So although I've been operating on a standard Saturday update schedule, I got sidetracked this weekend by an awesome story in the VM fandom. So if you've got the time to check out a far better story than mine, take a look at "A Life Extraordinary" by MLP. I don't really give shout outs, like ever, but I figured it would lessen any hatred for posting late if there was a consolation prize for even opening my story.

Only a few more chapters to go so get in your reviews so I know how I'm doing. Individual reviews are at the end as always.

A week later and my dad was on a plane back to the United States, much to his displeasure, without us but we all knew it was for the best. It might have been easier to work together without an ocean separating us but it was far safer at the same time. We had worked out a system. My dad would call us on untraceable cell phones and if we needed to contact him we'd get a message through Clarence Weidman. For this, we needed to use ever precaution necessary because if we ended up failing, our aliases were the only thing we would have left to protect us.

The first thing we did after my father departed was change our appearances. Having been so careless in the beginning, gradually we did little things that would make us look less and less like the tragic couple that still made tabloid magazines. So far there had been no speculation that we had actually run away to elope but we both knew the possibility wasn't so farfetched.

Logan kept grooming his every growing facial hair. No longer could you see his strong jaw line. His baby face was aging before my very eyes.

"What now?" Logan sighed dramatically.

I tried to straighten out my face but we had to face the facts. I hated his facial hair, "I feel like I'm kissing my Uncle Bobby."

"You've kissed your Uncle Bobby like you kiss me?" Logan asked suggestively before shuddering at the thought.

"I can't help that your facial hair is irritating my skin."

"Oh come on, it's not that bad." Logan stroked his wooly chin. "I think I look distinguished."

I pouted, "It's just not you."

"Well that's the point, Sugarpuss."

"I know. I just didn't think this would be so drastic…or uncomfortable."

"I've got an idea."

And that is how Logan got his goatee. It was still fairly irritating but both Brittlynn and I found it more manageable to deal with.

As for me, I finally decided to darken my blonde locks. It pained Logan more than myself because he was holding onto that same image of me that made him fall in love almost ten years prior.

"Jingoes," Melinda had said when I paid her a visit in the office the very afternoon I dyed my hair.

"Oh no. Is that good or bad?" No matter what she said, the color was staying.

"Oh that's just strine for, um shock."

I ran a nervous hand through my hair. She was definitely making me reconsider the chestnut brown hue I had chosen.

"Here I go again earbashing." She mumbled almost incoherently, "What I meant to say was, you look good."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." She said flatly, "What made you change? Natural blondes are hard to come by nowadays."

Because I'm in hiding from the Russian mob who thinks I'm dead. "I was going to do it before I got pregnant but after I found out I didn't want to risk anything with the chemicals."

"Well, I think you look very illustrious now."

"I never thought I'd have a language barrier in an English speaking country but you sure have proved me wrong." She laughed at my honesty.

"Well sheila, you're in my country now. You ought to start speaking like a local."

I let the fear show on my face, "If you want me to offend the whole town, I can give it a shot."

"We'll work on it together," She smiled warmly. It felt good to have a girlfriend again, "But I mean it. Your new do looks great."

The next step to my slow transformation would be glasses. And I even had an excuse lined up about running out of my contacts and too lazy to go and get a new prescription.

The changes were nothing too drastic but they gave Logan and I a piece of mind. Instead of worrying about being recognized we were able to put all our energy into something else: a solution.

While Logan was away overseeing the construction of our house or downstairs in the office smoothing things out with the resort, I did my best plotting. I knew what the end result had to be and it was much easier without Logan interjecting his own ideas. I appreciated the efforts but we had always had our separate roles. He was the brawn and I was the brains. All I needed to do was figure out exactly how to make the Sorokin crime family implode.

And that was proving to be harder than I thought.

