Sanctuary
By Kara (AnyaLindir@aol.com)

Disclaimer: None of these people belong to me. I can only wish they did. They belong to the gods who are Jason Katims, the WB, and Melinda Metz. And if you decide to sue, well, I'm sure you'll enjoy my Muppet Movie soundtrack on vinyl, and the eight cabbage patch dolls with wonky haircuts. :)

~*~*~*~*~*~

"I thought I'd find you here." Stephen's unruly brown curls popped up through the trap door to the treehouse. "What's wrong, Annabeth?" He settled his lanky body against hers with practiced ease, his arm slipping around her shoulders as it had hundreds of times over the years.

"I've had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day." Anna rested her head on Stephen's shoulder, finding the hollow that she swore years of cuddling against him had created.

"Even in Czechoslovakia?" His arm around her tightened, and Anna allowed herself to breathe in the familiar scent of detergent, deodorant, and Tabasco that always meant Stephen to her.

"Molly got her acceptance to NYU today. Aunt Maria and Uncle Michael are thrilled."

"But no word from Juilliard."

She didn't bother answering.

"Annabeth--" Stephen's lips brushed against her forehead. "What else, star?"

She buried her face in his shirt, hooking her arm around his neck. Her hand played with his long, thick curls. "Doug's going out with Stacy Cohen now. They were caught in the Eraser Room. Apparently she was giving him what I never would."

Stephen's chuckle echoed up from deep in his chest. His laugh, like all the Guerins', was infectious and frequent. "Didn't Mama and Auntie Izzy tell you never to trust a guy named Doug?" He dropped another kiss on her forehead. "You're too pretty, Annabeth. And too nice to all the jerks who drool over you and don't deserve you. Didn't Jamie and Nik teach you that chop to the back of the neck?"

She raised her face to look into his dark Czechoslovakian eyes--eyes like hers. "Still haven't found the right one either, huh?" She knew that odd note in his voice, knew it as well as the one in her own. Her hand came up to stroke his stubbly cheek.

He grinned the Guerin half-smirk, his single dimple creasing his cheek. "Lee's convinced Katie James from BU's the one. I dunno. She's too quiet. And Matt...Mattie never says anything, but we can tell when Molly Ky's been dreamwalking."

Anna poked him lightly in his ticklish spot, and he laughed again. "You haven't visited me in two weeks, Mr. Stephen William Guerin. It was your turn, because Moll and I came to see you and Leo last time."

Stephen kissed her again, this time on the tip of her nose. "Sorry, star. No excuses this time."

She cuddled closer to him, slipping her arms around his waist. "I wish--" She looked up at the wall, where both of their names were burnt into the wood, along with Molly, Matt, and Leo's.

"Normal, star?" He shifted her so that he could rest his chin on her head. There was a familiar pain to his voice, a bit of gravel in his tone that he'd inherited from his dad. "When that one comes, that human meant to pull you to earth..."

But she'd tried already to deal with humanity. And the only ones who really understood her were all related to her. And even then... "No one matches up with all my parts. Not even Matt. Not even Dad. What if my soulmate isn't from the earth? What if he's from up north too? All the humans that we're close to--Jamie's always been one of us, because Sheriff Valenti grew up with Mom and Daddy and everyone, and Matt..."

Anna looked up at Stephen, seeing the one she'd always turned to as protector, even as a baby. The one who could understand her even better than her brother, because of the part of him that wasn't of the earth either. "Stephen..."

His dark eyes searched hers for a long time, one of his father's brooding looks on his sharp-featured face as he ran his long fingers through her dark hair. "Anna..."

She touched his cheek, letting the old connection open up between the two of them. And a flood of memories crossed back and forth between the link.

*flash*

Six year old Stephen hauling her up to the treehouse one night, the very night four year old Anna had discovered her powers when her favorite cup shattered in her hands at dinner. His fingers traced their constellation in the sky. "And that's the Radish Constellation, where Daddy and your Mama and Uncle Max all come from. Everyone's special there, just like we are, Annabeth..."

*flash*

Laying between Molly and Stephen in their sleeping bags in the treehouse, making shadow puppets on the ceiling in the light of their glowing hands.

