Chapter 6

"Are you feeling better now, kiddo?"

Sarah nodded against Tony's chest and sat up, drying her damp cheeks with her hands. She looked up at him and was met by his warm smile and kind eyes. She frowned. No-one had ever looked at her like that before, like they actually meant it. Without thinking, Sarah flung her arms around Tony's neck and hugged him as hard as she could, buried her nose at his neck and breathed in his smell, forever etching it into her mind. She didn't want to forget him.

"Thank you, Tony", she mumbled.

"You're welcome, Sarah", Tony replied and hugged her back. "Are you ready to climb down now? There's someone I'd like you to meet."

Sarah withdrew a little to look into Tony's eyes, not letting go of his neck. "Who?"

"My... um... boyfriend. But don't tell him I called him that. He hates it."

Sarah gave Tony a skeptic look. "You're gay?"

Tony blinked in surprise at the question, but then he laughed heartily and shook his head.

"No", he said. "No, I'm not gay. At least not according to me. You see, Jethro is the only man I've ever loved and ever will love. We are soul mates. Life partners. I love him more than I have loved any woman I've ever dated. When you truly love someone, it doesn't matter who they are, as long as you know that you'll spend the rest of your life with them."

Sarah chewed on her lower lip as she pondered what Tony just had said. She had been deprived of love her entire life and had just recently begun to understand what love should be about, but Tony's words were a little too much for her young mind to comprehend.

"I don't think I understand", she said and looked anxiously at the young man, but he just smiled and reassuringly caressed her cheek with a finger.

"You will understand", he said. "Some day. Come on. Let's go back."

Sarah nodded and crawled over to the branch she had been lying on. She waited until Tony had begun climbing down before start climbing herself. Almost down she felt Tony's strong hands grab her by the waist and lift her the last few feet to the ground. They walked side by side through the big park toward the house, both of them deep in their own thoughts. Sarah looked up at Tony once in a while and wondered how it would be to have him as a father, him and that Jethro he had been talking so fondly about. She had craved for a real family for months now, but none of those who had visited the orphanage since she had arrived there had been the least interested in her. She also knew that Tony probably wouldn't choose her, either. She didn't understand why he was so nice to her, and he was also the first who actually seemed to understand her. She had been surprised when he had let her rage instead of telling her to calm down and talk about how she felt, and that he had just held her when she cried. She wasn't used to that.

It was very seldom that Sarah cried. She had learned to control her tears, mostly because she would've got beaten, or worse, if she let her tears show, and that was so deep-seated in her that she didn't dare to cry even since she got to the orphanage. But her feelings had been building inside her for the last few days and when Tony made her snap, she hadn't been able to hold back the tears. She had just let herself go, for the first time in months. And despite the fact that he was a stranger, she had felt completely safe in his arms. Actually safe. As soon as his arms had been wrapped around her, she had just known that he wouldn't hurt her and that she could just let herself cry and get rid of the frustrations.

"Tony", Sarah asked then and looked up at the man by her side.

"Yeah?"

"How's Jethro like?"

"Well, he's very practical. And loyal. He takes care of all who are close to him. When we're at home, he's kinda laid-back, but at work he's focused and doesn't let anything get in his way to get the job done. He isn't much of a talker, but he's a good listener, and you can always go to him when you need to talk. I think that summons it all up pretty well."

"Do you think he'll like me?"

"I know he will, Sarah. Trust me."

It didn't take long before they were back by the house. Sarah frowned when she saw that a group of children were building a tree house and felt a pang of jealousy. She had never built a tree house before, but she knew better than to try and join in. The others would just start to call her names and stuff when she did, and she was getting sick of it.

Suddenly a silver-haired man Sarah had never seen before jumped down from the merely started tree house and came walking towards them. By Tony's warm grin she could tell that the other man probably was Jethro. She regarded him curiously and felt instinctively that he could be trusted too. It was something with his eyes. They were kind eyes, just like Tony's, and when he smiled at her, she couldn't help but smile back.

She watched the two men walk a few feet a way from her and heard Tony whisper something with an eager voice. Jethro was listening intently to him the entire time and then his eyes turned to Sarah, giving her a thoughtful look.

"Are you sure, Tone?" he asked, his eyes not leaving Sarah for a second.

"Yeah, I'm sure, Jet", Tony replied calmly. "I haven't been so sure of anything in my entire life."

TBC