Chapter 2 - Part 17: Atomic

Flora stood on the front porch, her mind in a foggy haze as Drake repeated himself.

"Did you come alone?" he asked.


It was then that she broke down once more in front of the Vampire.  "I was just at the wake," she sobbed, unable to stop the words flowing out of her mouth. "Everything is such a mess!  My parents are fighting, my brothers are dead, I, I just couldn't stay there!" she finished, wiping away the tears.


Suddenly her mind cleared and she realized where she was and who she was talking to.  Her hands went to her face in embarrassment, "Oh, god," she moaned. "What am I doing here?  I don't even remember coming here.  I'm sorry, it's so late, everyone must be asleep. I'll just go..."


Drake cut her off by pulling her into a tight hug.  Her body went limp in his as she relaxed and let herself be held by his strong arms.

"Shh..." he whispered into her ear.  "Worry about nothing.  You are safe here."


She reluctantly pulled away from his embrace.  "Thank you," she said sincerely, "you've always been so nice to me and my family.  It's just that it feels like I don't have anyone else to talk to, you know?"

"I am always available to you," Drake replied with a soft smile.

Flora gave him a weak smile in return and continued, "It's just been so hard since Vincent and Julius were killed.  Mom and dad...  All they do is fight.  Most of the time it's about the stupidest things - the garbage not being taken out, dishes left on the table.  I would rather them just ignore each other, like they're doing to me," she finished.


"That should never happen," he said in a smooth voice.  "You are too special to be ignored."

She couldn't be sure, but it felt as if Drake was hitting on her.  Which, after so long of being in a house of constant invisibility, the attention felt quite nice to her.


"I believe you should come inside, relax for a while and forget about the issues that trouble you," Drake said, gesturing towards the door.


Flora hesitated, knowing that before her lay two very different paths.  If she declined his very suggestive offer, she would have to return back to the cold angry house she fled and could quite possibly ruin the friendship she had with Drake. Accepting his invitation, however, opened up a whole different set of questions which she wasn't sure she had the strength to face at the moment.

In the end, she didn't have to say a word.


As soon as Drake's hand touched hers, it was like he'd put a leash around her.  She would have blindly followed him anywhere.


In this case, it meant through the front door of the house.

As they sneaked into the Dracul residence Drake whispered to her under his breath, "Under any circumstance, do not let yourself be seen by anyone here.  It is vital."

Faith nodded silently and followed him up the stairs to his room.


When they'd realized that Flora had left the wake and not returned, Pete and Faith tried calling the few friends of hers she had, with no luck of finding her.  No one had seen her.  Pete was out driving around the city searching, while Faith had been camped out on the sofa, her cellphone in hand.

It was at least 2am the last time she had seen the clock before drifting off to sleep on the sofa...


... It was just past 6am when Flora quietly tried to sneak in the front door.


"Pete?  Please, tell me you found her," Faith said groggily as she pushed herself upright on the couch.  When her hopeful eyes turned and landed on her daughter, relief swept through her.


"Flora, thank god," she exhaled.  After the already painful day she'd had, she was too exhausted to be angry with her daughter.  She simply gestured to the loveseat, "Please, sit down."


Bracing herself for the angry tirade she was sure was about to hit her, she sat with her eyes downcast while her mother only stared at her.  The silence seemed to stretch to eternity.


It was finally broken by Faith, "Listen, I know this has been hard," chosing her words carefully, she tried to talk in an even mannered tone.  "This has been hard on all of us.  I'm sorry for that.  I'm trying to do the best I can do to hold it together, there's only so much -"


Flora interrupted her, unable to stop herself, "You're damn right it's been hard on all of us!  When was the last time you asked if I was ok?  Or how about Dad?  How do you think Dad is coping with the loss of his sons, too, with you yelling at him all the time?  This is hard for all of us, but you are making it even harder!"


