Rebecca slid into the booth across from me in Vesta's restaurant, plopping her purse down beside her.

The place was a little too noisy and a little too rowdy for my taste, what with parents halfheartedly watching their shouting children, teenagers lounging about and challenging each other to games on the old arcade machines - but Rebecca had said the pizza was to-die-for, and who was I to pass up good pizza?

And after everything that had gone down at her parents' house today, I really was in no position to deny Rebecca anything.

A waitress wandered over a second after we sat down, and Rebecca waived away the menus she offered.

"We'll have a large Warrior's pizza and two Shocktops." She glanced over at me in question. "You like beer, right?"

That was a dumb question.

"Can't live without it."

"True enough."

The waitress scribbled down our order on a notepad and wandered off again.

Only a beat of an awkward silence passed before Rebecca looked to me again, placing her hands together on the table in front of her.

"So." The expression in her blue eyes was expectant, eager. "Tell me about the girls."

I had been preparing myself for that very question the entire drive down to Boonsboro. I still didn't know what to say. There weren't any words that could possibly describe how uniquely individual April, May and June really were.

That question could only be answered if Rebecca met the girls for herself. Which, if I had anything to say about it, would be sooner rather than later.

"What do you want to know?" I said carefully.

"Everything."

I rested my elbows on the table and made a steeple with my fingers, frowning in thought for a few moments.

"Well, April is technically the eldest by about sixteen minutes," I began when Rebecca looked like she was about to burst with anticipation, "and she's probably the most outspoken one out of all of them. She likes to sing in the shower, gets into too much trouble at home and school, calls me at random hours of the night and day just to piss me off."

Rebecca's mouth softened into a grin. "Sounds like a girl after my own heart."

I found myself grinning, too.

"May is the quiet one. She spends most of her time reading and writing. We all think she's going to end up being a journalist for the Times one day. And she complains the least out of all three of them."

"A feat in a fourteen-year-old, believe me," Rebecca said with a small laugh.

There was a lapse in conversation as the waitress returned to our table with two pints of Shocktop, the rims of the glasses topped with a couple of orange slices. We said our thanks and then both grabbed for the glasses at the same time, eagerly swallowing down a few mouthfuls. 

After what Rebecca and I had been through today, I think we deserved all the beer we wanted.

"What about June?" Rebecca asked, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin after another mouthful of beer.

"June." I hummed in thought. "June's a bit different. She does what she wants when she wants without caring what anybody thinks. She dances to the beat of a different drummer, really. She usually spends most of her time messing around in the coffee house kitchen as it is."

Rebecca's face lit up with excitement and she gasped.

"God, that place is still open?"

"Always will be," I assured her.

There would be a never ending line of Incitti's making sure that Mama Rosa's stayed in business, otherwise my grandmother would come back from the grave to see to it herself.

"Geez, I loved that place," Rebecca said with a smile. "It always smelt like fresh brownies and coffee beans. And your grandma made the best espressos ever."

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.

"Yeah, she was pretty good at making all sorts of special blends."

"Was?"

"Was, yeah." I cleared my throat, distracting myself with my half-empty pint of Shocktop. "She passed away last year."

"Oh, Archer, I'm so sorry."

I was startled when Rebecca reached across the table and squeezed my hand tightly in a comforting way. It was weird, having someone else other than my mother or Hadley making gestures like that towards me. I wasn't used to it. 

Rebecca must have noticed the unusual expression on my face, because she quickly snatched her hand away and downed a few more slurps of beer instead. 

Neither of us said anything for a few minutes.

I watched with mild interest at the fuss a few teenagers threw themselves into when the arcade game they were playing suddenly restarted, losing their scores.

"So, um...how's the rest of your family?"

I glanced back at Rebecca with a frown.

How were the rest of my family?

I had been so caught up with worrying about Hadley and Havoc and my stupid therapy sessions and my photography business and all things supernatural that I had given little, if any, attention to my family since Christmas.

A small bit of guilt started gnawing at me. I needed to give my aunts a call. Tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that. Soon, I decided.

"The family is good," I said. "Still kicking."

Rebecca smirked. "With how big your family is, I'm not surprised."

The same waitress from earlier arrived at our table then with a huge pie decked out with the works and a considerable heaping of meat, way more than what I usually ate in one sitting.

Rebecca snatched up a slice and quickly dug in, so I followed suit, glad that the pizza really was as good as she'd said it was.

We were occupied with our slices of pizza for a while, our thoughts no doubt straying to different places.

I was finding it difficult to believe that after fifteen years, I had finally confronted Chris's parents about their treatment (or lack of treatment, I guessed) towards my mother and my three little sisters. The answers had by no means been satisfactory - in my opinion - but they were answers nonetheless. It was enough to slightly ease the insatiable worry I seemed to be carrying with me for the past couple of months, and it was something I could check off my list of "fears", but it was hardly anything more than that.

