Pairing: Anna Baronski and Ian O’Lannie
Fandom: To Find Her Place (Original)
Set: Beta
Rating: G to R.

#01 – Walking
The moonlight shone on the two lovers strolling in the night—Anna huddled in her huge leather coat and Ian smiling at her as he had his arm around her shoulder and held her hand softly, wondering why the moonlight seemed to reflect off her glasses instead of her sapphire orbs.

#02 – Waltz
”You’ve got to be kidding me,” the American scoffed at her English boyfriend as he pulled her into his arms and waltzed to the 1812 overture—which turned off all too soon, in Ian’s opinion as one of her J-rock songs came on and her off key singing filled the room where orchestral chords sung a moment before.

#03 – Wishes
”So where would you be, if you—“ Anna started to ask, but was silenced with lips pressing against hers as the boy sat on her, straddled on her stomach and using his arms to balance himself overtop her.

#04 – Wonder
Ian was used to seeing Anna in denim jeans and a drab green sweater when she walked around Sheffield, but when he walked into the mansion and saw her in a dark blue dress and small black pumps— not to mention new silver rimmed glasses and a sapphire choker necklace, ring and earrings in both pierced holes—he just stared at the girl as their eyes met, unable to take them off the jewel of the room.

#05 – Worry
He felt a knot in the pit of his stomach as he approached the Lovington’s mansion and knocked on the door—but he kicked it open when he heard screaming and saw blood all over the main corridor; the boy reached for his phone and pressed the first number that came to mind, but Anna’s line immediately went to voicemail and Ian ran up the stairs to see if there were any survivors.

#06 – Whimsy
Reaching his intended destination, Ian saw a figure huddled by a doorway, and reached for the raven woman with blood coming from her shoulder—of course, she grabbed his hand and pulled him down as he screamed in surprise and found that Diorei was giving him a noogie to lighten the tension, whispering, “Gotta keep your spirits up somehow, rookie.”

#07 - Waste/Wasteland
Ian was remarking on how Sandal Castle was nothing more then ruins as they came to the bridge that would take her to it, with gusty winds—but Anna turned to him and replied, “If you think this is a wasteland, you should see Ground Zero—there’s nothing left of those two towers.”

#08 - Whiskey and Rum
Ian was thankful that they were alone in his room while Anna was drunk from the shots of rum and coke, because she ended up flirting with everyone around her—but he didn’t mind too much—at least he could let her lick the whiskey off his lips before he drank too much.

#09 – War
By day, the two went to school; by night, they fought in a drug infused hell that never seemed to spare anyone—including innocents and their own family and friends.

#10 – Weddings
Anna often wished of her own wedding, and told Ian that if they made it out of Palatizzo’s trap alive, that they would have a handfasting right after—no matter how much Ian objected.

#11 – Birthday
Ian told the others about Anna’s birthday and they agreed to celebrate it by setting up a surprise party for her at a bowling alley—Ian decided to never involve the Organization again at planning parties, because Marea bitched when her shoes broke on the walk to the bowling alley, Diorei tried to eat the birthday cake before Anna arrived, and Janice got out her gun and nearly shot at both of them for bitching so much.

#12 – Blessing
”Her good fortune is her ability to be able to know where the hell we, and all the enemies around us are,” Diorei told Ian one day as they sat in her car, waiting for the train to cross over the tracks.

#13 – Bias
Anna was watching the news coverage about 9/11 and gasped in horror as she saw the live footage of the Twin Towers going down in New York City and the wreckage of the Pentagon—while the other girls were in the room; of course, they told her to stop overreacting so much, but she couldn’t help but be mortified, because it was her country that was under attack, and not theirs.

#14 – Burning
Flames licked the candlewick lovingly as Anna watched it burn, her hands spread on the ground as she knelt there and prayed for Ian’s safe return, closing her eyes a moment later as her cell phone rang.

#15 – Breathing
Anna heard a shot, and then a thud against the floor, but no screams or gasp out of the black woman’s mouth as she tried to run to Janice and catch her before she fell; but to no avail—since the bullet was shot in the back of her head, and Janice was dead.

#16 – Breaking
Ian watched Janice’s death in horror as Anna tried many times to revive her, but it was Diorei who he felt sorry for, watching the woman she secretly admired falling in battle before her and tears running down her face—he heard her mumble softly as she covered her mouth to stop the tears, and all he heard was “I never told you I loved you—I didn’t think it would hurt so much.”

