Author's Note: Many thanks to all who read and review, and especially to sillygirl19682004 for catching an inconsistency between chapter 3 of this story and chapter 9 of Through the Flames. I have corrected Johnny's father's name to James Roderick Gage in this story. Thanks also to my beta readers, katbybee and Piscean6724. You are awesome!

Without further ado, I hope you all enjoy Chapter 4!

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Chapter 4

Sarah Kate watched through the window as the paramedics and their families played in the courtyard. The one called Roy was busy at the grill, cooking dinner. The smell of burgers and hot dogs made her tummy growl. She had been wanting to go out and introduce herself to them ever since she got home from school, but something had held her back. She wasn't sure what it was, because she longed to be a part of their happiness, even if only for a day or two. Maybe it was because she hadn't been part of a family for a long time, and she wasn't quite sure any more how it worked.

Mama had left so long ago that Sarah Kate didn't remember her very well. Oh, she had snatches of memory sometimes, but nothing she could latch onto and make a solid picture in her mind of what the woman was like. Daddy said Mama left because she was tired of being a mom and a wife. She didn't like the responsibility. He said Mama was one of those people who never really grow up all the way.

Sarah Kate didn't have a lot of memories of her dad from when she was little, either. He wasn't home when Mama left, so Sarah Kate went to live with her grandparents in Bakersfield. She liked living there. Daddy would come visit sometimes and bring her presents and ask how school was going and then he would go away, and she never knew when she might see him again. After Gramma got sick a little over a year ago, Grampa couldn't handle raising a kid, so Sarah Kate was sent to live with Aunt Judy and Uncle Pete. Daddy came a week after Gramma's funeral and had a big fight with them and took Sarah Kate away. She was glad to go. Aunt Judy and Uncle Pete weren't anything like Gramma. And Michael… well, the thought of her cousin sent chills up Sarah Kate's spine.

The two of them moved around a lot after that… Detroit… Denver… New York… and, finally, Seattle. Whenever they moved, it was in the middle of the night. Daddy made a game out of it. No one could know they were DiAngelos or that she used to live in Bakersfield. It was a fight, even, to keep the name Sarah Kate, but she could be stubborn when she had to be. So here she was, Sarah Kate DiAngelo, who everyone thought was Sarah Kate Hamilton — she even had a birth certificate that said so! She didn't attend school or make friends until this year because Daddy wasn't here to tell her she couldn't, but before he went away, he taught her a lot about what he called self-reliance and street smarts. He's the one who made her learn to sign the name Mark D. Hamilton exactly like he did. He also read to her lots because he said she needed an education and the best place to get it was books. Wherever they went, she always found a library where she could read for hours for free.

What she wanted most, though, was to be like other kids. When Daddy didn't come back to get her from the hotel, she was a little excited at first because she could do things he would never have let her do. She registered for school and she made friends and played with them at the park and even went to a birthday slumber party at Chelsea's house. She had come up with a whole story about the Hamilton family so the other kids wouldn't think she was too weird. But she wished she had a mom and dad who took care of her. At school she sometimes watched the little kids when their parents picked them up from Kindergarten. They got lots of big smiles and hugs, and it made her feel sick inside because she wanted that too. She also watched her fourth-grade classmates groan and roll their eyes when their moms and dads tried to hug them in public, and she didn't understand why they would do that. If her mom and dad were here, she wouldn't care who saw them hug her. So she watched Roy and Junior and Matt and their families out the window and imagined herself belonging to them.

It was easy to see that the two babies went with Junior and his wife. The girl was JoJo and the boy was Jamie and their mom was Nita. Matt had a wife too, but Sarah Kate hadn't learned her name yet. The bigger kid was called DJ and his parents were Roy and JoAnne. Sarah Kate thought DJ had Down Syndrome like a boy she used to see sometimes at Grandma's church. She wasn't sure what she thought about that — the big kids made fun of Riley behind his back at church, especially when he couldn't say his words right, but Grandma said never judge anyone by the challenges life gives them, and Sarah Kate liked that way of thinking better than the teasing, so she figured she could at least give DJ a chance.

Nobody noticed Sarah Kate watching. They didn't notice Ramona either, but Sarah Kate did. Ramona was watching the whole group while she went about her work, but mostly she was watching little JoJo.

Finally, Sarah Kate set her pencil down and put her books away. She pulled on a jacket and headed outside just as Roy was flipping the burgers on the grill. Maybe he had made enough for an extra person.

