A ten year old Catalina wakes up to bright sunlight shining on her face through a crack in her curtains. She wipes her eyes and stretches before getting out of bed. Her bare feet pad softly against the warm hardwood floor as she makes her way down the hall to Jax's room. The door creaked softly as she opened it.

"Morning bug," he said sleepily, as he lifted the blankets with his arm for her to climb in next to him.

She ran the rest of the way across the room and jumped into the bed with a big smile on her face. She wiggled back and forth under the blankets snuggling into him.

"What's the plan for today? You got any?" he asked, looking down at her.

"Hmm... not really," she answered sweetly.

"Really? Nothing?"

"Nope," she said, shrugging nonchalantly.

"Well, how bout this..." he reached down under the covers and started tickling her sides.

Catalina squirmed and giggled loudly.

"No! Stop, stop!" she cried through her laughter.

"Stop, huh? You know... I just don't think I can," he laughed back at her as he moved down to her feet with his tickling fingers.

She giggled and squirmed even more. With all her squirming, she'd come out from under the covers. She finally escaped his unrelenting hands by plopping ungracefully onto the floor, still giggling. Jax peered down over the edge of the bed at her.

"Well... you had enough?" he asked, slithering towards her off the bed.

"Yes! Yes!" she squealed as she franticly slid herself backwards across the floor.

Jax's body lay flat on the floor now. He propped himself up with his hands and continued towards her, pulling himself along the ground with his hands and evil smile on his face. Catalina giggled and back pedaled until she bumped into the wall next to the bedroom door. The door opened suddenly to reveal her knight in shining armor, Emmett.

"Yall are making an awful lot of noise," he said, giving his brother, who was still on the floor an odd look.

Catalina jumped to her feet and scurried behind Emmett, peeking over his shoulder with a victorious grin at Jax.

"He won't stop tickling me!" Catalina said, looking up at Emmett with innocent eyes and an angelic smile.

Jax shrugged and rolled over into a sitting position. Emmett rolled his eyes and smiled.

"You got plans today?" Jax's asked Emmett as he got to his feet.

"Yeah, I'm going down to the fields to get in some extra training."

"Uhh, boring," Jax said, with an eye roll.

"You got something better to do?" Emmett asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, I do. I'm taking Catalina to the waterfall to go swimming. You know, have some actual fun, oh wait... Do you know what fun is?" Jax asked, giving Emmett a nudge and raising his eyebrows at him twice in quick succession.

"You are?" Catalina said, with an excited smile.

"Well, yeah, we gotta do something fun today," Jax answered, smiling back at her.

Emmett rolled his eyes, "You're not baiting me into changing my mind on the training. Besides, Nick is expecting me, and I'm not for disappointing him."

"You sure you can't come?" Catalina begged.

"I'm sure, maybe next time," he answered, ruffling her hair.

"It's okay, Catta. We'll probably have more fun without him. Now go put on a swimsuit and I'll meet you downstairs. I gotta stop by the kitchen for some snacks to take with us. We'll have a picnic."

"Okay," she said, running off towards her room.

"Yall have fun," Emmett said before also returning to his room.

Catalina swung from a rope and let go as it reached its peak. She screamed until she came splashing down into the shimmering water bellow. Her head popped out of the water, and she swam to the bank.

She paused when she reached it to watch Jax as he screamed, "Cannonball!" As he let go of the rope and splashed into the water. There was a tree that had fallen across the pool they were swimming in. The roots were still partially in the ground, which allowed the tree to continue thriving. Catalina made her way over to it and sat down in the middle of it, her feet dangling in midair the swimming hole just beneath her.

She sat their swinging her feet back and forth as she watched the waterfall. The water flowed quickly over the rocks at the top and came to a thundering crash into the crystal clear pool below. She absolutely loved the sound it made and how beautiful it all was.

As she sat there, some sad thought caught hold of her and carried her away. She loved her new family, but sometimes she really missed her old one. She could only remember a few things about them. She remembered she had a sister and brother who were both older than her. She remembered loving them all dearly.

She remembered playing hide and seek with her brother. She remembered her sister helping her get dressed in the morning and brushing her hair. She remembered her mother singing in the kitchen as she made breakfast. She remembered her father swinging her around in circles and reading stories to them at night. On happy days, she could almost forget them, but in the back of her mind, the sad thoughts were always there.

Would that have done stuff like this? Would they have gone swimming and for picnics? Would her brother have swung off ropes and yelled cannon ball before hitting the water? Would she have run down the hall to her parents' room for snuggles in the morning? Would her sister have chased her around tickling her?

She would never have the answers to these questions because someone had robbed her of the answers.

"Why so serious?" Jax asked, walking out onto the log beside her.

