As the spinning wheel continues to go round, so the thoughts empty from the Dark One's head.

The gold as it spins out from the straw is almost completely ignored by him, if anything he only now pulls it out as a well placed physical reaction after spinning for all these years. He cares nothing for the wealth it brings him by this point, stopping his deals and spinning at this point wouldn't matter since he would be set for the rest of his life in this world with what he had already done and made for himself.

But he had no future plans or desires to stay here any longer than he needed to, and yet, like the many of the customers he had served to get where he was at this point, every avenue he turned to, to get what he wanted only ever resulted in dead ends and false hopes.

So to clear his mind of the painful thought that he might never reach his goal, he continued to spin, letting the continuous action, the continuous thought that allowed for the creation of the gold, flow him into a thoughtless place that was more peaceful to him than he would ever admit to.

It was most likely because of his focus on the spinning of the wheel, the sound of gold miraculously threading out the other side, that Rumplestiltskin missed the sudden reappearance of his pupil/hired thief in the room. But then again, there were other factors that could be allowed into this as well, one of those factors being that the golden haired girl was being very quiet.

A far departure from what her attitude usually was when managing to steal something and getting away scot free. Usually there would be a smug grin and the sounds of fast paced footsteps as she placed her bounty on the table nearby, sometimes talking about the escape, but most of the time just giggling to herself.

The Dark One noted that the thrill of the chase was finally leaving its mark in her younger mind; the adrenaline rush of running and getting away nearly every time had become something of an addiction. At least, that was what he had thought.

He noted however, when he turned to place the new string of gold into the dish, that this apparently wasn't the case as he had previously thought. The Dark One could see this easily enough as the smaller figure of Goldilocks was standing stock still, her face being so pale that she could have been mistaken for a marble statue. However, she broke this stillness somewhat by the slight shaking of her shoulders as her hands were held out for the both of them to see, therefore making the red stain that covered them entirely, from tip of finger to beginning of wrist.

No words were said between them both, Rumplestiltskin wanting to seem as though he cared too much on what happened, though he was curious, and the golden haired thief most likely because she was too busy being shocked into complete pale shaking silence. Instead of any kind of words the girl could possibly say to describe this moment, she looked at him. The Girl's eyes wide and unblinking as she looked to him through the messy curls of her hair, most likely for the fear of what she would see if she ever dared to close them at some point.

Well, he found it ridiculous to just stand here looking at each other all night, so the Dark One decided to indulge in his curiosity of what had happened to shake the girl up so badly and decided to break the silence first.

"Dearie-"

He didn't manage to get past the two syllable one word however, as she finally broke down into sobs, slowly kneeling to the floor as she held her hands away from her, apparently not sure want to do with them as the stench of blood continued to flow from it, a never ceasing reminder of what had apparently happened to make her so upset.

Her voice was wobbled through the sobs and tears and was going through the words by five per second, but was still very legible through it all; therefore despite her upset Rumplestiltskin managed to finally find out what it was that was upsetting her so badly.

"I didn't mean to do it, he just came out of nowhere and I just reacted. Oh god what have I done…"

She muttered on like that for a while, not really hearing him trying to talk to her. But then again it wasn't as if the Dark One was talking all that much, instead just standing over the shaking girl, her red hands still being the very first thing on her mind, as her eyes would only allow themselves to tear away from it to look back at the Dark One.

The stench of blood that was somewhat like rust filled her nostrils and made her feel as though she were going to gag. But of course she couldn't manage it since she was too busy sobbing pathetically to herself for the gag reflex to work the way it was going to.

Not wanting to be in this situation longer than he needed to, the Dark One gestured to her hands as she looked back up to him rather pathetically.

"Dearie, look at your hands,"

Her expression turned to confused, but there was still that horror at what she must have done in her eyes, but he was not really interested in letting this go on any further and interrupted her before she could start crying again.

