Disclaimer: There is no pwnage here. Waiiiiii.

Author's Note: Literary Alchemist helped me get around the uploading error fest that's been going on since last night (as far as I know). Guess the export function isn't as useless as I thought. Er, anyhow, here is the next part of Forgiveness! Yes, it's a flashback. Those of you reading Impaired may say, "My, you enjoy flashbacks, Gaia." And I'd say, "Yes. Yes, I do." Um.. yeah... read.

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(Once upon a time…)

Peter's dark hair went well with the stern look he gave his sister. "Next time, remember your crap so you don't have to hassle me," he said as he handed over a biology book.

Lori's own blonde locks accentuated her smile and the playful gratitude in her eyes. "Aw, but then I wouldn't be doing my job as your loving sis, would I?"

"You're lucky you're an only child, James," Peter said, rolling his eyes towards his friend.

James only smiled a bit, staying quiet as usual. Peter had said this often to him over their long friendship, and James was quite aware of how annoying having a younger sister would be. Lorie had happily proven it time and again with little shame; she even mischievously winked at James now, though for some reason when she glanced at the plain-looking girl beside her, her grin widened. Mary's long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she shifted from one foot to the other. Her head was tilted down at the ground, but her eyes looked up from beneath dark lashes at the lighter-haired boy.

"Hi, James," she said with a small smile stretching her pink, unpainted lips.

James looked back at her nervously. "Uh... Hey." He coughed into his fist for no reason.

The bell sounded then. "We gotta go!" Lorie exclaimed, unable to restrain a chuckle when she glanced at James again. "See you guys later!" She grabbed Mary's arm and pulled her toward the school.

"Bye, Peter! Bye, James!" Mary giggled as Lorie forced her to run to the double doors of the brick building.

James watched them hurry off. Or rather, he watched the brunette, and the whimsical way her long skirt swirled about her legs with a gust of wind.

"Holy shit, Sunderland," Peter laughed.

James blinked out of his stupor and looked over at his friend. "Huh?"

Peter nodded his head towards the girls pulling open the doors and smirked. "You got it bad."

James didn't say anything, but he could feel his face turn red. He couldn't help but glance over as her form vanished into the school.

Peter shrugged. "I can't blame you, though. She's a sweet girl." He chuckled and put an arm around James' shoulders. "Plus she's eighteen now, about to graduate. No one will make a fuss."

James frowned at Peter's expression. He shrugged the arm off of him and walked back towards the car.

Peter sighed and followed after him. "I didn't mean it like that, man!" He walked at James' side. "I'm just saying that if she wasn't eighteen, some people might think it was weird or something. Like statutory."

"I'm only four years older than her."

"Yeah, but you know how people are." Peter shook his head. "Anything to start something." He grinned again. "So I take it you are gonna ask her out?"

James stared straight ahead. "Dunno."

Peter guffawed. "Oh, please! You're gonna." He patted him on the back. "My sister can give you her number. Or you could come with me when I pick her up from some party tonight. Mary'll be there."

James hesitated. "I… I don't know."

They had reached the car and Peter opened the driver's seat. He looked at James over the top of the car and sternly said, "Look, Sunderland, as long as I've known you, you've had one steady girlfriend for, like, two months, and as far as I know you've only dated two other girls. You need to fuckin' branch out. Especially since, like I said: You. Got. It. Bad."

"Shut the hell up, Peter," James grumbled as he got in the passenger side.

Peter slid into his seat and closed the door at the same time James closed his. "I'm just saying, is all!" He turned the ignition. "Jesus Christ, I always gotta push you to do anything you wanna do." He looked over at James. "Am I taking you home or to work or anything? Or do you wanna come with me to run some errands for my mom?"

"I told my dad I'd help him out with some apartment stuff. But we'll hang out some more later, alright?"

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It was alright. Peter picked James up at seven and they went to see a movie at the cinema uptown. Afterwards, Peter looked at his watch and said that they might as well head over to the party early, seeing as they had nothing better to do. It wouldn't be too much of a problem, as they both knew the brother of the girl holding the party.

James wasn't too fond of the idea regardless, though. Who wanted to be those weirdoes that hung out with high school kids, like those losers who used drugs and alcohol as tricks of the trade on underage girls? Ugh.

It was May, and Peter had just finished his undergraduate years at college. If he weren't going on to grad school in the fall, he'd probably have a job like James did. James had just gotten a new job, as a matter of fact, as a mail clerk at a small company uptown. These details were some assurance to James that he was not turning into some drunken creep.

Well, at least he was withstanding the creep part, he amended as Peter handed him a red plastic cup of beer. "This party is awesome!" Peter said. "Let's hang out for a little bit, okay?"

