Four Weeks, Three Days

The bus ride was never ending and by the time they pulled up to the tiny bus station in a town, Ash just wanted off already. His entire body ached from hours of sitting in cramped positions and the stench of too stale air shared amongst the passengers. When he finally stepped off on solid ground minutes later, he gulped air in through his starved lungs like a man dying of thirst in the desert.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find the sweet, older lady who had chatted with him for a good portion of the trip. She had been visiting her sister in Rosewood and hadn't wanted to tackle the long drive herself. She seemed to sense that Ash wasn't too keen on talking about himself during the drive and had kept the conversation light in order not to spook him. Now, though, she eyed him with concern and fiddled with her purse strap.

"Are you going to be all right, young man? Got someone picking you up?"

Ash nodded through the lie with ease. "Yes. My ride should be here soon enough."

She cleared her throat and shifted her overnight bag to the other hand as she motioned behind him. "Well, my husband is here. It was lovely chatting with you, Ash. Thanks for keeping an old woman company."

"No problem." Ash smiled at her. He was a handsome boy, if a little rough around the edges, but his smiles could still charm people if he wanted them to. He tried to look as though he knew what he was doing; that he had all the answers in the world. She wasn't fooled though.

She hesitated and then put something in his hand as she shook it. She smiled sadly at him and patted his cheek. "Just in case, son."

Once she had gone, he opened his hand and found her cell number etched in bold ink lines on a scrap of paper. The gesture of kindness reminded him of Mary-Lynnette so much that it gutted him. He stood there in the middle of the sidewalk staring at her number and clutching his stomach as if to keep his insides in. He was seventeen years old, homeless, and desperately in love with a girl he was pretty sure hated him even though she was his soulmate.

It took two days for him to call the lady. He had been spending most of his time at the libary. He stayed until the library closed and then found refuge on one of the benches at the bus station to pass the night. The first night had been pretty uneventful despite the fact that a hooker and her pimp had gotten into a loud argument with a potential client on the street corner. The entire time Ash had been unable to look away as the pimp manhandled the client out of his car and yelled something about being gypped.

The prostitute couldn't have been more than sixteen years old and Ash stared at her sympathetically until she flipped him off and he averted his eyes. In all his years in foster care and on the streets he'd seen some pretty horrific things involving kids his age, but it never failed to shock him. Even after the fight died down, Ash couldn't get the image of her flipping him off out of his mind.

He didn't blame her. If he were in her shoes he wouldn't want pity either.

The second night was when he got into trouble.

He had dozed off on his bench after making sure the straps on his backpacks were looped through his belt buckle. It wouldn't completely prevent theft while he slept, but at least no one could make off with his stuff without waking him up in the process. As it was, he'd seen some pretty shady people in downtown at night so far.

It turns out he should have been more concerned with his own safety than of his bags.

He woke suddenly to the feeling of someone groping him between his legs harshly and hot, putrid breath in his face. His vision was blurred upon waking at first and he could just make out a grizzled face hovering above him in the semi dark. Ash flailed out his arms but found them quickly pinned to the bench beneath him and he fought down a scream when he felt a heavy body climb on top of him.

"Hey, Pretty." The man's voice slurred in his ear. "J-Just want to play with you for a bit, eh? Just for a bit we'll play…Be a good boy for Daddy, eh?"

Ash didn't panick. He could smell the man's rancid breath on his face and him trying to pry his legs apart on the hard, unyielding bench. "Get the fuck off me!" Ash yelled, bucking wildly underneath the predator's huge body. He managed to free one hand from the man's iron clad grip and punched at his attacker's head repeatedly . Bringing one of his knees up at the same time, Ash slammed it into the guy's groin-twice. The man shrieked in agony and slumped to the side, over the edge of the bench and flopped on the ground. Ash wasted no time as he gathered his belongings and took off down the street. He ran until he found an all night diner and raced inside, gasping for breath.

"Whoa. We don't want any trouble now." A man in his late forties said from behind the counter. Ash panted as he held up both hands in supplication.

"I don't want any trouble. Just something cold to drink please…and a phone?"

The man studied him silently for a moment and nodded at a woman who was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. "Get the boy some water, Lydia."

Ash stumbled over to the counter and grabbed a stool, collapsing on it in sheer exhaustion. He glanced around the diner curiously. There were only two other patrons in the diner at that hour, and they returned to their meals once they realized that Ash was harmless. The man put a cordless phone down in front of him.

"You can use it, but you've got to buy something other than water."

"Uh…a short stack of pancakes and a coffee then please."

The man nodded and left Ash to his phone call. He hesitated when he glanced at the clock on the wall. Four a.m. That was way too late to call someone unless it was an emergency. Especially someone who was virtually a stranger. But… the lady called Mrs. Garrett had seemed genuine when she gave him the number and she had that whole motherly air about her. And nearly getting raped by some pervert definitely counted as an emergency.

