AN: Picks up right where the last chapter left off.
"So Ressler has a son" said Aram, still processing. "Why hasn't he ever said anything?"
"There's no way he knows" said Alina. "I mean, you all seen him in the hospital. He wants a baby so badly. If he knew about that little boy he wouldn't be at work today."
"How does this make sense anyway?" asked Colin, confused. "I was under the impression he's been pining for Liz for some time. This boy is not very old."
"Yah, how old is he anyway?" asked Yvonne. They all automatically looked at the DOB. "August 8, 2019" she read. "So he's what - 18 months old?"
"Now add nine for the pregnancy" said Colin, thinking aloud, "who was he with like 2-2 1/2 years ago?"
He directed the question to Aram, as the only person present who had known him 2-2 1/2 years ago.
"I - I don't know. He was never very open about his personal life" he explained. "If he did tell someone it was Liz. I do know that for all the women that line up after him he's not the type for flings."
"Well who's listed as the mother?" asked Alina, ever logical.
"A Hannah Fleck" supplied Yvonne. "Deceased two days ago."
"Well, what is he doing in hospital? Is he hurt?"
"Says here broken leg and broken arm on the left side."
"Wow" said Colin, laughing at the irony. "Like father, like son."
"We need to talk to him. I have so many questions." said Aram, "let's call him, see where they are" he reached for his cell phone.
"Woah, Woah" said Yvonne, grabbing it from his hand. "That's not the type of thing you tell someone over the phone. He needs to be sitting down but not behind a wheel."
"Yah, I was just going to ask where they were that's all."
"Okay" she relinquished his phone to him.
"I just can't get over how much he looks like him" said Alina. "I mean - really."
"Yah, carbon copy" said Colin. "It's a bit unusual."
"That's putting it gently. Genetics just aren't supposed to work that way."
"No, see that's the thing. Sometimes genetics do work that way" said Colin. "I mean Natalie looks nothing like me. It's all her mother."
"They are pulling in the parking lot" said Aram, returning to his seat after leaving because the others were talking. "They are on their way up."
"Okay, well get this shut off" said Yvonne, pointing at his laptop, which was connected to the big screen above their heads. "Don't need him to see that when he steps off the elevator."
Aram quickly powered down the big screen and closed his laptop and it wasn't a moment too soon because the elevator opened to reveal Ressler and Liz, holding hands and laughing.
"What's going on here?" asked Ressler, sweeping his free hand at the four agents who were all squished on one side of the desk super close together.
"Watcha' hiding?" asked Liz, "I seen you slap the laptop closed."
"Uhhh" said Aram, guilty and yet clueless with what to say about the new information thrown in his face.
"I think you should both sit down" said Colin. "In fact, why don't we go to your office and sit on your couch." He led the way and everyone followed, Aram grabbing his laptop.
"Okay, this is getting really weird" said Ressler, sitting down. "How come I feel like I'm about to be shown something I did wrong and disciplined?"
"Well I wouldn't say it's something you did wrong" said Colin, "more like just something you did."
"Okay..." said Ressler, still a little scared.
"Do you remember Hannah Fleck?" asked Colin. He seemed to have taken the lead in this conversation because Aram was still absorbing.
Ressler and Liz looked at each other. Liz remembered Hannah, but never knew that Fleck was her last name.
"Yah, of course I remember Hannah" said Ressler. "But that was a long time ago, I was different then". He grabbed Liz's hand, pulled it on his leg and squeezed it. "What does she have to do with anything?"
"Well" said Colin, chuckling to himself for a minute. "There's really no gentle way to do this, so I'm just gonna come out and say it. She had your baby."
Ressler stared at Liz for a second and then said. "Yah, haha, very funny joke guys."
Liz was thinking the same thing only she knew that given the circumstances Ressler didn't really think it was funny. Just for a second she had seen the hope flair in his eyes and now she seen the tinge of sadness as he was reminded yet again that the one thing he wanted most in this world was as yet impossible.
They have got to be kidding right, thought Ressler. I mean considering everything, nothing good like this ever happens to me.
But, "it's not a joke" Alina chipped in. Ressler and Liz turned to face her.
"Yah, I mean I don't know exactly how things ended between the two of you, maybe she didn't know, maybe she just didn't tell you, but one thing I do know for sure. She was carrying your baby."
"I - I - I have a child?" asked Ressler, now starting to actually listen. "I'm sorry - I just - I don't believe you. She would have told me."
Liz looked at him as he turned to her. They were sitting side by side but he still turned, looking at her to ground himself in the ocean of shock, his hands gripping hers so tight that it hurt a little. She wiggled her fingers and he released them quickly, stroking the back of her hand instead. "She would have told me right?" He looked earnestly into her eyes, wanted her to say yes, to back him up.
Liz wanted to say yes, she did, but she wasn't really sure anymore.
"I don't - Don - I never actually even met her."
