Eliza was practically shoving Jack and Quinn down onto the chairs as she simultaneously bustled around the kitchen, gathering what she needed and imploring them to explain.

"We made it into town alright and got what you needed," Jack said calmly as he pointed to the bags and supplies they had brought back from town.

"But, obviously, we ran into some trouble on the way back," Quinn explained. His voice wasn't quite as calm as Jack's. Eliza searched their faces for the answers they weren't providing.

"Hugh and Larry?" she asked.

"I don't think Hugh and Larry could make a mess this big," Jack said.

"Stop being so cryptic! What happened?" Eliza stopped her chastising momentarily to wring her hands before tending to their wounds. Jack winced as she dabbed at his face and tried to remove most of the blood to see just how bad his wounds really were. Eliza threw me a warm towel and ordered me to start cleaning Quinn up. I barely managed to catch it before it hit the floor, and then stared at it dumbfounded. I had never cleaned anyone's wounds before. Quinn seemed to catch on and, laughing, took the towel from my hands.

"I'm not crippled, I can do it myself," he said good-naturedly as he started to clean the numerous cuts and scrapes he had received. Eliza was still staring at Jack expectantly.

"Like I said, the trip into town went fine. We would've been back a lot sooner, except on the trip back we ran into some trouble. We saw some smoke in the distance, so we decided to go investigate. It turns out someone tried to set the tree on fire." I thought Eliza would've gasped or showed some signs of terror, but she only seemed confused.

"They tried to light the tree on fire? Then it must not have been anyone that was familiar with the tree. I mean, of course fire won't harm the tree."

"That's what I thought at first," Jack admitted. "But I think it was done more as a sign. Kind of like moths to a candle."

"What do you mean?" Eliza asked.

"When we showed up at the tree, we didn't very well now what to do. The fire wasn't out of control yet, but I wasn't going to try and put it out with only two people. But as soon as we got there, we were ambushed. It's like they knew we'd be drawn to it and come to investigate, so they waited."

"Was it Hugh and Larry?" Eliza asked again.

"No, I had never seen these people before. I don't doubt that they were with Hugh and Larry though. Maybe we still have some people after us. My theory is that Hugh and Larry went back and told their cohorts that they had seen us in the area. They don't know where we live, so they couldn't very well come to us. Instead, they tried to bring us to them."

"Well, what happened to the men who ambushed you at the fire?" I spoke up for the first time. Jack seemed sort of startled when he turned his attention to me, as if he had forgotten that I was there. His eyes took on a cold, dangerous gleam when he spoke.

"They're dead," he said flatly. I felt my insides tighten. I certainly wasn't safe at home in the twenty-first century anymore.

"But I don't get it," Eliza said. "Alexander Tempest was the only one with enough drive to try and manipulate us and lead a whole group of followers. I can't see Hugh and Larry and whoever else is left taking the initiative to come after us themselves."

Jack 's shoulders slumped and he buried his head in his hands. For the first time since I had seen him, he looked his age.

"I don't know. I thought of the same thing. Tempest is dead, so I can't think of anyone who would take up the 'cause' after him."

A thought suddenly crossed my mind. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it earlier, but I hoped to God I was wrong.

"You guys never actually saw Alexander's body, did you?" I asked. Jack lifted his gaze to meet mine.

"No, but he fell off of a cliff. I don't think many people can survive such a drop. We weren't able to check for his body, but I'm pretty sure he's dead," he explained in a slightly condescending tone. It agitated me a little.

"I know that, I've read the books, remember? All I'm saying is that maybe he's not dead. When I read the books, it never explicitly said he was dead. If I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure it said something along the lines of 'And so Alexander Tempest disappeared over the edge of the cliff, forced to give Jack, Eliza, and Quinn some peace for at least the time being.'"

"So?" Jack asked. I was beginning to be frustrated by how thick he was being.

"So I'm saying there's a good chance he's not actually dead! In fiction books, they usually make it crystal clear that someone is dead. The fact that the book didn't explicitly say he was dead and instead made it all cryptic sounding would leave the reader to assume that he's actually still alive."

