Hello and Happy New Year guys! One of my new year's resolutions is to finish this thing, so here's the very first chapter of 2010. Thanks so much to gray seal, AngelsOfTheDead, cluts808, and kate 5 for reviewing. I'm glad you guys are still reading.

Chapter Fourteen

ALEXANDER

I was falling in love with her. We would eat dinner together, talk, or hang out and I found myself lost, I couldn't concentrate on anything but her. Samantha. The way her eyes crinkled upward when she laughed, how her voice sounded when she became especially passionate about something- particularly music. Watching her as she played the piano, her hands moving delicately and assuredly over the keys; imagining what it would be like to have those fingers around my own. It came as sort of a shock, I'd wanted before, to love her, in order to break the curse Aleisha had put on me. I had liked her, definitely, when I read her letters, sent her emails, but I didn't know that I loved her. Not until I saw her that day.

It had been a cold afternoon but I had wanted to get out of the house, take a walk. Before Samantha had come I had felt resigned to my fate, I knew there was nothing I could do but wait for Aleisha to claim what she sought. But lately I was feeling restless. Turning a corner I saw Sam, leaning against a tree. The wind whipped around her like a playful friend, twirling and messing her hair. I stopped short and leaned against a wall of the house, the stones cold beneath my shirt. Suddenly, I closed my eyes trying to imagine what it would've been like, to be human and know her, to be human and love her.

I walked up to the tree and stood in front of her. She looked up at me with a small smile, a puzzled expression in her eyes. Slowly, carefully, I reached out to touch her cheek, marveling at the softness of her skin under my fingertips before bending down and kissing her. Laying my hand at the small of her back I held her, pressing her closer to me….

"Alex? Are you alright?" Startled I opened my eyes to find Sam looking up at me, confused.

"Fine," I quickly replied. "I was just thinking of something."

"Well come inside," she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me forward. "It's cold out here, and more importantly- I have something I want to show you." Smiling I let her lead me into the house, liking the way her hand fit so nicely into mine.

SAMANTHA

I pulled Alex up the stairs and through the halls of the house until we reached my room. Turning to him I smiled at the expectant look on his face. "Now," I said, my tone conspiratorial, "close your eyes." He went along with me and shut them. I opened the door behind my back, making sure he kept his eyes shut and then pulled him into the middle of the room before turning to my bed, leaning over I pulled out the large black book I had hidden underneath and laid it in his hands before moving away. He opened his eyes looking confused as he stared at the book.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Open it and see." I laughed, sitting down on the bed to keep myself from fidgeting.

He opened it up and slowly fingered through the pages, looking at each photograph in turn before moving on to the next one. "When did you take all these?" he asked as he moved to sit next to me.

"I first started when Jonathan took me to London that day." I said grinning. "I've been going different places every so often to fill the book."

Alex flipped through it once more, the pictures melting together until they were mere flashes of color, before turning to me. "This is perfect." He said, and I could hear the happiness in his voice.

His small comment made me feel ridiculously proud of myself "I'd hoped you would like it." I told him as he turned back to stare at the pages.

"I do," he said softly. "Very much. Now," he said, going back to the first picture. "tell me about this one." We spent the next few hours thumbing through each page while I told him the stories behind the photos. When we reached the final image in the album Alex stood up.

"Thanks for this, Sam." He said. "I can't tell you how much it means to me."

"Consider it a 'thank you'." I said, getting up to stand next to him. "For letting me come here, for…" I looked around trying to find the words. "Everything, I guess."

Alex looked down at me, his green eyes tinged with a softness I hadn't noticed before. "I'm glad you came, and I'm glad you stayed."

He looked as if he was on the verge of saying something more but suddenly a small clock in the next room chimed the hour and he turned away. "Goodnight Sam."

"'Night Alex." As the door shut softly behind him I flopped back down on the bed and let out a long sigh of happiness, exhaustion, and another feeling that I couldn't place at all.

ALEXANDER

Walking back to my room I allowed myself a small smile. Maybe this was it, the beginning of the end of this miserable existence I had been enduring for so long. She might not love me, not yet; but as I looked back down at the scrapbook in my hand, thinking of how long she must have worked at it, how perfect it seemed to be. I couldn't help but hope that maybe…maybe she was starting to care for me the way that I cared about her. I'd almost told, just then, how much I loved her. But I still wasn't sure if I could or even if I really should. It would change everything between us- for better or worse I didn't know. Reaching the door to my room I slowly went inside and shut it behind me, whatever I did it would have to be soon, the year was almost up, she would be going home soon and I would be right back to where I had been before, with nothing to show for it except three years lost. Fear gripped me suddenly…three years, they had gone by so quickly, too quickly. I remembered, every day I remembered, the words Aleisha had spoken to me that night.

"If you can find one girl, just one, whom you can love truly and completely… and who'll readily admit to loving you: I'll let you go. You'll be free of me, the curse, everything." "But, if you can't, I get you. Forever."

Three years had already slipped through my fingers, how fast would the next seven go?

THIRD PERSON- ALEISHA

Aleisha watched the girl, her beautiful face distorted into a mask of ferocity as she stared at the sleeping figure. This pale, weak little nothing was ruining all she had worked so hard to attain! No one was supposed to have him, no one was supposed to love him. Aleisha had thought she'd made sure of that when she'd changed him. But now here was this girl, this gangly child: sleeping in his house, making him laugh, acting as if he was any other human- not the monster she'd made him into.

The way he looks at the girl, it was enough to make you sick.

Sick. Aleisha grinned, that was a good idea, she thought as she cocked her head. The girl couldn't have him if she was dead. These humans were so malleable, like autumn leaves under your feet; one well placed step and crunch, they were broken. Aleisha softly chuckled at the thought. She almost did it, just then in the room. Walking to the side of the bed she raised her hand. One well placed piece of magic and Alex would be hers again, no intrusions, no one meddling in affairs that weren't even theirs to begin with. But then the girl shifted in her sleep and Aleisha lowered her arm, a new idea forming. She would wait, bide her time for a little longer. It was obvious to her that he loved this girl, but her affections on the other hand weren't so completely readable. She knew Alex, she had watched him for some time, he would tell the girl his feelings sooner or later and there was a very good chance that when that time came the girl would refuse him, shatter his hopes.

I can be there then. Aleisha mused. Comfort him, show him how wrong he had been to believe in something that wasn't real in the first place. And if she was wrong?

I can always kill the girl later. No harm no foul; for myself anyway.

Alright then, Aleisha's back (and being creepier than ever) you'll see more of her in upcoming chapters. Remember to review! I need to know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong.