"Are you hungry? Would you like me to make you something?"

She glanced behind her, waiting for some sort of response from the youth sitting at her kitchen table with an icepack in his hands, glaring at it. Silence was her answer, pulling a sigh from her lips.

Wiping her hands, she stared down at the blood on the once white washcloth. The blood of the Anderson boy. He'd been bleeding out the side of his face from that horrible bite. He was most likely at the hospital right now with the police and his parents.

It had taken her two hours to pull his attacker off him and escort him to his parents, who had attacked her like she had done it as the boy was ushered into his parents vehicle. Frankly, she felt the boy deserved it. She always saw him and his little friends attacking people and provoking the other children into fights before him and the other boys ganged up on their prey.

Sighing, she walked to her trashcan, dropping the now useless washcloth in it, before she turned to the still quiet youth. Running her right hand through her hair before resting it on the back of her neck to rub it, she couldn't help but feel exhausted and useless.

Sighing once again, she walked to the table and took a seat across from the silent youth, who continued to stare at the dripping ice-pack in his hand. She brushed her dirty-blonde, shoulder length, hair out of her face as she placed her hands on the table, staring at the young male before her.

He was a short one for a ten-year-old. Heavy, big and small, freckles across his face that barely covered the few bruises on his checks. His hair, choppy and short, obviously uncared for by his mother, was a shocking orange with just enough brown undertone to not make him look completely ridiculous. But his eyes were what stuck out the most about his features. His eyes were a piercing blue. They obtained sadness, anger, and calculating gleams that one could not stare at to long without feeling empty.

Sighing, she gave the boy a melancholy look. "You really did a number on the Anderson boy. Looks like he's gonna need stitches." She was meet with silence and no facial or body movement to indicate that he had heard her. But she knew he was listening. He always did. He seemed to like to know what was being said about him. Maybe to store it away for later to use against someone. Who knows with this boy.

"You know the police will come, don't you?" She leaned forward, her hand reaching to remove the melted icepack from his hand. He made no movement as she did so. "They'll come for you. Most likely call Child Services to view your home life." Again she was meet with silence, but she expected that.

Sighing, she sat the icepack on the table, not caring if it got the table cloth all wet. Water would dry. Standing from her chair, she came to stand in front of the youth, as she lowered herself on her knees, bringing herself eye level with the boy. His fingers twitched and his eyes flashed in a calculating way.

Reaching her left hand towards him, she watched his small, but growing in some muscle, body tense up. As if he was waiting for her to do something horrible to him. That thought pained her, as she placed her hand on his right knee, while her right hand lifted his chin up to look at her. He didn't fight her. His eyes locked with hers, as she gave him sympathy.

"They'll take you away from here, you know that right? You won't see your mother anymore," at this she shook her head, her lips going into a thin line, "not that it's a bad thing to get away from her." She probably shouldn't have said something like that to him. But she knew that he knew that she was right.

His mother. God how she hated that prostitute skank labeled a bad excuse for a mother! How she hated all those times she had come to bring this boy something he had dropped during a fight, only to get yelled at by the woman and listen to her belittle the boy. How many times had she come close to assaulting the woman for slapping the boy or telling him that he was a worthless mistake. The poor boy.

His body had remained tense as she pat his leg affectionately, before raising to her feet, rubbing his head. "Come on, Walter. Lets get you home." The boy, Walter, rose to his feet as she ushered him softly out the door, grabbing his dented lunchbox on the way out the door.

Stopping in front of the closet near her doorway, she opened the door to grab a coat. It was cold outside and she wasn't up to getting sick. As she pulled her light blue jacket out of the closet, she stopped as she spotted Walter standing by the door, waiting with his head down low.

He had no jacket. He was going to catch his death without one. Biting her lower lip, she leaned back into closet, and pushed through a few old coats and clothing, finding nothing that wasn't to feminine for him. Her hand stopped at the last article of clothing, her eyes softening.

It was her deceased husbands old, brown, trench-coat. It hadn't been worn in four years since her husband was stabbed. She had kept the coat because it had been his favorite, and because he had only gotten two drops of blood on it as he was dying. Reaching forward with a soft, expressionless, face, she pulled the coat off its hanger, and stared down at it.

