A/N: I'm prouder than I should be of this chapter's title. :P

The next morning, I woke up to the sun on my face and birds chirping outside. I slowly sat up and looked around. I had no indication of the time, but I guessed that it was around mid-morning; maybe eight or nine o'clock. I climbed out of the bed and took a shower before getting dressed. I was wearing my jeans again, but today I chose a simple black t-shirt.

I headed downstairs and immediately walked into the kitchen. There I found Luda Mae washing the breakfast dishes.

"Good morning," I said as I walked into the room. She looked up and smiled before returning the greeting. "Do you know where Tommy is?" I asked.

"He's down at the factory," she responded while drying off the last of the dishes. Before I could even ask how to get there, she started telling me as if she had read my mind. "You can get there by heading out the back door and following the path through the woods. Eventually you'll come across a razor wire fence. Just step through carefully and you should be fine. The fence blocks off a field and if you just head over the hill you should see the factory." I thanked her and quickly headed out the back door after grabbing some toast.

The factory was exactly where she had said it would be. I hopped the chain link fence surrounding it and began my search for a way in. As I rounded the corner I found myself staring at several different types of farm animals. Cows, sheep and pigs moved about in their separate pens, occasionally mooing, bleating and oinking as they saw fit. I walked around the animal pens and spotted a metal door on the other side of the area. I moved toward it and found it unlocked.

I quickly slipped inside and looked around. I was in a room with several hooks and knives hanging from various places. It reminded me of the Hewitt's basement. Another door was on the far wall. I opened it and saw that it led to a dingy hallway. I followed the hallway to a fork in the path. I wasn't sure which way to go so I turned down the right-hand path and hoped that it would lead me to Tommy. I followed the hallway to the end and found myself in another part of the factory. Several worktables were organized in rows and columns and above them I could see an office with a window that allowed the boss to look down on his employees.

Across the room I heard a loud bang that caused me to jump. Turning, I spied a solitary figure standing at one of the tables. He had a cleaver in one hand and was chopping a piece of meat into smaller chunks. I moved over to him quietly and hopped up on the table behind him. I sat there for a while silently observing him as he worked. He moved faster than I expected as he brought the cleaver down then quickly brought a new piece in front of him as he raised the blade again. As soon as his hand was high enough he brought it back down and cut the meat with extreme precision.

"Having fun?" I asked causing him to jump. He turned a little before nodding and returning to what he was doing.

"What are you doing?" I ask while swinging my legs back and forth.

He put the cleaver down and turned around to face me. "I was getting you something to eat," he said though continued after he saw the confused look I gave him, "It looked like you didn't want to eat what the rest of us eat so I was getting you something else." He said in his usually quiet voice.

A smile spread across my face, as I understood what he was doing. I hopped off the table and crossed over to him. "Thanks, Tommy," I said and hugged him.

I looked up at him and he leaned forward as if to kiss me again but I pulled away from him. Tommy looked confused and I'm sure I had guilt somewhere on my face.

"Tommy, I need to talk to you about something."

Immediately his body tensed. "You want to leave, don't you?"

I looked down at the ground and thought carefully before answering. "I don't really know. I mean I like you and Momma, but Hoyt scares me."

"I won't let him hurt you." He said in the most convincing voice that he could muster at the time.

"Why?" I asked with a calmness that betrayed another meaning. It was a question I had posed before but this time I wasn't a hysterical mess and actually wanted him to think about it. Tommy stared at me confused. "Why would you stop your uncle from hurting me when you've known him for your whole life and you've only known me for a couple days?"

"You don't want me to keep you safe?" he asked trying to see where I was going with my question.

"No, that's not what I'm saying. That's definitely not what I'm saying. I just mean that we don't really know each other, but it seems like there's already this thing between us," I said barely glancing up at his face to see how he was reacting. I stood there watching the gears turn in his head as he processed what I had said and I couldn't help but feel guilty. Not for wanting to leave, but for making him think I did. I realized that despite the circumstances by which I arrived at this place, I actually wanted to stay. I wanted things to work here.

"So… You want to get to know each other?" he ventured, drawing me out of my thoughts.

A small smile appeared on my lips as I looked up to him. He looked so hopeful that I couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah, I guess so," I replied.

I saw the muscles in Tommy's face pull his lips into a smile. Without warning he closed the gap between us and lifted me up and set me back on the table I had been sitting on before. "What do you want to know?" he asked while standing in front of me.

I thought for a moment. I hadn't really prepared a list of questions so I asked the first thing that popped into my head, "What's your favorite color?"

Tommy looked confused at first, probably thinking I was going to ask a deep soul searching question. He quickly pushed his confusion aside and thought about his answer. "Blue, I guess. What about you?" he said looking back at me.

"That one's easy, definitely yellow. Umm what's your favorite food?" I fired back.

"Um…"

"That doesn't involve people," I amended.

Tommy gave me a look before answering, "Fried chicken, probably. And you?"

"I love me some pulled pork. And not that shit from the store, mind you. I'm talking smoked-for-at-least-a-day, genuine BAR -B- QUE," I said laughing at my own exaggerated southern accent, causing Tommy to chuckle as well. It was nice laughing like this with someone. It had been a long time since I was last able to do it.

Once I calmed a bit I asked, "What's your favorite candy?" I asked enjoying the idea of random unimportant questions to serious ones.

"Momma doesn't let me eat candy," Tommy said. I was surprised to say the least. I leaned forward and squinted at him to try to see if he was joking. What kind of person doesn't let a child enjoy candy?

"Seriously?" I asked and he nodded. "Well we are just going to have to fix that," I said and hopped off the table, "Grab your stuff!"

Tommy nodded and packed up the meat that he had been working on and put away the cleaver before leading the way out of the factory. He took a much more direct route than I had that lead out to the front of the factory.

"So Tommy did you use to work here?" I questioned as we started up the hill.

He nodded, "Yeah, before they closed it down. People started leaving after that."

"What was it like before the place closed down?" I asked, genuinely curious about the previous state of the town.

"It was nice, lots of people," he said in a not so convincing voice. I looked over at him and his expression showed that he was lost in thought. I reached up and touched his hand causing him to glance over.

"What's up?"

"I never really talked to people that much. They either avoided me or insulted me, so I was alone a lot. Easier that way."

I couldn't help but frown as Tommy spoke. I walked a bit closer to him and caught his hand in mine. I gave his hand a quick squeeze, which he returned in kind. We continued to walk back to the farmhouse like that until his hand suddenly slipped from mine.

I stopped and turned around to see what he was doing and found him picking something up off the ground. He stood and closed the gap between us. I waited for him and when he reached me he held out his hand. I smiled when I saw that he was offering me a small handful of brown-eyed Susans.

"They're your favorite color, right?" he said sheepishly.

"Right," I responded with a grin and took the flowers in one hand and placed my free hand back in his.