So this is not the update any of you out there might have been waiting for.

And let me tell you, a lot has happened in the past 4 or so years since I've updated. My writing has changed, as has my understanding of the material I write about.

Despite me never updating, I have tons upon tons of snippets and drabbles of Miko and Deidara that I have saved on Google Doc and my Notepad.

The reason why I never posted them was because they were still relationship-building ones, psychological and mental ones that could not be logically put after the chapter I left off on.

As I said, my understanding of trauma and abuse and child psychology has dramatically improved since I last posted an official chapter and, looking back at what I've written so far, it doesn't feel as authentic as it should be. Y'all enjoyed it, but I was spending all these years lamenting over how I could ever possibly continue on from the corner I had written myself in when I had barely laid down any groundwork that would truly warrant such a "betrayal" of Miko's trust by Deidara as seen in the last chapter. The story was constructed with large, indeterminate chunks of time passing and us just assuming they got along.

Now, the reason I write this now is because a very, very, VERY good fanfiction I've been dying to read an update for...actually updated. But it wasn't a "real" update, just an explanation that she had deleted some previous chapters and was planning on rerouting her story because she had written herself into a corner.

Can you believe that the idea of effectively pressing the Undo button for my fanfic and redirecting myself down a different path had not occurred to me in all these years? Inconceivable! I would say the reason for it is because I consider what ever story you put out there is the final product - no take-backs. And definitely no deleting. Absolutely not. No matter how bad it is, never delete a work that has at least one devoted reader for it, even if it's flawed, because the amount of pain I have experienced at realizing a fic I absolutely loved has disappeared under my nose is too much to even think about.

But anyway... Here is what I propose, for those of you that have clicked on this expecting a chapter. Go to my profile and vote in my poll. You have two choices as to what I can do with this story, for anyone that still cares...I hope people still care, cuz now that I know I have an option to kind of turn back the clock or offer an alternative angle, I really want to take it and just publish these drabbles and bits before it's absolutely beyond the time for anyone to care, LOL

I suppose you can also comment your opinions in the reviews, and I'll keep this update thingy up regardless of my decision for posterity's sake.