Hey guys. In a couple weeks or so I'll be coming out with a new LR story called Different Summers, so right now I'm splitting my writing between that and this.

Sorry if updates get a little sluggish. (But not like that weren't like that before, right?)

November 6th 2013

Christine's Pov

To be completely honest with myself, I expected nothing less than the sight I got when coming home.

Leo was comfortably stretched out on the couch, a freshly made cookie in his hand with several crumbs littering the corners of his mouth. He didn't seem to care, idly flipping through a comic book I assume he'd been carrying around in his backpack.

"Glad to see you had no problem making yourself at home," I teased, although I really didn't care. Rem probably didn't either, just happy to have another mouth to feed—at least for the time being. It was a good thing, too, because Rem was one to take her feelings out with cooking or baking. And today it just so happened to be cookies. Lucky Leo.

Leo waved his half-eaten cookie at me as I passed. "Hey! If the female population didn't take so long getting their stuff done, I wouldn't be two comics and four cookies deep now."

I stored his accusation away, having a feeling his words could come back to bite him in the ass later. And it would be fun to watch.

After flinging my stuff on the counter, I helped myself to some cookies myself before joining Leo on the couch. The cookies were sweet and warm, melting on my tongue as I swallowed; peanut butter chocolate chip—my ultimate favorite kind of cookie since I knew such a treat even existed.

For a while we just spent time hogging down cookies and flipping between different cartoon channels, Leo absently flicking through his comic again.

This was why hanging out with Leo was cool. Sure, he may have been a nerd in a sort of light, but he was pretty cool. It was nice to have a childish friend to just chill out with when in the middle of all the scientist and family and life drama in general.

But after watching two Ben 10 episodes in a row, I stood and stretched. "We better get started," I said, clicking my phone on. 5:32. We'd been cookie eating and cartoon watching for a little over an hour; and who says smart people can't procrastinate?

Leo groaned, but slapped down his magazines. "There better not be any mushy-gushy photos up there," he warned as I led the way to the attic. "Because if so, I'm not responsible for what is left up there that had come from my stomach."

My face twisted up in disgust at his warning. Did boys really have to blow everything out of proportion like that? It's not like they're complaining when it's happening to them in real life…

I yanked open the door that revealed the attic steps after digging out the key from a hanging plant nearby. The key stained my hands with soil as I patted back into place. I stood aside, letting Leo go first.

He shook his frantically at me and pointed a scrawny finger up the steps. "No, no, no—ladies first."

Oh, so now it was okay for him to be a gentleman.

Again, I stored this information away for later events and scurried up the stairs, leading to where I had to hit at the stubborn wooden panel.

Our attic wasn't the biggest in the world, but not the smallest either. And oval window was cut out of the ceiling near the left wall, bringing in an odd patch of light. My dad's desk with scattered papers and computer monitor sat dutifully on guard across from where the panel opened up. The rest of the wide space was taken up with over flowing boxes worn from being moved so much. Each was covered in at least an inch or so of dust; we were never one to open up more than we needed to about or past.

It was a motto of sorts in the Grant family, and man did we stick to it.

"Well," I said standing and clapping my hands together. "Let's get started."

"Wait, wait, wait." Leo put up his hands like a traffic cop. "You actually want me to touch those?"

I scowled and pushed toward a tower of boxes almost taller than he was. "Just shut up and get busy."

He grumbled something under his breath about the bossiness of women, which I decided to ignore, for now.

I started to the opposite side of the room, plunking down in front of an old oak chest that looked like something I would've put my toys in when I was little. We didn't begin the whole moving around business until the summer before sixth grade, so it seemed likely enough that I had something like this. But why would Dad take so much care into carting it everywhere when all he did was shove it into an attic? Usually, my cousin Ella and Aunt Wendy let us keep our other stuff that we didn't take with us in a Grant storage unit in New York close to their apartment. It peaked my curiosity as to why this specific chest was so important to Dad; I figured it wouldn't kill anybody if I took a little look-sy. Just to see, of course.

