A/N: Wanted to update this yesterday for a request (happy late birthday, Alice!), but never really got around to it due to an onslaught of homework and lack of planning time for this fic. I had two courses of action that I could take with this chapter, and I finally drew up a decent conclusion to what the hell I wanted to do here. Rest of the story is now officially planned out in my little doodle notebook. Anyways, let's get on with this chapter! Gwen's POV.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

She was standing there. My mom. My mother. She stood there with that same blank expression on her face that she almost always had. She looked older, crow's feet around her eyes and wrinkles where her dimples used to be; the emerald orbs that mirrored my own were dull and lifeless beneath thin eyelashes that weren't even darkened with mascara. My mom seemed old for the first time in my life.

Four years were not kind to her.

Her stare was empty as she looked at me, seeming more like a ghost than my own parent. She gave a forced smile before saying, "I'm sorry, we're not interested in any cookies," and trying to close the door on me and Kevin.

I shoved my foot in the way before it could completely close, keeping it slightly ajar even when she did try a little harder to slam it. My foot was slightly squished into the doorframe, but I didn't care. I put my hand to the painted red wood of the door. "Hold on, one moment," I said, trying to keep her from shutting me out.

I'd been gone for four years. Four years of my life I had been away from home and out in the cold. My only comfort had been a boy turned monster and then turned boy once more. He had been the only person I'd had to call a friend. Now I needed family. I craved the feel of family around me. I just wanted some family to act as a comfort. I needed someone to be able to lean into and cry against. Kevin was alright with that, but he wasn't what a mother and father could be. I wanted my parents so badly that if I didn't have some sort of reunion with them soon, I was probably going to die of loneliness. Family was something completely necessary in my world. I had to have it.

Reluctantly, my mother opened the door again, half of her hiding behind the large wooden board. "What do you want?" my mother asked with a bit of fear in her voice. She eyed me with a bit of caution, and then when her gaze flitted to Kevin who stood just a step or two behind me, I could see the panic clearly written in her features. She could only see us as punk kids that were coming to rob or torture her.

I gulped down the lump of fear in my throat and drank in a deep breath of the warm air that swelled around us. The end of spring was in full swing and Bellwood was clearly ready to jump right into summer, but it was still chilly enough to send shivers up my spine and get goosebumps to rise up on my pallid skin. "Do you recognize me?"

She opened the door slightly more, letting more light into the house behind her. I could see that the furniture hadn't moved since I had last been home. I could see that all the blinds were drawn tightly, shut to keep the insides of the structure entirely in the dark. My mom's eyes raked up and down my body, taking in my thin build and my scrawny little arms that had built with faintly feminine muscles during the time I had spent in purgatory. Her emerald orbs continued to trail up and down my body before looking at my face. She stared into my eyes and then looked at my hair as it fell down my back down around my knees, still the color of a roaring fire. Her eyes looked over my face, now somewhat clean of dirt and mud after trekking our long journey to Bellwood. And it took a moment, but a gleam of recognition took over her features.

A weak smile splayed across my lips. "Hi, mom."

It only took her a second to fling the door open and throw herself at me with a huge smile spreading across her features the way a wave spread across the ocean, but this smile didn't dissipate like a wave would. It remained there for what felt like an infinite amount of time as she clasped me in her arms tightly to her chest. Tears spilled down from her eyes and fell onto my shoulder as she held me like only a mother could hold her daughter.

I quietly wove my arms around her too, focusing on drinking in this moment. I hadn't seen her for four years. Four years had passed since she last saw me. And I was a teenager now. I had grown up so far beyond any expectations. I had learned so much without school and without my family… I had learned everything that I had ever needed to know off of the streets, from being with Kevin…

"Gwen," she murmured into my hair, voice shaking as more tears kissed her cheeks before falling from them like a waterfall. Streaks of moisture stained her skin. "Gwen, sweetie." She stroked my hair, messing up everything that Kevin had just fixed. "Gwen, you're back."

I nodded silently, feeling myself beginning to cry. And it wasn't long before I was crying, not making a single sound, of course.

This felt like some sort of special moment. It felt like something that I should've been bawling my eyes out over. I should've been falling to the ground, collapsing under the force of this one moment where my heart was soaring and I was finally reunited with my family, my mother. Family. That was what I had been longing for all these years.

I held her like I'd wanted to all this time. All this time I'd only wanted someone to love me, to know that someone missed me.

"Gwen, we were so worried…" Her voice strayed off, clearly distraught after years of being so sickeningly wrought with this pain of not knowing where I was, how I was, if I was even still alive… "We didn't know…" She kept stroking my hair; I had flashbacks to when I was a little girl and she did the exact same thing every time lightning crashed through the heavens or when thunder rattled the sky. She was always there for me and now I was back and ready to be welcomed home again.

I didn't know how long we stood there, basking in that moment, but I knew I loved it. I loved every second of it. I had missed this time, so much of it, that I didn't know if I could go back to the reality where she wasn't holding me in her arms. I needed this moment just to remember what I was alive for.

When she finally let me go and held me out at arms length to see how I was, she began to rub her hands along my arms for any scars or bruises or wounds. My mom began to watch my every move, every flicker of my eyes she was following intently without missing a beat. "Gwen, sweetie, are you hurt? Are you alright? What happened?" Her tone was one of obvious concern.

"Ben should've told you," I explained quietly, holding one wrist with the other hand. "He can tell you later or whatever." I had to take a minute to breathe and let this moment sink into my mind, never to be forgotten. "I'm just so glad to be back."

My mom continued to check me over, running her finger along the long, bright white scar that stretched up my forearm before looking for more old wounds. There were plenty, but none of them had scarred like the first had. "I'm so glad you're safe." Once again, I was drawn close to her and embraced with the biggest hug I had ever gotten in my life.

This time, I pushed away faster, trying to adapt to this whole situation. Part of me was screaming whenever I was there for too long. It almost felt like the talons of a Necrofriggin threatening to hold me down and never let go, but part of me knew this was family and that I had nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all. When I had put at least a foot or two of space between us, I felt a little bit better. The first time, it had been an old welcoming that had been too long overdue. Now, it was almost smothering. "Mom," I said, taking in a gulp of the moist air that coated the town. "This is Kevin." I looked over my shoulder to be sure that he was still there.

Loyal like a dog to its master, he was still there. His eyes were downcast until I said his name, and then he looked up dark eyes haunted with some suppressed memories that I knew he would never talk about. He gave the tiniest half-smile I had ever seen. "Hi, Mrs. Tennyson."

Squinting at him for a moment to take in the bad boy demeanor and scarred limbs and clearly beaten up face that was laced with a few marks of dirt and dust here and there, she stared with uncertainty lingering in her features. "Who is this?" she asked, obviously wary of his appearances and shady gaze.

"He saved my life."

A/N: Again, happy birthday to my anonymous reviewer, Alice! She wanted me to post this yesterday, but it took me longer than expected with plot issues and such. No reviews means no new chapter so start reviewin'! Also, eight chapters left!

~Sky