Hey everybody!I'm sooo sorry I haven't updated in like forever!I was doing so well and then. . .WRITER'S BLOCK!duh duh duh!SO I'm extremely sorry about that. Also I've been under a lot of stress lately because it's exams this year so my schedule is packed with homework and the fact that I don't get out of school until 5pm every day makes it difficult for me to update regularly but I'm doing the best I can!So yea, this chapter was kinda difficult to write because I wanted something to happen and I didn't want it to be just another filler chapter cuz then I might as well just turn it into a bunch of fluffs. But I wanted some action!No,scratch that. No action, just surprises ;) So I hope you guys like this chapter! Also, just real quick, the song is called Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls although I'm sure most of you knew that;) and I'm sorry if I got any of the lyrics wrong! I was writing them from memory so I'm not sure how I did but I hope you guys like this chapter!

Also!

italics=flashbacks

italics/bold=song

After a few weeks back at school, the novelty of three new kids kinda wore off. Homecoming was coming up as well and for the first time, Mary-Lynette was excited. Normally she just hung out on her hill watching the stars like every other weekend but this year she was going with Ash. It was Saturday and her, Kestrel, Blaise and Jade were going dress shopping. Mary-Lynette and Jade had already picked out their dresses. Jade's was an iridescent gold color that accented her white blonde hair perfectly and made her eyes stand out against her pale skin. It wrapped around her like a Grecian toga and reached just above her her knees and hung off of one shoulder. Mary-Lynette's was a coal black color that faded to a pretty gray at the waist and back again at the edge which reached just above her knee and was strapless with black sequined flowers all up the left side. Naturally, every dress Blaise and Kestrel tried on looked stunning but they were still on the hunt for "the perfect one". Blaise had decided that she wanted to stand out and wanted her dress to be a fire engine red color and Kestrel still hadn't decided on hers yet. Blaise was in the dressing rooms with Jade and five different dresses while Mary-Lynette was helping Kestrel look for one. Kestrel pulled one of the racks and turned to Mary-Lynette, holding the dress up against her and making a face. It was a lilac color with a thin veil around the skirt which poofed out in a tutu. Mary-Lynette laughed and shook her head. They were in an antique store in the middle of town and the store had really gorgeous dresses but Kestrel couldn't seem to find anything that fit her idea of the perfect dress. Until Mary-Lynette pulled one off the rack for her to try on.

Kestrel strutted out of the dressing room and gave a little twirl before smirking at the awed looks on her friend, sister and cousin's faces. She had finally found the perfect dress. It was a chocolate brown color that made her hair look even more gold than usual. It was a strapless dress that clung to her figure and went to about mid-thigh. It was gorgeous. The male sales-man who was working at the store looked to be maybe Rowan's age had been eying Kestrel ever since they walked into the store but as soon as he saw her in the dress Mary-Lynette thought he was going to pass out on the spot.

Blaise's dress was, as she had wanted, a fire engine red. It was a strapless, floor length dress that had a slit going all the way up to her mid-thigh and was a v-neck which cut dangerously low but she rocked it with ease. The night of the dance, all four girls looked like they should be gracing the airbrushed pages of a magazine and not just going to a small town, high school homecoming dance.

Mary-Lynnette stepped through the gymnasium doors with a smile on her face and Ash on her arm. The corsage he had gotten her was, no surprise, a black iris. But it was the most beautiful flower she had ever seen. They made their way around the gym, getting drinks and talking to some people that they knew before Ash pulled her onto the dance floor just as the song Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls came on.

He grabbed her hand and wrapped his arm around her waist as she placed her left hand on his shoulder and laughed. He smiled down at her and pulled her closer.

And I'd give up forever to touch you,

Cuz I know that you feel me somehow.

You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be ,

And I don't wanna go home right now.

And all I can taste is this moment,

And all I can breath is your life.

Sooner or later it's over,

I just don't wanna miss you tonight.

She leaned her head on his chest and sighed happily as they swayed together as one on the dance floor.

And I don't want the world to see me,

Cuz I don't think that they'd understand.

