Author Note: As always, huge thanks to the lovely reviewers! J.E. McCormickGal, D McVetty, let's point out the obvious, xxSay, Rib the Unicorn and musicalprincess3491! You guys are honestly the best!

We're rapidly approaching the end of the story now – well, I say rapidly, the way I've been updating lately it won't be that rapid, lol. I gotta finish the new chapter of WHY too yet... too much pressure! Heh, hope you enjoy this one and if you like, then please review and let me know!

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It's taken you so long to find out you were wrong...

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Ike finishes his drink without even noticing it, in silence, Keiran merely watching him and not breaking the quiet. But when Ike stands, Keiran does the same. "Where are you going?"

Ike looks at him, blinks, smiles apologetically. "Look, I'm sorry. I know we have a date tonight, but what Stuart said... I need to just follow up on something. I could do with talking to Kenny or Stan again."

Keiran watches him, dips into his pocket for a cigarette and puts it between his lips, indicating for Ike to walk out of the bar with him with a jerk of his head. They both stand on the street for a moment as Keiran lights the cigarette, exhaling a plume of smoke before looking at Ike. "The car, the minivan. You know whose it was, don't you?"

Oh, we know, says Kyle in the back of Ike's head, sounding grim. But Ike shrugs rather than repeating this. "I think so. But – I don't wanna say too much, in case I'm wrong. I have to check with Kenny or Stan, they'll know for sure. Stuart never told Kenny about seeing Kyle, that much I do know, because if Kenny knew this – things wouldn't be the way they are now. There would have been another corpse in South Park."

He hopes that checking things with Kenny or Stan is the right move, because it feels like the wrong one. After all this time, it feels like they will hate themselves for not having the information that Ike has, or that Kenny will resent his father for not telling him before. But he has no choice; he needs to know that there was no one else in town with that type of car. Because if there is, he could be wrong... yet he is sure he isn't. He has seen the car before, even ridden in it a few times. Mostly after Kyle died, before his family moved away and he does not like the irony; that he unknowingly travelled in the same car that took Kyle to his death...

Maybe. He has no proof that Kyle even took a ride from him, or who the driver was either. But if someone else saw Kyle that night and didn't mention it to the police – well, that didn't suggest an innocent conversation.

"Ike?"

"I'm fine." Ike manages a small smile at Keiran. "I'm sorry to flake out on you like this. Look, I just – I'm gonna be alone for a while. But I, uh – can I call you later?"

"Please do." Keiran smiles. "Whatever time. I keep late nights."

Ike nods, going back to his car. It occurs to him that he has been able to take another man's hands in the middle of the street and no one has yelled abuse at them, if they were given disgusted looks he did not see them. Maybe it is because they are older than Kyle ever lived to be, or that they are not in the insular environment of school, or that times have changed. Maybe it is that adults are more in tune to the manners of society or have less chance to practice their casual cruelties. Or, as Bebe said, they have learned that actions have consequences that can't always be foreseen. Whatever the reason, it saddens Ike that Kyle was forced to keep his sexuality a secret.

He gets into his car and starts it, driving off and taking streets at random. Although he said that he was going to talk to Kenny or Stan, he is not going in the right direction to visit either one, no clear plan of where he is going in mind.

Oh, now you know that's not true says Kyle with some amusement and Ike snickers. As always, Kyle is right. He may not consciously have planned his route, but he knows where he is heading; to the once place in town that he has not yet been. To the place where Kyle died.

He parks the car at the foot of the hill and climbs up. It is a bitch of a climb and although evening is approaching, it is not as dark as the night Kyle climbed up here, nor is the snow falling as it would have been then. Ike is breathless when he reaches the top, but he keeps on going, climbing up the observation deck. From here one can see the whole of South Park, during the day at least. In the dusk, all he can see are vague shapes and distant lights.

With a sinking sense of dread, he approaches the edge of the deck. You be careful there Ike Kyle suggests, but Ike does not need the warning. The low safety rail remains and Ike grips it tightly, fighting the urge to puke as he leans over the edge. It is as if he can see the ghost of Kyle lying down there, the snow starting to cover his body, wide green eyes staring unseeingly up. Asking a question that Ike does not know the answer to.