"Hmm? Oh, sorry, the waterfall had me under its spell, " she said, hiding her sadness under a smile.

"You hungry?" he asked with a small smile. He had seen that look of sadness many times. He assumed he knew the reason behind it. He was unable to fix it, but he could be a distraction.

"Yeah," she answered, taking the hand he offered her,

They followed the log back to the bank and walked over to a blanket they'd spread out earlier. There were two baskets on the blanket. Jax started unpacking one, and she started unpacking the other.

He pulled several different kinds of sandwhiches out of his. There was PB and J, Tuna, Turkey, and ham. The last thing he pulled out were two thermoses one of tea and one of orange juice.

Catalina pulled fruit and veggies out of hers. Carrots, celery, tomatoes, slices of watermelon, grapes, and strawberries. The last thing she pulled out was a hunk of cheese and a knife to slice it. Jax started in on a turkey sandwich, while Catalina started popping grapes in her mouth and cutting off pieces of cheese to go with it.

"You gonna share that cheese?" Jax asked with a chuckle.

Catalina handed it over and picked up a Peanutbutter and Jelly sandwich. Jax took a big swig of tea as Catalina opened the orange juice.

"You wanna go jump off the waterfall?" Jax asked, screwing the top back on his thermos.

"Race ya," Catalina said, throwing down her thermos and jumping to her feet.

She took off her feet, pounding hard across the soft ground. Jax was close behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw he was only a couple of strides from overtaking her. She pushed herself faster. Just as she reached the break in the trees that led to the waterfall, he slipped past her laughing in triumph as he splashed into the water.

"Be careful. Some of the rocks are slick," he told her over her shoulder as they picked their way carefully over the rocks to the edge of the waterfall.

"I'll go first, so you know where to jump," he said.

She watched as he leaped gracefully over the edge. She waited for him to move out of the way, and she jumped, landing almost exactly where he had. Jumping off the top of the waterfall was much more exilerating than the rope because it was much much higher. After doing it several times, Catalina got a bit tired and returned to the blanket for more snacks.

The blanket had an easy view of the waterfall, and she watched Jax jump off as she ate a piece of watermelon. As she watched him prepare to jump for the third time since she sat down, her breath caught. He moved up to the edge to jump but his right foot suddenly slid out from under him and she watched him fall of the top of the waterfall going to the right of the pool instead of towards the middle.

She stood up and ran towards the bank. She pushed her feet to carry her as fast as she could possibly go, much faster than they had earlier. She reached the edge of the water and watched the water anxiously for his head to pop up, but it never did. Instead, what floated to the surface was something that tinged the water red and filled her with fear.

The only thing that crossed her mind before taking a deep breath and diving in after him was that she wouldn't lose another brother. She dove, the water stung her eyes, but she held them open as she swam hard to where she'd seen him land in the water.

A red cloud continued to float up towards her. There near the bottom she spotted him, there was a big rock not far from him. She swam down, sliding through the water as fast as she could until she got to him. Her lungs were starting to feel the strain of needing air as she grabbed him by the arm. She kicked off the bottom and continued to kick her legs as fast and hard as she possibly could, but she was tired from swimming all day.

She was also only ten to his fifteen, which meant he was much bigger and heavier than her. She fought and fought as hard as she could to get them to the surface, but her lungs were screaming at her now, and her vision was starting to dim. No way was she about to abandon him for air. She absolutely refused. Desperation filled her, and just when she was about to give up hope, she felt something else start to fill her.

Something strong and full of power. It filled her from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, so much so she thought she'd explode. The last time this happened, she'd ran from it, but this time, she gabbed onto it with all her her might and wished it would help them get to the surface.

As soon as she grabbed a hold of it and shot towards the sky like a torpedo. The water rushed past them so fast she was afraid she'd lose her grip on Jax. She clutched his arm so hard her nails bit into his skin. The next thing she knew, they landed with a hard thud on the bank. She gasped for air, and Jax sat up coughing beside her.

"You can let go now, Catte," Jax said, placing his hand on top of hers on his arm.

She looked down in suprised at his arm and let go, noticing the bloody crescents she'd left there. She looked up into his eyes, her own full of relief.

"You're alive! We're alive!" she exclaimed, thowing her arms around him and sobbing into his shoulder.

"Thank God for that. What happened? I think you almost ripped my arm off," he said, rolling his shoulder. "I slipped, I hit my head," he said, raising his hand to touch the back of his head. His fingers came back bloody. "You... you saved me, Catta!" he said in wonder.

"I... I guess I did," she said, whipping her teary eyes.

"How?"

"I'm... I'm not sure..." she said shakily.

"Let's uh... Let's not tell dad about this, OK?"

"K," she answered, with a confused nod.

She didn't have a clue how to explain what'd just happened any way.