When everything's made to be broken,

I just want you to know who I am.

She began to think of the time they had first met and she laughed as the memory came flooding back to her.

"Mary-Lynette, this is Ash. He's here to visit with his aunt and his sisters," Claudine said. "Ash, this is Mary-Lynette. The one who's such good friends with your aunt."

Ash got up, all in one lovely, lazy motion. Just like a cat, including the stretch in the middle. "Hi."

He offered a hand. Mary-Lynette touched it with her fingers damp and cold from the Coke can, glanced up at his face, and said "Hi."

Except that it didn't happen that way.

It happened like this: Mary-Lynette had her eyes on the carpet as she came in, which gave her a good view of his Nike tennis shoes and the ripped knees of his jeans. When he stood up she looked at his T-shirt, which had an obscure design-a black flower on a white background. Probably the emblem of some rock group. And then when his hand entered her field of vision, she reached for it automatically, muttering a greeting and looking up at his face just as she touched it. And-

This was the part that was hard to describe.

Contact.

Something happened.

Hey, don't I know you?

She didn't. That was the thing. She didn't know him- but she felt that she should. She also felt as if somebody had reached inside her and touched her spine with a live electric wire. It was extremely non-enjoyable. The room turned vaguely pink. Her throat swelled and she could feel her heart beating there. Also not-enjoyable. But somehow when you put it all together, it made a kind of trembly dizziness like. . .

Like what she felt when she looked at the Lagoon Nebula. Or imagined galaxies gathered into clusters and superclusters, bigger and bigger, until size lost any meaning and she felt herself falling.

She was falling now. She couldn't see anything except his eyes. And those eyes were strange, prismlike, changing color like a star seen through heavy atmosphere. Now blue, now gold, now violet.

Now, as she looked up into those beautiful eyes, they were a clear emerald green and they looked at her filled with love and adoration that almost brought her to tears.

And you can't fight the tears that ain't comin.

All the moments of truth in your life.

When everything feels like the movies,

Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive!

She continued to gaze up at him and he smiled at her before leaning down and kissing her. It was slow and sweet and full of love and as he pulled away she remembered their first kiss.

"Well." Ash whacked at something with his yew branch. He spoke as if he half expected to be ignored. "Well about that. . .I think I could possibly change your mind."

"About what?"

"Being incompatible. I think we could be sort of fairly compatible if. . ."

"If?" Mary-Lynette said as the silence dragged on.

"Well, if you could bring yourself to kiss me."

"Kiss you?"

"Yeah, I know it's a radical concept. I was pretty sure you wouldn't go for it." He whacked at another tree. "Of course humans have been doing it for thousands of years."

Watching him sideways, Mary-Lynette said, "Would you kiss a three-hundred-pound gorilla?"

He blinked twice. "Oh, thank you."

"I didn't mean you looked like one."

"Don't tell me, let me guess. I smell like one?"

Mary-Lynette bit her lip on a grim smile. "I mean you're that much stronger than I am. Would you kiss a female gorilla that could crush you with one squeeze? When you couldn't do anything about it?"

He glanced at her sideways. "Well you're not exactly in that position, are you?"

Mary-Lynette said, "Aren't I? It looks to me as if I'd have to become a vampire just to deal with you on an equal level."

Ash said, "Here."

He was offering her the yew branch. Mary-Lynette stared at him.

"You want to give me your stick."

"It's not a stick, it's the way to deal with me on an equal level." He put one end of the branch against his throat, and Mary-Lynette saw that it was sharp. She reached out to take the other end and found the stick was surprisingly hard and heavy.

Ash was looking straight at her. It was too dark to see what color his eyes were, but his expression was unexpectedly sober.

"One good push would do it," he said. "First here and then in the heart. You could eliminate the problem of me from your life."

Mary-Lynette pushed, but gently. He took a step back. And another. She backed him up against a tree, holding the stick to his neck like a sword.

"I actually meant only if you were really serious," Ash said as he came up short against the cedar's bare trunk. But he didn't make a move to defend himself. "And the truth is that you don't even need a spear like that. A pencil in the right place would do it."

