AN: This should be super long. If it isn't I will kill 20000000009 people I swear to god. Anyways, thanks reviewers, favouriters and followers, as always! Love you guys! Anyways, enjoy!
~AP

"They found her!"

Karkat could've screamed. Nepeta was alive? And more importantly, they actually found her?! It was a lot to take in. He wanted to run to where she was at the speed of sound but he couldn't bring his legs to move. This was turning out to be the best day of his life.
"OH MY GOG!"
"Gog?"
"You know what I mean!"
"Yeah. You want to go see her then?"
"Are you kidding? OF COURSE I DO! I HAVEN'T SEEN HER IN MONTHS, YOU DIPSHIT!"
"Language, young man."
"Oh shut up. I've already been lectured by everyone else, I don't need your fucking contribution."
"Are you asking to be grounded?"
"Dad. I'm sixteen."
"Let's get in the car, then."
They totally didn't run to the car like excited five year olds.
They totally didn't.

OK. She was found. But apparently, everything wasn't all OK. Definitely not.

Nepeta's adoptive mother was crying, and everyone else was there. Nepeta was being questioned, apparently. Karkat decided he should probably catch up with his friends while they were waiting.

Instinctively, he walked over to Sollux. Despite the guy being a huge douchebag most of the time, he was still Karkat's second closest friend.
"Hey Sollux."
"Hi KK."
"Uh, so, how are you?"
"Alright, I gue'th." I guess. Never a good sign. "Hey, do you know where Gamzee ith'? I haven't been able to make contact with him all today or yethterday."
Holy shit.
Of course Sollux didn't know. And now wasn't exactly the time for some news like that.
"...I'll talk to you about that later."
"Why later?"
"Just, because."
"Becauthe?"
"Sollux, I don't want to spoil this for you, OK? I don't want to spoil it for any of you." Karkat said. "Anyway, it's nice to see you're back to your same old self."
"Mm. Withh I could thay the thame about you."
"Yeah. Yeah, me too."
"You better go talk to everyone elthe. You know, to fake that you actually have other friendth."
"Fuckface."
"Athhole."
"You sound cute w-when you say that." Neither of the two had noticed Eridan Ampora, (who was totally not spying.)
"Thay what, douthenugget?"
" 'Athhole'. And 'Buthineth'. If you don't mind me sayin', it's really adorable."
"Um..."
"Well, I'm gonna go. You...uh, talk about how adorable you think you guys are or something." Sollux mouthed 'Come to my place later.' Karkat nodded and quickly backed away, proceeding to go talk to Terezi.
"KARKLES!" Karkat was greeted with a pounce tackle.
"Ow. No. It works for Nepeta and not you."
"Well hello to you too."
Karkat sat up and found his Dad looking at him and smiling knowingly with a raised eyebrow. 'No.' Karkat mouthed, which only caused his father to laugh and continue talking with whoever's parent or carer that was.
"Anyways, I haven't seen you in like, ages! We never get chance to hang out any more."
"Uh...I'm sort of busy very often. Like, you know, school work, friend stuff, and yeah."
"Oh. Well, me too, I guess. Um...Also, I need to um, talk to you about something."
"Well, since we're together now, on the floor in the midst of probably many heart warming reunions, this may or may not be a good time to tell me."
"I..." Her voice went down to an almost incomprehendable whisper. "I think I like Dave."
"What? Douchebag Dave?"
"Yes."
"Like. Like like?"
"Yeah. Like like."
"Um...Wow...Um..."
"Yeah, it sucks. I mean, he's way too cool for me! Plus he thinks I'm weird."
"Well, he doesn't know you're...you know."
"Yeah...But still!"
"Listen, Strider...he's an alright guy. Just...Talk to him like you'd talk to me. Or anyone else here. I'm sure it'll work out?"
"Yeah. Yeah, you're right!" Terezi jumped up, and ran over to someone or the other person. Karkat wasn't really paying attention to that. So suddenly Terezi likes Strider. Huh. Karkat was sure Nepeta would love to here about that. As soon as they were actually allowed to talk to her.

Karkat looked around. All of his friends seemed alright. He sighed. Telling them about Gamzee would be hard. Really hard. Especially Tavros. Karkat wondered if they were still a thing when Gamzee...yeah. Nepeta would probably want to hear about that too.

Suddenly the door opened at the other side of the room. Karkat ran straight to the guy who came out, who was a police officer in his late twenties. No one protested against it.
"You're all here for Nepeta Lejion?" Karkat nodded.
"Well...I don't think she'll be ready for quite so many-"
"Karkat can go in first." Nepeta's adoptive mother said. Karkat suspected they'd already seen her. All the others nodded at that.
"But shouldn't Eq-"
"I don't think he's ready for that." Nepeta's 'Dad' said. The police officer nodded and took Karkat through.
"I must warn you...things happened there. Disgusting things. She won't be the same person you knew before."
"I know."
"...You done this before? You seem used to it."
"Sort of."
"...Wait a minute...I know you! You're Vantas, aren't you? Dude, that case is huge. Bad things always seem to happen around that family." Karkat sighed.
"Yeah."
"Oh, man, sorry for mentioning it. Must be really hard for you without a brother or Mum figure."
"It's alright. I've gotten used to it."
"Sorry man. I really didn't mean to mention it. Anyway, she's through there. She doesn't feel comfortable talking with officers around." Karkat nodded, and slowly opened the door, walking in. He heard Nepeta jump and gasp. "Calm down! It's me, Karkat."
"Karkat?" Said person surveyed the girl from head to toe. There were bruises all over her and she wasn't even wearing her own clothes. Karkat growled to himself.

