Maddie was deep in thought when a knock at the door brought her back to reality. She sat on the couch, disoriented for a minute, until she heard the second, more persistent knock at the front door. After a quick check through the peephole, she opened the door for a teenage girl. "What can I do for you?" Maddie asked kindly, sure the girl was selling candy or wrapping paper for some sports team or school project, although she didn't recognize her from the neighborhood. "I'm so sorry to bother you Mrs. Westen, but I am trying to locate, your son, Michael." Maddie was instantly wary. When Michael returned to Miami, she had quickly learned to be very careful around people looking for her son. The young woman on her doorstep looked like any teenager you might find hanging out at the mall. Her dark hair was carefully arranged into a stylish pixie cut, she had big hoop earrings, and applied her makeup lightly to accent her brown eyes and high cheekbones. She had a large messenger bag over her shoulder that was bulging in ways that made Maddie uncomfortable.

Sasha knew from the way Mrs. Westen was considering her; she had been too direct. She should have thought of a more subtle way to find Michael's location, but she had been too impatient. She hadn't seen him in over five years, not since she and Damian had run into him in Uzbekistan, six months before he was burned. With Damian gone, she needed Michael's help.

"Why are you looking for Michael?" Maddie asked. She wished Sam were around to help her vet this girl. She looked safe and innocent enough, but she knew things were never as they appeared. Sasha was expecting this question, but hadn't decided which answer to use. She tried to look as innocent as she could and mumbled as she looked at the ground, "He's my father." This wasn't true at least not biologically, but her biological father had died when she was less then a year old and she figured it would be the response most likely to get her Michael's location.

This was not the answer Maddie was expecting. It wasn't even in the same universe as any of the answers she had been expecting. They had been through this whole mess before when Samantha had shown up out of the blue and had led Michael to believe that they had a son together. He had promised that he didn't have any children floating around out there, at least not that he knew of. And she had thought that at least for once, he was being honest with her. Maybe she had misheard the girl so she said, "Excuse me?"

Sasha raised her head and looked into Maddie's eyes, searching them for a minute before she repeated, "Michael Westen is my father." Maddie returned Sasha's gaze before asking, "How do you know he's your father?" Sasha smiled, hoping this was working and that soon she and Michael would be on their way back to Afghanistan to find out what happened to Damian. "He raised me when I was little, I have pictures." Sasha pulled out her phone. She had bought it less than 24 hours ago when she landed state-side, but she knew where the pictures were. Even better, the pictures were authentic.

Michael and Damian were partners, running covert ops in Chechnya when her parents were killed in a car accident. Sasha was only 10 months old. Damian was her uncle, her mother's brother. He ended up with custody of her and took her back to Chechnya with him after the funeral. The three of them ran ops together for two more years before Michael and Damian were sent to different areas. Michael and Damian kept in touch and would work together whenever they could. Michael taught her how to hotwire a car when she was five. Her first word was пистолет, "gun" in Russian her second was بابا، باباجان ، اقاجان or "Dad" in Farsi. When she was seven, Michael taught her how to drive a stick shift. It was hard because she couldn't really touch the pedals or even see over the steering wheel, but they made it work.

She found the photo of her and Michael when she turned two. He was helping her blow out the birthday candles on a piroshky, and handed the phone to Maddie.

The picture was grainy, but there was no doubt it was Michael. A much younger Michael, but Michael. It even appeared to be the same girl. The girl showed her three more pictures. All of them were of Michael and this girl: reading books, playing at a park, asleep on the couch. Maddie was angry. While the pictures, even if they were real, didn't prove Michael was this girl's father, it was a window into his life…all those years that she knew so little about.

Whether it was her anger at Michael or her distrust of this girl, she roughly handed the phone back to Sasha and said, "Michael doesn't have any children." And slammed the door.

Frustrated, Sasha sat down under a tree down the block and across the street from Madeline's house. She could have stolen or even rented a car to get here, but there was something about public transit she liked. And she had run through a lot of credit cards to get to this point and didn't know if this would be the end of her search for Michael. Besides, technically at fifteen, she wasn't supposed to be driving anyway.

As she sat down she smiled as she heard Maddie's voice carry across the street. She had contemplated trying to place some bugs, but it seemed they weren't necessary.

Maddie had slammed the door and immediately lit a cigarette. She almost opened the door to get the girl to come back, but instead she called Michael. "Michael. What is going on?" she demanded when Michael answered on the fourth ring.

