AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not happy with this chapter, it doesn't seem to flow, even though I re-worked it a couple of times. So here it is anyway, hope you like it.

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The next day, Sunday, everyone was quiet and grumpy. Grandpa John got a call from a friend of his and agreed to go help him with something, and Uncle Sam said he would drive. Grandpa John had an appointment to get his cast off in the middle of the week too- they were going to be close to the hospital where he had been treated, so they were going to stay in the area.

Before they left, Uncle Sam showed me and Daddy what work he wanted me to do that week, and reminded us about making sure that my exercises were done every day. Besides the school work on my tablet, Uncle Sam had assigned me writing work to do every day so I could practice and make my hand stronger and my writing neater.

This week had been like a vaction, with just me and Daddy. On Monday he had only made me do about an hour of school work in the afternoon and then we went to play mini golf. We met Ben and Lisa for dinner and then went to watch his practice.

Tuesday Daddy had taken me to a movie- it was a double feature of two cartoons, and we had gotten popcorn and candy. Then Daddy and I stayed up late watching shows on t.v. and we were late to PT the next day. After I woke up from my nap and we ate lunch, I did some schoolwork, but not a whole lot.

Thursday morning, Daddy did make me do schoolwork, but after I complained about it he said I could stop. We had to go to the grocery store anyway.

After we went to the grocery store, we went to meet Lisa and Ben at a fast-food restaurant for dinner, and then we went to Ben's practice again. The regular coach wasn't there, only the assistant coach, and he asked if a couple of parents would help out with things like pitching and catching. Daddy glanced at us, and then called out, "Sure, I'll give it a try." He stood up and walked over to the kids grouped around the assistant coach. I watched as he chatted for a couple of minutes, and then he stood behind home plate and would catch the balls that hadn't been hit, and throw them back to the pitcher.

Lisa looked at me. "You know, you don't have to be jealous," she said.

"Uh- what do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm sure you get a little worried that Ben is going to supplant you with Dean, but I can assure you that that's not going to happen," she smiled at me, "Your Dad loves you very much, I can tell by they way he looks at you. And nothing will lessen that, not another person or anything."

I felt myself blushing. "How...how does he look at me?" I asked.

"Like you're his whole world. And that's the way it should be. I never thought I'd see Dean like that, he's a good guy, but he's always...held a part of himself back. But he doesn't do that with you, and I think that you've changed him, and that's a good thing. He loves you so much, sweetie." She put her hand on my arm and patted me. I felt tears come to my eyes and blinked them away. It was nice of her to say that, and it made me feel good.

She continued to talk to me as we watched Ben's practice, asking me about what I was studying in home schooling and telling me about Ben's school. Finally practice was over, and Daddy and Ben came walking over to us.

"Want to go out for ice cream?" Daddy asked, looking at Lisa.

"Yeah, can we, Mom?" Ben asked.

"Well...all right," Lisa said. "We can't stay out too late, you've got school in the morning."

As we started to walk over to the parking lot, Ben looked up at Daddy suddenly. "Hey Dean," he said shyly, "Can I ride with you?"

Daddy looked over at Lisa and raised his eyebrows. "That okay with you?" he asked her.

She nodded. "Sure...behave yourself, Ben," she told him.

Daddy opened the back door or the Impala and I climbed in, and Ben slid in next to me.

"Wow, leather!" he said, bouncing on the seat.

Daddy got behind the wheel and turned to look back at us. "What do you think, Ben?" he asked with a grin.

"Really cool!" Ben replied with a matching grin. "You've fixed it up nice!"

"Thanks, I try to keep her in tip-top shape," Daddy said. "If you're interested, next time I give her a tune up, you can help," he glanced at us in the mirror. "Well, you can help me and Charlie, she's my number-one helper," he smiled at me.

Ben slid forward on the seat and asked Daddy questions about the car engine the whole time we were driving. He looked around at everything in the car and ran his hands over the door handles and the ashtray. "Hey, there's an army man in here! Wow, it's really stuck!"

"Yeah, Sammy put that in there when we were kids," Daddy told him, "He really shoved it in there good."

When he pulled into the parking lot, he turned around to look at us. He had a funny little smile on his face. "Wow, I never thought I'd see the day when my kids were in the back seat of Baby," he said. "Sammy and I spent so much time back there..."

Lisa walked over to us just then and we got out of the car.

We were at a roadside stand that sold ice cream made from "farm fresh milk". It was attached to a big farm next to it, and they had a couple of huge old farm vehicles like tractors that kids could climb on, with all the dangerous parts taken off.

An elderly couple walked past us, and the woman smiled and said, "You have such a beautiful family!"

I saw Daddy and Lisa look at each other and smile. She put her hand on Daddy's, and then smiled at the woman and said, "Thank you!"

"Hey, let's go play on the tractors and stuff," Ben said to me. "Want to?"