I popped open the stubborn little hatch, the large lid coming up with a creak and a spray of dust that came right at me. I nearly dropped the top, waving a hand to clear the air in front of me and desperately wiping at my eyes, stinging and watering. I coughed and coughed.

Leo snickered. Blindly, I grabbed the first thing front the trunk (which, by the yarn-like feel, thick fabric, and different plastic parts, I guessed was a doll) and chucked it far. I grinned in satisfaction as it hit him and bounced off with a thunk. He let out a whine, and I went back to my digging, my eyes now partly clear.

My vision now clear of stinging tears and blurriness I continued with my digging. For the most part the chest featured the typical kid things, well-worn with age: coloring books with yellowed pages; dolls in pretty dresses with porcelain faces layered in dust; tin full of crayons that had long past gone dead; papers by the dozen just full of scribbles and sloppy handwriting.

A smile tugged at my lips as I carefully put a lost photo in my hands. It was ripped in the bottom left corner, crinkled but still with its (albeit fading) color. But something seemed off. I looked down harder, looked down on the little girl with the bouncy dark curls and pretty polka dot dress and big toothy smile, her small hand captured in a wave as she was carried proudly in the arms of a beautiful woman sharing the exact facial features and innocent way of smiling. But something wasn't right…

"Hey, I think I found something!" Leo shouted from his spot amongst the man boxes. "Chris! Come look."

I dusted off my butt and picked my way across the room, kneeling next to him. In front of us laid a bunch of photos. They mostly featured Maria and a much younger looking version of my dad—all happy smiles and lovesick eyes.

I smiled faintly at their little moment, frozen in a time where nothing was wrong and nothing ever seemed to go any way but right.

Damn, I wish that was my life right now.

But something's still of about the pictures—no, no, about Maria herself actually. Despite how happy and serene she was captured, something so good and pure was erased from the version I saw of her just months earlier.

"Look at that," Leo mused, a scrawny finger blocking the top of her head in the middle picture. In this one Maria wore sweats and a huge T-shirt, lounging in a big recliner as she curled up with a book, a lazy smile curled faintly on her lips. Her wispy hair is thrown up into a bun.

Suddenly, I realized the outstanding information before Leo even said it.

"Your mom was a blonde?" He asked, looking over at me to make sure he had his assumptions right.

I looked to each picture again. And there, matching with her beaming smile was Maria light and blonde hair. I'd always known that Maria had a thing for switching her style—one minute casual to typical country club owner wife to high heels and pencil skirts. That included her hair, Dad told me once, and how he'd only seen her natural hair color for what had to be barely a week.

"She was the most magnificent blonde I'd ever seen," He'd told me on a rainy road trip to another state, adventure bound for a new home, only to be left behind a handful of months after.

There, sitting in front of the mother I could've—should've, really—had, I had to agree with him. I traced the picture on the right, straight across from me. Taking in her sweeping blonde hair as her dark and bright eyes told an enchanting and secretive story behind the rim of her coffee mug. Even though you couldn't see her thin lips, it was implied of her big, laughing smile.

She didn't look any more beautiful now, with her pale, blue vined skin and dark, almost disastrous curls chopped to scoop down to the top of her shoulder blades. She didn't look any less either, but the woman I saw months ago—her large contrast to the woman in these photos could not be denied.

"What should we do with them?" Leo asked after quite some time.

I stood, tripping my way through boxes until I reached a bin full of extra supplies in case Dad ever reached the mother lode of work and charts and boring things that was picked out in the scientist community.

I slid the lid to the bin back on tight and gripped the slim manila folder and black Sharpie marker in my hands. Leo sat aside and watched as I smoothly slid the photos into the folder, marking the tab as P.M. before tossing the marker over my shoulder; not like anyone kept a strict marker count, not in our mad clutter of things anyway.

