Okay, so here we go another chapter. Now, I have a bit of a problem. As you all know I don't want to rush Winter and Jem's relationship, same with Nala as I don't want her to be calling Jem 'Daddy' straight out the gate. But truth is, since I introduced her in the story, I think I might have to rush it a bit. But I'm trying to slowly build it up as best as I can.

Winter's not going to fall in love with Jem overnight, and Nala isn't going to call him Dad overnight, but I am damn sure going to try and make it work.

Needless to say Jem had ended up sleeping most of the day yesterday. He didn't sleep well the night before and he made up for it. Course the surprising thing was he actually fell asleep while still hugging Winter and Nala. And the two had put him back in his bed to let him relax. Nala was a bit worried because she didn't know why Mr. Jem was so upset. And Winter didn't want to have to explain it to her. But turns out she didn't have to. When she turned on the tv, she noticed how most of the channels were playing remembrance memorials that gave Nala a brief look into why Jem had been so upset.

Needless to say, Winter didn't want Nala to see it, so she sent her outside to play with Zeus and Kirby. But she learned a lot about it from the footage. But as soon as it had stopped playing, she did more research on it.

She was shocked to find that a world they assumed was so peaceful had been plagued so much by death. She learned that Jem's country had been at war for nearly his whole life. Granted, he said he himself never got the chance to deploy. And that the fighting was mostly being down by special operations groups. Deployments hadn't been happening for a long time. After all, he completed his whole contract without deploying. Not for lack of trying mind you.

Course, then the more research she did into this world, she learned this world was a lot more bloody than Remnant. Sure there was Grimm and there was the great war between the faunus and the humans. But there was a lot of history missing from Remnant. And yet Earth's history was well documented.

From wars that spread across continents, to civil wars, and then to the world wars, this world had seen its fair share of bloodshed.

This place wasn't as peaceful as she originally thought.

"Uhhhh." She heard Jem wake up as he was wearing a Burzum sweater and a pair of Pyjamas with a logo of the wolf cross on it.

"You sleep well?" She asked as he nodded.

"Really well." He said as he walked over to the pot of coffee and poured himself a cup.

"You feeling alright?" Winter didn't mean to pry but he seemed upset yesterday.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine, just you know, a bit of an emotional day yesterday." He said as he took a seat against the chair in the motorhome and helped himself to some eggs, bacon and some-

Wait, who cooked breakfast?

"Did you make breakfast?" He asked as it didn't seem real.

"Well, you've been doing it the last few times, I figured I would return the favor." She said as he looked over at his plate.

"...You actually cooked real bacon." He said taking a bite and noticing it was indeed pig.

"Well, as much as I prefer turkey bacon, I figured this would be better for you." She said with a light smile.

"...I mean I like turkey bacon too, but thank you Winter, this is really nice." He said returning the smile as this was probably the nicest Winter had ever been to him.

"However, the pancakes are a healthier option." She said referring to a pancake mixture with less calories but more nutrients.

"Thats fine, did you use the ghost pancake batter protein?"

"No? I didn't even know they made that?" She asked as Jem laughed.

"It's some good stuff." He said leaning back and enjoying his breakfast.

Winter took a seat next to him with her own breakfast and noticed how much calmer he was today. Granted she knew yesterday was a bit of a rollercoaster for him. But he seemed to be just enjoying the peace and quiet, granted, he did have his set morning routine where he took time for relaxation and meditation. But this was different, he looked outside and saw the birds chirping as the sun was peeking out over the trees and took a bite of his breakfast before opening up his phone and connecting to his wireless speaker. The sound of Wardruna's Lyfjaberg played and echoed throughout the motorhome as Jem hummed to it.

Winter took a quick look at his Mjolnir pendant, a thick bronze Hammer with an icelandic bindrune carved into it on a necklace of beads with Runes burnt into them. Winter admitted, she was confused by his religion of choice, as while there were people who believed in gods back home, they were mostly considered stories. And to see that Jem seemed to follow a religion most would consider crazy but also was not common in this world, it surprised her.

Especially considering how Catholic his family was.

"You alright?" He asked as she snapped out of it.

"Huh?" She didn't know what was going on.

"Well, you kind of started staring off at my chest and spaced out." He said as she shook her head.

"Sorry, I must have gotten lost in thought." She had no idea why she was suddenly noticing all these little things about Jem.

"Where's Nala? I haven't seen her today?" He asked as usually she was up and eating breakfast.

"Oh shes spending time with Blake today, I think its comforting for her to know she's not the only faunus here." Winter said as she took a sip of her tea.

Jem's phone went off as he checked it and noticed he had an email.

"Oh cool." He said as he typed something and sent it back.

"What was that?" She asked as Jem took a sip of coffee.

"My local police department, they offered to proctor the test I need to become a police officer." He asked as Winter raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't know you were planning that." She said as he shrugged.

"Well, seemed like the thing to do, issue is getting the department I want to go to to agree with it." Now that confused her.