"Here" said Aram, opening his laptop. "We were going though the databases after you told us about the Restole boy and we found him." He scrolled down the list and clicked on the patient file that they were all talking about. "He's your son." He scrolled down to the area with the patient information, which made the picture at the top disappear.
He turned the laptop on his lap do the screen could face Ressler, but Ressler reached out and grabbed it, pulling it to his own lap.
"It says his name is Ethan Ressler" said Colin, "it was the last name that made us find it actually. It's so close to Restole."
"The mother is listed as Hannah Fleck, but she died two days ago" supplied Alina.
"DOA" said Liz, pointing at the screen, "MVC. They must gave been in an accident."
"How -" Ressler cleared his throat, his voice suddenly undependable. "How old is he?" His eyes scanned the screen rapidly but he wasn't really reading, his mind racing a mile a minute as he did math.
"18 months" said Yvonne, "we did the math. You would have conceived 2 years and 3 months ago."
"December of 2018" said Liz. "You were together that Christmas. Remember that day with the drug mule lady in your apartment?" she asked Ressler, her hand squeezing his shoulder. He nodded at her, head bobbing as his hands cradled the edges of the laptop. "That was the day after New Year's. You broke up that night. She wouldn't have known yet."
A few eyebrows raised in question at the casual way Liz mentioned that a 'drug mule lady' had been in his apartment, but that was a conversation for another time.
"But why would she give him my name, but never tell me?" asked Ressler, "I mean it just doesn't make sense. It's like she wanted the world to know he was mine, but not me. What if he's not mine and she is using my name to cover up the real father? And then she doesn't tell me so she doesn't have to deal with me. I don't think he's mine."
It made sense, Liz had to give him that.
"No" said Alina, getting his attention, "he's definitely your son. Scroll up, there's a picture."
Ressler was gripping the edges of the laptop as though it were a book, temporarily forgetting everything but the information it contained, so Liz reached down and scrolled for him.
Yup, that's his son. There's no denying that. It's plain as day. And it was. Ressler was written in the boy's every feature. The shiny blue eyes, the loose red curls, the proud aristocrat nose, the full lips, the beautiful cut of cheek bone. He was so young and he still had baby fat clinging to him quite noticably, he was little more than a baby really, but it was truly remarkable. From what Liz could see of his torso - which wasn't much mind you - he had Ressler's build too. His shoulders looked huge for a child his age and his arms looked quite thin but they weren't, they just appeared to be because they were just sticking out of a barrel chest.
"He's really yours Don" said Liz. She spoke only to Ressler, but she didn't mind that the others heard her. Ressler stayed numb on the couch. "Can't you see how much he looks like you?"
Ressler could see it. He wasn't blind. He looked in a mirror every morning and this was much the same really. "Yah, I can see it. I can see myself in him. But now that's what scares me. I can't see his mother in him - at all. How do we know it's really Hannah?"
"Well for one, that's what the birth certificate says" said Colin, who had sat down directly across from Ressler. "Two, they came in together, they were probably in the same vehicle. And three - well only you can answer that. Is she the only woman you slept with in that time frame?"
"Yah - yah I mean - I don't - I don't remember anyone else. And I'm not one to sleep around but - I mean it was Christmas, there was a pile of alcohol, parties."
"Don, hey, you would remember" said Liz. "I know you, you wouldn't ever get that drunk. I'm sure that Hannah is the boy's mother".
Ressler let out a huge sigh of relief and tipped his head back on the couch. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Wait, you - this is the hospital database. Why's he here? What's wrong with him? Is he hurt?"
"No, not bad" said Aram. "He has a broken arm and leg. I guess that he's just there because he has nowhere to go."
"I just - I'm so confused" said Ressler again, his mind reeling. "How did I never know? Why didn't she tell me? And how am I listed as the father on the birth certificate without even knowing?"
"I don't know" said Liz, and the rest of the group exhaled similar helpless looks. "And we never will Don. She's gone, she can't answer that."
"What we do know" said Alina, "is that there is a little boy alone in a hospital bed on the other side of town right now. He's got your name and your DNA Ressler. You have every legal standing for him. If you want him there's nobody that can take him away."
"Ethan" said Ressler quietly. "She named him Ethan." It had finally seemed to settle in his mind. "I have a son." He looked at Liz, tears making his eyes sparkle in the dim lightning. "I have a son."
"Yah" said Liz, tearing up at his joy. "You have a son." She gathered him in a hug and Colin picked up the laptop from Ressler's lap before it ended up on the floor.
The group pulled back a little, feeling like intruders but the moment was over as fast as it began. Ressler breathed deeply and pulled back, his hands still holding Liz, but sitting so he could face them all with a turn of his head. "I have a son. A son. What the hell do I do now?"
"It's not 'you'" said Liz, squeezing his hand and intertwining their fingers, "it's 'we'" she stood pulled him up with her. She turned to the group, who stood there with emotional smiles on their faces. "And the answer is - we go meet him".