"This is our collector," I told Leo, shoving it at him. "Now, we shoo. This place is just asking for a snot rocket." I waved my hand the dust particles floating lost through the air.

Leo took his time with clomping down the steps, not noticing how I slipped back to that chest, carefully sliding that picture home in my sweats' pocket.

This would be my moment of her—with her. A moment not lost in all the yelling and door slamming, the cookies anxiously baking and melting to ease the storm that raged inside, between every one of us.

No matter who tried to bury her, Mother Maria was there somewhere, and now she would be held in my pocket, reminding me that I just had to look for what I somehow knew had been there all these years.

November 7th 2013

That night I had wicked visions. They were neither as horrid as a nightmare, nor as pleasant as a dream.

I was running through the hospital, each hall and doorway stretching before me like a maze. Whenever I blinked or tried to find a different route, it grew more twisted and complex than the last. There was urgency to my games, running and panting and screaming for a doctor, although they were as useless in my vision as they were in real life.

The next, I was there, but not in a way. I could see everything happening around me perfectly, but no one else could see me. The room was dark like a basement, a single steel table in the middle with a dirty light fixture swinging lowly from the ceiling.

A tall man with a skinny build stood on the other side, sleek in black and hair gel. Another figure, this one sitting down and a more feminine shape, face him with their back to me.

The man was silent but he mouth moved angrily, like he was shouting at the woman for grim mistakes. The woman shrank in her chair, her back still to me as she began to cry back. But her words were not for the man, but for me. And I could hear them over the empty screaming of the man.

"Run, Christina! Run, run now!" She continued on like that, only whipping around to face me.

I gasped, my eyes popping open as I laid there in a cold sweat. Now usually, being in a cold sweat would also include jumping out of bed and screaming your lungs off. But no, because I wasn't enough to do so, and two, I was confused on hell.

Why would Maria call me Christina?

I stumbled out of bed, my head hurting as I groped my way to the bathroom. By the time I finished all my duties there, my pajama shirt was stained with dribbled toothpaste and my hair was down, but still frizzy at the top and ends.

I had no energy to make an impression, not that there was anybody to impress besides Chase, which the boat had sailed right on through thankfully. In a rush I threw on my navy blue skinny jeans and white sweater, pairing it off with my black Vans and messy bun. I slapped on a blue and gray rope bracelet and owl ring before deeming myself finished, quickly heading downstairs for breakfast.

Rem's worry-slash-sugar fetish crept into her pancakes. By the time I flung my bag onto the couch to wait for me, there a stack of three syrup-coated chocolate chips and caramel pancakes waiting for me with a tall glass of chocolate milk.

I heard her phone worriedly chattering in the other room and assumed she was on the phone. I quietly sat and dug in, three huge bites into my first pancake before I decided that the suspense was killing me and I just had to know.

I always found it weird to watch Rem talk on the phone. We had a single house phone that usually the machine picked up for either Dad or I to get later when necessary. Rem usually ignored it, going about her daily business as if it never rung once. But I knew she heard it. So on the occasion she did pick up the phone, it was odd to just watch her act so casual with a phone, like watching foreign objects interact with each other and finding out that it all blended it smoothly with the rest of the fast-paced world.

Rem sounded nervous. "Why yes of course, I am left to be her guardian in case he's unable to proceed in part of her care."

I scrunched my eyebrows, leaning in further by pressing myself to wall. Who could Rem possibly be talking to—especially when it concerned her guardianship over my care?

There was a long pause. Then Rem made a scoff. "That woman in unstable…of course there is no need to bring in a lawyer! All cons of leaving Christine in that woman's care were shown and proven during the court meeting…she has no jurisdiction on her side. And with that crazy man on her side—that's too unfit an environment to leave a high school junior in. She has her studies and education to consider, and leaving her with the lady that caused a post-traumatic stress to her own father!"

