RETURNING HOME WITH ONLY PETER BY HER SIDE, Kaelyn felt like an alien. All around her, loved ones reunited and rejoiced, others sobbed on the streets for fear that their loved ones were dead or had aged. Her heart raced as she and Peter stood hand-in-hand in front of her apartment door. Tony was dead and she felt empty. She had no idea if she could handle what was beyond that door.

Looking at Peter with watery eyes, he squeezed her hand reassuredly. With a heavy heart, she grabbed the spare key from under the mat and unlocked the door. Caden was standing in the kitchen, but there was someone else. A dark-haired woman stood around the kitchen counter with her back facing the front door. As soon as the door opened, Caden's eyes met hers and she already knew. His face was covered in a dark red stubble now, his figure had bulked up a bit, but he had grown in the way he looked at her. His eyes looked as though he had seen a ghost.

Upon realizing someone had entered the apartment, the dark-haired woman turned. With a heartbreaking notion, Kaelyn knew exactly who that woman was.

"Beth," Kaelyn's voice quivered as she looked at the woman in front of her. Five years. Beth had to be almost twenty-two now. All that time without her. Tears began to flow freely as everything overwhelmed Kaelyn at once. She collapsed to the floor, Peter slowing her fall as both her brother and best friend ran over to her.

Beth pushed Peter and Caden away, enveloping her best friend in a hug as she began crying, too. "Kaelyn, Kaelyn, I thought I would never see you again. I thought I lost you."

Kaelyn pulled away from the hug to cup her friend's face. Her jaw had thinned as she lost her baby-fat. Dark circles had formed under her once energetic eyes, a sign that the last five years had been tough on her. Her hair was shorter now, coming down to just above her shoulders. Something dark black on the girl's skin drew her attention, Kaelyn raised her pale fingers to brush over the girl's inner-wrist. It was a tattoo, reading K.A. in a script font with the words "she persisted," beneath it in the same font.

"You got a tattoo? For me?" Kaelyn asked, her voice shaky as her hands gripped her best friend's wrist, still in the girl's arms. "Beth, I missed you, so much. And Caden..."

The boy shook his head, "Catch up with Beth, I'm right here when you're done."

She nodded hesitantly, grabbing her best friend in a bear hug once again as they sat on the hardwood floor. "You had to do all of this without me. You graduated, got your first tattoo, are you going to school? Where do you go? I missed so much, I missed everything we were supposed to do together. We were never supposed to leave each other, but I left you. I left you, Beth."

"Shush, shush, none of that," the girl shook her head with teary-eyes and a gentle laugh, "Knowing you, you fought as hard as you possibly could. If you had stayed here, nothing would have changed if they still lost. You didn't have a choice. It's okay."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Kaelyn couldn't stop apologizing. Everything she and Beth were supposed to do together was ruined. Prom, graduation, college. All of it was over now. She had been left behind, but it wasn't even hers or Beth's choice to make.

Beth shook her head again and held the girl tighter, "And I forgive you, no matter what. All that matters is that you're back now. To answer your question, I'm finishing up my senior year at NYU. I stayed close to home in case... in case you ever came back."

"Well, I'm back now, I'm home and I'm not going anywhere," Kaelyn affirmed as she pulled both of them into a standing position. Finally, she let go of Beth and ran over to her brother to pull him into a hug, crying, "Oh, Caden."

"I know, Kae, I know," he chided, hugging her as tightly as he could, "Listen, I know we've had our qualms in the past and I haven't always been the best big brother, but I want to put that in the past as much as we can. Clean slate?"

Kaelyn pulled away from him, nodding and wiping her tears, "Clean slate. Where's mom and dad?"

The man shrugged, "I don't know. As soon as everyone came back, they disappeared. They've been disappearing for the last five years, on and off. People have been coming through the apartment, shady people. I never catch what they're talking about, but I can't imagine it's good. I remember hearing something about trying to take S.H.I.E.L.D down, do you know what that is?"

"Yes, unfortunately," Kaelyn sighed, looking over to meet Peter's eyes, "Great, we leave one shit storm just to come back to another. I knew I couldn't trust them the moment they knocked on our door five years ago. Jesus Christ, five years. Five goddamn years we were gone. I don't know what to do. We need to find mom and dad and get the truth out of them before it's too late. With Tony dead --" She choked on the words, the lump in her throat making her want to gag at the thought. Doing her best to regain her composure, she tried to continue, "There's effectively no one to stop me from taking it down."

"Tony's dead?" Beth asked, her eyes filling with tears once again. Kaelyn nodded solemnly.

"Pepper and Happy are arranging the funeral as we speak," her voice shook with pain as she spoke, avoiding the eyes of everyone in the room. "No one ever thinks about what happens after the world ends, huh? I mean, I essentially died and now I'm back and I feel so lost. I don't know what happened to me or who I used to be."

Caden looked over at Peter, nodding to his bedroom, "What do you say we give the girls some privacy? I can show you all the new video games that have come out in the last five years."

"I thought you hated me," Peter scoffed, but a half-smile adorned his features.

"You went through hell and managed to keep my sister alive," Caden shrugged, "If that doesn't earn my approval, what will?"

As the two walked away, Kaelyn heard Peter say, "Well, really she was protecting me the whole time."

She laughed softly at those words. Looking up at Beth, they were alone now. "Beth, I don't know what to do anymore. I mean, you're you, all grown up and mature now and I'm still... I'm still seventeen."

"Oh, my God," Beth walked over to the redhead and grabbed both of her hands in her gentle grip, "If you think I will ever be more mature than you have always been than I'm convinced an alien inhabited your body somewhere in the last five years. If anything, I've just started catching up with you. I don't care if you're still seventeen, you're still my best friend. Hell, you're my sister, Kae. Nothing will change that. Now, I just get to make fun of you for still being in high school. Also, I have a girlfriend now! Her name is Olivia and I think you two will get along swimmingly!"

Finally, something to lighten the mood. Kaelyn laughed as she hugged her best friend once again. However, she did have priorities as she pulled away and demanded, "Tell. Me. Everything."

this chapter was honestly heartbreaking to write but i knew i had to do it to them! also since lana condor is 22 in real life, i didnt cast an older beth, she just has lana's short hair that she had after they filmed the first TATBILB and obviously looks older than she is pictured in Busted and the first half of this book! same with Caden, he's still played by Oliver Dale!