Hey everyone. This chapter was meant to be up a few weeks ago in conjunction with mother's day but I never exactly got enough time to finish it. So, here it is now, a few weeks late, but finally finished. I hope all the mothers out there: moms, step-moms, grandmas, the 'mom' friend of the group, godmothers, and all the mother figures in the world, including mother Earth herself, had a great mother's day in the midst of this pandemic. Never forget that we love you, and that we will always be by your side through thick and thin.

A little background info to this little one-shot is that it's the first mother's day at the Woods' household after the failed launch so it's set near the beginning of S01E01. This is essentially one of my first just "Woods family" fanfics, so if you would like more of these, please tell me.

Once again, I hope everyone had a great mother's day and is staying safe and healthy during the pandemic. Even if they loosen the restrictions, don't go out more than necessary. One spark is all that is needed to start a fire.

I hope you guys enjoy this and don't forget to send in your prompts.

Third Person POV

Sitting up in her bed, she takes a deep breath.

"Everything will be ok." She mutters to herself. "Just stay strong. This day will pass and you can't let it bring you down. Dad and Alex need you. You have to stay strong for them."

She pushes her emotions away, locks it in a box and throws away the key. She's not opening her Pandora's box today, not if she can help it.

Plastering a smile on her face, she gets ready for the day and heads downstairs to make breakfast. Her dad is still too distraught to function and knowing Alex, he had probably shot hoops until 2 in the morning, meaning it was once again up to her to prepare what their mom had always considered to be the most important meal of the day.

As she examines the contents of the overhead cabinets, she decides to make caramel bread popcorn. Mom never made it before so it definitely wouldn't hurt, or at least hurt as much as it did when she tried to make blueberry pancakes.

She remembers the time she made pancakes about a month after her death. She had thought it was a nice way to sort of lift everyone's spirits by having something that always brought good memories, good feelings.

That idea had gone down the drain the minute Alex and Dad walked in. They were mad for a moment, then all but broke down the next. They looked so heartbroken and lost, and she knew she made a huge mistake.

Immediately, she kept the pancakes and consoled them, poured them each a bowl of cereal, which seemed to be the only thing they had been eating for the past month since none of them had the energy to cook.

The sweet smell of caramel brings her out of her thoughts and she quickly dishes the food onto a plate. And as the pleasant aroma washes over her, yet another memory flashes through her mind.

~~Flashback~~

She was fiddling in her mom's room, looking for her MP3 player that had been confiscated for starting a fight in school. To be fair, it hadn't been her fault, she was protecting Alex like she was told to after all, but their mom still decided to punish her because as always, violence is never the answer.

Little Hayley huffs at that and continues rummaging through the room for the device, carefully searching in every nook and cranny and all the possible places where the player might be hidden.

Her eyes finally catch sight of the dresser in the middle of the room and she remembers that the drawers of said dresser was always off limits to them; maybe it's because it holds all their seized treasures.

She climbs up the bench and perches herself on it before slowly pulling it open, cheering silently when she sees her precious gadget sitting in the middle of it.

Grabbing the player, as well as Alex's stack of basketball cards that had been taken away a week prior, she attempts to push the drawer close. Her rather full hands however, make the task difficult so she drops the items on top of the dresser before sliding it shut.

Once it was closed, she hurriedly grabs all of her reclaimed possessions, lest she get caught by her mother, and heads towards the door.

But in her haste, the rapid movement of her arms causes the earpieces of the player to swing, knocking over the glass bottle of perfume and allowing its contents to spill onto the table and drip onto the ground.

In her panic, she's unsure of what to do until she ultimately decides to rush up to her room and keep her prizes hidden there before her mom finds out.

She stays relatively calm until about an hour before dinner where she's called into her mom's room. It is at that moment that anxiety begins to course through her veins and nervously, she walks towards her doom. Upon entering, a sweet yet suffocating scent fills her nostrils and causes her to choke.

With a firm but gentle grip, she is led deeper into the room, her mother giving her a stern glare as she points towards the open perfume bottle. All the girl can do is hang her head in shame. She had been taught from the moment she could speak not to lie and there was no way out of it anyway.

Her mother kneels down and lifts the child's head so they are eye to eye. Looking at her daughter with a kind smile, she strokes the soft cheek, feels the all too familiar contours, before telling her that it's ok, that accidents happen.

Her look then turns dark as she continues to speak. "What is not ok is sneaking into my room to take back your things and not telling me when something spilled."

Seeing her daughter looking so downcast breaks her heart and she softens her tone. "I don't care if the perfume was expensive. But the bottle could have broken and someone could step on a broken shard of glass, which is very dangerous."

She pulls her daughter closer to her. "You know I love you right?" She asks and the girl in question just nods her head. "That's why I don't want you to get hurt."

Unable to hold back her emotions any longer, she rushes up to her mom, enveloping her in a tight embrace while whispering her apologies and that she loves her. Chuckling, the woman hugs her back in an equally tight hold, before saying that she loves her as well and makes her promise to never do that again.

As soon as their emotion fest ends, they take the freshly scented carpet out to wash. And for the next few weeks, all her hands smell like is the smell of her mom's sweet perfume.

~~Flashback ends~~

Glancing at the clock, she realises it's about time for the others to come down so she quickly prepares a cup of coffee and a jug of orange juice.

