CHAPTER 3

Saturday was spent at home in rest and they didn't receive their vampire friends's visit. Although Tony was feeling slightly sad about that, he understood that sometimes they had to attend business with the rest of the family and that it was quite normal for them to spend one night apart. On Sunday, however, things started to happen.

Gala was exhausted because she'd spent all Saturday doing part of her artwork, so she needed rest and she was willing to sleep in as much as she could. However she got a call on her cell phone at twelve a.m. She hadn't registered the name, but apparently the person who was phoning her did have access to her number.

"Hello?" she groaned into the device as she stretched all her muscles.

"Hello, am I speaking to Gala Thompson?" a male voice with a thick Scottish accent answered.

"Yep, partner. What do you want?"

"I wanted to... erhm... I was wondering if you'd go on a date with me"

Her eyes shot open and she focused.

"Who is this again?"

"I'm sorry... I didn't say... it's me, Paul Redmove... from school" the guy was starting to get nervous.

"Oh, yeah, the one who called me Yankee girl. Yes, I remember you"

"Uh..."

"And the answer is yes"

"Really?" now the boy sounded excited.

"I don't see why I can't give you a chance"

"You won't regret it, promise! I'll pick you up this afternoon at four, all right? Riding is fine with you?"

"Riding is perfectly fine with me. See you at four!"

"Thank you"

She hung up and stared at her cell. Did she just accept to have a date with the blonde heart throbbing Paul? She tried to picture him and remembered the long blond hair and the tall, sweet body, but for some reason the only face her mind would want to conjure was not his, but that of an insufferable young vampire with evil ways and horrible manners.

She showered and washed her head yet again, leaving it to dry naturally. Then she tied it into a loose pony tail and applied some light make-up on her face. She finally decided on jeans and a black, long sleeved shirt with the words "Queen of Chaos" written all over it in gothic fount. Converse and two small silver hoops for earrings and she was all done.

"I'm going out at four" she announced as she entered the kitchen to have lunch.

Dottie eyed her meaningfully and beamed.

"Is it a boy?" she questioned.

"Yes, he is. Name's Paul, hair's blond and longish, eyes' I don't remember which colour they are and he's tall and hot" she summed it all up as she stuck her fork into the baked pork and ate a bite.

Tony looked at her in disbelief.

"What about Gregory?" he asked.

"He's an ass"

"Who's Gregory?" Bob asked without taking his eyes off the paper he was currently reading.

"Rudolph's older brother" Tony and her answered at the same time.

"He's your age?"

"I think so, or a year older, I couldn't really tell"

"He's forever eighteen!" exclaimed Tony, grinning like mad.

Dottie and Bob exchanged an exhasperated look, obviously wondering what crazy and weird thing was going through their son's brain at the moment.

"So this Paul... is he a nice boy?"

"Yeah, he's decent" she stuffed her mouth with the pork and drank a large gulp of water.

Paul and his horse Theoden stood right outside the castle gates at five to four. His stance was proud and confident without seeming arrogant.

'Not like some other guy I happen to know' she mentally hissed.

She smiled at him and mounted on Boannan, her backpack already in place.

Gala took a look at him, his checked shirt opened to reveal a white one underneath, and baggy jeans that were just a little too low cut for her taste. She preferred that the jeans stayed in place, particularly if during a make out session she felt the need to grope his ass. But his eyes, which looked genuinely excited, made her forget about all the rest. She had almost missed how handsome he really was at school.

"Shall we get going?" he softly asked.

She took one long glance back, sure that Tony and Dottie were spying on her from his window, and nodded, setting Boannan at a quick trotting pace.

Tony waited impatiently for Rudolph, filling that afternoon with creating drawings about his dreams. He knew Gala drew so much better than him, and went inside her room for a bit. He always discovered where she kept her drawings. Besides, she was really fast at it so it was quite possible that she had drawn some of their new friends by now. After half an hour's search, he discovered a loose wooden girden on the floor. He beamed as he uncovered her work, and awed himself at the marvellous new pictures she'd created.

