Christie had made the across country move and was now living with Matt. As wonderfully exclusive as that just sounded, they were also living together with Sandra and Greta. The two-bedroom apartment (yes, you heard right) was a danger zone to any visitors. Creative mess lay everywhere. Most of it belonged to Sandra, who made her merchandise for D'elusion in the living room, and was slowly teaching Christie to sew.

Chriss was going to college and writing Wary City, as well as looking at other ideas for Mangapop. She was only a minor writer yet, so she wrote as much as she could – between her classes and working at MBQ. This left her quite exhausted at the end of the day, but she managed to scrape up a enough energy to snuggle down with Matt in their bed.

Matt was an accountant now. Just another in a large accounting firm, but it was good money that paid most of the bills. Sandra's business was a good one, and since she'd gotten the website up two years ago, she'd been getting money – and business – all year round rather than just a big pay check at Yattacon that had to last her through until the next one, but running her own business meant that a lot of her money went circular: the money that she made from sales went into buying materials so that she could keep up with the demand.

Greta took care of the balance books for D'elusion, rather than lumping more numbers on Matt after he'd had a long day of them. Greta was also the survival expert in the house, the only one who really knew how to make edible food, kept an eye on the expiration dates of things, and made sure everybody did their laundry before they ran out of underwear.

Underwear. That was what Matt was doing now. Looking for underwear. Lingerie to be precise. Intimate apparel for Chriss. It was their anniversary and he was searching for a gift. Though whether it was their first or their fourth, he wasn't entirely clear, but he supposed it didn't matter. Until he got enough money for a ring, he didn't need to know how many years it had officially been. Then again... maybe a year of living together and not killing each other... and Yattacon was almost here again (a nice easy date for him to remember as their anniversary).

Matt moved away from standing out front of the window full of bras and panties, and headed for the jewellery shop. Heck, chances were there would be a ring there for less than the fancy underwear anyway.

He smiled. Right there in the window was the perfect little piece, and it was on special. It was a sign.