"But there's-"

"Nothing there, your hands are completely clean," The blonde looked back to her hands, figuring that he would be wrong and the blood would still be there, but he was right. Every one of her reactive senses that had told her in the past that there was blood on her hands now came in completely blank as her hands were cleaner than ever. Not a speck of anything, much less blood.

Of course unbeknownst to her, and she was most likely never going to know, that the Dark One had interfered on the behalf of the blood being gone from her hands. Not because he was being kind of course, being generous to her was probably on the end of the list of things he wanted to do, if it was even there in the first place. He only did this so the situation would defuse so she would stop interrupting and bothering him while he was trying to get on with his work.

Certainly that was the only reasoning to why he did that for her and nothing else in the matter.

"I don't…I don't understand…" Rumplestiltskin had to now resist the urge to roll his eyes less the trick be found out and the whole situation would have to start over again, and quickly thought of something that he could use as an excuse or explanation to what had happened. It didn't take very long to think of something of course, gaining not just the powers but also the almost complete immortality of the Dark One had given him a lot of time to become a master at quick wittedness and fast thinking. Much a departure from the man he had once been, who chose more with his truthful heart than with his deceitful mind.

"What you killed was no mere man Goldie, more like a siren. A creature that deals in hallucinations against the mind," He knew his lies were working when she looked back to him, confusion of course being in her eyes, but there was also the clearly obvious look of hope for him to keep talking, keep explaining what happened in a way that would stop the emotional pain in her chest. Being a showman, he followed his queue and continued talking, continued spinning the story he was creating for her.

"In fact there is a barley chance it was even killed and that what you attacked was an apparition," Goldilocks decided to pretend like she knew some of the words he was so expertly using, though she did get the feeling of what they meant, and started to feel so much better about her situation (apart from the fact that she had apparently bawled in front of him so embarrassingly for no reason) and managed to get herself on her feet again, her hands slowly falling to her sides as she stumbled over a reply.

"So… I didn't do anything?"

"Nothing except spill your endless tears on my once clean floor," Goldilocks wiped away the remainder of the tears that were on her face with her now clean hands before mumbling a quick apology as her cheeks turned a deep shade of crimson and she retreated from the hall and back to the cell she now called her room, trying to think about anything else except how she had actually cried in front of the Dark One, and how much that really bothered her.

Rumplestiltskin watched her leave before a thought entered his mind. He knew he was being a little over dramatic when he used the statement 'clean floor' at that time, even the girl knew that. Now that he was thinking about it he should probably invest in a maid of some kind to make sure no more dramatics caused his floors to get any dirtier. And he already got a good feeling that while this blonde might have some impressive expertise in thieving and lying, that she would be completely useless in a kitchen and wouldn't know her way around a mop and bucket for the life of her.

He would have to invest in someone else to be his maid.

Lydia spent her next shift in the pawn shop with her forehead pressed against the cold glass of the back window, growling underneath her breath every so often before falling back into silence as the headache that was now pounding in her mind was not allowing for speech or even too angry a thought. But of course those angered thoughts came about whenever she thought about last night, which was coincidentally around the time that the headache began and never seemed to end, and the conversation that had gone on with the person that was now aggravating her so much.

How Mr. Gold had managed to change what could have been an emotional and actually genuine conversation between the two of them for what would be according to her memory the first time, into a full blown and very heated argument with even a good portion of screaming at one point, though that was mostly from her.

Half of what they had yelled back and forth between each other was barley memorable (as always whenever they argued, which was probably more often than normal father-daughter relationships) and not what was currently angering her and hurting her feelings so badly. In fact, there were two things about the situation that had happened last night from that argument that were actually angering her so badly.

The first thing was that, as previously stated that he had changed what could have been a genuine conversation between them into an argument, which Lydia couldn't completely remember how and didn't completely care why he had done so. The second thing that was upsetting her so badly was that at the end of it, for the first time for a long time she had retreated to her room, and actually cried.

