Tyler sighed, biting her lip and swallowing hard. This was it, this was the big moment. She was watching a small car—definitely a rental—pull up to the curb in front of the building. And even from the waiting area in the front room of the police department, she could easily recognize the silhouettes of the man who was driving and the woman sitting in the passenger seat.

She watched as they exited the car, and she felt her heart beginning to hammer in her chest. She saw them hurrying to the door, which they pushed open and stepped quickly through. They looked to the reception desk first, where Leah had stood and was watching them. She saw their questioning glances and turned to look at Tyler, who was seated a few yards away.

They turned, and as they laid eyes on her she rose to her feet. Things seemed to be playing in slow motion. They were running to her, and she was just standing there, unable to move. They were throwing their arms around her and pulling her into a hug, nearly crushing her between them, and she was standing there, finding that she wasn't able to hug them back both because they were holding her so tight and because it all felt wrong somehow.

There were supposed to be tears. And her parents were both crying. She glanced at Leah and saw that she, too, was wiping away a few tears as she watched. But Tyler wasn't crying. Instead she felt completely numb. Her parents were supposed to be smiling, and they were. She was supposed to be smiling too, but she couldn't. She could only stand there in shock, wondering why she didn't feel relieved or joyful that her parents were back and she was in their arms and they were okay and they knew that she was okay too.

They stood there for she didn't know how long, and by the time her parents pulled away she managed a small smile. "Hey," she said.

Her mom was wiping away tears, but her dad still had more shining in his eyes. "Hi," he said, frowning slightly and seeming a bit thrown off by her simple greeting.

Tyler looked up at her mom. The poor woman looked like she needed another hug, and maybe this time without her dad involved in it as well. So she took a step forward, putting her arms around her mom and taking a long moment to give her a good squeeze. And that was it, when she was rubbing her mom's back and whispering that it was okay, and that she was okay; that was when she started to feel something again.

It was just a small something, just the slightest bit of a lump in her throat that started to form as she thought about what was happening. Her mom and dad were there. She was completely safe for the first time in years. Her brothers were safe. Her parents were safe. She knew that they were safe, and they knew that she was safe. And they were here.

She started to cry, and though it was only a few tears, it was enough. Just that little bit of liquid leaving her eyes was enough to greatly reduce the sudden aching in her chest. And when she drew back, she saw the relief on her mother's face. It was strange to see such an emotion written so clearly across her mom's expression, but she could understand it; both of her parents had been concerned when Tyler had just stood there and let them hug her, not crying, barely smiling, not saying anything, not showing any kind of emotion. But now she was crying, and she was smiling, and she was hugging her dad, and she wasn't just an empty shell.

When they'd finished hugging all over again, her mom stepped back to look at her for a minute. Then she moved forward again, cupping Tyler's cheek with her hand. "My baby girl," she said, "you've gotten so big. Look at you! You're not a little fifteen-year-old anymore. You look so grown up." She teared up halfway through what she was saying, and she sniffed several times between sentences.

Then her dad did just as her mom had, stepping back as if to get a better look at her. "You look so much like my mom," he said, a few drops of liquid escaping his eyes and sliding down his cheeks as he spoke. Then he smiled, laughing through his tears, and said, "You're quite the looker. How are we going to keep the boys away from you when we get you home?"

Tyler just smiled. "Dad," she whined, playfully punching him in the arm before he pulled her in for a hug.

He just smiled in response and shrugged. "What? It's true."

Tyler couldn't keep a crooked smile off of her face as they walked to the front desk, where Leah was still standing. She was hastily wiping away tears as they approached, but Tyler didn't wait for her parents and their slow walking; she ran forward and gave Leah a hug.

There was actually quite a bit of paperwork that needed to be done before they could leave, but at Leah's direction, Tyler had already signed all of the forms and papers that she needed to. Then her parents' signatures were needed quite a few times.

Then Tyler said goodbye to Leah, feeling the echoes of sadness spreading through her mostly-numb mind when she had to hug the young woman and promised to write her letters or emails or both.

And then it was time to go home. Tyler didn't have any clothes besides the ones she'd bought at the mall and worn to the police department, so her parents took her shopping for a clean outfit before they left. Then they all boarded a plane and soon enough they were homeward bound. Her parents sat on either side of her, each of them holding one of her hands in their own and squeezing tightly. Both of them drifted off during the flight, but Tyler was awake the entire time. It was about two and a half hours before they landed, and she spent most of the time staring blankly into space and wondering what the gang was doing right at that moment.

