With a heavy sigh your body exhaled and the fidgeting with sand grains between your fingers awoke you; you'd spent the remainder of the night roaming the beach solo... You couldn't face your precious little brother. Your body instinctively stretch out as your eyes opened to watch the waves rolling in.

*AHHH UGGGG*

You flew off your back and noticed that Lachlan was rolling around on the ground while holding his nose.

You: freaking out
I'M SORRY LOCKIE!

Lachlan stopped with the dramatic reaction and sat up, nursing his nose and showing a goofy smile from behind his hand.

Lachlan: sighing
It was kinda my fault, you didn't know I was here.

You: dusting sand off your legs
I was up for quite awhile, when did you get here?

Lachlan: doing crossed eyes to look at his nose
Is it considered creepy if I admit that I ran after you and watched you in the bushes until you feel asleep? I was going to carry your sleepy butt back to the house once you were unconscious, but my shoulder hurt too much and the sea breeze knocked me right out.

You: emotionlessly watching the ocean
What about Adrain?

Lachlan:
What not about him? When you left he bolted for his room and it sounded like he put all his emotions into that keyboard of his. For Reece... I don't think Gilbert had a good night either.

Lachlan: looking at you
Berwald and Gilbert aren't actually all that bad... Well at least in my books.

You: scoffing
They're not important, you don't need to l--

Lachlan: scolding you
EVERYONE is important ____! You should never say that!
... I see a lot of my younger self in Gilbert and Berwald.

You: confused
In Berwald?

Lachlan: shrugging
Well mainly all the times I got lost in IKEA, but we all can relate to anyone on some sort of level... I relate to them on the level of wanting to impress someone who I thought was the only one I'd ever need. Also extremely uncontrollable hormones... If they ever get that way around you, you have my full permission to hit them where it counts.

You: blankly staring at Lachlan
Excuse me? What are you trying to tell me Lockie?

Lachlan: tearing up
Your not shy around them ____, do you really think no one picked up on that? ... Y- (heavily inhaling while fighting tears) Your growing up.

You: messing up Lachlan's hair with no emotion in your eyes
Love is the bad kind of mysterious, deceiving, one sided and will give you no fruits of you labour.

Lachlan: looking at the sand
It has the uncanny ability to make that mystery into something passionate, exciting and addictive, it's only deceiving and one sided if you find yourself investing time to the wrong person, but when you find the right person its fruits are sweeter than the richest of honey.

You: blurting out something without thinking
If that was the case, then you and Savvy should have worked out with or without the unexpected pregnancy.

You bit down on your tongue as soon as you realised what you said; Lachlan went quiet and looked out at the ocean, you just sent an exploding grenade straight to his heart.
Time to explain this now.
4 years ago Lachlan met this amazing person called Savannah and they hit it of straight off the bat, but after a year of them going out and in their final year of high school... Things all went South. Turns out Lachlan was going to be a father; at first he wasn't sure how to act or feel about this, but when it finally sunk in he was prepared to cast aside all his ambitions in life and raise his young family with Savannah... Turns out this wasn't a mutual feeling.
Okay let me take you back another 17-ish years; our parents were both 17 and found themselves in the exact position as Lachlan and Savannah. Except the only difference this time was that when your father found out about your mother being pregnant with Lachlan, he proposed to her and the rest is literal history.
In Lockie's eyes what dad did back then made him look like a hero and Lachlan wanted to man up to his responsibilities as well; turns out Savvy took care of the 'little' issue and came up to our house one day for the final time. She told Lockie that she had the baby aborted and was moving to a different city that exact day. For her to make the decision to aborted the baby seemed so one sided and selfish, she completely ignored Lockie's feelings and she knew how excited he was, but at the end of the day it was going to be her that had to carry the child for 9 months, birth it and then make the emotional decision on what to do with it.
Lachlan holds no ill feelings towards her, but this is one of the more sensitive topics in his life and has had a great deal of impact on shaping who he is today.
The sad thing is that he still kinda believes that Savvy never aborted the child and he has a 3 year old son or daughter that was estimated to have been born around the middle to end of December, waiting to meet him one day.

Lachlan: breaking the silence
Yeah, maybe...

You looked over at him; he put on a brave face, but everyone knows he's still hurting and vulnerable.

Lachlan: jumping onto his feet and smiling
SOOO I'm hungry and I'm gonna leave your sorry and sand covered butt here while I make up an ice cream sundae for breakfast.

You: playing along with his attempt to fix the atmosphere
Isn't it too early for a sundae? I thought your coach had you on a strict diet?

Lachlan: walking backwards and shrugging his shoulders
I'm a soccer play, I'm not DEAD!

You raced after him with a big smile on your face and an identical one on his; he really would have been a great parent.

...

The time to leave finally came, even though you spent only one day in (country), Berwald stressed how important it was to get back to the school as soon as possible. So here you were sitting up the front of the helicopter beside Gilbert and Berwald in back again; you didn't want to leave, your family was here, but you had to go back, your future all relied on it... If you still even have a future after this stunt.
You felt the the helicopter lift up and watched as your family become smaller and smaller; within seconds you were flying over the sea, leaving them all behind.
Gilbert hadn't said a thing to you all morning, but he had a few bruises on his arms and a slightly busted lip, only one person could have been responsible for that; Reece was a good person, but unlike Lachlan, Adrain and you, he had anger issues that he frequently finds difficult to control.

Gilbert: mumbling
I'm sorry...

You: mumbling back
I'm sorry Reece did that to you.

Gilbert: sighing
It's fine, I deserved it... I vould have done the same.

You: mumbling
He shouldn't have hurt you though, he's always had horrifying anger issues...

Gilbert: noticing something on the dashboard
If I had a beautiful sister like jou, I vould beat the snot out of vhoever betrayed them.

You blushed for a moment at being called beautiful, but then noticed the red light that Gilbert was focusing on; Berwald leaned over Gilbert's shoulder.

Berwald: monotoned
____ trade places with me.

You didn't need to be told twice and removed your seatbelt, awkwardly moved to the backseat and allowed Berwald to take your place. The second he placed on a matching pair of headphones and began to speak into it seeking a channel, panic began to set in; the helicopter was about to crash.

You: hyperventilating and turning claustrophobic
WE'RE GONNA CRASH AND BURN! HOLY MOTHER OF ALL THINGS WEEABOO!

The helicopter began to loose altitude and you looked out the window noticing how the ocean seemed to get closer by the second. Gilbert was desperately trying to pull up the helicopter, but the moment Berwald threw off his headset you knew what was bout to happened next.

Berwald: opening up the door
When I say 'jump' do it!

Gilbert: snatching onto Berwald's shoulder
Are jou crazy!?!

Berwald: unbuckling Gilbert's seatbelt and chucking the albino out first
JUMP!

Normally the idea of fling yourself out of a helicopter wasn't something you'd ever wanted to do, but this was a life or death situation. Time slowed down as the adrenaline all raced to your head and you barely noticed as the helicopter came crashing down right next to you as you stared at it while being completely submerged in the ocean. You were ripped away from the helicopter and dragged up to the surface, taking in a long breath and noticing that Berwald had you in his grip while treading water. Your eyes scanned the surface for Gilbert and he was no where to be seen, thankfully though he soon bursted out of the water like a not so majestic mermaid while swearing in German.

Gilbert: swimming over to you guys
Now vhat!?!

==================================================================================

Remember in chapter 23 where Adrain accidentally pulled out a wire in the helicopter without realising it? Well, I'm guessing that was kinda an important wire.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!

~BlueTimeFly