Quick heads up, in case you didn't see it. I did end up rewriting 24 completely….the rewrite was only a Hook POV and shorter than the original, but I think the rewrite was much better than my first stressed out attempt. Check it out if you haven't already!

-Michelle

The forest wasn't at all like Emma had remembered. Dark and imposing, with shadows cast everywhere, not even the moonlight could reach this deep into the mainland's woods. The tall, gnarled giants that passed for trees were somehow gruesome caricatures of her memories. With their long limb branches clawed and twisted, with faces made of knot holes that seemed to be leering at her with a malevolent intent. They were made even worse by the night breeze, by the wind that howled about and through them, a taunting imitation of voices and hungry growls. Emma shivered and couldn't help but to clutch herself closer to the boy who was holding her.

If Peter noticed her disquiet and her upset, the boy chose not to comment. Emma thought he might even be relieved, her fright born of the woods, having locked the sobbing of her heart firmly inside her throat. She still cried though, still had that hot wave of tears wetting on her cheeks. But no sound accompanied them, not even a singe sniffle, Emma hiding her face against Peter Pan's shoulder, as though to protect herself. From what exactly she could not say, the woods and it's shadows? The pirates she had left behind? The man and the longing that had bloomed in her heart for him? Or was it her shame and the embarrassment, her tears a weakness that Emma didn't much like. That Peter Pan himself didn't like, the boy having already snapped out over them with a harsh voice.

It had been a tone harsher than anything Emma had ever heard come out of Peter Pan's mouth, the boy not so much asking, as outright demanding she stop her useless bawling. "You're better than that." He had added at her gasp, Emma having cringed in on herself at that sharp reprimand.

"Peter!" Tinkerbelle had been aghast, the reproach apparent in her voice. Emma had felt instead of seen Peter's reaction, the way his body had seemed to stiffen in response to the tired pixie snapping out at him. His arms had even went so far as to tighten around her, Emma having had to bite down on her own lip to keep in the pained whimpers.

"Sorry." Peter Pan had then finally breathed out. And with that soft exhalation, had come the relaxing of his arms, the boy no longer maintaining a strangle hold on the girl's body.

"You should be!" The dark of the forest had been sliced with the slightest of glows, Tinkerbelle having still been colored an agitated red. "Emma has been through a terrible ordeal."

The pixie hadn't known the half of it, and Emma hadn't been in any way eager to fill in the blanks. She still wasn't, Emma keeping her face hidden. The howls of the wind were all around her, the cold air of the night breeze trying to freeze dry the tears on her skin. Peter did a winding zig zag through the forest, flying faster and faster, evading the branches that seemed to reach out with clawed finger tips for them both. It HAD to be her tired imagination, Emma shutting her eyes against such a sight. She couldn't block out the sounds, that of the wind or that of her brothers' whistles, the lost boys communicating a dozen upon dozen things with those bird calls.

There was a solemn jubilation to what had been accomplished this night. To the rescue that had been achieved. The lost boys celebrated Emma's return, the love and the outpouring of relief tainted by the group's own despair. By the innocence cost, the sacrifices made, a great number of her brothers having aged exponentially this night. The fighting had done it, the life and death circumstances surrounding the battle, leading some of Emma's own brothers to become cold blooded killers.

She was to blame. The love that Emma had inspired, these boys, her brothers, willing to risk just about anything to get their sister back. She might have wept for their loss of innocence if Emma hadn't been so busy fighting to retain HERS. It wasn't just the pirates, it wasn't just her feelings for Captain Hook. Things had gone beyond that, Emma weighted down by her sadness and her guilt, the if only of her heart. Torn ragged by it, by the two worlds that she now straddled, Emma could only wonder if there was anything that she could have done differently. Something to avert the disaster all around them, the growing up that was upon so many of the Lost Ones.

Emma couldn't even take comfort in the fact that she hadn't gone completely selfish. That she hadn't become so obsessed with her own heart's hurt and desires, that Emma would have neglected that of her brothers. As much as her heart was filled with that inexplicable longing, Emma couldn't give in. She wouldn't, the girl needing to see to her family.

Nodding her head firmly to herself, Emma blinked back the worst of her tears. One arm relaxed its grip on Peter, the girl bringing it's hand to scrub over her face. That motion caused the tired pixie on perched on her shoulder, to tighten a grip on Emma's hair, Tinkerbelle still too exhausted to fly on her own.

"There there." Tinkerbelle's voice was soothing. "That's a good girl."