"Kyle," he says out loud, although his voice is low it seems loud out here in the silence. "What the hell were you doing out here? How did you even get here?"

"I brought him."

Ike was expecting an answer from within his own head, in Kyle's voice, so it takes him a moment to realise that this voice is real and not his own imaginings. And that although he has not heard it in close to ten years, he recognises it still. The deep voice with the undertones of whine, the smugness that is barely disguised. Ike recognises that voice all right. It would have been odd had he not.

He turns, seeing the man walking out onto the deck behind him. He can understand how he did not hear his steps – he was not listening, did not expect company and had been able to hear his heart beat in his ears after the exertion of climbing the hill. But he is puzzled how he neither saw nor heard a car.

He doesn't suppose it matters now.

He steps away from the railing, toward the newcomer. "Hi there Cartman."

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Back when Ike was eleven, Cartman had been the butt of every fat joke there was. He had been the resident school fatass since his earliest childhood and although the fat kid usually has their own unhappy reputation, Cartman's notoriety saved him from being seriously abused. Everyone knew that he was a pitiless psychopath and there is every chance that today's tormentor could be tomorrows chilli.

At sixteen, Cartman seemed to take some kind of control of his appearance and although he didn't stop eating, he did start working out and making healthier choices. He was never slim, but his porkiness was offset by some kind of muscle tone.

That has changed. At some point in the intervening years, he has given up trying. It may be that under the heavy jacket his tone is invisible, but it does not hide that he has grown more obese. His cheeks are full, he has a second and a third chin beneath the one that is normal and he has the appearance of someone about to suffer the early onset of heart disease. He looks unhealthy but Ike is aware that he is big, perhaps a fraction over six foot and as wide as two of Ike.

"Heard that you were in town," says Cartman, his thumbs hooked into the pocket of his jeans. Ike is sure he could fit his entire body into one leg of them. "Been a long time."

"You saw Kyle." Ike does not know that he is going to speak until he does and he is not sure it is the smartest thing he could do. He is becoming convinced that Kyle did not walk up here and he already knows his brother did not kill himself. He is rapidly realising too, that Kyle's death was no accident.

No one knows he is here, he realises uneasily. All anyone knows is that he asked to be alone for a while. And should another dead Broflovski show up at the foot of the observation deck, it will be called irony, some gothically poetic method of suicide. No one would suspect anything different. There is no one in his life that knows him well enough to say he is not capable of such an act.

And yet, he does not stop, doesn't check himself. He and Kyle may not have been blood related, but his own actions remind him of his fiery brother more than himself.

"The night Kyle died, you saw him after he came from Kenny's. You pulled over to talk to him. What happened?"

Cartman smirks. "I gave him a ride."

"A ride here?"

"Yeah." Cartman looks off into the distance. "He was so pissed that night. You have no idea."

"I'm getting one." Ike stares at him, ten years of anger boiling in him. "You were with him. You knew what happened all along!"

"It was like they said," snaps Cartman. "An accident. Why would I say anything when they worked out what happened?"

"I never knew what happened! No one did! There was so much talk and you could have done something about it!" Ike takes a deep breath, the cold hurting his lungs. "What the hell were you two even doing up here? Why would he want to be around some Nazi asshole like you? What, did you lure him up here for some Hitler Youth scheme, was that it? Another of your nasty little games because Kyle was a Jew?"

"He'd gone too far this time!" yells Cartman unexpectedly. Ike does not flinch from the shout, merely glares at Cartman with his fists clenched. Cartman could probably break him like a twig if he chose to, but he cannot bring himself to care.

"Too far?" Ike's voice is dangerously low. "What did he do?"

"Your average Jew is a scheming, lying rat." Cartman gives Ike a sneer. "You know that already though. You might not have been born a Jew, but you'll sure as shit die one. You were brainwashed from a baby and Kyle helped all the way. And he did it to them too."

"What are you talking about?" But Ike is beginning to think he knows.

"This kid on the football team, Mitchell, sent me a picture of Kyle. This was dynamite, no way was he not going to let me know about it. You can't imagine what someone like me could have done with something like that. I'd been waiting for an opportunity to expose Kyle for the sick freak that he was for years."

