4.20 'Family'

(Please don't listen to this as you read. If you're going to listen, please listen to it all before reading because this song doesn't fit with the chapter well enough to be background music. It fits with the story, so it's not totally random, promise! Have this picture to look at while you listen, as the video isn't much. It's pretty weird/creepy/cheesy/boring, to be honest)

 

 The weeks went by with Kaity moping alone, but putting on her usual happy bravado around others. Especially Winter.

Winter was over constantly, he'd kept true to his promise of helping to raise his son, and spent plenty of time with the twins too.

 

Elise was a gorgeous little girl, Kaity and Shaena could see a lot of their late best friend in her, which made it hard to treat her like the child she was. They were used to her face on Bonnie, and had to try their hardest to remind themselves that Elise was not their dead best friend. When Winter was over, he was a father figure to both her and Joshua too.

Kaity was amazed by how easily he'd taken to parenthood; like a duck to water, the saying went. Overnight he'd gone from being childless to raising five children under six.

Kaity would do anything for her children, and that extended to Elise and Joshua too. Raising the next generation was a shared responsibility in the house as it had been for their mothers. History was repeating itself in ways, but it differed in others. Both girls worked on the home lot in the attached shop predominantly, although Shaena had to go out more often to collect the insects, gems, rocks and plants needed for the herbal medicines and knick-knacks.

The shop was getting busier, and Kaity wondered if most of the custom might be journalists hoping to catch a glimpse of her 'mystery man', as the papers called him. They were yet to have cornered him for an interview, and she'd considered asking him to arrange an interview to stop the constant crowd from lurking around outside.

For now, though life was looking up. The kids all got on brilliantly, and played together constantly. Winter had never stopped talking to her as she'd assumed he would, but she realised that was because he was alot more mature than herself. She began to wonder how old he was, she was sure he was a lot older, and wasn't sure he knew how old she was. She was too nervous to ask, though.

They had both realised they hardly knew each other, and Winter would state something and ask her opinion of whatever the topic was. Kaity thought he was just trying to torture her at first, forcing her to interact with him after smashing her heart with his big, strong hands, but Shaena had pointed out that it was common in the "getting to know you" stage of a relationship to do things like that.

That comment gave Kaity hope, and she started doing the same thing back. She found out his favourite colour was orange, which shocked her as he usually wore white and grey. He said it was because orange didn't work with his skintone. This had made Kaity invest in some orange underwear, in the hope that at some point they would get to the stage where he'd see it and realise she could listen, and think of other people.


_____

It was a hot Saturday, the twins were begging to go to the beach. Kaity called Winter, and he agreed to come too, but Shaena pointed out that Elise being a vampire wouldn't be able to spend a sunny day outside, and so she offered to stay behind with her and Joshua.

Kaity had packed a picnic, and once it was all consumed the small family sat in the sand talking. Kaity liked thinking that one day they could be a real family. She'd love to marry Winter, and she'd never thought she'd feel like that about anyone. She was sure it was a long way off, but she decided to let herself hope that it could happen one day.

"Lyris told me that she saw a werewolf in the park at the festival." Sophie announced. "I think we should go there next."
"Soph, you've not even been in the sea yet! Maybe next weekend, we don't need to do everything at once."
"But Lyris-"
"I said next weekend, Sophie." Sophie pouted, attempting to change her mothers mind. "Change the subject. What else happened at school?"

"Lucas ran into a wall." Jaydean giggled.
"Yeah, your aunt Rose told me about that. What happened?" Kaity asked.
"He was playing chase with some other boys, and he was looking behind him to see if they were catching up. And then, BAM!" Sophie and Jaydean both burst out laughing. "It was so funny, you should have seen it."
"That's cruel, Jay. He's your cousin, I hope you checked he was ok?"
"Liana did." They both replied, causing everyone to smile at their cliched twin speak.