Another insanely long pause and what sounded like a lot of loud yelling on the other end. "I don't care about the current situation. Nothing has changed about the agreements. Allan decided with the court that if anything were to happen, I would watch Christine while such conflict is under way. Maria has no part in the agreement! Now, goodbye!"

Rem slammed the phone down in a rush, whirring loudly in my ears. Her gears always managed to whir faster and fast with steam slipping from a loose spot that formed her right shoulder blade whenever she got upset or frustrated.

I quietly slipped away from my hiding spot and went back to my sticky pancakes, now cold from me being away from them to long.

Rem isn't far behind me. "Oh!" she gave a startled whir, her image slightly fizzing like it normally did when she was surprised. "I didn't hear you get around."

I shrugged, putting in a mouthful of pancake. "I heard you yelling," I tried to say around a swallow of chocolate chips and batter. "Who were you talking to?"

She fizzed again. "Nothing important," she clucked, busying herself with putting away her dirty mixing bowl and spoon. "When do you plan on your next trip being to the hospital?"

"Bree, Leo, and I were planning on going after school," I said after a huge swig of chocolate milk. Its sweet on my tongue as it went down my throat. "Chase said he really wanted to come with us, but he's caught up in the lab."

"You four've been awfully busy with investigating lately," Rem said thoughtfully, "Anything I should be worried about?"

I took another huge bite of pancakes; four bites deep into my second one. "No…"

Rem went silent for a couple minutes. "Fine," she decided on finally, taking away my plate. "Just be careful and don't make me get a call from the police saying you've been violating hospitals laws."

"Please," I said, "When have you known me to get caught?"

I finished of my chocolate milk, bidding Rem a goodbye before grabbing my bag and hurrying out the door.

The guys weren't outside at our normal meeting time. I found that weird and was tempted to wait a couple minutes to see if they would show but with a glance at my phone I saw that it wouldn't do me any good for me already running late.

I made it five minutes before homeroom, hurrying to my locker to see a cluster of girls chattering away in front of them. But, still, our group looked too small.

"Where are the others?" I asked, pushing Rachel aside to get to my locker.

She shrugged. "Last I knew that had a 'family emergency' and were gonna be out 'til after lunch." Rachel gave a wink even though we all knew what "family emergency" meant.

My frown deepened. It seemed weird for them to go on a mission without Chase at least texting to say so. Balancing my Calculus notebook and textbook in my arms, I checked my phone; no new messages.

"I still think it's weird Davenport's sending her on something like that barely two weeks after she's woken up," Janelle put in.

I rolled my lips into my mouth; I wasn't much of a fan of that idea, either, but it would do not good. Knowing Davenport they were probably already there.

"Whatever," I said with a bang of my locker closing. "I guess we'll just have to wait for tomorrow for any updates." I lowered my voice adding, "Anyone have any of those, by the way?"

Ashley stepped forward. "Hell yeah I do," she exclaimed angrily. By the indifferent expression of the others, I guessed she already told them. "That eyebrow-raising idiot Marcus made a move on me yesterday in PE! Ugh, the scumbag." Her face twisted up in disgust at the thought.

"What kind of move?" I asked curiously.

"Oh you know," Sammie insisted. "The usual pick-up lines and flirting tactics used in all the high school cheap-ass movies. I swear to God, for an evil dude is merchandise is so stale." She made to punctuate her sentence with a roll of her eyes.

Rachel wrinkled her nose up in disgust. "That's revolting."

"I know right?" Ashley flipped her hair and made a noise in the back of her throat.

"But he is easy to look at," Janelle said aloud thoughtfully.

I gave a sharp smack to her shoulder, even though she was kind of right—kind of.

Just as I was about to bring about my strange dream and Rem's weird phone call, the bell gave a shrill ring.

I sighed, stalking off to class with plans of giving the big reveal at lunch, whether the rest of the crew was present or not.

That's all for this chapter. Please leave a review because they make the chapters come faster.