Ahoy there! Whilst writing Never Eat Red Snow, I had an idea for extending the flashbacks in my story cus they were fun! =D And I missed Ellie, my little OC...So if some of it sounds familiar its cus I took what I had written from the previous story and built around it ;)

Rain was pounding heavily on New York City. Gales were howling and Ellie Flack was finding it difficult to sleep. Not only were the branches of the old oak tree in the garden battering off her window, she had an important maths test in the morning. Not to mention her father was working late. She always got nervous when he worked the graveyard shift - the city was so much more dangerous at night. A light tap on her bedroom door roused her from her worrying . She looked up from the book she had been absentmindedly flicking through, to see her brother Don, leaning on the door handle.

"Hey Ell, what are you still doing up?" Don's dark uniform shirt was unbuttoned and he pulled his belt out of his trousers.

"School tomorrow, I got a maths test to see whether I can go on and do it in senior year. That and you know how I get about dad. I'm glad you're home safe though."

Don had not long graduated from the police academy. That along with their father's promotion to deputy chief of the drugs squad, meant that the Flack family could afford to move into small detached house in the suburbs.

"How are you enjoying the new room?" There was still a hint of fresh paint about the house.

"I've been waiting 16 and a half years for my own room! And when I finally get one, its a shoe box!" Ellie replied, to Don's amusement.

"Yeah, but its your little shoe box and no more sharing with Joel."

"I do love Mom's theory that now I'm a 'young woman' I must have my own space." Ellie grinned. The two other children in the family, Carmine and Joel, were sharing the loft room and Don had his own rather small bedroom too.

"Alright, I'm exhausted. You get some sleep. Good night."

"Night Donnie." Don walked down the hall and into his own room. Stripping down to his boxers he climbed under his covers and switched off his lamp.

Don woke with a start a short time later, not quite sure what had caused him to jump. A scream caused him to sit upright. Had it come from inside the house? The wind blasting around the house made it hard to tell. He glanced at his bedside cabinet. His gun was in the top drawer. Hardly making a sound, he slipped out of bed and pulled open the drawer.

Down the hall and Ellie had awoken too. A cold panic had flooded her body. That distant scream sounded awfully like her mother. Before she could summon the courage to get out of bed a dark figure burst into her room and she let out a scream of her own. An icy cold hand had a grip of her arm as the masked man dragged her from her bed and out into the hall. Ellie was suddenly aware of something jabbing into her back. A sharp point pricking her skin.

"Anymore noise and I'll stick this in your throat." The unknown man muttered in a heavy eastern European accent. His nails dug into the top of Ellie's arm and she was sure he was drawing blood. Don had made it out of his room without a sound and rounded the corner to find his sister stumbling as a man pulled her towards the stairs.

Ellie and her captor were almost at the top of the stairs when they both heard a loud click. The man stopped dead. There was no mistaking the sound of a revolver being cocked.

"You take your hands off my sister, right now." The man heaved a sigh and threw Ellie to the floor and turned around with his hands up. Don stood confidently, despite being in nothing but his boxers. "Come on." he said reaching his right hand out to Ellie, who took it and scrambled behind her brother. "Drop the knife." he added and the intruder did so. Ellie's breaths had slowed greatly, but she gasped as she heard another frantic scream from downstairs.

"Mom!" Ellie cried out and Don looked away for a split second. The man took his chance and threw himself at Don. The gun flew past Ellie as the man punched her brother hard in the stomach. Ellie stared between the knife and the gun as the two men grappled on the floor. Just as she went to pick both weapons up, the front door flew open and there was a surge of uniformed, shouting men. It seemed half of the NYPD had showed up at the house. They had the men in cuffs in no time and Ellie found herself ushered downstairs as Don explained what had happened to his colleagues.

"Thank God for that silly panic button your father had installed." Carmella said as she held her daughter a few minutes later. Ellie shook in her mother's embrace. She had been so scared that the men would have hurt her family. Don approached them with another police officer.

"This is Joey." Don introduced the man who looked a few years older than him.

"Mrs Flack." he shook her hand. "And you must be Ellie, its a pleasure to finally meet you both."

"You're his partner right?" Ellie asked.

"Yeah, I'm stuck with this guy day in, day out." Joey grinned and Don shoved him playfully. "Anyway, these guys who came into your home were Russian mafia. Detective Flack bust a lot of their guys a few weeks ago, so we think this was some sort of payback plan."

Carmella made a small noise in shock and clasped onto Ellie once more. "Do you think we should still be worried?"

"No ma'am. These two were the last powerful guys we were looking for. When they did this, they really did us a huge favour in catching them."

"He's right, Ma." Don placed a hand on her shoulder. "Besides, if Dad isn't here, most of the time, I will be. You got nothing to worry about." He smiled at his sister, who was still shivering.

"That's right, Donnie. If it wasn't for you..." Ellie paused. Hundreds of worst case scenarios had unfolded horribly in her mind. "...Well, you saved us, thank you..."