"Daa-deee ah-ah-aaahh" Autumn sang, picking up handfuls of sand and letting them run through his fingers, before clutching more handfuls and repeating the process.
"Aww, our baby brother is a clever cutie!" Sophie said, tickling his cheek with her finger making him squeal. "Winter? Will you play in the sea with us?"
"Course I will." He leant down and kissed his son on the head, before being dragged to the shoreline by the girls.

Kaity sat herself up and pulled Autumn to her.
"Your daddy is an amazing man, isn't he, Tummy?" She smiled at her stupid nickname, and wondered how many years it would last before he was old enough to find it embarrassing. Autumn reached for her, grinning at the mention of 'daddy'.
"Daa-dee!" He squealed, pointing at her.
"No. Muh-mee." She smiled. "Daddy is the big blue hunk with your sisters. You know that." She picked him up before flipping onto her stomach and facing the sea, watching her girls splash and squeal with Winter.

"See, I never had a daddy, and my mummy didn't have time for family outings. She was out making the town safe. You're lucky, because your granny is out catching the bad guys so mummy and daddy can take you out like this." She kissed his head as he squeaked, giggled and babbled.

I wonder what my life would have been like if my father had stuck around? Would I be this messed up? Would I already have Winter instead of this stupid game of cat and mouse? Would I have had the twins? Kaity had never really given much thought to her absent father, or why Taylor had never tried to explain what happened between them the way her aunt had explained Geoffrey's death to Shaena. Until she'd seen how happy her kids were with Winter in their lives, until she realised how much easier it was having a man around the house, she'd never even thought about it. Now she had questions, and hoped Taylor would be alright to answer them.

_____

That evening

"Hey, mum. How are you? ... Good, yeah I'm ok. Look, I know this is random and out of the blue, but I'd like to know about my father..." 




Damn, I'm so good at photoediting... :p
Yeah, so I forgot to put the phone accessory in-game, so I drew a phone into that last picture, and all but the first and last beach pics were really dark, so I had to fix them.

Sorry the pics don't link with the text in the first part. I got carried away playing with babies and forgot that there were adults who were meant to feature in the chapter, and then I realised I only had pictures of Elise (because she's sooooo cute!) and poor Josh got overlooked, meaning Shaena did too. So they're in the bathroom peeping at us in one of the shots ;) 

Shaena got a new outfit, because it's now late-spring in game and didn't want her to get hot in that jumper. (And I will name the seasons this generation! WOOO!)
I realised after reading GigaRevival's new Dean Legacy chapter, that people might not know how to pronounce most of the names this generation, so here's all the names.
Kaity - Katy/Katie/K.T/Kaytee, there are a million different spellings. Kaity is Irish, I think.
Shaena - Shay-nah (I recently discovered this is a real name! Although spelt 'Shayna')
Winter - Win-ter.
Sophie - So-fee.
Jaydean - Jay-deen.
Joshua - Josh-yoo-ah.
Autumn - Or-tum.
Elise - El-eese. 

This authors note is about as long as the chapter. Oops. Sorry :p 
(Oh, does my font look smaller to anyone else? :/) 

10,000 pageviews gift!

Ok, just wow! I would never in a million years have thought I'd get 10,000 views on my little blog! So to say a massive thank you, I'm giving you two huge parts of this generation :)

First, 'The Goth Hotel', build specially for the conference where Kaity met Winter.
(Warning, picture overload - lightbox available for closeups.)
Sorry for night pictures, I originally had day pics, and then I did that idiotic 'delete all screenshots' thing with the launcher. *rolls eyes* Silly Gemma!
Also, this is a monsterous lot. 40x40, set to 'Pool' so it doesn't close at night and your simmies can actually spend the night in the hotel bit. Feel free to add/delete/edit bits/all of it to your liking, this took me some time, but is kind of taylored to what I needed it for.

Ok, front shot:

-To the left is a small garden, just for deco, it's all flowers and shrubs and I don't think sims can route there.
-To the right is a carpark (which I may have forgotton to finish. If there's no parking bays, add them in yourself? Sorry if I've forgotton that, my mistake :|), and a flag

Back shot:

(There is an upstairs on that far part. Lets pretend you can see it...)