Smiling, she closed the closet, and walked over to Walter, holding the coat out to him. His head slowly rose, as she smiled at him. He looked at her with his anger frozen face, before his eyes fell on the coat. His eyes seemed to light up at the sight of it, as she smiled and held it out closer to him.

"Go on. Put it on. It's a bit big, but you'll grow into it. Besides, It's cold outside." She waited for what seemed like forever, as he reached out and took the trench-coat from her. He stared at it in his hands for only a minute, before putting it on. It went to just above his ankles. She couldn't help but smile. It suited him.

Once she put her own coat on, she opened the front door and ushered him out. "Going to take the red-headed bastard home, eh Grey?" Her body stiffened and her fist clinched as she locked her door, her head stiffly turning to her neighbors house, where a male just a bit older than herself, with dark, brown, hair and mocking eyes, stood on his porch with a cigar hanging from his lips.

"Go to the car, please, Walter," she said to the boy, whose eyes had narrowed at her grinning neighbor, "OK? I'll be their in a minute." She ushered him to her V8 with a light push. He stayed for a minute, before turning and walking to the car. She watched him step into the front seat, and close the door silently, staring out the front window.

Once the door was closed, she stepped down her concrete porch and crossed her lawn to her picket fence, her eyes narrowed and arms crossed. "Edward Blake! How dare you say such a thing! He's just a boy!" A motherly side was kicking in. She had no children of her own, due to her being unable to bear any. But she felt protective of Walter, and she wasn't going to let a poor excuse for a man like Edward Blake say such things about him.

Blake gave a roar of a laugh, grinning at her past his cigar. "Shit, Sarah! Don't get your fuckin' panties in a bunch! I can't help it if the kids a psychopath! Bet he'll end up in some mental house by the time he's thirteen or fourteen!" Blake's booming voice echoed across his lawn to her, as he crossed his arms over his large, muscular, chest. "See the punk walk through here everyday on his way home. Always lookin' like he's gonna stab your fuckin' eyes out, that one!"

Blake jutted his chin towards the car where Walter sat, a grinning. She, Sarah, could feel her blood boiling with anger. How she hated Edward Blake with a passion! How she wanted nothing more than to charge over the fence and slap him so hard his head spun. But she was a lady, and Eddie Blake was well known for having no problem with assaulting a woman.

Snarling at the man, she turned on the heel of her shoes and stomped to her car. She wished the man would move far away! He was always boasting about how much money he made for working for the government! Why couldn't he just move into that damn penthouse of his now instead of next month! One thing was for certain, she would be absolutely happy once he was gone.

Opening her driver-side door, Sarah slid into the drivers seat, and slammed her door shut. "Seat-belt, Walter." She said, as she slipped hers on and started up the car. She glance over to make sure he had his belt on, before shifting into gear and starting forward.

The ride wouldn't be long considering he lived about four blocks from her. They rode in silence of course, so she was left to listen to Blake's words repeat in her head. She clinched the steering wheel in distaste and anger, as she shook her head. She wasn't going to let someone like Blake get to her. She wouldn't!

When they reached his house and parked in the front, she wasn't surprised to find the cops there. Sighing, she unbuckled her seat, and turned to Walter. "I'm sorry this has to happen to you," She reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder, surprised that he didn't stiffen up as much as last time, "but I promise it'll all be OK in the end."

She looked up and out the passenger window, watching as a cop stepped outside, staring at her and the car. She glared at the officer, before softening her gaze at Walter. Sighing, she removed her hand from his shoulder, and opened her door. "Lets go."

And it was like that. Sarah lead him to the officer waiting at the door, explaining to him what she saw happen when his superior questioned her. Sylvia Kovacs, Walters mother, could be heard screaming upstairs at the cop who was in Walter's room, most likely packing clothes and belongings into a bag for him.

When her questioning was over, she had been allowed to leave. She gave Walter one last pat on the head and a soft smile before she left, leaving just as one of the officers began to usher him to the waiting police vehicle to take him away from that awful place.

As her car turned the corner away from the scene, a single tear slid down Sarah Grey's face. A single tear for the young man she would never see again. She cried for Walter Joseph Kovacs.

R&R Please.

Just a little thing I thought would happen in Walter's past. It couldn't have all been bad. There had to be one good person for him in the past. So that's why I wrote this.

To talk of that one good person... And how Walter got his trench-coat x3