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they hear in heavenbased on "The Little Dummer Boy"
“You’ll be the death of me, Kurt Wagner!”
Kurt lifted an eyebrow at Kitty from where he perched on a metal stool, elbows propped up on a counter of sanded wood. “You'll die because I don't want to travel all the way to Connecticut? Katzchen, I just can’t. It’s too far.” Actually, he’d never even left New York – at least not when he was old enough to remember.
“It’s only about a two hour drive from here to Bethlehem,” Kitty protested, pouting a little, her hands planted stubbornly on her hips. “Though it might take a little longer, what with the bad weather that’s supposed to come. It would just be you, me, and the band. It’s a gig, Kurt, and we need you. You’re our drummer. If you want to make it as a musician, you’ll have to travel, you know that.”
“Uh-huh,” Kurt muttered, idly tapping the twin drumsticks in his hands together with a satisfying clack-clack-clack. “But is this gig really about promoting Tricks of the Trade, or finding another opportunity to advertise the incredible ‘demon drummer boy’?” Originally the other members of the band had thought Kurt’s doubts about their agent, Dom McGlinchey, were based solely on his own typical distrust of strangers, but after Dom had set up nearly every promotional event to exploit Kurt’s… singular qualities, he felt it was time they admitted they’d landed a rat for an agent.
“Kurt, look at me.” Kurt continued to twirl the drumsticks in his thick, misshapen fingers. “Look at me, for heaven’s sake.” Kitty grabbed him by the shoulders and forced his head up. She took a deep breath, trying to hide her exasperation. “At least it’s a record deal, right? We’re lucky to even have that. Maybe Dom won’t be the one to take us to the top, but it’s a start. So what if his motives aren’t as genuine as we’d like? We’re good. All we need to do is get noticed for our musical talent, and this is our first avenue to success. Besides, honestly now, a little extra promotion of another kind can’t hurt us any, you know?”
Kurt lowered his eyes, not that Kitty could tell. Thick-lashed, almond-shaped, light-reflecting eyes of molten gold weren’t the easiest to read. Dom planned to feature those eyes on their first album cover, against a black background, with the outline of a blood red guitar clutched between groping fingers. Kurt wondered if the next album – assuming they got that far – would show his tail, spade tip and all, crashing against the cymbals. He gave a wry smile at the thought as his tail brused over the floor in anxious sweeps, reacting both to the implications of leaving the only home he’d ever known, and his sudden recognition of Kitty Pryde’s nearness to his face.
She’d been afraid of him for a while. They lived next door, and he would watch her run off to catch the school bus every day, notice whether her chesnut hair was full of springy curls or straightened flat, listen to her hum as she raked leaves in her backyard. It was a foolish infatuation – she was the only girl he had any contact with on a regular basis during his childhood. But she would never give him the time of day.
He received the drum set for his twelfth birthday, a gift from his German-born parents, who thought music was something he could share with other children his age without going against their staunch Catholic views. (Perhaps it wasn’t the most orthodox instrument, but there weren’t many available for three-fingered musicians that they could find.) From the moment he first brought a drumstick down on the snare, Kurt knew this was a talent he could make uniquely his. Yes, he could make it unique; it didn’t start out that way, like he did – unique whether he wanted to be or not.
Of course, first he’d had to learn how to play. For a while, his parents had cause to regret their choice in presents. But in time he got the hang of it, and the drumsticks felt as natural in his hands as if they were an extension of his body. He could identify any mistaken beat with his highly trained ears, and loved trying to imitate the percussion in his favorite songs. Though his parents never grew overly fond of drum music by itself, they couldn’t help smiling at their son’s enthusiasm as he played for hours each afternoon, blue fur beaded with sweat once he finished.
It was the music that drew Kitty. He first noticed her peeping in his garage window, his favorite place to practice, on a crisp November afternoon shortly after his thirteenth birthday. She’d ducked away when his eyes fell on her, but often she hung by the fence separating their yards while he was practicing, pretending to knit or read but with her head tilted ever so slightly in the direction of his garage.
One Saturday, Kitty approached him for the first time. She wore a lavender fleece over a smart black dress, and her curly hair was pulled back in a braid. Her cheeks glowed with healthy warmth in the chill of the winter. He was taking a break from practice, leaning back against the wall and chugging a Pepsi which he held with his tail, when she stopped at the entrance of the garage.