I was more of a hands-on kind of girl. Usually I would go in and figure out a plan as I went along. This time, however, that was pretty impossible, the distance and the severity of the situation being key factors. I could only rely on my brain. I knew I had it in me but I was seriously out of practice. Having taken the back seat, forcibly, throughout my pregnancy it was just a matter of getting back in the game, jumping back on the horse or whatever other cliché things there were to say.

"I need a distraction." I simply stated when Logan had come back up from the lobby.

A waggle of his eyebrows and I knew what Logan was going to say, "I think I can be of service."

"I can always count on you," I silently cursed myself for setting him up so perfectly, "Plus I'm way to focused on revenge to do anything else even if I wanted to."

"Come on, babe, revenge sex is some of the best out there."

"Logan!" I feigned covering dozing Brittlynn's ears, "Not in front of the baby."

"I was thinking more along the lines in the bedroom. Unless you're feeling adventurous."

"Seriously!"

Truth was, we hadn't really been intimate in a very long time. With living at Duncan's for a while and recovering from giving birth, the love department was surely lacking. We just had so many other things going on that it just didn't seem to be as important right now. No longer were we carefree college students who went to frat parties and got wasted and got laid. Not that that had ever really been something we did but it was the principle. The real world was getting in the way.

Logan crossed the room to my desk and began massaging my shoulders, "Babe, you're so tense. At least let me work out some of the kinks."

"If you must." I surrendered. A nice back rub sounded perfect. If only he could massage the kinks out of my brain, things would be a lot better.

"Come on," He pulled me towards the bedroom for a proper rub down. I tried to lay down on my stomach but the pressure on my tender breasts was far too painful to relax. Instead I leaned against his chest as he used his hands to work away all the tension in my upper body.

"It would really work better if you took your shirt off." I shot him a look, "I'm serious. No funny business. Literally."

I did remove my shirt, leaving my nursing bra latched. "I'm sorry. I'm just so distracted with all this plotting. I promise, once I figure everything out, I'm all yours."

His fingers worked soothing, hard circles into my shoulders and back. He kneaded down my arms. It was so easy to get lost under his touch. I leaned my head in the crook of his neck and nuzzled in close. I was jealous that I couldn't be one hundred percent there with him. Instead I was trying to bring down a big crime family.

"That's it!" I sprang up off of Logan's body, "Jealousy."

"Say what?" Logan was utterly confused by the lack of physical contact.

"Gory's father is the boss, the head hauncho, whatever they call him," I stood up and began pacing the bedroom. "He also has an uncle, Lev. There has got to be some sibling rivalry. Like why did Gory's father get to be named the big guy?"

"I'm not exactly seeing where this is going…"

"We have to set the two of them up. They need to think the other is going to turn on them. Paranoia and jealousy."

Logan was slowly catching up to my warped speed thinking. "Alright, alright. But how are you going to do that?"

"Do I really have to think of everything?" I stuck my bottom lip out at him.

"You're the mastermind behind all of this. I'm just your arm candy. Your trophy husband. A piece of meat!"

"Oh, hush you." I reprimanded. "You're more than that and you know it. Let me call Weidman and run the idea by him and then I'll show you just what you mean to me."

"Go! Like the wind, little one."

After I explained my thought process to Weidman he expressed his excitement in the matter in his own special way. Though the idea was hardly a plan of action, there was potential. It was true that jealousy fueled action. Suspicion would breed paranoia. And from paranoia would come absolute chaos. The Sorokins would self-destruct. All that we needed to do was plant the seed.

As soon as we hung up, Weidman promised to contact my dad to fill him in. The two of them would then think of some little things they could plant that would hopefully set the two big guns in Neptune's crime family off. I also promised to keep my brain rolling and to report anything else I could think of.

I deserved a pat on the back. And if my plan succeeded, I deserved much, much more. It was great to get back in the swing of things. Oh, how I had missed conniving. It was comfortable. It was needed. It was exhilarating.

"She smiles…" Logan broke me out of my trance.

And I was smiling, "Weidman thinks I really have something. We could be going home soon. We could have our lives back."

