Another new chapter, it's a longer one too. I feel like I haven't written a long in since the beginning of this story so it felt good getting another one out there for you guys. (I told you I wouldn't be able to stay away... even with my final exam on Monday.)

Enjoy.

You know the drill, R & R.

Chapter 34 – Yesterday, Tomorrow and Today

Ashley's POV

Another Sunday, another envelope.

I had sort of got into the rhythm of things by now, this being the third task that I have to complete. Although I don't think catching up with Aiden should really be considered a task... I guess the whole point was to 'face my past'. It seems to be the pattern so far, and I can only assume the same for what I hold in my hand now.

"4063 Ingraham Street, Mrs. Hamilton, 7:45am" I read out loud as Kyla handed me a drink and plopped down on her couch beside me. I had called her up shortly after Spencer left for work and asked her to come over to hang out. "Well, at least Paula was nice enough to give me more than an address this time."

"Yeah, that might been helpful when she gave you Aiden's address... just you know, as a courteous heads up." Kyla scoffed, shaking her head and throwing her legs up on the coffee table in front of us to get comfortable. "I still can't believe she sent you to him, it's Aiden, Aiden!"

"I can, it's all part of her test. Aiden was part of the reason I left in the first place, and she was testing me to see if those feelings I had that made me run were still there."

"And were they?" Kyla tried to ask nonchalant, but I could tell by her body language it was anything but that. Her eyes stayed focused on her hands which were fidgeting with the hem of her shirt and she had slouched down even more on the couch.

"No, of course not. Kyla, you should know more than anyone that when I got to Europe, it wasn't really about Aiden... or even Spencer for that matter, it was completely about me."I leaned forward, throwing my hands over my face at just the thought of the whole situation. "I was just too young and immature to see it as that."

When I pulled my face out of my hands, Kyla had shot up and was staring at me while a subtle grin. "So how did he look?" She asked eagerly, her facial expression turning anxious as she brought her feet off the coffee table, and crossed them to sit Indian style, leaning in to hear my response. "I mean, did he look good? I bet he aged well."

I furrowed my eyebrows at my smiling little sister. "He looked married... with a child." I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms at my sister. "So do not even go there with me, Kyla."

"What, I can't ask how Aiden's doing without some alternative motive? I did know the guy too you know..."

"Yes, I do remember you dated him, and no, you can't ask me how he's doing, not with that look... I know that look all too well. And besides, what happened to that model guy you were seeing? Sock boy or whatever his name is?"

"Please do not call him that, his name is Tyler, and he only did one sock ad... when he was first starting out." Kyla snared at me, crossing her arms and giving me a stern, unimpressed face. "And we're doing fine, thank you very much. He's actually taking me out for our three month anniversary Wednesday night. And just because I'm dating him, doesn't mean I can't want to know how one of our friends from high school is doing."

"He's doing fine, Kyla. Great job, great wife, great kid, great everything... so don't go and mess that up for him." I warned her, trying to be as polite as I could. I was so over Aiden drama and I did not need to get back into all of it again because Kyla was 'curious' of how he was doing.

"Now why do you have to say it like that...?" She continued staring at me with an unimpressed look, still arms crossed.

"Because I'm your sister and I know that look in your eye Kyla, and it's nothing but trouble. Just leave it be... okay, Kyla? For me, please. Leave all that Aiden drama in the past because I really don't need to be brought back to high school with all of that, and you know I will be if something happens."

"I just want to talk to--"

"No."

"But--"

"No." I cut her off, pointing at her aggressively as I slightly tilted my head and stared. Kyla opened her mouth again but closed it immediately as I over exaggeratedly tilted my head again, widening my eyes at her and shaking my head. She lowered her head and turned it away from me, obviously not very impressed with me.

It remained quiet between the two of us for a while, making it more than awkward as we both lounged on the couch. "Kyla, come on. I'm just looking out for you." I pleaded, trying to break the awkward silence as she continued to sit there with her arms crossed, gaze away from me. "Nothing good came from Aiden in high school... He dated me and got me pregnant and then he dated you, broke your heart, just to get back together with you again to turn down sex and declare his love for me. AKA, Nothing good."

"So why can you talk to him and I can't? Getting pregnant is way worse than what he ever did to me."

"Because I like vaginas... more specifically Spencer's, and I'm not the one going around Los Angeles bonking models like Sock boy."

"First off, you just need to say 'I like girls...' I don't need that image in my head, you're my sister... and secondly, don't call him 'Sock boy'. It's Tyler... and for your information, not that it's any of your business, we haven't 'bonked' yet."