She had thought after all these arguments and all this time that she had become desensitized to all of it, that the crying reaction in all occasions had stopped not long after she had started being a teenager (around the time that the arguments started in the first place). Of course Lydia knew that the combination of the discovery of what could be her adoption papers and the fact that he was currently scheming like he did usually around other people of the town that she didn't know, but was now doing it to one of her friends, trying to take their baby away from them.

Which of course Lydia did not want to allow that to happen, though at this point already the teenager knew there wasn't much left that she could do to really help Ashley in her dilemma. The documents had been taken from the shop, meaning that if Ashley shredded them up now there was very little that Mr. Gold could stand on to prove that the child was planned to be taken into the foster system so there was a chance and…

Gritting her teeth as the headache grew a little bigger at the constant worrying over the Ashley situation, Lydia felt at least some relief in the vibration that was her phone in her pocket telling her that her shift was over. Locking the store up as quickly as she possibly could manage, the teenager stood outside the store for a few seconds, unsure of where it was she wanted to go. Her house? Out of the question as to whom might still be there, waiting for round two of the headache creating argument. Granny's Diner? She wasn't hungry.

Apart from that Lydia couldn't think of anywhere that would want her around, much less a place where she could have something to do. Eventually the teenager just settled on walking around, minding her own business while watching the other people of Storybrooke as they went about their lives, doing their jobs and often taking a few seconds break to glare holes into the back of her skull as she walked past. Of course, Lydia wasn't completely sure if they were doing that, but she knew the feeling when she got it. After all, she had been to High School, even if it was for less of a time than she was supposed to have in there.

The town's street of main shops eventually evolved into suburban areas and the elementary school. It was of course late enough into the afternoon so there was a large stampede of younger children as they ran through the now abandoned playgrounds and classrooms for the cars that were waiting for them by the front gate, smiling and greeting their children with complete happiness. Lydia watched this all go on as she walked past, alone on her side of the street from the school, feeling annoyed by how this was seemingly reminding her on how angry she was.

She never had anyone waiting expectantly for her when her school days were done, never had someone sit down and listen to her talk for nearly hours on end about how great she was in her classes and how she actually made a decent friend that didn't think she was stupid because her hair was blonde. Instead, Lydia walked home after school sometimes quietly but always alone, ignoring the sympathetic looks that over time would turn to annoyed eye rolls or sniffs of derision, all because of whose daughter she was.

If she even was his daughter.

All those father-daughter occasions in the school that she never attended before she even bothered not attending school at all as the strain to do well growing harder to comply with, despite the fact that she wasn't seeing anything in it for her. Well, apart from blank looks of at least recognition before being once again being ignored and shoved back into that lonely corner, with no one to be like 'Dirty Dancer' and say that she didn't belong there. That she was worth so much more to anyone, to everyone if she could just have the chance to prove it.

But life wasn't like 'Dirty Dancer'; life wasn't a story that gave her a happy ending with a dance number to go with it.

What it gave instead were questions with hard answers, mysteries that might never be solved or can, if they just bother to open the envelope with their names printed on them. Even now, her own mystery stayed deep within her jacket pocket, not wanting to leave it alone anywhere where it could be taken from her, the only possible answer she might never get from the questions that were always ignored and shoved in that corner with her. Lydia knew she couldn't let this mysterious answer slip out of her hands and into any that she didn't trust, and that had always included Mr. Gold.

Lydia knew for a fact that she was just making herself upset when she started viscous biting her bottom lip to keep it from wobbling any more. In her mind, enough crying had been done and it was just as useless then as it had been the night before. Sure it expressed her feelings, but already Lydia knew that no one cared about that all that much, not when they were so busy trying to live their own lives, with their own feelings and insecurities. Really there was no need to dump her emotional weight on an already heavy pile of everyone else's baggage.