So, we go through those big double-doors at the front, and into the reception area:

-Waiting area
-Reception desk
-Public toilets (no pics of them, they're just bathrooms. They exist, though. Promise!)

We go just right of that female toilet, and into the 'casino':

-Games
-Door to pool area

If we take a step back from where that last picture was taken (I'm really sorry, I forgot layout shots), we are in the conference room:

Going back to reception, we find some double doors leading to the bar area:

-Stage with instruments
-Seating area (Either for watching a band play, eating, or just chatting with a drink)
-Three booths
-Bar (I'm unsure whether you can order food at this one, I only used this lot for shooting, no playing. A bartender will arrive if you wait more than 5 sim-minutes for the game to generate one. I was impatient)
-Giant dancefloor
-Disco accessories: disco ball, strobe lights, speakers (as with all lots you place down, you have to disable and then enable the speakers in order for them to work), party FX machine

Upstairs:
Ok, we have two double rooms:

Two twin rooms:

And a family room with a double bed, single bed and crib:

All rooms have an en-suite bathroom with both a bath and shower, and a balcony. Only one room has had decorations added, the one I used for Kaity and Winter. I thought about adding things to the other rooms, and then thought I'd let you decorate how you want, because no two hotels are the same and you might want to use two rooms in one story and pretend they're different hotels. Plus I'm lazy ;)

Pool area:

Ok, the pool is a really odd shape. I thought it was cool at the time, but it seriously isn't, and I couldn't be bothered to do more work to this. Fix it if you want, or use it with weird a wavy side, up to you ;)
-Fountains behind us
-Huge fountain in the giant pool (diving board and ladder included)
-Three sun loungers
-Hot tub
-A small decorative garden, just a few trees and flowers to make the pool more private.

Expansions and stuff packs I have (Can't garentee which ones I've used, and I don't know if I want this on the exchange. If I do put it on there, I'll edit this list to include just what's used):
EPs
-World Adventures
-Ambitions
-Late Night
-Generations
-Pets
-Showtime
-Supernatural
-Seasons
SPs
-High-End Loft Stuff
-Outdoor Living Stuff

I think it's completely CC free. I added some in (OMSP, pose player) for when I was shooting, but I'm almost certain I took it all out. If not let me know. All decor/furniture/CAST patterns etc is from the above and basegame.

Download 'The Goth Hotel'

  

And, everyone's favorite genie, Winter Snow.

 CC:

-Hair: Peggy hair 704 by Anubis

-Make up: Confetti by LadyFrontBum

Tattoos: Supernatural and FourTSeven at Lost Utopia

I am unaware what his outfits and traits are saved as. He doesn't even have a surname in the file, so... Yeah, he was only for shooting, but all you forced me to keep him. Enjoy!

Download Winter

Thank you all once again for all your love and support and just reading. If it weren't for you I'd likely have given up on this long ago.

Happy simming! Here's to 10,000 more views! LOL ;)

4.19 Confession

The twins had just headed off to their second day of school, and Kaity was clearing the table, still feeling upset that her babies were so big now.

"Kaity, what the hell?!" A newspaper slammed onto the table, causing Kaity to drop the plate she was clearing in surprise. She'd not even realised Shaena was up, and yet here she was screaming in her ear.
"What? What have I done now?" She asked, resigned.
"This!" She tapped a picture on the front page of the tabloid. It was of her and Leighton in the club the day before.
"Oh, that..."

"'Oh, that'?!" Shaena shouted back, picking the paper up and slamming it down again. "Is that all you can say? 'Oh, that'?!"
"There's nothing else to say. Nothing happened."
"This doesn't look like nothing!"
"We're talking in that picture. A picture tells a thousand words, remember? I'm sure the journalist-"
"Kaity. I know you." Shaena glared, making Kaity suddenly a little apprehensive. She'd never been scared or worried or nervous about what her best friend would do.