"This isn't fiction, Evelyn. This is reality," Quinn said, his tone a little more pleasant than Jack's.

"I know, but-" I paused, looking around the room. No one seemed to believe what I was saying. My shoulders slumped and I waved a hand in the air dismissively.

"Never mind. I don't know what I was thinking," I mumbled. Eliza tried to comfort me.

"It's not that we don't believe you, Evelyn. It's just that I don't think anyone could have survived that fall. If Alexander had survived the fall, I think we would have heard from him by now." I was too upset to talk, and just nodded in agreement. An awkward silence dominated the room for a few moments before Eliza spoke again.

"Will you bring that oil lamp closer so we can see how badly they're hurt?" I complied and brought the lamp close to Jack and then Quinn so Eliza could inspect their wounds. Now that all the blood had been wiped off, we could see that their wounds weren't as bad as they had initially appeared. Eliza confirmed this.

"Most of them seem to be surface scratches, even though you each seem to have a good number of bruises. If anything starts to bother you or hurt more, you let me know," she ordered.

"I'm going to bed," Quinn said as he slowly got up from his chair. As he started to walk away, Eliza gasped and grabbed his arm, causing him to wince.

"Quinn! What about this huge gash on the back of your arm? Were you going to mention this at all?" Quinn craned his head to see the gash that was causing such a fuss.

"Oh, I guess I didn't realize that had happened," he answered sheepishly. Eliza clicked her tongue and practically dragged Quinn out of the room.

"We need to bandage this right away. I can't believe you said you didn't notice this. If half of my arm had a nasty, angry-looking gash across it, I think I would've noticed! I don't see how-" Eliza's voice faded away as she towed her reluctant patient further into the house. Jack and I were left awkwardly sitting in the kitchen. I was still kind of hurt that he had behaved in such a way when I mentioned Alexander Tempest, and was trying to avoid looking him in the eye. Instead, I folded my hands and focused my attention on my lap.

"Look, I'm sorry how I acted before," Jack apologized. His voice seemed strained, and I knew he wasn't used to apologizing often. I lifted my gaze to meet his own before nervously shifting it elsewhere.

"Oh, it's fine, don't worry about it," I said lamely. I was really bad when it came to things like this.

"No, I should have paid more attention to you. You're right, we didn't see the body. Even if it is highly unlikely that he's still alive, I shouldn't count the possibility out completely. I guess the prospect of him being alive is so," he paused for a moment, trying to think of the right word, "unwelcome that I didn't even want to consider it. But I'm sorry, I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

I could tell it was a heartfelt apology and it must have been hard for him to say it. I returned my gaze to his and smiled what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Really, no hard feelings," I assured him. Another long, awkward silence filled the room as we both tried to think of something to say to alleviate the tension.

"So what are we going to do now?" I finally thought to ask.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, do they know where we live now? Are we not safe here anymore?" I asked. His face darkened and his features took on a hint of anger, but I could tell it wasn't directed at me.

"I'll be damned if I allow some mindless oafs to run us out of the only somewhat permanent home we've ever had. We spent a lot of money and time building this house and making sure it was in a secluded, hard to find area. It's true they know we're somewhere near the tree, but they still don't know where. Besides, it would be too difficult to be on the run anyway. We wouldn't have anywhere to stay, and it would just be a waste of money."

Eliza finally returned to the kitchen, but Quinn must've already gone to bed. She seemed to have overheard at least some of our conversation.

"It seems like they're bound to find us eventually. It's not like a two-story home is that inconspicuous," she pointed out. I agreed with her.

"I'm not letting them ruin what we've created, Eliza," Jack promised softly. Eliza bit her lower lip and nodded. "They know we're a force to be reckoned with. Until we get this straightened out, we'll just have to be on our guard."

"But what could they want with us? Are they really taking up the torch after Alexander?" Eliza seemed distressed, and with good reason.

