It's a simple stone cross; her father's name and the dates chiseled perfectly into the structure. Paige takes a few moments to clear off the dead flowers one of her siblings probably left a few weeks before. She hasn't been to visit his grave since Thanksgiving. So much has happened since then and she doesn't quite know where to start her tale.

So she tidies the grave and hangs the necklace of daisies she'd strewn together before leaning back on her knees.

"Hey, Pa."

( Hold on, baby, you're losing it//the water's high, you're jumping into it//and letting go... and no one knows that you cry )

"Why are you mad at Sammy?"

Paige looked up from the book she had been trying to read to see her youngest sister leaning on the couch arm to look down at her. "Shouldn't you be helpin' Lewis an' Laura in the garden?"

"Why ain't you answerin' my question?" Hannah sat on the arm and scrunched her nose, a tell tale sign of annoyance.

"Ya should be doin' yer chores." Paige tried to focus on the book but it was hard as Hannah's gaze burrowed a hole in her head.

"He looked real sad when he left ya here," the girl continued and Paige flipped the page. She had no idea what she'd just read. "Big sad eyes an' he kept lookin' back at the attic an' doin' that sighin' thing he does." Hannah imitated him perfectly. "Even his hug was sad."

"Mhmm." She was not going to be guilted by a nine year old.

"He told me to watch out for his sunshine."

Paige frowned at that. She wasn't his sunshine anymore. "I'm fine, Hannah."

Hannah pushed the book down and shook her head. "No you ain't," the girl replied earnestly. "Ya've lost yer shine."

Paige opened her mouth to offer a rebuttal but there wasn't anything she could say to that. "I hope ya find it again, Paigey. An' I hope you an' Sammy stop bein' mad." Hannah skipped away before she was able to reply and Paige stared at the spot where she'd been.

"Out of the mouths of babes," Ma Guthrie commented as she passed by with a load of laundry.

Paige looked away, pretending to focus on her book again and ignored her mother's "stubborn fool" comment. She wasn't ready to admit to herself that they were right. Maybe in a few days but not yet.

There’s a kind of emptiness that can fill you.
There’s a kind of hunger that can eat you up.
There’s a cold and darker side of the moonlight.
And there’s a lonely side of love.
-Nickel Creek

Every thing changes and nothing ever stays the same. No matter how hard you try to cling to the past, to the way things used to be, they crumble in your hands like sand on the beach and blow away in the wind. There is always the option of chasing after the sand, of trying to recreate the sandcastle of last year or realizing it will never look exactly as it did back then and finding a way to make a different one and love it as well.

Paige Guthrie isn't a fan of change. She can adapt but she does so stubbornly and clinging onto the past for a little too long before she can let go. It's a hard lesson to learn that the brother you adored is human. He is a fallible as the rest of the world and maybe, just maybe, even more so. It doesn't mean she's stopped loving Sammy but she loves him differently now. There is cautiousness to her love that wasn't there before and it eats her up inside.

Broken promises have led her to not so easily believing what he says now and she hates that. She longs for the days when she could take what Sammy told her at face value. She yearns for when she didn't think each time she saw him would be her last and dreads someone telling her he's off with Cable again. She knows that he's an X-Man now. She knows he wouldn't just up and leave Tabby again. But deep down she's still that scared little girl who lost her father and looked to her older brother for guidance.

Eventually she'll realize she needs to look to herself for that but she's not quite ready for the revelation.