Eventually the teenager felt her lip stop jittering so emotionally and unattractively as her eyes dried themselves once more. Better, much better. It didn't take her long in this life to know that she had to just keep her head up, always act as thought nothing will bother you, be a sentinel and never tell anyone how it truly feels inside. True, she smiled and laughed like everyone else, but kept what she really thought in her head and true words to herself while speaking the ones she knew others would want to hear.

So Lydia would say she was alright, and would look the part assigned to it.

She was a showman after all, and the show must always go on.

It was fortunate that the teenager had chosen this moment to compose herself completely from the emotional breakdown she was one sob away from being, as just after that moment she heard a voice calling her name. Ignoring it at first as she logically assumed that there were other people around her and younger children at that. Eventually though it had to come back to her attention when she heard clumsy footsteps coming quickly towards her general direction as the voice came closer and closer with every shout until finally Lydia turned to acknowledge this person.

And so the defenses went up again, but this time at least the smile was somewhat genuine as she saw Henry Mills stopping right in front of her, a small smile on his face as well as they were both just pleased to see each other again.

"Hey Hen-"

"Kid you gotta slow down when we're in a crowd-"

Lydia looked up from the ten year old's smiling face to see one that she found somewhat familiar, but then again that didn't mean anything since she could have met her yesterday and already would have forgotten about her. The teenager smiled a little in greeting, not wanting to seem too angry outwardly at meeting this woman and therefore annoying yet another person in this town. Because having one person to not completely find her unbearable was good enough to her. Thankfully the woman was the one to restart the conversation once again after the strange period of silence.

"Hi, I'm Emma Swan,"

The woman held out her hand and the teenager took it, feeling worried for a second that her name would cause Emma to just walk away like so many before her.

"Lydia Gold,"

And sure enough there was silence again as Emma just nodded and took that in, Henry on the other hand seemed as sick with silent pauses in the conversation as Lydia was by this point, and started telling the teenager about his day and what he'd been up to since she last saw him. Emma didn't really talk to her as they continued to walk on, mostly because she didn't get the chance to get a single word in as Henry was talking. At some point of course he had to take a break to breathe at one point and Emma quickly jumped in.

"So, how do you know Henry?"

Lydia decidedly bit back the comeback question of her own of exactly how Emma knew Henry (especially since she was apparently walking the kid home and Regina didn't just let that happen with anybody) and instead went for the more polite route and gave the answer before Henry could do it for her.

"I was his babysitter for a few years, but eventually I had to retire. He was such a piece of work," Lydia grinned sarcastically at the end of her reply, Henry crossing his arms in mock offence before answering back. The teenager really did actually miss her job in supervising the Mills boy, even though it had been a year since she'd been 'fired' by his mother, mostly because she knew that the kid needed someone to stand up for him, at least against his mother's constant pushy attitude on a ten year old.

"Mom said it was because you named your pet dog after her," There was a snigger of laughter from Emma as they continued to walk on, the school suburban area slowly turned into the wealthier parts of town were both Lydia and Henry lived, and at one point had almost been neighbors before one of the parents noticed and for some reason moved a bit further away into the area. Walking through her neighborhood mostly reminded Lydia that most of the people that lived here had made deals with her father to get in this area in the first place, and the teenager would know that since she was there for every deal.

Eventually they seemed to have passed enough of the nearly identical hedge trimmed houses that one of them turned out to be Henry's home. Emma and Lydia said their goodbyes to the kid before he walked back into his home, most likely to be alone for a long time while his mother was out with council meetings or whatever else she did that she covered up by telling him that she was at those meetings. It wasn't long after Henry had gone inside that the situation went awkward again, but this time there was no silence between them.

"So… you're Mr. Gold's daughter?"

"Yep, apologies ahead of time for anything he might've done," It wasn't as if Lydia was immediately suspecting that her father had offended or done something else to Emma, more in the fact that the teenager just liked to make sure that she wasn't going to be held liable for anything he had done. Emma raised an eyebrow, apparently more interested in what Lydia meant than offended, thankfully. The older woman was about to ask a question when Lydia's phone started ringing, the teenager quickly fumbling through her pocket to pull the device out and shut off the ringtone.