James had to struggle to hear him over the music. "Whatever!" he shouted back. "I'm going outside!"

"What?"

"Outside!"

"WHAT?"

James just rolled his eyes and squeezed his way out to the front porch. He took a deep breath of the cool fresh air and blinked at the dim quiet street, which he found much more appreciable than the raging music and lights of the house.

"James?"

"Huh? Oh." James had looked over to the other side of the deck and saw Mary sitting on the swinging bench.

"Hi," she said, quietly. She had a beer in her hand. It was mostly full.

James, drawing up a bit of nerve, closed the distance between them and sat down next to her. "Nice party, huh?"

She smiled shyly at him. "I guess."

He chuckled. "Yeah, it sucks. I hate these things."

She laughed. He loved the sound. "Lorie asked me to come. She wants me to loosen up, I guess." She raised the beer to him. "This isn't helping."

James looked down at his own cup. "Yeah, it tastes pretty damn awful." He looked over at her, then stared at anything else. "You… uh… don't seem like the kind of girl who goes to these things much."

She placed her cup off to the side. "My aunt would kill me if she knew I was here." She clasped her hands together and pressed them into her lap. "I told her we were seeing a movie. She expects me home not too late." She ducked her head. "Yeah, a curfew, I know. I'm like a kid, I guess."

James smiled. "She just cares about you, is all."

"Lorie says she and Pete never really had one. I don't suppose you did either."

"Well, no… but it's no big deal."

She laughed a bit, and it was plain that she had trouble believing him. She started swinging the bench back and forth a bit. "I can't wait to get out of that house."

"You going to college?"

Mary stared out at the street. "My aunt wanted me to, but… I never really saw myself getting a degree in anything, so I never applied." She chuckled. "She was furious when she found the applications still in my desk."

James raised an eyebrow at her. "Well… what are you gonna do?"

"Lorie's not going anywhere either, and her mom is gonna get her job at the office she works at. She says she can get me an interview too. It'll be just filing at first, but I guess that's fine with me."

"There's nothing you'd rather do?" James asked skeptically.

She glanced over at him and then she looked away. He couldn't tell if she was blushing in the lack of light. "Well, I… Nevermind."

"Oh, you can't do that! Now you have to tell me."

Her eyes flickered to him again, and he was sure she was blushing now. She turned more towards him and looked down at her lap. "All I've really wanted to do is just be a housewife and mother."

James couldn't help staring at her. "Really?"

She nodded. "Really."

"Wow."

"Yeah, used to be a woman getting a career was radical. Now if she wants to stay at home, holy cow, right?"

"Well, I guess. I don't see anything wrong with it, though. I mean, it's your choice."

She smiled at him. "Yeah, that's what I think too. But my aunt, jeez, you'd think I was personally setting back the women's movement fifty years…" Mary trailed off, peering at the street. A car was moving towards the house. "Hey, that looks like--"

"Shit!" James hissed, clumsily dropped his cup onto the porch. Beer spilled over the wood, but he didn't care. He grabbed her arm and dragged her inside the house.

"Where are we going?" Mary asked, bewildered at his quick action.

"Somewhere where we won't get arrested," he said quickly. He spotted Peter nearby. "Pete!" he yelled over the music. "Get going!"

By the look on his face, Peter immediately knew why James was so anxious and he purposely squeezed through the crowd, probably to get his sister. James pushed through the throngs of people all the way to the kitchen in the back of the house and pulled open the back door. Someone at the front of the house started yelling about the cops, and James pulled Mary outside and out of the way of the door before they could get trampled. Her hand tightened in his; he could tell she was frightened. She'd never been in a situation like this before. He just led her through the yard as other people spilled out of the house, many sprinting ahead towards the fence. It was only about three feet high, and a couple hopped it, but the more inebriated tumbled over it.

Peter was suddenly there with Lorie as James and Mary reached the fence. "Fuckin' dumb drunks!" he growled, before kicking at one of the fence's posts. He forced his weight down, and the whole fence fell over with a clatter.

"Peter!" Lorie snapped.

"Shut the hell up and run!" Peter snapped, throwing a glance at James to say the same was meant for him.

With sudden loud shouts from the house, no one in the back yard needed to be told twice. James tightened his grip on Mary's hand and they ran over the fence, into the next back yard, and around the side of the house in front of it to the street. Everyone was scattering. James followed Peter and Lorie who took off into the woods across the road.

"We got runners!" a deep male voice yelled. But it was far off, probably in the party house's backyard.

