Disclaimer: See Chapter 2.

A/N: (removes the "On Hiatus" sign from her story) Well, it's been a while, huh? After all that writing in two days, I ran out of ideas! Everything that I had thought of for my story up to that point, GONE. I kid you not, it ALL went. So I've been using the last week or so to get my thoughts in order and try to remember what the hell I was going to write in the first place, and it worked! So here it is, chapter 6! And I promise, from now on, I will NOT go a week or more without writing a chapter, and if something causes me to, if I find out ahead of time, I will be warning you. Just letting you know.

(Side note to Mrs. Rhett Butler: That makes sense. But you will learn later on that Amanda has had to grow up pretty damned fast, which makes her more mature than most. Let's just say, she'll be elaborating on what she told Peter in chapter 5 about not being so lucky when it comes to parents. May not be in this chapter, but it will happen soon.)

Chapter Six: Passed Us By

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," droned the priest, but Amanda wasn't listening. It had been three days since she had identified her mother's body, and she was back in Wisconsin with her little sisters, her aunt, her best friends, and her father for her mother's funeral. All Amanda could think about were those last horrible days before the funeral, but most of all, the terrible moment at the morgue when she had to tell Jessie that their mother was dead…

Amanda and Peter left the autopsy room, and Amanda nodded to Lucy and Lexi to let them know she was ok. What they didn't know was that in a pocket in her purse, she had Peter's cell phone number. He had told her to call him if she needed to talk to someone who had been in her situation before, and she had gratefully accepted his kind gesture. Amanda looked down the hallway, and her heart sank. Her aunt was waiting at the end of the hallway, with Jessie and Lori in tow. She tensed up again, knowing what was about to happen.

"What's wrong?" Peter asked.

"My aunt's here," Amanda whispered. "With my little sisters. They don't know about Mom yet. Well, Aunt Donna does, but not Jessie and Lori. Oh my god, how am I going to tell them? Lori won't understand, but Jessie, she'll-she'll-How am I going to do this?"

"Do the best you can," Peter said. "That's all you can do."

Amanda smiled weakly at him, a small gesture of thanks, before she walked down the hallway towards her sisters.

"Jessie, can you come with me please?" Amanda asked, trying desperately to keep herself under control. "There's something I need to tell you."

Jessie nodded, and they walked to an empty room not far from where the others were standing. When she was sure Jessie was in the room, Amanda closed the door behind her.

"Jessie, you need to sit down," Amanda said.

Jessie sat down and looked at her oldest sister, wondering why she looked like she was going to cry. "What's wrong Manda?" she asked innocently.

Amanda couldn't take it. She began to cry silently again. Jessie leaned out of the chair and put her arms around Amanda, trying to comfort her. After a few minutes, Amanda wiped her tears away on her sleeve, and said, "Jessie, remember the accident me and Mommy had a few days ago?"

"Yes I do. You were in the hospital, and you came home. But where's Mommy?"

Amanda choked up, and tried to decide the best way to tell Jessie. "Jessie, Mommy's gone to Heaven, to be with Nana Ruth and Uncle Andrew."

Jessie blanched, completely shocked. "YOU'RE LYING!!!!" she screamed. "YOU'RE LYING TO ME!!!!"

"Jessie, honey, I'm not lying," Amanda said delicately. "She was just hurt too badly, and God decided that it was best that she went to Heaven." As she spoke those words, trying to get her sister to believe her, Amanda was thinking the complete opposite: That God was unfair, and that it WASN'T best that their mother went to Heaven.

"NO!" screamed Jessie as she ran for the door. "MOMMY ISN'T DEAD! SHE ISN'T SHE ISN'T SHE ISN'T!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Amanda tried to catch her at the door, but Jessie was too fast. She flung the door open, and took off down the hallway, in the direction they had come, past her aunt and other sister, crying hard.

Amanda watched Lexi catch her little sister, and as Lexi tried to calm Jessie down, she slid to the floor, losing her composure completely. On the way down, she realized someone had caught her. Amanda leaned into her father's shoulder, and cried until she could cry no more.

"Amanda," a voice said. Amanda snapped out of her memory to the sound of Lexi's voice beside her.

"Yeah?" she said.

"They're starting the flower line," Lexi said, handing her friend a few roses. Amanda shifted Lori into her other arm, and-taking the roses in one hand and Jessie's hand her other-got ready to leave her mother a final goodbye. She decided to wait until the line went down, and while she waited, she watched the other people go up with flowers and lay them on the white surface of the coffin. She watched her grandmother Baxter lean over the coffin and kiss it before leaving the rose and being lead away crying by her grandfather, her other aunts and uncles stroke the coffin lovingly, crying all the while, and her stepfather stare for a moment at the coffin before dropping the rose onto it. Then, it was Amanda, Jessie, and Lori's turns. Amanda slowly lead Jessie up to the coffin, then leaned down herself to kiss it, and for Lori to kiss it as well. Jessie began to sniffle, but she also kissed the coffin, and then dropped her rose onto it, Amanda and Lori following suit.

After they had left the roses, Amanda handed Lori to Lucy, whispered something in her ear, and walked away from the guests, who were now milling around and talking. She thought that no one saw her leave, but one person did.

"Hey Nana Ruth, Uncle Andrew," Amanda said. She was standing over the adjacent graves of her great-grandmother and great-uncle. Amanda leaned down and put the other roses on the graves, then stood up and wiped her eyes, remembering how she had lost her great-grandmother to a swift illness, and her great-uncle 4 months later, simply from the grief of losing his mother. She also remembered how she was told she couldn't attend her great-uncle's funeral, all because she was at camp for the week.

