A/N- I'm sorry this update has taken so long. Between school starting, getting in bike accidents, working extra hours, and having homework piled the first couple weeks, I didn't have much time for writing too. The next chapter should be more prompt, as everything is starting to even out now. (Thank God). I hope you understand. And thanks to anyone who is still sticking with me after this hiatus!

Anyway, let me know what you think, if there is anything you want me to incorporate, where you think Will should go from here... I have the outline of the story done, but I'm interested to see what you all think!

Thump.Thump.Thump.

"Will, quit moping."

Will scowled at his mother, her familar warm curvy body, that to him just represented comfort and home, facing him, arms akimbo. Her presence filled up the whole room, softening the sharp edges of the room and brightening the dreariness that permeated it, spread even to the corners. She sounded angry, but as he looked at her face he couldn't quite make out the features, the nose that he knew was long like his own, the green eyes like splintered glass that he used to love looking at as he curled up in her lap. Her face was a blur, a pale blob framed by her long brown wavy hair, distorted as if he were looking at it through a thick sheet of ice.

He turned back to the picture window facing the main street of Littleton. Rain was pounding down in the street. A river was rushing in the gutters, sweeping leaves, dirt from the road, candy wrappers, and Will's plans of an afternoon playing outdoors with his friends into the sewer. He returned to hitting his forehead against the cool glass window.

"Will, come on now. Surely you can think of something to do indoors? Something more productive than giving both you and me a headache?" She came and sat next to him on the warm radiator, rumbling and whirring beneath his small body.

He shook his head. "There's nothing to do here. Papi is at work, and you are too busy to play with me," he said with a pout, his nine-year-old self angry with his mother for preferring to spend her afternoon with a vacuum cleaner than with him.

"You really know how to wallow, Willie," she said with a smile. "Just like your father. I don't know anyone who can sit in the sullens longer than your father." Will wasn't quite sure what wallow and the sullens were, but judging by the chagrined voice his mother was using, it wasn't something that was good, but she loved about both himself and his father for it nonetheless.

"It's just so boring," he whined, spreading his arms out wide in exasperation. "Lizzy and I were going to bike down to the river," Will said, his lower lip jutting out.

"Well, maybe when the rain dies down a bit, you can run over to Liz's and play with her," his mother suggested with a hopeful smile, rubbing his back in comforting circles, which did more to warm him than the clunking radiator.

"Can we play here?" he asked, his nose wrinkling at the thought of going to Elizabeth's house. Her house was big and had a lot of good hiding spots when they were playing hide and seek, but Will sometimes found them more useful for hiding from Elizabeth's father.

"Sure," his mother said, the pinkness of her lips stretching into a smile, descernible only because of their darker color against her pale distorted face. She kissed his forehead, and he wiped it off, in the disobedience of his age and gender. She left the room, the brightness she had brought to it following her.

Forgetting how he had been momentarily comforted, between his mother's warm caresses and her promises, he frowned up at the mutinous clouds. He looked back out to the street, thunder clapping at the rain's frantic dance on the pavement. The street was empty, and the sky was a bowl of filmy grey clouds that covered the entire town. Suddenly, he saw a defiant splash of color against the gloominess. A bright yellow pair of Wellington boots splashing in the deluge that was nearly flooding the street and a dark mane of brown hair, frizzy from the rain, were so bright that they looked obscene.

He knew immediately who it was, and where she was running to. He didn't even have to watch her coming to know to expect the slap on his front door.

He pulled it opened and saw her flushed cheeks and the familiar excited and naughty smile. He knew that her father had no idea where she was and was under the illusion that she was safe in her warm house.

"C'mon, Will!" she said as soon as she saw him, grabbing at his resistant hand and trying to pull him outside.

"Will..." she said uncomprehendingly when he didn't follow her. The brightness in her eyes faded a bit and looked a bit more appropriate now that they were as dull as the atmosphere surrounding them.

"We'll get sick, Lizzy," Will explained. "Come inside and we can play," he offered instead.

Always the spitfire, Elizabeth shook her head, "It's no fun inside. And it's not like we are going to stay in our wet clothes when we come back in," she said, rolling her eyes at her sometimes too serious best friend.

Will hesitated. Elizabeth, knowing his every change in mood since they were three, sensed her advantage and grabbed his hand again. This time he yielded, ran even, and they spent the afternoon dancing with the rain.

Will left early the next morning, and arrived at his hometown within an hour and a half. The fertile land of the town unfolded in front of him as he crested the hill that led into his small home. Familiar sights surrounded him as he drove along the main road. There was the court house where Elizabeth's father had worked, the drugstore where he had gone after school to make money, the library where he had spent countless hours reading, the road up to the school, his old neighborhood -- Elizabeth's house next to Jenny Hodgett's next to Becky Miles' next to Matthew Westman's next to his.

The five little ruffians who had spent hours terrorizing the main street of Littleton, fighting with each other, playing with each other, getting in trouble with each other. They were close in age, Elizabeth the oldest, a couple months older than Will, and the youngest being Becky, only about a year and a half younger than Elizabeth. They each had their own little roles to play. Elizabeth was their ringleader, their planner, their protector. Will was the mediator, the problem solver and the thinker. Matt was the deceiver, the decoy and the manipulator. Jenny was the crafter, the action taker and the scapegoat. Becky was the accessory and the one who smiled innocently if they got caught red-handed doing something naughty. They were a team, and Will's best friends one day and worst enemies the next. He spent almost all of his summer days with those five children.

