Author's Note: I really am sorry for the long update wait, I am. But, as fate may have it, I suck at life and probably always will. So get used to the long waits. :D Okay, then. Here we have it, for your viewing pleasure, the next installment of my little story.

Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.
--Bernard Meltzer

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"Jackson, for crying out loud, will you slow down?" Lisa cried, breathing heavily. Jackson rolled his eyes as he glanced back at her and saw Mel slowly sliding down Lisa's sweaty leg. Lisa instantly saw where he was looking and forcefully hitched the girl back up, the girl's knobby knees hitching up the bottom of Lisa's shirt. Jackson smirked and shook his head, peeling his eyes away from the strip of skin exposed and forcing himself to think about the task at hand and not about methods of slipping his hand from Lisa's wrist to that perfect patch of milky skin.

"Pick up the pace, Leese!" Jackson growled instead, quickening his steps and pushing all thoughts of seducing his captive from his mind. This was a job, after all, not a frat party. "You used to be an athlete, this shouldn't be anything unusual for you."

"I never actually liked being an athlete," Lisa groused, and then added, "And I also didn't have a three-year-old clinging to me out on that field."

For the time being, he ignored her, looking around for their platform. The station was badly organized, and appallingly equipped. In the early-morning rush, the chaos was anarchic, and Jackson gave himself a metaphoric pat on the back for ordering the tickets ahead of time. Now, the only problem that remained was finding out where the hell he was supposed to go, and the tension was heightened with the worry of a civilian recognizing Lisa or Melanie and getting a bit mouthy.

He spotted a rack of maps near a decrepit kiosk and wordlessly steered his estrogen-laden cargo to a table nearby. Lisa instantly wrenched her arm away from him in his moment of distraction, and he watched as she contemplated the area. Initially, she wrinkled her nose in disgust at the sticky chairs, and instead set Mel on top of the rickety table, turning then to massage her sore shoulders.

"I have a question," Lisa said, pressing her thumb to what Jackson surmised as a particularly achy spot. "We're at an Amtrak station. Why didn't we just go to the one in Miami? We wouldn't have had to drive."

"Lisa…" Jackson sighed, yet again cantankerous with her endless supply of meaningless questions. "Think about it. Leaving from Miami would be the simple thing to do, I agree. But not with two people who will very likely soon have their photos plastered all over the media."

Lisa scowled at him. "Where are we going, anyway?"

Jackson threw a map at her from the rack. "Here. Take your pick."

"You're really going to let me choose?" Lisa frowned, her forehead crinkling in a disgustingly cutesy way.

"No," he answered, thumbing through the brochure, contemplating a horribly coordinated map of the station. "Just thought it would keep you occupied for more than five seconds. You'll find out where we're going when we get there."

Jackson was running a finger along the map and trying to pinpoint his exact location when he heard a noise from Lisa. He looked up and saw her scooting up onto the table with Melanie, humming something. "What are you doing now?"

"There is no way of knowing, which way we are going," she sang, drawing the attention of several tourists walking past. They laughed and waved a hand at her, the crazy woman sitting loftily on a broken table. Jackson snorted.

"What the fuck is that?"

"Jackson!" she hissed, jumping from the table and striking him smartly across the face. "Language!"

The slap had hurt his pride more than his cheek, but nevertheless Jackson found himself seething with anger, not necessarily at Lisa, but at himself. Why he was allowing his mind to get so worked up over some insipid hotel manager, he wasn't sure. All the same, Jackson discovered that he nearly had to hold his hands down to keep from throttling her. "Lisa, darling," he forced out, summoning a toothy grin. "Your little antics don't hurt me at all, but I'm not sure that your cousin will feel the same way."

Seemingly out of nowhere, Melanie burst into tears, and Lisa tore her determined gaze away from his to tend to her. She scooped the girl into her arms, wincing as the extra weight strained her obviously tender muscles and patted her back. "Seriously, Jackson, you're scaring her. She clearly doesn't like your profanity, and that grin was absolutely terrifying. And I was just starting to get her calmed down, too."

He meant to tell Lisa exactly what she could do with his profanity when her second accusation demanded his full attention. "How was my grin terrifying?" Jackson ducked his head to peer out a window and reenacted his smile. He stopped. Hm. Maybe she was right. He did look like a hungry cougar. "Honestly, Lisa, just leave her alone. Stop coddling her. She's not a baby."

"She's three," Lisa said patiently, as if not Melanie but Jackson were the toddler. "But in the presence of somebody like you, anybody would be creeped out."

"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult," he snickered, tightening the strap on his laptop bag and choosing to accept it as the former. After all those years of striving for cold professionalism, a level of 'creepiness' was certainly quite a triumph. "What were you singing, anyway? It was obnoxious."

"I don't know what it's called," she grumbled crossly. "Gene Wilder sang it once. In a movie."

Jackson nodded, calming down. It was a bit ironic, he noted, how most of his anger had suddenly filtered into Lisa. He didn't mind too much, certainly an upset Lisa was safer than his violence.

"Come on." Jackson turned and reached out for Lisa's wrist. She obliged, hesitating only momentarily to reattach Melanie to her hip, but he hadn't led them three steps before she halted again.

"You need to apologize to her."

He sighed and turned only his head, not bothering to pivot his body to face her. "What?"

"You made her cry," Lisa elucidated simply. "That renders an apology, don't you think? Come on. Don't you feel bad at all?"

"I didn't do it on purpose," he mumbled sheepishly, wondering why he was giving into Lisa's demand without even questioning her inexplicable authority. It made no sense, really, that she order him around despite his power over her life. So why he was he giving into her absurd request? He had no idea. But he chose, at that moment, not to argue something so insipid, and turned mockingly to Melanie, saying with a fake sugary sweetness, "I'm sorry, Miss Melanie, really, I am. I'm sorry that I'm such a terrific asshole, and I'm sorry that Lisa feels so attached to you. Okay? Sorry."

Before Lisa could chastise Jackson's foul language again, Melanie's face crumpled. Oh God, Jackson predetermined, bracing himself for the coming storm, she's going to start bawling again. Damn kid. Instead, she scrunched up her nose and closed her eyes and—bleh.

Lisa guffawed heartily as Jackson closed his eyes and reached into his jacket pocket, tenderly extracting a Kleenex and sliding it over his face. Melanie sniffled. "Sorry," she mumbled to Lisa as Jackson turned away to wipe the excrement from his cheeks.

"This is fucking ridiculous," he muttered to himself as he scrubbed at his already raw skin, listening to Lisa and Melanie chuckling at his expense behind him. He wished he had some sort of instant bathing mechanism available and suddenly remembered the small bottle of hand sanitizer he kept in his laptop bag. He turned, hand outstretched to pull it out, and mouth prepared to utter a harsh reprisal at both Lisa and Melanie when he realized his mistake.

"God­damit!" he yelled, grabbing his bag and flinging it back over his shoulder. Lisa looked once behind her as she darted up the stairs, Melanie hung around her neck, and Jackson met her gaze. She looked smug and haughty, yet somewhere under that prideful look, Jackson detected her true emotion.

She was terrified, as she rightly should be. When he got ahold of her—and, he noted to himself as he broke into a sprint, that would be when, not if—she would not smile again for a long, long time.