So here is the confrontation... I veered away from my original plan, but I felt it was better this way.

Thank you for all the reviews! I still have a ways to go in this story, so I appreciate you keeping me going.

I own zilch.

As he adjusted to the darkness of the cold master bedroom, Red tried to decide the best way of waking Fitch, who was buried deep under the covers, enjoying a nice lie-in. He could barely admit to himself that he hadn't really thought this part through.

Show up, confront, kill.

Since when did he think like that? Red did nothing half-cocked. There was always a plan. Except, apparently, where Melanie was concerned. That was something he would have to rectify later.

A sleepy sigh from the bed pulled him back to the task at hand. Fitch would be waking up soon, and Red wanted to be the first thing he saw. Searching the room as best he could, he located a small chair, obviously placed for decoration, and dragged it to the end of the bed. Then he thought better of it and dragged the chair closer. Then closer still. And a few more inches for good measure. Sitting down, Red propped his feet up on the bed, dangerously close to Fitch's leg, and pulled out his gun.

It was time to get this show on the road.

With no small amount of vindictive glee, Red kicked his heel into Fitch's leg. Hard. There was a panicked yelp from under the covers, and up popped Fitch, gasping in pain, reaching for his leg.

"FUCKI..."

"I hope you don't use that filthy language in front of my daughter."

Silence.

Scared silence.

Guilty silence.

Red congratulated himself on a job well done as Fitch sat quietly, waiting for his sentence. If he had any sense at all, he knew there would be no trial.

"Turn on the light. I want to see your face when I'm speaking to you."

There was another beat of silence that seemed to drag on forever before Fitch sighed, resigned, and reached over to flip on the lamp that rested on the nightstand. Even in the low light that bathed the room, Red could see the sickly pallor of Fitch's face, as if all the blood had drained out of it. His eyes were grim, and as he shrugged his shoulders it seemed as if all the fight had left him.

"I guess there's no point in trying to deny it, huh?"

"None whatsoever." Red crossed his feet and leaned back a bit, making himself comfortable and making Fitch increasingly uncomfortable.

"So I take it you've seen her?" Fitch questioned, attempting to keep his voice calm and steady. Red could almost applaud the attempt. Most men would be on their knees, begging, at this point.

"Seen her. Talked to her. Had dinner with her. She's a chatty little thing; that much hasn't changed."

It was almost therapeutic to watch Fitch's eyes widen in horror at the thought of his secret exposed in such depth...

"What have you told her? I swear, Red, if..."

"What Melanie and I discussed is none of your business," Red interrupted, moving the gun slightly in his hand, as if to remind Fitch that it was still there, and that Red was still in control. "And as for your swearing...save your breath. I no longer believe a word that comes out of your mouth."

"You can't make her a part of this!" Fitch caught his head in his hands before dropping them down onto the bed. "I've kept Melanie so far away from our filthy business...you should be thanking me, Red!"

An incredulous laugh escaped Red's lips. "Thanking you? For kidnapping my daughter?"

"For SAVING her!" Fitch flung back the covers and exited the bed, unable to sit still. Red allowed it, amused by Fitch's nervous pacing.

"For saving her? That's what you're going with?"

Fitch rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and continued his pacing, slowing down the speed just a bit. "They were going to kill her, Red. She was just a little girl, but that didn't matter to them."

Red frowned. "Who is 'they'?"

Fitch sighed. "You know as well as I do. The people we were working for weren't exactly saints. I know you were young, but surely you had the sense enough to see that."

Guilt ate at Red once more as he remembered going 'off the books' several times in his short career. Of course he knew that something wasn't right. Of course he knew.

He just didn't want to admit it.

"How do you know they were going to kill her?"

"Because they tried!" Fitch banged his hand hard against the bedpost and Red froze, waiting for him to continue. "They shot her. They shot her and left it up to a couple of newbies to clean up the mess. One of them, Matthew Sellers, saw Melanie move and took pity on her. Took her to the hospital."

When Red finally found his voice, it was stronger than he thought it would be. "And the boy? Matthew?"

"He was punished. I don't know how, and, quite frankly, I didn't want to know."

Fitch ran his hand through his thinning hair and it occurred to Red just how old he looked. Out of his suits and away from the small army of people at his beck and call, he looked quite vulnerable. The thought was harrowing. Red had always thought Fitch was a good many things, but old and vulnerable? Never.

"And how, exactly, did you get involved?"

Fitch made a noise in the back of his throat. "Well the job wasn't done, was it?"

Realization dawned on Red, and his finger closed in slightly over the trigger of his gun. "You were going to..."

"I had absolutely nothing else to live for but my job, so why not? All they told me was that there was a problem in room 106, and that I needed to take care of it."

Silence fell over the room once more as the two men pondered to themselves. Red was mortified. If they had sent anyone else but Fitch that day, Melanie would not have survived. He felt a sudden urge of gratefulness toward the man, but it wasn't enough. Red needed to know more.

"Why isn't she dead?" It was all Red could manage to force out.

Fitch visibly straightened, preparing to defend himself, and jumped when the vibrations of his cell phone against his wooden dresser. Instinctively, he reached for it, but recoiled when Red cleared his throat in warning.

"Leave it."

"If I don't answer my phone..."