"Nep, are you OK? Like, actually OK?"
"I'm fine." She answered, way too quickly.
"No you aren't. You obviously aren't. And you don't even want to trust me, I can see it. Don't bullshit me, Nepeta."
"Well, if you already knew, why did you ask?!" The girl yelled, pulling her legs to her chest. Karkat's expression softened. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you." Nepeta mumbled.
"It's fine."
"It's not. Months I wanted to see you and now I'm yelling at you. What kind of shitface am I?"
"You aren't. I may have called you that, OK, over and over, but you need to listen closer."
"I did. You were telling us we deserved to do better and that we should stop messing around and do it because you ALWAYS believed, even when we didn't in ourselves. You told us we could acheive anything. And we tried, but it was never good enough. To you, we could always do better." Karkat sighed and sat next to her, on a shaggy, breaking couch that was surprisingly comfortable. "That's because you always can. There's no roof there. You can go as high as you want."
"But you never listened closely to us, Karkat." Nepeta murmured quietly.
"Of course I-"
"We tried to tell you how great you are, how brilliant you made us all as people, but yet, anything bad that happened you blamed on yourself."
"It's always my fault."
"No, it's not. It was never your fault." Karkat hesitated, then quickly changed the subject.

"Anyway, what happened? Did they catch the guys? D-"
"They got away."
"What did they do to you, though? How badly can I hate them?" Nepeta stayed silent, clutching her legs tighter to her chest.
"CAN MR. KARKAT VANTAS PLEASE REPORT TO THE CHEIF'S OFFICE IMMEDIATELY PLEASE? THANK YOU." A voice came from an intercom.
"Well, I'll go do that. See you in a minute, I guess?" Nepeta nodded and offered a shaky smile, and a small grin was returned. He walked into the dull corridor, walking to the Chief's office. He entered and sat, because he'd been here before and never done any different. Cheif Higgins was a mediocore man, pretty average, but he'd always been the best man in town at figuring out cases. How Karkat was still a 'case' was beyond him.
"Karkat! Hi! How are you?"
"Suckish. The usual." Karkat grumbled, sticking his hands in his black hoodie's pocket. The Police officer's beam faded.
"Straight down to business, then."
"I've never quite been the one for dillydallying, Higgins. We both know that."
"You've never been quite alright, either, Mr. Vantas. Anyway, we found security camera footage from where we found Miss Leijon, and..."
"Cut to the crap, Cheif, I don't have all day."
"They've abused her, Karkat. As in mentally, orally, sexually and physically. Trusting someone'll be hard for her. We're surprised she'd talk to you in the first place."

Karkat roared again, throwing everything off Sollux's shelves with a flick of his wrist. Luckily, there was nothing expensive on there. Karkat, Sollux and Gamzee had all had rages there, in which everything got thrown off sides, or tipped over. Karkat's mother was the one who safe-proofed it, and nothing had gotten broken since. Of course, reminiscing about that just made Karkat angrier. Sollux sighed. "Are you fini'thed?" Karkat glared at him and sat down.
"'Ye'th'" He imitated, receiving a return glare from Sollux.
"Anyway'th. One, you haven't told me what the flying fuck you're angry about, and Two, Gamth'ee." Sollux lisped irritatedly. Karkat turned, suddenly deadly serious.
"This...This is sort of hard to break to you, but...Gamzee's dead." Sollux hesitated, then laughed bitterly.
"OK, nithe joke, where ith he?"
"Would I really lie to you, Sollux? Now, of all times?" Sollux stopped and thought about it for a minute. Then he grabbed a bee-and-honey patterned cushion that was Mituna's and hugged it to his chest. "Oh. How?"
"He committed suicide." Sollux jumped and squeezed the cushion tighter, pulling his legs up to his stomach.
"Th'hit." Sollux said, his voice cracking. "Thi'th ith all my fault."
"What do you mean, it's all your fault?" Karkat said. Sollux hesitated. He couldn't dare to look the smaller boy in the eye.
" Yethterday I thaw him at th'chool and we had a huge argument and he claimed I wath 'meth'thing around with people'th feelingth and it wathn't fair'. We didn't talk for a while and were th'till angry with each other and then he tried to...He tried to tell me. About it. And I told him..." Sollux choked, tears seeping into the fluffy cushion's fabric. "I told him to go die, Karkat. I told him to. I thaid I wouldn't even care, and I felt guilty when I got home tho I tried to call him to thay thorry and he wathn't anthwering and I thought he wath jutht in a th'trop with me or thomething.I thought it'd juth't be one of thothe timeth, becauthe we argue all the time, and juth't forget about it the nethkt day. It'th all my fault."

Karkat had always had a quick temper, and now wasn't the time to set it loose, especially on Sollux, seeing as the guy was almost as close to Gamzee as Karkat himself was. (The I'm-so-high-right-now act Gamzee'd had once before was a bit annoying, and Sollux'd dealt with that much better.) Karkat attempted to calm himself, but that just lead back to Gamzee, which went back to angriness, so it wasn't really working.

"I'm thorry, KK. I-"
"Shut up, you fuckass."
And thus, the reign of angry Karkat began.

AN: So, the questions remain. What happened to Nepeta? Is Gamzee really dead? How was Sollux 'playing with people's feelings'? And will Karkat be what he was again any time soon? ((Spoiler Alert: PROBABLY NOT!)) Find out next time on-
No.
Definitely not.
Anyway, Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year folks! I apologise for not updating for ages. I need a schedule or something. Anyway, I'm dragging this on too long. Review?
~AP