#17 – Belief
Ian never believed in magic before, because to him it simply did not exist, but hated that the American girl before him made him question them now with her telepathy.

#18 – Balloon
He suggested that they could ride in a hot air balloon one day when it stopped raining for a date, and was met with a wide-eyed stare of surprise and a hug a moment later.

#19 – Balcony
Anna admired the view from her balcony window as she spoke softly on the cell phone, gazing at the starry sky that night, and frowned when rain started to fall—for that would mean the stars would become covered.

#20 – Bane
Ian never really thought about it much before, but he realized that after watching her mother beat her, that anger and hatred were what molded her and kept her going—her anger that she could not help herself, and her hatred for others who did the same thing.

#21 – Quiet
Everyone knew that Anna never was quiet, so when she came downstairs and didn’t announce her presence, Marea and Diorei knew there was something wrong.

#22 – Quirks
”For god’s sake, you don’t put mayonnaise on a sandwich!” Ian yelled for the third time as Anna dipped the knife in the mayonnaise and used it to spread on her turkey and cheese sandwich.

#23 – Question
Anna turned to him as she heard him yell and retorted, ”Who says what I can and can’t do—I mean, after all, it is an American behavior, after all, right; so let me ask—what do you put on yours?”

#24 – Quarrel
Usually Diorei knew how the outcomes of these fights would be—Anna would scream for a while and throw Ian out of the room, and he would come outside and look defeated and try to get back in—however when she saw Anna coming out of the bedroom this time, she only got a stare and a “That bastard actually screamed at me” before she huffed off, and Diorei smiled because things were going back to normal.

#25 – Quitting
As he was hanging upside down and tied up on the tree branch, Ian was hopeless that someone would come for him before the tree branch broke—but he should have known better as he felt himself falling without added weight and a familiar pair of arms catching him, putting him on his feet and slashing through the ropes.

#26 – Jump
It all happened in a matter of seconds—the floor above them had an explosion and pieces of it were thrown all over the place, going through the ceiling and it was starting to smoke inside; the smoke hit the roof of where Anna was at and she did not think about it, but jumped from the three story building, wondering what the hell was going to stop her fall.

#27 – Jester
The whimsical argument between the two soon turned deadly; after all, the two were always competitive when it came to fighting games—but when Anna put in SoulCalibur II, Diorei groaned and yelled, “For fuck’s sake, I’m not missing movie night so you two can SCREAM in front of a fucking video game!!”

#28 – Jousting
”So there’s actually a jousting tournament,” Anna muttered as she read the flyer of events at the Renaissance festival online, secretly wishing for once she was back in America so she could go this year.

#29 – Jewels
The sapphire that was on their rings and Anna’s choker proved that they worked together in the Organization, not that they were together—because they didn’t need rings to prove they were together, since the look in their eyes spoke of their love—even if they did argue most of the time.

30 – Just
”That’s taking it a bit too far,” Marea told Ian as he watched the man hold his bleeding shoulder from the gunshot that he just made; but Ian shook his head and went to retrieve his prize—and as he did so, made another bullet shot to the man’s knee and made him scream.

#31 – Smirk
”Despite the fact that Ian’s shooting the hell out of him,” Diorei commented, “I think it’s a fitting punishment—after all,” she winked, letting the corners of her mouth curl in a sarcastic smile, “Anna would have just shot the bastard if Ian was taken, but then again, Ian’s not the same as the hardened American, ne?”

#32 – Sorrow
Janice’s funeral was something that shook all of them, yet Anna’s tears never shed in front of anyone except when she was alone, or in front of Midori when he finally confessed about her being his long lost daughter.

#33 – Stupidity
As Lisa lifted her hand and smashed it into the dirt ground, Ian sighed; it was not very smart to make a woman who could throw rocks and make spikes with hardened earth angry—even if you were trying to kidnap her—and he thought of one other thing that she did wrong—not telling him that she, in fact was a mage.

#34 – Serenade
The sound of a violin could be heard from the balcony as Lisa and Ian made their way to the Lovington mansion, and they saw Anna standing there, her bow moving fluidly over the strings and her eyes looking at the score for Toccata in front of her as she played gracefully.

#35 – Sarcasm
”The day you need that rookie to save you,” Marea grinned, “will be the day that Anna decides to go back to America—and call us, admitting she can bake an cake and make lamb liver for Ian –without burning the house down.”

