hello hello hello... one would have been ok but there you go :) and as always, sorry this update took so long... i might as well stop saying it really... :)

thanks so much to everyone who keeps reading despite my taking so (so, so, soooo) long. You're all so kind and sweet and all get hugs and cookies :) thankyou so much otaku-freak-16, dailyangel, Night'sBullet, 7, elfenknight, xteenuh102593, nomanslandvicki, Merridaine, chemical-romace-lover, Ogami Ga-chan, romantiscue, Saints amoung Angels, monikgrl and YuKiOnA-Ga for finding and reading and reviewing this fic (and for the birthday wishes :))

anyone who has me on their author alert thingy (technical term ;)) may want to read the notes at the end of the chapter.

enjoy :)

Masked Happiness

Chapter 22: Later

He remembered a time, recent enough that the memory was vivid in his mind, when he had sat, looking up at the stars; sleepless, restless and wishing that someone, anyone at all, would take the time to sit with him. He had been so... alone. He wouldn't have cared if they had taken the time to talk or listen or if they had just sat silently, he just wanted someone with him. Another human being who wouldn't find him so repulsive that they purposely went out of their way to avoid him.

Sitting here now, with Sakura curled up and sleeping next to him, Gaara felt like his loneliness which had felt so suffocatingly heavy for so long had been brushed to one side as easily as the lightest of curtains. Who knew it could be so easy? He had wanted company because he thought it might ease some of the awful tension that seemed perpetually coiled within him. He hadn't known it would, for a short time, erase it completely.

Gaara laid back, hands cradling his head to protect it from the cold hardness of the rooftop, feeling temporarily yet completely at ease and watching the sky change shades before his eyes. The inky black gave way to the silky grey of a moth's wing, continuing to lighten incrementally from minute to minute. The reflection of the colours shimmered in his unclosing eyes, never missing a second and when it was over and a new day had begun he felt more rested than he could remember. The ever changing colours of the sky mirrored his life, all life; nothing stayed the same and he'd confront the next stage as it came.

Looking down at Sakura, snuffling softly in her sleep and curled into an impossibly tight ball that Gaara knew she would regret before the hour was over, he knew he had to face the next stage, had to face what was coming. He just wished that stage would arrive faster because heads would roll if it didn't.

Her head ached beyond belief. It wasn't so much a head as a giant, throbbing mass of heavy atop her shoulders. Her giant, throbbing mass of heavy ached beyond belief.

Sakura groaned as the sun warmed her face. The bright orange she could see that was the first rays of the day penetrating the thin skin of her lids made her head protest painfully. She heard a quiet chuckle from somewhere far over her head.

"Not a morning person?" Lifting her head slowly and squinting disdainfully at the obnoxiously bright red head obscuring the sun, she regarded him for a moment before putting her head back down and covering it with her pillow, half suffocating herself.

"What do you think?" Came her muffled reply, the venom leached out of her voice from exhaustion and the pillow she half swallowed as she spoke. The quiet chuckle came again and brought several trains of thought with it. 'Why's he in such a good mood? Too early to be in a good mood. He's never in a good mood. Don't think I've ever heard him laugh, not really. Wonder why. Oh, my head hurts...'

Sakura removed the pillow from her face and slowly managed to sit up. "Maybe I should've grabbed two pillows." She muttered.

"That one taste bad?"

Sakura scowled up at Gaara and noticed that he was simply standing with his arms crossed, watching her and clearly very amused. She wasn't.

"Why are you so happy?" She growled rhetorically, feeling miserable. He was being far too happy, too much of a morning person - 'like mum' - and it was annoying (and saddening) her to no end. She just wanted to go to sleep somewhere (comfortable) and here he was looking well-rested and happy and ready to face the day. She wanted to sleep.

She squinted up at him again and noticed for the first time that even though it was true, that he looked like all of those things to her; his smile was faint and the only indication of his drive was the flash of determination in his eyes, both of which she was sure most others would miss. She was already so used to him.

For a moment she wondered whether that was such a good idea. She had no concrete reason to trust him and even though she wanted to earn her friend's trust back she didn't particularly want to go all out to make new ones, she didn't have the headspace to try or the energy to see it through right now. Then again, looking at him, he seemed just like her. They were both the same in that moment. Both unsure of where they were going and what they were doing and just wishing for a friend who wouldn't ask questions. She knew she was, and he clearly had many things he wouldn't or couldn't tell her. She didn't care, she welcomed the company, and she supposed that everything else that came with it - the lack of any good reason to trust him - was irrelevant in the end, she didn't need it.