"I'm sorry." Emma whispered.

"Nothing you need to be sorry for, Emma. Right, Peter?" The pixie demanded in a sharp tone. Emma might have started to cry once more if Peter Pan had so much as hesitated.

"Right!" He said with an exuberance of good cheer. He seemed to fly slower, letting the other lost boys get ahead of them. "I'm...I'm sorry too."

Emma couldn't stop the surprise, the girl lifting her head up to peek up at Peter's profile. He hadn't yet looked at her, his eyes on their surroundings, alert to the trees and obstacles that could just as easily end this flight with their deaths.

"Peter?"

"I shouldn't have snapped at you for,….for your emotions." It was too dark to see properly, and Tinkerbelle's glow was most likely the reason for the red on Peter's face. It couldn't be anything else Peter Pan not one to get embarrassed EVER.

"You have a right to be upset." Emma began, but Peter talked over her.

"But not at you!" Now he looked at her, hovering to a stop in mid air. The trees seemed to groan more, their branches rattling as though trying to get at them.

"Why NOT me?" Emma wanted to know. "If I hadn't…"

"If you hadn't, Galen would have been killed or worse." Peter told her. Emma frowned at that, her heart no longer believing the pirates capable of actually killing a child. Not even the battle of this night could convince the girl otherwise, Emma certain that the only killing that had been done, had been by lost boy hands.

She didn't want to argue with Peter on this, not now, not when her heart was already so heavy. Emma didn't want or need any further hurt feelings and confused thoughts dragging her down further. Or spilling onto Peter, and grounding him as well.

"So please Emma….don't blame yourself." Peter all but begged. "No one else does..." He had finally turned his face down towards her, and with Tinkerebelle's glow for light, Emma could see into Peter's eyes. They shined with what she thought was an earnest light, that hazel color ever so bright with his youthful sincerity. Emma found herself nodding, for the first time ever the girl lying to Peter.

"Okay." She said it as though it was the simplest thing in the world. And once it might have been, Emma able to cast away worries and self blame all too easily. Now her heart wouldn't let go of the hurt, or of the doubts she now had, the girl trying to put on her bravest face to keep Peter Pan happy.

He stared into her eyes a moment longer than necessary, than broke out into a relieved grin. Suddenly he was letting out an excited crow of sound, the faint reverberations of answering whistles and bird calls from the other lost boys sounding from a distance.

"Now let's get you home!" Peter said, hefting her more securely in his arms. Emma put her arms around him for good measure, and nodded a yes. He grinned even more, going from a stand still to speeding like lightning through the forest. Emma felt her hair whip around madly as a result, the girl looking around, as moonbeams began to weave their way through cracks in the forest's roof top foliage. Somehow those slivers of moon light made all the difference, the woods now no longer seeming quite as scary. Emma wondered at the magic of the moon, the power it had over even the trees shadows. No longer quite so monstrous, the trees themselves seemed to be smiling rather than snarling, and their long limb branches were just that.

The trees began crowing in closer together, Peter somehow miraculously knowing how to navigate the tight spaces at such a fast speed. Emma still couldn't quite keep from gasping, from shutting her eyes a few times in fright, especially when it looked like they might not avoid a tree trunk in time. Through that narrow space did they fit through, emerging out onto the inside of a forest glade. And not just ANY glade, but that of the Lost Ones' home, the older boys hovering about the expansive space, and at Peter Pan's whooping sound, the mighty oak all but exploded, excitement and screams and children spilling out to surround them. They didn't even wait for Peter Pan to land, the young boys taking to the sky, all crowding around him to look and touch at the girl in his arms.

"Emma!" They were shouting, so excited and so relieved. "Emma, you're back!"

A wave of her own relief had hit her, Emma nearly bursting into tears. She had to blink repeatedly to hold the hot moisture back, the girl smiling as a pair of thin arms tried to embrace her, the hug made more awkward by the fact she was still being held in Peter's arms.

"Easy there Bradley." Peter was laughing. "Emma's not going anywhere any time soon!" That unfortunate phrasing, cause a stab of guilt to spear through Emma's heart, the girl reminded of how she had been tempted. It didn't much matter that she had fought it, that she had let the idea of her family's hurt and disappointments ground her in place. The fact that it had happened remained, a part of Emma wanting to grow up.

That same part was haunted by stolen kisses, by the remembered feel of soft lips and softer smiles, of eyes that were so blue they put the waters of the mermaids' lagoon to outright shame. She could have drowned then, the longing bubbling up inside her, Emma remembering his rejection. The words that the handsome pirate captain had all but snarled at her.