Though Logan was happy just seconds before, his face dropped. "Logan, what's the matter?"

He shrugged and looked away.

"Talk to me." I crossed the room and joined him on the bed. He sat up, crosslegged and I sat myself in his lap straddling his torso.

"I just," He inhaled deeply, "I kind of like what we have going on here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I like that Logan Echolls is dead. I don't feel pressure anymore. I'm free of that name, that legacy. I have you and I have Britt. That's all I need really in my life. Why go back?"

He had completely thrown me off guard. "You wouldn't want to go home?"

"I am home."

I leaned in and captured his lips with mine. Though I didn't completely agree with his desires, I understood. We had built a life here in Australia. Our business was here. This is where I delivered our daughter. We even had friends, both old and new.

Logan began reclining back onto the pillows that lined the headboard, still liplocked. And our lips continued to stay connected to each other as we explored places we hadn't been in what seemed like forever. We shed our clothes slowly, rediscovering the places that had been long forgotten.

His touch was more tender than I remembered, because let's face it, our love life had always been passionate and fiery. It wasn't a bad change. On the contrary I saw growth in him that I hadn't. Sure he was making a new name for himself here, providing for his family, our family. Logan Echolls was all grown up. For the first time in the last nine months, I felt safe and secure.

And as we lay cuddling after the rekindling of our sex life, I couldn't help but to think out loud. "You want to stay here?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." He traced his hand along my bare arm, "I just don't want to mess this up. And Neptune, nothing good happens there."

"But what about our friends? My dad?"

"Is that why you're so set on nailing the Sorokins? So you can get back to your perfect life?"

I pulled away at the change in his tone. "Logan," I warned.

"Is it so terrible to be here, with me?"

"Are you serious?" I rolled out of the bed, pulling the top sheet with me, feeling far to naked and vulnerable. "How can you even think that?"

He rubbed his hands over his face. "I don't. Or I don't want to but ever since your dad showed up, you're all gung-ho about getting the Sorokins off our backs for good."

"I want the Sorokins wiped off the map so that they can't hurt anyone like they hurt us ever again!" I paced the room furiously. "And I'm sorry if I'm slightly more at ease now that I know my dad has been okay. Tonight, I was the happiest I've been in a long time."

His features softened, "You've been unhappy?"

"No." I sighed. "Maybe that was the wrong word. I've been stressed about everything. I'm a mother. We're parents. We are trying to run a resort. We faked our own deaths. We're in another country. The whole Duncan situation didn't help either. It just felt nice to be us again."

"But why do we have to be us in Neptune. After all the hard work we put in here, why can't we be us anywhere in the world?"

"I never said we couldn't. I was just trying to get in your head, see where you're coming from." I knelt on the edge of the bed, "Because you're right. As long as I'm with you and Brittlynn, I'm home."

Jingoes = exclamation of surprise

Strine = Australian English

Earbashing = to talk incessantly

Before I get to the individual responses, I hope I haven't offended anyone with my stab at Australian slang. Just trying to make the story more authentic but I've lessened the attempts in the last couple of chapters.

CGirl2009: There probably should have been more in ways of the reunion but I've kind of lost that creative spunk in me. There are so many talented VM writers that come up with plot lines that I could have seen as episodes in the series. I'm just not postmodern enough for that. But hopefully what does come in the next chapters makes up for things.

firecracker93: Thanks for your constant kind words. I still hope I hold your attention in the coming chapters.

Nerdyesque: Well this wasn't exactly what you were hoping for after the last chapter. As I said to another reviewer, I wish I could come up with some elaborate plan to bring the Russian mob down but if I had the brain power for that, I think I'd be recruited by some government agency or the other. At the very least, I could've maybe singlehandedly saved VM from cancellation...but obviously, not that good. But hopefully despite what I lack, the story gets resolved in a suitable manner. And if it doesn't, I hope you'll tell me.

Didine34790: Thanks for your review. Hope this chapter was raises some new interests!