Protective Arms (Completed)

54. Your Cousin

"Mom? Dad?" I ask from behind Zack's back. I can't see them but Moms voice is unforgetable even if we barely talk, with the slight pitch she speaks with.

"Athena? Baby!" Mom screams, as Zack moves to the side and looks back at me confused and shocked.

Mom rushes forward with her heels clicking beneath her feet, only to wrap her arms around me and squeeze the living daylights out of me.

"What are you doing here?" I ask shocked.

I haven't heard from them but the one simple text message instead of a phone call in the last month.

"Baby, we seen it all over the news about you being held at gunpoint." Mom squeezes me tighter.

I look to Zack for help but he starts holding his mouth to not laugh out loud.

"We had to come once we seen the news and got on the first flight out. It seems strange when you flip the news on to see how polls are doing but instead there is nothing but coverage over some trial going on here and then they put up a short video of you being against a guy and a gun to your head. The hair is new on you." Dad states with a huff.

"Well, I did try to call you and tell you to where you wouldn't hear it the wrong way." I try not to sass my parents, because I did try so it can't be completely my fault. Or at least I think it's not.

Mom finally lets me go and I take a small step back, with her perfume burning my nose slightly just like it always used to growing up.

"Aunt Crystal? Uncle Gabe?" Molly steps out from around the corner where she had stayed in the living room.

"Aunt? Uncle?" My eyes bug out. "What in the world is going on?"

Mom steps up to Molly and reaches out to touch her cheek. Dad is fairing no better when he takes one step away from me in the Molly's direction. My eyes find Zack's and he seems to have caught onto it all. As where I really would like to know exactly what's going on, because growing up there was never any other family around.

Molly seemed like she was familiar when I first seen her this morning but I never thought this would be the case.

Mom starts crying and pulls Molly up to where I am standing, before pulling us both in her arms. Dad is patting Mom's back as she cries on us.

Zack simply closes the front door and ushers us all to the living room. "Please why don't we all sit down?"

I get out of Mom's bear arms and sit beside Zack on the smaller loveseat. More like all but being on top of his lap, with his arm around my and holding my waist. Mom, Dad, and Molly take the couch.

Mom takes a deep breath and looks at me.

"Baby, Molly is your cousin. She is my sisters only child. My older sister past away right when you was just a few months old. After her funeral my brother-in-law moved out of state and we lost touch within a year of my sisters, your aunts, passing."

"I never knew growing up. You never talked about it much and most of the time it was nannies around because you worked so much along with Dad." I sigh, taking it all in.

I am not mad in the least, just shocked. Today has turned out to be more than I thought it would ever be.

"I know Baby. It is not your fault and I should have been there as a mother for you, but I wasn't because I never got over my grief. My sister got into an accident and they said she went quickly. I let myself get involved with work to stop from it hurting so much. I still came home to take care of you, but then as you got older you looked so much like my sister it wasn't even funny." Mom sniffles and I hand her a box of tissues from the side of me.

"Thank you, Baby. You would act so much like her as a child and it was like I was reliving my childhood with her as you grew up. So, I hired nannies while I just threw myself into work even more to where I could provide you with everything."

"Mom, I didn't want all the material things growing up many times I just wanted you." My own tears form.

Mom stands and I do as well, as she brings me in her arms and hugs me softly. My tears break free and mix with hers as she whispers sorry's in my ear and how much she has always loved me.

"Athena, you are my shining star and I have done wrong. There is no way to tell you how sorry I am, but I want to show you and do the right thing, Baby."

"I would like that Mom." I smile.

Dad has been fairly silent through everything, but then again he always has been. Dad's always been one to just watch and speak to help when needed, which I guess it why he is good at being in politics because he also knows how to argue if need be. One thing is though, Dad has always gave Mom the world and whatever she has wanted to do he goes with her.

"I can't believe we are cousins." Molly stands and smiles at me. "There was something about you, I knew I could trust."

"Same here." I laugh some.

Molly grabs her purse off the floor where she laid it when we got in and digs around. Only to pull out a picture and hands it to me.

"Aunt Crystal is right, you look just like Mama." Molly smiles at me again.

Looking at the picture, it feels like I am really looking at my twin.

"What happened to your Dad, dear?" Mom asks Molly.

"Heart attack about nine years ago. I was right at eighteen when it happened which is what lead me to packing up and just moving then to find this place. I was one of the first victims seven years ago." Molly sits back in the chair.

"I am sorry young man for just walking in and you seeing all of this." Dad finally speaks up, looking at Zack.

"No apologies needed." Zack smiles at us.

"Mom, Dad. This is my husband, Zack Gatlin." I smile.

"What?" Mom's pitch gets impossbily higher.

Zack stands and wraps his arms around me, and we look at each other smiling as my love for him is unending.

A/N---
Hey Hey Guys!!!

Can we say all our characters are just getting shock after shock?

Was it good to get a little more of Athena's background to family she never knew about?