A/N Very short...

"Okay so what's the project?"

"Um…I was hoping you could do something with these." I hand Nikolas my tattered school pictures. "They look pretty bad…"

"That's you?"

"Well, yeah…"

"I never realized…you look just like Kristina in this one. Down to the flippy thing her bangs do." Nikolas smiles…"Wow…"

"I don't look…" I take a look at the pictures now laying before me. I try to look at them objectively, remove myself from the familiarity, it doesn't work. "like Kristina..."

"You are kidding me right? You honestly don't see it?"

I stare at the smiling child with a crooked part, missing teeth and wrinkled t-shirt. I don't see anything but the shortest kid in the second grade, who always had to explain about missing lunch money and why her homework wasn't done. The kid whose father never bought the pictures, but cut off "proof" on bottom. I hate her suddenly. "I don't look like Kristina…" Kristina is beautiful…I bite the words back.

"If you say so. So what do you want me to do? Blow them up?"

"I don't know…maybe a little. Could you get rid of the stains and stuff."

"Probably…anything else."

"Could you airbrush them?"

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know…I just want them to look nice. Alexis has never seen what I looked like. She doesn't have to know I looked like a dork."

"Hey I know, why don't we just go online and download some other kid." Nikolas asks. "Some plastic Barbie kid with perfect hair and teeth. Some kid Alexis could love."

I slap his back hard.

"Ow! That wasn't strictly necessary." Nikolas cries. "Look, I'll try and improve the quality of the images, but I'm not touching anything else."

"Not even the zit?" I point to my twelve year old self.

"Not even the zit."

"I hate you sometimes."

"No you don't." Nikolas assures me. "Let me see what I can do."

"How long?"

"Well, I'll have something tonight, maybe tomorrow. Spencer's teething again."

"Do you think she'll like them?"

"Sam?" Nikolas glares at me. "She's going to love this. I don't think she ever hoped for a childhood photo of you, let alone two."