"Isn't that from Brother Bear?" Emma asked after the teenager's ringtone, looking somewhat amused as Lydia looked at the caller ID and wondered if shutting the phone again it would be worth the trouble she would go through later for not answering, before she replied to the older woman.

"It's a good movie," Lydia mumbled halfheartedly in her defense as she eventually lost the fight and answered the call, holding the phone up as signal to Emma that she was no longer available for conversation. Her caller didn't stay on the line for very long though, apparently calling Lydia just to give this immediate order and waiting of her confirmation or excuse as to why she would say no, before hanging up.

"That was my dad," The teenager paused for a moment as she acknowledged her use of the D word again before she continued about to take off to do anything but what her father wanted her to do at that moment, "I should get going."

"Wait, before you go, do you know anything about a woman named Ashley-" Lydia cut Emma off, her voice a little more on edge than it probably should be, her defenses were too ready to be raised up completely that it tipped Emma off that something was wrong, and that Lydia knew something.

"Why are you looking for her?" Her answer said more than enough to Emma as she took a small step closer to the younger blonde, her question not being left hanging in the air since Lydia could already see that something had apparently gone wrong in the plans of her pregnant friend.

"She stole important files from your father's shop; Gold hired me to get them back from her with no trouble. Weren't you in the shop when this happened?" knowing that she had shoved herself into a corner now thanks to her defenses Lydia bit her lip, thinking quickly about how to twist this so she could crawl out of that corner again. Thankfully it didn't take very long as she tried to have the outside look of relaxed and confident, but then again Lydia was never good at looking confident so it came off a little strange.

"I didn't see anything that night; I walked in during closing time and saw the safe was empty and my father was unconscious. Has something happened to Ashley?" Of course by the time Lydia asked the last question all her fake confidence dropped and she looked worried for her pregnant friend. Emma bit her lip, not wanting to include another person in Ashley's troubles though it already seemed that Lydia was well enough involved, so Emma cracked and let the younger blonde in on what was going on.

"She's disappeared with those files; I think she's running from Storybrooke to possibly Boston with those files. Do you know where she is right now?" Lydia felt the worry grow from the smallest of seeds in her gut, the thought that her friend was deciding to go on the run during such a sensitive time in her pregnancy scared the crap out of the teenager. It was because of this worry that Lydia spoke without thinking and so because of her muttering broke apart her earlier lie.

"I haven't seen her since last night…"

"So you did see her in the shop when she was there?" The teenager winced, knowing she had been caught red handed thanks to her own free tongue and looked back to Emma with a small smile, deciding that she was not going to flow this conversation any further up the river of secrets and lies that she had been keeping.

How she was going to get out of this however, was something else to think about. Running wouldn't work, she could tell from just looking at Emma that she would easily catch up to the more athletically challenged teenager and probably get her arrested, which was something that Lydia really didn't need since already she knew that one more arrest and she would be out to Juvie before she could blink.

With her options being few Lorrie decided to fall back on lying again, even though she was getting the feeling that anything she said now, Emma wouldn't really believe unless it was the truth. Still, the teenager did her best to lie and be convincing in the meantime. She tried to not keep her face from being to blank or too overly expressive in case that would be the thing that called her out as a liar before she even spoke. Lydia looked Emma in the eye as she lied, but not too much at the same time. Really she was pulling out all the stops to have the masquerade of truth just this once.

"I saw her before I went into the shop at Granny's last night. She told about her deals with my father and how upset she was and I just… gave her advice to do what she felt was right and unfortunately it seemed that she took that the wrong way," Emma had an expression as though she had a similar feeling to what Lydia had said, as if she had done something similar herself. Lydia meanwhile had her fingers crossed behind her back, praying that this lie was going to work, and became relieved when it seemed that Emma had believed her.