The thought made her smile for the briefest of moments before realising that this was just one of many traits, one of her many personality flaws that made her a terrible ninja.

Levering herself up with a moan she stood, swaying slightly on the spot and rubbing her eyes. Gaara couldn't help his smirk; she looked so much younger with her hair a large, frizzy, pink mop and her balled up hands rubbing her eyes like that. It was so easy to forget for a moment just how many problems the girl had. His smirk faded long before her bleary eyes returned to his face.

"You coming to school today?" Gaara asked. It was an honest question; she looked better than she had yesterday but not so much that her appearance wouldn't raise questions if anyone bothered to notice her. Though, from past experience there was a good chance that wouldn't happen and he knew it. The situation was complicated and he didn't know what course of action she would take, not knowing himself which he would choose and feeling like he couldn't blame her for either.

"How do I look?" She asked instead. He hesitated, unsure of how to answer.

"Fine...?" He said after a moment, his unsureness over the question turning his answer into another one. This conversation was getting nowhere fast.

"Guess I'm going to school then." She said it with a sigh. It was obvious that she didn't want to go and yet it was equally obvious she didn't want to stay. As much as Gaara was in a tough spot himself at the moment, he didn't envy her or her life at all.

She was so not looking forward to this. As Sakura walked towards the double doors that would lead her into the school she tried to think of all the things that might make this easier. She would be disappearing into the nearest room she could find at lunchtime and there was no way she was sticking around at the end of the day no matter what anyone said or did. Even so, she was so not looking forward to this.

She knew she had to tone down her anxiety, her hands kept wringing together and Gaara was casting her strange, sidelong glances as they made their way to the large and needlessly imposing double doors. She hated those doors. Walking through them she looked around, noticing that though everything was obviously familiar, there were little differences here and there. Graffiti - probably Naruto caused or inspired... he had fans like that Konohamaru kid and she wouldn't have put it past him to do some hero-worshipping with a spray-can - one of the bins had moved positions and there was a small hole in the wall. They were minute differences, ones that on their own no one else would notice, whether they had been there for the events or not. But together they changed the look of this particular space of corridor and Sakura knew the rest of the school would be the same.

Tiny differences that made her feel like it had been years not days since she had last come here. Like she no longer belonged here. Like while she had been fighting her inner demons in order to fight her outer ones the world had moved on and forgotten about her. She couldn't understand the sadness that seemed to seep from the floor upwards, sinking into her, making her feel alone despite the fact that Gaara was still standing beside her. She unconsciously wished, for a moment, that she had been remembered.

Unfortunately she found her wish coming true as Naruto rounded the corner at the end of the hall, saw pink and ran the length of it to tackle her. Gaara didn't look impressed from his own position on the floor next to Sakura. Evidently he had been standing a little too close. In truth it had been an absent-mindedly protective stance he had adopted. One he regretted now. He looked over Sakura's fuzzy pink head and glared at Naruto. Sitting between them and slightly shorter than both, Sakura looked up to her left and her right repeatedly, from pissed-off-Gaara to the blissfully unaware Naruto and back again. This was really not her day.

She learnt to look on the bright side quickly as Sasuke came into view and she realised that now she had a good excuse for looking like a complete mess. The ever-friendly Naruto reached a hand over Sakura's head, shoving it into Gaara's face.

"Hi! You're new aren't you? I'm Naruto." He spoke a little too loudly and Sakura felt her head spin for a moment at the onslaught. She hadn't eaten breakfast. Though she had a very very good reason. She didn't have any to eat. She doubted she should tell any of her friends that; she didn't think they would see that as a 'good' reason. Gaara's vigilant eyes narrowed as he saw Sakura lose focus for a moment, secretly steadying her with his left hand which he had braced himself on before and now, having regained composure and balance, he didn't need. With his right he reached slowly upwards to the hand in his face and awkwardly shook it once, narrowed eyes shifting to Naruto. He said nothing but that had never put Naruto off before and it didn't now. "So where are you from?"

Sasuke, who had been standing close enough to hear the conversation - despite half the school being able to - and far enough away to pretend he knew none of those included in the brightly haired mess on the floor, hit Naruto lightly upside the head. "Shut up Dobe, you're giving me a headache."

