Dr Shannon checked the last of the stitches that she had placed in Commander Taylor's arm after he and Ryan had made their way back to the colony after their somewhat disastrous day together trying to bond as parent and child instead of just Commander and former soldier. Luckily Ryan had not been hurt too badly, he only had a few cuts and bruises and had already been released and as far as she was aware he had already left the medical centre and made his way back to Boylan's bar.

Making sure the last of the stitches would hold and that there was no danger of the commanders wound becoming infected, Shannon wrapped a small bandage around Taylor's biceps to protect the wound a bit more and then stepped back far enough to observe the commander but enough to allow him to stand up and leave.

"There something you want to ask me or tell me Dr Shannon, you have that look on your face that most women seem to get when there is something on their mind."

Elizabeth Shannon studied the weary looking man in front of her, studying him intently as she formulated her thought into words, she had seen the heated looks that had passed between the commander and Ryan but also a look of hopelessness which the commander was quick to hide in his eyes but not quick enough to get past her 'mother' radar.

"The situation with you and Ryan," she started off slowly, "You need to step back from it for a moment and really think about where you hope this relationship with him go because if you continue to carry on the way the two of you are going, you are going to end up coming to blows Commander and that boy will end up hating you more than you other son, Lucas did."

Taylor listened but felt a rage rising inside him as he listened to Elizabeth's words, his rational part of his mind could see where the doc was coming from but the part of him that wanted to be a parent again so badly raged at her words.

"I understand where you are coming from doctor but frankly it has nothing to do with you how my relationship with that young man develops, he is my son and concern, not yours."

"Your son and concern is he commander; oh that is where you are so wrong. That young man has lost everything he had before his job, his friends even his self-respect which if you were not so high and mighty you might see that commander. See that young Ryan, feels like he has nothing left, I see the look in that young man's eyes and I am not the only one who sees it. You may not believe me commander but there are a lot of people in this colony who sees the mess he is in. The only person it seems though who has taken time out to try and understand that boy and show any real concern for him is Boylan, he has given him a home, time to heal from whatever it was that he went through during the invasion. What have you given him commander? The odd bit of time here and there, taken him fishing and we both saw how well that ended up."

The doctors words stung Taylor as he listened to her and a small part of him did agree with her words but he would be dammed if he would pander to her or the rest of the colony it seemed where Ryan was concerned, he stood intending to make his way out of the medic enter and return to his own quarters as he pondered what he would do with his relationship towards Ryan.

"You may not want to listen to my words commander and I can see that you really don't want any one else's view on young Ryan but remember one thing commander he is Alicia Washington's son and like her he is stubborn and defiant, mind you he probably also got those traits from you commander. So it might be an idea to step back and let him come to you before you lose him forever."

The doctor's words registered with him but he still made his way defiantly out of the med centre, the anger visibly radiating off him and people immediately got out of his way not wishing to end up on the end of his bark as it looked as though he would explode at anyone who was stupid enough to approach him.

Boylan looked up the business he was doing with one of his regulars as he heard the door to his bar open and he saw Ryan trying to slink in unnoticed not that he managed it, of course. The ex-soldier now bar owner watched the lad closely as he entered the bar, he noticed that he seemed a little more withdrawn into himself than he had when he had left earlier that day with the commander and Boylan had known that the kid was not particularly happy with spending the day fishing with his father but he gone along with it, more out of fear than actually wanting to go.

"Hey hang on a minute sport," he said to the one he had been doing business with, getting up from the bar he made his way over to cut Ryan off before he made it to the stairs that led upstairs obviously heading for his room to possibly sulk if the look on his face was anything to go by.

"You aright kid?"

Ryan glanced up at the man who over the last few weeks had become like a father to him and he had wished on more than a few times over the past few weeks that it had said Boylan on the paternity test and not the commander's name; he would have liked Boylan to have been his dad.

Boylan glanced back briefly at the business associate/customer who upon seeing Boylan's look suddenly found his finger nails to be very interesting as he quickly glanced down at them. Placing his hand upon Ryan's shoulder he looked the teen in the eye before addressing him again.

"I got some business to take care but you and I are going to talk before the bar opens tonight, okay?"

