"Classy!"

Clarissa looked over her shoulder at her name, her key in her post box, and smiled.

"Hey Lettie," she said, "I hear you started school today."

Lettie, bouncing black curls tied up in ribbons, bounded over to her, Pepper the Rabbit in her hand.

"Yeah," she said, beaming, "Pepper really likes school!"

"Does he?" she said, crouching down, "Did he make lots of friends? And does he like his teacher?"

"Yeah!" Lettie said again.

Behind them, the door opened again and one of the triplets came in.

"Lettie, you need to stop racing off. Oh, hi, Clarissa."

Clarissa looked up and - a quick check of the face - saw that it was Damien. He was carrying shopping bags - lots of shopping bags - using his back to push the door open to get into the reception.

"Hi Damien," Clarissa said, smiling at him, "Arms full again, I see."

Damien chuckled slightly. "Like I said, I'm lazy and don't like making too many trips."

Clarissa laughed as she got to her feet, opening her post box and pulling out that day's post.

"And you know, Mr. Johnson said I was good at art," Violet said, tugging at Clarissa's skirt to get her attention again.

"Yeah?" Clarissa said, opening the door to the courtyard and holding it open for Violet and then Damien before following them to the lift. "What did you draw today?" she asked, as they stepped into the lift and she hit the button for their floor.

"Our family," Violet said, pulling off her backpack and opening it, digging around inside it, following the adults as they left the lift and headed for their apartments.

"Wow, I bet that was fun," Clarissa said, smiling as she stopped outside her door and unlocked it, pushing it open and stepping in, setting her handbag down.

"And Jessie, she sat next to me, she said I could go to her house. And Timmy, Timmy has red hair like you, he said that tomorrow we should go on an adventure during break."

"Ah! Hey, Lettie!" Damien called.

Clarissa looked over her shoulder and laughed at the sight of Violet waltzing straight into her apartment, still looking through her bag and Damien appearing at the front door.

"Lettie, you can't just walk into someone home," he said, shooting Clarissa a look of apology before stepping into the apartment and catching Violet's hand. "C'mon, lets go, you're going to bother Clarissa."

"But I wanted to show her my drawing," Violet said, looking up at him.

"Another time, sweetie," Damien said, "Lets go, you need to change and I need to put the shopping away."

"Oh!" Violet turned to Clarissa, "Then you can help put shopping away, right? That way you can see!"

"Lettie," Damien sighed.

"Why don't you show me the drawing now?" Clarissa said, smiling and sitting down on the sofa.

Violet jumped onto the sofa beside her and Damien hovered at the door. She glanced at him and he grimaced.

"Lettie, you know I have a timetable to keep," he said.

"Then go put the shopping away?" Violet suggested and Clarissa snorted at the brazen attitude of the little girl.

Damien glared at his niece. "Listen young lady. I'm not comfortable just leaving you in someone else's apartment and you know I'll be rushing. You can speak to Clarissa later."

"Classy can come to your home!" Violet suddenly said and launched off the sofa, running past her uncle and out the door and Damien clamped a hand to his face.

"She's so damn headstrong for a kid," he muttered and Clarissa laughed, standing up. "I'm sorry about this."

"No, I'm sorry," Clarissa said, smiling, "I'm clearly holding you up."

"She's very attached to you," Damien said as Clarissa picked up her keys and followed him out, closing her door behind them and making the few quick steps to his apartment. They could hear Violet clattering about inside as she emptied out her backpack.

"She's great at conversation for her age, I didn't think she was so advanced when she struggled with my name."

"That kid has a ridiculous capacity for language - even if her pronunciation isn't always great. Takes after her dad."

He stopped and let her walk in first. Clarissa walked down the short entrance hall and stopped when she saw the main room of the apartment.

Sports equipment.

So much sport equipment.

Punching bags, skipping ropes, mats, weights and weights and weights.

She stared as he followed in behind her, leaving the door open.

"You're not involved with sport are you?" she asked and Damien laughed slightly.

"Just a bit," he said, heading for the kitchen with a vague gesture towards the living room area where Violet was picking up a sheet of paper from the coffee table and unfolding it.

Walking around the sofa, Clarissa looked at where she was just about to sit and launched away from the couch.

The Doberman was lying there, watching her. She quickly moved away from it - she'd always been more of a cat person.

"This!" Violet said and proudly presented a drawing to Clarissa as she gingerly sat down on one of the armchairs, watching the huge dog.

Clarissa took it and forced her attention to the drawing. She smiled. It was so colourful, vivid primary colours bursting all over the place.

There were five figures in the painting and Violet stood next to Clarissa to point them out.

"This is me," she said, pointing to the obvious choice then pointing to the figure holding her hand, "And this is Daddy."

She then pointed to the figure beside Darcy, who looked like him only with glasses.

"This is Uncle Donny."

"He wears glasses?"

"He says he needs them when his eyes get tired."

"And so this is Uncle Damien?" she said, pointing to the figure who stood beside her. The drawing was wearing strange bulbous red things on his hands making Clarissa's brow creasing in confusion.

"Uncle Day," Violet corrected.

"What are these, honey?" she asked, pointing at the red things.

"Gloves to keep his hands warm," Violet explained. Damien glanced up from the kitchen counter where he was putting the shopping away.

"He gets cold easily?" Clarissa asked, smiling at the idea - guys usually radiated so much heat after all.

"That what he says," Violet said.

"And who's this?" Clarissa then asked, pointing at the final figure in the drawing who stood next to Damien.

"That's Granny," Violet said.

