious now.

"Man, I wish I knew how to talk in a cool secret language like that," Haruta grumbled.

"That's cool and all, but you guys said you didn't know how to fight. Obviously, that was a lie, but why lie in the first place?" Blenheim asked, not angry, just curious.

"Surprise," Luffy said simply, confusing the Commanders.

"Surprise?" Atmos asked uncertainly. Sabo sighed, ruffling Luffy's hair.

"What he means is the element of surprise. Understand that we had gone from one horrible situation and had been forced into an unknown one within a matter of hours. Not to mention, we were on a pirate ship known notoriously throughout the world for being bloodthirsty and greedy." Sabo began to elaborate.

"Yeah, but those are all lies. Unless they're talking about our fights with pirates that attack our territory." Namur said, and Sabo nodded.

"Yes, we know that now, but there was no way for us to know that at the time. The only way we had to defend ourselves was to keep our abilities a secret so that, in the event that you really were those bloodthirsty pirates, we would be able to use the element of surprise to shock you a bit and help us escape. Honestly, if we suddenly used fire and rubber attacks against you, as well as decent fighting skills, how surprised would you have been?" Sabo asked, and he could see the Commanders agreeing with the logic.

"It sure as heck would stop me in my tracks for a minute." Jozu murmured, the others nodding their agreement.

"Yeah, you three put up a pretty good act of having no fighting skill whatsoever. Not to mention, no devil fruits as well." Kingdew added.

"Exactly, which is why we didn't come out right and tell you all that we could fight. We tested you though, and found that you were trustworthy enough to tell you all of this." Sabo explained, only causing further confusion.

"Tested us?" Thatch asked.

"Mhmm. Tested your reaction to certain things, pushed a few buttons, listened to see if anyone turned us into the marines. One of them was supposed to be knocking a bucket over and seeing what the reaction was, and even though we did just that, it hadn't exactly gone according to plan." Sabo said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

"You mean when Luffy tripped on the bucket?" Izo asked, and Sabo nodded.

"Yeah. Sure, we'd planned on doing just that, but Luffy had been resting before we did and none of us realized he'd actually fallen asleep. Whenever we're just waking up our senses are oversensitive and we can be overwhelmed quite easily because of it. When we walked out the smell of the cleaning supplies disoriented Luffy and he really tripped over the bucket." Sabo said, Ace shaking his head, still not sure how none of them realized Luffy was being overwhelmed.

"Then was what happened with Vander Decken true? That you just found him drowning?" Jiru asked, all of the Commanders having been skeptical of the story from the beginning, but having no reason to think that wasn't what had happened.

"No, it wasn't. We knew it wasn't exactly the best story, but it was either that or tell you all everything, which we were not ready to do. When Luffy wandered off at the Palace I heard Princess Shirahoshi crying. We were concerned and didn't know what to make of it so we went to her room where we had a conversation with her, eventually finding out about Vander Decken. We promised we'd take care of it so the next day we went out looking for him. I heard someone talking outside of the bubble around Fishman Island and Ace could see their ship, so we snuck onto a leaving merchants boat and went to Decken himself. He was apparently a pirate Captain as well so Luffy and I took down his remaining crew after Ace used his haki and Ace went after Decken." Sabo said, giving a quick retelling of the fight, which hadn't been all that exciting honestly.

"The guy talked too much for how weak he was." Ace grumbled, still grumpy about the lack of a fight that Decken had put up.

"So you three took down a New World pirate crew... alone..." Rakuyo said in shock, the brothers nodding.

"To be honest, I think they were just lucky no one had found them sooner. They weren't all that remarkable." Sabo said with a shrug.

"Yeah, and I didn't even get to fight Dellen," Luffy said with a pout, confusing the Commanders.

"Decken, Luffy. Nicknames, remember?" Sabo said with a sigh, wondering if Luffy would ever learn.

"I know, but Allen was a bad guy so I don't feel bad about saying his name wrong," Luffy said defiantly, and Sabo guessed it was better than nothing.

"Allen, really Lu? That sounds nothing like Decken." Ace said with a bit of laughter. Luffy only smiled up at his older brother, not responding.

"What about when Ace fell asleep when you were walking?" Izo asked, the event having scared many of the crew when they thought that something might be wrong, but Whiskey had assured them that everything was fine.

"Oh, that. Well, Ace has narcolepsy. He's had it ever since he was born. He's prone to what we call sleep attacks and can fall asleep at any moment really. It's sudden, but there are normally warning signs before it happens. It just so happened that Ace was only having his attacks in our room or when we were sitting down. Marco actually witnessed one before." Sabo explained, the first mate easily knowing what they were talking about.

"I remember, yoi. He slumped and hit his head on the railing." Marco said, and Sabo nodded.

"That's right. The attacks were worse in the facility, but now they're beginning to even out again. If he doesn't sleep well he's more prone to them, or if he's put into a high emotional state, but for the most part they're random and unpredictable." Sabo said, the Commanders all nodding in understanding. There was silence after that as everyone took a minute to think of any more questions. When no one spoke up again, Whitebeard cleared his throat, looking to the brothers.

"Thank you for telling us everything, despite how hard it must have been, and welcome to the crew." He said simply, ending the meeting as the brothers smiled back to him, Luffy letting himself bask in the warmth a bit.

"That's right! I've gotta go cook a feast to celebrate the fact that its official now!" Thatch said excitedly, standing up and leaving the room, mumbling to himself about what he could cook. The other Commanders laughed at the man, but also welcomed the brothers before leaving the room. The trio were the second to last to get up, only Marco and Whitebeard left in the room.

"I like it here. We should stay for a while." Luffy said matter-of-factly as they walked to the door.

"That's kind of the point of joining, Lu." Ace said, ruffling Luffy's hair.

"Oh, right. See you later Mr. Whitebeard, Marco!" Luffy said with a grin, walking out the door with Ace and Sabo right behind him.

"I sense there will be interesting events in our future with those three," Whitebeard said with a smile.

"I've already got enough paperwork, let's not make it more, yoi," Marco said in a grumble.

Whitebeard didn't say anything to that, merely laughing at his first mate.

Again, sorry for yesterdays mix up! This is my apology gift to you all, as well as the continuation that you all had been expecting yesterday! Thankfully I had a few buffer chapters in case something went wrong, so I was able to upload this one early. Next week, we'll be back on track with our regularly scheduled chapters!

Anyways, a little about this chapter. Originally, this chapter and chapter 56 were combined, however, together they were around 11,000 words, which I felt was just a little too long, so I ended up splitting it as you can see. I really enjoyed writing these last two chapters, and Im as happy as you all that the brothers are finally opening up to the Whitebeards! Its been a slow, tedious process, but hopefully its been worth it! There's still more to come, so don't worry, I've got plenty planned for the future and I'm just as excited to reach that as I was about this.

This story never gets tiring to write, and I'm still amazed at how I've stuck with it. I never would have imagined that I would religiously update a story this long, but here I am! I hope you're all enjoying this as much as I am, and I cant wait for next week!

Thank you all for your reviews and telling me when I messed up yesterday, without them, I probably wouldn't have noticed. I'm forever grateful to you all.