"I know what the picture was," says Ike dispiritedly. Once more, petty games and stupid prejudice. "If you were so damn happy about getting the dirt on Kyle, then why the hell did you need to talk to him at all?"

"It wasn't my idea," replies Cartman and Ike believes he is telling the truth, or part of it at least. "But I took advantage of it. He didn't know I knew, how could I have missed that chance to tell him? He was finished. I could make sure of it. And not that I gave a shit, but he brought everyone else down with him too."

He takes his hands from his pockets, runs his hand through his hair. It might have been ten years, but Ike can still see the anger and frustration in his face. "Do you know how hard Kyle worked to exclude me from everything? When we were kids, he'd always try to push me out of the group. Always. Because I called him out for what he was, a sneaky, manipulative Jew and he hated that. Everything I did, he'd say was an act, fake, like I'd made it all up. He'd make sure I wasn't invited to his parties. He laughed when I got sick, he laughed when I got hurt, and he got his friends to hate me too. He was a jerk our whole lives."

Ike shakes his head. That was the truth so twisted as to be unrecognisable. "You did make stuff up and lie, you ruined his parties and I'm pretty sure he didn't have to do much to make people hate you."

"My whole life, he wanted me out of our gang." Cartman gives Ike a black look. "And then he infects the others with his sickness, he couldn't be happy with just one of them, oh no, not Kyle. He dragged both of them into his fucking sex games and it was just another way to leave me out!"

"It wasn't all about you!" Ike yells back. "For once in your life, understand that! Not everything is about you! What happened between Kyle and Stan and Kenny wasn't anything to do with you, it wasn't some plan to piss you off, you weren't even part of the equation!"

"I was never part of the equation!" Cartman's face is red and Ike thinks again about his arteries. "They always had to find some new way to leave me out and that fucking Jew – it was all his fault!"

Ike runs a hand through his hair, his own frustration starting to show. "Why do you care? Why? You just said, you were delighted to have the chance to tear them down, all three of them – if you were so desperate for their friendship and acceptance, you could have stood by them! So what, you were jealous of Kyle? Because it wasn't just him you would have hurt with that picture."

"Jealous of a Jew?" Cartman laughs mockingly. "Hardly."

Ike does not respond to this. He is thinking, remembering. All the times that Cartman got into Kyle's face, every piece of nastiness going back to their youth, all of that was done to get a response from Kyle. Not to impress Stan and Kenny, but to deliberately goad his brother. So that Kyle would give him attention.

"You weren't jealous," says Ike slowly, raising his eyes to meet Cartman's. "You were obsessed."

Cartman looks as if he is about to dispute this observation, but Ike presses on before he can speak. "You weren't happy if Kyle wasn't talking to you. You hated it when his attention was on the others. But you always knew just how to make him notice you, didn't you? It was nothing to do with wanting Stan and Kenny to like you more than Kyle. You wanted Kyle to like you more than them."

"You don't know what you're talking about." Cartman's voice is low and threatening. "I hated Kyle."

Ike shakes his head. "If you hated him that much, you would never have hung out with him. You wouldn't have tried to impress him, always trying to get him to think you were better than him. Yeah, you hated him, but it wasn't him you hated, it was how he was always in your head. Did you hold out any hope? I guess you must have done. Hoping that one day, he'd see the light and realise – what? That you were right, that you were great? That he was as obsessed with you as you were with him? That there was some kind of fucked-up bond between you and he was suffering just as much?"

"You talk just as much shit as he did."

"But then you saw the picture." Ike does not even hear Cartman. He is in the zone; he can see how things must have played out in his head. "That same night, sometime after the football team were done with Kenny and Stan. Mitchell sent you a message and you opened it. You weren't expecting more than a joke or perhaps some embarrassing picture of someone you could care less about. Instead, you got that picture. All three of them, making out. What did you do, did you get upset? Did it finally, finally sink in that no matter what you did, you were never going to get even a piece of Kyle, when your friends clearly already did?"