"What are you talking about? What's happened?" he replied. Usually his mother's panicked phone calls were just cries for attention, but every now and then something had actually happened. The key was telling the two apart and some days it didn't matter how good of a spy you were, you just couldn't tell. "Ma, now is really not a very good time. Fi and I are in the middle of a meeting."

"Michael, you promised me…after Samantha you promised me you didn't have any kids."

"What? I don't. Where did that come from? What is going on?" He was confused. Someone had spooked his mom by telling her he had kids? It was a good thing the meeting he was supposedly having was just helping Fi move a new load of weapons from the car to the loft. He was also grateful that Fi was downstairs because he was sure she would be able to hear his mother's dulcet tones through the phone and across the room. And he didn't need to have to explain any more phantom children to her. Their relationship was tenuous enough right now.

"There was a girl, a teenage girl. She came to the door and said she was looking for you. She said you were her father. She had pictures Michael! Pictures of you and her when she was little."

This was bad. This was very bad. If Sasha had found him, that meant something had happened to Damian. Michael's head was spinning as he thought through the implications of what this could mean. "Ma, calm down. What was her name? What does she look like? I am sure this is all just a big misunderstanding."

"I am not going to calm down. Michael, you promised me, promised. Who is she? Why does she have those pictures?" Maddie had worked herself up to the point where she was on the verge of crying. She didn't know what to think and her hands were starting to shake.

"Mom, is she still there?"

"No. I told her that was impossible, you wouldn't lie to me," her voice broke at that point, "and I sent her away."

"Okay, just hang tight and try to relax. I will be over as soon as I can."

"Hurry, Michael." Her voice lowering now that she knew he was coming and would hopefully make sense of this mess.

Sasha let out her breath. It seemed to have worked. Michael was coming, they would find out what had happened to Damian, and things would go back to the way they had been. She hoped they could spend some time in a country with indoor plumbing next. She watched the street, looking for some sign of Michael's arrival.

Michael had gone down to the car to tell Fiona he had to go to his Mom's. He needed to calm his Mom down enough and explain things to her before she got to Fi. One crazed woman he could handle, but not both of them. He kissed her lightly and drove out the gate. It had to be Sasha, he thought, as he drove through Miami. It was the only explanation, especially if she had pictures. As he neared his mother's house, he spied Sasha sitting under a tree in the exact place he would sit if he were doing surveillance on the house and didn't have a car. He turned the corner and parked in the alley behind the house, hoping he'd managed to avoid Sasha's notice. He'd go out and get her once he got things settled with his mom.

He opened the kitchen door and saw his mother sitting at the table, a cigarette in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other. She turned when she heard him come in. "Mom, let me explain." he began. He had to get the first word in or he would never get her calmed down. "The girl who came to see you is Sasha. Sasha is not my daughter. I am more like her godfather. Her uncle was one of my favorite people I worked with once I got out of the Army. When Sasha was tiny, her parents were killed in a car accident and her uncle got custody of her. He didn't tell anyone he had brought a baby back to Chechnya with him. We ran ops with Sasha in tow without so much as our handlers finding out until she was almost three. At that point, someone in Washington decided it was too hard to explain two men and a toddler, so they sent me to work on my own and Damian and Sasha kept working together as a sort of father-daughter team. Damian made me promise that if anything ever happened to him, I'd take Sasha. I was the back up plan. So, if Sasha is here. That means something has happened to Damian and I need to figure out what."

"She is not your daughter?" Maddie asked, unsure whether to believe Michael's far fetched story. "You worked as a spy with a two year old?" A thought crossed her mind that forced a humorless laugh from her lips, "Did you ever change her diaper?"

Michael rolled his eyes exasperated. Diapers. His mom was asking him about diaper changing. "Yes, I changed her diaper once or twice." "Are we good? Do you believe me? Can I go get her?"

Maddie sighed, "Fine, but I wish you would warn me about these things. It is too much stress."

Michael walked to the front door, shaking his head. People could try to kill him, blow up his mother's solarium, but thinking she had a granddaughter was too much stress.

"Where are you going?" Maddie interrupted his thinking. "I made her leave. Your car is in back."

"She is sitting across the street watching the house. She probably heard every word you screamed at me on the phone, assuming she didn't bug the place, which she probably did."

Sasha had seen a car with what could have been Michael in it pull around to the alley, but she didn't have binoculars with her to be sure. She decided to wait and see. If it was Michael, he parked in back because he didn't want her to know he was there and he would come and get her when he was ready.