And they were in the woods now. It wasn't a big forest by any means; just a substantial patch of trees behind Carter Avenue. Beyond it was the local pond by the elementary school. But that was a ways off; about a fifteen minute walk. And walking they were, though briskly. It was difficult to run with the uneven terrain and thickly camped trees. Mary stumbled once in a ditch hidden by a patch of leaves, but James was still holding her hand and was able to hold her up. Peter and Lorie were only a few feet ahead of them, and James could see two others up ahead and hear people following behind them. He figured they weren't cops since there were no flashlights. The only light came from the moonlight filtering through the thickly-leaved branches.

They finally stopped when the trees thinned out and they could see the pond and the neighboring school. Peter turned around and peered into the trees. He visibly relaxed. "I think we're good," he said.

The four wound up in a small playground by the school. The others who had gone through the woods decided not to stick around.

Lorie fell back into a swing. "Holy crap!" she gasped out. "We woulda been in deep shit!"

"You!" Peter snapped. "Do you know how bad we woulda been in trouble in a house of drinking minors?"

Lorie grinned cockily. "Well, you didn't have to be there, did ya?"

Mary sat on a swing next to Lorie. "I wouldn't have gotten out of there if they weren't!" she pointed out, smiling at James. "I didn't know what to do when the cops came down the street."

Lorie gaped at her. "You run in the house and tell us!"

"I know that now!"

James sighed. "We won't be able to get Peter's car for a while. I don't know if the cops saw my face or not."

Peter blew a strand of black hair out of his face. "Dammit," he muttered. Then he chuckled. "That fucking fence."

Lorie was not amused. "I hope no one realizes you did it. I don't want Shelley in my face on Monday."

Mary suddenly laughed. "Oh, man! I never thought that I'd ever have to run from the cops!"

James grinned. "You're a regular felon now."

She looked at him then, excited and face beaming, and though there were butterflies flapping around in his stomach, James didn't look away.

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"James! Stop!" Mary tried to sound serious, but couldn't help laughing as she was pushed higher and higher.

"Nah," he replied breezily. "I think you need to go higher."

"Ahh! Ha ha!" Mary was closing her eyes now, partially-terrified and partly thrilled.

Lorie and Peter exchanged a glance at the two's interaction. Lorie looked down at her watch. "It's, like, almost twelve-thirty. When do you think Mom will start flipping out?"

"What?" Mary suddenly exclaimed. "What time is it?"

At the panicked sound of her voice, James stopped pushing the swing. He instead started to snag it occasionally so it would stop.

"It's twelve-thirty," Lorie said, as Mary swung back and forth with a horrified expression.

"Oh, no!" Mary exclaimed. "I'm late! Aunt Deirdre wanted me home by now!"

James managed to stop the swing entirely. "Well, we'll have to start walking, I guess."

Peter gestured at the woods in the direction of the house they'd run from nearly an hour earlier. "Let's check if it's clear first," he suggested. "We can get the car."

James shook his head. "It's too soon, man." That may or may not have been a lie, and James gave Peter a look that said so. The dark-haired boy stared at him for a minute, then he suppressed a grin and nodded.

"Yeah," Peter said, "would probably be faster if you started walking now. You want me to pick you up somewhere, man?"

James shook his head. "Nah." Mary shifted from one foot to the other impatiently, a deep crease of worry across her forehead. He smiled at her. "C'mon."

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As they walked, Mary relaxed and fell into easy conversation with him. She told him about school and her aunt, and he talked about his new job and his father. James didn't know who had grabbed the other's hand, but their fingers were linked and their hands swung between them as they strolled down the street. James couldn't stop smiling the whole time. He felt warm all over, and he wished that the sidewalk and the night just stretched on forever. If he could have anything, he decided, it would be the power of forever, the ability to will the moment into permanency.

"This is my house," Mary said, stopping.

James stopped too and looked up at the humble two-story, and his smile finally started to fade. The only light was from the front porch. "Looks like no one's awake. You're safe."

"I hope so," Mary said. "Aunt Deirdre trusts me, so I guess she went to bed before twelve."

"You'll just have to be quiet then," James said, looking down at her.

She looked up at him, then suddenly blushed fiercely. "Thank you for walking me home, James. And keeping me out of trouble." She smiled and let go of his hand.

He stopped her before she could walk away. He leaned down and pressed his lips to her cheek. "Good night, Mary."

She giggled, her face a bright red. Seeming to muster a great courage, she returned his kiss, giving him a peck on the cheek. "Good night!" she whispered before hurrying up the front walk and to the door. She noiselessly used the key and slipped inside, glancing back only once with a look of pure giddiness.

James stood in front of the house for a moment or two. Then he set off for home, smiling again.

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