"I puked." Cartman's voice is flat. "I'd been to KFC and I was in my mom's minivan, going home with the bucket. I opened the text, stopped the car, leaned out the door and threw up in the gutter." He glares at Ike, old anger flaring in his eyes. "Then I just drove. For hours. All over town, into the mountains and back again, trying to clear my head. Didn't work. So I figured I'd go get some answers. Kyle wouldn't tell me shit and Stan was in the hospital – but Kenny, he'd talk. I could make damn sure he'd talk. I could act concerned, manipulate him into it. Or threaten him into it. He had two pretty big weak spots, right there on the picture with him."

"But..." Ike shakes his head. "You never went to Kenny's. He would have said."

"I didn't make it." Cartman gives a sly smile and once again, Ike remembers how he is all alone in the place where his brother died and no one knows where he is. "I was about half-way there and who do I see walking down the street but the guy who caused all of this. Kyle."

Cartman takes a couple of steps forward and Ike instinctively moves back to compensate. His back hits the low railing and he stops immediately, thinking how easy it might be to fall over, how all it could take was the wrong move by a threatening enemy. Like the one in front of him.

Ike takes a hold of the railing and Cartman looks as if he might make some comment – no doubt about how Kyle met his end – but then he hears something in the distance but getting closer. A low voice, the words snatched away by the wind, someone approaching. Cartman shoots Ike an angry, worried look and turns to await whoever it is; apparently he thinks that Ike is responsible for their presence. But Ike has no idea who it could be either.

It is not one person who walks onto the observation deck to greet them, but two. Perhaps the only two men who have any business being in this place tonight; Stan Marsh and Kenny McCormick. And although Ike knows they have not seen each other or spoke in years, they stand united, close to one another. Ike is suddenly struck by the notion that seeing them together like that looks as right now as it did back then.

You guys, says Kyle affectionately. His voice is somehow less confidential than it usually is, less obviously his own mind giving his thoughts the voice of his dead brother. And it the first time ever that the words are not intended for Ike at all.

"You guys!" Cartman is unaware that he is echoing Kyle, merely gives both men a slightly confused look. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been here since Ike left," says Kenny with a shrug. "Down there. Where they found him. I saw Ike heading up here and was gonna leave – but then I heard your voice. Like I could ever forget it."

"And I got here a couple minutes ago," adds Stan, gloved hands gripping his cane. "Kenny was on his way up here, but he heard the car and flagged me down."

Ike wonders how that was, Stan and Kenny coming face-to-face for the first time in so long here. He wonders if they managed to have a few words before chasing up here after them. He hopes they did... but he doesn't think so.

"How nice," says Cartman, his voice barely concealing a sneer. "The old gang all together again. Bar one pissy Jew of course." He laughs cruelly, as if it's some big joke.

"I'll stand in for him," says Ike, standing straight and raising his head. He did not know he was going to speak until he did and the voice that emerges is one that sounds only peripherally like his own. His eyes are on Cartman, but he is aware of the startled looks from Stan and Kenny.

Cartman snorts. "One Jew's the same as another I suppose. Well, count me out. It's fucking freezing up here and the past is all done with. I'm not standing up here and having a fucking reunion. At least at the other one, there's snacks."

"We heard you," says Stan, his eyes boring into Cartman. "You and Kyle were up here. Together. Only Kyle didn't come back."

"We want the truth," says Kenny, his expression grim. "You owe it us."

"Tell them Cartman." Ike folds his arms and he can hear the weird mixture of anger and amusement in his voice. "Tell them what really happened up here. And how the hell it could have been an accident."

"It was!" Cartman looks from one man to another, his expression that of a trapped animal. "It was all his fault, not mine! It was his own fault he died!"

"You were there." Kenny's voice is dull. "All this time, you could have told us what really happened and you didn't. You had to know what we were going through and you just kept quiet."

"You left Kyle here," says Stan, tearfully, but they are tears of rage. "You just left him! Like, like he didn't matter, like it wasn't important..."

"Did you kill him?"

Ike is not surprised that Kenny has been the one to finally ask. He is surprised by the way Cartman rounds on the blonde, as if he's ready for a fight.

"I didn't kill him!" Cartman's voice is enraged. "It was his own fault!"

"So tell it," says Ike coldly, still in that voice he has never heard coming from his mouth before. "Tell all of them how it really was."