Disclaimer: I don't own...you don't call your lawyers.

Notes: Not much on the team this time around...sorry. I wanted to delve a little into Taylor and his siblings. :)

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Chapter 4 – Dreams and Uncertainties

It rained heavily all night, and no matter how tightly Taylor curled up under the mattress, he could still feel the cold through even the thick blanket that Flack had provided for him. The young boy sighed. Between the dreams and the cold, he was never going to get any rest.

The dreams had been getting worse. Some were scary, fierce and terrible nightmares which had Taylor waking in a cold sweat, terrifying images of himself trapped in a shed with a dead man filling his mind and refusing to leave, even when he turned on the light. Some were warm, filling him with a deep sense of peace and security as he dreamed of people whom he did not remember and yet knew almost better than he knew himself. He was confused, really. He hadn't a clue as to how he was supposed to sift through all the images and info that swirled through his mind. How was he supposed to figure out what was true and what was just…well, what was just a dream?

Was he even really sure that his name was Taylor? Hell, maybe it was a cousin's name, or a friend's. Maybe he had a brother, a sister, an uncle or long-lost great-grandfather named Taylor. Maybe his name was something much more mundane, like Fred or Simon or James. Or maybe it was something so exotic that he'd never remember it in a million years – Bartholomew, Kenai, Solomon?

Heck, maybe he'd been named after the family dog. He had no idea.

'How will you ever know for sure?'

Taylor slipped off the couch and sat for a while, wrapping the blanket around him and thinking through his shivers.

Despite all the doubts, somehow he felt like he knew at least three things for sure – his name really was Taylor, he really did have a sister out there somewhere, and that a man really had been killed. Those memories were the clearest, the most positive. Taylor felt quite certain that if those memories were false, they wouldn't be so…vivid, somehow. He scratched absently at his ear as he thought about the other dreams.

He'd seen the one of…someone?...drawing an eagle quite a few times now. It wasn't always an eagle, sometimes it was a different bird or animal, or maybe a landscape or picture of a house or building. Once the drawing had been so abstract that he'd been totally unable to tell what it was at all. He hadn't a clue as to whether it was actually his hand, or someone else's. He had tried fiddling with a pen and a notebook that he'd found in Flack's house, but his hand had been unable to recreate the beautiful pictures that he saw in his dreams. It didn't necessarily mean that he wasn't an artist though…maybe he'd forgotten how to draw as well as everything else? Maybe...maybe drawing hadn't been a natural talent, but rather a skill that he'd had to learn and practice in order to be good at it?

Maybe…

The light clicked on, and Taylor jerked a little, startled. Flack came padding out of his bedroom in a pair of sweatpants and an old T-shirt that had seen quite a lot of the inside of the washing machine. The cop was rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning.

Taylor hesitated, hoping that he wasn't angry that he wasn't sleeping. "D-did I wake you?"

Flack grunted, apparently not capable of speech just yet. A quick glance at the clock on the wall showed that it was 3:17 in the morning, and still raining. Taylor waited, and was reassured as Flack managed to grunt, "I was going to use the bathroom. Nothing to do with you…"

It was only after he flushed that he tagged on the "Don't worry" that was supposed to have ended his previous sentence. Taylor smiled, deciding that he liked Flack.

He liked Mac, too. Both detectives gave him a feeling…like he was safe, like no one would dare to hurt him again while they were near him. Flack made him smile, and it was only a minor problem that the cop knew absolutely nothing about Pokemon. That was really the fourth thing Taylor was absolutely certain of pertaining himself – he knew about and liked Pokemon. He was surprisingly able to spew all kinds of Poke-trivia, though he didn't even know his father's name…

The couch creaked. Taylor looked up to find Flack sitting on the couch beside him, with a strangely concerned expression on his face. He looked down at the linoleum floor almost automatically, for some reason wary of the concern, although he liked and trusted the cop with every fiber of his being.

"Can't sleep?" Flack reached out to gently touch Taylor's shoulder. Taylor shook his head, and sighed.

"I keep on having these weird dreams," he confessed. "And, it's a little cold…" He ducked his head, shy at having to ask any more of Flack, who had already been so kind to him. "I'm sorry…"

"Don't be – I'll get you another blanket," the detective said, his voice gentle. "Listen, Taylor – you need to let me know if you need something. I'm supposed to be taking care of you until Child Services figures out who you are – or were – but I can't do that if you don't let me know when you need something. I'm not psychic, okay?"

The boy shivered. Flack waited for him to nod before he went to get the promised blanket, a thick woolen one that had gotten him through two of the worst New York winters already. He was pretty sure it still had some warmth left in it for a rainy New York night. Returning to the living room, he found Taylor trying to settle down again on the couch, though his cast was making it a bit of a challenge. Flack tucked him in, pleased to see a sleepy sheen to the boy's eyes.

"Goodnight," he murmured, patting down the blanket gently. Taylor yawned.

"Goodnight," he answered.

He was asleep within ten minutes. Flack shook his head slightly.