"The world will still turn round. For some of us, at least." Red drummed his fingers pleasantly on the arm of the chair and waited for the persistent person on the other end of the line to give up. When the vibrating ended and immediately started back up again, he rose from his seat and crossed the floor to the dresser, cutting the phone off in one smooth motion. "Don't you hate it when people can't take a hint?" he chuckled, gesturing with the gun. Fitch flinched and Red steadied his hand. "Now...where were we?"

Casting one last longing look at his phone, Fitch seated himself on the side of the bed, eyes downcast.

"I couldn't do it. I had my orders and I was set to follow them, but when I walked into that hospital room and saw... Red, she was so small. She couldn't have done anybody any harm. I swear, if they would've told me I couldn't take her, I would have ran with her anyway."

"Would you have?" Red asked sarcastically, even though he knew Fitch was telling the truth.

Fitch glared. "You know good and damn well I would have. What would you have done? Could you have killed her? Or would you have made a play for her life?"

Shame ate away relentlessly at Red when he found himself actually considering the question. He had been asked to do a great many horrific things as a young man, but to murder a child for seeing too much...?

"I'd like to think," he started slowly, "that I am a better man than that." And he fervently hoped that he was.

"Well I am!" Fitch's self-righteous indignation was almost comical. "I called in to my superiors and begged for her. LIED for her. I convinced them that she knew nothing, remembered nothing...even as she was lying in bed, crying for her mommy and daddy."

Red's heart thumped a little harder. What, exactly, did Melanie remember? Footsteps fell outside the bedroom door, and Fitch glanced hopefully at the handle, waiting for it to turn. "Don't get too excited," Red reassured. "It's just Dembe, patrolling the house. Trust me, you don't want any surprises today."

Fitch chuckled, the laugh empty. "I've had all the surprises I can handle today." The corners of his mouth turned up in a wistful smile. "You know, I'd always wanted children. I wanted a bunch of 'em. A whole yard full. But... the wife and I had a little trouble in that area. Oh, they pumped her full of drugs and hormones and whatever bullshit they had lying around the clinic. It just never quite worked out for us."

Red found himself leaning forward, interested, though he really didn't want to be. "Quite?"

Fitch's eyes flickered towards the nightstand, and Red's followed them to rest on a picture of a lovely young woman in a pale blue sweater, blowing a kiss to the camera, as if it could blow one back.

"Yeah... Poor Deanna. We just didn't know. We couldn't have known... I had a son once, you know."

No, Red didn't know.

"For one glorious hour, I had a son. Patrick, we were going to call him." He pulled a face at the name. "Patrick was her father's name. The old bastard hated me."

Red nodded, his brow raised in solemn agreement. "If there is one thing I do not miss about my wife, it's her parents. I always promised myself that I'd give my son-in-law a fighting chance."

"Oh...there was fighting involved. Cops involved too, if you can believe it." Fitch shook his head wearily. "I was never good enough. Wonder what old Dad would say if he could see me now... state senator. No...not even now." Snapping out of his momentary trek into his past, he turned the conversation back to Melanie. "The only way I could ensure her safety was to bring her home. To raise her myself."

"Risky move."

"Tell me about it." Fitch smiled and let his gaze drift to a picture hanging on the wall. Melanie's graduation picture. "But you have to give me credit. I wasn't doing such a bad job of it until now."

Red nodded in agreement. "Until now."

Struggling to weigh his need for revenge against the gratitude he feld for the man who saved his daughter's life, Red clicked the safety on his gun on and off, over and over again, watching stoically as the seams of Fitch's sanity frayed with every click. Although he had searched tirelessly for signs from the moment Melanie informed him of her supposed parentage, there was not one sign that she had ever been mistreated. Fitch had truly been a father to her, and as jealous as Red was, he had to commend Fitch for that. And then there was the matter of who had ordered the hit to begin with... Fitch could prove most useful where they were concerned.

Clicking the safety off and leaving it there, he aimed his gun and gestured for Fitch to stand. "Time's up. Here's what's going to happen..."

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As Red walked into his current safehouse that night with a heavy heart and an even heavier conscience, he was surprised when Lizzie met him on her way out the door.

"Where have you been?" she exclaimed, catching him by the hips in a pseudo-hug. "I've been trying to wait for you but Melanie keeps calling and I have to go to her."

Lizzie tried to hurry past him, but he reached out, grasping her shoulders in a much firmer grip than he had intended. "You have to go to her?" he asked, but the question was lost on Lizzie.

"I know! I know I do. Why didn't you tell me it was going to happen today?"

Confusion wasn't an emotion Red was particularly fond of, so he tried again to draw an answer out of a frantic, exhasperated Lizzie.

"Why..."

"I thought you would at least call me, so I would have time to prepare myself. Melanie called and I had no idea what to say. What do you say to a girl when her father is dying? When he is in a coma from a gunshot wound to the head?"

Dying?

Red caught Lizzie once more as she attempted to move from his grasp. "Lizzie... I went to see Fitch today."

"Obviously," she scoffed in irritation.

"And when I left him", Red continued, "he was perfectly alive." Lizzie's eyes widened, and Red ran his hands soothingly up her arms to rest on her shoulders. "I swear, Lizzie, that I did not shoot Alan Fitch."

Lizzie's entire body tensed as she considered what that meant. "If you didn't...then who did?"