Being a tourist is underrated! We zoomed Austin around all over the town. We saw everything that we could in a running distance which was basically everything that was important to us. When we got tired we stopped for tea and crumpets and then kept on going. Afterwards, Austin asked us what we had actually seen. Apparently we had gone too fast for him to process what we had we had passed so all he saw were colorful blurs. We never told him, but there was a time where Sophie accidentally let go while we were going downhill. He survived so we didn't see the need to tell him. We sat down at a small cafe for a little breather.

"That was amazing! You two should come with me the next time I have to travel. Being a tourist is super great! Plus, I learned that Soph can run really fast downhill. You sure do learn something new everyday!" Austin exclaimed as we came to a stop.

Soph and I looked at each other, and then burst out laughing. "Yes, Austin, sure. I think I'm ready to fly back home, though. What about y'all?" Sophie suggested. You could tell that she was getting a little tired from all the running and chasing after escaped wheelchairs.

"I think that sounds perfect, Soph, I know that I'm burned out. What do you think, Austin?" I put my hand on my hip and waited for some sarcastic answer.

"I think I'm exhausted. I'm ready to go back home too. I'm also ready for Em to move back in, what do you say?" Austin gave me his puppy dog eyes when he asked me this. I didn't know how to reply.

"I say we have a thirteen hour plane ride and I'll think about it." I finally managed to say. All I wanted to think about was having a nice nap on the plane.

"I'll take what I can get." He tried to kiss me, but remembered that he was in a wheelchair. "Uh, a little help please." He smiled when he said please. I bent down to his level so he could kiss me.

"Also, we are nowhere near the plane." She sure was Captain Obvious.

I laughed. I mean, of course she was right. I didn't even realize how far away we had gotten until I actually looked around. I helped him sit back down. "You're right; we should probably head back now." I turned off the brakes on his wheelchair and grabbed the handles. "Let's ride." I said as I took off running with Soph closely behind.

....

The second plane ride was almost better than the first. This plane had actual beds! The only problem was that there were only two beds. Soph and I said that we would share one, but Austin insisted that Soph slept by herself; so he took the couch. I had to kick him out though. He tried to tell me that he could share a bed because he couldn't even try anything even if he wanted to since his leg was all messed up and I pointed out that if he could walk off stage he could do other things too, so he surrendered to the couch.

Half way through the night I woke up. I heard a noise coming from the other room so I wandered out of bed to take a peek. I went out to where Austin was sleeping; the noise was coming from him. I could tell he was having a nightmare. I tried to wake him up, but I didn't get much of a response.

"Austin, it's okay, Austin, I'm here. It's okay, Sweetie." I said while slightly shaking him, but still nothing. I decided to try and cover him with a blanket. His arms were twitching slightly. It would've been kinda cute if I knew he wasn't freaking out. His twitching slowed and he curled up in the blanket. "Austin, I'm here." I tried again.

He started to wake up, "Em, are you okay?" He started to look around frantically. Whatever he had had a nightmare about must've been disturbing.

"I should be asking you that. You were making a lot of noise." I was starting to get really worried about him again. I had no idea what was going on and if he kept thrashing around like that, he might re-injure his leg.

"Yeah, just a bad dream, I guess. It's nothing, really. Go back to bed, Em." He attempted to roll back over to avoid further conversation.

"Why don't you join me? You know, the bed is pretty big and I won't mind, like you said, you can't do anything with that leg." I sat on the edge of the couch trying to coax him to come with me. That way I could keep a close eye on him.

"I don't want to hurt you in any way." He turned to face me. There was something in his eyes, almost horror as he shrunk further back into the couch cushions.

"You aren't a violent person. I think It'll be okay. But would you like to tell me what was that dream about, Austin?" I gently brushed his bangs from his face. I wanted to know, but there was no way I was going to push him again. I knew that it was probably bothering him enough to still be having these bad dreams. I didn't want to put any pressure on him to tell me. Although, I must admit, that he did seem way better off than before; which was a very reassuring sign.

"It's nothing. I'll go, but I'll sleep on the very edge of the bed." He sat up slowly as he said this. He must've been so exhausted, I wondered how long he had actually been asleep.