"I don't want to argue, Flora," she said weakly.  The conversation was clearly heading in the direction Faith had attempted to avoid, so she took a pause and tried changing the subject, "So, where did you go tonight?" she asked, trying to keep any judgement out of her tone.  "We tried all your friends, but no one had seen you," 


"That's because I wasn't at one of my girlfriends' houses.  I was with someone who actually wants to talk to me, who doesn't ignore me or forget that I exist!" she exclaimed loudly.  When Faith looked at her questioningly, she tried to stop herself but it just slipped out, "I was with Drake, ok!"


"Flora!" her mother gasped, her hand going to her chest, "why would you do something so stupid, those people are monsters!  You could have been killed!"  


Flora couldn't believe was she was hearing, "What do you mean those people?  He was your friend first!  You've been friends with him since you were in High School!"  It took her a moment before she realized why her mother was really upset, "You're jealous!  That's it!  You've wanted him since you were my age and now that I have him you can't stand it!"


Faith suddenly got deadly serious, "You listen to me, missy," she said through gritted teeth, "your brothers didn't die by accident.  They were murdered.  And it was a Vampire that did it.  A Vampire who did it to make a point..." her voice cracked and she was on the verge of tears, but continued, "to make a point to me."


"But Mom, it wasn't Drake," Flora expressed, "he has been nothing but kind to me," she said.  Why couldn't her mother see that not all Vampires were the same?  It was her mother who had discovered that herself!  "Tonight, while we were together," Flora confessed, "he told me he loved me, doesn't that mean anything?"


Faith's fury flared up once more, "you slept with him?  Flora, my god!  His kind kill! They are trying to take my family away from me," she cried out in anger.  "You are never to see him again, Flora, never!  If I ever find out you have," she growled, "I know there are ways of taking them out as well.  Do I make myself clear?"


The shock of her mother's words hit her hard.  Drake wasn't like that.  His hands might be cold, but his heart was warm.  Even though she was sure her mom was bluffing, the thought of anything bad happening to him was too much to think about.


"Fine, mom," she resigned.  "I won't see him again.  But you're wrong, he's not like that," she spat out as she left the couch to get away from the true monster in the house.


Faith watched as her daughter walked away with a broken heart.  Better a broken heart than a dead one, she thought to herself sadly.





Title / Blondie

17 comments:

  1. CHALLENGE NOTES:

    Sorry there isn't much to this one. This world is such a pain in the arse to play right now, it'll be a miracle if I can squeeze one more necessary chapter out of it!

    Stupid lag...

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  2. Drake babies? : D Pleeeeaaaaase?

    For the record, yes, 90% of my chapter predictions include babies. Mostly just from the characters I want to see babies from. And Flora and Drake would be very pretty babies (imo).

    I'm sort of surprised Faith reacted so badly to finding out Flora was with Drake. I mean, they were friends first. *Sigh* Adults never make sense.

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    1. You and your baby-brain! Haha. We will just have to see about that. Faith was pretty adamant that Flora never see him again... But yeah, totally, you'd think Faith wouldn't paint all vampires with such a wide brush, huh? =)

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  3. Oh my goodness!!! Wow, wow. I can understand Faith's insane reaction and blame of all vampires but I really hope she comes to grip with it. However, doesn't she realize that forbidding teenagers is like adding fire to the flame? For some of us adults too. :P

    Quite an emotional chapter! I am looking forward to the next.

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  4. Wow,this is really a hard situation for all of them. Faith is afraid of losing her daughter to the vampires, too, and Flora needs somebody who makes her feel important. I can really understand both of them, which makes it incredibly hard to choose sides. Actually, I don't think I can do that..
    Awesome chapter though. And Flora is sooo beautiful.

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  5. Woah, Poor Flora! I feel sorry for her the most.

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  6. Might be a short in game time, but it packed at least as much emotional whallup as the last chapter. And it's also so... ambiguous. We know that vampires can compel people, especially those with whom they have a strong relationship, especially at night. What are Drake's motivations? And his last name is Dracul, eh? Did I know that?