Quietly they appraised each other, Kurt noting her polished black pumps that were less than ideal for trudging through late January snow. He was first to break the silence. “Aren’t your toes cold?”
She blinked, and looked at her feet. “Oh. A little, I guess.” She shuffled her feet, clearly uneasy. Kurt transferred his soda to his hand, hoping she’d be less discomfited if he strived for a semblance of normalcy. “It’s my bat mitzvah today,” Kitty said by way of explanation.
“Your what?”
“It’s sort of a coming of age ceremony for Jews,” she said, blushing rather prettily, he noticed. “I just got back from my temple. Later in the afternoon, there’ll be a party, so that’s why I’m all gussed up like this.”
“Coming of age, already? How old are you?” Kurt inquired, forgetting in his shock that he was supposed to be shy and taciturn around girls.
“Thirteen.”
“… Gott.”
“I’m still not officially an adult until I’m 18, like anyone else. It’s just tradition. And so,” Kitty went on, “before my bat mitzvah, I had to do some kind of community service project. My project was getting donations of books for needy children. I saved one for you.”
He tensed immediately. That’s why she was here? He was a charity case, part of her “project?” He had plenty of books of his own, and opened his mouth to say so.
Her eyes widened suddenly as she realized how he’d taken her words. “I don’t mean I saved it for you because I thought you’d need it,” she stammered out in a flustered rush, before he could speak. “I just – I thought – well, here.”
She thrust a small hard-cover book towards him, coming forward just a few steps. After a moment’s deliberation, Kurt hesitantly stood and reached for the book. He winced inwardly as surprise flashed across her face at the sight of his odd three-fingered hands. He grabbed the book and hurried to sink back in the shadows.
She leaned her weight on one foot in the awkward silence that followed, finally clasping her hands in front of her and saying, “Well, that’s all I had to say, I hope you enjoy the book. I should be going now.”
She turned on her heel to leave, but he stopped her with a word. “Wait!” He was startled by his own boldness, but resolutely pressed on. “What is your name?”
She stared at him for a moment, perhaps wondering how they could have lived next door to each other for ten years and not known each other’s name. “Katherine,” she replied finally, with uncharacteristic bashfulness as she raised her eyes to look him full in the face for the first time. “But everyone calls me Kitty.”
His mouth opened and shut a few times before any sound came out. “I’m Kurt.”
“Nice to meet you, Kurt. I have to go. We’ll… we’ll catch up, okay?” With that, Kitty gave him a rather feeble wave, and disappeared into the white outdoors.
Kurt stared at the spot where she’d stood as she’d waved to him, trying with some difficulty to register what had just happened. A girl had sought him out, spoken to him. This was possibly the most monumental day of his life.
Remembering the book clutched in his hands, he sat down and flipped through it. It was a picture book, he realized. Perfectly innocuous. He shut it to peer at the cover, which read:
The Little Drummer Boy.
Almost four years later, Kurt still had that book, buried somewhere in his shelves upon shelves of books, the pages worn ragged from countless tender perusals. Sometimes he’d dig it out, or stumble upon it by accident, and just the sight of it brought a smile to his face. This book, Kitty’s first gift to him, marked the beginning of a beautiful friendship. When he found out she played both piano and keyboard, he invited her to jam with him in his garage. Kitty’s parents had been wary of her associating with “the freak next door,” but allowed the relationship to let Kitty know she could make her own decisions, and over time grew fond of Kurt themselves. Likewise, Kurt’s parents thought of Kitty as their own daughter. On warm nights, it was not uncommon for the two families to set up the grill on the Prydes’ porch and have a barbecue together.
That had been before the accident that had taken Kurt’s parents’ lives. They’d been driving their little convertible downtown so Ilse Wagner could stop in at the bookstore while Erich, her husband, picked up a new hard drive for the family computer. The driver of the truck was gunning down the road to make his delivery deadline. The Wagners’ car flipped and rolled off the road, crashing in a small ravine. Erich was instantly killed, and Ilse died eight hours later in the ER.