"I'm not sure. The men who ambushed us refused to talk, even when we applied some not-so-gentle, persuasive tactics." I felt the blood draining from my face. I knew that Jack was brutal when he had to be, but it was entirely different when I was reading about it in my nice warm bed than when I was smack dab in the middle of all the trouble.

"So we just bide our time, wait, and hope for the best?" I asked. Jack turned his determined gaze to meet mine.

"Exactly."

Wait is what we did. For about a month we stayed cooped up in the house, cleaning every surface and reading every book (except for Quinn's journals, of course). It seemed like the only thing left to do was twiddle our thumbs, and we did a lot of that too. In essence, saying we were bored would have been an understatement.

I was in the middle of one of the naps I had had ample time to take lately when I was rudely awoken. I had uncomfortably fallen asleep in one of the parlor chairs when Quinn decided to impolitely pick up the chair and dump me out of it. I landed on the ground in an agonizing heap, and tried to decide whether the pain I was experiencing was caused by the book digging into my ribs or whether it was just from the way I had been sleeping. I turned a murderous eye on Quinn, demanding an explanation.

One of his signature, annoying grins was plastered across his face.

"Look outside," he said. I mumbled something insulting under my breath as I painfully picked myself up off the floor and glanced out the window. The world outside was blanketed in white, causing me to do a double take.

"It's snowing!" I squealed. I ran over to the window and peered outside, where there looked to be a couple inches of snow on the ground. Normally I wouldn't think of precipitation as any big deal, but when you've been stranded in a house for the past month, the amount of fun you can have in snow seems to greatly increase.

"We have to have a snowball fight," I said hopefully as I looked over at Quinn.

"Of course, but first I have to go split some firewood. We're running low." I could feel my face fall.

"You mean you so rudely awakened me just to tell me that I was going to have to wait a couple more hours before I was saved from boredom?" His grin returned.

"Yeah, something like that," he said. I stared daggers at his back as he walked out of the room, leaving me to stare at the inviting outdoors all by myself. I finally got tired of waiting and decided that I could at least get a head start on my snowball making, so I piled on my warm clothes and ventured outside.

I saw Quinn chopping wood a little ways off at the side of the house, so I decided to start building my fort on the other side. I managed to build a pretty spectacular wall and get a head start on my snowball making, but I was beginning to get bored with playing in the snow all by myself. I thought I would exact my revenge upon Quinn, so I stealthily snuck over to the other side of the house with some of my newly-made snowballs in hand. He seemed pretty absorbed in his log splitting, so he didn't notice when I crept up and threw a snowball in his general direction. I wasn't really expecting it to hit him, but was pleasantly surprised with my hand-eye coordination when it smoked him in the back of the head. He stumbled forward in shock, and there was a moment when I thought he might drop the axe on his foot and maim himself.

Quinn spun around and glared at me, and I couldn't quite tell if he was genuinely angry or not. I began to mutter some incoherent syllables that were designed to form an apology, but stopped when a sly grin broke out on Quinn's face. He quickly began to form and throw snow balls, and I soon found his hand-eye coordination was much better than mine. The first throw had been a lucky one, and only about five percent of my air-born missiles were actually hitting their mark, while the vast majority of Quinn's seemed to always manage to find my face.

After scraping the snow out of my eyes and ears for the tenth time, I began to regret agreeing to face Quinn in a snowball fight.

"This isn't fun anymore," I said in a voice that sounded a little whinier than I had intended. Quinn dropped the arm he was about to launch a snowball from, his grin faltering.

"Why not?" he asked, seeming genuinely confused.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because I'm pretty sure I've gotten frost bite and I'm never going to be able to hear out of my left ear again after that snow ball you threw." I could tell Quinn was trying his hardest to keep a straight face. "It's not funny! You can't cure frost bite! You have to amputate, and the medical technology in this time period is very rudimentary."

"So I've heard." He didn't seem the least bit apologetic. "So you'd rather go back inside and count the cracks in the floor boards?" I frowned as I tried to think of something entertaining to do that wouldn't end with my having to get a limb amputated. I searched the trampled snow for answers, but could hardly come up with anything.

