Thanks to hippiechick2112 and James Birdsong for reviewing!

Annie sat in her room, curling her toes on the carpet and thinking about how much life sucked. Music pounded out of her headphones, trying to drown the overwhelming awareness of that suck.

She wasn't goth, by the way. Yeah, she dyed most of her hair black, a few neon streaks. Maybe sometimes a person just felt like it. The roots were showing, too. Blond. Obvious.

Shit.

Rocking her head to the music, she pulled a baggie out of her desk drawer and a box of rolling papers. It was Sunday, not like she had anything to do. Review her homework, maybe. Or this. Her mom was working. Stuck-up preppies were playing some dumbass game outside which would make it more annoying to blow smoke out the window.

"Annie?"

She startled, yanking her headphones off and shoving her supplies back in the drawer.

"What the hell, Grandpa? Don't you knock?"

"I did knock. You play your music too loud. I need you to come downstairs and help me with the computer."

"I told you, it's called 'wireless' but you still need to plug in the router."

Her grandpa sighed. "Annie."

"Yeah, yeah," she said.

"What are you hiding there?"

"Nothing. Tampons."

"The computer?"

She nodded, left the headphones on the desk, and started downstairs. Annie's life sucked and most of the people in it sucked, too, and she was supposed to be respectful and more grateful and yeah, she got that.

She did respect him. She was just mad.

The computer was in the living room (which made AIM awkward as hell). It was an old PC that still had the version of solitaire where, when you won, the cards bounced one by one over the screen. She jiggled the mouse—sometimes a new screensaver was enough to confuse her grandpa.

"Okay, what's the problem?"

"I want to install this program." He indicated Internet Explorer, the window open.

"Skype? Um, that's for like, video chat."

"I want it for video chat."

"Okay. So you know that pop-up blocker we installed to take care of all those viruses and stuff? It's stopping you from downloading the exe file. It's good news," she added, glancing over her shoulder. "It's working. One-time exception, okay, there we go. It's downloading."

Really it was a fairly simple process. She had known how to download programs since she was a kid, product of the digital age.

"Yeah, this is super simple. Um, you know you don't have a camera, right?"

"Of course I have a camera."

For a moment, Annie just stared at her grandpa. "That's not… um… okay… we need a hardware upgrade here, Gramps."

They went to Best Buy, Annie too so she could show her technologically confused grandfather the difference between a digital camera and his 35mm Nikon. While they were waiting in line, Annie eying the snacks she could probably slip in, she asked, "Who are you Skyping, anyway? I mean, did one of your war buddies go to Best Buy with his granddaughter, too?"

"Maybe one of my war buddies' granddaughters also wanted the salt and vinegar Pringles to deal with munchies from her ditch weed."

Her grandpa grabbed a tin of chips as he stepped up to the register, leaving Annie open-mouthed. Only after he had paid did she hurry after him.

"Wait up—I don't—and it is not ditch weed!" she said, pulling her sweater closer as they stepped out into the parking lot. "And how would you know, anyway?"

"How old do you think I am?"

"Ummm… fifty?"

He laughed. "Kid, I was blowing skunk out my window before your mom was even dreamed up. You're smoking ditch weed."

He unlocked the car, slid into the driver's seat and deposited the bag in the back.

Annie took the passenger seat. "You're not gonna yell at me?"

"Nope."

"Tell Mom?"

"Your mom doesn't need this right now, Annie."

Annie scoffed. She knew that. She was just tired of hearing it.

"You need more volunteer hours, right?"

"Well… yeah."

"Great. You can come to my meetings. Put away the chairs and it can count for volunteering."

"Are you kidding me? AA? I'm not an alcoholic! I don't even drink!" That much…

"Me or your mom, Annie." He parked in the driveway. It hadn't been such a nice neighborhood when he moved in. It had been okay, tract housing. Space for kids.

She hadn't made a choice by the time they headed inside. Instead she started installing his new digital camera.

"Just promise me this isn't for, like, eHarmony, because Grandma's at her church group and that would be messed up."

"eHarmony?"

"Um, never mind."

"I'm calling Uncle Charles."

"Ugh—first of all, that creepy guy is not my uncle."

"He's not creepy."

"Second, he's even older than you, does he know how to use Skype?"

"Hank's helping him."

"Hank's old, too."

"Hank's brilliant."

"Well, anyway, it's working now."

She opened Skype and logged into her grandpa's account.

"Okay, so… what's Uncle Charles's screenname?" Annie asked, turning around again. It wasn't polite, not looking at someone when you talked to them, and there was being angry and being raised without any manners.

Her grandpa blinked at her. "Screenname?"

In the end, her grandpa was on the phone with Hank while Annie sat at the computer, trying to translate grandparent-garbled tech-ese. Eventually she managed to find Charles's account.

She was putting the call through as she wondered, "So, what's so special that you couldn't do this over a normal call?"

"Oh my God." It was a tinny voice, a staticky answer through the speakers.

The call had been answered by a boy maybe a couple of years older than she was. She noticed the unmistakable blue figure in the background, of course. But front and center was a boy with dark hair and red glasses.

"Alex?" The boy leaned closer to the screen, putting him at an odd angle to his own camera. "Alex, are you there? Who is that?"

Annie turned.

He looked absolutely stunned, more so than she had ever seen. Tears skated down his cheeks and he didn't seem to care.

"What's going on?" Annie asked. "C'mon, you're freaking me out here."

Her grandpa patted her shoulder. "This is my granddaughter," he told the camera, "Annie. Annie, that's your Uncle Scott."

"Okay, you can't just make everyone my uncle. Seriously."

"No," he said, "you don't understand. This is my brother."

"Alex… you grew up."

Annie stepped aside, letting Alex sit in front of the screen. He was Alex now. He wasn't her grandpa anymore. Scott predated all of that, and seeing him brought Alex back to who he had been then.

For a while, neither he nor Scott could manage a complete sentence. They looked happy, in a sad way: happy to see each other after so many years, but you couldn't have that happiness without the years, could you?

Hank similarly excused himself: Skype was up and running, they needed privacy.

"Are you happy?" Scott asked.

"Yes."

"You got married."

"People do that when they fall in love. How long have you been home? I spoke to Charles a few weeks ago, he didn't mention anything."

"No, just a day. We didn't know how much time we had missed. It was—"

"You have to lean back," Alex interrupted. "I can't see you when you lean in like that. You can't go through the computer. Better. Okay, I know what you were gonna ask. I re-enlisted after you left. Honorably discharged this time. Graduated from college. I did all the good nerd stuff."

"Still calling me a nerd, huh."

"We're both nerds."

Scott smiled. "I missed you, Alex. I know it wasn't so long, but…"

"That's okay. I missed you, too, and I had forty-five years of learning to live with that. Still, I wish you could have been here. My wife—you should have met her when she was young, she had the sweetest, perkiest—"

The objection came from the computer and the doorway at once:

"Alex!"/"Grandpa!"

Alex laughed like he was a young man again. "—personality!" He just managed, "That'll teach you to snoop!"