The Ewing Energies office hustled and bustled with everybody's excitement of their return to work, and John Ross proudly surveyed the birds eye view of the Dallas city skyline, his feet rooted firmly at the centre of the EE sign painted on the marble floor. The doorway to his mother's office opened and she swept out from it, her footsteps proceeding directly toward him and John Ross noted the smile on her face, if it could be called that. It wasn't her usual infectious grin. In fact, John Ross found himself faced with an almost-malicious, toothless kind of smile that indicated a rage bubbling behind it. He pushed his suspicions aside and prepared himself for a maternal embrace, but flinched when her palm whipped across his cheek. The crack of bare flesh upon flesh attracted the attention of several office workers on the platform but John Ross dismissed his internal humiliation. He tilted his head back, his yelp child-like, "What the hell, mama?"

"I suggest you step into my office." Sue Ellen didn't seem nearly as fazed by the prying eyes upon them, only concerned with her son.

"Hell, no!" He soothingly rubbed his cheek but the burn remained; his father's advice not to make an enemy of his mother popped back into his head, and John Ross wondered, with an internal smile, how many times his father had been on the receiving end of his mother's unsuspecting attack. The sting forced him to wince in pain and he soothed it more, "Damn, that hurt!"

"Maybe Emma can kiss it better for you..." Newly aware of how many individuals would manipulate such information, Sue Ellen stepped in closer, until their faces were inches apart, and lowered her voice. "Unless you'd like this entire office to hear what I have to say, I strongly suggest we continue this conversation in private."

Defeatedly, John Ross didn't dare to complain when his mother physically ushered him into her office. "Mama, I can explain -"

"Don't bother. I've heard every explanation in the book from your father," she circled him and returned to the chair behind her desk, but found herself too furious to sit. "Damn it, John Ross! Your father and I made so many mistakes and, clearly, I've made another in thinking that you'd learnt from them." Every affair J.R. had pursued, she countered with another empty bottle and their vicious cycle became a regular routine inflicted upon their son, who suffered the most, whenever one of them couldn't hold up their end of the bargain. John Ross sunk into the chair in front of his mother, his right leg cocked over his knee, mirroring his father so much that Sue Ellen's anger subsided and she collapsed into her own chair. "Carmen called me from Southfork," she clutched her hands together, "Pamela's gone."

"Gone." Her son parroted her words, his eyes snapping up from the floor, "What do you mean gone?"

"My God, you are so much like your father. You're only interested in something, or someone, when it doesn't belong to you anymore." It was an irrational though process but certainly one he had inherited from J.R., yet Sue Ellen couldn't quite figure out what triggered it. "Pamela left me a letter." Sue Ellen could still hear Carmen's unbearable discomfort, as she read the letter, which documented John Ross' ongoing affair with Ann's daughter. With any luck, Ann hadn't overheard the conversation, for Bobby's wife would surely saddle the blame on John Ross' shoulders; while Sue Ellen didn't absolve him of his actions, Emma's mischievous nature hadn't gone unnoticed. "Now, I don't know when this little affair with that girl started and I don't care. Before you married Pamela, after you married her, it doesn't make a difference to me." It suddenly occurred to Sue Ellen how coincidental it was that the timing of their marriage had been in league with Cliff Barnes' downfall. "Did you love Pamela at all, or was it all part of the scheme to regain control of Ewing Energies?" John Ross maintained a broody silence and his mother couldn't determine whether it was because she had assumed the worst of him again, or because she had uncovered his true motive. "Do you remember what I said to you, the day you and I were stood in your office after Cliff was arrested?" She lowered her head, forcing him to meet her eye. "Well..."

"Treat her right."