As she approached the playground, Sarah Kate smiled at DJ. "Hi," she said when he smiled back. He had a nice smile. A real smile, not like the sixth graders at school who pretended to smile and then said mean things about you when they thought you weren't listening. "I'm Sarah Kate."

"I'm DJ. Wanna swing?" He jumped down from the single regular swing on the set (the other two were baby swings) and held his hand toward it, inviting her to climb on.

"Thanks!" Sarah Kate had a seat and started pumping. She liked to swing as high as she could, pointing her feet and aiming her toes at the sky. Sometimes if she got going high enough, she could make the creaky old swing set shift slightly, and that would send a thrill and just a little bit of terror through her. DJ watched her go higher and higher, his eyes sparkling and his smile broadening each time she passed him.

When Roy called out, "DJ, dinner time!" Sarah Kate stopped pumping and let the toes of her old tennies drag in the dirt to slow her down. Once she was nearly stopped, she jumped off and followed DJ to the picnic area. DJ patted on the picnic bench next to him. "C'mon, Sarah Kate. We got lots."

"DJ," his mom said, "will you introduce your friend?"

He grinned and blushed and set down the hot dog he had just picked up. "Oh yeah. This is Sarah Kate. She's good at swings." He made a wide swinging motion with his hand. "She goes real high!"

"Hello, Sarah Kate. I'm Joanne. I'm pleased to meet you." DJ's mom had a smile just as real as her little boy's. "Like DJ said, we've got plenty. But you should make sure it's OK with your parents before you join us."

Sarah Kate chewed her lower lip. "I don't have a mom, and Dad's not here right now." Then she brightened. "But Ramona looks after me… I can ask her." It was sort of true, after all. At JoAnne's nod of approval, she hopped down from the bench and hustled off to the laundry room, where she had last seen Ramona.

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Johnny watched the dark-haired girl trot away from the table. She looked way too skinny. "From the looks of her, Sarah Kate could use two or three hamburgers," he commented. "She looks like it's been a while since her last good meal."

"She was in the breakfast room this morning," Matt threw in. He was busy stacking burger patties, cheese slices, and tomatoes on a bun. "I noticed her clearing tables and thought maybe her mom worked here. But yeah, she's pretty skinny."

"She looks familiar," Melissa said. "I can't think where, but I'm sure I've seen her before."

"Ya know," Matt said, stopping his burger halfway to his mouth. "I thought the same thing when I saw her this morning. There's just something about her face."

"Never saw her before in my life," Johnny said. He finished cutting up a hot dog into small pieces, then swooped JoJo into his lap. She grabbed a piece in her chubby hands, dunked it in ketchup, and shoved it in her mouth.

"She seems lonely," Nita said softly as she bounced Jamie on her knee.

A minute later, Sarah Kate came running back. "Ramona says it's fine!" she said, her eyes dancing. She settled into a spot between DJ and Matt. "I'm not allergic to anything," she announced, "and I really love hot dogs!"

"Well then," Johnny said, passing her a plate with a couple of hot dogs and buns and a mound of potato chips on it. "Dig in! There's more where that came from!"

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Sarah Kate had more fun over the next couple of hours than she'd ever had since she could remember. Besides DJ, she felt most drawn to Matt and Melissa. Matt was fun and could be silly, but he also had a gentle way about him that made her feel like he could be trusted; and even though Melissa sometimes got this pinched look around her eyes that made it look like she didn't feel good, she still smiled a lot. Everyone in this group smiled a lot, and they were all real smiles, like DJ's. Like Gramma's, she thought wistfully.

By the time the picnic was winding down because the babies were getting cranky and DJ was yawning and Melissa needed to rest, Sarah Kate didn't want it to end. She supposed it had to, though. She needed to be more careful, anyway. It was dumb to get too close to anyone when they would just be going away in a few days and she would never see them again. Get over it, Sarah Kate… that's just how things go, she told herself. Nobody good actually sticks around.

But then DJ tugged on JoAnne's sleeve and said, "Mama Bear, can my friend come to the zoo with us tomorrow? Please?" He held up his stuffed bear Taco and pretended it was talking. "Yeah, Mama Bear, please?"

The sense that she ought to distance herself warred with Sarah Kate's longing to be part of a family, to belong. It didn't put up much of a fight, though. When JoAnne seemed willing, Sarah Kate felt her heart thump faster and she blurted out, "Oh yes! Please!" before she could think better of it.

"Now hold on just a second," Roy said. "Didn't you say you have school tomorrow? And we would need to talk to your dad, anyway."