Naruto looked up at him and, despite the grin, Sasuke could tell he was about to whine. He didn't when he noticed that the corridor was almost empty and that Sasuke's glare had intensified a little. He swallowed the words but continued to grin and stood quickly with a little too much energy, bouncing on his toes to regain balance. Gaara stood slowly and surreptitiously moved his left hand from Sakura's back to her side, holding it out a little to help her up. She took a moment to steady herself before taking the offered hand carefully, both of their hands dropping simultaneously as soon as she was on her feet.

Naruto was oblivious, looking at each face with a broad grin that wasn't returned. Sasuke had noticed it all. He had noticed Sakura's pale skin, her messier than usual hair, the way she looked somehow thinner than she had two days ago, obviously still malnourished, and the moment she had lost focus because of said malnourishment (and Naruto's loudness). Sasuke didn't know why he decided to pretend he hadn't. He had gone to school yesterday and she hadn't been there and he had felt... well, bad. And confused. She wouldn't tell him what was wrong.

She wouldn't get help despite very clearly being hurt and half-starved. Her mother hadn't been seen for awhile (he hadn't asked, he had just happened to be in the right place at the right time to hear talk in the markets about Sakura's mum... and it had taken hours of mindless traipsing in the cold evening air with his freezing hands shoved deep in his pockets for that right moment to come along, he remembered bitterly).

She was in trouble. Obviously. So why wasn't she asking for help?

'Why didn't you fight back?'

The question, his question, his voice seemed to float in the air between them, an invisible barrier that stopped either of them from making eye contact. She was still angry and annoyed and resentful... and pitiful and pathetic and weak. He was confused. And guilty. Very guilty. But the question seemed a fair one to him and she had run away - despite the state she had been in - instead of answering. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, but he knew he needed it. He couldn't help if he didn't know what the problem was.

Sakura kept her head down and was glad Gaara got the hint as he walked away in the direction of their lockers and she followed, watching his shoes thud softly on the old, greying linoleum. She didn't feel comfortable around Sasuke. She felt like she owed him for helping her the other day and at the same time she was so frustrated. The anger was bleeding away with time but his words stung, especially since he didn't know why or how much.

Gaara didn't say a word as they each quickly got ready for their class, rushing to get there before their teacher. Which basically meant that they had all the time in the world. Moving into the room, Gaara took his usual seat and Sakura walked carefully across the room to hers, painfully bumping a desk with her hip on the way as she struggled to remain in control of her shaky limbs.

She stifled the sound that tried to claw its way out of her throat as the pain shot through her a second after she had apologised to the person sitting behind it. She almost ran the rest of the way to her desk, flopping down into it and holding in a groan. She might as well have thrown herself at the desk. Her hip throbbed and she knew she'd have a bruise. Fantastic, her day kept getting better and better.

She didn't notice Gaara's eyes or the flicker of worry in them as he saw every tiny detail of the incident and the way she stared fixedly at her desk afterwards, concentrating on the pain. She also didn't noticed Sasuke, facing away from her until he picked up the sound of her hip bone hitting the desk, her mumbled apology and her sharp intake of breath. He watched her out of the corner of his eye until she moved behind him and to his other side. He glanced at her to see her watching her desk, concentration etched into the slight frown line in the centre of her forehead. He wondered with a depth of sadness he didn't completely understand if there was now another mark on her skin to go with the others.

It was hard for him not to notice in the next hours just how avidly she was ignoring him. Kakashi was surprisingly early - for him, which meant that they only had to wait half an hour - and as they discussed and were lectured about mission tactics in specific situations and weather conditions, Sakura concentrated just a little too much on his words and her desk and Sasuke concentrated just a little too much on Sakura.

When the bell rang out, deafening them all and bringing a fogginess to Sakura's vision for a moment as it bounced around her head, making it throb together with her hip; everyone in the room stood, stretching muscles sore from lack of use and slowly making their way to food and a break that, at this moment, seemed well-deserved.

"Sakura."

Her own promise reverberated in her head over and over, taking the place of the prolonged ring of the school bell. She had only been able to enter the school building that morning because she had told herself, reassured herself that no matter what she wouldn't have to deal with this. She was going to disappear between classes. Three hours later and that promise came to nothing. Her name was all that needed to be said and Sakura's eyes shut tight, trying to block the world out.