My jaw nearly dropped to the ground as my sister sat there, laid back and carefree, playing with her nails. "Seriously? It's been three months... and it's you. What's the problem?"

"It just hasn't happened yet, and things are going too well to screw it up by putting pressure on it. I don't know... I'm actually enjoying myself with a guy for a change."

"So Sock boy doesn't want to sock you--uh, I mean Tyler...?" I sighed, rolling my eyes at my sister who was giving me a pout, even after correcting myself.

"Despite what you may think, not everything is about sex, Ashley."

I sarcastically gasped and crossed my arms at her. "Uh Spencer and I are totally not about sex, thank you very much.... it's just a bonus."

"I don't need to hear about my sister's sex life."

"You were making bets on my sex life like a month ago..."

"I was getting money for that though, easy money."

"Fine, here." I dug into my pocket and pull out a twenty, slamming it on the coffee table in front of us. "Spencer and I have sex."

"Ashley." Her face goes serious as she throws the twenty dollar bill back at me, rolling her eyes as she does.

A light goes off my in my head, and a small, smug smirk washes over my face. "She just loves it when I--"

"STOP!" Kyla slapped her hand over my mouth and frowned as I couldn't resist grinning at her squirming over the idea. My grin soon turns into a laugh that I couldn't control as Kyla's face went awkward. "You are so not funny."

"I'm a little funny."

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The next morning I had decided to check out the address on my next task card. I wasn't overly thrilled with the time, being much earlier than I'm used to getting up, but it's not like I had a choice in the matter, and at least Paula was giving me more to go with here by giving me a name along with it.

I surveyed the street, checking for the number 4063 on each sides of the street. I didn't exactly know what I was looking for, that's what the hard part was in all of this, walking in blind. I stopped when I finally reached the address, pulling up to a large building, I parked my car on the side of the road, and stepped out of my car.

"Wilshire Park Elementary School? You have got to be kidding me..." My drop my head and began shaking it. I swear Paula is enjoying this. First she sends me to therapy, which she knows I hate. And now she's got me at a school... and I think everybody knows my take on school, at least for me being physically in one, I don't like them.

Reluctantly, I head inside anyways, searching for anybody aimlessly walking around in the halls to point in the right direction of Mrs. Hamilton. At first I thought it might be the secretary, so I checked there first, but it was locked, and had a completely different name on the door. Eventually I found the janitor sweeping the hallways, and he nicely gestured to me where her room was.

"Mrs. Hamilton?" I peered into the slightly opened door, knocking as I slowly entered. I glanced around to room to see little tables set up with little chairs around them. It must have been a kindergarten classroom. On the far wall there were tiny hooks with names tags above each one, all empty of course as it was only 8am. The children would surely be here soon though. I made my way into the middle of the room where I finally saw a young, averaged sized woman sitting at her desk focussing rather hard on the book in her hands.

I coughed lightly so that I didn't startle her, but enough to grab her attention so she knew she was no longer alone in the room. "Hi." I simply waved as the woman peeked up from her book.

"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't see you there." She apologized, putting her book down and getting up from her seat to greet me.

"Are you Mrs. Hamilton?"

"Please call me Sydney, and you must be Ashley?" She nodded, sticking out her hand politely.

"Yes, that would be me." I shook her hand as she smiled at me. She was definitely a morning person with a huge smile like that at eight in the morning. I still am not. "So how exactly do you know Paula, seeing as a normal person wouldn't really be doing this unless it was for a friend?"

"What, help put soon-to-be daughter in-laws through tests?" She laughed and shook her head, walking to her desk and sitting down as I shrugged and nodded. "Yeah, I've known Paula for about either years now, when I met Glen."

"Oh god, you two aren't... y-you know?" I cringed my face at just the idea of it.

She threw her head back, bursting out into a solid laugh, which was quite relieving to say the least. "No, our relationship is completely platonic. We're just really good friends."

"So how much as Paula told you about me then?"

"Enough, that I trust you with some of these kids today."

"Uh...say what now?"

"Ashley, you're at a school, what exactly did you think you were going to be doing?"

"I don't know, I thought this might be like a meet n' greet thing, and then you would tell me my task and I'd be out the door again."

"Well, nice to meet you, but you're going to have to stay in that door as your task starts in..." She grinned playfully, stretching out her sentence as she glanced down quickly at her watch, "...ten minutes, and if you're really lucky, maybe even eleven minutes until those bratty, misbehaved kids arrive. You'll look after a table of them for the day, make sure they don't do anything harmful or pee anywhere but the bathroom, stuff like that." Sydney then walked over to a nearby table, and neatly rearranged some of the toys on top of it. "There will be four children at this table; Stephen, Lauren, Mike and Katie, you'll watch them for the day."

