<em>~Nicci in the hallway~</em><br/><br/><br/>As Nicci almost reached the door to the dining room she noticed a smaller but quite long picture on the wall just the the left of it, it wasn't a single portrait nor a horse or deer, nor a landcape - rather what seemed to be a family group.  She came right up to it and looked at it carefully, it had a quality about it that the more formal paintings hadn't. Although it was old it had a timeless feel about it, it was the expressions on their faces and how comfortable they seemed with each other, she thought.<br/><br/>It looked like an extended family, grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, cousins and even babes in arms.  There was a definite family likeness between some of them but most of them were as different as chalk and cheese.  But still there was this quality about them that made them all fit together and seem as one, the painter had captured the bond that was between them all in some magical way and it spun it like a glamor over all of them.<br/><br/>That was the feeling she had hoped one day she would experience, of belonging, of being part of something, part of a family that loved each other and accepted each other for who they were.  This was what she should hang on to - this was worth working for - and most good things came at a price, sometimes even a difficult one, one that perhaps in this case meant giving up part of herself and accepting she would need to change and to adapt - not just expect them all to gel and become one unit without the edges needing to be knocked of first to get them to fit.<br/><br/>She smiled, imagining for a moment a picture of the six if them, painted like this, when together they had formed exactly what they all wanted - a family.<br/><br/>Tucking the loose stand of hair behind her ear that had fallen forward when she lent over to look at the picture she opened the door to the dining room, a genuine smile of peasure on her face, for the picture the five of them made sitting round the table, with the added glow from the candles warming their faces really was a beautiful sight.<br/><br/>"Sorry I took a little while, I went to see Cathy and she said she will be serving tea and coffee in the lounge in a few minutes, so when we have finished out desserts, we can go through and get comfy in there."<br/><br/>She walked past Mila and Marcus to her seat, feeling a little lighter and her natural optimism fully operational again, so as she sat down she smiled and looked round at them all, "Have I missed anything?" she asked.<br/>