Alan and his best friend Ellie are enjoying being able to hang out on their summer break. Ellie has known about Alan's desire to be Allie for several years, and they plan one of their many shopping trips to the mall while their parents are at work. Little does Allie know that her simple day of secretly being out with her best friend would suddenly spiral into a whole new life!

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The Legal Stuff: Suddenly Royal © 2020 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2020 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 

Chapter 13:

“MOM YOU HAVE to calm down…” I told her instinctively.

“What happened?” she asked me.

Her breathing and heart rate started to come down a little, and I decided it was better just to tell her what happened. “We got home from the hospital last night and we all went to bed. The next thing I knew someone was shouting and I could smell smoke. I was just trying to figure out if the hallway was safe to open the door to when Giuseppe opened it and carried me out.”

“Are Grandma and Grandpa okay?”

“Grandpa is here so they can keep an eye on him through this afternoon from smoke, and a small burn he got, Grandma was fine…”

“And you?”

“I breathed in enough of the smoke they wanted to check me out.”

Mom was crying, “But you’re okay though?”

“I’m fine… I’m more worried about you right now.”

“I’m not going to lie to you and say I’m feeling great right now,” she told me.

“You’re going to be okay though, right?”

“The doctors got everything sewn up. My shoulder has enough damage that I’m going to have to have physical therapy for a few months. They figure that’ll help me get as much back to normal as I can.”

I started crying again then, “Mom I was so scared I would lose you!!!”

.

I MUST HAVE cried myself to sleep leaning against her bed, because the next thing I

knew was someone was shaking my shoulder, “Sweetie, you need to wake up.”

I sat up and realized a nurse was getting my attention.

“Huh?”

“You’ve had a long night it sounds like; we need to let your mom rest for a bit. You can come back and see her again before we close tonight. I think you should go get some rest though,” she said kindly.

I shook my head, “I can’t leave her…”

The nurse was a little younger than my mom and sighed, “She’ll be okay sweetie, she’s out of the woods at this point now that she’s awake. Go get some rest – you both need it.”

I frowned but stood up and whispered, “I’ll see you later,” to my mom who was sleeping too, “I love you!”

I followed the nurse out to where I found Grandma and Giuseppe talking with a doctor.

“Oh, here she is,” Grandma said, “Allie this is your mother's doctor, Doctor Trinidad.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” I said. “She is going to be alright, right?”

“Nice to meet you too. Yes, barring anything unexpected like an infection, she’s out of the woods right now. We’re going to keep an eye on her here in the ICU for another day and we’ll get her moved to a regular room.”

“When will she be able to go home?” I asked.

“It’s going to be at least a few days after we move her to a regular room. Your mom was fortunate that nothing vital was hit, but there was still a lot of damage to her shoulder and muscles in her arm. It’s unfortunately not a quick road to being back to normal. I would guess that in about six months she should be as recovered as she can be with good physical therapy.”

“Good as can be?” I asked.

He sighed, “She’s going to be able to lift and move her arm, but she most likely won’t have the full range of motion she did before. She may not be able to lift as much with that arm as before because of the connection to her shoulder. But the important thing is she’s alive and will get better,” he told me.

“Thank you,” I told him.

The nurse who had kicked me out walked up to us then and said to Grandma, “You should get this little girl somewhere she can get a nap in. She’s so tired she fell asleep leaning on her mom’s bed.”

“I…”

“No, she’s right, we should get you somewhere you can get some sleep. We’ll come back here before visiting hours end Alexandria,” Grandma decreed.

I sighed, but nodded, “Yes ma’am…”

Giuseppe led us outside to where the limo had pulled up. Reporters were swarming about the car and came up to me. “Are you okay Princess?” followed by, “How’s your mom?” and a billion other questions just seemed to be shouted left and right before we got into the limo.

We had made it just a block when Grandma said, “Perhaps we should think about a statement?”

I shrugged, “Would that get them to go away?” I asked.

“Probably not, but it might help a little?”

