Thanks to Jean-Moddalle for reviewing.

This chapter is for Nathan, and of course, he just like every other character need something in the chapter that isn't in the others. I have been thinking a bit back and forth about how to write this chapter and decided to bring in the theme of racism. I get that my knowledge of racism is limited since I'm white. I'll do my best. But also, I just wanted to make sure that what I write is the point of view as the characters not of myself. And I have put into the chapter, what suited the story.

If anyone thinks it's way too racist and that I- as a white person, shouldn't have written it, let me know in a review or pm and I'll delete the chapter, come up with something else and write a new one.

Rachel looks like Parker Yeager

Nathan McHugh

If I had known what all of these people were clapping for as we came into the airport…

Oh well, right when we came into the airport I didn't have time to worry about that, I turned my head to the right first, then to the left and saw my family.

Never before had I ran so slowly but so fast.

First to my mum- dad wasn't a hugger, really. But he did give me one from the side.

Then I took my five-year old little sister up in my arms and span around with her. Rachel screamed with laughter before I had to put her down and after some hesitation, I shook hands with my stepdad.

I suddenly remembered how I and Daniel hadn't spent a minute since he came into our lives getting along. And we'd had a fight at the latest the morning before we left.

Oh well, maybe it was finally time to let those go. Even though we'd both been too proud to do it before.

Speaking about too proud, I couldn't remember mum and dad ever standing right next to each other like this without fighting.

I would have stopped to think that there were never bad things that came with good. But right now, as mum and dad weren't fighting with each other, and I wasn't fighting with Daniel I was more concentrated on finally getting to go home.

"I missed you Nate." Rachel said, I'd never let anyone else call me Nate. "Lots and lots."

After spinning so many laps with her it made me dizzy I put her on the floor again, when she didn't want to let go of me I took her by the hand as we went to grab my bag and then go home.

Barely seeing it I saw how Daley had started to collect people's bags, I saw her take Eric's and go to him leaving it.

"Hold on for a bit." I told my family. "I have to go and talk to her."

"I just has to do something." She told me, reaching for her own bag and Lex's. "But I guess. After everything…" She couldn't find a way to end what she was saying. "After everything…"

"You don't have to be the leader anymore." I told her. "You don't have to take responsibility for anyone else anymore." She nodded slightly and I couldn't help but notice her eyes seemed wet and shiny. Meanwhile, I could see where their dad carried Lex outside and out from the airport. "Lex has done it well." I told Daley, watching how his dad carried him out from the airport. wishing I could tell her exactly how much I meant it. "Especially thinking about how much younger he is than us. And we all know each other from school too." I gave her a meaning look and even though I knew I couldn't put in words what I wanted. Maybe she could see…

"I know." Daley looked back at her parents ready to go. "I can feel it too…" She started backing away from me. "See you at school on Monday then I guess."

"See you."

"Hey Doggie."

I looked away from Daley when I heard my sister speaking, a dog wearing a vest came running and went around the place sniffing one here and one there while Rachel tried to pet it.

"Don't do that Rach." I held her back. "You see that vest she's wearing? It means she's at work and you can't disturb her."

"Dogs can have jobs?"

"Yeah! Cool huh."

"Oh. Sch then." Rachel started whispering. "Let's not disturb her."

"Come here. We can just get my bag and then we can all go home."

I should have just let one of my white friends do it. But right then the only thing I thought about was getting home and that soon.

Before I threw the backpack over my shoulder the dog came running up to me. She sniffed at the backpack a couple of times, just like she had on a couple of others' then she turned and continued in another direction.

I breathed out when I saw the guard who had her turn away from me.

But I shouldn't have been surprised in the slightest when the guard came up to me out of all people in the airport.

"Excuse me. I think you better come with us."

I couldn't even suppress that sigh- of course! How couldn't I have seen this coming?

I just wanted to go home, I hadn't been home for a month that felt like a million years- that except for my family, had my bed and a bathtub and a stove to cook on, running water to turn on that didn't need to be boiled before.

I hoped that my mum, my sister and stepdad would know what I meant when I hoped the look I gave them was something about that they could just go home and wouldn't have to be kept back by racist airport-staff.

"Well. Kacey here…" The guard gestured towards his dog. "Seemed to smell something from your backpack. And you probably know that it will just be ea…"

I didn't have to hear the rest, I just pulled the backpack off and handed it to the two guards that had come with me into one room with grey-painted walls, one table with a chair on each side of it.

"You can just stay standing up… Do you have anything sharp on you?"

Suddenly someone was feeling every little piece of my body and every pocket.

"Not in my pockets. I have a knife and… well. I can promise you I have needed that the past few weeks…" The guard only looked at me. "The side pocket of my backpack."

Now, where on earth would these people think I'd gotten drugs from? Or something sharp that was for something else than what I had used it for lately?

Finally I was let to slump down in the chair while the guard sat down on the other side.

"So, what was it that happened? To the plane I mean?"

"There was a storm. And Captain Russell tried to steer the plane to go around it which is why we ended up off track. Then the storm came anyway, a lightning hit the plane and the motors failed. We crashed on an island where there were no people and that's where we were for four weeks."

"And we've been told you were found when you turned a light up towards the sky. Who did that?"

"Lex- the little boy, he took the light from the airplane and turned it towards the ocean so if any boat came by they'd see it. And then, that last night Daley- his sister thought of turning the light towards the skies…"

The guard kept on asking questions about things that I had more or less to do with. And Kacey the dog sat and stared at me as if she wanted to tell her owner there was something wrong but couldn't tell what.

Then at last a guard came back with my backpack in one hand and the knife I had once gotten from my granddad in the other.

"We're holding onto this one. But, as you might or might not know there wasn't anything else to find in your backpack. So you're free to go."

At last I could get up, take my backpack and threw it back over my shoulder while I went back to my family that had stayed waiting for me. Once again I took Rachel by the hand coming out into the big airport as we went towards the doors and were finally on our way home.

"WAIT."

When we heard someone shouting after us I swore under my breath, what was it they wanted now?

When we turned I saw a guy, no more than in his twenties, e held something under his shirt and took me to the side.

"Here." He whispered, pulled my knife out from where he hid it and gave it back to me. "Sorry for all the trouble they caused you. Now this one seems like it mattered a lot…"

I was really not so sure what to say. Should I say thanks? The guy was white-skinned so maybe I should make a comment of how we were treated at a place like this compared to himself.

"…But I'm not supposed to do this so you didn't get it back from me. Okay?"

I still couldn't get one word out…

"Welcome home."

And gone, back into the airport the guy was and had soon disappeared out of our sight.

Two minutes ago I couldn't go home fast enough. Now, for just a few moments I just stood there and looked down on that knife.

"Nate?" Rachel tugged my hand. "Aren't you coming?"

"Yeah." I lowered my hand at last and laid the other on my sister's soft, yellow hair. "I am…"

Only barely making it from the island before a storm ten times worse than the one we got through, the plane crash itself, finding food and water…

I could only imagine how close all of us had been to death during these four weeks…

Maybe now I was still around, hopefully for many years to come. I would be around to see the day that for me to come through the security at the airport would be no different than for my classmate's.

Now two of the guys in the story has really small, blonde little sisters. So I guess I'll drop that for the rest of the story.

Random facts

A colleague of my mum's once told me about how she and her husband were in an airport and the dog was going around, the dog then stopped to smell her husband's bag and she was like "Uh-oh" and got really nervous, then they didn't have anything so the dog just kept going but they had a bit of a scare.