Jason McCord flung his backpack on his bed, grateful that it was Thursday. One more day. He thought to himself. He was looking forward to the weekend, and sleeping in on Saturday. It would be the first weekend in ages when he wouldn't have to go to some ridiculous function standing next to his mother in a suit looking like a total dweeb.

He wandered down the hallway. Both his Dad and his oldest sister were still at school, and his mother was, at work, of course. Feeling oddly lonesome, he stood in Alison's open doorway.

"What's going on dork?" He asked.

She said nothing and just rolled her eyes at him. She was sitting at her desk, doing homework. Alison always did her her homework the second she came through the door. It was pathetic really. Even when she'd had a boyfriend, she'd put schoolwork ahead of him in her priority list. It was shocking that he was surrounded by such complete and total nerds.

"C'mon, let's play basketball or something." He pleaded. "I'm bored."

"You've been home for ten seconds." She pointed out without looking up.

He leaned closer, reading over her shoulder and was surprised to see she had a magazine tucked inside her math book. He caught a glimpse of his father's face before she hid it, self-consciously.

"What's that?" He asked.

"Nothing." She said sharply.

He shrugged his shoulders - there were tons of articles about his parents these days. After everything that had happened, the press couldn't seem to get enough of the McCords. The press were constantly lurking trying to get a shot of him or of his sisters on their way to school.

There was a horrible embarrassing picture of him in People magazine recently. It was after the hearing but before they knew his mother wasn't going to jail - he was understandably stressed. It might have even been taken his first day back to school after the hearing - he wasn't sure. All he knew was that he was really, really worried, and terrified they would send his mom to prison. His father had taken him to school that day, and he had uncharacteristically hugged his father good-bye. He had needed to feel his father's arms around him, strong and reassuring. Surprised, his father had hugged him tightly, and kissing the top of his head whispered in a voice husky with tears, "It's gonna be okay, buddy. Everything will be okay no matter what happens." And of course, that was probably the precise moment the shutter clicked. His teary, stressed face with his father's kiss on his forehead plastered across the pages of people magazine.

He had found his locker wallpapered with it after the article had come out. He simply shrugged it off - leaving it on his locker and drawing a heart around his own face. He decided his best defense was to blow the whole thing off - as if he didn't mind the world seeing his daddy give him a kiss and a hug before school.

"Alison, you okay?" He asked his sister.

She looked up, no doubt surprised that he hadn't ended the sentence with the word nerd or dork.

"Yeah." But her voice held a heaviness, and he paused, suddenly curious. Maybe there was something going on that they weren't telling him.

"Is something going on?" He asked directly, suddenly feeling nervous.

"No. Everything's fine. You know. They told us. No one is pressing charges and all of that stuff is over."

"You'd tell me though?" He asked.

"Sure."

Her tone left him doubting her words. His sisters tended to think of him as being a six year old still. They kept him out of the loop of a lot of things. He'd been the last one to know about all the mess with Iran, and he'd been really angry that they had kept it from him. At the time, he had kept his anger to himself, too worried about his mother to pile on any stresses. He felt knots in his stomach all over again when he thought of her first days back. She was so thin and jumpy and unfamiliar. They were all so very happy to have her safe and home, and yet, she wasn't really home. That had taken a lot longer.

"We could make cookies?" He suggested, hoping to draw Alison away from her books.

"I guess." She said reluctantly.

They went downstairs together and as they gathered ingredients in the kitchen, Alison asked him, "Did you see Mom this morning?" His school started a good twenty minutes later than hers.

"Nope. I think she didn't come home last night."

"Oh."

A look he didn't understand passed over her face, and he thought to follow it up with another question but just then the door swung open and Stevie stepped into the room.

"Hello, nerds!" She greeted them, picking him up off the ground and kissing him.

"Cut it out!" He said struggling against her, completely annoyed that she was still strong enough to lift him off the ground.

***MS***

He snuck the magazine she'd been hiding from her room when she was taking a shower. He thumbed through it sprawled out on his bed, avoiding his English homework. It was a typical gossip magazine - tons of pictures of actors doing ordinary stuff like walking their dog or playing with their kids at the park. His least favorite kind of magazine.