"Deal." I helped him move across the room and up into the bed. It was slow going, but we made it. I got him settled in and crumpled down next to him. I had a pretty good idea about what his dream was about, but I wasn't going to bug him about it right then. He fell asleep almost instantly, but it took me a little while longer. I rolled over on my side, facing Austin, and tried to think about what it would be like back at the cabin. Would we be okay, even with the past that now haunted those parts of the woods?

I felt his arm wrap around my waist. I could tell that he was still asleep. It actually felt nice to feel the heat from his body next to mine. I felt safe and secure where I was. His breathing was slowing and I knew that he was finally calming down. "Austin," I whispered to him, not expecting an answer, "I think I would like to move in with you." I kissed him on the forehead and rolled onto my other side. After that, it was easy to fall asleep.

....

We got back home to the cabin and everything was normal enough. I strangely felt at home, even though I had only lived there for a little less than a day. I dropped my things on the floor and flopped on the bed. I was still exhausted. I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before; at one point, Austin started to violently toss and turn. It hadn't been difficult to calm him down, but it had me on edge for the rest of the night.

I felt Austin crawl into bed next to me. He kissed the back of my neck. "I had fun these past three days." He whispered in my ear.

"Me too," I said with a sigh, "It was a nice break from school and everything. It's been hard with you not there."

"I know and I feel bad about that, but you know what I said."

"Yeah, and I have to finish this year if I want to go to college. I think I have a college all picked out, but they haven't accepted or denied my application yet so I'm a little nervous about that." It was true. Senior year was almost over and college was coming up sooner than I would have liked. The fact that I hadn't heard anything back yet was starting to worry me.

"You'll be fine. You're the smartest person I know." He was clearly lying. "Plus, if they don't want you, then they are a stupid college anyway. No one should be going to a stupid college; the whole point of college is to get smart."

"Get smart?" I asked with a huff of a laugh.

"Shut up, I'm tired," He whined.

"Plus, you only know like seven people personally, so it's not that much of a competition of 'who is the smartest'." He kissed my neck again, "What do you want to do tomorrow?" I asked, trying to change the subject once again.

"Sleep. I feel like I could sleep forever. I'm so exhausted right now. Being a tourist is great, but tiring." I turned to face him.

"You weren't even doing any of the running. Man, you are lazy."

"Lazy, but amazing and you know it. You were on stage with me, so you should know better than anyone." He pushed some loose hair back behind my ear. He was so gentle.

"I Know, I got pretty lucky with you. Hey, you still haven't paid me back for those nachos that you ruined when we first met." I gave him a big smile. What can I say, this girl sure loves her nachos.

"So what I'm hearing is that tomorrow we are going for a nacho date? I'm in." Of course he was in. I bet he just wanted the nachos too.

"For right now, we should sleep. It's six in the morning. You should go to bed." I wasn't feeling tired at the moment, but I had no more interest in talking.

"I'm already in bed." He gave me a hug around the waist and we curled up.

"You know this bed is too small for the both of us, I'll just end up kicking you off. I like my space, you know." I said hoping that he wouldn't actually leave my side.

"Trust me, I know." He laughed, "How about we push the two beds together. That would give us plenty of space."

"Or you could just go to your own bed." I knew he wasn't going to listen to that and I was grateful.

"Come on, I know you liked last night." He did a little dance with his eyebrows.

"Technically, it was this morning." I said, always having to be my sassy self.

"Technically, I'm not hearing a 'no'." He was so persistent and I loved it.

"You are also not hearing a yes. Plus, you wouldn't be able to help with that leg of yours; I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself." I crossed my arms.

"I won't, I can help. It's only for one night, just for one night. Please?" He was back to begging again. Ugh his puppy dog eyes were so irresistible.

"Fine, but you just sit. I don't need you to get hurt again." I pushed the beds together and when Austin attempted to help, but I pushed him down into a nearby chair. I decided that it was only for one night, so it would be okay.

Austin curled up next to me, his arm around my waist, "I love you, Em." He whispered in my ear.

"I love you too, Austin."

That night I slept better than I had in months, we started to feel like a real family.

....