"Why?"

"Because I'm trying to go to Alaska." He said as she was surprised. (1)

"That's...really far from here." She knew for a drive that was about 32 hours away.

"Yeah, but honestly I need the fresh start, and family's really supportive of it, especially since none of us want to stay in Illinois." He chuckled at that last bit.

"Still, wouldn't it be a bit hard to do now?"

"Nah, not at all, I mean I could move everything up there no pr-" Then he thought about it.

"Oh, you mean with everything involving you guys?" He asked as she nodded.

"Well, honestly I don't see the problem, I'll probably get an apartment in Anchorage, and you guys could still live with the family, my dad already is talking about buying a house up there, so I get the feeling it wouldn't be a problem." He said as Winter asked another question.

"What about Nala?" She asked as Jem went quiet.

"Well, she can still stay with the family, besides, hearing about her life back home...I really don't want her to go back to that." Jem said as he sighed as he remembered what Nala told him.

"But how do you think she would handle another move?" She asked as Jem chuckled.

"Well to be honest, I already told her about my plans." He almost seemed to chuckle in pride as he thought about it.

"What did she say?"

"Well, she asked me what I was going to do for fun up there, and I was honest and told her I plan to take up hunting." He paused for a bit at the end.

"And then?"

"She got really excited when I told her elk meat is delicious."

Winter chuckled at that. If there was one thing she noticed about Jem and the little lion girl over the time she had been here. The two had bonded over their shared loved of meat. Jem wanted to start hunting while he was here, but sadly, he had to save money for the move to Alaska first. Which was still a long ways away.

"Can I ask you something?" She asked as he nodded.

"Yeah sure go ahead."

"Well, this may sound odd, but, I talked to your mother, and she cleared out a bedroom so I could stay in the house now if I wanted."

"Thats nice."

"Well, I was going to ask, do you mind if I stay here?" She asked as Jem looked up surprised.

"Really? Why?" That honestly surprised him.

"Well, to be honest, I personally think it would be better if Nala was to take the room in the house. All things considered, we don't have a lot of room in here." Winter was partially telling the truth.

"Oh yeah that works, besides knowing my mom as soon as you said you had to think about it, she already started decorating it for Nala." Suddenly Nala burst through the doors.

"Mister Jem! Winter! You're not going to believe this! Come check it out!" She said as she suddenly grabbed both Winter and Jem's hands and started to drag them out.

"Woah! Huh, so this is what it felt like to be my dad." Jem didn't even notice how Winter twitched a bit at that.

The fact that a little girl had grabbed both of their hands and was dragging them to show them something like a daughter excited to show here parents something she had found was not lost on her.

It was almost blinding the speed she got them both into the house and Jem noticed something right away.

"Wait, the room you cleared away was my old bedroom!" Jem said as his mom shrugged.

"Well, its being put to good use this way!" His mom said as Nala flung the door opened.

"Oh dear...mom..." He said as he suddenly noticed just HOW much stuff Nala had.

First was the work station with a small netbook that Jem recognized as the little dell inspiron mini he had as his first laptop. But it had been obviously reprogrammed and refurbished so it was like he never used it...which was probably a good thing considering he got it as a teenager and we all know what teenagers do with access to the internet. He felt disgusted as he realized he hated how younger him got addicted to that crap.

He also noticed that while they got rid of his old queen size bed, she still had a smaller full size bed with a bed frame that also acted as a dresser and a headboard, which he saw was stacked with books. But the thing that got him most was the decor which was painted pictures of lions.

"Awwww." He said as he couldn't believe they went this far.

"It's adorable." Winter said as even she would admit that.

"We may have gone a little overboard." Pa said as he was still wearing the paint pants.

*Sniff*

Jem's ears suddenly looked down to see Nala was rubbing her eyes as her hair was falling in front of her face so you couldn't really see anything.

"Woah, hey now kiddo...what's wrong?" He asked as he had Nala look him in the eyes.

She still had a smile on her face, but she was still crying.

"I-Its just...I've never had anyone do this much for me." She said as Jem made a face of understanding.

Again, he never wanted Nala to have to go back to the life she was living, but above all else, he knew that for a kid who was working to provide for herself, it must have been alien for her to be shown this level of kindness. Especially from strangers.

"Hey, its alright, as long as you're here you won't have to worry about all that, just try to enjoy yourself okay?" He asked as she nodded.

"Come here." He said as he knelt down and hugged her softly and she just buried her head into his shoulder and let the tears fall.

Winter clutched her chest very softly as she found the site incredibly heartwarming.

Each day she seemed to be seeing a more sensitive side of Jem, and she admitted to herself mentally that she was liking it.

THA THUMP

THAT however was a bit confusing.

"Why does my heart feel weird?"

(1) Alaska does take candidates from all of the other states, however, I doubt they would let me do some of the testing here, so I'm most likely going to have to fly out to Anchorage to do it all.