She'd escaped the holding cell for the moment, and felt as though she had just scraped by not feeling the cold bars of the holding cell.

"Okay, well I better get going, my dad hates being kept waiting," After a quick goodbye and good luck passed between the two blondes, Lydia started walking to what Emma guessed was the direction of her home. What the older woman didn't know of course was that she was in fact walking completely in the wrong direction. In fact she was getting closer to the forest that edged around the town than her home.

So she spent the rest of her afternoon and near nighttime walking alone through the forest, feeling oddly more at ease there than in her home or the pawn shop. There was something about the scent of the pine trees and small animals that scampered across the ground and on the tree branches that felt so familiar and comforting to her. Lydia was never one to really wonder why this was, and instead just made every opportunity to be there, especially when Mr. Gold wanted to see her.

She was still mad at him, though her headache had mercifully passed on and left her to think to herself. Eventually Lydia found her way to her spot in the forest and once again relaxed on the collapsed tree trunk, looking upwards at the afternoon sky that could seen through the tree tops, the stars beginning to blink into sight as time slowly passed and the day came to an end. Lydia closed her eyes, feeling more relaxed now than she had all day.

Lydia felt so at home here, but she wasn't all that sure why. Her ringtone went off again, the Phil Collins song from one of her favorite movies being allowed to play out as she continued to watch the stars appear in the slowly becoming night sky.

It had been three days since the mother abandoned the child, and the little girl was still crying. She had been walking in her small shoes for some time, holes beginning to appear in the material form all the walking she had done for such a young child. The small girl stayed off the main road and remained into the shadows of the forest trees, the carriages that went speeding past scaring her as the horses seemed so vicious and bigger than her. There was also the fact that every carriage seemed to have someone that would shout so loudly, saying words that she couldn't understand but knew were bad.

So she stayed away, and stayed in the forest, her stomach eventually rumbling in hunger.

Hours passed into the first day that this child would be alone, though eventually a smell came to her desperate nostrils, something that she thought she would never smell again. It was a sweet smell; the scent of sugary food that she couldn't quite remember the name but would later figure out was porridge. This little girl was so desperate, so innocent to all the horrible things of the world that she didn't figure out that this could be dangerous, that the person with the food would not want to help her.

Her feet kept moving towards the wonderful scent in such a scary world, finding safety in it and comfort in it. So she walked as fast as she could manage with her little feet covered in little shoes that were getting holes in them already as she tried her best not to trip on roots or sticks that wanted to stop her. Finally the trees and brushes that had been blocking what was the source of such a wonderful smell fell away to show the small girl what was guarding the only food that she knew she could eat.

The food was sitting out on a small table, which was a strange occurrence since this was the middle of the forest and there was a table in it with porridge on it for some reason. But then again this was a small child that still didn't know everything about the world, so she still crawled towards the table and looked at the bowls on the table, looking around for who's food this was, before forgetting all about that when her stomach rumbled and made her decisions for her.

Remembering her manners the child picked up one of the spoons by the bowls and took a bit of the porridge, tasting it. She frowned slightly, feeling as though this porridge was too cold, so she moved on to the next, which as soon as her tongue even touched the sample of the food on the spoon she flinched and put it back down, too hot. The last bowl was on the other end of the table, so she walked to the other side of the table and tried the last bowl of porridge and tasted it.

It was perfect. And before she could remember that this was someone else's food she ate all of it up, the feeling of her belly being full once more made her less scared of her predicament. The child was so busy enjoying what was seriously the best porridge she had ever had in her life that she didn't notice the bushes behind her rustling as something starting to come closer towards her. The child only really noticed that there was something possibly angry behind her, angry since she had ate someone else's food.

The small child slowly turned around when she felt a breath on her shoulder, her small form completely shuddering in fear.