"Uh, okay... doesn't sound too challenging. So what's exactly the deal with these kids?"

"Lauren and Katie are best friends, but they tend to argue a lot, which results in screaming... loud, high pitched screeching. They also like to latch onto your legs and try to pull you down, so beware of that. Stephen won't be a problem, he's very quiet and just sticks to himself, but Mike... Mike, on the other hand, he's going to be a handful. Best advice I can give you for him is to just watch him." My face cringed as she finished telling me about the children I would be watching which elicited a tiny laugh from Sydney as she patted me on the shoulder. "Welcome to parenthood, Ashley Davies. This is only just the beginning."

Just on cue, the children started flocking in, little by little as I stood there with Sydney starting to feel overwhelmed. I felt Sydney pat me on the shoulder before she went and started helping some of the children take off their back packs.

It wasn't long until I found the table I was standing by with three young kids, two girls and one boy, which by the look of him, I assumed to be Stephen. The boy was very well put together, with a red shirt and black slacks with cute little, round glasses. Picture the little blonde kid from Jerry Maguire, and it's this kid look to a tee. The two girls looked like twins, both dressed identically the same, although different colours and their hair both matched, neatly half up, half down with a colour coordinated ribbon tied in place. If it wasn't just that adorable, it was almost enough to make me gag.

As the other tables were filling up with more and more children, I peered over to Sydney who was showing a student something at her desk. She finally looked up and caught my glance and slowly nodded at me, telling me through her nod that everything was going to be alright.

"You!" A tiny voice squeaked and I felt a tug on my pant leg. I peered down to see a familiar dark-haired boy, Aiden's son, Michael smiling up at me. He was nicely dressed wearing a light blue striped tee shirt with beige shorts and neatly tied shoes, most likely tied by his father. His hair just screamed Aiden, and I couldn't help smirk at the thought of a mini-Aiden.

"You!" I smiled back, kneeling down as the boy moved in to hug me.

"Ah, so I've seen you met Mikey." Sydney said, making her way over to the both of us and kneeling down by the small boy in front of me. "Mikey, this is Miss Davies. She's going to be watching over you today."

His smile went even larger as he jumped onto my leg and yelped in excitement and Sydney's face went confused. "Wow, that's not his usual reaction with new people, normally he kicks ne them in the shins and then runs away laughing."

I pried the boy off my leg and pick him up, holding him in my arms as I playfully narrow my eyes at him. "You wouldn't do that, now would you mister?"

Michael giggled and shook his head, blushing as he nudged his head into the crook my neck. I shrugged at Sydney who had a confused, shocked look on her face as the boy was strangely friendly with me, obviously not knowing that I knew his father.

"Alright, well you seem to have this under control, let me know if you need anything Ashley." She nodded at me before turning to the boy in my arms, scrunching her face and narrowing her eyes. "And you be good for Miss Davies here."

I let the boy down and ruffled his hair, making him giggle as Sydney started surveying around the room, checking on the children at the other tables. "So you're a little trouble maker huh? What would your father say about that?" I smiled at the boy as he continued to giggle and take his small seat at the table.

"Ashley." Sydney called my name, waving me over to her desk. She handed me a basket full of crayons and smiled.

When I turned around, Michael had run off from the table. Both girls sat there laughing at me while Stephen sat there silently. I placed the basket of crayons on the table for the three remaining children and ran out of the room, glancing down both ways of the hallway to see if the little boy was running down either of them. I checked all the open classrooms and scanned them briefly for the dark-haired boy, as well as the office and the gym, along with any janitor closet I passed by.

I entered the washroom and called his name. Nothing. So I went to open the door, but I heard a small giggle before I could make my way out. Turning around, I fell to my knees, checking underneath the stalls for feet, and what did you know, in the last stall there was one set of tiny feet. I knocked on the stall slowly, and there was no response so I knocked again. Nothing. I definitely was not going to crawl underneath the stall in this bathroom, and peering over the top of the stall would probably be inappropriate, just in case he was actually going to the bathroom. It wasn't likely, but I didn't want to take a chance.

I stepped back a few feet and contemplated how I was going to do this. After a while I remembered Aiden's technique when dealing with his son, and a small smile washed over my face as I took a step towards the bathroom stall. I started tapping my foot lightly on the ground, just loud enough for the little boy to hear it. "Michael." I called firmly, knowing it wouldn't get him to budge, but I wanted to let him know that I was still here and that it was me. I began counting. "1..." I started off slowly, dragging out the number as I continued tapping my food, looking around to see if he had started to peak out yet. "2..." I dragged it on longer this time, hoping that it would work just the same as when Aiden did it, and soon enough the tiny boy unlocked the door and crept his way out from the stall and smiled at me brightly, giggling as he ran towards me.

