The reviews I have been getting are amazing! I've been wanting to PM you guys to thank you, but there are a lot of guests, which I am still so happy that you all like this story. So I just wanted to give a BIG THANK YOU to everyone for reading and reviewing! And the amount of followers I have for this story already? Absolutely fantastic! Cannot believe how great this story is doing. Hope to hear from all of you soon!

Presley, Elvis. "Heartbreak Hotel." AZLyrics. MUSIXMATCH, n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2013.

Chapter Five

"Morning." I said as my uncle came out of his room. It had been a week since I had moved in and things were getting a little better. I had at least given up the thought of running. The place was starting to grow on me...not that I'd admit it to my aunt or uncle.

"You're up early." He said as he rubbed his eyes blearily and sat in chair in across from me in the living room. For the past few days, I had been pondering endlessly over my father's secrets, making for more sleepless nights. Last night, I had played out on the fire escape again, but found no rest. I only caught a few good hours of sleep before I gave up and decided to sit in the living room and read until morning.

"Couldn't sleep." I replied as I set down my book.

"The Giver?"

"Good book. Really gets you to question society and the possibilities of a human utopia."

"This early in the morning?"

"Eh, I'm a big thinker." I said as he switched on the TV to CNN.

"What are you two doing up this early?" Natasha came out and joined us, sitting on the couch across from me. I was still weary of her. She was kind from what I had seen, but there was something about her that seemed...fierce.

"Couldn't sleep." We replied in unison.

"And neither could you, apparently." Uncle Clint said.

"I'm not a late sleeper." She said as she shifted her gaze to the screen. However, the silence didn't last long.

"So, I was thinking," Natasha said as she looked at me, "you don't nearly have enough clothes with you." She had noticed the small amount of baggage I had carried with me from the plane. Dad and I didn't have a lot, but we always made do.

"I was thinking that we could go shopping. Get some new clothes for you." I had to admit, the clothes I already had were getting worn too. I was starting to see small holes in the knees of my jeans...and my shoes, well, I hadn't taken on a new pair in three years, let's just say that.

"You really don't have to."

"I insist." She urged with sincerity.

"Ummm...okay." I agreed. It wasn't like there was anything else to do today. And staying in the apartment was getting pretty boring. Maybe getting a chance to know my aunt was a good thing. Maybe.

About ten we headed out, opting to walk instead of drive since New York City was known for its chaotic and and outrageous traffic. I could see that as we walked, my aunt was getting a lot of stares from the crowd of people. I shrugged it off because I figured she was the type of woman to gain attention, with her assertive personality, fiery red hair and attractive features. But I noticed that she quickly put on her sunglasses as the number of onlookers increased. And the Sun wasn't even in her eyes. Odd. Why would she need those?

I realized I had no idea where we were headed until she unexpectedly turned into a clothing store. I felt really odd standing in my old, worn out clothes from discount stores amidst the very modern, expensive wear that was in here.

"I think you need a few new pairs of jeans first." She said, half-dragging me over to the jean department. As she looked around, my eyes nearly bulged out of my head as I saw the prices.

"Ummm...Natasha?" She glanced over at me. "Don't you think these jeans are a bit expensive?" She smiled at me.

"It's nothing. Believe me."

"You sure?"

"Trust me. Your uncle and I's jobs can more than pay for amenities like these."

"What do you two do, exactly?" She paused for a moment.

"Real estate."

"In this housing market?"

"I know how to persuade people." There was an unsettling tinge of mystery behind that statement, leaving me very unwilling to interrogate her further.

She pulled out about a bazillion pairs of jeans and a bazillion more pairs of shoes. I thought I was going to drown in the sea of clothes.

"No skinny jeans!" I exclaimed as I tossed the pair over the dressing room door.

"But you'd look great!"

"No. I do not like them." And that was true. I didn't like things that clung extremely tight to me. That's what I got from living around a man for most of my teenage years.

"I'm still getting you one pair." She wasn't going to take no for an answer.

However, I did get a few nice pair of jeans and shoes. However, the worst was yet to come. She tried to shove me into some girly pink shirts, which I promptly refused.

"No pink." I said, looking disdainfully at the pink garment. It made my eyes sore just looking at it.

"But it matches you perfectly." She put the shirt against me, but it didn't faze me, not one bit.

"No pink." I repeated.

"I'm still getting it."

"Don't expect me to wear it."

"You will."

"You'll have to put it over my dead body."

"Keep arguing and I just might." For a second, I believed her. When she gave me a joking smile, I relaxed. We continued to look around in other shops, although our arms were getting tired from carrying our bags.

"Hey, cool." I said as I looked at the window of a toy store. It was a figurine set of my all-time favorite team: the Avengers. "I didn't know they actually made figurines out of them."

"You like the Avengers?" My aunt asked me, eyebrow raised.

"They're only the most awesome people in the whole world." I felt like a such a child, idolizing the six superheroes. "I know. Really childish, huh?"

"No, not at all." She said as she looked at the figurines. "Who's your favorite?"

"The one they call Hawkeye, by far." I responded, idolizing the doll with the bow and arrow. "He may not have a magic hammer or an Iron Man suit, but he must be pretty awesome to take out aliens with just a bow and arrow." I paused and glanced at her. "Do you like them?"

"Yes." She answered, much to my surprise. "Although I much prefer the Black Widow myself."

"You look like her." I commented as I looked from her to the small doll. Actually, she looked a lot like her.

"Fancy that." She said. "Well, I say we've done enough shopping for today. How about some lunch?"

