THIRD P.O.V.

Today, the Spencer siblings and friends were headed to the beach.

Lance had managed to find a time in his schedule that lined up with everyone else's and decided that that's when they would all go. Arthur himself also had a day off but he chose to spend it at home since he didn't really like the beach anyways.

Tagging along with the siblings were Ross, Hayden, and Diana. Roman had invited Alain and even though he so badly wanted to go, his own schedule wouldn't allow it.

"I feel like we haven't been to the beach in forever" Kade said as he looked out the window. This time he wasn't a designated driver and got the opportunity to watch the scenery pass by as Roman drove.

"Yeah, I guess we didn't really get the chance to go last summer" Roman said and Kade nodded.

The drive to the beach was about half an hour and once they arrived everyone stepped out of the cars.

"Wooh! I'm ready for some fun in the sun" Ares cheered but Max standing next to him was sulking. He was hot and having to sit in the same car as Ares for even just five minutes was enough to put a damper in his mood.

"Let's all get changed and meet up in front of the changing stalls" Lance said and everyone nodded.

As Ceres and Diana changed, Diana hummed a happy tune showing just how excited she was to be at the beach and Diana's excitement only fueled Ceres' even more. She was finally getting to see the beach that she longed to see since she was young.

After the two changed, they met back up with the others. Lance did a quick head count and then the large group headed down to the beach to set up their things. Ares and Kade had immediately taken off towards the water, leaving their siblings to set up their stuff.

Max grumbled incoherent things as they had kicked some sand on him while Roman just laughed it off.

"C'mon, Dia, let's go!" Ross said pulling the smaller girl by the arm. Diana yelped as she was basically being dragged by the energetic Ross.

Once everyone was settled in, Ceres decided that she wanted to relax before going to play in the water.

Ceres took a deep breath as she let the scent of sea water take over her. It was just as beautiful as she had seen in pictures but nothing compared to actually being in the presence of the sea.

"Agh! Ares, that's cold!" Ceres heard Roman exclaim and she turned her head to see Ares splashing Roman with water. Ares grinned and then began to splash water on Kade, who in turn, did the same back to him.

"Only Ares..." Lance said chuckling as he watched his brothers play in the water.

After watching for a short while, Lance decided to see what the others were doing.

He could see that Diana and Ross were having swimming races against each other. Next, his eyes fell on Hayden who had led Ceres not too far away and the two were sitting and building something. His eyes moved over and saw Lucas with a bucket as he collected sea shells which wasn't even surprising to Lance.

Doing one more glance over, Lance saw Max drawing in the sand with his finger, the word 'NASTY' over and over again and Lance just shook his head.

"Lance, come get in the water!" Kade called while waving at Lance but Lance just gave a simple shake of his head.

"It's alright, I'm fine" Kade frowned at the answer before shrugging.

Deciding that they had enough play time, Kade got out of the water and started heading back to the others with Ares & Roman following behind him. As they came upon the others, Kade could see Hayden talking with Ceres.

"Hm? Honey, what are you making?" Kade asked as he eyed the strange deformed blob of sand that the girl was tending to. Hayden made a small gesture with his hand trying to signal Kade to stop but it wasn't working.

"Yeah, what the hell is that?" Max asked, now also looking over from his sand drawings. Lucas, who had been told by Kade to keep an eye on the two teens (but he wasn't doing a good job at it), just sighed already knowing how this was about to go down.

Ceres looked up from her sand castle with a small smile.

"It's a...oh...." Before Ceres could explain, the waves had came up and washed her "sand castle" away. Ceres frowned as she watched her sand castle get destroyed.

"It washed away...." she muttered sadly.

"It's okay, we can just make another sand castle" Hayden said grabbing the bucket that Ceres was using. He mentally sighed in relief when he saw the smile on Ceres' face as she thanked him.

"What Ceres is doing is a great idea! Let's make sand castles" Kade said cheerfully and had immediately asked Lance to help him out.

"I suppose I can" Lance said with a nod before joining Kade in the sand.

"Maxi~" Max turned to see Ares staring at him with a gleeful smile and he immediately grimaced. That smile meant the man was about to ask him some kind of crazy request.

"W-What?" He asked stepping back.

"Can I bury you in the sand?" He asked and Max threw a glare.

"Why the hell do you want to bury me in the sand?!" He exclaimed.

"Because it's a fun thing to do...?" Ares said as if it were the most normal thing on the planet.

"If you don't get away from me, I'll bury you in the ground" Max said and Ares pouted.

"Well at least come in the water with me" Ares said and Max gave a reluctant sigh.

"Fine but Lucas is coming too" Max said and Lucas turned up his head at the sound of his name.

"What?" Lucas didn't even get the chance to have a say as Max just dragged him to the water.

Seeing the others going to the water, Hayden turned to Ceres who was still sulking about her sand castle washing away.