He waited as the phone rang and rang. He was about to hang up when a sleepy female voice answered. "Hello?"

"It's Ash." He whispered. "Please help me."

After Mr. Garrett had come to get him from the diner and brought him home, Ash was surprised to find that the couple had a garage apartment on their property.

"We renovated this years ago for our own son when he was in college." Mrs. Garrett smiled fondly. "He's all grown up with a family of his own now."

They settled him in the apartment with blankets and hot cocoa and Mrs. Garrett even hugged him when he explained what had happened with the pervert. She didn't say much, just nodded and patted his head as he spoke. There was just something about her that made him relax in her presence and he didn't even protest when she tucked him in.

"Come round to the house in the morning and I'll make you a big breakfast, kiddo." She smiled and shut the door.

Mr. and Mrs. Garrett were both in their fifties and they ran a pretty successful auto body shop and car wash. Mrs. Garrett handled all the bookkeeping and inventory and Mr. Garrett made sure the car repairs and such ran smoothly. He had several employees already, but he took Ash under his wing as a part-time apprentice of sorts for a small weekly stipend. Ash also repaid their kindness by doing odd jobs around the house and the business, such as doing repairs, re-painting the fence and cleaning out the gutters.

One day later that week as he was looking in the newspaper for another part-time job, and Mrs. Garrett sat next to him peeling potatoes, he suddenly blurted out, "Why are you being so nice to me?"

She glanced up, shocked; at a loss for words. Ash hurried to explain.

"It's not that I'm not grateful, but you don't even know me. There's only been a few people in my life who have been kind to me and…and I guess I just can't get used to it."

Mrs. Garrett put down the potato she was holding and sighed. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "Honey, I know a thing or two about sadness and I could recognize a kindred spirit in you as soon as I met you." She smiled wistfully. "Before I met Paul I was plenty sad and I ran from him for years before he finally convinced me that I deserved to be happy." She reached over and placed a gentle hand on Ash's own. "Everyone deserves to be happy, Ash."

He swallowed hard and shrugged. After the whole fiasco with Mary-Lynnette and Jeremy, he didn't think he agreed with her.

"What's her name, hon?"

"Who?"

Mrs. Garrett arched an eyebrow. "Now don't play me for a fool, young man. I know heartbreak when I see it. What's the girl's name that you're running from?"

He sighed heavily and brought his cell phone out to show her his wallpaper. There, smiling brightly on the screen, was a picture of Mary-Lynnette smiling radiantly in her kitchen. "Her name is Mary-Lynnette."

"She's beautiful." Mrs. Garrett handed the phone back and resumed peeling potatoes. "It can't be all that bad you know."

Ash furrowed his brows in confusion. "What can't?"

"Whatever you did."

"Hey! How do you know it was something I did and not the other way around?"

She smiled mysteriously. "Honey, most things that get couples into fights can usually be traced back to the men. Not all, but most." She laughed heartily at his sour expression. "Do you love this Mary-Lynnette?"

He didn't hesitate. "With everything that I am."

"And have you told her that?"

Ash averted his eyes. "I told her in a letter before I left town." He was surprised when Mrs. Garrett suddenly slapped him upside the head. "Ow! What was that for?" Ash scowled, feeling like hitting her back.

"For being bone headed. You never write that stuff in a letter, son. That's just asking for trouble. Too many things can go wrong with that one. Sometimes stuff that is written down may be construed in the wrong way than the writer intended it to be. Or maybe the letter could get something spilled on it so the ink runs and you can't read it. Or it gets misplaced, lost…stolen even. Why on earth didn't you just tell her to her face?"

"She was angry and didn't want to hear anything that I had to say."

Mrs. Garrett's gaze softened as she took in his miserable expression. "Maybe you weren't speaking loud enough, dear." She got up to rinse the potatoes at the sink, leaving him to his thoughts.

"Table three needs to be cleared, Ash, and then we can finally get out of here." Jaden Harper called across the diner to him. She was currently refilling all the sugar dispensers.

Ash nodded to show he'd heard and began clearing away the dishes. As he wiped down the table, he sighed tiredly. Getting part-time work at the 24 hour diner Harper's had seemed like a stroke of luck at first-and it was-but it was starting to take its toll on him. Still he couldn't complain. He could have done worse in his second week in town, and the best part was he got ten percent of whatever tips the on duty waitress assigned to his tables got.

Tonight that waitress was Jaden. She was the boss' daughter and a pretty little firecracker. She also was very flirty and had been shamelessly obvious about it since her dad hired Ash on. Nevertheless, she was a sweet girl and despite Ash repeatedly turning down her offers to go out after work, she didn't seem to hold it against him.