“Okay…” I said. “I don’t know what you do though…”

She had her phone on speaker and we were soon talking to Geneva together. A quick update that my mom was okay, my grandpa was okay, I was okay, and the authorities were investigating everything basically summed it all up for the statement. We finished giving her the guidelines as the limo pulled into the embassy drive. I stumbled a bit as I stood up with the fatigue of everything hitting me. I was led through the embassy to a set of rooms that were apparently considered the ‘Queen’s Suite.’ Others used the rooms when she wasn’t here, but on the rare visits she made there was a large bedroom for her, a couple of smaller guest bedrooms, a sitting area, and a small dining area. A staff member had laid out some pajamas for me on one of the guest beds.

“Allie, get some sleep and then we’ll go back and check on your mom again, okay?” Grandma told me.

I nodded meekly and closed the door behind me. The pajamas were a set made of red satin and quite soft when I put them on. I had barely pulled the covers up to my face when I was out like a light.

.

SOMETIME LATER I was woken up by a knock on the door. “Your Highness, it’s time to get up,” someone called from the other side.

It took me a few moments to collect myself and roll off of the comfortable bed. I was still so tired! I felt groggy and had a massive headache too. I stumbled over to the door and discovered Geneva.

“I’m up…” I said, “What time is it?”

“It’s about four,” she told me. “I have an outfit here, and there’s shower supplies in the bathroom off of your room. If you’ll get showered we’ll get you fed and back to your mom for a bit?”

I nodded, “Do you have any Advil?” I felt the wrist band still on my wrist, “and something to cut this?”

“I’ll have some for you when you’re done with your shower?”

“Thanks,” I told her. I took the outfit that hung on the hangar and stumbled my way to the bathroom. I hung it up without even taking a look at it. I pulled off the comfortable pajamas and set them neatly on the counter of the bathroom. It was a bit nicer than a hotel room, but nothing really that special. I assumed Grandma’s was probably nicer, but didn’t really care much. As I eased under the water, it felt amazing! I hadn’t even thought to shower in the hospital earlier before changing, and because of that my hair and skin still smelled like smoke.

Some shampoo and conditioner that were from a more upscale brand were sitting on the shelf. I took the time to lather both into my hair and hoped it would help with the smoke smell. With my hair dripping around my face, I grabbed the bodywash provided, though I didn’t recognize the container. It looked to be berry scented and a quick smell told me I liked it. I used it on my body and slowly but surely felt like I was waking up a bit.

I dried myself and walked to the sink. On top someone had thoughtfully left me a brush, a comb, and some other toiletries. They’d even thoughtfully set out a blow dryer there too! I didn’t want to miss anytime with Mom if I could help it, so I hurried to get ready as quickly as I could. Digging through the outfit I hoped they’d provided me with something comfortable like jeans, or leggings, and a casual shirt… No such luck unfortunately!

Instead I found a ruffled and tiered navy-blue skirt with little flowers all over it that fell a bit above my knee. It was admittedly cute, but still would have preferred comfort right then! I found a short sleeved white blouse that had been paired with it. Panties, a gaff, and a bra were also included and I soon had myself dressed. As I walked to the door, I thought about all of the things that had to have been lost in the fire and was depressed by it. I had really liked my new bear and doll… Yes, they were childish, but I’d never been allowed to really be a little girl and liked the idea of having them at least in my room. Past school projects and… “Oh my God my clarinet!!!!” I thought with tears truly coming down then. Mom had just bought the new one for me for nearly making the state band last year!

I stopped at the door for a moment and turned around to find some tissues. When I just about had myself together there was a knock on the door. “Your Highness, are you dressed?”

“Just a second!” I sniffled out. I took a deep breath and exited the room to find Geneva and Grandma waiting.

“You okay sweetie?” Grandma asked.

I shook my head, “Not really, everything’s just starting to really hit me about what we lost in the fire…”

“Anything in particular?” Grandma asked, taking my hand and leading me to the small dining area.

I sighed, “Little things like a bear and a doll mom bought for me the other day are kind of sad to lose… but bigger things like my clarinet mom just bought for me – it was a really nice one… My phone and computer are obvious things… All of the clothes you had just bought me are gone… Pictures, keepsakes, and memories Mom and I had… I doubt I can even list it all?”

She nodded, “I understand that sweetie. Actually, since you mention it, I had someone go pick up some things for you earlier. We’ll need to wait on more outfits – to be quite honest Tyler thinks it as a personal insult that someone just destroyed the beautiful wardrobe he created!”