"Ceres, wanna go in the water?" He asked and Ceres shook her head.

"Can't swim" was all she said and Hayden gave a small smile.

"That's okay. I'll teach you, come on" Hayden said standing up and holding out his hand to Ceres. Ceres looked at it wearily before grabbing it and letting Hayden lead her to the ocean.

"What are those two up to?" Roman mused as he saw the two teens heading to the water. Kade tried to look at what Roman was speaking about but Lance was quick to distract him.

They did not need Kade's dramatics right now when everyone was having such a relaxing day.

"Kade your side is falling" he said and Kade gasped as he turned and saw that his side was indeed falling.

Ceres shivered as the cold water of the ocean met with her sand covered feet, making the sand sloshy and sort of weird feeling. Despite feeling cold, the hand that was still being held by Hayden had somehow made her feel warm.

Looking out at the sea had made her feel almost nostalgic in a way as she remembered how fondly her Mama spoke of the beach. Ceres wished that they had gotten the chance to go together, maybe that would have been the only happy memory she'd have of her Mama and if it were, she would have treasured it above all else.

"Ceres, you ready?" Hayden's voice had broke her out her trance and she saw that Hayden was looking at her curiously.

"Yeah" she said.

The two begun to walk closer to the water and Ceres stopped when a particularly cold wave of water ran over her legs.

"Too cold..." she muttered and Hayden just gave her an encouraging smile.

"C'mon, we're almost there" he said. Ceres shivered once again when the water creeped up high and higher as the two walked further into the water. They stopped when the water was just a little bit higher than their hips.

"You can hold on to my arms if you'd like" Hayden said and Ceres nodded slowly.

"Okay now all you have to do is kick your legs" Hayden said once he made sure that Ceres was holding onto him securely. Ceres was hesitant to lift her feet from the ground but with a few more encouraging words from Hayden, she decided to finally give it a try.

On multiple occasions Ceres had felt like her body would just sink but Hayden never let it happen, not even once and had continued to ensure her that he wasn't going to let her drown which put a lot of relief in her heart.

"Look, you're getting the hang of it" Hayden said and Ceres looked up at him only to be blinded by the bright image that was Hayden's smile. The sun was illuminating his figure and the sea shimmering behind him just made him look all the more...what?

Ceres' thought process seemed to come to a whole stop as she found herself unable to find the word she was thinking of. Or was it that she just didn't want to say it?

"Ares! Let go of me right now!"

"You said dunk you? Your wish is my command!"

Ceres was immediately broken out of her trance at the shouts of her brothers. Ares had lifted Max over his shoulder and fell backwards into the water which startled Ceres and she had found herself clambering into Hayden's arms to avoid the impact of Ares' dunking.

Max resurfaced from the water and pushed his hair back in an attempt to regain his vision. He gave a deadly glare when seeing Ares laughing his ass off.

"Oh come on Maxi, this is the part where you laugh it off!" Ares said while still laughing himself and was unaware of the murderous aura coming from his little brother.

"No, I think this is the part where I drown you" Max said before forcing Ares under the water.

Lucas just watched the two from afar, not wanting to have anything to do with Max drowning Ares in plain sight.

"C-Ceres?" Hayden stuttered out and Ceres turned back to him only to find their faces less than a few inches away. Hayden's face had slowly grown redder and redder with each second that passed as he stared into Ceres' green eyes that were still staring into his own.

Hayden couldn't handle being so close to Ceres. It definitely wasn't good for his heart as he had felt it speed up ten time faster than normal and all he could hear was his heart hammering in his chest as being so close to the person you like would do that to anyone.

Ceres herself was turning red as she finally realized the intimate position the two were in because of her getting frightened.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TO MY BABY?!"

The two teens were startled by the sound of Kade's angered voice and Ceres paled when seeing Kade marching over angrily to the two of them.

"Uh oh..." Lucas muttered. With the addition of Kade coming into the water, Lucas had suddenly remembered about Max drowning Ares and when he looked over he saw that Ares was now choking up water as Max just looked at him.

When Lucas looked back to the others, he saw Kade sending one last murderous glare at Hayden before carrying Ceres out of the water and far away from Hayden who was still standing in the water with a red face.

"What happened?" Diana asked as she was looking from her own place. Her and Ross had been racing until they heard Kade screaming.

"I don't know but look at Hayden. He's a cherry! I'm totally gonna go find out why" Ross said before swimming over to Hayden.

"Wait for me!" Diana said as she quickly swam after Ross.

"I knew bringing that little shit was a bad idea! But no, no one listens to me!" Kade rambled as he angrily stabbed at his sand castle with a shovel.

"Kade, don't you think you're over reacting?" Roman said as he looked up from his book.

"You didn't see what I saw! He had his filthy little hands all over my baby! If only this were real..." Kade muttered the last part to himself as he stared at the shovel. It was clear to everyone that Kade was imagining the shovel as a knife and the ex-sand castle as Hayden's face as he continued to stab into it mercilessly.

