Hello guys and happy new year. It's been a bit too long since I updated this story. And I'm sorry for that. But a few more stories have been finished- among them a oneshot about a New Year's Night at the dumping ground. The two- shot for Epilepsy awareness "Fire in my head makes fire in our hearts" is finished, and so is "Unpretty hurts" and two more oneshots. Then there's a couple of stories more that are now very close to their endings. But I wanted all stories updated in 2019 and here we are.

Thanks to x snow- pony x for reviewing.

"How are you feeling?"

It was a few days after the Monday Shawn had come home early from school. It was Thursday evening, Emily and Jim had spent the whole afternoon sorting out and putting prices on everything she had made to then sell them. And Marley shot photos that Luce would be able to put on Facebook to sell.

They were all about to go to bed when Jim collapsed and started seizing all of a sudden.

By now, everybody were finally in bed. Jim too, he had gotten his medicines and then been carried into bed by Luce.

Maybe it meant more to me after all the seizures I had had when I was younger. But the seizure, once the adrenaline had run off, I just had to leave and go into the office for a minute and finally catch my breath.

"Do you want me to stay around?" Luce asked. "I mean, Jim's the one who's literally been shaking. But all kids are quite shaken when something like that happens… Even though, they'd have to get used to it somehow. Jim's going to have a lot of seizures in the future and… Sorry. I didn't let you answer my question?"

"You can go home. I'll stay here. And yes. I will call Mike if something happens. But this won't be like the first night shift I had… I know everything about what Epilepsy's about so at first. Before you have the time to stay- I'm going to force you out the door and then go check if Jim's okay."

Luce shook his head slightly but he did leave and soon I heard his car start in the parking lot, when it finally did I went to check on the others.

And then I noticed something.

I didn't really think about it at first. When Tracie was annoyed that Ella wouldn't stop singing, when all of those expensive dolls and clothes filled up Violet's room. When everything in Peityn's room was baby pink or baby blue and spoke all about her.

There was just a feeling that in the room it was all… Peityn!

Like with Marley's hundreds of cameras or Nathan's huge collection of funko pop figures from different fandoms. And Wheezy and David's room, it still smelled weird but at least David wasn't moaning about it constantly moaning about it anymore. Despite the wallpaper and everything. With all the various things in it, it was quite obvious that both David and Wheezy lived here.

And then at last, Marty and Jim's room with the comics- wallpaper, a hammock on a stand where Marty was sleeping tightly. And then a bed where Jim laid, worn out but at least asleep… or so I thought.

"Emma…" I was about to leave the room when I heard Jim's tiny voice behind me and quickly span around. "Can you come and sit here. I want to talk to you about something. I nodded and sat down next to him on the bed, laying my arm around his shoulders. "I heard what Emily said before, a few days ago. She no longer knew if she wanted to give the money she makes for an Epilepsy charity."

Jim fingered with his quilt, I kept my arm around his shoulders but he didn't look as if he even felt it.

"We did this thing in school- in English class. We could talk in front of the class about whatever we wanted. And I chose Epilepsy… But I barely got started before some kid shouted out that nobody was going to care since it's not cancer."

"That's right." I said. "It isn't cancer. But it is a hideous disease and it's still the worst thing that happened to you."

"My mum and dad wouldn't have given me up if it wasn't for the Epilepsy. But still. As long as it's not cancer people don't care."

"Jim…" The mention of his mum and dad completely shattered my heart. My parents and brother had died before I ended up here- I'd never be able to understand how people abandoned their children. "…I hardly think it's that simple. Adults have their own problems. And if they didn't have them they wouldn't have put you in care. So don't you think it's your fault because it isn't. It can't be"

"But it hurts." Tears came rolling down Jim's cheeks shattering my heart into pieces. "…It hurts so bad. And my tongue is full of blisters and my hands are shaking and I just never know when I'm going to have another one. I never know when I'm going to have another seizure. I'm just… going on, doing whatever- playing or watching TV or eating… then I black out. The next thing I know is waking up. And.." New tears rolled down my cheeks. "Tomorrow I'll have forgotten all about this conversation."

Jim stopped talking and broke down crying, I quickly decided not to say anything either and just kept my arm around his shoulders and played with my fingers in his brown curls. It couldn't have lasted more than a couple of minutes but they felt so long. More because I cared for Jim than that I was tired and wanted to go to bed myself.

"Sorry. We're lucky we didn't wake Marty."

"Don't say you're sorry Jimmy." I didn't have a napkin but tried the best I could to wipe his cheek with my sleeve. "It's alright to cry. And I know you're terribly tired." He nodded but was having trouble keeping his eyes open. "Well then. We can talk more tomorrow. And if you want to talk right away then you can talk to Luce. Okay? Goodnight."

