Her Safe Haven

Special Chapter II - What Happened In China Did Not Stay In China

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Double update today because this chapter doesn't really progress the plot ;) Enjoy!

Caleb knew that his mother had always wanted him to have a sister.

"Mom, can I have a little brother?"

"A little brother, Caleb? But don't you think a little sister would be cute, too?"

He had pouted when his mother had said that to him in that amiable manner of hers.

He did not really care for a sister. When he had learned at seven years old that his mother was 'pregnant', and he was going to have a sibling, he had immediately thought of a boy. He wanted a brother to play with. To run around and wrestle with.

Yes, a little sister would be cute, too. But a little sister would also be troublesome because Caleb thought a girl would need extra protections. His primal male and big brother instinct would want to protect a little sister more from this horrible world, and he did not, in his good conscience, have the heart to see the little sister he raised broken by this cruel world.

So yes, Caleb knew that his mother had always wanted him to have a sister, but that did not mean that he should want one, too.

The afternoon they were born, it was grey and cloudy and raining, and it was less than fifty degrees* cold despite it being in the middle of summer. Caleb was called to go home early from school, and as soon as he reached the hospital he ran as fast as his little feet could carry him to ward number 217.

And he saw Gray first. Their parents had just named Gray after how cloudy the day was, and it was the happiest he had ever felt in his life. He wanted to hold him, kiss him, love him, and it wasn't until he heard his mother crying tears of joy and he heard the word "twins" that he realised there was another baby in his father's arm, and it was not a boy.

Then he did not know how to react.

"Winter." Because even though it was the peak of summer the day was freezing cold. And she looked exactly like Gray but she had to have his eyes, Caleb's exact eyes with the thick eyelashes and the grey tint to its darkest brown.

He still shuddered when he thought that this girl would have to grow up in this cruel world with him. And he didn't dare touch her the first few days before she was brought home, in fear of breaking this fragile human being he had to call his little sister.

But after his mother and the twins had settled back home, after Winter stopped crying the moment he picked her up, and she looked at him with that big brown eyes of her, it was the moment that he realised: he hadn't wanted a sister, but that didn't prevent him from falling in love anyway, and he fell in love with her that moment he saw those eyes.

She would need protection and he would give it to her, give hell to whoever would dare give her pain, and at that thought, it was when he finally, finally realised that at that moment...

He had wanted her just as much as he had wanted Gray.

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From as young as when he was thirteen and his favourite cousin Caleb was only ten, Elijah realised that he had a gift.

He was smart, and talented, and so incredibly charismatic, and Mr McHalen, his aunt's husband and owner of the booming million-dollar McHalen co., seemed to realise it too because he immediately took him to be his protégé. To be raised by him to someday lead the company with his sons.

Though that would mean leaving the home of his parents, he was ready to even move away from his home country to China, to go to an all-boys private english school there, just so he could learn from his uncle about every little details concerning business.