"Treat her right." Sue Ellen pronounced every word, furiously, and John Ross rolled his eyes, like a schoolboy summoned to the principal's office. "You spat that right back in my face, didn't you? Do you think I'm an idiot?" Even though it was the destruction of Pamela's marriage, she couldn't help but relate it to herself. "Don't you think I've had enough experience of marriage to your father to know what I'm talking about?" His failure to reply flamed her fury all the more, "You're still not listening to me now, are you? All you can think about is the moment I stop talking, so you can waltz out of my office, find that girl and carry on like nothing happened!" No matter her disdain, Sue Ellen couldn't bring herself to throw names at Ann's daughter. After all, the misguided young woman was only half of the equation and Sue Ellen suspected that, much like J.R., John Ross didn't care about the name and face of the mouse, only that it ran fast enough for the cat to chase. "Would I be a fool to ask whether you're interested in fixing whatever's broken so early on in your marriage?"

"Well, mama, maybe I can do that, if you'd let me leave this office and find out where the hell she's gone!" He had lost patience with his mother's latest tirade. Since his father's death, he had become the primary target of her angry outbursts and it rendered him feeling rather victimised. He had no doubt his father would be highly amused by his compromising position.

"What happens if and when Pamela decides to return to Southfork?" His mother raised an eyebrow, "How long before another one of your indiscretions?" He exhaled a puff of air, a genuine sign of boredom. "Don't think I'll sit by happily and let you play out a repeat performance of what happened between your father and I. Hurt her again, John Ross, and I will not be responsible for my actions!" Truthfully, Sue Ellen didn't envisage Pamela as the kind of woman to fall into a million pieces, while her husband played the field, and she didn't envy her son should Pamela decide to strike back in revenge. "Have I made myself clear?"

He cleared his throat, "Yes, ma'am."

Sue Ellen brushed the wisps of hair from her eyes, softer in her approach. After all, he was still a little boy, in so many ways. "John Ross, I don't want you to reconcile with Pamela because you think it would make me happy, or even because you think it would make Pamela happy. Do it for yourself," she pleaded. Her initial marriage to J.R. had been another attempt to please his parents, as had every reconciliation afterward. "Don't rebuild her hopes, if you don't want to commit yourself to her, unless you want to inflict the misery you suffered as a child on any children you and she may have in the future." John Ross' eyes darkened, insulted by how callous his mother perceived him to be, but he said nothing. He didn't need to; Sue Ellen could perceive how much her remark affected him. "Well, Pamela will probably need some time to cool off before you run in, guns ablaze for a reunion, but you do need to talk to her. Have you thought about what you'll say?"

John Ross shook his head, still unable to decipher how Pamela had learnt of his affair. Before he could assert whether she had any factual evidence, or the affair was a strongly-intuitive assumption her mind had created, he refused to admit to anything. "I'm sure you're well-versed in reconciliations, mama, but I can handle my wife."

"She doesn't need to be handled, John Ross!" Her disappointment returned, tenfold, and Sue Ellen deeply inhaled, wondering how her son could be so clueless. "She needs to be reminded why she fell in love with you in the first place. She needs to be reminded of all the reasons she was attracted to you and then, if you're lucky, she might give you another chance." For her son's sake, Sue Ellen prayed Pamela would forgive and forget, though she didn't have the best track record in that arena.

"Daddy always taught me not to rely on luck but to make my own," John Ross rose to his feet and straightened his jacket, a confident smile pressed across his lips. "Don't you worry, mama. I don't have any intention of letting Pamela slip through my fingers. Before you know it, she'll be back on Southfork. I'll make it right, I promise." He leaned forward and kissed his mother tenderly on the cheek, "Thank you." It pleased him, in the oddest sense, that his mother held so much approval and affection for his wife that she so valiantly fought for her. She certainly hadn't held Elena in the same respect; perhaps, that was his first clue that Pamela really was the one. He retreated into his own office and admired the picture frame split into four photographs from a Vegas photo-booth, shortly after their wedding ceremony. He repeated his mother's advice in his head and frowned, uncertain why he and Pamela had fallen in love to begin with. They hadn't known one another well, despite her marriage to Christopher, but somewhere along the line they had developed a burning desire for one another. Somehow, that flame had burnt out and John Ross was simply going to have to find a way to relight it...