What was most rewarding was that in little to no time at all, Rebecca Morales would be meeting the three nieces she hadn't even known she had.

The more time I spent with Rebecca, the more I realized that the girls, even May, had inherited her easy going attitude, the way they looked at life without any filters. I had no doubt that they would be as thick as theeves soon enough.

"Say, Archer..."

I finished chewing my bite of pizza as Rebecca looked at me a bit anxiously and said, "Yeah?"

 "Do you...I mean, do the girls..." Rebecca bit at her lip as she started to shred her napkin into little pieces. "Do the girls...ever, you know...ask about Chris?"

I downed the rest of my beer before I answered her question. 

"They have. They still do."

Rebecca nodded, the pile of napkin shreds growing even larger on the table.

"Okay. I just wanted to know if they knew...about their dad. What he was. How good he was."

My insides were now positively burning with guilt. 

April, May and June did know about their father, everything that Mom and I were able to tell them, but that had only happened recently. For the first fourteen years of their life they had known next to nothing about Chris. 

"Rebecca, of course they know that," I said. "How could they not? They're his daughters. It's only right that they should know."

Rebecca looked up at me with a small smile. "I know. I just...I feel so bad, you know? This entire time I've had three nieces out there that I know absolutely nothing about. I feel gypped."

The conversation was starting to get increasingly more uncomfortable. 

I had gotten better over the years, but I had to admit that I still was sort of an asshole. Rebecca needed someone to talk to about this. I could respect that. But I wasn't that person. She needed somebody else, someone who actually had the capacity to listen to someone's regrets and fears and hopes and say what they needed to hear.

That was something I knew I would never be able to offer, however much I wished differently.

"I know," I said awkwardly. "But that doesn't mean it's too late to start now."

The world was constantly changing every day, for the good and for the bad. Rebecca would have the rest of her life to get to know the girls.

"You're right." Rebecca gave a firm nod. "This is good. Great. A fresh new start."

"A fresh new start," I repeated. "Fantastic." 

"But just one more thing," Rebecca said as I picked up my abandoned pizza slice. "I just wanted to say thank you. For what you did. It couldn't have been easy."

I didn't deserve Rebecca's thanks, but I nodded shortly anyways. 

"I mean it."

"I know you do."

"Good."

We finished our pizza slices in a silence that was considerably less tense than before. Hopefully, those waters would be behind us now.

Rebecca downed the rest of her Shocktop and slammed the glass down on the table, making me jerk slightly.

"So. Tell me about yourself, Archer."

I raised an eyebrow in question. "You want to listen to me talk about myself."

Rebecca shrugged, grinning. "Why not? The last time I saw you, you were just a little boy. And now you're this tall, good looking, hunky young guy. When did that happen?"

I could feel my face burning. 

I'd never been called a hunky young guy before. Was I supposed to take that as a compliment?

I returned her shrug. "I grew up, I guess. Kind of."

"Kind of?" Rebecca said. 

"I've been known to act juvenile now and then."

More like every day, I silently thought.

She tossed back her head and laughed loudly. "Oh, honey, the most of us do. What's the point in being an adult if you can't act like a kid every now and then? Being an adult is so boring. My job as a secretary at the post office is damn boring. That's why I've been throwing myself into this whole wedding planning thing. Couldn't have come at a more convenient time. I'd much rather be picking out color schemes or china patterns than filing mail and giving people their holiday stamps."

Apparently Rebecca fully understood the monotony of life, as well.

"That's right, you're getting married," I said. "Congratulations."

"Thanks," she said with a grin. "Finally. Took him about four years to pluck up the courage."

I refrained from telling Rebecca that at least he hadn't waited as long as I had to propose. I also hoped that he had done it a bit more tactfully, because Rebecca (and Hadley, too) deserved a bit better than a mere "Will you marry me?" while you're loading dirty plates and cups into a dishwasher. 

But hey, I'd done the best I could.

"Well, men are a bit hardheaded," I admitted. "Soon as you understand that, you'll be fine."

"Uh-huh. Sure." She gave me a narrow eyed look and pointed an accusatory finger at me. "You're pretty good at changing the subject."

I smirked. "It's a talent I'm rather proud of."

Honestly. 

Agnes Schaffer had been trained to deal with all types of people, but my talent for diverting and bullshitting conversations had thrown her off more than once during our unfortunate counseling sessions.

"Here we are, meaning to talk about you and we end up talking about me," Rebecca said, shaking her head. "Shame."

"Not really," I said blandly. "I'm not all that interesting."

Unless you counted out my being on speaking terms with Death incarnate, of course.