Kitty’s family arranged the funeral; the Wagners had no other relatives, and Kurt certainly couldn’t take care of it. Afterward, it was decided that Kurt should keeping living in his house, since next to no one was aware of his existence and, though they wouldn’t admit it to him, the Prydes worried what would happen to Kurt if he were ever revealed to the general public. That was part of the reason Kurt joined Ali Blaire’s band, Tricks of the Trade, when she’d made him the offer – otherwise, he didn’t see how he’d ever leave the front steps of his childhood home.
That had been his thinking at the time, at least. Now that the first opportunity for travel had arrived, Kurt found himself having second thoughts – and lots of them. He trusted Kitty, and Ali, their only singer and lead guitarist, and even Peter Rasputin, their soft-spoken bassist, who also happened to be Kitty’s current love interest. But he didn’t trust Dom McGlinchey, and he definitely didn’t trust the faceless members of their would-be audience.
“Nobody’s going to come after you wielding pitchforks and torches!” Kitty cried when he said as much, throwing her arms in the air and rolling her eyes. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Kurt. You made a commitment to this band, and we’re counting on you. You can’t get cold feet every time we have to travel for a gig. This is your ultimatum, Fuzzy. Are you with us or not?”
The next day found Kurt, grouchy and irritable, slouched into the middle seat of a minivan next to Peter, with Ali at the wheel and Kitty next to her in charge of operating the radio. The minivan was spacious, but still they had to cram into the first four seats as the entire backseat was packed full with their musical equipment: cables, the amps, Kitty’s keyboard, Peter’s Les Paul and both Ali’s electric and acoustic guitars. Kurt’s drum kit had been dismembered and stored piece by piece in the trunk except for the snare, which wouldn’t fit, so Kurt had it strapped around his shoulder.
He still felt his anxiety over venturing so far from home creeping up on him, but managed to force it to the back of his mind. Besides, his friends’ excitement was infectious. Ali squealed – actually, honestly squealed – as they were loading the equipment. Kurt and Kitty exchanged a glance, Kitty laughed, and Kurt couldn’t hold on to his bad mood.
There was some discussion over what music to play as they drove, until Ali declared it was her van and therefore she got to decide on the soundtrack for their road trip. She rummaged around in the glove department and produced a burned CD of her iPod playlist, which was a head-banging blend of Queen, the Led Zeppelin, and Aerosmith.
They were trying to outsing each other during the refrain of “We Are the Champions” when the first snowflakes fell from the sky. Kitty gasped and pointed out the window, and Kurt craned his neck around Peter to watch the highway slowly pale with the glistening snow.
“‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,’” Peter started to sing in his rich baritone voice. The others joined in an enthusiastic chorus. Kitty swiveled in her seat to bat her eyes at Kurt and Peter. Both boys blushed and laughed.
Ali’s silky alto disappeared abruptly and her brow dropped low on her forehead. “Guys, I need quiet,” she said after a moment.
“What’s wrong, Al?” Kitty asked, turning back to face straight ahead and adjusting her seatbelt strap.
Ali bit her lip, her eyes never lifting from the road. “The snow’s turned to sleet. I can barely see a thing. I have to concentrate, so shut up for a while, okay guys?”
The group obediantly broke off all conversation. Kitty tapped her fingers idly on the dashboard. Kurt and Peter exchanged a look of worry as the icy rain splattered the windows.
“You’ve got snow tires on this thing, right, Ali?” Peter asked after a while.
Ali sighed, letting her shoulders drop. “I don’t actually know, Petey. This is my aunt’s minivan. She’s had it for years, got it to chauffeur her five kids around. If you want an idea of how old it is, the youngest of those five is graduating high school now. She doesn’t use it much anymore, which is why she said I could borrow it. We didn’t talk about snow tires.”
“We had just gone over the Tappan Zee bridge when the snow started,” Kitty pointed out. “We’ve only got an hour left now. It’ll be fine, I’m sure.”
Soon quiet talk resumed, though Ali kept her eyes and thoughts focused on driving. Kurt goaded Peter and Kitty into a game of Uno, which kept them entertained for the next half hour. By that time, the sleet had turned to rain and was spilling in buckets from the clouds.
“God’s trying to flood the earth,” Ali grumbled. “And that moron over there is doing at least sixty in the slow lane.”
“Honk the horn, Ali, maybe we can frighten him off the road,” Kitty joked.