Once she's done, she sits at the table and waits. She waits and waits.

An hour passes.

Two.

It's almost lunch time but no one comes down. Deciding she's waited long enough, she goes to check on them. They should be fine, right? They're probably sleeping in. Nothing could've happened to them in the span of the few short hours since she last saw them. Nothing can happen to them.

She enters her parents'-sorry parent's-room first. The alcohol in the air all but suffocates her but she perseveres, heading towards her dad to wake him for breakfast.

As she tries to wake him, realisation dawns on her and she groans. Once again, he's hungover, meaning he'll be out the whole day and she's going to have to check on him every few hours, lest he choke on his own bile or his fever gets too high.

Grabbing a rag from the bathroom, she quickly mops the sweat off his forehead and neck, as well as his exposed limbs. Then, she props him up on his bed, giving him a Vitamin B complex tablet and a glass of water.

He accepts it almost mechanically and all she can do is sigh as he falls back asleep. It physically hurts her to see her dad this way but she doesn't really know what to do. What's a 15-year-old supposed to know about this kind of stuff anyway?

Seeing as he's fast asleep once again, she goes to get Alex. And there, in his room, she finds said boy lying face down in a pool of his own sweat and tears. He's in what seems to be a deep slumber but his body is still wracked with the occasional shivers and sobs.

She wants to join him. She wants to break down too, allow herself to grieve like she should, but she knows she can't. Her family needs her and that's the most important thing at the moment.

She moves onto his bed and gently lays his head on her lap, stroking his curly locks as if they were both kids again and she was comforting him after a nightmare.

"It'll all be ok." She whispers into his ears, keeping her own tears at bay. "Everything will be fine."

She's not sure if she's reassuring him or herself, because even as the words slip out of her mouth, she finds it hard to believe them.

And so does Alex. "Shut up, Hayley!" He snaps at her, immediately sitting up and pushing her away. "You know that's not true. Nothing is ok. Nothing will ever be ok! How can you say that after everything that's happened?! How can you say that when mom's gone?!"

She allows him to scream at her, yell at her, let out all his pain, anger and frustrations. She knows he needs to release his emotions or else he'll go insane. At least she's the one he's taking it out on. It's better if he takes it out on her than anyone else. She'll be able to take it. She can take it. She'll be fine. She has to be.

"HOW CAN YOU EVEN GET UP TODAY, ON MOTHER'S DAY OF ALL DAYS, WHEN OUR MOM, THE WHOLE REASON TO CELEBRATE, ISN'T AROUND ANYMORE?!" His breaths are shaky and he heaves between each word. "How senseless can you be?"

"I'm sorry." That's all she can think of saying once he's calmed down a little. She tries to reach out for him, hold him close, comfort him, let him know that she's there for him, but the door, both physical and metaphorical, is slammed shut.

"Leave me alone!" He yells, pushing her out the door.

She tries to stop him, tries to stand her ground, but his larger frame is stronger and she can barely feel her feet touching the ground. "Wait, Alex. Wait." She calls out to him, hoping he'll listen. He doesn't.

"Leave me alone." He yells crudely as the sound of the door slamming echoes throughout the house.

Staring at the door, she finds herself wanting to break down yet again, and this time, the pressure is too much for her to handle.

She races to her room and out the window, scaling up onto the roof. She knows she shouldn't be up here, especially when her vision is blurred from tears, but she can't help herself. This is her happy place. The place where everything is gone and she can finally be at peace.

Despite, the sun shining overhead, she leans against the tiles, staring up into the sky. She watches as clouds dance into her vision and the sky darkens. She hears the pitter patter of the raindrops, feels it's coolness on her skin, and she's taken back to when she was a kid, while her mom was still around.

~~Flashback~~

Little Hayley had always been enamoured by the rain. The minute those first few drops hit on her window pane, she was out the door. No one could hold her back and even if they tried, she'd always find a way to escape. Eventually, they gave up.

There was one day when it wasn't raining particularly heavy and Hayley had once again ventured out into it. Ryan, knowing quite well that she wouldn't be able to change her young daughter's mind, she decided to join her and the mother daughter duo had fun playing in the rain.

When they were thoroughly soaked, they went back in and had a shower before cuddling up in the younger's bed with mugs of steaming hot chocolate.

The mother telling her stories of her own youth as she towel dries her daughter's hair. Said daughter listening attentively until the warmth from the love her mother exuded lulled her to sleep in her mother's lap.

~~Flashback ends~~

Hayley blinks back her tears, but not before a precious few slip out and mingle with the rain drops.

She curls into herself, imagining the arms around her are that of her mother's and not her own. She imagines that she's there, comforting her after a long hard day, telling her she doesn't need to be strong for anyone but herself, and that it's ok to cry.

But her mother's not there anymore. She knows she has to be strong, because Alex needs her, dad needs her. She can't afford to be weak, can't let her family collapse after the pillar that was holding the cave upright had been dug out.

She can't cry. It makes things worse for everyone.

So she builds a wall and buries her emotions deep inside. The locked Pandora's box is now more than six feet under and the key thrown as far as the other end of the earth. No one can find it. No one can free the pain inside her.

And that's good, because pain is the last thing she wants to feel, it's the last thing she needs to feel.

Brushing back the last of the stray tears, she slips back into her room, ready to care for her broken family. If only for her mom.

And this has been an AngelFanfics productions.