Ash hauled the dirty dishes into the kitchen for Jake the dishwasher to tend to them when the shifts changed. Finally he could get out of here and head back to the Garretts' place. Jaden met him by the door, purse already in hand and a hopeful smile on her face. Uh oh. Not again.

"So, now that we're both free for the day, why don't you come grab some dinner with me?" She rushed the words out all at once as if she were nervous but still trying to seem nonchalant at the same time. "There's a great Italian place out on Main."

Ash stopped in his tracks and looked over at her apologetically. Apparently he needed to be more direct. If only she knew about his Mare and how hard he was working to be a better person for her. "Jaden…"

She stopped as well and wrung her hands together. A slight laugh escaped her as she looked anywhere but at him. "I'm thinking that would be a 'no' right?"

"It's not that you're not a great girl. It's just that I-I already…" He trailed off helplessly, not knowing what to say about his current messed up situation.

Understanding finally dawned in her pretty brown eyes (Not blue) and she smiled sadly. "There's someone else?"

He nodded. "I think you're great, Jaden, but I'm still in love with her and it wouldn't be fair to you." He shifted nervously. "Should…should I look for another job?"

Jaden looked horrified. "Of course not! I'm not a crazy person, Ash. I'm disappointed, obviously, but I'll get over it." She grinned at him. "You can't blame a girl for trying, eh?" She nudged his arm trying to get him to smile.

Ash tried, he honestly did, but it came out more like a strained grimace and her face fell a bit. She studied him seriously for a moment. "It didn't end well between you two did it?" At his nod she sighed and shifted her purse higher on her shoulder. "Maybe you should try to move on then. It can't be good for you carrying this torch around."

He nodded as if he agreed, and maybe some small part of him did, but Ash knew deep down that no matter what he did or where he went, moving on was not an issue.

There was no girl in the world, he was certain, that could ever come close to his Mare.

The next day was his day off from both the garage and the diner and he happily slept in that morning. At least until his cell phone starting chirping madly from the nightstand. Irritated beyond belief, he grabbed blindly for it and yanked it under the covers to glare at the offending device.

The alarm on his phone was going off because he had marked that day as important so many weeks before. Back when life seemed perfect and he was happier than he'd ever been. Today was Wednesday in the last week of May.

Today was Mare's birthday. -Authors Note: I don't know when her birthday is.

Ash stared at the phone in his hands and turned off the alarm. The silence seemed to mock him now instead. There was no way he was getting back to sleep. Getting up, he showered and dressed and wandered over to the main house to find Mrs. Garrett on her way out the door.

"Good morning, sleepy head!" She chorused. "There's some eggs on the stove for you. I've got to head into the office and do some inventory. Will you be okay by yourself?"

Ash just stared at her in disbelief. The fact that she trusted him so profoundly humbled him. He remembered Hanna had trusted him as well and he had ruined that. He vowed not to disappoint Mrs. Garrett in the same manner.

"I'll be okay."

She smiled sunnily and ruffled his hair on the way out the door. He hated when she treated him like that...

After he ate, he watched a bit of television and lazed about on the couch. But his thoughts were nagging at him. It's Mare's birthday just kept repeating on an on inside his head until he was sitting with his head clutched in his hands. He missed her so much-so very much-and he didn't know what to do. All he knew was that it hurt more than he could bear.

Finally, he pulled his cell phone out and sat staring at the keyboard for what seemed an infinite amount of time. He slowly typed in a message and scrolled to her name in his contacts. He debated with himself for just a moment and hit 'SEND'.

Happy birthday, Mare -Ash

Two days later he was in the mall with Mr. and Mrs. Garrett as they shopped for a relative's wedding gift. As they passed by a particular store, something in the window caught Ash's eye. It was a beautiful necklace with a pendant the same crystal blue color as Mare's eyes. He hesitated, then signaled to his unofficial guardians that he was going to step into the store for a moment.

Later that night Ash finished boxing up the necklace and, with painstakingly careful strokes, wrote Mare's address on the label. He debated for a moment if he should put the Garretts' down as the return address seeing as how he hadn't even gotten a response to his birthday text, but in the end added it just the same. A card was included inside the package to.

A week and a half after he sent the package to Mary-Lynnette, Ash was at the diner bussing tables and humming softly under his breath. Jaden was happily chatting up some guy at the table in the corner and Ash smirked. Finally she had someone else to distract her. It made him feel a pang of sadness.

He was thinking this when he heard someone clear their throat next to him. "I'm almost finished, just give me a second." He finished cleaning the table and was throwing the washcloth into his tray when a small hand touched his arm.

"Ash."