"Yeah," I agreed, finishing my cone.

"Wipe your mouth off- use a napkin, not your sleeve!" Lisa said quickly to Ben, handing him one.

He wiped his mouth off and tossed the napkin onto the table. "C'mon, Charlie!" he said.

"Charlie," Daddy called as we started to walk away. I turned to look at him. "Be careful," he said.

"I will, Daddy," I said. I followed Ben over and we started to climb around on the equipment. There were a couple of other kids there too, and they were nice and letting everyone have turns.

Once I glanced over at Daddy and Lisa and they were leaning kindof close together and looking in each other's eyes. I was going to keep watching but then one of the others kids got in front of me. The next time I looked over, they were watching us, and Daddy saw me looking over, and smiled at me.

That night when he tucked me in, he said, "I hope you've had a good week. I wanted to give you a little bit of a break, since Sam's been kinda of hardas- I mean he's been working you so hard."

I put my arms around his neck. "I had fun with you this week, Daddy," I told him. "What are we going to do tomorrow?"

"Hmm, I don't know," he said. "Let's play it by ear," he kissed my forehead and I laid back in the bed. He pulled the covers up.

"I love you Daddy," I murmured.

"I love you too, baby," he said, smoothing my hair back from my face. He got up and left the room, leaving the door opened partway.

The next day Daddy took me to PT in the morning. I was so tired at the end that I fell asleep in the car almost as soon as Daddy pulled out of the parking lot. When I woke up on my bed, I could hear more than one familiar voice in the other room, and it wasn't the t.v. I got out of bed and ran out to the living room area, where Uncle Sam and Grandpa John were. They had come home!

"Uncle Sam!" I said, running to him and throwing my arms around him.

"Hi, Charlie," he said happily, leaning down to hug me. "How are you doing?"

"I'm okay," I said, "I missed you!"

I heard him chuckle, and he kissed the top of my head, then straightened up and let me go.

"Hey, sweetheart," Grandpa John said with a smile, opening his arms to me, and I went over to him. He picked me up in a hug and kissed the side of my head, then set me down and ruffled my hair.

"Why are you limping?" Uncle Sam asked.

I turned to him. "Huh?"

"You're limping a little bit," He frowned, and looked over at Daddy. "Did she hurt herself?"

I shrugged. "No, I was just real tired from PT today."

"How did the week go?" Uncle Sam asked.

"Fine," I said, hoping he wouldn't ask me about my schoolwork. I felt a little bit guilty just then, because I hadn't done half the work he had planned out for me. He was going to be angry with me.

"We've got to do laundry today, and I can't wait to take a shower," Uncle Sam stretched. "The water pressure in the room where we stayed was awful, it was like a little trickle."

I looked over at Grandpa John. "You got your cast off!" I said, and he smiled at me.

"Yeah, I did. The doctor says I'm all better!"

"You've still got to take it easy and do those exercises he gave you, Dad," Uncle Sam reminded him.

"I know, Sam. I've got some PT too, we can exercise together!" Grandpa John said to me.

"Your writing should be getting better," Uncle Sam walked over to the desk, where the tablet and my other schoolwork was. He shuffled through some papers, and looked at them for a moment. Then he turned, and looked at me.

"Why didn't you do any of this?" he asked.

"I, uh-" I felt myself blushing. "I, uh, I didn't think about it."

Uncle Sam turned. "Dean, were you having her do her work every day and checking things over?" he frowned. He picked up the tablet and turned it on, and I gulped nervously. This was it, I was going to get into trouble. At least I wasn't going to get a spanking, because Daddy had said so.

I watched as Uncle Sam scrolled through different pages on the tablet. When he looked up, he looked mad. "Young lady, what do you have to say about this?" he asked sternly. "Did you do your school work every day?" he asked.

"Uh...no," I said, feeling my face get red again.

"And why not?"

"Cause I wanted a break...and sometimes we did other stuff." I whispered.

"You did other stuff? What do you mean?" Uncle Sam asked.

"Like one day we played mini golf." I said, and Daddy spoke up, "I took her out a couple times to do some fun things, and we went to Ben's practices."

Uncle Sam looked over at Daddy. "So you just decided to do your own thing, and completely ignore the schedule that I set up for her schoolwork."

Daddy shrugged. "C'mon, Sammy, she didn't work too hard for a couple days, she'll catch up."

"Dude, that's not the point, and you know it! We've talked about this before, Charlie needs to get used to being on a schedule and doing a certain amount of work each day!"

"Geez, would you let it go, man? It's not like-"

"Dean, if she we going to regular school, she would have gotten in trouble over this. Not doing her assignments every day? You'd be getting a note home from her teacher. And skipping out on school to go do fun things? The teacher would have something to say about that and you know it," Sam glared at Daddy, "I can't believe you, that you'd just let this fall by the wayside like this. You know how important I think education is, and how important I think it is that Charlie get used to this! Everything you've done this week is not helping that! If anything it's probably set her back!"