I giggled at that, “That sounds like him. This outfit is nice though?”

“It was the best he could do on the spur of the moment he said. He’ll be working on replacing everything tomorrow since he has your measurements.”

“Can you ask him to include some casual clothes?” I asked.

She gave me a look, “I’ll see what he can do, but as a princess you really aren’t going to be able to do casual much now.”

That sent my spirits tumbling further for a moment before Geneva sat three wrapped packages on the table. She placed a small cup with two Advil down too and cut my wristband for me. I swallowed the pills with a glass of water in front of me before asking, “What’s this?” Pointing to the packages.

“Open them and find out,” she told me with a smile.

The first was a smaller box and I squealed when I saw it was the latest iPhone that was two years newer than the phone I’d just lost! “Thank you!” I told her. I noticed the box was opened already, “Is this already setup or something?”

“Yes it is, our security personnel set everything up for you with that.”

“Security?”

“Allie you are probably rarely going to have a reason to be making any decisions with classified information in our government – parliament controls most of it – but you’re still someone that would be worth eavesdropping on.”

“So, this is like modified?”

“Only slightly,” she told me.

I nodded and said, “Thanks,” again. ‘I wonder if that means they can look at it though…’

I opened the second box that was a bit bigger and found a cute purse. Inside was a wallet with… “Grandma I can’t keep taking…”

She laughed, “You’re not taking anything. You’re the only legitimate heir to the Alessi fortune. Keep in mind that the family would be considered quite wealthy even without the crown involved.”

I sighed, “Thanks…” I counted about five-hundred dollars inside that wallet and felt wrong to have it. I saw some makeup and other typical purse fillers like tampons and pads were inside already too. I felt more insecure knowing I would never need those. I shook it off though and turned my focus back to the last package.

I opened the paper up to reveal white rectangular box that contained a new MacBook Pro. “Wow, thanks Grandma!” I told her.

“You’re welcome sweetheart. Now you won’t be able to do anything with the computer right now, but the phone should be charged and will work. It has an Osané number attached to it, but it’ll also forward calls and texts from your old phone number too.”

“Wow… that’s great!” I said. I used FaceTime with Ellie all the time, so having a new iPhone and Mac would save a lot of international phone minutes!

“Now, let’s go ahead and eat something, and we’ll get going,” she told me.

We had a quick, but tasty, dinner of roast chicken and some asparagus. “I wish my mom could have some of this…” I said.

“Probably not for at least another day or so if I had to guess,” Geneva told me. “They probably will keep her on a clear diet for a day or so.”

That made me frown, but I nodded. I ran to my bedroom and left the computer and turned on my iPhone and placed it inside my purse. I used the restroom and checked my appearance before Grandma, Giuseppe, and I hopped into one of their black SUVs to go to the hospital. Annoyingly it still had flags on the front, but at least it wasn’t as conspicuous as the limo!

I used the time on the way to the hospital to get into my new phone. I programmed my own password on it and put in my Apple ID info to get everything pretty much pulled back up. All of my contacts were showing up and I sent Ellie a quick message that I had a phone again. Right about then though a hundred messages flew into my phone from people I barely knew asking about Mom and this girl… I decided to ignore most of those and put my phone back into my purse when we arrived at the hospital.

We made it up to the ICU where mom was about an hour before the end of visiting hours. I discovered Grandma and Grandpa were in the room and a nurse wouldn’t allow more people in there. The nurse was standing fast on that, so I decided to see if we could work around her.

I saw one of the doctors I recognized sitting down behind a desk, “Doctor?”

He looked up, “Can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Alexandria, my mom is in that room over there?”

“Listen if they’re not letting you in because you’re too young…”

I laughed, “They’ve tried that twice now. I’m actually fifteen, I know I don’t look it… No, I was wondering if there was any way my grandmother here and I could go ahead into my mom’s room. I know she’s got my other grandparents in there but it’s really important that all of us be able to talk? She was shot yesterday and our house burned down with me and my grandparents in it last night…”

“Oh… I remember hearing that… The nurses might take my head off?”

“I know they run things… but can you help out?”

“Well your mom seems to be stable. I’ll allow it, but if anything goes wrong you are out of there immediately.”

“Thank you, sir!” I told him with a smile.