When it didn't work she tried to pass it off as an especially long blink and sighed quietly as she collected her books as slowly as she could. Kakashi would wait and she wasn't about to have whatever conversation he thought was necessary with an audience.

Eventually everyone had left the room, Gaara, Sasuke and Naruto taking their time but eventually getting the hint and closing the door behind them. Before Naruto, the last one to leave, closed the door he looked at Sakura and somehow she caught the glance. The look he gave her made her want to cry because in that instant she knew that he knew. Or suspected. He suspected that something was wrong. She hadn't protected that last fragile, innocent bond of friendship she thought she had done so well to shield from the mess that was her life. It had been affected, tainted. Just like everything else. Her hip throbbed in unison with her head and she wanted to curl into a miserable ball.

Instead she swallowed the emotion, promising 'later, I'll deal with you later' and pushing it away to a different corner of her mind. She approached Kakashi's desk cautiously and he sat behind it and ignored her as he continued to pore over paperwork. She couldn't fight the smile, despite everything. She waited patiently with an eyebrow raised, he was getting old; re-using tactics like this. If this was the type of mood Kakashi was in she figured it would be pretty easy to sidestep the drama this time. He took longer than he had last time and when she saw him open his mouth to speak she pre-empted him. Just because she was going to do this didn't mean she had to take her time. Or be subtle.

"You called me over Kakashi-sensei, and I'm fine."

She could just make out the smirk behind the mask.

"I see you've been practising your precognition, but believe it or not that wasn't actually what I wanted to talk to you about." He said it all with a smile and Sakura smiled back thinking, 'Like hell it wasn't.'

He decided he didn't need to expand on his previous statement and Sakura felt her patience fraying at the edges. "Um, what did you want to talk to me about then?" She said eventually, hoping the waver in her voice sounded like timidity and not impatience. 'Alright, I'll bite, what are you up to?'

"Hmm? Oh, I'd like a good reason as to why you thought you could skip out of school yesterday."

She tried to bite back the annoyance, she really did, but he was better at noticing the tiny details in a person's face than she was at hiding them and he couldn't have missed the flash of annoyance - almost anger - as it sizzled like lightening in her eyes for a brief moment before disappearing again. He knew he would get a reaction out of her by approaching the situation like an uncaring, objective teacher when they both knew he wasn't and she knew he had angled it that way to get a reaction. Why disappoint?

Through the annoyance Sakura tried to think of a response as he was clearly expecting one. She tried not to smirk.

"I was feeling a little under the weather."

She saw his frown at those tiny details on her face, once again silently giving her away. The slight curve to her lip that told him he had missed a joke. Given her recent behaviour he wasn't entirely sure that she even found the joke funny, which was worrying. He didn't want to consider that her state of mind was really that bad. More secrets, he realised, disappointed. He was puzzled at how much truth he could see there was in her statement and a little worried at what that meant. Had she been very sick? Had it been intentional?

Sakura didn't even realise the path Kakashi's thoughts might take him down, thinking too logically and seeing the funny side to a miserable situation. 'He can't get me for lying 'cos I wasn't' she thought triumphantly, 'no roof over my head... believe me, I definitely felt the weather last night.'

"Are you feeling alright now?" He asked in all seriousness. She absently wondered if she was becoming hysterical as she tried not to giggle, freely giving away details about her new rooftop home to someone who would never get their relevance.

"Fine, 'top of the world." He gave her a strange, worried look and she kept a straight face. Somehow. "I think I need to have a break and some lunch though," she continued, knowing when she was pushing her luck, "so..."

She trailed off as she lifted her belongings a little higher against her chest and started towards the door, only mildly surprised that Kakashi said and did nothing to stop her. Her semi-good mood vanished. She was too alone to feel optimistic.

Optimism seemed to agree that Sakura didn't deserve any. No sooner had she left the room before she heard her name spoken behind her. 'Oh, for crying out loud!' She whirled on Sasuke, clearly not too happy. To his credit he didn't flinch away. Much.

"Sakura," he said again, "are you ok?"

Too many violent and bloody images accompanied her anger and flashed through her mind for her to form a rational sentence within its maelstrom, let alone say it aloud (without swearing), so instead she composed herself quickly and spared him a single nod before walking in the opposite direction. She was furious. She'd be 'ok' when she had her life back. Considering none of them could help her with that, was it too much to ask for them to leave her alone? She hated that she seemed to be at war with herself. One minute she hated the loneliness, the next she craved it. She was a mess.

