A/N: Okay. So it's been a really long time since I updated anything, and so I worked late last night to finish this chapter up. Hopefully you all like it! I'm not sure if anything else will be finished for another couple weeks, though. -_- Finals are annoying, so bear with me! So I'm done with my blathering. Read on and enjoy!

Jane.

Chapter 4 –

We walked into the office of one of my first adoptees. When Heinz was five years old, he and his sister were on the streets of Berlin in the early eighties when I happened across little Heinz. He was begging for food or what little money people would give out. His older sister, Anna, was suffering from pneumonia. By the time I got to them, she was too far gone for me to heal her. She died two months later in a warm bed, safe and sound in my Berlin apartment. I'd kept Heinz with me until he was old enough to go to college. He knew all about me, who I was, and what I did; he had graciously gotten a degree in education administration with a minor degree in business management so he could run a German orphanage for me.

"Heinz!" I smiled eagerly and opened my arms to him. He looked up from his papers and stood quickly. Heinz came around the desk and embraced me, grinning ear to ear. I kissed his forehead and asked him how he was doing as well as the kids.

He hesitated before answering, glancing pointedly at Ash. "Mama," he said in German, "aren't you forgetting your manners again?" It was so odd sometimes; he occasionally surpassed me in logic as he had recently done in looks. I looked to be in my early twenties, and my Heinz was now pushing thirty.

"You never cease to make me look the fool, Heinz. And yes, I am. Again. This is my br—my friend, Mr. Parthenopaeus. Ash, this is Heinz Werner. Heinz is the curator of the orphanage here, and one of my adoptive children. Of course, he doesn't look it, but he used to be quite the trouble maker." I looked fondly at Heinz, remembering him as a child around twelve years old. That was about the time when he had suddenly decided that it was fun to try my patience and break things or burn them. Explosions had been his favorite means of my torture. I would never tell anyone these things without his permission . . . or if it was to meet a love interest of his. If it came to the latter, it was a free for all.

Ash and Heinz shook hands. Heinz frowned at Ash then shook his head and turned back to me. With an odd expression gracing his familiar features, he summarized the current condition of the orphanage: how many children had found homes, the state of the building and the financial status. When I asked where Caroline, one of my favorite kids—and a five year old I was planning to adopt soon—was, Heinz's face looked sympathetic. He put a hand on my shoulder as he hesitantly replied:

"Mama, she was adopted last week. I knew you had had your eye on her for some time, but you've done that and then changed your mind. I didn't want her to lose her chance at a home." I heard the unspoken end of that sentence. A normal home away from any pressure of carrying on the family business. I nodded mutely and smiled halfheartedly at him. I understood what he meant. I'd known for a long while that he was grateful for my raising him, but he also wished he'd had a more normal life. A childhood with public school, friends, and sports instead of orphanages, finances, traveling across the globe. I generally raise about four kids at a time. When I'm out, leave them with the children in one of my network's locations. None of my kids would admit that to me, but I knew regardless; it made me want to cry for them.

"Thank you for telling me, Heinz. Do you mind if I show my friend around?" He acquiesced and smiled, but the tightness around his eyes explained to me that he felt bad for how he and his siblings felt. I nodded and led Ash out into the main part of the orphanage. High pitched German met our ears in young shrieks, laughs, and exclamations of varying ages. As I walked into the main room, quite a few children yelled, "Fräulein Schmetterling!" My sadness nearly evaporated as I knelt and greeted the children. Many hugged me and I commented on how big they were getting. After a moment, I gently chastised them for not greeting my friend. One commented on how Acheron looked almost scary. This seemed to amuse my half-brother as he knelt down and instantly stuck out his hand with a childish smile that lit up his face.

That one action was all it took to get them to loosen up. It was one of the things I loved about the kids in my orphanages and why I kept them well financed. The money I made sure they had kept everything running smoothly, and made the home seem very much like a real home with a plethora of children. It allowed the kids to forget sometimes that they didn't have a biological family-unless they had a similarly orphaned sibling.

When the kids gave Ash a chance to step back, he asked me in ancient Greek, "Why did they call you Miss Butterfly?"

One side of my mouth pulled up in a half grin. I answered in kind, "Because, according to them, I'm pretty but illusive. I'm a joy to have around but I never stick around for long. I always fly away just when they start having fun." Acheron's eyes, hidden by dark glasses traced the different groups of children that played in the main room. Most of the kids in there were younger. School was in session, so the older children were absent and studying.

"Well, you evaded me for around a thousand years, so you've had an awful lot of practice, Kharissa."

With a half hearted laugh I corrected, "Kari." My brother's head turned to get a better view of my face.

"Kari?" I nodded affirmation and he extended a hand. "Ash. Now that the formal introductions are over with, maybe I can ask you something."

Eagerly, I nodded. "Anything. Not only do I want to help, but I've been ordered to! So you may feel safe with the knowledge that it will not be a half-assed job." He smirked.

"Do you have a place like this in New Orleans?" After I inclined my head, I asked for a minute to say goodbye to the kids and Heinz. On my way out, I noted that we were running out of space here in Berlin. I nodded upstairs as I went past Ash and he followed me back up, through Heinz's office, and into the upper room, where I flashed us back to my office at home.