Years too young for his kisses, years too young for him, the secret shame in Emma's heart wasn't so much that she had been caught by the pirates, but that she had been caught by HIM. By the feelings, the desire that Captain Hook had inspired in her. Taken with it, taken with him, Emma couldn't switch off those feelings, couldn't stop the temptation that whispered still on how it might not be a bad thing to grow up just a little.

Not even little Bradley's arms about her could totally shake her free of such thoughts. The young boy wasn't quite sobbing his relief, trying to be oh so brave. He kept on whispering how much he had missed her, and how hard he had tried, Bradley doing a loud sniffle into her hair. It was a wonder that the boy could still even fly, but then Emma supposed the excitement and relief he had felt to see her safe, had fueled enough happy thoughts to lift him back up into the sky.

Emma twisted enough in Peter Pan's hold, to put an arm around the boy who was hugging her. That seemed to be the signal that all the other lost ones were waiting for, the smallest of the group crowding around for one gigantic attempt at a group hug. There was a lot of shouting and smiling, and boys jostling about for space. Tinkerbelle shifted redder, and shot up out of the crowd, not liking the feel of such a tight enclosed space closing in around her.

"You'll have to tell us ALL about it, Emma!"

"Oh yes!" A pair of small hands clapped together excitedly. "You simply must!"

"There's really not much to tell." Emma hedged.

"Not much to tell?!" came the disbelieving exclamation. "You were alone with Captain Hook and his pirates for longer than a week!"

"That long?" Emma whispered. It had felt like even longer, and yet at the same time far, far too short a time, the girl having actually wished it was more.

The longing was in her heart, the girl greedy for even just one more day with the captain. Even if he had been at his angriest, so inexplicably mad and furious with Emma for what she had done. For what she had stolen from him, and her face felt hot at just the memory.

"That long." Bradley voice drew her back from those thoughts just barely. "They didn't hurt you, did they, Emma?" The youngest of the lost boys sounded ever so anxious.

It was a question that had no easy way to answer, Emma remembering more than just Hook. Rauol came to mind, the girl shivering over what that perverted pirate had wanted, but there was also Damien, the dirty colored blonde who had tried to see her dead. She couldn't at all speak on such things, not wanting to further worry and trouble her brothers, but Emma also didn't want to outright lie to them.

"It was nothing that I couldn't handle..." She settled on for her answer.

"I knew it!" exclaimed a voice that belonged to a boy that was slightly older than Bradley. "You can handle nearly anything Emma! You're almost as awesome as Peter!"

"I wouldn't go that far!" protested Emma. It wasn't embarrassment that she was feeling, Emma more alarmed than anything. The girl didn't want such praise, didn't want them thinking her something that she was not, Emma feeling she no longer had the right to be so idolized. Not when she had nearly failed her family, that secret longing to grow up STILL inside her.

"I would!" Bradley and the others were insisting and Peter Pan was laughing, a youthful chuckle of sound that was nothing like the jeering malice she had heard him let loose with while on Hook's ship. The memory of that unsettled her, Emma shifting about in the group hug to try and get a good look at Peter. Those hazel eyes were on her, looking as kind and as warm as she could ever remember seeing, Emma searching the planes of his faces for any signs. But his cheeks still retained that round youthfulness, Peter Pan looking very much like a boy who was only a year or two older than Emma.

Something was off though. Something she couldn't quite place, and then she did, Emma gasping.
"Peter! What happened to your cheek!?"

A slow blink of those hazel colored eyes, Peter's lips doing a twitch that might almost be a frown. And then he was smiling again, laughing and shrugging. "Not a thing, Emma! Not a thing at all."

She shook her head quickly, reaching with trembling fingers to her face. The boys that had crowded around them for that chaotic group hug, now all shifted with her, pulling back to peer at Peter Pan's face. The teen was looking at Emma, giving her the queerest of looks.

"What's wrong?"

"I saw you." Emma breathed out. But her fingers only felt smooth skin. "I saw what Hook did to you..."

"What did that wicked pirate do to Peter?!" The lost boys all wanted to know, and they seemed to squeezed in closer to Emma, while looking their leader over.

"His hook...right here..." Her fingers sketched a line across his cheek, the skin there in no way torn and bloodied. "It was AWFUL.' She added, actively wincing. "So much blood…."

"He didn't come close to laying a hand on me, Emma." Peter was trying to reassure her. "OR a hook."

