Two days later

Alexandra-

God, how long does it take to get over a dead daughter? If it were me, fifteen minutes. Max. I've tried and tried to convince him that she's dead. Plan a funeral, bury an empty casket, get some damn closure. As soon as he opened up his account to pay for that, I'd slip in and drain it.

But he refuses to think the little brat died. All he does is moan about the house, dragging his feet and not shaving. Seriously, that's so unattractive.

Like, please, get a grip. Richard just loves to remind me that this could take years. I'm not getting any younger here! I'm already thirty two. Okay...thirty nine..but that's beside the point. I need to squeeze every penny I can out of that sad sack.

I've waited for so long already. I'm more impatient than I've ever been. This anxiousness was really wearing down on my nerves. I had to refrain from drinking too much coffee and tea that would just make my certain condition worse. I worried my hair would start falling out, or wore, go grey.

I needed that money soon.

But how?

---------

Lyra-

"Hand me the rope," I said.

Nathan handed up a piece of rope. I lashed another log to the platform. Nate stood like a worried mother below me. We were fourteen feet up, but I was perfectly fine. I grinned as I took in my handiwork. This thing was totally coming together way better than I had originally planned. It would soon be done but I was enjoying myself while building it.

We had the stilts up, the platform on and now we were building up the cache house. It had it's own foundation tied on. Now we could go build that, bring it up here and tie it on. We could take it on and off as we pleased.

Do you know how hard it is to build things without a hammer and nails? Yeah I didn't know it was this hard, until now.

So we fashioned our own nails. Crude, cruddy nails with uneven edges.

Using cotton wood, a pretty hard substance, we chopped four inch long 'nails' and smoothed them out with knives. I pounded them in with the back of my hatchet, which was the closest I could get to a hammer. A pioneers down right basics.

Unfortunately, they would eventually rot. But let's hope we won't be here that long.

I climbed down the crude ladder we'd made. I jumped down the last few feet.

"Now all we need is the roofing and such. Needs to be water proof," I mumbled to myself, dusting my hands off on my jeans.

Picking up the hatchet, I chopped medium sized logs in half. Then in half again. These would act like boards for the roof. Nathan sat down in the moss next to me and started on the frame.

Being the perfectionist I am, I shaved the wood down to make it all even and smooth. These would not end up like the nails. I had my boards done in about thirty minutes and they were all perfect, if I may say so.

Nathan grinned at me when the sharp angled frame was set up. Half lashed in tough twine, half nailed together with our pioneer nails. Together, we started to put the boards up, pausing to fashion more nails, and then eventually having a large dog house sized cache.

"We need shingles," I said. Without them, rain would soak into the wood and ruin it.

Nathan groaned, "That means we need more nails, Lyra."

"Well do you want our food stock to get wet?" I asked him sassily.

He started making more nails. I smiled and went to chop thin, eight inch long pieces of wood for shingles. They would allow rain and snow to roll right off.

It was starting to get dark and the bugs were beginning to come out. So we hurried up and moved our supplies. Starting with the bottom row of logs at the roof, we started layering shingles. With Nathan and I on each side, we worked efficiently.

I put a long log at the very top to be the awning of the shingles.

"Finished!!" Nathan screamed, startling a flock of black birds in a nearby tree, and me.

I laughed, "Yeah, let's go get this thing up."

Nathan wouldn't let me be the one to place it on the platform, so I handed the very heavy house up to him. He nailed in the supports and tied everything down for extra measures.

"We load it up tomorrow," he grinned, jumping down from the latter.

Unhooking the ladder and dropping it off to the side so no critters got interested, I followed him inside, calling Baine. I threw a log on the fire and plopped down beside Nate. He chewed some deer jerky happily.

"Projects. We need more projects," I grinned happily. The feeling of accomplishment swelled in me.

"We just finished one," Nathan raised an eyebrow.

I scratched a mosquito bite on my arm, "I know. I like it. Let's build a treehouse or something."

He laughed, "We'll see."

No, we will. If I was going to be stuck here until spring or later, I was going to make this place a home. We talked about meager things as we settled down for the evening. Nathan suggested duck hunting, considering they'd be migrating in huge flocks soon.

"We could make a blind in that thick cattail clump by the crack. But we need to get fast on our bow skills. There's not much noise to a bow but-"

Crack.

The loud bang of thunder startled me. Instinctively, I grabbed Nathan's shirt and jumped, backing myself against the wall. Thunder rolled above us, feeling like it was shaking the whole cave. As if there were small shock waves rippling around me. My immediate thought was it could trigger something.

"It's just a thunderstorm," Nathan chuckled.

He didn't understand. I doubted he ever would. He didn't know the fear of getting buried alive and wondering if you'll ever get out. Legitimately a near death experience. Flashes of the oozing mud trapping me in that tiny cave bounced in my mind.

"I-I know," I murmured rather shakily.

Every boom of thunder shook through my skin to my bones, no matter how many times I braced myself it still frightened me. I curled into the smallest position possible with my back to the wall.

You're scared of a little thunderstorm? My subconscious taunted. No I'm scared of what they bring. Mudslides, fire, floods, death.

I half expected Nathan to join in on the teasing. But he gave me a worried glance instead.

"I'm okay," I looked at the floor, away from his worried look.

A huge crack of thunder rattled us as a bolt of lightning lit up the cave. I jumped and my body quivered at the memory of the mudslide. I grit my teeth and just prayed the storm would be over soon as flash backs of the mudslide bombarded my mind.

"Hey, come here," Nathan stretched out his arms, his southern accent pulling me in.

Without telling my legs to move, I found myself letting Nate wrap me up in a warmth bearing hug. I settled against his chest and clung to his side as thunder continued to rumble. Rain started beating down outside.

It sounded like an oversized shower had been turned on. A downpour. Something that terrified me further. A little puddle formed underneath the door where it wasn't entirely water proof.

I got up quickly and stuffed moss in the cracks. Still, flecks of water dribbled in. My new home could get carried away, just like the last one.

Returning to Nathan's arms, I tucked myself into his side, not caring about pride or embarrassment anymore. Whenever thunder crackled, I'd just try to remember that someone had me, and was there. I wasn't going to die all alone in a cave, buried under dirt and rocks.

He was comforting and not a lot of things out here were as comforting as him.

"You're okay. We're fine. It's just a little mountain storm. They blow over quickly," Nathan whispered as the fire died down to heated, popping embers.

I felt a small peck on the top of my head as my eyes fluttered closed.