Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for the thing you don't recognize! Song credit to 30 Seconds to Mars

Thanks again for all of the great reviews! I wasn't going to update until tomorrow, but I'm in a good mood so I decided to post anyway. Again, don't worry your questions will be answered soon!

"We were the Kings and Queens of the promise,

We were the victims of ourselves.

Maybe the children of a lesser God

Between heaven and hell, heaven and hell."

King and Queens

Today was the last day of June. It was hard to believe a month had already gone by here in La Push, each day closer to the main reason why I was here in the first place; my sister's wedding. Which reminded me: I still had no idea who could walk my sister down the aisle. How was it that something that was so simple to most everyone else in the country, was just a difficulty to the two of us?

"You look thoughtful." Hunter commented as he sat down next to me on the blanket I had spread out across the sand.

It was a sunny day in La Push today, one of the few since I had been here, and I had decided to take full advantage of it. I'd packed up all of Grace's sand toys, towels, and sunscreen, put her in her cute little polka dot bathing suit and headed for the beach dressed in my own polka dot bathing suit. Hunter had decided to come with us too since he had the day off anyway. So far he had already made Grace three sandcastles which she had immediately destroyed with a wave of her purple shovel.

"Just wondering who could walk my sister down the aisle."

"Yeah, that isn't exactly as easy for you as it would be to others isn't it?"

I nodded.

"Have you thought more about talking to me?"

"I'm not interested."

I hadn't really thought about it, because I had discarded that idea a long time ago. I did not want to open up about it; I never had wanted to. It might have been easy for Cady to reveal family secrets, but it wasn't easy for me. But we all had our strengths and weaknesses.

"Well, I guess all I can do is hope that you change your mind." Hunter sighed as he ran a hand through his short black hair. "Or lock you in a room with me."

I shot him a look and he replied with a cocky grin.

"How's the job going?" I asked, wanting to turn the conversation away from me.

Hunter picked up Grace from where she sat on the edge of the blanket and set her in his lap. She started to pick at his shorts as he absentmindedly ran his hand over her head.

"It's good; I'm finally doing what I've always wanted to do." He replied. "Just the other day I had a major breakthrough with a young high school girl. It was a very empowering moment for me."

"That's good to hear."

"What about you? How do you like your job?"

"You know, that's the funny thing. I never thought I would be good with children, but surprisingly I am. I still get to work with numbers, but I take much more pleasure in taking care of Grace."

"I just realized something." Hunter said with an awestruck look on his face. "I can't believe I didn't see it before."

"What are you talking about?"

"You remind me so much of Holly."

"Holly? As in Paul's older sister?"

"Yeah…oh my gosh, it all makes sense now."

"What are you talking about?"

He turned to me, a somewhat anxious look on his face, "You'll find out eventually."

After that cryptic declaration he stood up, Grace in his arms and ran into the ocean. The sound of their laughter was carried back to me on the wind and I smiled despite the fact that Hunter had just confused the hell out of me.

An hour later I could feel that the skin on my shoulders was burning and called out to where Hunter stood at the edge of the water, Grace on his hip, pointing to something in the distance. He didn't seem to hear me so I finally stood up and walked over to the two of them.

Grace noticed me first and sent me a cute little baby grin. When Hunter turned his head to look down at me, he too was grinning.

"Hey, I'm starting to burn." I stated. "Plus, I believe it is Grace's nap time."

"Alright, party pooper. Let's go."

I rolled my eyes at him before I headed back to the blanket to pack things up into the beach bag. Once we were all ready to go we hopped into his little car and drove back to Paul's house. The ride was short and silent. We both went our separate ways when we entered the house; me upstairs with the baby and Hunter went straight into the downstairs bathroom.

I had just plopped down on the couch when Hunter walked into the room and took the seat across from me in the easy chair.

"My Mom suffered from major depressive disorder throughout my whole life until she died a few years ago." Hunter stated suddenly.

My eyes shot up to his, confused. Why was he telling me this? Was this way of trying to get me to open up to him? It was apparent to me that he probably already knew my story if he had talked to Cady, but that didn't necessarily mean he knew everything.

"Growing up wondering why my Mom never smiled at anything even remotely happy took a toll on me; I thought she hated me. It wasn't until I accidentally enrolled for the psychology class in high school that I finally understood what was wrong with her. My parents were still married, but they weren't really. He cheated on her and had no problem marrying his lover right after she died. Thankfully I had just graduated high school and had my scholarship so I didn't have to go live with him and his new wife." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair before he continued. "That's why I studied what I did. I want to help people like my Mom. I feel that if she had gotten the proper help she would have had the chance to be happy again."

I was quiet for a while, processing all that he told me. He hardly knew me, yet he was willing to share a bunch of information about himself when I disclosed nothing about myself.

"How did your Mom die?" I asked hesitantly.