"But I saw him….saw you..." Emma protested, and yet there wasn't even a scar, Peter's cheek not only healed, but smooth as though it had never been torn in the first place.

"Poor thing." Tinkerbelle said from somewhere above them. "To imagine such things. What an ordeal you've been through Emma."

"It's been an ordeal for all of us." It was a voice that wasn't familiar to Emma, the shock of a stranger making her twist away from her examination of Peter's face.

"Who's there!?" She shouted out, hackles raised at the thought of an intruder in THEIR glade. A nervous chuckle was her answer, the lost boys shifting enough to reveal one of the older boys who had taken part in the earlier battle. Emma tried to place him, her eyes searching over his face. Gaunt faced and pale, the boy was a tall, thin youth. A teenager that might now be older than that of Peter Pan's physical age.

"Have I really changed that much?" The teenager asked with a very sad and all too knowing a smile.

Emma kept on staring at him, trying to figure out why his eyes seemed so familiar when the rest of him did not.

"After all the weight that you have shed?" Came a teasing snort from one of the other of Emma's now older brothers. "Is it any wonder that she's at a lost?"

Emma eyes widened at that, trying to imagine how this teen might have looked younger and fatter. With those cheeks all puffed out and rosy, with a round belly and enough pounds to trouble several of her younger brothers with their attempt at lifting.

"Gavin?" She squeaked out, and it was so sad and so horrible, Emma staring at the boy, the very brother she had gone to rescue the day that she had been captured in his place.

The boy, Gavin nodded, and drifted nearer to her. Emma reached out to him, and he flew into her touch. "I'm SO sorry Emma." He said, holding onto one of her hands. "If not for me..." There was guilt flashing in his eyes, enough pain and regret there that had helped to speed Gavin to grow up.

"Don't!" Emma started to protest, and then Peter Pan was practically growling.

"If YOU hadn't been so fat and so slow…."

"Peter!" gasped out Emma.

"No, it's all right. He's right, Emma." Gavin squeezed her hand harder. He hadn't once looked at Peter Pan, not even at that angry accusation. "If not for my fondness for sweets, that pirate and his mangy crew would never have been able to catch me."

"You should have known better, Gavin!" Tinkerbelle admonished in a scathing tone. "We nearly lost Emma because of you!"

"I'm okay, Tinkerbelle." Emma pointed out. "So please..."

"No you are not!" The agitated glow of the pixie burnt the reddest that Emma had ever seen, the tiny woman darting down towards the girl's face. She pointed an accusing finger at Emma's nose, pixie dust sifting off of her arm. "And the fact that you can't fly, proves it!"

There was an exaggerated sound from the group, a horrified gasp from the younger boys who had not been part of the battle over the sea.

"Is it true, Emma?" One asked.

"Of course it's true!" scoffed another. "Peter wouldn't have to carry her otherwise!"

"I suppose even a big sister can be scared of pirates…."

"Anyone would be scared of a pirate as wicked as Hook!" The ever loyal and ever devoted Bradley pointed out. "It doesn't make Emma any less brave."

"No, it does not." agreed Peter. He shifted again, as though tired, and it occurred to Emma just how long Peter Pan had been having to support her weight and his.

"All right everyone! Back off and let us down!" She ordered in a firm tone. "Even a boy as strong as Peter can't be wanting to hold up a girl as heavy as me for any longer."

"You're not really all that heavy…." protested Peter.

"At least not when compared to how Gavin used to be." Another teenager grumbled. His voice was halfway familiar, the boy not yet as old as Gavin had grown, instead stuck in that prepubescent age where his voice still occasionally cracked.

"Stewy?" Emma hazarded a guess, and was rewarded with a dazzling if slightly crooked smile.

"The one and the same." He said, his voice cracking between high and low. It should have been comical, but Emma couldn't laugh, the change in Stuart just another thing that she had reason to feel guilty about.

"Were you eaten up by guilt too?" She asked, as Peter touched them down onto the grassy floor of the glade.

"Not exactly." The boy seemed uncomfortable, holding something behind his back.

"What is that you are hiding?"

"Not hiding anything!" Stuart insisted. Emma wriggled free of Peter Pan's arms, intent on approaching the other boy. "I'm not!" He snapped out angry this time, and took to the sky, the one thing that Emma could no longer do on her own.

"Stewy!" Emma exclaimed, her mouth wide open with her shock.

"I'll get him!" Bradley offered in an eager and excited tone, but Peter caught hold of the youngest of his boys by the foot.

