Claire handed John a paper plate when he finally entered the tent under which everyone had gathered for dinner. She was waiting to get in the buffet line until he joined her, and had begun to wonder if he had gotten lost on the way back from washing his hands.

"There you are. I was just about to—" She stopped abruptly when she noticed the subdued look on his face. She knew that look. That was his 'I'm just a bum and I don't deserve anything good that happens to me' look. The day had been going so well up until that point. "What happened?"

"Your brother is fucking terrifying," he replied, and spooned a pile of baked beans onto his plate.

She scanned the crowd under the tent and saw Rick chatting casually with an uncle. Nothing about his demeanor suggested anything out of the ordinary had happened. She turned back to John and gave him a quick once over, checking to make sure that she hadn't missed a split lip or torn shirt. No, he looked intact.

"What did Rick do?"

"He didn't have to do anything. But let's just say that we've reached an understanding."

Claire wasn't sure what to make of that, but she cautiously decided that it was a good thing. She passed John the spoon for the pasta salad and picked up a hamburger bun. "So, I take it you're not afraid he's going to poison you anymore?"

"Oh, no. If he ever decides to kill me, he's going to do it while looking me square in the eyes."

Claire frowned. She still thought John was being overly dramatic. Her brother was protective, yes, but he wasn't evil. "John—"

"Relax. I told you, we're cool." John pointed across the tent with the spoon. "Now your mom on the other hand, she seems like the poisoning type."

"Oh my god," she muttered under her breath in disbelief, though she could hardly argue with the sentiment. Instead, she did her best to derail John's current train of thought. "You're so worried about things that aren't going to happen that you missed that Jell-O you like."

"Shit!"

Claire grinned as she watched him pile the little squares of Jell-O onto his plate with child-like glee. She remembered when he had first seen it at a family dinner years ago, and how amazed he'd been by the thin, rainbow-colored layers. How had they made it like that? he'd wondered in awe. It was adorable, though she would never admit it to his face.

He caught her smile when he looked up. "What?"

She shook her head. "I'm just really glad that you're here with me today."

xxx

That evening, after they'd cleaned up from dinner, Claire went inside to grab the bug spray that Kate had offered. The mosquitoes were out in force and the citronella torches weren't doing enough, at least in Claire's opinion, to keep them at bay. She'd left John and her father discussing hypothetical plans for a tree fort. Neither one of them seemed to be bothered by the insects.

"You're just sweeter than we are," her father said. Claire couldn't roll her eyes hard enough at the corny joke, and John had to bite his lip to keep from snickering.

The kitchen lights were off when Claire entered the house. She flipped them on and found the bug spray on the counter where Kate had left it. She picked it up and was about to leave when she realized that she wasn't alone. Her mother was sitting at the island, staring down at the glass in front of her. If she noticed Claire was there, she didn't say anything.

It would've been easy to ignore her and go back outside. But something compelled Claire to make an effort to reach out to her. "Wouldn't you rather be outside with everyone, Mom? We're getting ready to—"

"I don't like this, Claire. I don't like this at all," she repeated like a mantra. "Not one bit."

Claire sighed. She had a feeling she knew the answer, but asked anyway, "What don't you like?"

"Seeing you throw your life away. What about what's-his-name? Jim…Jimmy…James? The doctor. He was nice."

Claire sighed. "John is nice too. We've been over this before."

"Yes, but I knew you'd have your fling and then get over him. What about that model, Christian?"

"Tristan? We were never serious."

"You could have been."

"I didn't love him. I didn't love any of them." Claire walked over and picked up her mother's glass.

"Do you love him?"

Claire sniffed the contents and frowned. "I thought you weren't going to drink today."

"I found that I needed one after all."

"Ah, yes, drink to cope with all of life's disappointments. That's what you taught me, isn't it? Something doesn't go your way, something gets too stressful, have a drink, it'll help." Claire set the glass back down in disgust.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't."

"You threw everything away. Everything! Just so that you could move in with some boy you dated a couple of times. He's a bad influence, Claire, and I don't like it."

She was talking in the past now. Claire remembered the conversation from eight years ago when she informed her parents that she had moved in with John. It hadn't gone well then either.

"John wasn't just 'some boy' that I dated! I was more in love with him than you'll—" Claire caught herself. Yelling was doing neither one of them any good. She drew in a deep, calming breath. "I gave him one of Grandma's diamond earrings, you know. On the first day that I met him."

That got her mother's attention, and she finally looked up. "I knew she was a fool to give them to a fourteen year old."

"She wanted them to go to someone who understood what they meant."

"I understood what they meant!" She slammed her glass on the counter to emphasize her point. "My father was the one who gave them to her. They were six-thousand dollar earrings, Claire." She counted off on her fingers, "Two-point-five total carats, flawless, set in platinum—"

Claire interrupted her. "That's not what I was talking about and you know it."