"Snow angels?" I said lamely. Quinn cocked an eyebrow.

"Are we five?"

"You sure act like it sometimes," I retorted. I felt bad for being so short and grumpy with him, but the freezing cold and snow up against one's ear drum will do that to a person.

Trying to pacify me, Quinn plopped down in a fresh patch of snow and began waving his arms and feet back and forth. He got up to admire his handiwork.

"Something seems wrong," I said. Quinn shot me a weird look before returning his gaze to the snow angel.

"How can a snow angel be wrong?"

I knelt down in the snow and drew an evil face on the snow angel with my finger.

"There. Now it just needs a pitchfork and a tail and it will reflect you perfectly." Quinn threw back his head and laughed.

"And if we add a string of complaints coming out of its mouth, it'll be the mirror image of you." I smiled and rolled my eyes as I lay down in the snow.

"It's going to be incredibly painful when we go back inside, thaw out, and regain feeling in our limbs, isn't it?" I asked as I sat up and curled my legs beneath me.

"Most likely," Quinn admitted as he sat down beside me.

"Look, it's snowing again," I unnecessarily pointed out as downy snowflakes began to descend from the sky. "It's so pretty."

"Almost romantic," Quinn said in what I took to be a joking manner as he turned to me and wiggled his eyebrows. I exploded into laughter and hit him on the shoulder.

"You remind me of Mrs. Fish when you do that," I giggled. Quinn looked confused.

"When I come onto you?"

"No, when you wiggle your eyebrows like that." Wait, did he just admit he was coming onto me? I blushed and turned away as a funny feeling began to form in the pit of my stomach. An awkward silence followed until Quinn broke it.

"You know, you're a very hard person to read."

"How so?"

"I dunno," he said as he looked out at the falling snow. "You don't talk about how you feel or give any clues or anything." I didn't know how to respond to that, so I evaded it.

"You're a pretty hard person to read too," I told him. He turned to me with one of his boyish grins plastered across his face.

"No pun intended?" I laughed at his joke, but quickly got back to the topic.

"See, that's what I mean. You're always joking, even if it's about a serious subject. It's hard to tell when you mean what you're saying or if you're just joking, and it's even harder to tell how you feel about a situation." Quinn was perplexed.

"Like when?"

"Like every time!" I laughed. "You didn't take the engagement serious, you didn't take the wedding serious, and you're not even serious now."

"I took the wedding seriously." Quinn said calmly as he stared at me a little too intently. Unable to fully meet his gaze, I turned mine to the snow.

"It seemed like most of the time you wouldn't even talk to me, and when you did it was only in jest."

"I guess I just didn't know how you felt about it," he said. "It all goes back to you being a hard person to read I suppose." I shrugged.

"I just don't always know how you feel about things, and I guess that makes me hesitant." I wasn't even sure exactly what we were talking about. Were we dancing around the subject of being attracted to each other? I couldn't even say for sure.

"Is that why you read my journals, to see how I felt about things?" My jaw dropped and I quickly turned towards Quinn, more incoherent syllables escaping my mouth before I had a chance to turn them into words. The guilt was overwhelming, and I felt like he had physically knocked the air out of me. I expected Quinn to be mad or upset, but he only had a devious grin on his face. He waited, the smile never leaving his face. He almost seemed amused by my apparent distress. I guess it served me right.

"Quinn," I finally managed to breathe. He put up a hand to stop me, but I still continued. "I'm so, so, so, sorry. It was a really, really, really terrible thing of me to do. I won't even make excuses. It was awful of me and I can only ask you to forgive me. I hardly read any if it's any consolation?" Quinn just smiled and shook his head.

"Don't worry about it, really. I mean, yeah, if it were anyone but you I would probably be pissed, but for some reason it doesn't really bother me." I opened and closed my mouth a couple times, not really sure what to stay. I finally settled on a discontented sigh.

"What?" Quinn asked as he turned to me, seeming a little puzzled.