"Let him be."

"But!" Bradley's lower lip trembled, as though holding back a pout.

"It's Stuarts decision to make." Peter seemed to be reminding Bradley of something. The little boy sighed, and looked down to the ground, mumbling something about not liking it. Emma didn't much like it any better, her eyes still looking upwards. Stuart had flown even higher seeming intent on isolating himself from the entire group.

"Stewy." Emma whispered his name sadly. The girl had a very real suspicion on just what had been making the boy grow up, on what had made so many others start the process this night. The fighting and the killings, and Emma again blamed herself.

"It's tough decisions we've all had to make." Peter spoke as though he had read her mind, as though he could guess the reason behind the pain on Emma's face. And maybe in this one case, he could, Emma looking down at her toes in the grass.

"Are….are you going to grow up too?"

Peter surprised her with his laughter and Emma glancing up at him. "Never." He proclaimed with a lopsided grin. "I'll NEVER grow up."

"How can you be certain?" Emma asked with a frown. "The fighting tonight, the killing…."

"As if I'd let a pirate take ANYTHING from me!" Hazel colored eyes bore into her, almost as though Peter Pan was speaking in a hidden meaning. Emma had so many questions and concerns, her mouth opening to give voice to at least one of them, when the other children crowded around them excited.

"Peter, is it true?! Did you kill someone?!"

Peter let out an uproarious sound, shaking with his amusement. "Not a one!" He told them. "I'd sooner lick a toad than I would stain my blade with a pirate's blood!"

"But you did fight, didn't you?" asked another.

"Did I ever!" Peter had drawn his short sword from the leather scabbard at his side, giving a kind of expert twirl that was nothing like the vicious jabs that Emma had seen him doing towards Captain Hook. "That one handed pirate didn't stand a chance against me!" He boasted.

"Tell us about it!" exclaimed the excited crowd of children.

"Why tell you when I can show you!" Peter said, targeting Gavin for this mock battle. The much older boy cried out in alarm, just barely getting his sword up in time, Peter slamming into him. The boys in the glade cheered, watching as Gavin scrambled to keep out of reach of the worst of Peter Pan's sword thrusts.

"You're so fast Peter!" Came the admiration. "I bet that wicked old pirate never even saw you coming!"

"Never did!" Laughed Peter, even as he continued to recklessly come after Gavin.

"Lay off!" The teen snapped, red faced and panting. Emma didn't understand how Gavin could already be so out of breath, or why his upset seemed to increase when he caught a look at Peter Pan's face. "I said quit it!" Gavin cried out again, his voice going higher with something that might very well be fear. Peter seemed to realize it too, but instead of backing off he only got more vicious, jabbing his short sword at Gavin's middle.

A rip was heard, the teenager's tunic tearing under the sharp tip of the sword. The crowd of children didn't seem to think anything of it, cheering their hero on against this representation of their hated foe. Gavin suddenly slashed out his own arm with a violent speed, the blade biting into his arm, making him bleed.

"Thought you'd rather lick a toad!" He all but screamed out in upset fury. "Then make anyone bleed!"

"Never said that!" Peter pointed out. "And I never said anything about anyone who isn't a pirate!"

Huffing and puffing with his anger, Gavins eyes were blazing, the boy both angrier than Emma could ever remember him seeing, but also so very afraid. He'd back up for every step that Peter took forward, while the children in the glad all continued to cheer.

Everyone but Emma, the girl darting forward to try and get between the two boys. It was an eerie parody of what she had tried to do in the real fight earlier, and just like that time, Peter snatched hold of her, and held her in his arms. She put out her arms, laying one on both boys, in a gesture meant to demand peace.

"Fight's over." The girl said in a firm tone of voice. A desperate and imploring look was given to Peter, Emma trying to both soothe and appease him. "You've won. You've defeated the pirate captain and taken back what's rightfully yours. You saved me, and that's all that matters."

Peter had hesitated at her words, enough time given for Gavin to mutter an angry, "Whatever."

"You're the hero of the hour." added Emma with a forced smile.

Peter Pan then grinned. "You hear that boys?! I'm EMMA's hero!" He let out an excited whoop, spun her around in dizzying circles. The lost boys joined them up in the sky, laughing and dancing about, their energy excited and wild. Only Gavin and Emma seem to hold back, the infectious glee overtaking the glade, seeming to somehow skip over them.