"It wasn't his fault..." Ceres spoke up after being quiet for so long. She wanted to let Kade get his frustrations out before properly explaining to him what had really happen.

"Honey, don't even think of trying to defend him!" Kade said and Ceres frowned.

"You've got it all wrong. Hayden did nothing wrong and nothing happened. Ares had dunked Max and I got scared, Hayden just happened to be there. I'm the one who grabbed onto him" She said and Kade's eyebrow twitched.

"Ares is the cause you say?" Kade said and Lance just sighed as he looked at the sand castle the two had worked on. Lance had actually found himself enjoying working on the sand castle with Kade as he didn't often get to spend time with his siblings like this.

And now the fruits of his labors had been destroyed by the very man who helped him build it.

"Kade, you should calm down. It was just a misunderstanding" Roman said as he flipped a page in his book.

"Misunderstanding my ass..." Kade grumbled and although he still seemed to be angry, it was more of a pouty angry. After hearing Ceres' explanation, he did find relief that Hayden wasn't actually trying to force himself on Ceres or anything but that didn't mean he liked the fact that Hayden had gotten so close to Ceres in the first place.

"Max, you really need to see an anger management counselor" Kade's ears twitched at the sound of Ares voice and his murderous aura from earlier returned as he sent a tight lipped smile towards Ares.

"Ares, a word please if you don't mind" Kade said before gesturing for Ares to follow him.

"I don't like the look on his face..." Ares said as he got a bad feeling that following Kade would somehow result in something bad.

"You shouldn't" Lance said and that's when Ares paled.

"Now please" Kade urged and Ares just grumbled a couple of words before following Kade to wherever he was taking him.

Once seeing that Kade and Ares were gone, Ceres got up and headed back over to her friends that were huddled together.

"No way! Haha, that's totally hilarious!" Ceres could hear Ross' laughter from where she was and she wondered what he was laughing about.

"It's not funny! I thought Kade was going to kill me" Hayden exclaimed and Ceres frowned at that.

"Hayden...?" Ceres said as she finally reached her friends.

"O-Oh...hey, Ceres" Hayden said and Diana let out a snicker at his shy tone.

"I just wanted to apologize for Kade...he didn't really mean any harm" Ceres said as she kicked some sand.

"It's okay. I understand completely" Hayden said with a short laugh.

"Even though you almost crapped your pants?" Ross said but a punch in the shoulder made him shut up quickly.

"Well, it's all over now right? Let's play some more!" Diana cheered.

"I'm sorry. I think I've had enough water for today" Ceres said with an apologetic smile.

"No, it's okay" Diana said with a shake of her head.

"So what do we do now?" Ross asked and just then, the four of them were being called out to.

"You guys, we're going to get food now" Roman said and the teens all made their way back the others.

"What's wrong with him?" Ross whispered as he pointed to Ares who just sat on his chair lifelessly.

"I don't know..." Ceres said with a sigh.

"Kade had a...chat? Yeah, a chat with him" Lucas said and suddenly, everything made sense to Ceres.

She couldn't help but feel sorry for Ares since she had technically snitched on him which was the reason why he was almost seemingly eroding away in his seat.

"You" Kade said as he pointed a finger at Hayden who tensed up when seeing Kade coming his way.

"Yes?" Hayden said as he waited for Kade to continue.

"I don't like you. At all" Kade said and Hayden let out a weary smile at his words. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Kade wasn't very fond of Hayden.

"But I was out of line earlier...I now know that what happened wasn't what I thought was happening" Hayden just stared at Kade as he tried to figure out where this conversation was going.

He wasn't sure if Kade was about to apologize to him or something else.

Something else was the correct answer.

"But if it ever happens again, you won't get so lucky" Kade said before giving him a strained smile.

"Alright who's hungry? I know I am!" Kade said as his previous scary demeanor did a total 180°.

"What does that even mean?" Hayden said with a sigh and Max just looked at him.

"It means your days are numbered" Max said and Hayden let out a nervous laugh.

"I-Is that so?" Hayden said and Ceres just let out a sigh.

"Don't listen to him. As long as you don't give Kade a reason to harm you, you'll be fine" Lucas said and Hayden deadpanned.

Ceres also frowned upon hearing Lucas' words before leaning over to Hayden and whispering.

"Don't worry, I will protect you" she said before giving Hayden a reassuring nod to which Hayden just gave a small unsure smile.

"So this just means my days are still numbered, huh...?" Hayden said sulkily and Ross just gave him a pat on the back.

"Wait, aren't we forgetting something?" Lance said and everyone shook their heads.

"No I don't think so?" Roman said.

"Hm...I guess not" Lance muttered.

Meanwhile, Ares's lifeless form was still wasting away in the chair he was sitting in.