Something was wrong, or had been wrong, in the kid's life before the amnesia, he was certain of it. And with this new development with Sonny Sassone, he was pretty sure that whatever it was, it was bad.

Though he hadn't told Taylor, Child Services was working on finding out his adoption records, at Mac's request. In the meantime, the supervisor of the NYPD crime lab felt that Taylor would be safer with Flack. He'd told Flack to watch his back, and never to let the kid out of his sight.

"Something's wrong about the Gianettis. I wouldn't put it past them to try something, maybe grab Taylor from right under our noses. Let's keep the kid safe."

And one thing Flack knew, was that any hunch Mac Taylor had was probably not far off the mark. The detective checked to see that his apartment was securely locked for the night one final time before he went back to his bedroom for whatever sleep he could get.

And outside, on the street below, a young boy of about fifteen years of age huddled under a ragged umbrella, his amber gaze fixed on the window of the cop's apartment. As the lights went out, he nodded in satisfaction and reached into his pocket for his phone.

"Hello, Pop?" He raised his voice a little over the rain. "I know where the kid is. If you want me and Rico to grab him, I reckon we could do it now."

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Meanwhile, it wasn't much more than a few blocks away where Shayla Fawkes-Berenson wasn't able to sleep either, though not because of the rain. Shawn's house – their home – had central heating, and her younger brother had turned up the thermostat when the temperature had spiked earlier.

"Meggie might catch cold," he'd said defensively when Shayla had complained. He always said that, never admitting that he was sensitive to cold. Shayla still didn't know why, but she humored him. Besides, it was true that Meggie caught colds quite often in cold weather.

Hugging herself, the young girl gazed forlornly out of the window, watching the road and driveway. Shawn would be home soon. He'd been really worried when she'd told him that there was another couple claiming that Taylor was their son, and so they couldn't have Taylor back just yet. He'd promised to come home as soon as possible, and Shayla knew that meant that Shawn would be home soon, much sooner than he'd originally said he'd be back. It was the way Shawn was, and the knowledge reassured the frazzled young girl a little.

Behind her, a light came on in the hallway, then the living room light. Shayla knew without looking that her brother had entered the room. Jesse and she had been "siblings" for a very long time now, they were closer than most brothers and sisters – at school, their closeness had even earned them the nickname, "The Almost-Twins".

After all, she was only older than Jesse by a few months, they were in the same class, and whenever there was the need for the students to pair up for any projects, even the teachers had come to expect that the two of them would pair up together.

Jesse chose a seat on the sofa nearby. He didn't say anything – he didn't have to. Both of them were worried about the same thing, and both of them were waiting for the same man.

Shayla turned to look at him. Jesse's blond hair was mussed from sleep, but his blue-green eyes were alert as he returned her gaze.

"Is Meggie asleep?" Shayla asked, turning back to her vigil.

"Yeah. You know, it's weird."

"What?"

Jesse looked and sounded serious. "I went to check out Shawn's office, and the cabinets and everything are all locked securely. And yet, when I checked the computer that controls the locking system, it said that Shawn opened the locks and withdrew a folder – three days ago."

Shayla turned back to him in alarm. "Just before Taylor went missing?"

"Yeah." Jesse scratched absently at his back. "But it's weird, because Shawn's been in Las Vegas since four days ago. So it couldn't have been him."

"But it couldn't have been one of us either," Shayla said, worriedly. "We don't know Shawn's passwords. He doesn't write them down or keep them anywhere."

Jesse shrugged. "So it couldn't have been anyone else, could it?"

"But Shawn wasn't here!"

Her brother blinked, and Shayla became aware that she'd been yelling. A loud wail came from Meggie's room, and Shayla instantly felt guilty – poor little Meggie.

"I'll go." Jesse shook his head when Shayla started to get up. "You need to be here when Shawn gets back so you can tell him what happened."

Shayla nodded. "Sorry."

"She'll live." He got to his feet and padded off down the hall. Shayla heard him soothing Meggie, calling her "Nutmeg" and murmuring softly.

Nutmeg. That had been Taylor's nickname for their baby sister. It helped that she'd come to join their family just after one of Shawn's old aunts had sent over a Christmas cake. Taylor had been fascinated by how many different types of nuts she'd managed to put into it, though he'd refused to actually eat the cake – he hated nuts, saying that they stuck in his teeth. Shawn had humored him, taking out some of the nuts that fell out when he cut the cake, and playing a game with Taylor to see if he could identify all the different kinds. Taylor had named all the nuts correctly, thus winning the game – and then he'd turned thoughtfully to his new baby sister and said, "Does Nutmeg want to be carried, Shawn?"

None of them had ever forgotten that slip of the tongue, and it then became an affectionate nickname for the little girl.

Wait – was that a car? Roused from the bittersweet memories, Shayla leapt eagerly to her feet.

Shawn was home.

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Random quote of the day: "Never let it be night, but always clear day in any man's sight." - Spencer Reid, Criminal Minds. (quoted from memory, which isn't very good)

Thanks to all who are still here reading. :) Please review!

RK9.