"She didn't commit suicide if that's what you're thinking." He answered easily. "She had a brain aneurism while she was grocery shopping. I can only be thankful that it was quick and painless."

He took a quit breath and continued on, "Sadie, I just want you to understand that hiding negative emotions is bad. Negative emotions don't make you weird; many psychologists I know have had to have therapy themselves; me included."

I think he was waiting for me to say something, but the connection to my mouth was cut off. I couldn't find anything to say to him at the moment.

"It's alright; I don't expect a miracle today." Hunter smiled gently. "Do you like playing Mario Kart? I think the game is around here somewhere."

* * *

Numbers. I had always liked numbers. Numbers were solid…well unless they were fractions. In money there were decimals but I found a niche that allowed me to work fraction free. In numbers there wasn't any second guessing; there was either a right or wrong answer. It was black or white; no gray areas.

To me this work was almost mindless, especially working on Paul's books. Once they were organized to my liking it was easy for me to work through them in less than a half hour. Unless of course I was interrupted, like I happened to be today.

"Sonofa-"

"Paul?" I called out from his desk as I glanced up at the clock on the wall.

It was just after lunch, Grace was down for her nap, and we had not been expecting Paul home until at least after three since he was working on Mr. McAlister's bathroom. When I didn't get an answer from him, I pushed back the chair and stood up to walk into the living room. He was sprawled out on the couch, one hand holding a cloth to his arm.

"Are you bleeding?" I asked as I marched towards him.

"I'm fine."

"You are obviously not fine."

With that said I snatched the cloth away, gently of course, and looked down at the long gash on his forearm. With wide eyes I looked back up into his eyes. He met my eyes and gave me a look as if to say: 'so what?'

"Paul! We have to take you to the hospital! You should've went there in the first place, you idiot!"

He rolled his eyes, "I can take care of it myself."

"Nope. You stay here and I'll get Grace, then we're going to the hospital."

I didn't give him a chance to refuse me and marched upstairs where Grace was asleep in her crib. I picked her up gently, hoping I wouldn't wake her up as I fastened her into her carrier. Although she stirred a bit she was still asleep when I carried her down the stairs. Once she was fastened into the car I pushed Paul out of the way and got behind the wheel. He shot me a scowl but sat down in the passenger seat anyway, mumbling all the way.

Paul was immediately taken back to see Dr. Pierce, who turned out to be Jared, which left Grace and I to wait in the waiting room surrounded by magazines and uncomfortable blue chairs.

"Sadie?"

I looked up from the magazine I was flipping through and saw Hunter staring down at me. I was used to seeing him in jeans and t-shirts so I was a little surprised to see him in a pair of black slacks and a button down blue shirt.

"What are you doing here?" He asked as he glanced down at where Grace was still asleep in her carrier.

"Paul cut his arm and refused to go to the hospital."

"He's with Jared right?" He asked a bit anxiously.

"Yeah…"

"Good. Well, don't worry about him. He's always healed pretty fast."

"I'm not worried." I shrugged.

At that moment Paul walked through the double doors, his arm covered with a white bandage.

"Good as new." Paul stated easily. "Didn't even need stitches."

"What? How could you not need stitches?!"

"Jared knows what he's doing, now let's go." Paul replied. "See you at home, Hunter."

"Yup." He nodded.

Paul didn't give me a chance to say much more instead he grabbed my hand as well as the baby carrier and dragged me out of the hospital and to the car. He situated Grace in the car seat while I buckled myself in moodily; I was not a rag doll to be dragged around.

"Just how did you cut yourself anyway?" I asked once he was behind the steering wheel.

"Pipe."

"By the way, I do not like being dragged along like a rag doll."

"Oh you're only angry because you weren't right; my cut wasn't as bad as you thought it was." He said smugly as he pulled out onto the road.

"No, I'm mad because you're treating me like I don't know anything."

"Quit turning nothing into something."

"Oh! That's rich coming from you, 'Mr. Where-the-hell-is-my-planner?!'"

"Maybe if you didn't insist on organizing everything I wouldn't get so upset!"

"Don't act like you don't like it; I saw you admiring your DVD organization the other day."

"That's not the point."

"Well-" I was cut off by the sound of Grace crying.

I immediately turned around to look at her; her face scrunched up and red, tears rolling down her chubby cheeks. I felt awful. How could we sit here and argue like that with her sleeping in the back of the car? How could we fight like that at all with her around?

"Our fighting is getting out of hand." Paul said quietly as I danced Fluffy around in front of Grace's face.

Once she was quiet I turned back around and nodded my head in agreement, "I was thinking the same thing."

"Hunter has been pestering me lately about having a sit down between the two of us, with him as mediator."

"Oh?" He had been pestering me too, but that had nothing to do with Paul.

"I think we should do it; for Grace's sake."

I was a little wary of the idea. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for Hunter to back me into a corner. However, I could not ignore the sniffles that were coming from the back of the car. I never wanted our stupidity to cause her to cry again.