Two months, she had been there for two month now. Summer had come to an end but the weather didn't seem to change much at all. She found herself longing for the cold rain and color shifting forests of her home country. The feeling of waking up and realizing that the first snow had fallen over night, she even missed walking the icy road to the buss on school mornings. Sure she would have had to wait a while longer for the snow to really settle in and for the lakes to freeze solid enough to skate on but she was still longing for it.

Laying there, on the couch in Max's house, there was much she longed for. One of those things were her family, she'd received a few letters of apologies from her father but had yet to reply. She missed him but she still wasn't sure if she should forgive him or not. Max had tried to talk her into writing or even calling him but she was stubborn. There had been letters from her brothers and those had also been ignored.

The only one that hadn't been ignored, in fact, was Will's. And it was those letters that was the reason she had, once again, moved into Max's house.

She and the boys had spent the night, three night ago, at the boardwalk as usual, they'd dropped by Max's video store, per his request, and he had provided her with a letter that had arrived at his house.

"Third one this week" he said as she took it from his hand, there was an obvious questioning tone in his voice but she chose to ignore it.

"Guess I'm popular" she winked at her sire before joining the boys outside the store.

"What you got there Sprinkles? A loooooove letter?" Paul had taken to calling her 'Sprinkles' because of the brown spots in her eyes and she couldn't get him to stop no matter what she did. Wiggling his eyebrows at her he threw his arm around her shoulder, trying to get a good look at the envelope in her hand.

"None of your business fuck face" she said elbowing him in the side, smiling at his discomfort. Paul might have found the joke hysterical but there was one vampire in their little group who didn't.

"Then what is it? You've been getting too many of them for it just to be from a friend!" her mate growled, arms crossed over his chest, mood dark as the night itself.

"None of your business either actually!" her answer caused red to flash through Dwaynes eyes. Their 'relationship' had been going up and down since she'd forgiven him for marking her. His possessive nature got on her nerves sometimes and she'd lash out on him. The letters were more often than not one of the things that caused arguments to blossom between them.

"It's my business when someone is sending several letters every week to MY girlfriend! It's that Will guy isn't it?!" he lowered his voice to a deadly rumbling as he towered over her, their faces only centimeters apart. She was just about to answer when Paul pulled her tighter into his side and pushed Dwayne away with his other hand.

"Wow calm down man! I'm sure it's innocent enough! She wouldn't cheat on you, that's not her style!" Eddie was shocked at his words and even more at his actions, was he defending her?

"Stay out of this Paul!" Dwayne bellowed.

"No I won't! She's my sister and I'm not letting you treat her badly just because you're jealous over nothing!" lifting his arm from her shoulder Paul instead put it in front of her, shielding her from the angry brunet.

"I'm not treating her badly I'm asking her questions! And what do YOU know about what's in those letters?!" the whole thing was turning in to some sort of testosterone battle, even though Paul was smaller in every sense he didn't back down as they faced each other.

"I know nothing of their contents! Which is just the way it should be since they're not addressed to me! But I DO know that Eddie wouldn't go and have a relationship behind your back and so should you!" there was a moment where she thought they would get physical but just as they started moving David spoke up

"shut up both of you! Dwayne you know she wouldn't do that and Paul stay out of other people's fights! Now let's go it's getting late!" turning around the leader left no room for arguments. With one last puff of anger Dwayne followed him through the crowd accompanied by Marko and a teary eyed Laddie.

What had just happened? First Paul goes into 'protective-brother-mode' and then David goes on to vouch for her honor… what a night…

"Come on you can ride with me" Paul said gently nudging Eddies shoulder.

"I think I'll just stay at Max's through the day"

"You sure? I'll make sure he stays away from you in the cave if that's what you're worried about, he would never hurt you, you know that right?"

"I know, but that doesn't mean I can't be angry with him."

"Of course, so are you coming back to the cave ooor?"

"No I think both me and that dick needs some time to cool off… I'll just wait here until Max closes the store and go back with him, tell Laddie I'm sorry he had to see that, make sure he's alright!" Paul patted her on the shoulder and said a final "Okay" before he turned to walk.

"And Paul, you're quite a good older brother, did you know that?" she yelled over the distance that widened between them.

"Oh I know! No one's better brother than Pauly-bear!"

….

Eddie had stayed inside since that night, Paul had taken Laddie to her as soon as possible since the little kid was beside himself with worry, and apparently he too blamed Dwayne for what happened. The two of them slept in her room through the days and entertained themselves as much as possible inside and outside the house during the nights. Max was happy enough to have her around but encouraged her to forgive her mate as soon as possible snice it wasn't healthy for them to spend too much time apart, especially for Dwayne.

The brunet in question had busied himself with trying to apologize and justify his actions but found himself cut out for the time being. She had kind of forgiven him already but she was stubborn and therefor intended to drag it out for it to have as much affect as possible. And besides, Max had brought home an array of movies for her and Laddie to entertain themselves with so she wasn't in a hurry to end their 'movie-and-cuddles' marathon.

At the moment they were watching E.T., Laddie curled up in her lap munching on one of the cookies they had made earlier that night.

"Do you think aliens like candy?" he asked looking at her skeptically.

"I don't know buddy" lovingly she ran her fingers through his hair, chuckling at his question.

"You'll have to ask Paul, I think he's one of them" she continued, making the boy giggle

"I'm gonna tell him you said that!" he laughed, eyes glazed over somewhat and soon enough there was a voice in her head "Rude!"

"I can't believe you would rat me out like that! You little monster!" she dove onto him, attacking his sides with her fingers. His laughter echoed through the house, making it feel warmer and homelier than ever before. It wasn't until there was a knock on the door that she stopped, they didn't have a chance to open it before someone did it for them. The beam of a flashlight swept over the floor before settling on the two people in the couch, the barrel of a gun glaring at them from the door.

"Alex?"

BAM! A chapter! You weren't expecting that were you?! It's been a long time I know I know… I'll try to be better, as a matter of fact I'm going to write you another chapter right now (I don't know if I'm going to post it today though…), I just kind of thought this was a good ending soooo… Well I hope you enjoy and as always I welcome your comments, good or bad or just a "hello" it doesn't matter I love them all equally.

Love,

Linnéa