The picture of their parents was in the middle of the magazine - right at the fold. It was one huge picture of the two of them, on a park bench - probably Rawlins Park where they would sometimes meet in the middle of the day. There were three smaller pictures in boxes around the edges. The title caught his eye first - On the Rocks? It said in all caps across the top. He shook his head, but studied the picture. They were clearly in mid conversation. His father's hand mid air, his face tense; angry. His mother's face was down, and very sad. He didn't like the picture. He studied the smaller pictures - one of his father his face turned away from his mother, another with her walking away from him, and the last one was his father alone on the same bench leaning forward his elbows on his knees looking sad.

"You stole that!" Alison stood in his doorway, her hair dripping wet, dressed in her fuzzy pink pajamas.

"Why were you hiding it?"

"Don't be stupid." She snatched away from him.

"You can't seriously believe that stupid thing?" He asked her.

"Forget it, Jason." She turned and went to her bedroom but he followed her.

"Seriously?" He asked. "C'mon. Ali! You know mom and dad. You can't be stressing over this?"

"Mom hasn't been home in two days." She said flatly. "Those pictures are from earlier this week. I remember when Dad wore that shirt!"

"Yeah, but we would know if they were fighting. C'mon. We are talking about Mom and Dad! Ali, they are always making out!"

"When?" Ali asked him. "Not this week. She hasn't been home."

"That happens. C'mon. You are stressing over nothing. This is mom and dad, okay?"

Alison could be ridiculously dramatic sometimes but later, he found himself watching his Dad with cautious eyes. Alison was doing the same thing. The trouble with spying on his parents was that they were both really, really good at noticing every detail. It was the downside to having a parent in the CIA. He figured some of his mother's spy skills had spilled over on his father.

"So," His father said sitting on the end of his bed, later that night. "What is going on with you and Ali?"

"What do you mean?"

His father sighed. "Look, can we just skip past the part where you act like you don't know what I'm talking about, and I call you on it, and then you finally admit something's going on - it will save us time."

"Where's mom?" Jason asked, watching closely for his father's reaction.

"Work."

There was nothing different about his father's face as he answered. He sounded slightly annoyed but Jason couldn't tell if he was annoyed with him or her.

"Something you wanna talk to her about?" His father's voice was gentler. "We can call her. She won't mind, bud."

"No. I just . . .its fine."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay." His father reached out , giving his shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "You change your mind, you know where to find me."

"Night Dad."

"Night."

He rolled over and fell asleep quickly but was plagued by bad dreams. Every dream was fuzzy and vague but ended the same way every time; his mother walking away.

***MS***

"What are you doing up?" Henry McCord asked his wife. He had tip toed quietly into their bedroom expecting to find her asleep but instead she was sitting up in bed, glasses on with her laptop open in front of her.

"No working. You said you were going to rest today. C'mon babe."

"I'm still in bed." She said sweeping her hands out.

He sat across from her. "Can't sleep?"

"Henry, it's 9:30." She took off her glasses and started to throw back the covers. "I need coffee."

He held out a hand, stopping her. "Stay in bed. I'll get it. Egg?"

"Breakfast in bed? Is it Mother's Day?"

He leaned in giving her a kiss. "I missed you, Babe. Be right back."

He returned with a tray with coffee, an egg white omelette and a bowl of fresh strawberries.

"Wow!" She said, taking a sip of coffee. "Thank you."

He sat down on the bed facing her and reaching for a strawberry.

"Just trying to make sure the glory of home measures to the fancy state department shindigs." He shrugged his shoulders.

"The state department lacks a critical element, babe." She said with a shy smile. "It doesn't have you."

"Aw," He said winking at her. "You are such a kiss-ass."

She shook her head at him, laughing. "It's Saturday, right? I keep thinking I'm supposed to be in the office."

"It's Sunday. You missed a day. And you've missed entirely too much sleep so, eat this and then back to bed."

"I am in bed!" She gestured with her hand. "Where are the kids?"