Her mother didn't look convinced. "I suppose this is the part where you tell me that he sold it for drug money after he dumped you?"

Though it was technically true that John had pawned the earring after leaving her, Claire certainly wasn't going to admit it. "He's wearing it today, if you care to notice," she replied. "I know you never liked John, but you also never gave him a chance. You took one rumor at face value and then held his non-privileged upbringing against him. That's not fair."

"But I was right in the end, wasn't I? He left you, didn't he, Claire? With all those bills, and that pitiful excuse for an apartment. And then the accident…"

"All of which was my fault. No one else put those drinks in my hand. I screwed up. Me."

"Anything you want to add?" she asked. She was no longer focused on Claire, but instead was looking at someone behind her.

Claire glanced back over her right shoulder. John was in the doorway, and beside him was her dad, who had a resigned look on his face.

"We came in to get the marshmallows," her dad explained. "But I think it's time that we go, Helen." He walked over to the island, and tried to take her arm, but she shrugged him off.

"I'm trying to help our daughter see reason, Charles." She narrowed her gaze at John. "He's hiding something and I want to know what it is."

"Mom, stop it. You're upset with me. Leave John alone."

But like a shark, she sensed blood in the water, and went in for the kill with a perverse look of joy on her face. "It must be reeeally bad if he's ashamed of it."

Claire looked back at John and saw him nod at her mother. "You're right. I am hiding something." He shrugged off his flannel shirt as he walked towards them and tossed it onto the island countertop. "But I'm not ashamed. I just don't like having to explain my shitty childhood. Because when people see these, they usually have questions." He held out his forearms so that both of her parents had a clear view.

"John, you don't have to—"

"No, it's all right, Claire, I've got this."

He pointed to the round scar on his right arm. "The first time I got this one, I was nine. I knocked over an ashtray while I was playing. My father didn't like it when I made a mess of things. He liked everything in order. I had to hold out my arm so that he could use me as an ashtray. The second time? I was thirteen. I spilled paint in the garage. He was upset that the scar had almost faded, so he thought he'd drive the point home and make my reminder a little bit more permanent."

"And this one," he pointed to the long scar on his left arm, "I got when I was seventeen. I broke a glass, and my father dragged one of the shards across my arm as punishment." He admired the thick, shiny scar, twisting his arm. "I probably should've had stitches, but I was a stupid kid who didn't want to go to the hospital because they asked too many questions. Luckily, I had a smart girlfriend who cared enough about me to not let me bleed out in the street."

Mrs. Standish looked aghast. "Well."

"Are you happy now?" Claire asked, wiping away the tears that had fallen.

Her mother answered in a dejected tone. "Not in a very long time."

xxx

John left Claire with her parents and went outside. He had lost it when he looked over and saw that she was crying because of him. He felt like he was seventeen again, helplessly watching her tear up as she rinsed his blood off her hands.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. Fuck. He really hadn't meant to have any more confrontations with Standish family members that evening, least of all Helen again. Worse, was knowing that Claire would blame herself. She was going to think that he was hurting. But the weird thing was, that he wasn't. The pain of those childhood memories had long vanished.

Everyone else was on the lawn in advance of the fireworks. The kids were playing. Some of the adults were setting up chairs or blankets, others were building the bonfire. He wandered past them and found a secluded area by the garage where he could light up a cigarette without the risk of getting a lecture from a doctor.

Being around a bunch of Claire's family members didn't feel as awkward or as foreign as it had when he was eighteen. For the first time in a very long time, John let himself remember memories that he'd buried when his brother died. He had once been a part of something that felt like this. A little boy in plaid shorts, running around trying to catch his cousins. Family picnics, birthdays, holidays. At one point in his life, those events were normal.

But then they had stopped going out, and eventually, the rest of his extended family stopped coming over. Everyone just decided to give up on them, and John thought that his parents must have given up on themselves too. It had been easier to ignore the pain than to figure out how to live with it. He wished he had understood that years ago.

Families weren't perfect. He supposed that Claire was right about that. It was just weird thinking of himself as having—or as being a part of—a family again. He had been alone for so long, that it was going to take some getting used to. Maybe he would visit his parents for Christmas, and see how things went. If it wasn't a complete disaster, maybe he'd think about bringing Claire with him the next time. His family wasn't much, but they were all he had.

John snubbed the cigarette butt out in a nearby planter and made it exactly five steps away from the garage before being spotted by the twins.

"John!" they cried in unison as they adjusted course and ran directly at him. They were each dragging what looked like a small tree branch, tucked under their arms.

When they stopped short of barreling into him, he asked, "You going around poking people again? I thought we already established that wasn't a cool thing to do."