She went straight for the girl's bathroom, nudging it open with her hip because her hands were full of books still, before biting her lip hard against the forgotten pain that had just surged through her once again. She swore, hoping that no one would be in the room. Noticing the cubicles were empty she moved to the sink and dumped her belongings on the bench beside it.

She placed both hands, palms down on the cool surface and leant forward, braced on her forearms. Looking in the mirror had lately been a horrifying daily activity she couldn't escape from. With wisps of pink in her face and other bits sticking up haphazardly around her head, somehow highlighting her paleness and the rings beneath her eyes, she found she didn't care so much anymore. 'Damn,' she thought, 'I'm getting used to this, I don't want to get used to this!'

She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, before standing back from the bench, lifting the red fabric of her dress and lowering the top of her black shorts to get a good look at her hip. She groaned. She hadn't felt the blood. She spared a glance at her other hip and realised the bone was becoming much more pronounced. She was getting too thin. For some reason she didn't find that thought too horrifying, but she pushed it aside. She released her hold on her clothes, the material brushing the bloodied area and making her groan again, from both the renewed fire it sent through her skin and the knowledge that she had just bloodied up one of the few outfits she had for the moment - she could hardly grab more whenever she wanted and she couldn't exactly sneak back into the house to use the washing machine.

Sakura grabbed some toilet paper, dampened it and rushed back to the mirror, once again exposing the slight wound and with the damp tissue she cleaned it up. She noticed as she did so that it was because the bone was becoming more pronounced that it had been as bad as it was. Her skin was almost translucent and stretched taut, too thinly over the bone, easily tearing when it should simply have bruised. She cleaned it as best she could and with some clean toilet paper she covered the area and let her clothes cover it again.

It hurt, and she knew it would be worse when she tried to take the makeshift dressing back off again but she needed to stop any bleeding and keep it covered for now. 'Later, I'll deal with it later.' But the mental cupboard she was holding her emotions in was beginning to burst at the seams.

The afternoon passed slowly. Particularly the forty long minutes she had spent hiding out in the bathroom. She had promised herself she would stay away from people, escape when she could. And she was. When the bell rang for the beginning of afternoon classes she left, feeling slightly relieved to be away from the impending claustrophobia the small room threatened and more than a little disheartened that she had to stay for the long afternoon hours.

They passed uneventfully. Slowly. The weather was worsening, going from cold to cloudy. The lack of rain made the air humid as it hung heavily in the air above. Sakura was not looking forward to tonight. She didn't want to be out in what looked to be turning into quite a storm. As it was, the weather made the afternoon bad enough, making the heavy air stifling and everything seem too slow. She was so bored that for a lot of the time she doodled on her desk and spare pages of books and the looks from Kakashi went unnoticed. It was only his voice, slightly louder and more authoritive that broke her out of her state of mental hibernation.

"And remember everyone, that tomorrow is a training day. I know some of you forget," His eyes passed over Sakura, "so no excuses for missing tomorrow, as I have so graciously just reminded you all." The bell rang as if on cue and he stood with the air of someone who wanted to leave just as desperately as his students, "Ok, dismissed, get out, go." Evidently, the afternoon hadn't just been slow for Sakura.

She slowly stood whilst most others ran as fast as they could out the door. She watched, a little amused, as everyone tried to crowd out at once and they jammed in the doorway, hands in faces and accidentally kicked legs making people protest loudly. Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi stayed out of the fray like Sakura. Gaara had disappeared somehow, she assumed into the crowd, eager to get away from all the people he had thrown himself amongst.

Eventually four people somehow managed to cram their way out of the doorframe at once and the flow of students went a lot smoother. Sakura was surprised to see Naruto still in the room. He was usually first out the door. No, he was usually the one with his hand in someone's face and his foot in someone's shin.

"Hey Naruto," Sakura said as she passed, "see you tomorrow?" Sasuke, who always took his time, was behind them as she spoke and noticed her tone of voice. There was a tinge of hope in it. That just made his curiosity burn more.

Naruto looked at Sakura a moment too long without answering, before he smiled his usual smile and gathered his books in a big messy heap, barely able to hang on to it all. "Yeah, 'course. Oh hey! We should all go to Ichiraku for lunch! Kakashi can pay." He said with a grin.