    Hmmm....

    Dur, I'm sorry your game is such a mess. Any chance you could port your household and sims of interest into a fresh copy of the town if nothing else works? Sounds like you're planning on moving soon anyway.

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    1. Thanks, Susan! Ambiguous is my middle name... Hahaha

      Unfortunately I've done so much tweaking and adding to Harmony that a fresh copy would be torture to start over in. So, *SPOILER* yes, there's a move coming up in the future. =)

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  7. Hmm, I'm quite intrigued as to where this is all going, Drake seemed uncomfortably close to controlling Flora a few times there...

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  8. I love reading all your guy's comments, how each of you take different things from the story, it's so interesting to hear all the varied reactions! Thank you for making my job so much more fun!!

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  9. Yay! I'm finally caught up! (Though it obviously helped me tremendously that you took a break in there.)

    Poor Flora. It must be so tough for her to hold things together when everything is falling apart. I agree, though, that Faith probably made a big mistake in forbidding her to see Drake. That's just the kind of thing that leads to teen pregnancy!

    I can see where Faith is coming from with her big, sweeping generalizations now that a vampire has killed her sons. I can't help but think of how it will break Drake's heart when he hears about it, though.

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    1. Thank you for all your comments! It's always fun to read about people's thoughts and perceptions as they're going through the story, but most people don't comment on older posts - so thanks!! I love your insights as well - now we'll just have to wait and see how everything turns out! =)

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  10. Yay, I'm so happy you are continuing this, Red!
    Great chapters, I can't wait to see what happens.

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  11. Finally, my favorite legacy story goes on! :). Faith really nailed the reason for her sons deaths. So its totally understandable that she doesn't want Flora near vampires. This is't just a question is Drake good or bad or something in between, but a fact that vampire killed her sons. Who that vampire is she doesn't know. But Drake is vampire, he hangs around with other vampires, that enough makes him dangerous. Vampire who killed her sons could come in contact with Flora that way. So forbidding Flora to see vampires is least she could do. Its also a great reason to move as hell away from Harmony. (And help you in solving your lag issue :))

    As for your lag issue, having moved my sims many times in other save games because of lag I can give you few advice's. You probably know all this but just in case.

    1) Move only those things you absolutely must. Clear inventory of your sims, leave only stuff like pictures and other things you can't replace and are sure you will need them. By doing so you prevent "lag transfer". Sims 3 is such bad programmed game that sometime a few items can cause lag.

    2) If you can use Twalan Porter. This mode will transfer your sims with relationships intact. You aren't far into you legacy so there aren't many sims to move. If I was in your place I would only moved family members. Less chances of bugs that way.

    Oh, and I hope Cecil and his family moves too :). Along with Morands urn. It would be nice to maybe see his ghost sometimes in the future. :)

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    1. Hi Gromdal!! Thanks for this amazing comment! I'm glad someone is finally taking Faith's side! hehe

      While I haven't ever tried moving families from one world to another, I do have Twallan's Porter mod and it seemed to do the trick just fine!

      Hope to get some good play time in this weekend and build back up my buffer. =)

      Thanks again for reading - it's folks like you all who make this fun for me!

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  12. Oh man. Well...I've wanted Drake somewhere in the Cagely legacy so I'm taking Flora's side on this one. =D Sorry Faith...still love you though! BUT I do understand Faith's anger. She is in such turmoil over the death of her sons she is blaming everyone it seems.

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  13. I Get both sides tbh, Faith's anger and hatred towards the vampires, but also Flora, cause Drake as a person (or should I say vampire) has done nothing wrong in person. It's sort of like blaming all chinese people because one chinese did something against you (yeah, i'm using chinese for some stupid reasons...)

    I think it's just a very hard subject to resolve. If it ever will be resolved!

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