"Dean, I have to agree with Sam here," Grandpa John said. "Isn't Charlie going to have to take tests at the end of the year to prove she's been doing work and not just playing around?"

"Yeah, but that's at the end of the year. She'll catch up, she knows what she's doing," Daddy said easily, "She's a smart girl."

"Dean, again, that's not the point! She's 8 years old, and you can't expect her to just do everything on her own. You have to supervise her and check over her work, and not just let her go and let things go. And you can't just let her take breaks whenever she wants and not do the work because she doens't feel like it."

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" I said loudly, feeling annoyed. "I'm right here ya know!"

"Don't start with the attitude, young lady," Uncle Sam said, and at the same time Grandpa John said, "Watch your mouth, little girl."

Uncle Sam focused on me. "I'm very disappointed, Charlie, that you didn't do the work that I gave you every day."

"She gets tired easily," Daddy said, "I let her take breaks when she was tired."

Uncle Sam shook his head. "I think you're just making excuses."

I looked up at him. "I—I did get tired, I wasn't just saying that!"

He shook his head again. "If you were that tired than you should have been taking more naps and going to bed earlier. And that's also your Dad's job," he glared at Daddy again. "Looks like you slacked on all kinds of things this week," he said in a hard voice.

"Sam, I treated this week like a little bit of a vacation. So I didn't make her do a lot of work, so what? I wanted to-"

"Dean, you are so missing the point of everything! I gave you- and Charlie- a list of assignments to be done, every day, and you didn't have her do them. You just went off and did your own thing without letting me know that that was what you planned to do, and when we talked during the week you lied to me about it!" Uncle Sam's voice was loud and angry.

"You've been lying about this to your brother?" Grandpa John's voice sounded angry too.

"When I'd ask him how Charlie's work was going he'd just say, 'fine' and change the subject," Uncle Sam told him.

Grandpa John looked at Daddy, and his face was now angry. "You screwed up here, Dean. This is not how we do things, and you know it."

"Dad-" Daddy started.

"I don't want to hear any more excuses from you! You need to think about what you've done this week and how your actions have affected Charlie, and everything else," Grandpa John turned and stalked out of the room, walking into his room and closing the door hard.

Daddy scrubbed his hand over his face and looked at Uncle Sam. "Look, I'm sor-"

"Save it," Uncle Sam snapped, "I don't want to hear anything else right now either." He set the tablet on the desk and walked over to the door, going into this room and closing the door hard just like Grandpa John had done.

I walked over to Daddy and threw my arms around his waist. "I'm sorry, Daddy," I said, looking up at him.

He looked down at me and put his hand on my head. "What are you sorry for, baby? You didn't do anything wrong."

"I'm sorry they're being mean to you. We- I had fun with you this week," I hugged him.

He put his arms around me. "I had fun with you too, sweetheart. Uncle Sam needs to take a chill pill."

I giggled.

"You'll get back into the swing of things with no problem, and you'll catch up in no time," he said confidently.

Daddy and I sat down to watch a movie together, and a short time later Uncle Sam came out of the room with a mesh bag full of clothes.

"Either of you have any dirty laundry?" he asked. "I can throw it in with ours."

"Nah, we're good," Daddy told him.

Dinner that night was tense. Daddy ordered pizza, and went out to buy some beer, and everyone sat around eating quietly. They took the beers that Daddy gave them, though, so maybe they weren't that mad any more.

Uncle Sam wiped his mouth off and put the napkin on his plate. "We're going to have to work extra hard this coming week, Charlie," he said to me, "I want to get you back on track and make sure you're all caught up."

"Okay, Uncle Sam," I agreed.

I woke up in the morning hearing all three of them talking in the living room. "Daddy!" I called, rolling over and stretching in bed. Daddy came over to the bed and picked me up, carrying me out to the living room and sitting on the sofa with me in his lap.

"You're carrying her, Dean?" Uncle Sam asked dryly.

"Sure, Sammy," Daddy said easily, "We have a snuggle in the morning while she's waking up." He smoothed my hair back from my face as I leaned against his chest, yawning.

"Charlie is not a morning person," Grandpa John remarked with a grin.

"It would help if I could have some coffee," I grumped, "I used to be allowed to have coffee, ya know."

Uncle Sam and Daddy both laughed. "Oh, you're breaking my heart, Charlie," Uncle Sam grinned at me, "Wouldn't you rather have orange juice?"

"You know I hate orange flavored stuff!" I snapped.

Uncle Sam raised his hands. "Okay, okay, geez," he said. "What time is Ben's game?"

"It's at 10 today, so you'd better get a move on, Charlie," Daddy patted my back. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"Do we have any waffles left?" I asked, getting up.

"I'll go and check," Daddy stood up. I went back to the bedroom and got dressed while Daddy made me waffles in the toaster.