His heart stopped and he forgot how to breathe. He was hallucinating. He had to be. It was the heat or the stale fries he snuck earlier that afternoon on his break. He turned slowly and there she was. A few yards away, at one of the tables by the windows, sat Claudia looking at a menu. She glanced up and waved at Ash before pointedly going back to her menu to give them privacy. Well, as much privacy as one could have standing in the middle of a busy diner.

"Mare?" Ash couldn't believe it. He was still pretty sure that he was losing his mind. It was the lovesickness going to his head-finally-and he should really see a doctor and get that checked out…

"Lovesickness?" Mary-Lynnette said softly. "I'm pretty sure a doctor would have you committed if you said that's what's wrong with you."

"I said that aloud?"

"Yeah, pretty much." She gave him a small smile and he motioned for her to walk with him. He was due for a break anyway. They headed outside away from prying eyes, and started walking down the sidewalk. "Where are we going?" She asked, nervously tugging on her ponytail.

"I don't know. Anywhere?" He shrugged and tried to calm his racing heart. Something told him the way it was currently slamming against his chest proved that it would be a lost cause. "What are you guys doing here?" They continued on into the nearby park and found an empty bench to sit on. As it was a beautiful late Wednesday afternoon, lots of families were milling around after work, having picnics for dinner and playing Frisbee. They watched a couple of little kids chase after their puppy for a bit before Mary-Lynnette sighed. Ash felt himself tense up.

"Claudia and I are heading to Vegas to visit her sister for a week. Since school is out now, we decided to drive it."

"Long drive."

She shrugged. "We've made pretty good progress. We don't get to spend a lot of time together, Claudia and I. It's sort of a bonding trip as well, my fathers idea."

Ash nodded and watched as a stray tendril came loose from her pony. He itched to reach out and touch it. So…"

She stared at him. "So…"

"It's been a while."

"Yeah, it's been-"

"-Four weeks, three days." He interrupted. "Not counting today of course."

A sad smile tugged at her mouth. "I wanted to come and see you, so I convinced Claudia to make a small detour. Mrs. Garrett said you were here working."

"So you got the necklace?"

Mary-Lynnette nodded. "Thank you. It was…it was beautiful."

They sat in awkward silence, in close proximity yet still so far away. Ash hated the distance between them and his hands wanted to reach out and hold her to him so she would never leave again. He resisted the urge to sit on them and instead folded his arms across his chest. "Mare…what can I say? I hate this. This chasm between us. I hate that things ended the way they did and I hate most of all that you saw the bad side of me."

"I don't hate you." At his look of disbelief she quickly added, "At least not anymore. For a long time after you left I made myself not think about you. I thought it would make things easier." Her lip trembled slightly and she stared out at the playing children. "It hurt more not to think about you." She turned to look at him. "I realized that I don't want to go on pretending like you never existed-that we never existed." Tears rolled down her cheeks. "But I'm still so mad at you, Ash."

She started sobbing quietly then and Ash reached out tentatively, not sure what to do. Should he attempt to comfort or just stay where he was? His decision was made for him when Mary-Lynnette buried her face in his neck and just bawled. He held her as she cried for long minutes and rubbed soothing circles on her back. Eventually she stilled and they sat there together quietly, just absorbing each other's presence.

"Did you mean what you said? In the note?" She looked up at his face to gauge his reaction and Ash kissed her forehead.

"Every word."

She nodded, satisfied and leaned against him once more. "For what it's worth, I love you too."

Ash swallowed hard. "It's worth everything."

After a moment, Mary-Lynnette pulled away and dabbed at her eyes. "So here's the deal then. You love me and I love you... but there's not much trust."

He glanced down at his feet, ashamed, but she gently nudged his chin up so he could look into her eyes. "I'm not saying this to hurt you, Ash, just stating the facts. You lied to me and we lost that trust. But," She struggled for the right words. "I want you in my life. Despite all that's happened, you make me happy and I don't want us to lose that. So I propose we work this out. That is, if you want to."

"I want to." He was never more sure than anything else ever in his life.

"Then it's settled. We can't work anything out with you staying here, so that just means you'll have to come home with us."

Ash gave a wry smile. "You think Claudia and your dad would be keen on that again?

Mary-Lynnette finally graced him with one of her radiant smiles. "Hey, didn't you know? She's your number one fan now. She had to keep after me just to open your package I was being so stubborn."

"Remind me to thank her then."

They stood from the bench and headed back to the diner, hands not quite brushing each other along the way. When the reached Harper's Mary-Lynnette took his hand. "We'll be heading back this way in a week. I'll text you so you'll know when to be ready." She looked around nervously before meeting his eyes again. "Are you sure you want to go back? You seem to have fit in here with these people quite nicely since you left."

Ash squeezed her hand in reply. "These people here are awesome, Mare, but…they're not you. I go where you go. But give me some time. I'm still changing... I want to come back perfect for you."

She beamed. "Good to know." And then she kissed him.

~Fin