The front door opened and Michael walked out onto the porch. It was all she could do not to run across the street. He motioned her to come over. She picked her up bag and stood up. It seemed to take forever to walk across the street and up the walk. She was trying so hard not to run or start to cry. She was so tired.

She had been traveling for almost a week catching only an hour of sleep here or there. They had been working in a small village about 100 miles northeast of Kabul, near the border with Pakistan when Damian disappeared. It had taken her three days to walk to Bagram Air Base, where she went from being Aasif, the young Afghan boy, to Airman Amber Michaels, a 19-year-old from Cleveland. She knew Michael had been sent to Miami when he was burned, so that is where she would start looking. From Bagram, she was able to get on transport flights that would finally land her in the US.

He met her at the bottom of the porch stairs. She couldn't help herself at that point. Sasha threw her arms around Michael's waist and started to sob.

He hated it when women cried. And this wasn't Sasha the little kid he taught to clean an automatic rifle; this was Sasha a young woman. She had grown up since he had last seen her 5 years ago. Fortunately, the minute his mother heard crying, she swooped in to comfort her and he was able to extract himself from the teary mess.

Maddie couldn't help herself when she saw the girl cling to Michael like she was drowning. Sasha wasn't her granddaughter, but she was in trouble and didn't have anyone else. And she saw the panic stricken look on Michael's face when Sasha started sobbing into his shirt. Gently, she put her arms around Sasha's shoulders and led her inside the house. "Come on honey, let's get you inside. I'll make you a nice cup of tea and you can tell Michael everything." She sat Sasha down on the couch, brought her a box of tissues. She started the teakettle and then sat down next to Sasha. She put her arm around her and said, "I'm so sorry I didn't let you in before, honey. You surprised me, that's all."

"No, Mrs. Westen. I am so sorry. I shouldn't have lied to you like that." Sasha hiccupped out between sobs. "I just needed to find him because…" She started crying again in earnest and couldn't finish the sentence.

"Sasha, what happened? Where is Damian?" Michael was trying to be gentle, but he could tell from the look his mother shot him, he was failing.

Michael's questions helped her pull it together. Sasha couldn't believe she'd lost control like that. She'd been interrogated before, even tortured once, and hadn't broken down sobbing like a baby. She'd always been strong; Damian had trained her to handle anything. She took a deep breath and looked up. "We were working in the village of Ashtiway. We'd come in posing as father and son. It wasn't safe for me to be a girl and it would have really limited where I could go and what I could do. There is still a lot of Taliban influence there. We said we were cobblers, traveling through the area. It is close to the Pakistan border and there had been a number of issues with foreign al Qaeda, Chechens, Chinese, Arabs, coming across the border and causing mischief. We were trying to find out where they were based so we could call in an air strike. We'd got some good intel and were going to move out in the next couple of days. I went out to try and reach our handler to pass along what we knew before we moved out. Because the mountains are so high there, it was hard to get a satellite signal unless they were right overhead. So every few days, I would climb up to a point where I could get a consistent signal. It would take all day. The point was 15 miles from the village. I would leave at dawn with the couple of goats we had as cover and reach the spot about noon. I'd spend a few hours scouting to make sure things were clear, before I'd start setting up the equipment. We had a cache of equipment and supplies near the call location where we kept everything. I made contact, passed along our info and started putting everything away. We'd pick it up when we went to our next location. I hadn't even finished repacking the cache when I got a text message. Damian and I had rewired a couple of cell phones to use satellite signals to send text messages, but we only used them in emergencies. It was just one word. Run."

"How do you know it was Damian that sent the message?"

Michael's question made her smile, "Because it was in Pig Latin. It was like a joke between us. So it didn't say 'run', it said 'unray'. And I did. I knew Bagram Air Base was the closest place for me to try to find out what was going on. I spent 36 hours there. I hacked into every network on that base trying to see if there was any chatter about Damian or Ashtiway. I finally found a black network with a file. It had surveillance pictures of us taken from a drone. There was also a video of an assassination. They killed Damian. My check in with our handler wasn't scheduled. I went a day early since we were going to leave. I was supposed to be there too."

Sasha paused. This was the first time she had told the story out loud and suddenly things seem so much more real. "Michael, I think we got burned."

"Are you sure he is dead?" This was an important question in Michael's mind. Because if Damian was dead, he was going to be a father to a teenage girl. And if he was honest with himself, there wasn't much in this world that scared him more than that. If Damian wasn't dead, just captured, injured, lost, whatever. He was off the hook. He could help Sasha find Damian and then go back to not being a parent.