To her horror, at that moment the car speeding dangerously close to Ali’s minivan suddenly skidded on a patch of black ice. Somehow it managed not to collide with anyone else and veered to the curb, where it slammed into the shoulder. Ali gasped, knuckles whitening on the wheel, and Kitty’s hands flew to her mouth.
“Oh my God, did you see that?” Kitty shrieked.
“Hard to miss it!” Ali replied through clenched teeth.
“Think they’re okay?” Kurt asked, wide-eyed. “Maybe we should stop and see if they need help.”
Ali shook her head. “We’ve got a deadline, and we’re going to be late as it is.”
“I think Kurt’s right,” Peter put in. “It will only take a moment.”
Ali rolled her eyes but oblidged, shuffling through the lanes to park just ahead of the crashed vehicle on the shoulder. Peter pulled his coat up to his neck and walked out into the rain and cold while his friends strained to watch him through the rear windshield.
Peter’s silhouette, distorted by the rain , grew murky and dark as he made his way through the gale. Kurt’s neck hurt, so reluctantly he righted himself in the seat. After a few minutes Peter returned with rain dribbling off his nose and down his face and his arms wrapped around him against the wind.
“The driver seems perfectly fine,” he informed the others as Ali drove back into traffic, “just a bit shaken. I told her she needs to be more cautious on the road in these conditions. I think she’d had enough of a scare that she’ll remember.”
“Guess again, Petey. Looks to me like she didn’t hear to a word you said.” Alison adjusted her rearview mirror and jerked a thumb out the window. They all turned to look and watched the girl’s dark blue Cadillac come up level with them, then zoom past.
Donning a grim frown, Ali carefully put her foot to the gas and they pressed on, weaving through sparse traffic as the sleet continued to pound down without mercy. Soon other cars disappeared altogether as they left the highway and hit the back roads. Unsettled, Ali noticed the windshield was covered splattered with sludge and decided to pull over to wipe it off. She was about to ask Kitty to look for the ice scraper under her seat when the minivan suddenly whirled sideways into the lane. The passengers threw up their arms and Ali thought vaguely of her driver’s manual slipping off the dashboard, but had no time to react as they were hurled directly into a telephone poll. There was a noise like a thousand shattering windows and then the van went up in flames.
Ali couldn’t find her voice and could only stare at the burning car, pitched headlong into the poll, completely totaled and burning along with all their band equipment – her aunt would wring her neck –
It slowly dawned on her that she was no longer in the car.
Whipping her head around, Ali found she was kneeling on the grass, Peter next to her, slackjawed and equally bewildered, and Kurt was behind them, doubled over and coughing.
“What happened?” she gasped. Peter shook his head and they both turned to look at Kurt.
He looked past them at the car, fur standing on end, and let out a roar: “Schiesse - Kitty!”
They could hear her now – screaming through the flames, sobbing. Her hand clawed at the broken glass of the window. Kurt made a strangled sound and disappeared in a burst of smoke. A moment later they saw him darting around the car as if looking for a way back in. His tail shot out and slipped through the shattered glass to wrap around Kitty’s hand. Once again, he seemed to vaporize in a pinkish cloud, then reappeared on the grass, this time with Kitty attached.
“You teleported!” Ali cried, while Peter sat dumbstruck. They’d known he could do it – or rather, they had heard stories from both Kurt and Kitty that he could – but had never seen him do it. Scared in spite of herself, Ali crabwalked backwards as Kurt knelt with Kitty’s prone form in his arms. Ali sucked in her breath. “Oh Gooood, she’s dead!”
“She’s not dead!” Kurt hissed. He willed his shaking hands to steady as he laid her on the grass. Her wounds looked back; he found glass shards wedged in her forearms and other cuts all over her body. The worst seemed to be her legs, which to his eyes looked completely charred, and he had no way of knowing what kind of internal injuries she had.
“Tell me one of you has a cell phone!”
“In the car!” Ali wailed. Peter crawled over and stared at Kitty’s unrecognizable body. His eyes flickered from her bloody face to the blackened skin on her legs.
“We can’t stay here!” Frantically Kurt tried to haul Kitty in his arms, stopping when she moaned. “Peter, you take her. We have to find some place to call for help!”
“Where!? We’re in the middle of nowhere!”