"I guess you probably know already, but Mom died a few days ago. It was a carjacking. They attacked me first, and then…then they killed Mom. I heard the shots, but I couldn't help her. Anyways, I want you to take care of her for us, OK? I don't know what I'm gonna do without her…Hell, if I'm gonna be completely honest, I'm not worried about myself. I'm more worried about Jessie and Lori, and what's gonna happen to them. Jessie's gonna be able to remember Mom, but Lori-oh God, Lori. She's only a baby. She's not gonna be able to remember anything about Mom. Her chance at all the stuff me and Jessie got to do with Mom…it just passed her by, you know? She's never gonna have what I had, what Jessie had. It sucks. It sucks so much that I can't even begin to believe it.

My dad's here, you know. Remember him? The one that got Mom pregnant at 15 years old, then took off 3 years later, abandoning his only daughter? Yep, he's here too. He actually came back 4 days ago. Four days. Compare that to 15 years, and it makes him seem like a really shitty parent-which he is. But I have to give the guy credit, he's trying to make up for it. He's been coming over every day, to see how I'm doing, how Jessie's doing. Heh, he even convinced Jessie to stop being mad at me, 'cause she was pretty pissed off when she found out about Mom-thought I was lying to her.

Now comes the hard thing: he wants me to live with him. I don't really see what choice I have, seeing as how Aunt Donna's moving back here so Jessie and Lori can be with their dad. Charlie's been really good about the whole thing, even told me I could live with him, Jessie, and Lori. But my life's in Boston now. The majority of my friends are there-you know, Lexi, Lucy, Connor, Lucas, that whole bunch-and I have a job there. For the last 6 months, it's been my home-while Mom tried to get things settled so Charlie could come out to be with us-and it's still my home. If you guys could just help me by giving me a sign of some sort, I'd really appreciate it."

Amanda finished speaking, and pulled out the locket she was wearing around her neck, playing with the chain. Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around, and saw her dad a few feet away from her. He stopped and stood next to her, staring at the graves as Amanda had been doing a few moments before.

"How long?" Woody asked, gesturing at the graves.

"Two years," Amanda said. "So, why'd you come looking for me?"

"I was worried about you. I know you don't think I care, but you're my daughter, my only daughter, and I do care."

Amanda looked her father in the eye, and for the first time since he pulled into her aunt's driveway, she looked at him the way any daughter would look at her father, a look without any malice or hatred. "Thanks," she said.

Woody noticed that she was playing with something while he was talking, and he noticed that it was a locket. The locket that he had given her the day he left.

"You kept the locket?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," Amanda replied. "Partly because Mom made me, but partly because I wanted to."

"You actually wanted something that would remind you of me?"

"In my own strange way, yes. Believe me, for most of my life, I hated the fact that you left. But it kinda helped, having this around. Was like, you were still there, even though you weren't. Reminded me that even though you did something really shitty, you cared enough to leave me something of yours, so I could remember you."

Amanda paused for a moment, realizing what had just happened. She had actually spoken civilly to her father, and had admitted what she had refused to admit before: she didn't REALLY hate him. "Thanks Nana and Uncle Andrew," Amanda thought. She took her locket off and opened it, looking at the pictures inside.

Woody stood behind her and looked over her shoulder at the pictures. "You know, you were a really sweet kid when you were younger," he said. "Makes me regret going off and leaving you behind. My college friends would've gotten a kick out of you."

"How so?" Amanda asked, now curious.

"Well, when you were little, I remember that you used to do a really funny impression of Bugs Bunny. Always the same thing, though. You always said-"

"What's up, Doc?" Amanda said, grinning. "It was my favorite Bugs Bunny line. That, and the whole 'Duck Season, Wabbit Season' thing. Although, as I remember, you were waaaaaay better at that than I was."

Woody looked shocked. "You remember that?"

"Yeah," Amanda said, facing her father. "That, and how you used to call me 'Bean' all the time. Mom tried to keep it up after you left, but I remember saying 'Don't call me that, that's DADDY'S name for me!' to her a LOT."

Woody laughed, then was silent. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Amanda said, "I've been thinking about what you said, about moving in with you when we get back to Boston, and I've made my decision."

"What would the answer be then?" Woody asked.

Amanda smiled at her father, the first genuine smile she had given anyone in days. "I accept. That is, if you think you can deal with having a near-nineteen-year-old around all the time, constantly bugging you and all…"

"Great!" Woody said with a smile. "It'll be nice to have a female presence in the apartment for a change."

"You mean, 'Finally! Someone who can annoy me when my girlfriend isn't around!' That, and 'Now I won't have to worry about burning the damned food when I cook,' right?" Amanda said with a devilish grin.

"Very funny," Woody said, before doing a double take. "Wait a minute, how did you know I have a girlfriend?"

"Heard it when I was at the M.E.'s office the other day, signing the release forms."

"From who?"

"Oh, a certain employee-who shall remain nameless-let it slip."

"OK, when did Peter tell you?" Woody said, figuring that he had been the one to tell her.

"Who said it was Peter?" Amanda said with an "I'm so innocent right now it's painful" look, knowing full well that it wasn't Peter who had told her.

"OK then, if it wasn't Peter, then who was it?"

"I'll probably be the next one in on a slab for telling you this, but it was Bug. I saw Jordan when I was signing the papers, and I asked who she was, and he accidently told me. Please don't hurt him."

"Don't worry, I won't," Woody said. "So, why did you decide to accept?"

Amanda thought for a moment before answering.

"I only have one parent left, and I don't want the chance to get to know him pass me by."