So it didn't help when what she saw behind her was a large brown bear.

A scream was caught back in her throat as she climbed down from the table and tried to run away, though the bear claw that reached out and grabbed at the back of her ragged dress stopped her right in her tracks and caused her to fall straight on her back on the leaf covered ground. Tears of fear were already coursing down her face as she was made to face the bear again as it stood over her; the child's eyes squeezed shut as she waited for something she was too young to fully understand.

Moments passed.

Instead of whatever it was that she didn't completely understand, the child instead felt another small blast of air on her face. She opened one eye slowly to see that for whatever reason, the bear had started smelled her face. One small hand reached out and touched at the nose with her finger, watching as the bear cocked its head at her before looking over to its left. The child turned her head as well, seeing another bear coming out of the shadows of the bushes and trees, the two bears seemingly silently communicating for a few moments before something else happened.

The first bear left her alone as the other seemed to want to investigate her as well. It sniffed once, and then licked her face, seemingly accepting the child as not a threat. The child giggled, then squealed in excited fear as it picked her up from the ground by its mouth holding onto the back of her dress. She was then dropped on one of the bear's back, carrying her off with them as they left this clearing with the table and bowls of porridge.

Clinging onto the Bear's surprisingly soft fur the child took this all in stride rather well, not really sparing a thought to how bears could make porridge and a table to put them on when they didn't have hands. She just sort of accepted it for the time being as these bears had accepted her. They walked through the forest until they reached a clearing with a rock cave, the child being taken off the bear's back and nudged into the cave.

She walked blindly through the darkness of the cave for a few moments before she found a torch light and walked towards it, finding a large cavern that was occupied by other bears. Feeling fear grow back into her stomach that flushed away any comfort the child had gotten from the perfect porridge before. She was nudged by the bears behind her until she was standing in the center of the large group of bears, left to shiver with fear as so many pairs of eyes watched her for a few moments before something else happened.

An older bear, its fur being complete snow white and its eyes a shade of blue, broke through the crowd and walked right up to the child, the little girl covering her eyes in some childish attempt to make this all into a scary dream that for some reason had very good porridge in it. For a few seconds more nothing happened, then suddenly a voice broke through the silence, and the little girl looked up.

"Do not be frightened child; we will not hurt you,"

Where the bears had been before, now stood a large crowd of people in rags.

Where the oldest bear of the group had once stood now had an old woman, her hair being a shock of white and her eyes being piercingly blue. However those eyes that seemed more familiar to becoming shards of cold ice looked down at the child with warmth and compassion, her old wrinkled hand reaching out to cup the small girl's face as gently as possible. All traces of fear finally left the child as she looked up at the nice old woman that apparently could turn into an old bear, just like the other people that were all around her.

With all of this now connecting together in her mind, the child looked back up at the old woman, and said only one thing.

"So that's how you make porridge,"

There was a booming laughter from the old woman, the kind of laugh that someone could feel in their stomach even though they weren't the ones laughing. She grinned back at the old woman as she was picked up in her arms as carefully as ever thought possible.

"What is your name?" The name the child answered with would never be used by her when she would grow older as it mean nothing but regret and mourning to her as she lived her life alone and abandoned by such a cruel world. But at this moment it meant nothing more than her name that she had been given by her mother, who as far as the child knew since she was not yet aware of the cruelty that lied ahead, might come back someday

"Nemo ," The old woman smiled, and looked out to the crowd of people around her, the family that she led and followed her with absolute loyalty. She looked back down to the small child, the look in the child's wild green eyes just melting her old heart.

"Welcome to our family Nemo ,"

After being called three more times, Lydia eventually answered the phone, expecting her father to be yelling at her from down the phone line for ignoring his calls.

"Yes?"

But what she got instead was a near heart attack as she jumped off the tree log she had been lying down on, her feet carrying her as fast as she could.

Ashley had been found, and was going into labor.

Please review, constructive criticism always welcome