“Come on, let’s go.” Kurt helped Peter gently heave Kitty into his arms and threw his jacket over her. Sniffling and sobbing, Ali followed the boys as they trudged through the ice-slick street. All around them were nothing but hills and dense trees. Shock from the crash was all that kept them from doubling over from the severe chill of the rain beating on their backs.
“We should never have stopped for that stupid speeding girl,” Ali sobbed, fluid streaming from her nose. “We should have just kept going.”
“How would that have helped?” Kurt muttered.
“I don’t know.” She sniffled. “But it would have.”
“Kurt, you still have your drum,” Peter said.
Kurt glanced at his side and found his snare drum still strapped over his shoulder. He let his hand graze it briefly and felt an odd sort of comfort. He snapped back into reality – and fear – when Kitty gave another pain-filled groan.
After twenty minutes, their legs were stiff with cold and wet. Not even Kurt’s fine layer of fur worked as a buffer against the wind, and still the woods stretched out endlessly before them. Kurt wondered what tomorrow’s headline would read: instead of “Tricks of the Trade Has Smash-hit Debut,” it would be “Members of Garage Band Found Dead in Snow.”
“Light,” Peter said, so softly Kurt had to strain to hear him. “I see light ahead.”
“What’s that, CVS?” Ali cried as they came upon it. She was almost right: it was a convenience store as vacant as the road, labeled “Joshua's Inn” by a rundown wood sign. But the window was alight, and telling himself that even if it was locked, there might be a pay phone outside, Kurt and his his exhausted crew approached the door. To his relief, it opened at his touch, and chimes jangled with hollow cheer as they entered.
No one was attending the counter. The shelves, even the merchandise, were covered in dust. Decorative Indian corn hung by a clock the size of a platter, its hands stuck on 4:15.
“I don’t think anyone’s here,” Ali said in a hushed voice. She pressed herself closer to Kurt, eyeing the door over her shoulder and rubbing her numb arms.
“But the light is on,” he replied, wondering why they were whispering. They needed help, after all. “Hello?” he called out. “Anybody? We’re not robbers… We just –”
Simultaneously they screamed as a lump of sacks moved in the corner. A grizzly face poked out with surprisingly lucid eyes peering at them beneath a jet black caterpillar brow. They backed away as a short, stocky man dressed in a jacket and tattered jeans stood up and took a puff of the cigar dangling from his lips. He reeked of alcohol and smoke and looked as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks.
“Well, what do we have here?” His voice crunched like gravel and had a distinct note of malice. “Two dogs and a pair of cats caught in the rain, eh?”
He hobbled forward and Peter placed himself protectively in front of Ali. Kitty chose that moment to wimper in his arms. While Kurt was glad to know she was still alive somehow, he didn’t like the smirk on the hobo’s sallow face. The man halted and planted his hands on his hips.
Kurt decided it didn’t matter if this man was an ax murderer, they were going to die anyway, and at least he could stand before the pearly gates and tell Saint Peter he’d tried to save Kitty. “We need a phone! An ambulance,” he demanded. “Look at her! She’s dying!”
“Look at you,” the tramp retorted, and Kurt bristled as clear blue eyes scrutinized his fur, digitigrade legs, and especially the spade-tipped tail lashing back and forth in agitation. The tramp’s lips curved into a sneer. “You a demon come to take me to Hell? I’m all yours, bub.”
Stung, Kurt shook his head. “Shut up. This isn’t about you. She needs help!” When the tramp didn’t respond, Kurt snapped, “You’ll go to Hell for real if you don’t help her!”
“Kid. Do I look like I have money? Let alone a cell phone?” The tramp lumbered towards Peter, who held Kitty closer and glared at him. “Back off, lover-boy. Let me see the damage.” Kurt was struck again by how intelligent his eyes seemed, in total contrast to the gaunt, unkempt face. “Yeah, kid’s in a bad way. It’s too bad.” He picked a bottle of whiskey covered in a thin film of dust off a shelf and popped the cork.
Kurt stared. “What do you mean, too bad? You aren’t going to help? Come on!” He darted forward and grabbed the tramp’s arm before he could take a drink. “You must know something that could help us! Is there a phone around back? If not, where’s the nearest gas station?”
“It’s no use, kid. She’s gonna die. Amazing she’s still kicking as it is.” He brought the bottle to his lips and gulped evenly until it was half-empty. Froth sprinkled his dark beard as he turned back to Kurt, who still stubbornly watched him. “Look, ya furry freakshow, I ain’t lying. She’s a goner.”