She shrugged. "I don't know. If the video is genuine, I don't know how he could have survived. There was a sniper across the street from the room we were using packing an SV-99 with a silencer. The round went straight through Damian's head. A three-man extraction team came in as soon as the shot went off. On the video they confirmed the kill. They put Damian in a body bag and search the room for me. They left the building with Damian's body and that is where the video ended."

The kettle started to whistle, and Maddie got up to make the tea. As she got out mugs and poured the hot water over the tea bags, she couldn't believe what this girl had been through. Being around Michael, Fiona, and Sam she realized people could go through a lot, but they were adults, Sasha was just a girl. She looked like she had just come home from her first day of high school, not running halfway around the world from assassins.

Then she looked at Michael and thought about the things he went through when he was Sasha's age. Getting slapped around by his father, always trying to protect Nate, getting into trouble at school. Sasha would be okay she realized, but they had to help her. It looked like she might get to be a grandmother after all.

"If they are looking for you, you are still in danger. Tell me exactly how you got here." Michael knew Sasha was well trained and knew how to misdirect and lose a tail, but after seeing her break down, he was worried she had slipped up somewhere and made a mistake.

"Once I got the text, I crushed the phone and threw it in a stream. I traveled mostly at night to get to Bagram. "

"What was your cover?" Every detail was so crucial. Michael guessed they had followed her through Afghanistan, but it was possible, she may have lost them in the base. That still left open the question, why they hadn't killed her in Afghanistan if they knew where she was?

"Once I got to Bagram, my cover was Airman Amber Michaels with the 466th Air Expeditionary Group. Her papers were in the soles of my boots at all times and I had a cache outside of Bagram with her uniform and other supplies. Not even Damian knew that cover. There was no one who would have known to expect Amber. I was Airman Michaels for about six hours. At which point I was able to change my cover to Alexandra Newman, a Red Cross worker from the UK. I changed covers 3 more times while I was there. And my hair color once. I left as 2nd Lt. Megan Worth, U.S. Army Reserve. From there, I flew to Qatar. I left base and I got a haircut and make up and civilian clothing. I borrowed a car and drove to Doha. I flew commercial from Doha to Incirlik, Turkey using a British passport with the name Emily Gibbons. I got on to Incirlik Air Base using the Royal Air Force cover, Aircraftwoman Elizabeth Brighton. From there I flew to Mindenhall in the UK. I left Mindenhall and took the train to Edinburgh, where I changed my hair color again. My cover was now Katarina Vitsen from Riga, Latvia and don't worry, I only spoke Russian. From Edinburgh, I became Else Broschnick from Toronto and flew to Montreal. I borrowed a car outside of Montreal and drove to Niagara Falls, Ontario. I walked across the border to New York. I took the train from Niagara Falls to New York City. My driver's license said Katie Mitchell from Queens. I flew from LaGuardia to Atlanta as Marcy Teller. Stacy Robins borrowed a car in Atlanta and drove it to Knocksville, where Vicki Smith flew to Orlando. In Orlando, Jamie Rogers got on a Greyhound bus bound for Miami. Amy Russell took a bus and metrorail to the University of Miami. Sasha Carden walked from there, although I don't currently have any id for her. I avoided CCTV and wore a hat and some sort of glasses whenever possible. I wore fat clothes and wigs. I did everything I could to try to stay under the radar."

"You did everything I would have done. You did good. Just relax and we will figure out what to do."

"Oh honey," Maddie was exhausted just listening to her recitation. "How long have you been traveling? You must be exhausted."

After thinking for a minute, Sasha replied, "I got the text 6 days ago. I'm a little tired."

"Let me go make up the spare room and you can get some rest." Maddie was not going to let Michael question this poor girl any more until she had rested and eaten something. She was far too skinny.

"Oh, Mrs. Westen, I couldn't possibly impose on you like that. Besides, Michael is right. I am sure it is only a matter of time before the people who got Damian find me, and I couldn't put you in any sort of danger. I'll find some place to stay."

"Until we get things figured out, you can stay in the loft. It will be a little cozy with three of us, but it will have to do. Besides, it will provide more protection. I'll call Fiona and have her come over. She can take you back to the loft and you guys can do whatever girls like you two do. Paint your nails, clean your guns, you know girlie stuff. Sam and I will start poking around and see what we can find."

As Michael got on the phone, Maddie brought out some cookies and set them on a plate in front of Sasha. Sasha ate one and realized she felt safe, exhausted, but safe. She didn't know if there was anything she could do for Damian if he was still alive. If he were, he would find her as long as she stayed with Michael. Just hearing Michael's voice made her feel like she was little again without a worry in the world and soon she was fast asleep.