When I returned to the table with Michael, Stephen was the only one at the table. I surveyed the room for two matching blonde girls with ribbons, but had no luck.

"Stephen." I said softly, trying not to startle the shy boy from drawing. He peered up at me, pushing his glasses up as they fell down on his nose. "Do you have any idea where Katie and Lauren ran off to?" He shook his head and went back to his drawing, not saying a single word. I sighed heavily, dropping my head as I sat Michael back down at the table, before I went in search for another two children. "You have got to be kidding me..."

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The day dragged on, but eventually came to an end. I eventually found the two girls hiding in the gym under some mats. Just as Sydney predicted, Lauren and Katie had tried to successfully latch on my legs and bring me down, although never actually completing their mission as I just walked around with them on my legs. I think they actually enjoyed it from their laughs and giggles. The two also bickered the whole day like Kyla and I do, except involving a lot higher pitched screaming and whining. Stephen felt almost invisible, staying quiet all day long. I never even heard the kid speak, which is I guess not very unusual when you're that young, and that shy. Michael behaved himself a little more, but I could tell it was just because of me. He did end up sticking a few crayons up his nose, but other than that, it was nothing too serious.

At the end of the school day, I found myself outside with all the children, each one leaving one by one as their parents picked them up. Michael was the last one to be picked up. We waited patiently, eventually finding the ground as it had been thirty minutes after school had ended. The boy just played with the grass as I lounged beside him, watching him intensely as he didn't stagger his gaze or concentration.

"Michael, I'm so sorry I'm late. Mommy got caught up at work." A frantic woman yelled, as a car pulled up and the woman started running towards us. The boy's eyes finally shot up from the grass, and smiled as he ran over to his mother, I slowly followed behind. "Oh, you aren't Mrs. Hamilton." She looked at me confused, not recognizing the strange person with her child.

"This is Miss Davies!" Michael yelled, hurrying back over to me and grabbing my hand, bringing me closer to his mother.

"Ashley." I bring my hand out for her to shake. "I was helping out in Mrs. Hamilton's class today and I decided to wait with Michael until he got picked up."

She shook it slowly with a reluctant look on her face. "Ashley Davies? The Ashley Davies, daughter to the legendary Raife Davies?" She asked confused, shifting her eyes from me back to her son, whose hand was still intertwined with mine.

"That's what it says on my birth certificate." I chuckled softly as Michael finally let go of my hand and went and grabbed his backpack from where he had left it over on the grass. It's been ten years since he died and I still get that reaction from people, although I didn't expect it from Aiden's wife.

"I can't wait to tell my husband that I met Raife Davies' daughter. He's going to freak." Her eyes brightened and her smile grew, almost looking like she wanted to jump up and down in the air and scream at the top of her lungs in exciting. Again, it's not the usual reaction from people that I semi-know.

"I don't think Aiden would exactly freak out if he knew we finally met, it was probably going to happen sooner or later."

Her head shot back, giving me a strange look as she turned her head slightly the side, mentally taking a step back. "Wait, how did you know my husband's name was Aiden." She asked curiously, pointing at me with her hand. "And what do you mean finally?"

"You're Nicole right?" I asked rhetorically, although she still nodded abruptly in return as I pointed at her and then back to me. "And I'm Ashley Davies..." I slowly dragged it out, but her face was still confused, if not even more. "Aiden never mentioned me to you?" I asked the confused woman in a slightly saddened tone as I hoped she wouldn't nod. She did. "Did he ever talk about high school to you?"

"Just past relationships... you know, stuff you cover before you get married." Nicole casually shrugged, not thinking too much into the question as a smile appeared again on her face. "I think he said there were two girls... Madison and uh, K-Kylie, I think it was?"

"Kyla." I sternly correct her, my face going hard and unimpressed. "So he seriously never mentioned me, Ashley Davies?"

"No, did you know him in high school or something?"

"Yeah... or something." I whispered softly under my breath as I turned my head away from the tiny brunette. Michael finally joined us back with his backpack on and smiling gleefully at both of us. I tried looking back at Nicole, but I couldn't keep my gaze as it felt awkward. It felt awkward knowing that Aiden never told her about me, and yet he had told her about Madison and Kyla. By the time I looked back up, both Nicole and Michael were getting in the car. As Michael waved at me as they drove past, all I could think about was Nicole leaving me with even more unanswered questions than I had started out with that day.

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A/N: Sorry, there was no Spencer in this chapter... next chapter I promise. She's involved in the final task for Ashley.

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