-1Fathers

Georgie Jones read the letter in her hands for the tenth time since she'd opened it. It still seemed foreign to her, like trying to read Greek. She set the piece of paper down in front of her, closed her eyes, and let out a long wary sigh. After all these years, why now? She'd never even met the man.

Logan Hayes was sitting at the counter watching her. He watched as the conflicting emotions played across her face. Shock, disbelief, anger, confusion, sadness. She didn't try to hide what she was feeling, and he found that refreshing. Of course, she had no idea he was watching her. He wasn't sure why he couldn't take his eyes off her. They'd only met a couple of times, and she didn't fit into his plans. His plan was to seduce Lulu and sleep with Maxie.

He told himself to turn around and drink his soda; to forget about Georgie and whatever it was that was troubling her. Going over to her would be a mistake. He went over and sat down across the small table from her. "You ok?" He asked her without any preamble.

She looked up at him and blinked unsure where he had come from, and how long he'd been sitting across from her. "Excuse me?"

"You ok?" He repeated. "You look a little out of it. And you keep reading that." He said indicating the letter still sitting on the table.

She sighed again. "Did I miss the day when we became friends?" She was regarding him just as warily as she had the letter.

"Hey." He said holding his hands up in surrender. "I was just trying to be a good guy."

"It's a letter." She said finally, unsure of why she was choosing to confide in him about something this personal. He was essentially a stranger to her, and maybe that's what she needed. An impartial opinion. "From my father."

His brows knit in confusion. "From Mac?"

She shook her head. "It's a long story." She warned him. He leaned back into his chair and waited for her to continue. "Mac isn't my father, not biologically anyway. But he's the only father I've ever know. He adopted me, and Maxie. There hasn't been a time when he hasn't been there for us." She wanted to make it clear to him that biology wasn't the most important factor, that no matter what Mac was the father of her heart.

"What happened to your real Dad?" He questioned.

"He left years ago. After Maxie was born. Then he came back when Maxie had her heart transplant, which is how I came to be, and then he left again."

"Wait a minute." Logan said interrupting her. "Maxie had a heart transplant? I didn't know she had a heart." He muttered quietly.

"Maxie is a complicated person." She said quietly, "she's been through a lot. She's never felt worthy of BJ's heart. BJ was our cousin." She said anticipating his next question. "She was killed in a bus accident. She died and Maxie lived. Our parents have pretty much completely abandoned us…." She trailed off.

"You seem to have turned out ok." He commented with a small easy smile.

"I didn't lose Frisco the same way Maxie did. I've never met him, Mac is the only father I've ever known." She said simply.

He leaned forward in his seat, and rested his arms on the table. "Where'd he go?" He asked curiously. "What is more important to him than being a father?"

"Saving the world." She shook her head, half amused and half in disbelief.

"Ok, what really." Logan asked scoffing.

"No really. Frisco is an international crime fighting spy. He tracks criminals all over the world, its his entire life. The lure of it, the adrenaline, the danger, thrill its always been too strong of a pull for him to walk away from. For awhile he kept in fairly regular touch, but that ended years ago. He didn't come back a couple of summers ago when it looked like Maxie was going to need another heart transplant. He didn't come back when she had a heart attack a couple February's ago. He didn't even come back when Uncle Tony died. Or when I got married or divorced. Or when Aunt Anna and Uncle Robert came back from the dead, although he probably knew they were alive before anyone else. He didn't come back when Robin was shot in the hostage situation."

"But he's coming back now?" He ventured a guess.

She folded the letter back up and put it back in the envelope that had been addressed to her and Maxie. "He was injured in the line of duty, and is being forced to take time off."

Logan let out a breath. The guy wasn't coming back because he missed his daughters and wanted another chance, no matter how many years too late he was. He was coming back because he had nothing else to do with his forced time off. "Are you going to see him?"

"I want to meet him. I guess. But its not going to change the fact that Mac is my father." No one would ever replace Mac in her heart. He'd stepped up and become a father to her, loved and supported her, through everything without question. Mac had been mother and father, the only constant. Seeing Frisco wouldn't change that.

"You were lucky to have Mac." He'd never had anyone step in for him like that. No father to replace the one who couldn't be bothered to stick around.

"So." She said shaking her head, as if trying to clear it. "What was your father like?"

"Never met him. He left my mom before I was born." He wanted to look away, but he couldn't take his eyes off her warm brown ones. "And I didn't have a Mac." He had no idea why he'd said that. It was those damn gentle un-judging eyes of hers.

"I'm sorry." She said quietly. "That must have been hard." It clicked in her mind that this was such a random intimate conversation for them to be having. But somewhere in the back of her mind she wasn't sure they could have had it with anyone else.

He just shrugged his shoulders, unsure what to do with her kindness. And it was kindness she was offering him, not pity, and not some platitude she thought she was expected to give. But real understanding and kindness, the likes of which he couldn't remember ever getting before. "Its not a big deal, I never met him. Can't miss something you never had."

"Sure you can." She too leaned forward and rested her arms on the table. With both of them sitting like this, there was little space separating them. Georgie was surprised to feel something flutter in her stomach. It's the good looks, the easy smile, and the smooth sexy drawl she told herself, nothing more.

With anyone else sitting across from him, he would have said that they were wrong that it really had been no big deal. But he knew that she wouldn't believe that or let him get away with it. "Sometimes growing up, I wished it was different. But it never was. And now. He's a bastard. He left me and my Mom, and I don't want anything to do with him. Except maybe to make him pay for not being there for us."

She studied him carefully. She wasn't completely sure that was true. Wasn't sure that somewhere deep down he didn't want something from his father. But she didn't press. "Is that going to make you feel better? Make up for all the times as a kid you wanted him?"

"I don't know." He said shrugging simply. "But I'd like to find out."

"If I knew you better, I'd tell you to let go of the bitterness and need for revenge before it consumes you, and makes you a mean cold person who will do anything and use anyone to get what he wants, despite the cost and who gets hurt."

"Too late." He'd already become that person. At least he thought he had, before she looked at him, like he was someone worth knowing, worth saving.

"I don't think so." She said shaking her head in disagreement, as she stood up and gathered her things. "I don't think so."