"Stevie is, you aren't going to believe this, but it's true - she's at a study group. Alison spent the night at Isla's and Jason went over to Hunter's house to play basketball."

"It's 9:30 in the morning!" She exclaimed.

"Actually, it is almost eleven." He shrugged his shoulders. "Did you have your glasses on when you read the time?"

"Oh, God!" She said as he laughed. "That's the third time I've done that this week!"

"Well, darling, I think you might just have some sleep to catch up on."

"Maybe." She agreed. Having finished the eggs, she set the tray aside, lifting the coffee to her lips. "Tell me about the kids. I swear I haven't seen them in months."

"They are fine." He told her.

"That isn't very informative, Henry. C'mon, I rely on you to be my insider. What's going on?"

"Oh, I don't know." He sighed. "Stevie has seemed a little down lately. Have you noticed it?"

She nodded her head. "I'm sorry to say, but I think she is still grieving Starthur."

He considered this. "I guess maybe that's it. A lot happened all at the same time. I'd forgotten about Arthur."

"I'm sure you had." She laughed.

"What?" He asked her. "You liked him?"

"Settle down, Henry." She waved a hand at him. "I'm on Team McCord."

"And Jason is settling really well. He's been spending a lot of time with Hunter, Jax and a kid they all call Bender."

"Is his last name Bender?" She asked.

"Cortez." He shook his head. "I'm not sure I want to know how he got the nickname. I probably would feel less comfortable about them hanging around if I knew the full story."

"Something to investigate though."

He smiled at her. "You love an investigation."

"What about Ali?"

"Something's going on there. Jason knows about it, too. I couldn't crack her though. She's been shut up like a clam. It made me regret disconnecting the ipad."

"Maybe she'll talk to me." She took another sip of coffee.

"But with my amazing tradecraft, I figured it out. I mean not just anyone can think to look at a magazine left open in plain sight. I got skills, baby." He rose and crossed to the desk, lifting a magazine off the top. He returned to the bed, and moving the tray onto the nightstand, he sat beside her.

"This is your big clue?" She asked.

"I found it open on Alison's bed. She didn't leave it there though, Jason did. When I took them to school yesterday, he doubled-back upstairs saying he forgot something. But he came downstairs empty-handed. The whole thing was fishy and he was really overt about it - like he wanted me to investigate - which I did. This was lying open on Ali's bed."

He opened the magazine to the middle and handed it to her. She exhaled slowly studying the picture.

"Well, that is not a very flattering shot." She leaned closer squinting. "When was it?"

"Last week. I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday." He sighed.

"What do you think we were talking about?" She asked him.

"Probably nothing." He sighed. "Tells a good story though."

"Those bastards." She sat back with a sigh. "They put those goddamn things on burst and every single . . ." She turned toward him. "And I haven't been home in four days! Ali must be so stressed out."

"She's a worrier." He shrugged.

"She's at Isla's?"

"Yeah, but I told her that she needed to be home by one." He lifted the magazine, studying the page. "I wish I could remember what we were talking about." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"We talk about the most boring stuff." She turned to look at his face. "I was probably complaining about not being home, or how much my feet hurt!"

"You probably weren't complaining at all, babe. You know how it is - right click at the wrong time - and everyone thinks they can see inside our lives."

"We've told them this - a hundred times." She said exasperated.

"Yeah, but c'mon. The press has been crazy since the hearing. Something is going to happen somewhere else, and the heat will be off us."

"Soon, I hope." She sighed again. "Henry, does it make me a bad person if I wish someone would get caught in an affair or embezzling money, so that we can breathe a sigh of relief?"

"I'm pretty sure that it just makes you a protective mom." He kissed her cheek. "It's DC, babe. Both those things are just around the corner. In the mean time, I think Ali needs some reassurance."

"First thing when she gets home." His wife agreed. She glanced over at the clock. "Which is soon?"

"About an hour." He said laughing.

"So," She paused, an eyebrow arched at him. "You've got time to reassure me."

He grinned as he leaned close to kiss her. "Yes, ma'am."