Sarah Kate had to think fast. "Oh, I almost forgot, Mr. DeSoto… tomorrow's an in-service day. We don't have school." She didn't like lying as a rule, but she was good at it when she had to be. She knew she could convince Ramona to call school and say she was sick. "Could my dad write you a note, or let Ramona know if it's OK? He has to work till real late tonight, and he always leaves early in the morning, before I even wake up. I can pay my own way… or at least… he'll give me money so I can."

Roy wrinkled his forehead like he wasn't buying it and shot a look at Johnny. Matt frowned. But after a minute JoAnne said, "I think that would be fine, don't you, Honey?"

"Yeah, Daddy," DJ added. "I want my friend to see bears with me. Please?"

After a long silence, Roy threw up his hands. "All right, then. Sarah Kate, I want a note and I want Ramona to talk with your dad. If he tells her it's OK, then you can go along."

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Matt sat cross-legged on the bed next to Melissa, who lay stretched out on her side. Firmly but gently, his fingers massaged the back of her neck, spreading out from there to work the tension out of her upper back. Both were quiet for a while, until finally Melissa broke the silence.

"You're still thinking of her, aren't you?"

"Sarah Kate?" Matt found a particularly troublesome knot and started working at it. Melissa gave a soft moan of pleasure. "Yeah. There's something about her."

"I don't know. But Nita is right — she looks lonely. Something's wrong th —" Whatever Melissa had been going to say was cut off by a sharp gasp. Clapping her hands over her mouth, she scrambled off the bed and made a beeline for the bathroom. Concerned, Matt followed. He found her kneeling over the commode, so he knelt beside her to support her and hold her hair out of the way.

By the time her stomach was empty, she was trembling. Matt helped her up. He hovered close while she brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth, then he guided her back to bed. Sometimes the migraines made her nauseous, but this had been beyond the usual. "Maybe we shouldn't have come," he said as he helped her back into bed.

"No, Matt." She reached for his hand and gave it a weak squeeze. "I… I wanted to come. I'm glad we came."

He caught her hesitation. "Baby, what's wrong?" He started gently massaging her back again. "How can I make things better?"

She huffed, and her tone hardened and her whole body went rigid. "Sometimes you can't, Matt," she snapped.

Matt set his jaw, forcing himself not to respond with the angry words that danced on the tip of his tongue. It wouldn't do any good, and, as much as her rapidly changing moods frustrated him, they weren't her fault. Like the migraines and the reading difficulties, the moodiness was an after-effect of the head injury she'd suffered last year. She'd gotten a lot better over the last several months, but lately she hadn't been feeling good and was struggling again. Love is patient, he recited silently, and his frustration began to fade. Love is kind… it isn't easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs... It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.*

Under his hands, Melissa went suddenly limp, and she burst into tears. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You try so hard and all I do is yell at you." She sobbed into her pillow, and Matt caught a muffled, "I don't deserve you."

"Hey, Honey… hey," he soothed, "it's OK. It's not your fault." His hands moved from her back to her head, and he stroked her hair. "I know how bad your headaches get. Did you take your meds? I can get them for you."

"No." She sniffled. "Just… run me a bath, please. And make sure all the lights are out." Her refusal of her migraine meds was no surprise. She'd always said they made her feel lousy. They made the nausea worse, and the doctor had warned that if she took them too much, they could start causing headaches instead of relieving them.

Matt gave her a light kiss on the forehead. "You got it," he whispered. "We're going to get through this, honey." Then he slipped quietly from the bed and headed to the bathroom. As he started the bathwater, he breathed a silent prayer for his wife.

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Before going to bed that night, after talking with Ramona, Sarah Kate wrote a note in her very best cursive. She signed it with Daddy's signature, which she'd gotten really good at imitating. Ramona had promised to call school in the morning and tell them she was sick, and then Sarah Kate would have the whole day to pretend she was part of a family.

When she climbed into bed, she didn't tell Daddy good night the way she usually did. Instead, she cried a little even though Daddy had told her that tears were for babies, and she talked to her grandmother in Heaven. "G'night Gramma. I miss you. Please tell God I don't like being alone anymore." Gramma would have told her she could talk to God herself, but God hadn't ever listened to her about anything and maybe he would listen to her grandmother.

She wiped her face dry with a tissue and turned off her light, then hugged her pillow and closed her eyes. Somehow, she felt a little bit better.

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NOTES:

*Snippets from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Matt is focusing on the particularly relevant bits.