The sensation of something warm trickling onto her top lip quickly caught Aria's attention and she wiped at it with the back of her hand, pulling it away to find blood smeared across her skin. Not wanting anyone to see, she led Andy up to Angelo's with his t-shirt held over her nose and made her way straight inside.

"What happened?" Brax inquired as soon as he spotted her, shifting his gaze to Andy and ushering her to a seat at the bar.

"Danny," Aria answered, removing Andy's t-shirt and letting Brax assess the damage, "He attacked Andy out of nowhere and I tried to get him off, but ended up getting elbowed."

"I'm gonna kill him," Brax added, apologizing as Aria flinched away from his touch, "We need to get your nose checked out at the hospital."

Sat in the examination room a while later, Aria let Sid look her over and grimaced as he touched her nose.

"Well, it's definitely broken, but I'm pretty sure that medical intervention isn't necessary and should heal up nicely on its own," Sid told them, "Due to the fact that she has other facial injuries, I would like to send her for a CT scan... just to make sure that there's nothing else going on that I can't see."

"Of course."

It was two hours, before she was released and they headed home. Laid on the sofa with an ice pack on her nose, Aria felt her eyes grow heavy and allowed herself to drift off. She wasn't sure how long she was asleep for, but the sound of her brothers arriving home soon woke her up and she pushed herself into a sitting position.

"What the hell happened to you?" Heath asked as he leaned over the back of the sofa.

"Danny happened," Brax answered before she could speak, emerging from the kitchen and handing Aria a fresh ice pack.

"Why would dad do that?"

"Why does Danny do anything that he does?" Casey added.

Aria saw the argument coming and retreated to her room, putting on her headphones to drown out the raised voices. She knew that Heath had this ideal scenario in his head, where Danny really had changed and would finally step up to the plate... but it would only ever be an idea.

Unfortunately, like the saying a leopard never changes its spots, Danny would never change and Heath just couldn't accept that fact. It wasn't long before she heard the front door slam and she sighed, knowing that either Brax or Heath had stormed out.

She had been working on her school work for nearly two hours, when her phone chimed and she opened the new text from Andy.

'Meet me at the beach.'

Anxiety stirred in her chest as she got ready, letting Brax know where she was going and making her way down to the beach. Andy was already waiting when she arrived and Aria hesitated, before moving over to where he was standing.

"Hey," Aria mumbled.

"Hey, how'd it go at the hospital?"

"My nose is broken, but it should heal in a few weeks..."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault... I wasn't going to just stand by and let him hurt you," Aria stated with a shrug, "Did he do any serious damage?"

"Nothing major, I promise," Andy reassured her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and kissing her head, "You know that this doesn't affect us, right?"

"To be honest, I wasn't sure... Danny just beat the crap out of you."

"Exactly, Danny did that and I know you well enough to know that you are nothing like him," Andy told her, moving to stand in front of her and lifting her chin with his thumb.

Without hesitation, she kissed him and snaked her arms around his neck as he deepened it. It felt like hours, before they pulled apart and Andy pecked her lips one last time before pulling her into a hug. Danny had ruined her life over and over again, but this was one thing that she refused to let him take away from her.

Author's Notes: Thank you to everyone who is still reading this! Coming up in the next chapter: Aria and Brax have a conversation about her relationship with Andy.