Hey all. In order to make Frost's character arc clearer, I added in some dream-flashbacks in previous chapters that are explained fully here. If you could please read, they're the italic passages in last half Chap 2 and the beginning chap 8. Sorry for the last-minute changes, guys… I feel terrible, but trust me, it's necessary to understand Frost's final confrontation (and Q's background in this AU verse) a bit more.

Personally, I detest flash-backs, so I tried to keep these short. In this chap it was unavoidable, but I did my best to keep them succinct.

Thanks for reading. If I'm doing my job right, we might actually have a story when we're done O_o

To Kill a Mockingbird

It was obviously a trap. Yet, Frost didn't mind.

After getting dart-gunned in the sewer tunnels with a tranquilizer, Frost had been unconscious for an unknown amount of time. When she woke up, she was alone. In an empty room. Her abilities were still functioning – Harper lee hadn't even removed the band around her arm that kept them that way.

Which made it obvious to the dark-haired woman that Harper Lee wanted a fight. She wanted to beat Frost on an even playing field. Even if it was a field of her own design.

Frost crept towards what she thought was the command deck of the ship. Emphasis on 'thought' since all she was really doing was trying to work her way steadily upward. All she'd encountered in the last two levels was nothing but dark empty hallways and silence. Her only companion being the rocking motion of the floor and the dark lamps overhead.

There was no one on board. No sign of Q or Jo. Frost only knew she was on a ship because of a few windows she'd come across.

The tall woman stalked down the hallways, braid sliding against her back as she moved. Single eye scanning every shadow for danger, alert despite the utter ghost-like nature of the ship. Her vision scanned the carpeted hallways, flicking at each creak or groan.

Holding twin katanas made of ice in her grasp, the woman felt more comfortable with them in her hands. The feel of her weapons beneath her grip, their weight in her palms. The ice was so cold it would burn the flesh of anyone else, gifted or otherwise, but had no effects on Frost.

Frost was just entering another empty, dark hall when she saw a set of open double doors on the left.

Peering around the corner, ice swords in hand, the young woman stepped into… what looked like a dining room. Not the kind featured on a normal cruise ship, but the kind she would have expected on a turn-of-the-century cruise ship. It was also just as dust-covered as one would see on a ship from that period.

Someone had taken out most of the large tables and instruments from the stage. Windows on the far wall were barely covered in long, draping fabrics, slits of moonlight providing the only visibility in the clear space.

The only light, save a desk in the center of a room. A desk with a lamp, figure hunched over the wood top.

"I must say, Roberta, you certainly took your time." Harper Lee didn't even glance up from her writings.

"Where are Q and Jo?"

"Already shipped to the human trafficking market, I suspect. Guess that only leaves one loose end to be taken care of." Harper flashed a smile that was at once menacing as it was pleased. "You've held out better than I anticipated, but I can feel your walls cracking, Frost. It's too late to outrun it."

"I outrun nothing."

Lavender eyes met hers. "Not even your family?"

Frost felt her hands clench around her blades of ice. Suddenly struck with a thought that had her spine stiffening in dread. "You're… it's you. You're the reason I've been having those dreams about the past."

The pixie brunette gave a slow, mocking clap, rising from her desk chair, thin frame barely visible in the pale light. "And here I thought we knew each other better."

"I've moved past my brother's death," Frost snapped, ignoring her point as her mood switched from apprehensive to hostile. "You can't defeat me with that alone."

Despite her confidence… Frost wasn't entirely sure. For the kind of battle Lee had in mind… her katanas would be useless. This wasn't enemy she could defeat with force or outrun with endurance.

It would take battling an inner monster using an emotional strength Frost wasn't sure she possessed.

"Let's find out, then, shall we?" Harper questioned. "Ability: To Kill a Mocking Bird."

Just like that, the scene changed.

"Who exactly is Harper Lee, anyway?" Jo asked one day at the agency, when the two were playing cards by themselves. "I get she's the assistant Director of the GIO, but what made her such a bad-ass to get that job?"