"How could you do this to Winter?"
"I don't need to hear this!" Kaity screamed her reply as she clamped her hands over her ears. "I didn't do anything to Winter. Winter left me, not the other way around. And me and Lei-"
"Kaity, how can you be so stupid? The man clearly loves you, he's coming back."
"He's not."
"What is wrong with you?! Why can't you see? Why can't you trust him?" There was no reply, and a few moments passed as Shaena thought over her next words. "You love him too, don't you. You love him but you're too scared to admit that to anyone, including yourself, because then you'll seem like a normal person. You're so used to being the odd one out, the freak, that you can't handle the thought of opening up to anyone and proving to them that you're a sim. You're a sim just like the rest of us, and you make mistakes, you fall in love, you cry, you feel pain..." She paused a second, wondering whether to say anymore, Kaity's hands were loosening the grip on her head and she was starting to well up. "And you sleep around because you love the attention and the drama."

That last line hurt, and she wasn't sure what to reply.
"I'm right, aren't I?"
"No." She refused. "No, you couldn't be more wrong. I hate the attention, I'd do anything to be normal."

"But I choose not to delude myself into thinking someone would love me. Look what happened to you. You convinced yourself that he loved you, and now our best friend is dead."
"Kaity-"
"This is your fault, Shaena. You know it too. If you hadn't started seeing him, this would never have happened."
"How dare you?! If you hadn't told me that we'd live happily ever after and he'd treat me like a princess, I'd have never taken it any further than it was when I was a teenager. This is as much your fault as it is mine!"
"You know my visions aren't-"
"How could you get it so wrong?! Surely you'd learn what will and won't come true? You've had this gift all your life, and you still can't control it." A silence took over the room. Both girls panting, out of breath from the screaming match, neither knowing what to say. The sound of a baby gurgling filled the room through the baby monitor in the kitchen.

Kaity broke down in tears.
"What are we doing, Shae?"

"Look at us, what happened?" Both girls dabbed at the tears in their eyes, looking at the other.
"I didn't mean a word I said, Kaity. I'm so sorry."
"I didn't mean anything I said, either. I wish I could take it all back."
"We both regret it, lets just forget about it." Kaity nodded her response before pulling her cousin into a tight hug.

"We didn't do anything, Shae." Kaity whispered.
"What?"
"Me and Leighton. We kissed, we both wanted more, but I couldn't do it. I felt guilty and sick and I couldn't stop thinking about Winter and what he would do if he found out."

Shaena smiled, relieved and strangely proud.
"You should tell him, Kaity. You don't want him finding out through the press and not knowing the truth."
"There's no point, he's-"
"Kaity. Look at me." Shaena pulled out of the hug and held Kaity by the shoulders. "He's coming back. Ring him now and tell him about Leighton, and tell him you love him."
"No." Kaity shook her head. She refused to believe any of this. "If he comes back, I'll tell him about Leighton." Shaena sighed, and decided she'd leave it there.

_____

6 days later...

  Kaity couldn't help but beam as she watched the cab pull up. She'd been hovering around the windows and door all day, and as the sun started to set she'd decided she was right and he wasn't coming back. She gave him a shy wave as he stepped out the car door, and watched as he took his bags and paid the driver. He made his way towards the doorway where she was standing, but unable to wait anymore, she ran down the porch steps and threw herself into his arms.

"I can't believe you're back!"
"I told you I'd be back. Do you trust me now?" Kaity felt the guilt creep back up, turning her stomach and making her heart pound. She couldn't answer that. Not now, this was too perfect right now.

 So instead of replying, she wrapped a leg around his, and pulled him closer for a kiss. She'd tell him, like she'd said she would, but she wanted this happiness for a few more moments.

She led him inside and into the empty living room.

 Winter sat open-mouthed as he listened to her explain. Kaity didn't know if he was looking at her or not, as she spent much of her explaination avoiding his face. She couldn't bear to see the hurt that must've been etched among his strong features.