There was one of Rudolph and Anna, their dresses slightly altered: Rudolph's clothes were a little more elaborate, and he was wearing the Attamon jewel on his chest. The boy looked a little older in the drawing that he really was in real life, about fourteen years old, and Anna looked even older, around fifteen or sixteen, but her features were perfectly recognizable. However, the dress was far more intricate, with lace and silk details all over the place. The coiffure was also different than the long hair Anna usually sported: it was tied up in a very complicated style, pearls embedded into each lock. A golden diadem also with the Attamon jewel in the centre of her forehead gave her an even more beautiful look.

But then Tony saw the red folder. He knew it was for special drawings, because it had been a present from her late mother. He carefully opened it, scanning each piece of art, a unique design made by his extraordinarily talented cousin. But the last one was the best without doubt. It was a painting of a young man (for she had painted it with soft, watery strokes and light colours), leaning carelessly against a twisted tree, looking into the distance. The moon was full, a comet close by, and the light of the satellite caressed the boy. It was undoubtedly Gregory, though she had changed some parts of him: his hair was no longer in spikes and different colours, but falling in brown tones around his face until it reached the ears and the beginning of the nape of his neck in an arrow kind of style. The rest was shaved.

He gazed at her way of picturing Gregory. At the bottom of it she'd written two words: "If only".

"What are you doing?" Rudolph's voice called him from behind.

"Just... looking through my sisters's stuff" he put it away carefully, back inside the folder.

"That's not very nice, Tony" said Anna, entering the room. She kneeled next to him and scolded him with her steady gaze, which then immediately fell onto the drawing of herself. Rudolph also came closer and looked at it.

"Gala did this? It's brilliant!" Anna said, running a gentle finger across the more defined and adult version of her cheek.

"Speaking of Gala... where is she?" Rudolph questioned.

"She went out with a guy"

"What?" Anna asked, dumbfounded "But I thought she liked Gregory"

"Apparently, Gregory wasn't very nice to her the other night"

"But he's in love with her"

"I'm not in love with anyone, don't start with your inventions" a deeper voice said from the window.

"Oh, hush, you big goof!" Anna's imitation of their mother was so perfect Rudolph grinned and Tony laughed.

"Anna, don't" Gregory warned, walking over to where they kneeled. He stared at the drawing for a minute "Not bad" he muttered under his breath.

Tony knew Gala would murder him if he showed Gregory the painting she'd done of him, so he said nothing else. Suddenly, there was a cry downstairs.

"I'm home!"

"Crap!" Tony put everything back where he'd found it and made sure the girden was in its place before they all walked back as quickly as they could to his room and sat on the floor. Gregory stood close to the window, his gaze flickering back to the door every half a second.

"Tony!" the sound of Gala's voice was coming from outside the door.

"We're here!"

She came in, smiling at him and at both Rudolph and Anna, but she stopped dead on her tracks when she saw Gregory. He pierced her with his gaze but said nothing.

"How did the date go?" Tony asked as she sat on the floor next to them all.

Gala's date had been theoretically perfect. Paul had behaved accordingly to a gentleman, his manners impeccable and his ideas excepcional. It would've been the dream date except for the guy himself. But seeing as the only guy who could actually make her happy was gazing at her like she was no more than a ghost, she turned to exaggerating it a great deal.

"It was just marvellous! Fantastic! He took me on the date of my life!"

Her voice inflection was good, but Anna, an expert on body language, was told differently by her gestures. The permanent almost undetectable frown right next to her left eyebrow clearly stated that she hadn't throughly enjoyed it and that she was forcing out feelings she didn't really have. And she saw one too many glances out of the corner of her eye at somewhere almost behind her. Her gaze travelled almost instinctively towards Gregory. But she was a smart kid and she knew that if she was putting up all this show it was merely to bother the oldest vampire there. Tony and Rudolph seemed to be totally won over by her descriptions of the landscape and the way Paul looked in the sun. She did a good job, that much was clear, she knew how to verbally lie. But she wasn't that skilled at lying with the rest of her body.