"But I like to talk to you more…" Jim mumbled and I couldn't help but smile, but didn't say anything as Jim was half asleep and I didn't want to wake him up. Marty could sleep through any earth quake or hurricane and was still out like a candle…

I went to bed too. But that whole night I couldn't sleep. With the fear of this night ending up something like the first night I had worked on my own, then thoughts about Jim, his seizure and all his thinking about it. Emily's fund raising and how badly I wanted to ask her about keeping her original idea about epilepsy charity. And then memories filled my head about when I'd had seizures and how long afterwards I was constantly worrying if I'd have anymore.

Everything in my head had me tossing back and forth all night. When I could at last get up by sick I was like a zombie and couldn't wait to get to go home and then maybe fall asleep for at least a couple of hours.

But before then, Friday morning was always another story in itself.

Luce had arrived and Mike would too in another few hours, Nathan was helping Peityn and Jim was obviously not going to school today. Ella and Tracie had made it a project to help each other so they wouldn't need any more help. I put out all breakfast food on the table and put the paper bags with the children's lunches on the kitchen island. And then sat down, sighing heavily on the piano stool in the hallway.

I didn't know what had made me go there. I hadn't actually had the intention of playing anything. But then there was a tiny little voice inside my head that told me that music had people calming down. So before I had the time to protest against it and placed my fingers on the piano keys. My feet against the pedals and started improvising.

"You're really good." I jumped when, in between playing two keys I suddenly heard Emily's voice behind me. "Do you know you're really good… But can you help me with this zipper. It won't work." I turned on the stool and fingered a bit with it but managed to pull it up. "Thanks. And I just thought. It's really good I don't have to share my room with anybody. Because even though we carried the lot downstairs and into the living room the other day my whole room, the desk, the chair, everything is completely covered in clothes of all different kinds and colors."

Emily left again to go and get ready for school. But I didn't turn back to the piano and I didn't stand up to go and help somebody else. In fact I just sat there and stared, too tired to even think about something else to do. But too tired to realize I was too tired.

Then suddenly a thought about something I had noticed struck me again.

"Have you thought about something?" I asked Luce when he suddenly came through the hallway. "About the rooms?"

"NO… what do you mean?"

"Like how all of the boys are sharing rooms. While the only girls sharing are Tracie and Ella… am I getting to obsessed over gender- roles or am I right or… Sorry… I don't know why I even thought about that I don't kow."

"Will you stop apologizing for everything?"

"Sorry."

Luce chuckled when I showed him a slight smirk and then got up from the piano stool to join the chaos again. But before I had the time to go anywhere or do anything Luce had grabbed me by the shoulders.

"For one… Could you imagine Peityn or Violet sharing? Or maybe even with each other?" He chuckled by grimaced and I had to do the same. "But with even thinking about that and I can see it on you. If I remember it right there's a bus in your direction in a few minutes. Take that one and go home. And do under no circumstances think or worry about anything back here for at least twenty four hours."

"But the kids…"

"GO." Luce shouted with faked anger. "Or do you want me to throw you out- head first?"

"I'm going. I'm going."

I knew if I told the children about me going I wouldn't get out for another half hour and neither would they. Which could have caused being late because when I walked up to the bus stop the bus came around the corner.

But still, leaving without anyone there to tell you goodbye always felt kind of sad. And reminded me way too much of the time when I lived back with my parents and they were always busy working. And then, despite uncle Leon it seeming unusually quiet when I came out of hospital after the plane crash.

It was a strange feeling. But suddenly, when I was on the bus back home I just felt a weirdly empty feeling inside of me. As if I didn't want to go home at all.

It wasn't long yet that I had lived on my own. My family died years ago but after that I'd lived with uncle Leon until I moved here and…

The feeling only made my head spin.

The feeling of my head spinning reminded me of the feeling of falling I had always had when I was having a seizure.

These thoughts, these feelings had kept me up all night. But they wouldn't leave me alone now twelve hours later. And still did on the way home.

That was until fell into the sofa from sheer exhaustion as soon I was back home and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the cushion.

Random fact

Jim is way too right. Trying to spread Epilepsy awareness is so much harder than it sounds. It's just that- Epilepsy's just supposed to be this disease that a lot of people have and can live perfectly normal lives with. But it's not that simple and that just isn't so easy to let people know when people won't listen.

Okay, I get a bit obsessed when I'm talking about that but I'm cutting it there. I hope you liked the chapter.