Frost twisted a loose strand of raven hair through her fingers. "To Kill a Mocking Bird. It's a mental manipulation ability."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she can make her target relive their worst nightmare. The time when they experienced the most negative emotion." Frost pursed her lips, trying to explain. "She calls it the ability 'reliving change', which in a way, is correct. It's through our nightmares we grew the most. Or so she preaches," Frost added quietly. "But the experience is just as emotionally upsetting as the first time the target experienced the 'event'."

"Can you go up against that and defeat her?" Jo asked off-hand.

"…I hope this time I do."

Seven years ago

Initially, Frost hadn't wanted the baby. She'd been sixteen at the time. What did she know about raising kids?

One look into the sleepy, baby eyes, and Frost knew leaving him was never an option.

Technically, Shigemaru hadn't left his sister much of a choice. Still, teenage-Frost didn't have to keep her nephew. She could have put him up for adoption or sold him to a baby-less couple that couldn't quite make the stringent requirements of the state.

Yet… for whatever reason, she didn't. A small part of her just figured Shige would return and want his baby back. But another part – a majority – just didn't want to leave the child without his family. Like Frost had been all those years ago.

And, as the years past, Frost started to believe her brother was never coming back.

For the first few, it had been a struggle for Frost to juggle working for the GIO and raising her nephew. Frost had to manage the schedules of friends or colleagues so they could baby-sit during her missions. Missions that took her around the world and back, thoughts of Naoki the only thing in her mind.

Soon he was crawling. Talking. Walking. Living their life together.

And then, when Frost was twenty-one, that life ended.

The day was a normal day like any other. Frost had come home from her job in Russia, jet-lagged but hungry. The sitter had made something, thankfully, a ready-heat Italian pasta and noodles. Naoki wanting to help his ane-san with dinner, but Frost told him the truth – he was too small to work the stove. Instead, she promised to join him in front of the TV if he got the episodes set up. And, giving a little bob of his fluffy hair, Naoki obliged.

The door-bell rang. A deceptively sweet sound that foretold the end.

The Japanese adult woman opened the door on her brother, Shigemaru. He'd aged some, hair long enough to tie behind his neck. But Frost was too caught-up in shock to notice. It took her a few more minutes to register what her brother was talking about.

If he'd said any friendly greetings, she'd missed them. Instead all she heard was…

"Wait… You're here to take him back?"

Frost met the midnight eyes of her brother. Their eyes the only thing, aside from dark hair and shared parents, that they had in common.

Shigemaru smiled. Like his request was every-day. Perfectly reasonable.

"He's my son, Roberta. I just left him with you until I could take him back." Spread arms, a grin. "and now I can."

Frost turned her midnight eye to the five, almost six, year-old watching TV in the living room of their apartment.

In the five years Frost had raised her nephew, they'd rarely argued. That day they had the last argument they'd ever have.

Really, as kids went, she was lucky. Despite the teasing in pre-school for his di-chrome hair and mis-matched eyes, Naoki never got angry. He'd usually huff and complain, but he never took it personally. He just moved on and made friends with kids who were nice.

"I don't need then, ane-san. I have you."

She was such a fool. This child wasn't hers.

Those words stamped repeatedly in the heart of then twenty-one year-old Frost. The one who still had both her eyes. The one who had to say goodbye to the child she'd raised since birth. Five hard, very hard, but happy years. Years of diaper changes, baths. Evenings teaching the bright child to read. To walk. To talk. His first word 'twee', uttered when they'd been strolling in the park one fall day.

Mornings teaching Naoki to appreciate music. Her music. Jazz, as she'd insisted. At four years old, he already had favorites.

He wanted to learn how to play piano. Even now, he'd mastered a few easy songs. No prodigy, but he had fun. They both did.

Those days were over.

Shigemaru. Her older brother by seven years. He'd created the life. And now, he'd destroyed it.

What followed her brother's arrival was a very teary parting. Something Frost only relived on her loneliest days, in her worst nightmares.

Of course, young, naïve Frost didn't let her nephew go without a fight. A fight that turned into a losing battle.

Frost wasn't his legal parent. Her brother worked for the Japanese government – they backed their employees completely.

That time in the living room was the last time she ever saw Naoki.