He escorted Grandma and I into the room and a nurse glared at him. “She can’t have this many visitors Doctor, I already told her she had to get out.”

“I’m overriding you right now. Finish up and get out of here,” he told her. “Sometimes rules are meant to be bent a little bit. They’ve had a rough twenty-four hours and need to discuss some things.”

As they both left, I gave Grandma, Grandpa, and mom hugs. She was sitting up in bed drinking from a cup with a straw on it.

“Masterfully played,” Grandma told me as she got to the side of everyone.

I blushed.

“How’d you manage that?” Mom asked. “They didn’t even want to let both of your grandparents in here at once?”

“I’m a Princess, that’s all I need?”

“Sweetie you can’t play that card…” Mom tried to say.

“Don’t worry Karen, she didn’t. I would say more the normal little girl princess type card is the one she played. The ‘sometimes you catch more flies with honey,’ type approach.”

Mom nodded, “So I think we’ve all had a busy day. Did you get some rest too?”

I nodded and grabbed her hand to hold, “I was out for a few hours at the embassy and then got a chance to shower and eat.”

“Maria, thank you for taking care of her,” Mom told her.

“It’s my pleasure Karen,” she told her. “Did Allie’s doctor happen to come by today to talk to you?”

“Yes he did… I’m not sure I should be making decisions for her with as many medications I’m on, but I gave the okay. He said there would be a prescription available at our normal pharmacy. Not sure how you’ll pick that up though since she doesn’t have an ID and I’m not with you…”

“I’m sure my staff can figure that out for us…” she told her. “How are you two doing?” she asked Grandma Becky and Grandpa.

“He’s got a small burn on his leg, but they determined nothing bad enough to need grafts. We both seem to be fine from the smoke now. We figured we’ll head back to our house soon.”

“Well before you all leave, I think we need to talk about what to do with Allie right now,” Mom said. She sounded tired as she spoke and I could tell she was in pain.

“Mom I know I’ll need to stay and help you,” I told her.

She shook her head, “Allie, my parents can help me out as much as you can. Without a house to live in right now, and with me out of action, you’re going to need to go somewhere. We’d already planned on you going to Osané for the summer. Considering all that’s happened, I think it’s bes that you go sooner than later,” she told me.

“But…”

She held her hand up in a way I’d grown up knowing meant ‘zip it.’ “Allie you can’t do much for me right now, and in all honesty I’m not sure that whoever set that fire isn’t going to want to make another attempt at you.”

“Wait, you think that was an attempt against me?” I asked.

Grandma nodded, “It’s looking that way, according to the investigators talking to our staff.”

“But…” I stuttered, “I’m just…”

Mom squeezed my hand, “You’re just the Princess of a country now, who is set to be a future Queen. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that someone would try something. They can protect you a lot better over there than we can here,” she told me.

I felt tears stinging my eyes and looked at Grandma Becky and Grandpa who were both nodding, “Allie we love you, and we would take you home with us if you really feel like you don’t want to go – but I think they’re right. You need to go.”

“But I don’t want to leave you…” I cried and leaned onto Mom’s bed.

“I know sweetie,” Mom said. “But I promise you I’ll be over as soon as they let me travel. The firm is paying for all of my medical care and going to give me some time off to heal. In four to six weeks I’ll come over and stay with you there.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” Mom told me.

“Excuse me, but visiting hours are over,” a different nurse said.

“I love you Mom,” I told her and gave her a gentle hug.

“Love you too Princess,” she told me and kissed my head.

“We’ll come by and see her in the morning before we fly out Allie,” Grandma told me on the way down the elevator. We walked with Grandma and Grandpa to our car and ended up giving them a lift to our house to get their car, which was still parked in the driveway. I tried not to look at the charred walls and the caution tape that now surrounded it. From what I could see the second floor and the roof had collapsed. The fading light of the evening revealed a crumbling front brick section and a destroyed home.

I hugged my grandparents and watched as they made sure their car still ran. When they pulled out from the driveway we took off for the embassy.

As we drove away from my house, I couldn’t help but cry more. I felt like my life had erupted in flames and burned down just like our house.

.

.

