George muscles her way through the crowd, scanning the faces of every dark, long-haired boy she could find. The kid said he'd meet her here. Where the hell is he.

"FAYNE!"

She turns towards the sound of her name and sees Joe Hardy squeezing his way through the crowd towards her, a taller, black man following close behind him. Joe's hair is a mess as usual, and he has a red tint to his eyes and that lazy grin that always means the kid is high. He laughs as he pulls her into a hug and, yep, definitely been smoking.

"I'm almost offended that you smoked up without me," George says, as she pulls away from her friend. "But if you tell me you still have some left, I'll forgive you."

Joe chuckles low and pulls a bag out of his pocket which he then slips into hers. "Don't worry babe, I gotcha covered."

He then turns to the man behind him. "Billy, this is my lesbian girlfriend, George. George, this is Billy. We met at the gig last night."

George chooses to ignore Joe's comment in favor of shaking Billy's hand. "Ignore him, he's just as gay as I am, he just thinks it's funny to fuck with people."

Billy just grins down at her and says, "Oh, believe me, I know." Which makes George laugh and Joe blush.

"So, yeah, sorry I missed your gig, Hardy. I'd have been there but…Bess wanted me to go with her to a family thing."

Joe pulls a face at her, "Ouch. How was that?"

"Still sucks being the black grandchild if that's what you're asking."

"I thought you were a little light for a sister," Billy says, eyeing her skin. "Which one's white, Mom or dad?"

"Dad, and that's the only reason my grandparents have anything to do with us," George snorts and digs through her pockets for a cigarette. "But enough about that, who's leading this rally?"

Joe's face turns serious. "Nick Falcone. He's the one who was at that march in D.C., remember? We're marching from here to the construction site at the Emerson Nuclear Plant."

"Nice." George glanced to the stage where some of the protest leaders were gathering, Nick Falcone's tall form towering over the others in the middle. She'd heard a story or two about Emerson University's favorite activist. Falcone had done a stint in Nam, before being discharged with a wounded leg. When he came back, he joined the protests with a fire that put the rest of them to shame. Supposedly, he wasn't afraid to push back against the riot police. George suddenly finds herself feeling very grateful that she hadn't brought Bess along. If she was going to end up getting arrested today, at least she wouldn't be getting her baby cousin involved. Also, Bess is the one who usually bails her out.

Falcone walks to the tiny podium and grabs the mic.

"Good afternoon everyone, thank you all for showing up for this. Those of you who just came to be lookie lous, kindly exit the premises. We're here to make a difference today, not be someone's entertainment."

The crowd cheers and then falls back to silence gradually as Nick raises his hand to quiet them.

"Our goal, our purpose for organizing, is to hinder the operation of the Emerson Nuclear Power Plant, and ultimately prevent it for operating entirely.

Another cheer. George glances over at Joe and sees the familiar light of battle in his eyes that she's become well acquainted with since she started coming to protests with the kid. Joe Hardy may be wild, rock star wannabe punk, but he takes this stuff seriously.

"Today, we will be entering into the construction site for the extension of the plant. We will occupy this area for as long as we possibly can. Do not become violent with the construction workers, they are only trying to feed their families. However, if someone, be it a construction worker, policeman, passerby, becomes violent with you; use your defensive measures."

Nick continued on a few minutes more, reminding them all of why they were doing this, the importance of preventing nuclear production, before finally stepping off the platform and leading the mass of students towards the plant.

Joe turns his head and flashes her his trademark grin, "You ready to go change the world, Georgie?"

George can't help but grin back at the kid. She hoists her cardboard sign over her head and starts chanting with the rest of the crowd.

It feels good to be a part of something.

3 hours. They'd managed to hang onto the construction site for three hours before the riot police had busted through and started arresting everyone in sight. Thankfully, she and Joe had made it out with Billy before she could piss her family off by getting arrested again.

Of course, when the three of them make it back to the dorms, they're met by Bess's pale worried face. Pinched lips and arms crossed over her chest, Bess is the spitting image of George's Aunt Helen.

"I thought this would stop when the war ended, George, this is too dangerous. You could have been arrested again!"

"Not now, Bess."

"Yeah, Bess. Not now," Joe snarks.

Bess whirls on the younger boy, "I am not talking to you. This is family business."

"Yeah, um…I think I'm gonna go," Billy says, looking awkwardly between George's cousin and Joe. "Will I see you at The Mockingbird tonight, Joe?"

Joe stops glaring at Bess long enough to blush and mumble, "Yeah, um, we play there every weekend."

George looks away from their embarrassingly cute flirting to focus on her cousin, "Why did you think it would end with the war? You didn't actually think that everything wrong with the world would just magically fix itself when The Man signed a piece of paper saying they'd stop killing people, did you?"

"What? No! No…George, I know there's a lot wrong with the world, I know that, but this stuff you do, it's dangerous and –"

"And so I shouldn't try to make a difference? I should just keep my head down and my mouth shut and not pay attention to what's going on in the world?"

Bess presses her hand to her face, "No, no, that's not… I didn't come here to talk to you about this. Ned is back. He got back today."

George freezes up for a moment, "Wait, did you know he was coming home?"

"Who's coming home?" Joe says as he rejoins them, having finished saying goodbye at the door.

"Ned Nickerson," Bess sighs. "No I didn't know, no one except Mr. Drew knew apparently. Ned just showed up and surprised his family and Nancy." She glances over at Joe, "Your brother was with her when he showed up apparently."

"Ugh. He didn't do anything stupid did he?" Joe sounds exasperated. He usually sounds that way when it comes to Frank.

"No, apparently it went rather well. Frank did look a little miserable when he was leaving Nancy's though."

"Well," George cut in. "You and I had better go over there and join the welcome home celebrations, and Joe had better go cheer his brother up. See ya later, Joe."

As she walks towards Bess' car, George finds herself wondering just how affected Ned is by Nam. She's met a lot of vets over the past few years, not everyone comes back okay. She just hopes that whoever he's become, he's still the same guy Nancy loves. She'd hate to think what it would do to her friend if he wasn't.