I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I haven't updated for a really long time, and I apoligize, I've just got a lot going on right now, the last year has been really hard and hectic, so I apoligize, and I really hope you enjoy this chapter! Thanks, and please Review!

I never meant to distress him, I only wanted to go outside. My shame had forced me out of the house momentarily. I wanted to be outside, where I wasn't tormented by the constant sound of the beautiful heights I would never achieve. So I walked away, faster and faster, but the music seemed determined to follow me wherever I went. I had reached the forest before it began to dim, had gone far into it by the time it was drowned out. I sat on the ground underneath one of the large sycamores and looked on, listening to the natural, forest sounds. It calmed me, even as a few tears coursed down my face. I reflected on my time there. It had been five years since that dreadful day, and he had still not recovered. I still had not given him a reason to come back. But he had improved a great deal, and it gave me hope. Fear that I would fail, and send him back into himself consumed my every thought, worry, and action. I had grown a lot in five years, learned a lot, and yet a huge part was missing as if it had never existed. I still was in desperate need of a mother, of a friend. There was next to no one of appropriate age or demeanor that could fill that hole, and I doubted it would ever be filled. My head ached with the stress of the burdens that God had seen fit to place on me.

The quiet brook bubbled gently as I noticed the sky turning dark. Raindrops began to fall on my head as the tree above shook in the wind. The necessity of returning home bid me stand up just as I saw the sky open up. The gentle rain turned to downpour and the tender breeze to fierce gales that nearly knocked me over. Thunder rolled over the flat plain between me and the house, and only then did I see how far I had strayed. My heart gave a tug. Father must be worried out of his mind! He would be furious! I shivered and broke into a run into the dark recesses of the forest, trying desperately to remember which way I had gone. But the trees all looked the same, and they shook at me violently, mocking my panic as I fought to get out.

My heart pumped pure adrenaline through my body as I ran with legs that had no strength to run, air flowing through lungs that had no endurance to breathe.

"Bella! Bella! Where are you?" I fought my brain for custody, the voices fought, whispering that she had left me, abandoned me, just like all the others. I fought, telling myself it wasn't true, though there could be no other explanation.

I ran into the forest, straight through the bushes and brambles, cutting my skin violently with every step as the rain poured down on me in buckets. It was icy cold and hard, piercing through my shirt and slacks, even through my thick mask.

"BELLA!" I bellowed, fear clutching at my heart, and fury at my own inadequacy. I broke down, hitting the dirt as tears streamed down my face. I had lost her, my Bella, my beautiful Bella Rose Nasreen. "If there be a God, please, let me find my daughter, let me find my Bella!" I looked to the heavens in defeat, "BELLA!" I bellowed again. I heard a scream from the middle of the forest and went sprinting through the trees. "BELLA!" I yelled, over and over. The screams turned to whimpers as I fought toward the sound.

"Papa! Father! I'm here! I neared the edge of a ravine as her voice became instantly quite nearer that I thought it had been. I looked down and cried in delight as relief cooled my temper. It was replaced instantly with nausea, and fear. Her ankle was at an unnatural angle, and she was covered in mud from her fall. She lifted her head helplessly at me.

"Papa! Thank God! I am so sorry… I never should have left the house… Papa!"

I slid down the ravine after her and held her close, kissing her head, her eyes, thanking God that she was more or less okay. Silently, I lifted her up to her feet and helped her walk along the ravine until we came to a shallow bank. Somehow we made it out ok, God himself only knows how, but wherever we walked led us home.

Later I found the ravine, only it had filled completely with water, and there were no banks, from one end of the forest to another. We should have been trapped completely, and been drowned by the storm but we were not. That day, I found that I no longer doubted God's presence. I do not doubt that it had been Him that allowed us to go home, for the forest, for all its beauty, surely would have had no mercy on us had it been left to its own devices.

My ankle felt as if someone had taken a hammer and nail to it repeatedly. The smallest touch seemed to send pain spasms up my entire body. I remember looking up at Father on our way home. I couldn't read his face. The emotions could have been anything; relief, pain, sadness, anger, joy; what was he feeling?

I apologized fervently, but he didn't respond, and I feared for the worst. Perhaps I had sent him back into himself.

"Father? Are you alright?"

"Yes, Bella, I'm fine, I have you back, and that's all that matters."

"Have I hurt you?" He didn't answer.

"That's something I never want to do." I held his hand and looked him square in the eye. His eyes softened and he carried me the rest of the way home, kissing my temple softly. But his expression still remained hidden, though we didn't speak again on the whole way home.