Ryan nods his head, biting his lower lip as he agreed to have a 'chat' with the older man. He knew that Boylan was worried about him even if the older man did not say it, that was one of the other reasons why Ryan liked the ex-soldier so much even though he never said he did care about people and especially about him and Josh who worked in the bar during the evenings mostly, Josh was another person that Ryan had started to become quite close to in an almost brotherly way in the last few weeks.

He had never had a brother and had always been a bit of a loner when he had been younger, the other kids in the home he had lived in had not been the nicest and he had learned not long after going to the home that they could not be trusted.

"Yeah okay," he agreed.

"Good, I just got to finish off with him over there, shouldn't take more than a few minutes and then I'll come and find you Ryan, you going up to your room?"

"Yeah."

"Good lad."

Ryan headed up the stairs towards the room that had above all other things become his sanctuary, the one place he could escape to and shut out the rest of the colony when things got too bad for him to handle and he knew that Boylan would not enter without his permission and allowed the kid to have a small degree of privacy even if he was meant to keep a tighter rein on him and a closer eye according to the rules of his probation but Boylan never did.

Later that evening…

It took Boylan longer than he thought it would to conclude his business dealings with the former thief turned so called respectable businessman than he thought it would and it was already starting to get dark outside before he had a chance to head upstairs to talk to Ryan, he knocked on the lads door but got no reply.

Knocking again but still getting no reply he decided to risk sticking his head in to see if the lad was aright, he had looked done in as well as sulky when he had come back from the fishing trip with his father and there was something else in the boys eyes that had him concerned. Opening the door lightly he glanced into the room and saw a still lump on the bed, moving quietly into the room, he stopped by the bed and looked down.

Ryan was asleep hugging one of the pillows tightly to his chest as though his life depended upon it and Boylan could not help smiling seeing how very young Ryan looked when he was asleep or how much like his mother, he missed Alicia so much she had been one of the few lights in this place and although he knew that she would never look twice at him, after all her heart had always belonged to Taylor he had always held a hope that one day they could have been more than friends but with her death he knew that was something he never would get now.

Finding out that Ryan was her son, he had not thought twice about offering a home and perhaps a sense of family to the young teen, he owed that much to Alicia if nothing else to keep her son safe even if meant keeping him safe from his father. Boylan shook his head at the thought of the commander being Ryan's father, that man did not deserve a second chance at being a dad, he had messed his first son up so much that the little turd had ended up betraying the colony.

Well he made a promise to himself and to the sleeping form of the boy on the bed before him, he would not allow Taylor to mess this boy up if it was the last thing he did, even though Ryan was not his son, in the short time that the boy had been with him he had started to think of him as a son and like any real parent he would anything he could to protect him from harm.

Leaning down and pulling the blanket that had fallen to one side of the bed, he gently draped it over the sleeping teen before making his way back to the bar, he had only an hour before the first of his customers would be hammering at the front door.

As he closed the door and made his way back down to the bar, he thought he heard movement behind him and as he turned to see what had made the noise he felt something hard hit the side of his head and an exploding pain heralded his entrance into darkness as his body crumbled lifelessly to the floor.

Ryan started to sit up as the sound of something heavy hitting the floor outside his room alerted him to the fact that something was wrong but before he could move any further, he felt the presence of another in the room and then something was covering his nose and mouth and a sweet smelling from it caused him to close his eyes again and he fell back onto the bed.

The figure caught him as he fell and laid him down not too roughly as another figure moved into the room.

"Have you dealt with the idiot bar owner?"

"Yeah I have, he won't be any trouble and won't wake till morning so no chance of him alerting the colony to us being here or even stopping us taking the boy."

"Good, the commander has plans for this boy and he does not like it when his plans are ruined."

Without another word to one another, they lifted the now unconscious boy and began to make their way out of the room intending to be out of the colony and back at the caverns before anyone in this pitiful colony knew of their visit here.

A/N: Is Boylan alive? Who has taken Ryan? Is it the Judas in the colony? who is the Judas?any ideas? So many questions what is a reader to do? As always reviews are most welcome and appreciated especially if you have any possible answers to the questions!