"I sincerely doubt that, but if you insist," she said, holding her hands up in a surrendering gesture. "We can just talk about your wife instead."

I nearly swore.

Why was it that any conversation ended up coming back around to Hadley? I mean, that wasn't a bad thing - she was my wife. Yet I wasn't so sure if I should have been concerned by it. 

"You want to talk about my wife," I said, just for confirmation.

"Well, you are married, aren't you?" Rebecca said, pointing to the gold band on my ring finger. "Unless you just wear that for kicks."

"No, I am married. I'm just not so sure there are any words that would be able to accurately describe my wife."

Rebecca giggled. "That's a good thing, then. Tell me about her."

I bit back a sigh, shifting awkwardly in my seat.

"Her name is Hadley. She's a grief counselor. I met her in high school, and we started dating our junior year. We got married almost two years ago."

The short and short of it, plain and simple.

"That's it?" Rebecca said flatly. "That's all you have to say about the woman you married, the woman you'll spend the rest of your life with, the one you promised to love and cherish forever?"

I almost blanched.

Really, if Rebecca wanted to know about Hadley, than she just needed to meet her for herself. That should tell her everything she wanted to know all at once. 

"A bit, yeah."

She rolled her eyes and slouched back in her seat. "Jesus. I can see you're quite the romantic."

"Oh, I assure you, I am."

"That's not quite what I wanted to be hearing, walking up to my fianceé having dinner with another man."

Now standing beside our booth was a tall man with dark hair, lots of stubble and wary looking gray eyes. He was drenched from the rain outside and looked a little bit like a drowned dog. I kept that comment to myself, though.

"Tatum!" Rebecca jumped to her feet and smacked a kiss on the guy's lips. "What're you doing here? I thought you were down in Sharpsburg for a job?" 

"We left early because of the storm coming in. I figured you would be at your parents', doing wedding stuff, so I was going to stop by here, grab a slice and a pint, then come and see you."

The entire time Tatum spoke his eyes were fixed on me, sizing me up, as if he actually thought I were competition.

I wanted to laugh. 

Ridiculous - not to mention a little gross. Rebecca was still technically my aunt.

"Tatum, this is Archer," Rebecca said, introducing us. She seemed to be oblivious to the clear distaste written on her fiancé's face. "He came down from New York City for a visit."

His jaw was tight as he responded with a short, "That's nice."

"Man. I'm married. And Rebecca is my aunt."

Tatum immediately looked highly embarrassed.

Well, somebody had to say it.

"You really didn't have to let me stay over for the night, Rebecca. I could've slept in my car."

Rebecca scoffed as she threw down a couple of pillows and an afghan down onto the leather couch in her apartment living room. 

"Don't be stupid, Archer. Of course you'd stay here. You're family."

I didn't know what to say to that. I was...touched. I hadn't seen Rebecca in fifteen years and yet I was still her nephew to her.

"Thank you, then," I said awkwardly. 

"Don't thank me. Just sleep," Rebecca said. "You look dead on your feet."

I could agree with that.

I was very, very tired. It hadn't been an easy day and my ass was still sore from being in the car for four hours.

I sat down on the couch and kicked off my shoes as Rebecca hovered on the edge of the living room, by the tiny square kitchen.

"Well, goodnight, then. I'm in the next room over if you need anything."

I gave Rebecca a small smile. "Thanks."

She smiled back, and for a second I found myself actually thankful that I had come all the way down here to start such a mess with Carter and Irene.

I had found a friend in Rebecca. It was a nice change from what my life had been like lately.

I pulled the afghan down around me and flopped backwards against the pillows, letting out a heavy sigh. I'd be asleep within seconds at this rate.

"And Archer?"

"Hmm." 

"What time are we leaving in the morning?" 

I propped myself up on an elbow and frowned at Rebecca. "What are you talking about?" 

"What time are we leaving in the morning?" she repeated expectantly. "Come on, man. Like you actually think I would just stay here when I have three nieces to meet."

__________________________________________________

I'm glad I got this chapter up sooner than I expected! I liked how it turned out, so I hope you all like it, as well. Feel free to drop a comment below and share your thoughts. :) 

So I just got back from vacation on Saturday, very late at night, after an eight hour car ride. My mom has a bit of an adventerous streak, so we ended up stopping at Chimney Rock and hiking for a couple of hours. It was fun, but I got sunburned and my mom got stung by a bee. We'd been camping for two weeks and hadn't showered in a while, so the pictures aren't all that nice, sadly. Oh, well!

I also leave for school at the end of August! I'm scared shitless, because this is my freshman year of college, and...well, it's college. So, definitely wish me luck on that. I'll try posting as many chapters as I can before I leave, but I make no promises that Face Your Fears will actually be finished in a timely manner. Like I said before, just bear with me here!

Thanks! :) 

- Ally