Gregory was also pretty perceptive about body language, but he didn't seem to be focusing on it. Instead, his dark ayes were boring into Gala's back with an intensity she'd rarely seen in him. It took less than ten minutes to drive him outside the window. Anna followed suit and stopped him right as he was about to take flight.

"You know she doesn't really fancy him" she told him with a soft tone.

"What do I care? She can be with boys, as many as she wants to have" but he was too furious to be able to lie swiftly.

"You know that's not true either. It bothers you, and rightly so"

"Anna, for once in your life, don't mess with my head!" he snapped, transforming into a vampire at once.

Anna shrugged.

'They will eventually realise' she comforted herself.

Gregory arrived home and went to a corner to sulk. Freda tried to soothe him somehow, but the forever teenager would only bark at her cold responses.

He didn't want to believe it. All right, so he'd been an ass two nights ago. But the inexplicable, steel-strong pull she felt towards the girl was still there. He'd wanted to kiss her in that moment, but he knew it would only make things more complicated. He had never encountered someone like her, someone who he felt such a connection to. And he knew perfectly well she felt that for him too, despite her hiding it. He wasn't good with feelings. Rudolph wasn't either, he was sometimes selfish and downright shy when it came to girls, but at least he didn't sound like a jerk most of the time and scare them off. Anna was the one with sensitivity, but of course, she was one of them. A member of the opposite sex, the gender that was so utterly confusing and impossible to understand. They adored the idea of love, but then they didn't know how to recognize it when it hit them in the face. Oh, NO! He could NOT be thinking that he was in love with Gala! That was just uncalled for! So she was beautiful, and he'd love to ravish every piece of skin on her body, and make love to her all night long... but that was just lust and desire. Or was it? He felt the need to protect her, to show her that he cared, to prove that he wasn't the ass she thought him to be. He wanted to go back in time and kiss her full in the mouth. Then she wouldn't have gone on that "date" with that other man. What if that guy was better looking than he himself was? What about his charm? He knew virtually nothing about this boy, except for his liking towards Gala. And he didn't even know if that was real, based on the boring picnic he'd organised. A picnic? Really? He would've taken her riding, yes, but they would've gone deep into the forest, explored it in its depth, get dirty with the leaves, watch the animals as they interacted with one another, and then fly.

Oh, yes, he would've taken her flying. And she would've loved it. So he decided he would. Tonight.

The Attamon stone would have to wait one more night.

It was ten p.m when Gala decided to change into her pyjamas and take out her drawing pad. However, inspiration proved hard to come, because her pencil remained still while her brain tried to come up with a picture she was willing to represent. Why couldn't she draw? Normally she had no trouble imagining things and conjuring people. She'd had the idea of drawing Paul riding his horse, but for some reason she just couldn't picture his face. She howled in anger. It had been hours since she'd seen him last and she was already forgetting about his face! Why? Exhausted, she went to bed. She had to get some sleep.

Gregory landed on the balcony only to find the doors closed. He could force them open, but peeping inside the room he could see Gala sleeping on her bed, the red hair sprayed on the pillow and her eyes shut. But her sleep didn't seem to be peaceful, because there was a frown on her forehead which meant her dreams weren't being particularly satisfactory. With a final sigh, Gregory took off.

/I wanted to thank everyone who has read and reviewed the story, it really means a lot to me. I've always been in love with the Little Vampire but it wasn't until now that I decided to create a fanfic. Gregory's always been a huge favourite of mine and they gave him little protagonism in the film. Anyway, Rudolph also deserves to have some romance, but I think I'll leave that until after they turn human, although we all know that he looks so much better as a vampire. But the two having simultaneous relationships, especially with his age being nine, just looked a little unrealistic. Anyway, thanks again/