User - NRoberts - G1 Blue Dahlia

"'Night. I liked the finger potatoes 'specially," Luke said to David.

"Want a hand?" Logan called out.

"No." But she stopped at the doorway, turned back and just looked at him a moment. "But thanks."

She herded them up, beginning the nightly ritual as thunder rumbled in. And Parker scooted under Luke's bed to hide from it. Rain splatted, fat juicy drops, against the windows as she tucked them in.

"Parker's a scaredy-cat." Luke snuggled his head in the pillow. "Can he sleep up here tonight?"

"All right, just for tonight, so he isn't afraid." She lured him out from under the bed, and stroking him as he trembled, laid him in with Luke. "Is that better now?"

"Uh-huh. Mom?" He broke off, petting the dog, and exchanging a long look with his brother.

"What? What are you two cooking up?"

"You ask her," Luke hissed.

"Nuh-uh.You."

"You."

"Ask me what? If you've spent all your allowances and work money on comics, I—"

"Are you going to marry Logan?" Gavin blurted out.

"Am I—where did you get an idea like that?"

"We heard Roz and Hayley talking about how he asked you to." Luke yawned, blinked sleepily at her. "So are you?"

She sat on the side of Gavin's bed. "I've been thinking about it. But I wouldn't decide something that important without talking to both of you. It's a lot to think about, for all of us, a lot to discuss."

"He's nice, and he plays with us, so it's okay if you do."

Stella let out a laugh at Luke's rundown. All right, she thought, maybe not such a lot to discuss from certain points of view.

"Marriage is a very big deal. It's a really big promise."

"Would we go live in his house?" Luke wondered.

"Yes, I suppose we would if..."

"We like it there. And I like when he holds me upside down. And he got the splinter out of my finger,

and it hardly hurt at all. He even kissed it after, just like he's supposed to."

"Did he?" she murmured.

"He'd be our stepdad." Gavin drew lazy circles with his finger on top of his sheet. "Like we have Nana

Jo for a stepgrandmother. She loves us."

"She certainly does."

"So we decided it'd be okay to have a stepdad, if it's Logan."

"I can see you've given this a lot of thought," Stella managed. "And I'm going to think about it, too. Maybe we'll talk about it more tomorrow." She kissed Gavin's cheek.

"Logan said Dad's always watching out for us."

Tears burned the back of her eyes. "Yes. Oh, yes, he is, baby."

She hugged him, hard, then turned to hug Luke. "Good night. I'll be right downstairs."

But she walked through to her room first to catch her breath, compose herself. Treasures, she thought. She had the most precious treasures. She pressed her fingers to her eyes and thought of Kevin. A

treasure she'd lost.

Logan said Dad's always watching out for us.

A man who would know that, would accept that and say those words to a young boy was another kind

of treasure.

He'd changed the pattern on her. He'd planted a bold blue dahlia in the middle of her quiet garden. And she wasn't digging it out.

"I'm going to marry him," she heard herself say, and laughed at the thrill of it.

Through the next boom of thunder, she heard the singing. Instinctively, she stepped into the bath, to

look into her sons' room. She was there, ghostly in billowing white, her hair a tangle of dull gold. She stood between the beds, her voice calm and sweet, her eyes insane as she stared through the flash of lightning at Stella.

Fear trickled down Stella's back. She stepped forward, and was shoved back by a blast of cold.

"No." She raced forward again, and hit a solid wall. "No!" She battered at it. "You won't keep me from my babies." She flung herself against the frigid shield, screaming for her children who slept on, undisturbed.

"You bitch! Don't you touch them."

She ran out of the room, ignoring Hayley, who raced down toward her, ignoring the clatter of feet on the stairs. She knew only one thing. She had to get to her children, she had to get through the barrier and get to her boys.

At a full run she hit the open doorway, and was knocked back against the far wall.

"What the hell's going on?" Logan grabbed her, pushing her aside as he rushed the room himself.

"She won't let me in." Desperate, Stella beat her fists against the cold until her hands were raw and numb. "She's got my babies. Help me."

Logan rammed his shoulder against the opening. "It's like fucking steel." Rammed it again as Harper and David hit it with him.

Behind them, Mitch stared into the room, at the figure in white, who glowed now with a wild light.

"Name of God."

"There has to be another way. The other door." Roz grabbed Mitch's arm and pulled him down the hall.

"This ever happen before?"

"No. Dear God. Hayley, keep the baby away."

Frantic, her hands throbbing from pounding, Stella ran. Another way, she thought. Force wouldn't work. She could beat against that invisible ice, rage and threaten, but it wouldn't crack.

Oh, please, God, her babies.

Reason. She would try reason and begging and promises. She dashed out into the rain, yanked open the terrace doors. And though she knew better, hurled herself at the opening.

"You can't have them!" she shouted over the storm. "They're mine. Those are my children. My life."

She went down on her knees, ill with fear. She could see her boys sleeping still, and the hard, white light pulsing from the woman between them.

She thought of the dream. She thought of what she and her boys had talked about shortly before the singing. "It's not your business what I do." She struggled to keep her voice firm. "Those are my children, and I'll do what's best for them. You're not their mother."

The light seemed to waver, and when the figure turned, there was as much sorrow as madness in her eyes. "They're not yours. They need me. They need their mother. Flesh and blood."

She held up her hands, scraped and bruised from the beating. "You want me to bleed for them? I will. I am." On her knees, she pressed her palms to the cold while the rain sluiced over her.

"They belong to me, and there's nothing I won't do to keep them safe, to keep them happy. I'm sorry

for what happened to you. Whatever it was, whoever you lost, I'm sorry. But you can't have what's mine. You can't take my children from me. You can't take me from my children."

Stella pushed her hand out, and it slid through as if slipping through ice water. Without hesitation, she shoved into the room.

She could see beyond her, Logan still fighting to get through, Stella pressed against the other doorway. She couldn't hear them, but she could see the anguish on Logan's face, and that his hands were bleeding.

"He loves them. He might not have known until tonight, but he loves them. He'll protect them. He'll be

a father to them, one they deserve. This is my choice, our choice. Don't ever try to keep me from my children again."

There were tears now as the figure flowed across the room toward the terrace doors. Stella laid a trembling hand on Gavin's head, on Luke's. Safe, she thought as her knees began to shake. Safe and warm.

"I'll help you," she stated firmly, meeting the grieving eyes again. "We all will. If you want our help,

give us something. Your name, at least. Tell me your name."

The Bride began to fade, but she lifted a hand to the glass of the door. There, written in rain that dripped like tears, was a single word.

Amelia

When Logan burst through the door behind her, Stella spun toward him, laid a hand quickly on his lips. "Ssh. You'll wake them."

Then she buried her face against his chest and wept.

EPILOGUE

"Amelia." Stella shivered, despite the dry clothes and the brandy Roz had insisted on. "Her name. I saw