That night

"Thank you. If he'd have punched me, I could be seriously hurt. And I can't believe he made us all think that you hated us. Sorry about that," said Lily. It was the same night, at 8am. Mike and Gina had found out about the Xander issue, and announced that they had found a new care home for him, so Xander left that night. It turned out that a care worker was in the area, and Mike phoned her up. She agreed to pick up Xander and take her to the care home she worked in. Secretly, as soon as Xander had left, we all celebrated. Everybody apologised to me about believing that I hated them, and generally, all was well. Me and Lily were talking inside Lily and Carmen's room.

"It's okay". After a long pause, Lily said:

"Empathise".

"What?"

"That's what Tracy said when Orenthal chucked you out three, four months ago. She said to empathise. She said that Orenthal should think about how he would feel if he was you. In one year, you've found out about Siren, Johnny and Tee, been hit by a speeding car, become paralysed from the waist down, been pushed down some stairs by Mal, nearly been killed by my dad who you thought was dead, and got burnt in the huge fire at Icehill. I empathised. I thought about how I would feel if I was you. And then I remembered the beach".

"Oh my god".

"You liked me, and you weren't afraid to tell me. I made a bad decision then, on that day, at the beach. I rejected you. I said no. But then, after that, I slowly began to realise that I like you. I really like you, Demon. You've been doing nice things for once. You got rid of Kristal and Xander, and you've been nicer than you were before. You stuck up for your sister when Rick was mean to her. After all that, I realised that you're actually a great guy".

"Thanks," I said modestly, unable to believe every nice thing she'd said.

"No really. You're funny and you can get rid of people who we don't like and you're kind of cute".

"Er... thanks. Really... thanks".

"You like me, Demon, yeah? And I don't mean as friends, I mean more than that. A lot more than that".

A decision. Oh my god, a decision. Do I like Lily, not as friends, as more than that. I realised what the answer was: yes.

"Yeah," I said nonchalantly.

"Guess what?" she asked.

"Erm... Carmen is going to stop wearing pink clothes?" I asked.

"No... you know what I mean. Guess what?"

"What? I don't know," I replied, trying not to get frustrated.

"You like me. I like you too," she said, leaning in to me. I knew what would happen next. She started kissing me passionately and I found myself kissing her back. After nearly fourteen months, this was actually happening. The kiss lasted for what seemed like ages, but was probably only a few seconds. If Gus was here, which would be creepy, I could imagine him with a stopwatch, counting exactly how long it lasted.

"Okay..." I said nervously. "That was good".

"Yeah it was," agreed Lily. "We should do it more often".

"We really should," I agreed, laughing.

We kissed once more, quickly, and walked downstairs, hand in hand.

THE END

There you go. It's taken nearly two and a half months to write all 35,000 words, making up 28 chapters featuring at least 39 characters, from the dastardly Demon Traylen-Taylor to Xander Roberts, Gemma the Nurse to the malicious Mal Pearson. Thank you to all of my reviewers, thank you so much for taking the time to read and review my story, it means so much to me. I can't believe that it's over, after all this. But... is it over?

A new chapter of Demon's adventures at Elm Tree House will begin on 30 April, and will be entitled The Demon Traylen Files. So do make sure you favourite the new story when it comes out, and look out for it! Chapter 1 is entitled Demon Kettle!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story, and special thanks to Olivia1995, who reviews most chapters and has given lovely feedback as well as creating Saskia Jones, TheDamSnackbar for submitting Lorna Blackwood, Abrey98 for creating Evie King and Cookie05, who has reviewed nearly every chapter since the beginning. Goodbye for now, see you soon with The Demon Traylen Files,

BizarrePineapple15

March 2012