Thank you for the favourites and reviews once again! Sorry this one is a little later. It's the end of school and the homework's starting to pour in...

Chapter 3~

"I told you I done my best!" Violet was sat cradling a mug of tea in between her hands while Constance paced the kitchen in front of her.

It was clear that the two females weren't getting on due to the amount of sizzling tension that radiated between them. Violet's eyes glared daggers into the back of the woman's white blouse.

"Well it obviously wasn't good enough."

"Well excuse me. I never promised you anything, remember? I only said I would try and I done that so lay off." Violet was mad. Very mad with the way Constance thought she could treat her. She always strolled into the house as if it were her own and started demanding people of things. Why couldn't she do her jobs herself? Lazy bitch.

"For the last time Tate will only listen to you. He is stubborn as you know and he is never going to do as I say so you have to keep trying."

"What more could I possibly do? I took the drugs away from him, which for a start will help clear his mind and make him easier to talk to, but I doubt there is much more I could do that I feel willing to go ahead with." Violet stared into the creamy mixture of liquid in the mug and watched it as it swirled around delicately.

"Forgive him. That's all you need to do."

Violet glared up at Constance. "You've got to be kidding me" was written in her eyes, even in her facial expression.

"Just tell him you forgive him. You don't actually have to mean it."

"I'm not going to lie."

"Why not? You've told many before."

"Not to him."

"So?"

"I don't bloody want to!" Violet kicked the chair back with a loud scrape and exited the room, mug still in her hand. Constance followed. "Piss off; I don't want to talk to you." She spat to the woman following closely on her heels.

"You are just scared." Constance said. "Scared of the feelings you still have for him and frightened of what you might do if you see him again." Violet spun around. "You still have deep feelings for him, I can tell. And one day you are going to have to admit that, even to yourself."

"I feel nothing for him not after what he has done."

"It's written in your eyes, your love for my boy." Constance's fingers came up to stroke the smooth skin of Violet's face. "Oh, bless your soul for falling for him." Violet could only stare. "You're the only one who can save him." She whispered. "His love for you is stronger than I ever imagined and his redemption can only be made through you."

Violet pulled away when Constance brushed her hair away from her face like a mother would a child.

"I'm not going to force you." Constance admitted. "But I want you to help him. I don't care how, but just help him."

"Who says what I do can ever help him?"

"Because it's the power of love and Tate relies too much on it. His emotions are always the things that keep him grounded or make him loose his normality. If he can't grasp the feeling of love you give him, he will try to reach a high through the drugs and who knows what kind of crazy thing he will end up doing when that happens. Take the school shooting as an example. The drugs affected him in that way. He couldn't stop."

"I'm sure he could have. He didn't need to take the drugs in the first place. Everyone can get better on their own; they just need the willpower to do so."

"And that's what Tate lacks. Willpower. He has none. He needs guidance, like a young boy. His exterior may be of a teenager, but really, deep down, he is an innocent. You need to teach him how to be strong, that's what is so compelling about you. Your strength."

"I'm not that strong..."

"Considering what you have been through you are. You're a very level headed girl and Tate's brain doesn't function like yours. He never was strong in the first place otherwise he would have never started to turn out the way he has."

"You ever thought about why he has turned out like that?" Violet's tone was accusing. Her eyes challenging Constance.

"Maybe the loss of his father wasn't the best way for him to grow up, but it's the way life went."

Violet was silent. There really wasn't anything she wanted to say. Nothing that Constance would listen to anyway.

"I'm going to leave you now." Constance said while she looked at her watch. "I won't bother you anymore about him. I will leave the rest up to you to sort out." She turned on queue to leave when Violet panicked.

"Wait!" Violet shouted her voice louder than she had anticipated.

Constance turned, her eyebrows raised.

"What happens if I don't do anything to help him?"

Constance shrugged with a sigh. "I guess it will be like it always was before. But...you're not that type of person. In the end you will break, they always do."

Huh? "I thought you said I was strong?"

Constance grinned. "Not strong enough to hold out forever."

...

Tate stayed in the basement. He wanted to leave, but every time he came to the bottom of the stairs which led up into the house something held him back. He wasn't sure whether it was because he was too afraid to leave the place that had been his safe haven for months or whether it was because he knew that on the other side of that door was Violet. Whatever the reason, it kept his feet on the ground unable to step any further.

He sighed as he sunk to the floor for the fifteenth time after pacing back and forth. It was tiring, draining. He didn't know what to do with himself. Not since Violet had taken the drugs away. He wanted to make her proud so he didn't try stealing them back because he knew it wouldn't get him anywhere and he knew he was better off without them. The drugs had been something to fill the time with and something for him to get lost in and drown out his feelings. Without that it was harder to accept and overcome those feelings he had tried to hold back for some time now. They were painful and choking, but he put up with them because he knew he deserved every single ounce of pain he was feeling.

He had finally decided, as much as it pained him, that he was going to let Violet come to him. He wasn't going to the one going to her. If she really wanted to see him she would return and until then he was just going to have to wait it out. He wanted her to come back to him because she wanted to, not because she felt guilty, or was forced, or just because he wanted her too, it had to be because she was unable to live without him. Tate shook his head at his stupidity. He knew he was going to be waiting a long long time.

...

The hours turned into days, the days turned in weeks, the weeks turned into months. The Murder House was starting to become, ironically enough, dead itself. The ghosts were either miserable or upset in one way or another. There wasn't a spark of happiness in the house, well apart from the rare squeal from the babies, but other than that the house was full of weeping ghosts, mourning over their lost lives.

Violet tried to spend more time with her family, but there were only so much of them and the new addition to the group, her baby brother, that she could endure. Even though his face was cute and she liked to hold and play with him it didn't clear the fact that this baby possibly belonged to Tate. It was sickening just to consider her own step brother sharing the same genes as her ex-boyfriend. It was too messed up. Even for her.

Her hours were spent lying on her bed, listening to music, reading or writing. Her music never seemed to bore her; always a song to fit her mood and the books gave her a sense of freedom. She could lose herself for a couple hours inside of the fictional worlds and characters the author had created. For once she could just imagine that she wasn't part of some sick fictional book herself and read something which took her mind off of her own problems in life and pretend she was normal again.

The books did little to stop her thoughts slipping back to Tate though. As much as she liked to persuade herself that she wasn't in love with him, there was no denying the topic of her thoughts. He just seemed to pop up at any given second. The most simple things would remind her of him. The black chalkboard on her bedroom wall where he had scrawled TAINT across it, the characters in her books that fell in love, the shower tub every time she chose to wash, and her baby brother. They all reminded her one way or another about Tate. The house as a whole was a constant reminder considering she actually slept in the same room that once had been his own. There was no way of escaping him and she felt herself slowly loose her own sanity and slip into the world of insanity. If she couldn't live like this for a couple months how the hell did she expect to live like this for the rest of eternity? The thought made her faith in anything fall and break as easy as a twig getting snapped in half. There had to be more than this...There had to be.

I know this chapter was boring and short, but I felt it was vital to build up the tension between the characters and Chapter 4 will be up in the next of couple days given I get on and finish it, so stay tuned for more action soon! Tate's coming back in the next chapter, yay!

Thanks for reading!