"That would be great."

We actually had a great time at lunch. I learned a lot about her; like that she could speak Latin and knew a lot about martial arts. She liked that fact that I was really into sports and loved to read. She wasn't always the overly-assertive person I made her out to be. She could be laid back when one had a chance to know her. And she wasn't fake when it came to being kind to me, her eyes and smile showing her sincerity in her actions and words. I came to realize that this whole shopping trip was her going out of her way to show kindness to a person she didn't even know. It made me think that I might actually like her...and that she might like me too.

When we came back from the day of shopping, our bags making it almost impossible for us to squeeze through the door, we found my uncle sitting on the couch watching basketball.

"It looks like the trip was a success." He commented.

"More than that." I said, throwing him a bag from a bakery we had stopped at.

"Hey, a brownie with cream cheese icing. My favorite." He said as he took a giant bite out of the delicious morsel.

"We figured after leaving you home alone all day that you deserved something nice." I said as I strolled away with my things. When I noticed that there was abrupt silence, I turned around to find both of them looking at me oddly.

"What?" I asked in confusion.

"You called this place home." Aunt Nat said, bewilderment covering her usually calm face.

I did call it home.

"Oh. Well...it's where my family is, so I guess it's home." That's when I realized I just called them family. Oh goodness, I must be scaring the heck out of them. In fact, I was scaring myself.

"Well, ummm...see ya later." I said as I shuffled over to my room and locked myself in. But outside I could hear them.

"Wow, Nat. What did you do to get her to say that?" My uncle asked.

"I don't know." She sounded so shocked and confused, yet, happy? And so did he for that matter.

So now I was really confused. A week ago I hated both of them and now I was calling them my family? What was going on with me?

Later that night...

It was about two in the morning and I was sitting on the fire escape again, my uncle's guitar in hand.

"You make me so lonely baby,

I get so lonely baby,

I get so lonely I could die" (Presley)

I sung the words slowly, totally killing the Elvis Presley theme, but getting out the meaning. I was missing Dad. All I could think about was his face. I remembered the way he kissed me goodbye before dropping me off at school that day. Little had I known I was never going to see him again. Never to hear his voice again say 'I love you' or hear his laugh when I made a bad joke, or play another song with me on a Sunday afternoon.

"You're a terrible Elvis impersonator." I almost fell off the fire escape in surprise as I recognized my uncle's voice. I turned around and saw him poking his head out the window, his expression unreadable.

"Uncle Clint, I-I'm so sorry. I...I didn't mean to..."

"Mind if I play with you?"

"What?" I asked. He pulled out another guitar. It looked brand new.

"I'd like to play along with you, if you don't mind." He managed to squeeze himself through the window and sit next to me.

"Okay." I said, really confused. Was this a joke or for real?

"Well, shall we start?" He asked. I strummed a few notes and he joined along with me. How long had he known about this? When we finished, he looked at me.

"What about "Bruises" by Train?" He asked.

"You've known all along, haven't you?" I stated. He set the guitar down.

"From the first night." I stared down at the ground below. Was he going to punish me? Ground me? Yell at me?

"I understand." He said and I looked at him with surprise and confusion.

"What?" I asked.

"I know what you're feeling." My uncle said. "And I know the last thing you want to do is talk about it, but..."

"I think I want to go to bed." I said, but he grabbed my arm before I had the chance to leave.

"Hannah, you can't avoid this subject forever." I knew I couldn't, but I was sure trying.

"It hurts to talk about it." I admitted. "I'm afraid if I start talking about him, then I'll start crying."

"Then cry." My uncle said. "Anything is better than locking yourself up inside."

"When Mom died, he was all I had." I started. "Mom had no other family, and neither did Dad that I knew of. For a long time, the house felt empty, but it slowly started to feel normal again." Once I started, I couldn't stop. "Dad and I were doing fine up until his car accident. Then everything changed." I started talking about the pain and emptiness I felt from his death; the cold loneliness of having no one else in the world. I even told him about the hatred I felt towards him and Aunt Nat. How, after all this time, I was going to some people that never cared to contact us in years. It felt horrible to admit, but when I was done, I felt a great weight lifted off my shoulders. And there were tears. Lots of them. My uncle sat quietly beside me, his arm comfortingly wrapped around my shoulders and I was leaning against him for support. It reminded me of how Dad would react after Mom died and we both missed her terribly.

"There isn't a moment that goes by that I don't regret contacting my brother." He told me. "I suppose we were both too prideful." He looked at me. "But don't think for a moment that if I had known about you that I wouldn't have come." And he meant it. His eyes showed the sincerity in his words.

"I'm sorry...about everything." I said with a sniffle.

"All's forgiven." He said simply.

"That easy?" I asked and he nodded.

"We're family, remember?" He said. Family. It felt good to have one again. "Now, do you mind if we go inside? It's freezing out here." We both headed back inside.

"And one last thing." He said before we went back to bed. "Let's leave the guitar playing for daylight hours."

"Agreed." I said as I set the guitar down.

"Oh, and that's yours now, so would you please take that one to your room so I can have some space for my new one?" He said as he handed me mine and placed his new guitar in the corner.

"Thanks Uncle Clint." I said as I headed off to my room. I slept the whole night through.

Hey, did you notice...she called Natasha 'Aunt Nat!' I'd say we're making progress! Oh, and sorry all you who are big punctuation fanatics (of which I am one). I have not been titling 'Uncle Clint' correctly, usually with 'uncle Clint,' which is totally wrong. My bad.