#36 – Sordid
The whole affair was sordid—the fact that they had to sit through Janice’s service was one thing, but to watch that and then have to sit through all the eulogies was another—and Diorei was not prepared for that and looked to Anna silently before walking out of the room, with the American following her; for she could not take anymore, either.

#37 – Soliloquy
”There is no way you are getting me to do a long speech—I have to hear enough from Anna, and she speaks enough for the two of us,” Ian said sweetly as Marea hit him in the face with her purse, making him wish there was another man other then Jack to talk to when all these women ganged up on him and made him wished he was secretly gay.

#38 – Sojourn
”Give me a few more minutes—I want to watch the sun set before I have to part company,” Anna whispered as the sun was starting to set, her eyes reflecting the rays that the dying sun was giving.

#39 – Share
One thing Ian had learned about Anna was that she was a bitch, and bitches have one rule—they never fucking share.

#40 – Solitary
It wasn’t just Ian that watched as Anna was subjected to her mother’s beatings with the large metal frying pan, but all the girls who worked with them—at one point, he heard them gasp in horror as her mother pulled the dress down off her back—and they realized that in this sense, that Anna was the only one to take the beatings, and still walk away at the end of them with that indifferent expression on her face, thinking that somehow all of it was her fault from the beginning.

#41 – Nowhere
”For the last three years, we know she’s gotten somewhere—but Anna tells me that she hasn’t—and that’s staring to scare me,” Lisa muttered as she walked into the grocery store and got a shopping cart, throwing some bananas and oranges into it, while Ian threw in some apples and some apple cider for later that evening.

#42 – Neutral
”I’m not taking anyone’s side—I just got dragged into this, and I want the hell out—my boyfriend is not a fucking drug dealer, so STOP TRYING TO HURT HIM!” Lisa screamed at Anna as she shrugged and walked off, while the English girl trembled in rage.

#43 – Nuance
It took her a moment to lift her hand as she gazed at Greg who was standing in front of her—with his short brown hair and his chocolate eyes—and remembered that it was Greg who got Ian and Lisa involved with his drug busts, and it was he who worked for Platizzo and who shot Ian so coldly and without remorse, because he was in the way of his gun shooting at her—so, before she could hesitate, Anna pulled the trigger on the small pistol and watched it hit the boy’s chest and saw him crumple to the floor, knowing there was no other outcome to the situation.

#44 – Near
He felt his body going cold as he heard the gunshot and the sudden screaming and remembered what had happened; however, Ian could not rise and the bullet had punctured his lung—he tried to yell that he was near, but a gurgle came out instead as he started drowning in his own blood.

#45 – Natural
Anger was the expression that Anna often wore, but to see her face go into shock and then hearing her scream was another; and one that broke Midori’s heart as he heard on the other end of the phone, followed by Diorei saying, “Honestly—I don’t know how this is going to turn out, ‘dori, but I do know that her screaming means that something’s not going to turn out well.”

#46 – Horizon
Anna thought that irony was a cruel mistress, especially when she glanced at the window, and saw that the sunset was setting with a sky of orange and red light in the clouds—as if foreshadowing the bloody battle that was soon coming to an end as she turned her head and saw Ian gurgling for air.

#47 – Valiant
”Alright, you got your chance to be a hero—you got your chance to save the damsel in distress—so now live, damn it,” Anna whispered as he closed his eyes and struggled to breathe, laying his head on her lap as she choked on tears that were starting to fall as Marea was on the phone with the EMT unit.

#48 – Virtuous
”If he doesn’t make it, that boy’ll die a hero,” Diorei told Midori on the other line while she drove behind the ambulance, “because he did do one thing right—even if he doesn’t live, Anna didn’t get any bullets lodged into her this time.”

#49 – Victory
He was alive when they had gotten to the hospital and they told them they would not know anything until they had performed surgery to remove the blood in his lungs—however, at the same time, as they sent her home, Anna received a phone call from Lisa stating that she was right, and that Greg and Platizzo had been arrested and were awaiting trial for the murders they committed.

#50 – Defeat
Diorei watched the girl’s face go from hopeful to remorseful as she picked up the ringing cell phone the next day and fell on the bed, holding the phone in her ear as she nodded once and hung it up with tears in her eyes, choking out that Ian’s mother called to tell her he was dead.