Five years ago

It had taken planning. Years of waiting for the opportunity. But, finally, she'd figured out where Shige lived.

That bastard wouldn't be able to hide forever.

Shigemaru lived in a small house on the outskirts of Tokyo. In a quaint, safe, residential neighborhood. Affordable on his salary. Which was apparently large. Thanks to whatever secret work he did for the Japanese government. A very small grassy plot in the front, fenced yard in the back. Not large by American standards, but for the Japanese housing prices, it was nice.

Frost knocked on the wood door, glancing at the kanji sign out front: Sugiyama Residence

No answer.

Using her ability, Frost busted the door lock. Putting her hand to the knob, ice froze the metal until is shattered.

The door swung open on silent hinges.

Two sets of adult shoes stacked in the entryway. A kitchen that smelled of oregano and tomatoes, pasta splatters still visible on the counter. Still-warm tea on the table.

A single story house, it only took the dark woman a few minutes to make a complete search of the residence.

She'd just entered the last room – the master bedroom, Queen bed in the center of the room and her brother's clothes in the closet, when she heard someone else enter the house.

Frost grabbed a picture from the nightstand. Naoki. He looked… his hair was a few inches longer. His clothes a little different – western style changed for lounge pants and a t-shirt from some park she didn't recognize. Gold pupil pointed at the camera lens, his dad's arm around his thin shoulders.

Naoki wasn't smiling.

The bedroom door opened.

"What the- Roberta? What the fuck are you doing here?" He asked, switching to English.

"Looking for my nephew." She put the picture frame down with extra care. To avoid breaking it in her anger.

"What happened to your eye?" he asked instead. Like Frost would just forget her question and move on to small-talk.

"Where is he, Shige? Who's he living with?" They both knew he wasn't living in that house. Frost hadn't found a child's bedroom. Just an adult's office and a TV room.

It took threatening her brother with bodily harm before he finally shouted, "Fuck you! He was stolen!"

Retracting the ice crystals of her ability, Frost narrowed her single eye. "What do you mean."

"I mean he's a fucking ability user. He can control minds." A bitter laugh. "Just like his mother."

"Your shit choices in fuck partners isn't what I'm asking about. Where's Naoki?!" Her fingers closed around his collar, jamming her brother's body against the wall.

"He's gone! He was taken a year ago. I… I looked. I looked, dammit, in the child trafficking. Other government organizations. He's gone! Hell, he's probably dead!"

A single word echoed in her mind: Dead. Naoki… was dead. He was alive. He'd been alive. Was supposed to be alive.

Now… he was dead.

The ice that had been spreading across the room… acted.

Spears of crystal shot out from the wall and up from the floor with a heavy crackling noise. Frost blinked as a spray of blood burst across her face, catching on the lips of her scowl.

Three spears of solid ice had impaled her brother. Killing him instantly.

Shimmering crystal spears extended from the wall and two from the floor. Dripping in the cool blood of her brother. Clear barbs poked up from the floor like shards of a house, all a side-effect of her exploding rage.

Frost removed her hand from Shige's shirt collar, as though releasing a hot poker. Her brother's body didn't move. Not only had he been impaled, she'd also frozen his body solid. Shige's mouth still wide in a shout. Lips blue, crusted in frosted ice. His skin pale, the whites of his eyes clouding up with cold.

His face was contorted in anger. Anger at her for not saving his son.

Just like every other time Frost was supposed to save Naoki. And, again, had failed.

She… she'd killed his father.

Naoki's only other family. She… she'd killed him.

Death. The only thing she couldn't undo. She couldn't take back.

Somewhere in the ship's ballroom, a young woman screamed.

Dark stuff... *shiver*

Hope you guys can actually feel the emotion here and aren't just rolling your eyes going "Page, please". If so, tell me straight - I can take it like a fanfictor.

Side-note: Q - or Naoki, his given name - did have a dad who was actually a fanatic loyalist to Japan, and from what I was reading, a source of contention between the two (also, the Yumeno Kyusaku pen-name means "a person who always dreams"). If anyone knows more or knows different, feel free to share; It's hard to find info on Japanese authors when one isn't fluent in Japanese (go figure).