Epilogue

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THE NEXT MORNING everyone moved at a frenetic pace as Tyler showed up with two suitcases worth of outfits, and a couple wardrobe boxes, that were to be placed in the cargo area of the jet we were flying in. His displeasure at having to ‘recreate greatness’ was a bit grating to me! One of the many shocking conversations I had that morning was learning that the queen had her own private Gulfstream jet to fly in. The plane had a range of 7,500 miles so we would take off and have a straight flight of about nine hours to get to Osané.

While I was getting dressed in the new outfit, I had the TV turned on and caught the local news talking about Mom.

‘Two days ago, attorney Karen Nelson was appearing at the Federal Courthouse with her client, Jenny Sanson, to appear in a discrimination lawsuit against her former company. On their way inside the courthouse, a sniper opened fire instantly killing Jenny, and injuring Nelson. We are happy to say that the FBI have apprehended a suspect, fifty-eight-year-old Jim Anderson.’

They cut to a screen of Agent Matthews in front of an FBI Background, ‘Working hard with local law enforcement we were able to obtain video evidence that Anderson entered the building we know the shooting occurred from, with a box concealing a compact rifle. We discovered that rifle at his house last night and preliminary ballistics from our lab show that the rifling patterns match the bullets shot. Anderson has refused questioning, but a search of his background indicates he used to work at Sanson’s former workplace. There is believed to be some bad blood between the two, but we are still investigating if there are other accomplices. We encourage anyone…’

Knowing that they had caught Mom’s attacker made me feel better for a moment, before I figured out that they didn’t mention our house fire – and he didn’t seem to be the kind of person who could pull that attack off.

‘Were they really after me?’ I thought nervously on the way to the hospital to say goodbye to Mom. ‘That doesn’t sound like someone who would come after our house…’

It was just before noon when I worriedly walked up to her room with Grandma and found my other grandparents waiting outside. Grandma Becky gave me a hug, “We just came to drop off some stuff to your mom. We’ll be back to check on her again later.”

“So, this is goodbye?” I asked sadly.

Grandpa wrapped me in a big hug, “Not a goodbye kiddo, it’s a ‘see you later.’”

I felt tears on my face and hugged him and Grandma Becky tightly, “I love you two,” I told them.

“We love you too sweetie,” Grandma Becky told me. “Your mom’s awake and waiting for you. We’ll see you when you get back after the summer.”

They left and I couldn’t help but ask ‘but what if I can’t come back…?’ in my head.

I tried to wipe tears from my eyes before I walked inside Mom’s room, to be strong for her. They were still damp though as I found her sitting up in bed with her iPad in hand. “Good timing, did you see your grandparents?” She asked me as I came over and hugged her tightly.

“Yes, we said goodbye before they left,” I told her.

I asked about how she was feeling, and talked with her about mostly nothing for an hour before Grandma said, “Allie, we need to get going to the airport?”

“Just a minute,” I told her.

As she left Mom said, “Come to the other side of the bed here.”

I looked where she pointed at a large gift bag, “What’s that?”

“Something from your grandparents and me to take with you,” she told me.

I opened the bag and was greeted first with a cute brown teddy bear. I squeezed it tightly, “Thanks,” I told her.

“Keep going, it’s not the only thing in there.”

Looking inside I asked, “How…?”

There was a doll identical to what we had bought the other day inside. I pulled it out and smiled at her face through the box. “I had an e-receipt and sent a copy to your grandmother. They were waiting at the doors when they opened this morning.”

I hugged Mom tightly, “Thank you…”

“I know you’re too old for such toys, but I hated to think that the day after you finally had your first doll it was burned up in a fire. And…” she stopped to breathe, clearly as emotional as I was, “I wanted you to have a teddy bear to hug since I can’t be there.”

With that said, tears streamed down my face for several minutes as I hugged her. She eventually gave me a tight squeeze and pushed me to arm’s length. “Now, behave for your Grandma, like she said you’ve got to go see Osané. I’ll come over as soon as the doctors allow it, okay?”

I nodded and hugged her again, “I love you Mom.”

Finally, in the limo, we rode to the airport. I ignored my phone and chose to pull my doll out of the packaging and found myself cuddling her in one arm and my bear in the other. It was a good hour to get to the airport through traffic, but as we closed in Grandma said, “There may be some cameras at the airport, maybe put those back in the bag?”