I woke up with the light shining through the window, still a little groggy from the day before. I rolled over and patted the bed beside me, I felt nothing. I then discovered two things; first, it was past noon and second, the bed was empty... at first I was freaking out because he was gone, but then I was freaking out because he was gone and had a broken leg. I searched the house, but didn't find anything. I called Peter. He only told me that Austin had called him to give him a ride to the hospital. That didn't help I just started to panic even more.

I drove to the hospital and ran up to the room the woman at the front desk had said he was in. When I got there they were just cutting off his cast. "What are you doing, Austin?" I was just relieved that he was okay.

"Oh, hey, Em. I didn't want to wake you up this morning, so I just asked Peter for a favor. How are you?" He was just sitting there on the table with a huge dorky smile sprawled across his face.

I went up to him and started lightly slapping him in the arm relentlessly. "I was freaking out, you can't just do that I thought you were gone and had hurt yourself again. What ever happened to leaving notes? Wasn't it your idea to communicate better? Where was that thought this morning?" I could see some of the doctors trying not to laugh, but I didn't care. I just kept hitting him in the arm. He had to learn somehow.

"Ow, Em; calm down, I'm okay. I swear!" He was trying to hold back his laughter as he said this. He was failing.

"Weak, I'm not even hitting you that hard." I turned to the doctors, "Are you sure you want to take this off now? I mean if he can't handle this..." I punched him a little harder just to give them an example.

"Ow." Austin said sarcastically. He then pulled me into a hug with the hopes that it might restrain me from punching him. He was oh so wrong.

The doctor gave a slight laugh. "He'll get a removable cast so that when he is sitting and relaxing, he can have a break from his old, itchy one. He still needs crutches, but he can walk around, gently and slowly, as long as he's careful or is at least on it for only a short period of time." he explained. I was starting to feel a little better about this.

I turned back to Austin. "You better use the damn crutches." I threatened.

"I'll need physical therapy thing, right?" He asked the doctor.

"Yes, that's right. You'll probably have to go for a couple of month, but it will help you out a lot." The doctor glanced at her clipboard and then turned back to face Austin, "Your leg should be healed in no time."

"See, Em, I'll be fine. Just relax and let them finish taking this stupid thing off, okay?" They had taken off half his cast when I had walked into the room and it was just somehow hanging off his leg awkwardly.

I hit him again, "You better not try anything like that again, if you do you'll need actual therapy."

"I'll promise if you promise to stop hitting me." I hit him one more time, "What was that for?" He asked as he grabbed his arm.

"I wanted to get one more in before I agreed to anything. Okay, I promise." I held up my hands as if in surrender, then I nudged his arm with my elbow in a playful manner.

"Good, now let's kill the beast." He seemed so determined to face this 'beast'.

"The beast?" The doctor asked.

"The stupid cast. That's what I'm calling it now. It's itchy and stupid and an annoying beast." He explained this as if he were explaining how to make toast. Although he would probably have just burned the toast to a crisp. Just...just ignore that.

"Gotcha." He held my hand, "What, are you scared?" I knew he could handle all my sarcasm. He had to handle a bunch of it already.

"No, but I'm such a baby that I might need to hold your hand." He grabbed my hand and kissed the back of it. That time none of the doctors even tried to hold back their laughs.

The cast came off perfectly fine and he felt free for a moment. Then they put the new one on immediately after. He only had a minute of freedom before he was caged again. The good thing about the new one is that it was soft and he could take it off when he needed to. Which meant that he could take a shower which was a very good thing for all of us, the stench was starting to get to me. They kept him for an extra ten minutes just to make sure that it fit well and he was comfortable. I then helped him into the car and we headed home.

"What about the nachos?" He asked when we got home.

"Well, we have chips, cheese and a microwave. I think we're all set. We also have a couch and a TV as well." I commented. He winked at me as I helped him down onto the couch. "What?" I asked.

"Nothing, it just sounds great; I'll get the nachos." He started to stand.

"No, you get the movie up and I'll get the nachos." I kissed him on the cheek and handed him the remote.

"Sounds like a plan to me." He kissed me back and I went to make the nachos. I guess it's true what my mom had always said to me when I was a child; I would have a 'not your average love story'. I guess you could say it's nacho average love story. Okay, ignore that too; I think I'm done.