"He can not." Kakashi muttered with a secret smile they all knew was there as he slipped out the door with a wave and a wink.

"He will, don't worry." Naruto whispered conspirationally. "Hey, Sakura-chan, are you ok?"

Sakura knew Sasuke was waiting for her to hit Naruto for asking; waiting for her to explode. He had seen her annoyance... her anger when he had asked. But she didn't feel that toward Naruto. She felt a wave of stifling sadness that she hadn't kept her secrets better and had tainted their friendship, whether Naruto knew it or not.

"Yeah," She murmured, trying to sound happy, or at least not sad and coming off as neither. She sounded dead and knew she was making it worse so she smiled. "I'm fine Naruto. See you tomorrow at training 'k?"

"Yup, and Ichiraku afterwards too, don't forget." She smiled at how happy he was, at how easily he brushed aside her mood. That's exactly what she needed right now. Someone to treat her normally and let her believe she was for a little while before she had to face a night out in the open on her rooftop in the coming storm. Nothing could deflate Naruto's mood and she drew strength from that. Her smile grew and his did in response.

She moved to the door and still smiling turned to Naruto and behind him Sasuke. "See ya." She turned again, feeling some shadow of her old self stir in her heart as she stifled a laugh at how shocked Sasuke had just looked.

Sasuke was baffled. So, she was just angry with him then. Either that or she was incredibly happy with Naruto at the moment. He sighed. She must be really pissed. He hated that he only had himself to blame.

"You're late."

"Ha! For what?"

Gaara gave Sakura a look as she finished half-stumbling, half-climbing onto the rooftop. She smirked at his silence.

"I didn't know we had plans tonight." She continued to tease with a lighter heart despite how physically she felt tired and weak and like absolute crap. There was a very small part of her mind that wondered at her mood-swings. At how easily she seemed to go from miserable to angry to happy these days. At how happy she seemed now despite the situation. At how far she would fall when that happiness dissipated like the insubstantial fog it was.

Sakura brushed the thoughts aside, the mental cupboard of hers groaning as she tried to hold all of those suppressed emotions inside it. 'Later...'

"Are you staying out here again?" She asked Gaara, looking at the bruised sky. The black and blue effect of the clouds made her think of her neck. And her hip. She didn't want to look at it now in case it looked too gruesome. One more thing to do at some other time. She wondered if she would actually find time for it or just leave it to solve itself on its own. Or to fester, as wounds tend to do.

Gaara gave her a different look; whatever he was deciding, it involved running his eyes over her small form. Assessing her.

"Yeah." He said with quiet seriousness.

"Well that's stupid." Sakura said frankly. His eyes widened ever so slightly and he raised one eyebrow. "You have a house right? A roof? Wouldn't it be smarter to stay there tonight?" She said, indicating the heavy, rain-filled clouds. He looked at her for a long moment, so many things he could say, so many things she was expecting. So many questions it would raise if he asked what she just had. Instead he flicked a cursory glance at the sky, saying;

"The rain won't fall tonight, shouldn't 'til tomorrow morning." She smiled and pulled her blankets and pillow towards her, curling up and trying to get warm as quickly as possible.

"Well. That's alright then."

Gaara smirked.

If anyone doesnt get the reference at the beginning of the conversation with Kakashi, its in chapter 15 - re-reading the beginning of that conversation will make this one make more sense.... its getting late so I'm not sure if that made sense :)

Oh, and I've noticed I've been swearing a little bit... sorry if that offends anyone, but I figure it would be unrealistic with everything Sakura's going through to not have her swearing about it - and lets face it, there are worse things in this fic to be offended about ;) - speaking of which, next chapter should be a bit heavy (the 'storm' isnt just literal... although it is that too... they're gonna get soaked) - so count this as a warning if anything so far has offended you... its gonna get worse... sorry :)

hope you liked the chapter, will update again around christmas (im trying to finish this fic before new years... probably wont happen but hey, faster updates :) - and sorry in advance for the next 12 days to anyone who has me on author alert who doesnt like the show criminal minds... i hope i dont lose any readers because of the twelve annoying emails you're gonna get (cos you all rock so much... if i dont update soon enough merry christmas people and thanks so much for reading, next chapter should get interesting!!! :)

have fun x