I sighed, but nodded. I chose to leave the doll out of the box though and figured I’d probably hold onto her during the long flight ahead of us. As the limo pulled to a stop right outside of a hangar, I had to admit this was a better way to not have to deal with all of the security and everything! I carried the bag out of the limo and was nearly knocked over as Ellie came from nowhere and hugged me.

“Ellie!!!” I said and hugged her back.

“You didn’t think I’d let you go without saying goodbye, right?” She asked me a moment later.

“I figured it was more I wouldn’t be able to,” I told her.

“So, you’re off for the summer, right?”

I shrugged, “That’s supposed to be the plan,” I told her.

“Well I’ll see you soon,” she told me, “I promise!”

I hugged her, “Thanks sis,” I told her.

She smiled, “I got you something.”

She held her hand out to her mom who brought a small gift bag. Inside was a stuffed tiger – our high school’s mascot. “Thank you!” I told her with a smile.

“Well you never had a good stuffed animal collection like you should have, but also I figured once a tiger, always a tiger?” She told me with a smile.

I hugged her again, “I’m going to miss you, thanks Ellie!”

Her mom Susanne insisted on a hug too and said, “I’ll make sure to check on your mom a few times a week for you.”

I smiled at her, “Thanks!”

I put the tiger in the bag to be safe for any cameras, like Grandma asked, and stepped up the steps sticking out of the door of the aircraft. I remembered watching some show once about really rich people’s private jets… I couldn’t believe I was actually on one! The plane was a small jet with only about twelve large seats spread about the four compartments. I was directed to a seat across from my grandmother and could see the expensive light-colored leather had the Alessi family crest imprinted on it.

A crew member told me to put my bag against the bulkhead out of the way before going over safety information in French. A pamphlet was available that I looked at out of curiosity and learned this was a Gulfstream G700ER. Once we were in the air, I was surprised to see we were cruising at 49,000 feet. It was a wider view of the world than I had seen from my other plane flights in the past, and you could see the curvature of the earth a bit!

I explored the plane and learned there was an actual bedroom with a bed and a couch inside, a couple office-like areas, a full kitchen for a galley, and the bathroom was pretty nice too! It was a little odd that at the back of the bathroom was the cargo area where I could see our bags and the wardrobe boxes from Tyler.

Grandma and I enjoyed a really great dinner with Giuseppe and Geneva, before I found myself cuddling my new doll. “What’s her name?” Geneva asked me.

I'd been trying to decide about that for a while during the flight. Suddenly I knew and said, “Jenny… in honor of my mom’s client that was killed…”

I thought I saw a tear in her eye then when she smiled, “That’s a good name!”

At some point I fell asleep on the couch, because the next thing I knew I was being nudged awake by Grandma, “We’re coming into Osané now, I thought you might want to see your country from the air?”

‘My country…?’ I thought to myself.

The pilot made a big circle of the island that wasn’t huge, but I knew nearly a million people lived there. I couldn’t help but note I was terrified of this trip and hugged Jenny tightly as I thought about all that was to come here. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a princess, but it looked like I was going to be one here no matter what. ‘Maybe I can do some cool things here?’ I thought to myself, ‘Grandma mentioned there’s a symphony?’ I looked at the beaches and thought, 'Ellie would love to be here on the beaches...' I could just hear her talking about some boy she spotted that she would crush on.

As the runway drew closer, I took a deep breath and wondered what the future would hold for me now as Princess Alexandria Leonora Alessi.

.

Fin Livre 1

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Thank you all for joining me on this journey! This is one of the quickest writing projects I've ever worked on, and it's been fun to put out a novel length work in less than a month since May 9th when I started this! (43k words!) I want to make sure I thank Carla Ann for being willing to help me out with editing on this! She did this last section today so we could get through to the finish! Thanks also to Erin for the contest that inspired this quick project, I haven't been able to get myself motivated to write here in a while - it was nice to have some inspiration!

So please let me know what you think! Leave a comment/a kudo and I hope you will please consider voting for this when Erin opens that up! I think it's obvious I've left an opening to continue this, and I hope to start working on a sequel in short order. This started off being something I intended on closing off, but I think there's more of Allie's story to tell! I hope you'll join me when I can continue it!