Hours later, Sasha woke up disoriented, knowing she had heard the slide on a semi-automatic pistol being pulled back. Quietly, she pulled a six-inch hunting knife out of her boot and rolled off the couch she had been laying on. She was in some sort of industrial loft. Obviously, someone lived here. There was a kitchen set up in one corner and a bed was in the middle of the room. She was up on some sort of balcony, second floor that seemed to act as an office. Staying low, she inspected the loft more carefully to determine where the gun was. A woman's voice from directly beneath her, startled her.

"Oh good. You're up. Are you hungry?" Fiona hadn't been totally pleased to be left behind to babysit Sasha, but she was curious to find out more about this girl and her relationship to Michael. The girl hadn't moved when Michael had carried her from his mother's house to his car. Fiona had followed him back to the loft. By the time she arrived, Michael had already carried Sasha upstairs to the office and laid her down on the couch. He's also brought in the messenger bag she had been carrying. Michael had explained only that Sasha was the niece of a buddy he used to work with. Michael was their back up plan if anything was to happen and apparently, something had happened. Then he left with Sam to start poking around.

Suddenly, everything flooded back. Sasha must be at the loft Michael had mentioned. Which would make the woman below her, Fiona. Still holding on to her knife, she analyzed Fiona. She was beautiful. Simply dressed in a tank top, jeans, and 4 inch wedge sandals. She was sitting at a workbench and appeared to have just finished cleaning a Walther PPK.

"I'm Sasha." She didn't know what else to say, so she figured introductions were the best place to start.

"I'm Fiona, and you can put the knife away. The gun isn't loaded yet and I don't have any reason to shot you."

Sasha smiled as she returned her knife to its sheath. She had the feeling she and Fiona would get along just fine. "It's a fine piece of German engineering. I prefer a SIG Sauer P226 personally, but when push comes to shoot, I'm not picky. And yes, I'm starving."

"I thought you might favor those," Fiona laughed, "since there are two of them in your bag. As well as three knives, two computers, 7 flash drives, 9 memory cards, 4 cell phones, electrical tape, a multi-purpose tool, deodorant, a pair of clean underwear, 100 rounds of ammo, a baseball cap, 3 passports, $1000, 750, £849 in cash, 5 driver's licenses, 19 credit cards, 4 pairs of sunglasses, a pack of gum, some C4, 3 detonators, a digital camera, a tube of mascara, a tube of chap stick, a pen, a notebook, and an earring back. Did I miss anything?"

Sasha had expected they would search her bag; she was impressed by how through a search it had been. Most of the items were hidden in hollowed out textbooks. Not that it was that ingenious of a hiding place, but it meant they did more than just open her bag. "I think that is everything, not counting the 4 hollowed out textbooks. I was wondering where that earring back had disappeared to."

Fiona smiled. "There is yogurt in the fridge and spoons in the left hand drawer. Eat, then you can get cleaned up and we can go shopping!"

Sasha was as curious about Fiona as Fiona was curious about her. She had heard of an IRA operative named Fiona Glenanne, a genius with weapons and explosives. She had also heard that Michael had his cover blown in an operation in Ireland that involved the IRA. When Michael had been extracted from the job he was pretty shook up. Not about his cover being blown, but about the girl he'd fallen in love with there. Could this be the same Fiona? Whoever she was it appeared they were living together, had they some how managed to get back together? The whole thing seemed highly improbable but quite romantic.

Sasha chose a strawberry yogurt from the fridge and ate it quickly. As she washed the spoon and threw the container away, Fiona came up to her with a sundress and a towel. "The bathroom is in here." She said opening a door. "Feel free to use anything." She opened up a cupboard and pulled out a new razor and toothbrush and handed them to Sasha. "I'm sure living in Afghanistan you didn't see these as often as you'd have liked."

Sasha laughed. "I was pretending to be a boy. There was no shaving, no showering, and no deodorant. I am so happy to be back in a country with hygiene. And where I get to be a girl. Thank you so much for this. I really like your place."

Fiona responded with half a smile, " you're welcome, but it's not really my place. The fabulous decorating is all Michael Westen. I'm not quite sure why I stick around, but I do. He convinced me to move in a few months ago."

"You two seem like a good match. I'm glad he found you." Sasha closed the door, turned on the shower and proceeded to try to remove six months of Afghanistan from her body.