"Okay Kid, I'm back like I said I would," Andy walked in waving his arms large, grin on his face.

"Good," Rusty signed in relief.

"You were worried?"

"Well... yeah, you left and didn't say when you'd be back."

"Not true, I said I'd be back in time to take you to get your Mom."

"Yeah, but what if her bus was early? What if she called and said she was on a different bus and you weren't here?"

"Not likely, but what if? You know Capt. Raydor would have taken you."

"I don't think that would be such a good idea," Rusty said cautiously, moving into the small conference room.

Flynn followed him in and closed the door, "Yeah, why not? Don't you think your Mom would like to see who's been taking care of you? She might like to thank her."

"Um... yeah, I guess... but not right away, you know... My Mom needs time to get used to being with me again, even if it's just dinner. I think it would be too hard. She might... Sharon might judge her."

"Nah... I know the Captain can be a hard ass, but she's not going to judge your Mom. Look, she spent all this time searching for her."

"I guess... I really didn't think she would ever find her."

"What? You think we're amateurs? We find people, that's our job."

"You find criminals, and I guess you do that okay. But my Mom's not a criminal. She's not. And when Sharon took so long to find her, I didn't think she was actually trying. People lie. Police lie."

"She said she'd find your Mom, and she did. She lie to you yet?"

"Yes..."

"When?"

"When she first took me in. She said you were looking for my Mom but she didn't even know my Mom's name, and she can't say she would have forgotten."

Andy leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "Look Kid, for all the Captain knew we were looking. It was her first day on the job, we had a new case with multiple homicides and bang, you wind up in her lap. Can't you cut her a little slack for trying to smooth things with you while she got on top of everything?"

"No... why should I? I mean, no one likes her or thinks she can do this job, so why should I believe she would find my Mom? All she wants is her rule book, and she's got lots of rules."

"Yeah, well... maybe she does, but she still found your Mom, so let the past go in the past and just enjoy. What do you think you want to do first?"

"Um..." Rusty smiled at the possibilities, "you said dinner, right?"

"Yeah I did, and someplace nice. She's been on the bus a long time so she needs to relax in someplace comfortable. What's her favourite?"

"She likes Italian. Pizza, pasta, that kind of thing."

"Well, whaddaya know, I happen to know a couple of great Italian places." Andy smiled.

"I guess you would," Rusty smiled back. "Do you think we could go for ice cream afterwards? Mom really likes ice cream."

"Sure. Gelato or regular?"

"What's Gelato?"

"It's Italian ice cream. It's pretty good. I practically grew up on the stuff."

"Nah, no... I don't think so. Mom has to have things that are familiar to her, you know? She'll be meeting new people so the more regular her life, the better it will go."

"Okay, Kid. Why don't we ask her which ice cream she likes best and let her choose."

"That... that would be great. Then she'll feel like an equal in all of this. Like she has say in my life."

"No problem. Then you want to drive for a bit or just take her back to her hotel?"

"Hotel?"

"Sure, she's gotta get some rest. As you said, this is a big deal. We can't overwhelm her all at once. It's been quite a while since she's seen you and emotions sometimes can be exhausting."

"I guess I didn't really think about that. I was just focusing on her being here. I didn't think of anything practical."

"That's okay, Kid. That's what you've got us for."

"Thank you... I really mean that."

"It's fine. So what do you think you're going to do tomorrow on her first full day?"

"Oh, I don't know... maybe... maybe we'll look for a place to live. It's going to be pretty busy with both of us moving into a new house. And we'll have to go shopping for food and stuff. Maybe we'll just walk around for awhile and talk. I miss just talking to my Mom."

"I'm sure you do. And you've got lots to talk about."

"Not what I did over the summer, though. I'm just going to forget all of that. She doesn't need to know about that."

"It's up to you, Kid. No one here's gonna tell her for you. It's your story."

"She won't understand, so I'm just not going to say anything. But I can tell her how I want to leave LA."

"Where you gonna go?"

"I don't know," Rusty looked at his hands then up at Flynn excitedly. "It really doesn't matter. When it's just me and my Mom again, we can do anything. Maybe we'll got to Atlantic City or maybe Georgia. I know there's lots of history out there, and it's really different from here."

"What are you going to tell her about the trial?" Andy encouraged him.

"I'm not going to talk about that yet. That can come later. We don't even know if there's going to be a trial, right? You guys keep saying that lots of criminals get off before they even face a jury, so maybe it will all just go away and I won't have to think about it."

"Yeah... maybe..."

"And this might be one of those times, right? I mean, that Stroh guy is a lawyer so he'd know all the tricks. He'll probably get off so I don't have to do anything."

"Okay, so no talking about that. What do you want to talk about?"

"Like you said, the past is the past, so I'm not going to talk about what she did or what I did, I'm just going to think about now and talk about what we're going to do next. I want to live somewhere with grass, no more concrete or tall buildings."

"You got it, Kid. I'll follow your lead."

The phone rang and Flynn noticed the area code. "Why don't you answer that."

"Okay," Rusty smiled. "Hello..."