Mary-Lynette narrowed her eyes at him, swirling the yew stick over his body like a fencer getting the range.

Then she removed it. She dropped it to the ground.

"You really have changed," she said.

Ash said simply, "I've changed so much in the last few days that I don't even recognize myself in the mirror."

"And you didn't kill your aunt."

"You're just now figuring that out?"

"No. But I always wondered just a bit. All right, I'll kiss you."

It was a little awkward, lining up to get the position right. Mary-Lynette had never kissed a boy before. But once she started she found it was simple.

And. . .now she saw what the electric feeling of being soulmates was for. All the sensations she'd felt when touching his hand, only intensified. And not unpleasant. It was only unpleasant if you were afraid of it.

And I don't want the world to see me,

Cuz I don't think that they'd understand.

When everything's made to be broken,

I just want you to know who I am.

She pulled herself out of her memories and looked around at everybody else. Phil and Blaise were dancing near them and Mark and Jade were sitting at a round table on the right side of the gym with a bunch of other sophmores. But where was Kestrel?

And I don't want the world to see me

Cuz I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

She scanned the whole gym and then looked back to Ash with a question in her eyes.

"Where's Kestrel?" she asked him quietly. He frowned and looked around, then closed his eyes, listening for his sister.

And I don't want the world to see me

Cuz I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

He opened his eyes as the song ended and they had turned to a dark brown, filled with concern for his sister.

"I can hear her in the bathrooms." He said, still frowning.

"She's. . .I think. . ." he trailed off, looking confused towards the bathroom doors.

"Ash. What's wrong?" Mary-Lynette asked, pulling his face back to look at her.

"I think she's crying."

Mary-Lynette sighed, kissing Ash on the cheek before rushing into the girls bathrooms, worried about her blood-sister. Kestrel never cried. She barely showed any emotion other than anger or annoyance. Kestrel wasn't an emotional person, it must have been something big that made her cry. Mary-Lynette pushed through the crowd of teenagers, making her way towards the door and threw it open. She could hear Kestrel's sobs coming from one of the stalls and she quickly checked to make sure that there was nobody else in the room before quickly locking the door. She then walked over to the very last stall and opened the door. Kestrel was siting on the lid of the toilet with her head against the wall, tears running down her face. She turned towards Mary-Lynette and stood up.

"Kestrel, what's wrong?" Mary-Lynette asked quietly as Kestrel walked past her towards the mirror and started wiping away her tears with a tissue that she pulled out of her clutch.

"Nothing, I'm fine." she said quickly, continuing to wipe her tears away with the tissue. It was a lost cause however, because the tears kept falling. Mary-Lynette walked over and put her hand on Kestrel's shoulder.

"Kestrel, out of all the time that I've known you, I have never seen you cry. Even Ash, your brother, was in shock when he heard you crying. I'm not stupid so don't try and brush me off or push me away, tell me. What happened?" she asked sternly, staring Kestrel down in the mirror. Kestrel opened her mouth to say something, taking a breath when the door flew open and in walked Blaise. She stopped in the doorway, a look of shock breaking across her face as she quickly turned around and locked the door behind her.

"How did you get in? I locked the door!" Mary-Lynette asked her, confused and momentarily distracted from the current situation. Blaise smirked.

"Witch! Hello!" she said, putting her hand on her hip. "Now, what's up cousin? Why the tears?"

Mary-Lynette turned back to Kestrel and stared her down, urging her to begin speaking. Kestrel sniffed and then took a deep breath, blowing it out and turning back to Mary-Lynette and Blaise. She squared her shoulders and tucked her bangs behind her ears before speaking the words that left her cousin and her blood-sister in shock for a full two minutes.

"I found my soulmate."

So yeah! I hoped you guys liked it and I'm working on the next chapter now! Suggestions would be awesome and I LOVE getting reviews from you guys as well (hint, hint). This is my longest chapter yet and I hope you guys like it!I'll try and update sooner! Thanks for reading!

~crazybubble03