Quick Beginings.

Meet Althea Fotia, she left Sim city in order to find a place a little slower and humbler. Her lifetime wish is to be a professional author,  and she hopes that someday she might be able to enlighten the world with the things that she writes in her books. With no friends or family where she came from Althea took what little money she had and bought a one bedroom house in Sunset Valley, over looking the beach.

Unfortunately after buying such a house she didn't have very much money for a t.v. so she had to settle for reading as her entertainment. While Althea loved to watch sitcoms, and movies, reading books came to be a very close second in her heart. As long as she was able to sit in a comfy spot she was in bliss. Althea spent her first night in town completely entranced with a book she had brought with her from the big city.

Even though all she wanted was to stay in the house and relax, Althea knew that she needed to find a job and begin to make money if she ever wanted to keep a roof over her head. As she made her way to the local paper firm she couldn't help but get sidetracked by the park located in the middle of the town. Althea became so excited that she went ahead and challenged a woman to a chess match, even though she had never played before.

 "You're a new face,where are you from?" the woman asked Althea as they started to play.

"I'm from sim city! I came here to be an author but first I wanted to find a job in the journalism career to try and develop my skills as a writer."

The woman gave althea a smile then said.

"Well I actually work at the local paper. You know I really like your enthusiasm. I can't offer you anything more than an entry level position though seeing as how you have no writing experience. What do you say."

Althea couldn't believe her luck, Sunset Valley is the perfect place for me!! she thought as she nodded enthusiastically to her new boss.

"Thank you so much I appreciate this oppurtunity."

"No problem! I just hope you're writing skills are atleast a little better than your logic skills." The woman said as she put Althea in check mate.

 Althea couldn't help but smile, if all chess matches were like this one then she might have to look into learning about the game.

Thorougly excited about having the job searching issue out of the way Althea decided to take a look at more of the town, she passed plenty of beautiful houses that she thought she might like to invest in if she had a family. Althea was never big on family since she had never had one for herself, she grew up in a string of foster care homes, until she was old enough to finally be on her own. When she turned 16 she worked as hard as she could, and the end result was the house that she was able to buy here in Sunset. On her way through the neighborhoods she ran into a very handsome man who was a little older than herself. Never being a shy person Althea decided to strike up a conversation.

"Hi there. Im Althea and I'm new here." she said with a smile.

Derick didn't know who this new girl was, she had to be atleast 19 years old.  Didn't she know that she couldn't just walk up to strange men that she didn't know. Even in a place like Sunset Valley there were bound to be some shady characters lurking around. Someone as attractive as her, could be easily taken advantage of.

"Hello." Derick said nicely, he couldn't deny that she was definately cute. Either way he felt that he should atleast tell her about being more careful about the people that she spoke to.

Althea was absolutely thrilled that she was able to hit it off so well with someone here, even though Derick was a little stern with her about talking to strangers he was actually a softy at heart and very big on family and marriage, they ended up talking extremely late into the night. Althea thought that she might actually be smitten with him, of course she wouldn't let him know that.

Realizing how late it was getting, and that she had work the next morning. Althea told Derick goodnight and raced home. Derick kept insisting that he take her home because it was so late but Althea felt that she could handle it on her own. She may be younger then him but she was perfectly capable of fending for herself. On her way back to her house though she heard a woman screaming out in absolute pain, when she rounded the corner she saw her next door neighbor clutching her stomach and wailing, panicking Althea ran to the house to call for an ambulance.

But when she returned she realized exactly what had happened. Her next door neighbor had given birth to a baby girl. Althea was completely mesmerized by the instant bond that she could see forming between mother and child. Even though she had never put much thought into it, Althea was begining to think about maybe sometime in the future having a family as well.

 The next morning was Althea's first day of work, she was a little disappointed to learn exactly what "entry level position" meant. She never thought that she would find herself working as a paper girl!! Either way Althea grinned and bore it, this after all was the beginning of what she knew was going to be a very very bright future.

*One Month Later*

Being  a paper girl was a lot harder than what Althea had expeceted it to be. She thought that she would rise through the ranks of the journalism career and then have enough skill to finally start writing her books, but it looked very very grim at this point. Her one saving grace in her time of dissappointment though was Derick. They had begun to see each other and Althea was always extremely happy to see him when she could. On the day of their one month anniversary Althea decided that she wanted to see Derick every morning before she had to go to work so she called him to meet her at their favorite spot.

Althea couldn't fight the nervous feeling that she had, in the pit of her stomach. She had never been in a relationship before so this was the first time that she would be asking a guy that she liked somthing so serious as this. She knew that they hadn't been seeing each other for long but she knew that they had a very strong connection. Even still she didn't know if this was too soon or not, the only examples she had for these sorts of things were novels, and movies. And althought Althea was a dreamer she knew the difference between fiction and non fiction.

Finally she reached Derick who was waiting for her patiently at the corner of the street.

"Hey" she said, knots forming in her stomach.

"Hey yourself." Derick said as he grabbed her hands.