However, as the oldest, Will and Elizabeth were much closer to each other than they were to the rest of the group. Maybe this is why, when they all reached high school the five of them grew apart, their neighborhood the only thing they had in common anymore. Becky became a somewhat vain girl choosing her appearance over her education. Matt became one of those boys who aren't really the most intelligent, but not yet one of the kids who were so slow that they were going backwards. The girls loved him, and all it took was one of those slow deceptive smiles that had worked so well in beguiling their neighbors to make them fall all over him. Jenny was the athlete of the school, as she had been of their little band of miscrients. Will supposed that to Jenny, Matt and Becky, Elizabeth had becoming one of those girls that shun the popular choosing instead to follow her own innate set of morals and beliefs, however offbeat and unclear they were. And as far as he went, they would have called him the bookish one, the top of the class, the valedictorian. As brash as the labels were, they were awfully close to the truth.

However, one thing was always a constant. Will and Elizabeth.

As Will drove past the five houses, changed very little since he was a boy, he felt the years peel back. Slowing a bit as he passed the five houses, he could almost see them all in his yard, playing at being pirates while his mother shouted out the door that she had made them cookies. He had had an iconic childhood, one to be jealous of, one more blessed than he ever knew while he was living it, but at the thought of his parents' accident, the picture in his head yellowed, the houses around him sagged with the years they now wore, paint chipped off of them just as Will's childhood was stripped away from him.

As his home became smaller and smaller in his rear view mirror, his cell phone began to ring. Leaning down, he grabbed the small phone and flipped it open.

"Where you at?" Elizabeth asked without waiting for his greeting. How could she know him so well as to know even when he was on the other end? Sometimes their inexplicable connection gave him shivers.

"Never end a sentence with a preposition," Will said, before he could think better. Dramatically thumping his head against his seat, he waited for Elizabeth's reply. His job as an editor made it second nature to correct people's grammar. It annoyed him, because he knew it made him sound like he thought he was superior, but it annoyed Elizabeth, who had been subjected to it the most, even more.

"Where you at, bitch?" Elizabeth replied, with good natured venom seeped into her voice. Will couldn't help but laugh along with Elizabeth at himself.

"I'm in Littleton, actually," Will said, as their laughter subsided and he remembered her question.

"Oh, really?" Elizabeth said, sounding disappointed.

"No, I lied. I thought it would be funny," Will said sarcastically. This time it was Elizabeth's turn to laugh at herself.

"Why did you have to go today? Did you not realize that today would be the perfect day for a bike ride up to the lake? This kind of behavior is unacceptable."

Will laughed at her familiar teasing, which he had missed the other night. "I actually did notice it, Liz. But I also noticed that tomorrow it's going to be even better, seeing as it won't be as windy," Will lied.

"Fine. You better not have anything planned for you and Amy tomorrow then. Do you know that it's been months since we went on one of our rides? Also unacceptable."

"Don't worry. Tomorrow it will be all about you and me," Will assured, loving the sound of that in his mouth.

"As it should be," Elizabeth said, with a smile. Will loved the sound of that even more. "Hey! Since you're in Littleton, would you mind stopping by my house to pick up my old sketchbooks?"

"Sure. Look, I gotta go, I'm at my aunt and uncle's house. I'll get them to you tomorrow, okay?"

"Kay. Tell them 'Hi' from me!"

"Will do." He hung up the phone, and parked his car in the driveway. As the car popped and clinked and settled itself after its journey, Will took a minute to gather himself.

Elizabeth's words echoed in his mind. As it should be. A smile crept across his lips, which turned into a full grin until a laugh finally ripped from that part of a body that doesn't really exist, but burns just beneath the pit of his stomach. His whole body was elated at the words, his hands were cold and shaking, his heart vibrating in his chest, every part of him seemed to be laughing. Maybe it was being so close to his childhood that caused such an extreme reaction from such simple words? It had been a long time since he had felt this jubilation at what seemed like an acknowledgment and -- dare he think it? -- a reciprocation of his own love for Elizabeth. His childhood had been spent dissecting every conversation they had shared for those potent words, any veiled hint that it was more than just teasing.

But this! It didn't exactly leave much for the imagination. Elizabeth had said that it was supposed to be her and him together. How long had he waited for these words to spill out of her lips?

As Will's laughter died away, and his body was restored to its natural state, logic pervaded his clouded mind. Elizabeth had just been teasing, as always. It was how they communicated. Had he actually thought -- even for just a moment -- that those four simple words, that in no way expressed love, had been as good as an admission that Elizabeth loved him? The only way that Elizabeth could effectively tell him that would be if she said it to him in complete seriousness.

And if it were in another lifetime, Will couldn't help but think cynically.

And in the familiar routine of his childhood, Will's excitement was deflated from his body as his logic took over his senses again.

Just because you are back home doesn't mean that you have to act like a child, Will, Will admonished himself with an accompanying eye-roll.

And besides, you love Amy. You love Amy.

That kept getting harder to remember.