He didn’t see, or didn’t expect, the three-fingered fist that shot out at him. “She’s not going to die!” Kurt cried, visibly shaking, as the shocked hobo touched his smarting jaw. “She can’t!”
The bottle toppled to the floor and spilled. Whiskey dribbled over the grimy tiles. The hobo looked Kurt squarely in the face. “No. She’s gonna die.”
Uttering a gutteral roar, Kurt pivoted on his heel and marched outside. He was backhanded with a gust of frozen wind. After searching the front of the shop for a pay phone, he went around the side, towards the back, and his numb toes tripped over a rock lodged in the ground. Cursing in English and German, he scrambled to his feet and tried to burn his rage into the offending stone.
“It happens to everyone, misfit. It’s part of life.”
Kurt could barely make out the tramp’s outline through the rain – or was it his own tear-blurred eyes? “What do you know?” he stammered. “She’s special! She can’t die!”
After a moment’s pause, the tramp made his way to Kurt’s side. The butt of his cigar burned like a red star and he plucked it from his mouth, sprinkling ashes over the stone. “I buried my wife here.”
“… I’m sorry…”
“It was a long time ago,” he grunted, though Kurt’s ears spotted a tender note in his gruff voice. “Her name was Mariko… I brought her here after the war.” He had a new bottle, Kurt realized, and wondered how such a dilapidated little store had ever carried fine Japanese sake. The tramp poured the sake over the stone – Mariko’s headstone – and then over a similar rock beside it.
“Amiko was our kid. She died next to her mom. Long, long time ago.”
Kurt watched the sake gush like tears over the stones, mixing with the rain. His shoulders shook, from the cold, he told himself.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he managed to choke out. “But I know loss too. My parents are dead. And heaven knows what happened to my biological parents.” He tossed his burning glare at the tramp and wiped away angry tears. “If Kitty dies too –”
The man lowered his head. “Look kid, there ain’t no hope. Don’t cling to what’ll only get you hurt.”
They stood there a moment longer. Then the tramp headed back inside. Kurt didn’t notice, his face tilted towards the graves, though he couldn’t see them anymore. Something inside him died.
He thought about his parents, long cold and decaying in the cemetary. About how Kitty would soon join them. About the pair of women, loved by a tramp – or loved by a man who, when he lost them, felt the same deadness inside like a dark maw bent on sucking him inward.
Kurt moved his snare drum in front of him and felt around for his drum sticks. Somehow, they hadn’t slipped out of his belt. He started to play, starting with a slow, solemn beat. He stood in front of the makeshift graves and the dead were his audience.
Could they hear him from Heaven?
The tramp was back, his eyes fixed on Kurt. He continued to play and ignored him, until he knelt in front of the stones and put a hand on each. Then he said, “Why do you want to go to Hell, if your loved ones are surely in Heaven?”
“I ain’t done nothing worth getting me through the Gates, kid,” the man said softly.
Kurt played until he’d lost all feeling in his fingers, and even then he tried to continue the rhythm by ear, until his drumstick snapped in half. Then the tramp took his arm and helped him back inside. Ali had turned up the heat and she, Peter, and the hobo gathered around Kitty. Kurt crouched in front of the window and watched for cars that never passed by.
Morning came gray and cloudy, but the wind howled with less fervor and the rain had ceased. Kurt awoke miserably wrapped in a coat and blinked against the light. He rolled on his side and his eyes widened.
“Kurt,” Kitty said, kneeling in front of him, her soft brown eyes bright with tears.
Tentatively he reached for her. She bent down and wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. “You – you aren’t hurt,” he gasped. “Not a scratch on you –!”
“Shhh,” Kitty said. “Some things can’t be explained.” She pressed a shy kiss to his lips.
In the corner of the room, the hobo’s body lay lifeless on the floor, the healing blood drained out of him. His arms clasped a drum to his heart, and on his lips was the smile of one who has seen Heaven.
(edit: adding italics)
[Edited on 1-13-08 by Feuerstein]
Thank you so much for you entry!!! Good luck! 
Wow...that was a marvelously teary ending! Beautifully ended by the way...you TOTALLY deserved you're win! Keep it up!