One corner of her mouth twitched upward in a momentary smirk when she thought of Bones; he'd be furious when he found out that she'd left. That might actually be hard for him; he'd lost his oldest son and his hardest working employee all in one day. Of course, he wouldn't be too bothered when he found out that before she'd left Tyler had led the boys in completely obliterating the hall; they'd always caused nothing but trouble and as long as the police didn't get involved, Bones wouldn't care who they killed.

Then she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, thinking about the wings on her back. Her parents didn't know about them yet, and she knew that it would be best to tell them before they got home to her brothers. That way the initial shock and the shocked yelling and crying that would most likely result could be had out and finished before they were in the presence of the boys. And that way she could get it out of the way and tell them, ensuring that they wouldn't find out one day when she forgot that they didn't know and wore a tank top or her bathing suit when they went swimming. If they found out that way she knew things would not end well.

So she waited until their plane had landed and they were waiting to be picked up by her grandparents, who were bringing her brothers in the car with them so that they could all be there when the whole family was reunited. After a moment Tyler told her parents that she needed to tell them something, and they all stepped outside so that they wouldn't disturb the other people in the small waiting room at the miniscule airport outside of the small town they lived near.

Tyler was wearing a plaid button-up shirt over a black camisole, and after a moment she said, "There's one thing I didn't tell you."

She saw the expressions on her parents' faces change to fear, and she wondered if maybe they thought she was pregnant or she had some kind of STD.

But she just shook her head, turning around and unbuttoning her shirt. The camisole was just like wearing a tank top, so she didn't hesitate to remove the plaid shirt. Then she stood there with her back turned, waiting for their reaction. It took a moment for it to register that they were supposed to be looking at her back, and as soon as they saw what was there across her shoulders her mom gasped and her dad sucked in his breath.

"They made me get them," Tyler said, realizing that her words weren't so far from the truth.

A moment later her mom approached, tracing a few of the black lines on Tyler's shoulders. "What is it?" she asked.

Tyler thought wings—especially those painted on her back—were painfully obvious, but leave it to her mom to not see something like that. So she just said, "Wings."

"Oh," her mother said, breathing the word.

Tyler turned around, pulling her shirt back on and buttoning it up. Her dad seemed to have recovered from the shock rather quickly, but her mom was standing there with her mouth open. She started to ask, "When did you . . .?"

Even though she trailed off, Tyler understood. "They took me to get them about six months after I was taken," she said.

Her mom still looked horrified, but her dad seemed to have something on his mind that he wasn't quite sure he should say around his wife. At last, though, he decided to speak his mind. "Did it hurt?" he asked.

Tyler felt a smile creeping to her lips; her dad had been considering getting a tattoo for quite a while before she was kidnapped, and her mother had vehemently protested it. Tyler, however, had supported her dad and told him that she wanted to be there just to make sure he took it like a man and he didn't cry.

But she hadn't answered his question. "A little," she admitted.

Her dad raised his eyebrows.

"Okay," she amended, "it hurt a lot. BUT of course I didn't give them the satisfaction of seeing my cry."

Her dad smiled sadly. "That's my girl," he said, pulling her in for a hug.

Her mom still hadn't recovered from the initial shock, and she seemed further horrified by the direction that her husband and daughter's conversation had taken.

With a pang of sadness, Tyler remembered going back to get Billy's name tattooed into the wings. That particular bit of ink was something her parents would never know about. Something no one would ever know about, actually. No one but her. Billy hadn't even known, and now he never would.

But just then a large white truck pulled up, and Tyler recognized it by the roar of its diesel engine before she even turned around and saw her grandfather driving. They parked quickly, and her grandparents got out. Her brothers piled out of the truck immediately after, and all of them ran up to hug Tyler. She couldn't help but smile; she and her oldest brother had always been close, but he'd always rejected her hugs or displays of affection before, and now here he was, running up and throwing his arms around her and nearly tackling her with the force of his hug. When at last she unattached herself from her brothers, she took a moment to hug her grandparents.

This was a family reunion she never would have imagined before she was kidnapped, and it was the kind that she'd never let herself dream of after she'd been taken. But here they were, all laughing and hugging and crying together. There were a lot of smiles, and there were a lot of tears.

Her brothers had all grown a lot since she'd seen them last, and now even the youngest was the same height as she was. They teased her about being short, and she found a smile forming on her lips. It was going to be hard to go back to life with her family, as Billy and the gang would constantly be on her mind. But maybe it wasn't going to be as hard as she'd thought it might.

She sat in the back of the truck with her brothers, giving them all of her attention on the way home. And when they finally got home, she stared in surprise at the unfamiliar house that stood before her; her family had been planning on building it before she was kidnapped, and now it was finished. It was large and beautiful and welcoming, but it wasn't the familiar little mobile home she'd expected to come home to. But either way, it was home now. She was home.