"I feel like you should hate me. If you punched me in the face I think I'd feel a little better." Quinn just threw back his head and laughed.

"You have such a pretty face; I'd hate to mar it." I looked up, shocked, before I blushed and looked away. I cursed my innate awkwardness. Why couldn't I just take a compliment or flirt back? I didn't know what to do, so I changed the subject.

"The book never mentioned anything about you keeping journals. I was kind of surprised when I saw them," I admitted. Quinn lifted an eyebrow.

"Oh, so you don't know everything about me?" he teased. "I don't really know what prompted me to start. I guess I just didn't have anyone to talk to when I was younger. I had Jack and Eliza, but they were more of a parent or older sibling figure. Even though we were close there were things I just didn't feel comfortable talking to them about. It's obviously hard to make and keep friends when you're constantly jumping from place to place," he said.

"And time to time," I added. He smiled and continued.

"Yeah. So I guess I just needed to get my thoughts and feelings out somehow, so I started journaling. I always kind of felt like a sissy for it and I'm not that great of a writer, but it's really helped me through some things in the past." We sat there in a companionable silence after he finished explaining, but the guilt was still eating me alive.

"I really do still feel awful about it though," I admitted after a long silence. Quinn smiled and turned to me.

"I can't say I really feel too bad for you," he admitted good-naturedly.

"Yeah, I probably deserve it." There was another pause, and I realized how numb and red my hands were getting. I rubbed them together, trying to regain some feeling. "I swear I have frostbite."

Before I could stop him, Quinn turned towards me, took my hands, and covered them with his. I blushed but kept them there.

"Better?" he asked softly. I just nodded. I had to admit, my hands were a lot warmer. That weird sensation in my stomach returned tenfold, and I was extremely aware of Quinn's hands on mine.

"Evelyn, I-" Quinn began, but he didn't seem to know how to finish his sentence. I turned towards him, but I was having a hard time saying anything.

"Hmm?" I finally managed to get out. It wasn't quite a word, but I was still pretty proud that at least it had some type of meaning. Quinn looked at me for a few moments. His brow was furrowed and he looked like he was concentrating on something really hard. I felt him lift one of his hands from mine. Everything was happening in slow motion, and I remember thinking: Hey, what's he going to do with that hand?

Then his hand was gently cupping my face and guiding it towards his, and my mind was working a mile a minute. Is he going to kiss me? Will I be able to feel it? Can I still move my lips?

Luckily for me, I could still feel it. His lips seemed to radiate heat as they hovered close to mine for a few seconds as he hesitated. Then his lips were on mine and I was incapable of forming any thoughts, let alone a coherent one. My stomach was doing flip flops and I'm pretty sure my hands were shaking when I brought them up and wrapped my arms around Quinn's neck. He laid me back onto the snow and intensified his kisses and I, feeling slightly intoxicated, went along with it. It was an odd sensation for the vast majority of my body to be lacking any sensation due to the cold, but for my lips and surrounding areas to feel like they were on fire.

I could feel the goose bumps form on my arms from his skill at kissing, and just when I thought I was about ready to float away if Quinn weren't keeping me pinned down to the snow, we heard the front door open and Jack's voice.

"Quinn! Are you almost done chopping firewood? We're nearly out and we're freezing in here!" We both stopped breathing and Quinn looked down at me. I have no idea what the look on my face must've looked like, but Quinn broke out in a huge grin before looking back towards the door, then down at me again. He leaned down and gave me one more toe-curling kiss before he jumped up and dashed towards the door.

I laid there for a few moments longer, trying to register what had just happened. Quinn had just kissed me, and I liked it. I mean, I really liked it. It seemed like this was going to make all sorts of complications, but I was having a hard time thinking just what those were right now.

I was kind of in a hurry to get this out while my laptop still had internet access, so I apologize for its unpolishedness (I don't think that's a word, but I like it). I was a little more timely this time, but I promise I'll work at getting better. Any feedback on where the story is going would be much appreciated, as well as any reviews/feedback in general.