*flash*

Stephen holding on to the back of her bike as he taught her to ride a two-wheeler, and then picking her up after she fell for the thousandth time, giving her a hug and healing the scrapes on her knees with more tenderness than the eight year old boy usually showed.

*flash*

Leo holding down Andy Hilligan while Stephen beat him up for teasing her height in the third grade.

*flash*

Stephen at her side, holding her hand as they named the five stars of their constellation after themselves, a way of always being together, even though the twins were going off to middle school.

*flash*

Finding a note for her in Stephen's old desk in Mr. Raddish's classroom and laughing at the drawing of Mr. Round Radishhead, with a younger version of their aunt sighing at his feet. "Mr. Raddish, you're my hero..."

*flash*

Sitting on Stephen's lap in the Jeep as they all went out to tp Andy Hilligan house sophomore year of high school, and thinking of how Stephen had never failed to protect her.

*flash*

The comfort of Stephen next to her, as her cousins realized that Jamie knew about them, and about where they were all from, and still loved Nicole. Knowing he wondered if he'd ever be that lucky, just as she did.

*flash*

The light kiss he'd given her before he left for MIT two years before, just as Leo had...but somehow, his kiss had sparked more than Leo's...and the sharp flash of intuition that Stephen's touch had always meant a little more.

Their hands met, and they both looked in wonder as their intertwined fingers began to glow.

"It was you."

And the stars shot across the sky in a brilliant dance as the children of two worlds found the place in each other where both parts of them belonged.

~*~*~*~*~

"Hey, Iz, is Stephen here? I can't find him." Michael walked into the Whitman kitchen and grabbed an Eggo as it popped up out of the toaster.

Isabel shook her head as she swallowed a bite of Tabasco and Strawberry Belgian waffle. "I thought he'd be at your house with Anna, since neither of mine came home last night."

The waffle hung forgotten from Michael's lips. He stood there for a while, running his hands through his still-spiky hair. "You don't think that..."

Isabel looked at him for a long time. "Stephen and Anna wouldn't..."

And they both ran out of the kitchen, heading straight for the treehouse.

Years before, when Alex and Isabel had bought the property right behind 421 Legume Lane, Michael had spent an entire day knocking down the fence that separated the two backyards. Now, Michael thanked those hours of backbreaking labor as he rushed through the Whitman backyard, and climbed up the old oak tree as easily as if it were a branched palm.

He clung to one of the windows, peering in at the two that lay asleep on the floor. Isabel scrambled up next to him, for a minute reminding Michael of the child she had been, instead of looking like the stunningly beautiful lawyer and mother of two teenagers. "Izzy..."

Her hand found his as they looked in the window, staring in wonder at the girl and boy who slept curled up in the old double sleeping bag, oblivious to the world. "That answers the question of Anna and Stephen then. All we have left are Leo and Joshie."

Michael chuckled. "I dunno...I've noticed Josh eyeing this little girl in art class sometimes...I think her name's Andrea or something..." He scowled. At least Anna was someone he trusted--unlike that Jamie Valenti who still insisted on stealing Nicole away, in spite of everything Michael had tried to drive the boy off...

"Michael..." Isabel's voice was soft. "What if...what if this is meant to be? Like Fate's way of righting itself...for us...and what we weren't..."

They looked at the sleeping children again, both images of their parents. For a moment, Michael half-remembered a long-faded dream about golden hair spilling over rocky ground, and dark eyes of destiny meeting his. "Destiny."

And her dark eyes turned to his, reflecting the same memories. "It's better this way. Because if it hadn't been this way..."

He touched the smooth plane of her cheek, smiling a bit. "No Nicole, no Stephen, no Leo, no Molly, no Matt, no Anna..."

Michael rested his head against his sister's, remembering what almost was, and what would never be. And he smiled, thinking that sometimes the best miracles were those that occurred when destiny was thwarted. And he remembered the lives that had been created in the very treehouse, the little sanctuary that someone was never touched by the outside world.

"Soul-mates, huh?" He kissed the top of Isabel's still golden head. Soul-mates who found each other by choice, in their own little sanctuary of love.