The italizzed part is a flash back, and all of this is in Tess' POV.


I am twenty-three years old damn it! I'll smoke a cigarette if I want to!

Okay maybe I'm not twenty-three… yet.

I'm close

Three weeks away.

So that's close enough

I don't get carded any more and as much as my parents and god parents and aunts and uncles deny it I am an adult.

And after the week I've had… I deserve a damn cigarette.

I haven't done this since I was seventeen.

It was that summer, and in the same place, the same people with me, all of it.

Identical moments four years apart.

Okay, three years eleven months and a week…

Because it was my birthday last time…


Tess and Carley are outside the farm house. Staring up at the stars and just letting the tears fall from their eyes. They had only arrived in New Hampshire four hours before and they had already been kicked out of the house. The adults kicked them out when Jed to the end of his rope, anytime they thought they were looking at a dying man. This wasn't the first night they had been kicked out of the house, and if God was with them at all it wouldn't be the last. So there they were, Carley and Tess sitting on the grass and it was then they heard the older kids in the barn, they looked up to the barn, the now empty barn, Grandpa Jed kept saying they were going to refurbish to a den for the grandkids. So it was empty and Tess and Carley looked at each other, they knew what was going on in there, and they were old enough to be there now, that's how old her siblings were when they got to be a big kid, and it was their turn. So they walked up to the barn door that was half open. Tess opened the door a little more and everyone froze. She turns and looks at Carley who tugs her arm, "What?" she hisses at her.

"Therese Sophia Grace, what are you doing here?" Noah looked at her like he was going to ring her neck.

"Noah James you know that you always said that I would be stopped being counted as a baby the day I turned eighteen. Well guess what Noah I'm eighteen," she says as she moves into the room with Carley right behind.

"Not yet you're not!" Noah says as he puts his beer down and folding his arms as he walks toward her.

"Umm, Noah?" Tenley says after checking Chris' watch.

"Not now Tenley! Therese! You are not…"

"Noah! I swear to God!" Joanie says as she laughs

"Joanie this isn't the time or place."

"Hey Tess!" Paige calls as she pushes past Noah.

"Yes Paige?" Tess says as Paige approaches her

"Happy eighteenth," Paige says as she envelopes her in a hug

"Thank you!"

"Happ… Tess…" Noah stutters out.

"Noah James I swear, you sound more like out father every day," Tess says as she smiles at him.

"No, Joanie she's not, eighteen yet," Noah says.

"Actually Noah, as of ten minutes ago it is her birthday," Chris says studying his watch.

"Ten minutes? My watch says it's only quarter of."

"Noah," Joanie starts with a laugh, "you're watch sucks."

"What?"

"Look at you cell phone," Joanie says as she kisses Tess on the forehead. Noah takes out his cell and looks at the clock on the screen.

"Huh," he says biting his lip.

"I swear to God, you get more like Dad every day."

Huck is hanging back with Molly, they are watching the 'younger ones' coo over Tess being now one of the big kids. Tess pulls out of the group and walks up to Molly.

"What's going on?" Tess says as she stands between the two of them. "You're not allowed to grow up," Huck states.

"What?" Tess says looking between the two of them.

"You are the baby, you aren't allowed to grow up," Molly says as she turns to Tess with a drink.

"What's this?" Tess says as she accepts it.

"If you're going to roll with us, you do like us," Huck says.

Molly rolls her eyes, "What my incredibly stupid brother means is that if you're going to act like us then you are going to act like us."

"Fine," Tess takes the drink from Molly's hand and takes a sip. "Is this lemonade?"

"Hard Lemonade, you can't really taste the alcohol," Huck says as he wraps an arm around Tess.

After a long time all of the kids being heading out to the lawn, Tess is laying on the grass watching the sky. Chris and Tenley sit down next to her.

"What are you thinking about Tinkerbelle?" Chris asks watching his baby sister's face as she takes in the wonder of the stars.

"Do you think… I mean… do you think this is really it?"

"You mean do you think he'll die tonight?" Tenley asks her as she watches Tess' face.

"Yea," Tess says as the tears start rolling out of her eyes.

"Aw, Tess," Chris says taking his sister into his arms. "He's a strong guy."

"That doesn't mean…" Tess says.

"You're right," Andrew says as he comes and lies down next to her. "It doesn't mean he won't die tonight, but it does mean that he loves us more then anything, and that he'll want us to be strong no matter what."

"Yea," Tess says still looking up and sniffling.

"You want a cigarette?" Carter asks as he approaches the group.

"I thought you quit," Tess says as she arches her back so she can see the young man behind her.

"Yea well, I'm stressed," Carter says

"You're mother is going to kill you," Chris says as he takes a cigarette from Carter.

"Not as much as both of our mothers will kill you if you get my sister pregnant before your married," Chris says as he offers one to Tess, who looks up and accepts the cigarette and plays with it.

"Have you ever done this before?" Noah asks Tess as he watches her and lights the cigarette he has hanging between his lips and then bends down to light his sister's cigarette.

"Once," Tess says dejectedly

"You need to find new friends," Ben says as he settles on to the grass on the other side of Chris and Tenley.

"You know your sister is one of my best friends," Tess says as she brings her knees up to her chest and hugs them as she flicks the cigarette and brings it to her mouth.

Molly looks at them as she settles on the grass with them, "You know Grandpa used to smoke."

"Really?" Carley asks as she takes the cigarette from Tess and takes a drag.

"I think he still does," JT says as he comes out of the barn with the CD player they kept out there, he began playing a CD that Emma had made a few weeks ago. "I found a pack in the desk in the library a few months ago."

And they all were lying on the lawn when the sun came up, and Jed was still there when Abbey, Donna, CJ, and Ainsley found them in the morning. And that morning they all said they would never smoke without each other.


So here they were four years later all wondering what would become of them now that the patriarch was gone, and they were all smoking, though none of them had smoked until that night, they had all thought about it. And though a few people were added to the group, Carter still supplied the cigarettes and there they were, and JT provided the music and they were all in the same place, when the same women found them in the morning.