"Lettie, come have some juice," Damien called and Violet ran across the room to the kitchen where Damien handed her a plastic cup.

Clarissa just kept looking at the drawing. There were a few things she noticed about the drawing that were... strange but also telling. Children's drawings were always so telling. Violet, Granny and Darcy all had big grins on their faces. Dante had a smaller smile - which mimicked that reserved smile he had in real life. Damien wasn't smiling.

But that wasn't what really stood out to her.

The first was Granny.

There was a halo around her head even through she stood beside Damien.

And the second thing.

There was no mother figure in the drawing.

Clarissa looked up to Violet who was chatting animatedly to Damien, her cup in her hands and he smiled as he listened, filling up the fridge.

"Clarissa, how do you take your tea?" he called once he had finished.

"Oh, don't worry about it," Clarissa said, carefully folding the drawing up again and standing up, "You said you were meeting a timetable, I'll get out of our way."

"You're leaving?" Violet asked, hurrying out of the kitchen.

"Are we holding you up?" Damien asked, looking over the counter.

"No, just I don't want to hold you up."

"It's fine, you're not, schedule's on track for now. If you want to head back though, just say," Damien said as he pulled one mug down from a cupboard.

"Oh, um... then just milk. Thanks," Clarissa said, slowly sitting back down.

Damien took another cup down and set the kettle to boil while cutting up slices of fruit and putting them into a little bowl, passing the snack to Violet and sending her back to the living room.

"Deacon," he called and the Doberman's head snapped up, ears up, nose twitching as Damien poured wet dog food into a bowl on the floor and the dog bounded over the back of the sofa and started munching away. Damian filled a second bowl with dog food and headed into one of the bedrooms, returning seconds later without the bowl so Clarissa could only assume there was some other dog in there.

He then proceeded to make the tea, switching between pouring bowling water into cups, cold water into a dog bowl, more juice into violet's cup then milk into the cups.

Clarissa just stared at him.

It was so smooth.

It was just every day chores around the kitchen but there wasn't a break between anything, like some finely tuned dance.

Violet joined her again, the Doberman hopped back onto the sofa, contented and Damien finally joined them, handing Clarissa her tea before snapping his fingers at Deacon and the dog hitched his rear up, curling into a ball and making room for Damien on the sofa.

"Sorry, I never even asked if you were ok with dogs," Damien said as he sat down heavily with his own tea - also just milk.

"Oh, I'm fine, mostly," Clarissa said, "Just wary of big dogs I guess."

"I should have asked. I know people get scared around Dobermans since they're attack dogs," Damien said, rubbing Deacon's ears. "Don't worry, this guy's a teddy all though."

Deacon let out a snort and closed his eyes, as if he were unimpressed by Damien's description.

"Can Uncle Donny take me to the park?" Violet asked, clambering up onto the sofa next to the dog. Clarissa winced at the sight of such a small child using the dog's tail to get up. Pepper the Rabbit slipped from her grasp as she got up and she let out a world-weary sigh when she looked down to the floor.

And Deacon leant over the edge of the sofa, taking the rabbit's ear in his mouth and lifting it back onto the sofa before settling down again, falling asleep.

Clarissa stared at him.

Damien smiled. "Like I said, he's a teddy."

"Heck, I wish my cat did something like that," Clarissa said, think of Miffy who was more likely to just grab the teddy and run off with it - if it was Clarissa's of course, little brat.

"I'm sure Donny will take you to the park before dinner," Damien then said to Violet and she smiled before turning to Clarissa.

"What do you think it's a drawing?" she asked.

"Lettie," Damien said, smiling at her lack of subtly.

"I think it's a very good drawing," Clarissa said, just as her phone went off. "Excuse me a moment," she said quickly, pulling the phone from her pocket and turning her body slightly.

Violet was already showing Damien the drawing and he was taking more interest in the drawing then needed.

It was Brett.

"Hey," she said as she unlocked the phone, holding it to her ear. "No, I'm with a friend right now... Tonight? I dunno, I have a lot of work already from the teachers...A charity event? Brett, I can't stay late... alright, alright. What? I don't know, the green one I guess."

The next thing Brett said made her grimace, glance at Damien then turn away, lowering her voice.

"Brett, I don't like the black one... No, you know it makes me feel awkward. What? Brett."

Violet looked around at the slight rise of her voice, the strain in her tone and she quickly smoothed her voice out again.

"Alright, fine, yes I'll wear it. Jeez. Yeah I'll see you at eight."

She hung and turned to the others, smiling.

"Sorry about that," she said quickly.

"Plans for tonight?" Damien asked.

"Yeah, Brett's attending a charity event and wants me to go with him," Clarissa said, pushing a lock of hair back behind her ear and looking at her phone. "Guess my evening became a bit of a rush." She stood up, setting her barely touched tea on the table. "Sorry, I have a lot of homework to get done and I've lost a fair few hours now. I need to get going and start."

"You're leaving?" Violet asked, looking up.

"Sorry sweetie, I'll see you later, ok?" Clarissa said.

"Clarissa has a busy evening ahead," Damien said, also standing up, "We'll see her another time. Here, I'll walk you out."

Following her to the door, Clarissa stepped out and pulled out her keys.

"Thanks for humouring Violet," Damien said, leaning against the doorframe.

"Nah, it's my pleasure," Clarissa said.

Damien smiled slightly and Clarissa, after a quick smile in reply, hurried back to her apartment.

~~~~~~

Next up: Tomorrow

Art/Music by: Daughtry - Start of Something Good