He let her tell the whole story. From the emptiness she'd felt when the girls had gone to school, the realisation she was alone; and really, truly a young single mother. The thought processes that led her to the club, and Leighton. To the dancing, the game, and the kiss. She even told him what could have been, what she'd wanted, but made sure he knew why she couldn't do it.

"Winter? Please say something?" The room had been quiet for the longest minute of her life. She finally got the courage to look him in the eye, but he turned away. She watched his hand move to hers, and her heart skipped a beat when she thought he'd forgiven her already, but instead she watched him push her hand from his thigh as he sat in silence.

She moved her hand to join the other on her knee, and waited for him to speak. He ran his hand through his hair before standing.

"Winter?" She reached for his hand as he took a step away. "Please talk to me! I'll do anything!"
"I need a minute." Winter sighed, jerking his hand from her grasp and leaving the room.

Kaity thought she was going to puke. Her heart was racing and she felt as if she couldn't catch breath. She waited a minute, and another, before heading to the doorway.

His bags were still in the kitchen, so he must've been in the house. He didn't have much, and although he'd had no time to explain, Kaity assumed everything else was following in a lorry to his new apartment.
He must be staying here tonight. She thought to herself as she climbed the stairs.

He wasn't in her bedroom, so the next logical step was down the hall to Autumn's room.

"Winter?" She asked, as she stepped into the room and lightly closed the door behind her. He was standing over Autumn's crib, just watching him sleep.

He stood straight, sighed again and rubbed his forehead with his hand. Kaity couldn't look again, and tried to find something outside the window to focus on.
"I said to give me time."
"You said a minute, and I waited two..." Kaity trailed off as she realised how stupid that was.

He turned halfway to her as he said: "I didn't mean literally."
"I know, I realise now. Sorry. I'm so sorry, really. Please forgive me." She begged.

Winter stayed quiet, watching Autumn stir a little in the crib.
"Winter? Please talk to me?" A sob escaped before she even realised she was crying, and Winter turned fully to her and looked her in the eye for the first time since she'd bought him inside.

"I have nothing to say." He said, his voice cold as his skin and emotionless.
"Please, I need to know that it will be ok."
"I can't tell you." He shrugged, his voice cracking the slightest bit. His stare broke her heart, and she fell to her knees.

 "Please! Please, I didn't know, I didn't think you'd come back! I-"
"I told you I'd come back."
"I know, I'm sorry. I don't know what else I can do, but I'm begging you, please! Think of Autumn-"
"Kaity. That's low. Are you trying to blackmail me?" Kaity frantically shook her head no, and tried to speak but instead her words were swallowed in a loud sob. "I told you I'd come back. I promised. I promised you I wouldn't leave, I promised the twins I'd be there for them, too. I don't break my promises, and I think you need to learn that."
"Winter..." She whispered.
"Get up. You're not a child, I bet not even your four-year-old girls beg and cry like this."

Kaity stood shakily. She had no idea what to say. She'd said she was sorry, and it hadn't worked, he hadn't forgiven her. She didn't know where to put herself.

"What can I do?" Kaity asked. Winter shook his head.
"I told you. Give me time. You essentially cheated on me, Kaity. You can't expect me to just get over it within an hour. You need to give me time to work out whether what I feel for you is enough to get past this. I need to know I can trust you, and right now I can't."

Kaity rushed to him, and gently shook his shoulders.
"You can trust me! Didn't I prove that by telling you all this? You'd have never found out if I hadn't, surely that's enough?"
"It's not right now, Kaity." He looked away, not able to look his betrayer in the eye.
"What can I do to prove you can trust me?"
"Listen." Winter sighed, exasperated. "You can give me time to process what you've done. There is no way to prove I can trust you if I tell you to do it, you'll just have to be faithful and patient." He pulled away, and took Autumn out of the crib. He gave his full attention to his son, and Kaity quietly left the room. She wasn't sure what to think, what to do. He was still staying, despite her stupidity, but she wasn't sure things would ever be the same.




 
Shae and Kaity's scene was honestly about 9am. There was a storm raging outside that made it look more like 9pm *rolls eyes*