Amidst the endless spinning, Emma caught sight of Gavin, the boy looking skywards. Not so much at Peter, but at Emma, with the oddest of expressions, as though he was infinitely sorry about something. Emma couldn't imagine what HE had to be sorry about, nor could she ask him, caught in Peter Pan's grip as she was.

Higher and higher they soared, Emma not only dizzy, but more than a little afraid. It made her cling her arms tighter around Peter, as though a part of her didn't trust him to NOT drop her. Such a worry upset her, and not just because the ground was now so very far away. To not trust Peter Pan went against her nature, went against her every belief, Emma knowing that she owed a lot to Peter Pan. For the family he had given her, for the evil he had saved her from. He had in fact given Emma her life back, a present and a future, and for that she would be eternally grateful. It didn't mean she would overlook his bullying of Gavin, Emma intended to have a talk with Peter Pan about that kind of bad behavior.

She even hoped to broker a peace between the two boys, Emma feeling that Peter shouldn't harbor a grudge against Gavin for what had happened. It had been HER choice to make, her decision to go after the boy, and her fault that she had been caught in the first place. That she was STILL caught, Emma closing her eyes briefly, to ward off the worst of the dizziness, the lightheaded feelings and the fear this high a height was making her feel. It was easier to chase off those feelings, than the ones that had blossomed in her heart for one Captain Hook, Emma thinking of the man who was in fact her TRUE hero. Who would always be Emma's hero, and there was nothing and no one, not even Peter Pan, who could change that.

To Be Continued….

Collapses. Well I didn't get to where I originally wanted to end it and for a second it was like the chapter that did not want to come to a close. Originally I imagined it ending with one of the lost boys commenting on Emma looks different somehow, and Peter Pan whipping around to creepily eye her. I even imagined at one point, Peter would be looking up at where Gavin had flown off to, licking his blood off the sword, when the kid would say that thing about Emma looking different/older. I don't know if I'll get the blood licking off the sword thing, but I do want the you look different/older moment to happen….I guess it depends on if I continue right from where I left off, or if I go with what I had originally thought I'd do for the next chapter, which is start off with the morning after...hmm...I suppose I could always ease into the morning after, and have a flash back or too that includes that stuff….

Halfway through writing this, I started doubting and hating on the chapter. I am glad I didn't trash it, that I went and read over the first 3700 words...and thus reassured myself that it wasn't as bad as I thought. I feel like I am so inexperienced at writing a bunch of kids, little ones, and teenagers, all interacting. _ Hope this chapter and the other ones focus on the lost boys won't be too boring or suck….

I also did a lot of rethinking on the Hook side of things. Okay when I first came up with this story, I was stupid. I don't know why….why didn't I think how big an asshole it would make him look if he didn't go after Emma in arc 2. Basically when I originally planned this story out, I imagined Hook in arc 2, mostly doing his own thing….it wasn't until I started writing the actual story, that I started going, wait a minute...if he cares about her, he'd go look for her. He wouldn't be cold hearted and cruel and leave her to that fate, no matter what…..so I am glad I was able to figure out how to adjust the story accordingly to that. As such some of what I wanted in arc 3 is probably going to spill over into arc 2, mostly with the Indian shamaness and tribes. They're having an extended role, or the shamaness is at any rate, and I have started joking that the Indian shamaness is secretly a Captain Swan shipper. But I will leave why that is to all of your imaginations for now! XD

So I am feeling a lot more confidant about arc 2 now! And slowly dying for more Hook Emma interactions of any kind. So hard not to spoil about one in particular, and let's just say I am pretty sure the one I am most eager to detail happens at the mermaids' lagoon! So excited.

Though sometimes I worry some of the details are so stupid or I did them wrong. _ sighs.

-Michelle

BrokenBlackrose89 thanks. I am trying! Relieved the rewrite was a much better read than that god awful first attempt. Sometimes I think I have to write the crappy version first to get it out of my system. Though it's been a long time since I wrote an entire chapter that was needing to be rewritten like that one was! _

Blackb3rry, smiles but is also apologetic. Sorry sorry! I try not to abandon my fics, but sometimes I am so slow. Too many ideas and real life and medical things that interfere. I never completely say a fic of mine is abandoned, cause a few times I left a fic or even a fandom for years, and then came back and finished it. That happen with my first VP fic….I was gone for FOUR years, then I think it took me a whole year after to write the darn thing to it's conclusion. Though now I look at that old, old example of my writing, and see so much wrong with it, it's ridiculous. I want to revamp it and rewrite it someday….Might be a pipe dream though.