"Kyle said we needed sticks or we couldn't have marshmallows," Chris explained, half out of breath.

"Ah." John didn't know who Kyle was, but he could imagine how that conversation had gone. He plucked the branches from their hands and knelt down in front of them. "Well, I don't think he meant for you to bring back the entire forest."

He snapped the end of each of the branches off to make them a more manageable length. Then, after removing the small twigs and dead leaves from the two sticks, John pulled his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket. Sensing he had the twins' undivided attention, he looked up. "You ever seen one of these before?" He held out the knife in his palm with the blade closed.

They shook their heads.

"What does it do?" Charlie asked.

"Pretty much everything a man could need it to do." He opened the various tools one by one, and explained the purpose of everything from the fish scaler to the corkscrew.

Chris pointed to the white square at the top of the knife. "What's that?"

John slid the plastic implement out of the red handle and held it up for them to see. "It's a toothpick."

Charlie wrinkled his nose. "Why does it have a toothpick?"

"I dunno, but they always come with one."

"Do you use it?" Chris wanted to know.

"Sure. I use it to pick the fish guts out of my teeth all the time."

"Eww!" the boys squealed.

John chuckled and then told them to stand back so that he could strip the bark and whittle a point on the end of each of the sticks. When he was finished, the twins inspected their newly carved marshmallow spears and approved of his modifications. Then they ran off, presumably to show them off to anyone that would listen.

In hindsight, he probably should've gone over the 'pointy stick' ground rules before letting them go. If someone lost an eye that night, he was definitely getting the blame.

He caught up with them quickly and grasped hold of their shoulders. "Whoa! Rule number one: no stabbing anyone with your sticks. Rule number two: don't run with them pointed out like that unless you're hunting a wild animal. Actually, on second thought, no running with sharp sticks at all. Got it?"

The boys nodded, and John let them go. They walked, albeit rather quickly, toward the group of other kids. John counted that as a win. Never let it be said that he wasn't a responsible adult.

"Thanks for arming my kids with weapons, John."

Everyone was a critic. John turned to find Rick blocking the path to the house. It would be him, he thought wryly. Even though there were at least twenty other people at the picnic that he could've, or would've rather, run into, including the aunt who had seen his naked ass.

"No problem."

Rick didn't say anything in response, but John could feel him quietly assessing him as they stood there watching the boys.

"This is the part where you tell me that since your kids like me, I can't be all that bad," John helpfully supplied.

Rick laughed deeply and shook his head. And then he slapped John on the shoulder and walked away still laughing.

John frowned. He didn't think it was that funny.

xxx

After a quick search of the house, John found Claire. She was upstairs, in what he assumed was a guest bedroom, curled up on the bed with his flannel shirt over her like a blanket. She watched him with a guarded expression.

"This is a switch, me having to find you." He sat on the edge of the bed. "Are you tired?"

"Just a headache," she replied. "I took some aspirin."

"Do you want me to take you home?"

"No, it's already starting to lessen up. I don't want to miss the fireworks."

John lay down next to her, and she tucked herself under his arm and rested her head on his shoulder.

"I hate when my mom gets like that," she said.

"I know how it is."

"She shouldn't have provoked you."

"No, but I handled it."

"You shouldn't have had to."

"I'm okay, Claire." He brought her hand up to his lips so that he could kiss her palm, and then placed it on his chest over his heart. "I get that your family is part of the package if I want to be with you. And today wasn't so bad."

"Maybe she'll start to come around."

"Maybe." But he doubted it, and from the sound of it, so did she. He rested his hand on top of hers and the other rubbed her back.

There was a thought, which in truth had occurred to John not long after the wedding. It was an idea that blind-sided him as he climbed into his car, and then haunted him all the way back to Detroit. It had been too terrifying to fully consider before, but suddenly it didn't seem so crazy.

"I'm thinking about moving back here when my lease is up in October."

Claire raised her head and looked up at him. "Are you sure?"

His hand on her back stilled as he tried to figure out how to tell her what he felt. He settled on giving her an answer to the question she'd asked him the previous night. "Do you remember in detention, when Vernon was grilling me about that missing screw, and you took the heat off of me?"

"Vaguely."

"That was when I knew," he confessed. "And I've never stopped wanting you. If this is our second chance, then I'd be an idiot not to take it."

She leaned up so that she could kiss him. "I'm glad you finally figured it out."

"I can't promise you happily ever after," he warned.

"I don't need fairytales, John. I only need you."

~The End

A/N: It was a long journey to get to this ending. For Claire and John, but also for me. [Insert standard real-life excuses here.] I want to thank you all for sticking with this story, though, and for continuing to send me your wonderful reviews over the years. They kept me going when I otherwise would've stopped.