I leaned over my desk chair and typed rapidly at the keyboard to bring up the file on my New Orleans orphanage. It was outside the city so there would be room to expand the orphanage, if need be. It was also on higher ground. After Katrina, I'd had it relocated outside the city; I didn't want children dying because I'd put too much faith in the levies. I printed out a picture of the building with directions and the address. On the bottom of the sheet, I wrote my cell number, my home number, and the number of the New Orleans location. I folded it all up carefully and turned back to Ash.

Giving him a sincere look in the eye, I held it out to him. "If you need anything, anything at all, call me. My cell phone and home phone numbers are on there as well as the number for the orphanage. I'll give Trudy a call and tell her to let you in if you knock on the door." I offered my hand after he tucked the information in his back pocket. A half-smile graced my lips.

He bypassed the hand and hugged me for the second time—leaving me flabbergasted once more. Ash pulled back and put his hands on my shoulders, staring me in the face. "Kari, you aren't hopeless. And if you need me, call." He flashed a grin and then flashed out.

So not all of my family sucked. That was a plus. . . But that didn't take away from my mother's betrayal. For a goddess of motherhood, she was one shitty parent. At some point over the last few millennia, I think she must have gone through menopause or something because she obviously lost whatever maternal instinct she had been known for.

Just as I started to relax at my desk with some music on, working at my computer, the one person who could ruin the better mood my kids and Ash had put me in, flashed behind me.

The Finish god, Ilmarinen, my ex-husband was behind me. At one time the smell of ultra-heated metal and forge used to send a thrill through me. Now, it only sent a shock of dread running through my veins. From the reflection on the glass of my desk, I saw the dour look on his bearded face. I recalled a distant time when his pock-marked, broad face was ruggedly handsome to me. At the moment, I only wanted to watch it burn in the flames of his own forge.

His look of utter superiority sickened me and I sorely wished—once again—that I had my own temple into which no god or goddess could enter uninvited. I wouldn't have as many headaches then, I was certain.

"Well, Kari? Any luck getting my daughter back? Hmm? Or have you failed once more?" I closed my eyes and slowly counted to ten; if I didn't rein in my unnatural temper, the consequences could be horrific.

"No, Arin, I haven't. Have you made any progress in learning the art of monogamy? Or is that concept too difficult for your addled brain to grasp after a few thousand years?"

My ex's eyes creased in anger and he spat, "If I had a good enough bed partner, I wouldn't have failed at that particular task." I smirked at my computer screen.

"I'm the one who was a horrible bed partner? How long did it take you to get me pregnant with Ria? Hmm? Oh, right! A couple centuries! Thank goodness we're immortal, or we would have been long dead in that time. I knew I should have married a Babylonian fertility god. Now they know how to treat a woman."

Arin sneered and me and spun my chair until I was facing him. Posting a thick, corded arm on either side of the chair, he made me stare him in the face. Feigning boredom, I sighed and checked the clock before telling him to hurry his ass up. I didn't have all day and he just wasn't worth my valuable time.

"Listen here, woman. I want my girl back. I have need of her and you're going to get her back for me." His thick brows were knit together and his breath was foul from too much alcohol.

I rolled my eyes at the Finnish god (wondering why the hell I ever let my mother set me up with this man. Perhaps because he was desperate for a woman after he lost his first one?). "Do it your damned self, Ilmarinen. Obviously, I can't get into Artemis's temple. She's been careful not to invite me in for any reason at all, and my mother was the one who sanctioned the action. So in case it still hasn't clicked in that thick-metallic skull of yours, leave me alone. I can't do anything about it. And you never cared about her before, so why should I trust your motives with my daughter, now?"

His squinty Finnish eyes looked closely at me before he collapsed to his knees with his head on my lap, sobs wracking his frame. "Oh, Kari, my Kari! Please, please take me back! I've been so lonesome, I never should have left. Our Ria might still be here if I hadn't gone astray!"

Hands the size of sledge hammers clutched at my hips. My eyes shot open in surprise. How many times, I wondered, had I dreamed of this moment? How many times had I reprimanded myself for wanting him back? Would I take him back when he hadn't deserved my love in the beginning?

Arin looked up at me through light colored curls and I felt twinges of the long-buried affection I used to feel at that face. Damn my compassion! It was close to impossible for me to ignore someone in so much (apparent) pain. I wouldn't take him back. I couldn't. It just wasn't right! He was horrendous! A lying conniving piece of trash not fit to shine my Ria's shoes much less claim a blood right to her! . . . But alas, here I was, feeling my walls of hurt and anger crumble under my compassionate tendencies.

My hand shook as I struggled with myself. The logical side of me wanted to smack him. The instinctual god-half only wanted to pull him to me and comfort him in whatever ways I could.

Just as my hand was about to touch his face, an explosion rocked my house followed by booted footsteps. My home was under attack, and I wasn't even sure who I'd pissed off. I checked my watch and realized that that clock had yet to strike noon. You know your day is going to suck when your mother reveals a betrayal, your ex-husband shows up, and someone attacks you and your house. Great life I have, huh?