Thank you to cabrera1234 for the follow! I'm so glad you like the story.

~~Peter~~

I shiver, tears still staining my face. I pull the blanket first responders gave me tighter around myself. Aunt May is here, but it barely registers as I try and figure out what happened. One second Ben was with me. He was laughing, he was teasing me about MJ, and we were taking the usual shortcut through the ally way.

And then there was a guy there. And he had a mask. And a gun. And then… and then….

And then what happened? I struggle to remember, and realize my nose is running. I wipe it, and then can feel fresh tears coming down my face because I can't remember. The police asked me over and over in a hundred different ways and I can't remember. I start full-on crying again, because I know that without my testimony, without my memories, this guy won't go to jail. There are no other witnesses. They can't find the gun. The guy doesn't even have blood on him. There is nothing to tie him to this without my testimony. So why can't I just remember?

"Oh, honey," May's voice is breaking, and as she wraps her arms around me I can feel the tears on her face.

I feel like crap for ignoring her. She's obviously hurting so much more than I am right now, and all I could do was get angry at myself. "I'm fine, May," my voice is gentle as I hug her back. "Are you okay?"

She cries harder. "Oh, honey," she repeats her words over and over, her voice getting quieter each time.

Someone is running toward us, pushing past the police lines and shoving the officers away as they try to stop her from getting to me and May. I want to cry again as I see Avery's concerned but determined expression. "Oh my gods, Peter. Oh my gods," She says, running up to me and May.

Aunt May takes a shaky breath before speaking, and I feel like my heart is being wrenched out of my heart as I hear her voice hitch. "Are- are you… one of Peter's friends?" May asks.

Avery's eyes soften as her attention turns to May, and she doesn't say anything as she wraps my aunt in a hug. My recent acquaintance and my aunt who's raised me since my parents died hugging after my uncle died is almost to much to get my head around, but all of my thoughts are wiped from my head as I see that Avery is actually making it better.

"Breathe, just breathe," she says softly, rocking May back and forth. May's tears aren't nonexistent, but they don't look like they hurt nearly as much. They aren't body-racking sobs anymore, but soft and silent tears sliding down her cheeks as she struggles to pull herself together.

Usually silent tears hurt the most, but Avery being here somehow makes them hurt the least.

We're all back at my apartment- Avery, her sister Alex, May, and me. And I know that this is something I should be happy about, us all being together.

But I can't help thinking about the person who's not with us.

Alex is asleep on the couch, her tiny six-year-old form scrunched up in a ball. Somehow, she looks very comfortable. Avery is sitting at the table with my aunt, listening to her sob-ridden voice talk about Uncle Ben. Avery told me that it'd be good for her to get it all out and not have it balled up inside, but it still sucks to hear May talk about Ben in the past tense.

I guess I'll have to get used to it, though.

I'm still trying to remember what happened in the alleyway. Avery wouldn't let me talk to anyone other than a few simple questions when I confessed that I was drawing a blank about tonight's events—something about witnesses being unreliable after talking to other people, especially when they can't remember what happened. She wouldn't even let anyone suggest how things might've played out, not wanting me to accidently convince myself of something that didn't happen.

Honestly, Avery should be a police officer. Or maybe she should work with the FBI.

FBI?

FLASHBACK:

Uncle Ben is there in the alleyway. "Oh, come on, Peter," he's saying. He's laughing, that deep chuckle May always said proved he was Santa's brother when I was little. "You have to tell me about her! Do you get butterflies in your stomach when you think of her? Do you-" he gasps, but I know it's for dramatic purposes. "Peter, do you love her?"

"Ben!" I exclaim, my face flushing brick red. "The first time I really talked to her was last night!"

He laughs his deep chuckle again. "Well, you never know," he says. "You know I thought your aunt was an FBI agent on our first date?" He sighs as if he's reminiscing about his younger days.

"No you didn't," I say, bumping him with my shoulder.

I hear a gunshot, and grab for my usually slow uncle's arm- but he's not there. I know he wouldn't leave me alone with a trigger-happy gunman, and I slowly turn to where my uncle was.

"No! No, no, no…"

He's crumpled on the ground, a pool of blood surrounding him. I spot the bullet hole in his chest amongst the blood and drop to my knees.

I don't even have to check his pulse to know he's dead.

Suddenly I know why my subconscious fought so hard to forget that moment.

Because if I hadn't bumped his shoulder, if I hadn't given him that little nudge to the left, the bullet wouldn't have gone through his heart.

HOLY SHIZZLE, I didn't even PLAN that ending. But, woah, am I glad I thought of it while I was writing the flashback. Holy fudge.

Anyways, thank you so much for reading (even when my chapters suck/are very, very short). I'm still waiting on a response from LeiaHestia on the soundtrack thing, so until he/she/they/whatever-they-want-to-be-called gets back to me I'm gonna wait on adding it in. Please comment if you read this chapter (and have time to comment)- I'm not actually sure if anyone's reading this. But, if you are, thanks again for reading!

-Lover of everything books