Andrea: She waited.
Hope: "I just...it's....nevermind, it's stupid. Thank you. No, I won't forget." She headed to the door and opened the door. Her big green eyes got bigger. "Andy?"
Andrea: She grinned. "Hey kid."
Hope: "Andy!" She flung herself into Andrea's arms. "I've missed you!"
Andrea: "Missed you too, Little Jade, missed you too."
Hope: "I haven't seen you since-" But she didn't complete her sentence, choosing instead to let out a couple tears accidentally.
Andrea: "Hey now, what's all this for? I'm here, I'm here now." She held Hope for a minute. "I'm here." She looked over Hope's head at Jay. "Nice to see you Jay." She studied him, then looked down at Hope, then studied him, and that was all it took for everything to click into place. "You better be good to her, you hear? Any word of you hurting my baby sister and you're done for."
Hope: "We're two months apart! I'm not your baby anything."
Andrea: "Shush, it's okay." Eyes back on Jay, she added, "The Lioness protects her pride." Andrea had been called the Lioness since the third grade. Andrea had a habit of building close relationships with people smaller or weaker than her, Justin and Hope were only two. And Andrea always willingly stood up for her friends and even got into fights to defend their honor, third grade alone she'd gotten into twelve fights, and she only lost three of them. They'd taken to calling her the Lioness after her first couple of fights, when she proclaimed her closest friends were like family and she'd do anything for them in a class discussion about what they loved most during a lesson concerning a book. It had never really stopped, any of it, the fights, everything, the only thing that changed was that everybody got older, stronger and the fights longer.