A/N: Here's the third chapter! Let me know what you think!

The following night, Red Arrow left his temporary charge by himself and went on patrol. Once he was driving through the streets on his bike, he felt freer. Just putting on his mask and quiver gave him a feeling of calm he'd desperately needed. 'It feels like my life has changed completely in the past 24 hours,' he thought as he drove.

When he got the neighborhood he wanted to patrol in, he left his bike and took to the rooftops. Above the city, all his problems seemed smaller, or at least more manageable. He came across a group of teenagers chasing another one after a few blocks. Red Arrow shot a grappling arrow downward at an angle so he could slide down on his bow. When he was ten feet from the ground, he dropped to ground, somersaulted to break his fall, then kept running. He shot a glue arrow in the path of the teenagers. The ones in the back of the group managed to stop in time to not fall in, but the ones in front soon found themselves trapped in the sticky substance. Those in the back turned around, but Red Arrow was ready and shot another glue arrow to trap them. He came to a stop as he caught up with them. "What are you doing?" he asked them with his arms crossed.

"Us?!" one of the teens demanded. "You're the psycho who trapped us with…glue or paste!"

"Yeah, what the hell, man?!" a second teen added.

"You guys are the ones chasing someone at almost 11 pm. City curfew is 10:30."

"So?"

"So, by being out past curfew you're breaking the law. I could turn you over to the police." There was a chorus of complaints from the teenagers. "I don't want to hear it! All of you go home, or I will hand you to the cops." He waited and stared at them. Eventually, there was nodding accompanied by grumbling from the trapped teens. "Ok. Hang on a sec and I'll free you." He took a vial from one of the pouches on his seat and poured water on the glue around where the teens were. It softened enough after 30 seconds that they were able to pull themselves out of the glue and walk away. Red Arrow waited for them to disappear, then followed at least a block behind to make sure they actually went home. Once he confirmed they had, he went back to his patrol.

It was quiet for another hour until he saw someone climbing on the fire escape of a building. 'It's almost 1 in the morning, this looks suspicious,' he thought as he made his way to that building. When he dropped down onto the level above his suspect, the man jumped. "Hi," Red Arrow greeted. "Great morning, huh?" The man moved and there was something in his hand pointed straight at the archer. Red Arrow threw himself to the side of the fire escape. He caught himself with one hand and swung onto the same level as his opponent. The man tried to punch him, but Red Arrow simply ducked and punched the man's stomach at the same moment. The man fell back onto his butt and Red Arrow kicked the gun away. "I just wanted to talk."

"Leave me alone, Archer. I haven't done anything," the man said, his voice quivering a little bit.

"In my experience, people who point weapons at me are up to something." Red Arrow reached forward, but the man flinched back so violently that he almost fell off the fire escape. "Whoa, careful!"

"I haven't done nothin'! I was tryin' to break in but you came and- I swear I didn't do anything though!"

"Buddy-" Red Arrow reached out again, but the man tried to dive off the fire escape again, prompting the vigilante to grab his shirt and pull him back from the edge.

"Don't kill me! Please, don't kill me!"

A sick feeling settled in Red Arrow's stomach and he released the man as soon as he was standing. "Relax-"

"Relax?! No way, I know how vigilantes work!"

"I'm not going to kill you!" Red Arrow sighed and gave the man a quick once over. He didn't appear to have anything on him except an obviously empty drawstring bag. "Go."

"Go?"

"Yes, go, but I don't want to catch you out here robbing places again." Instead of responding, the man practically ran down the fire escape. Red Arrow watched him go with a bit of a heavy heart. Three years of being the sole vigilant in Star and he still ran into this. People who thought he operated like Green Arrow and would kill them when he caught them. 'It'll take time,' he thought as he started climbing back toward the roof, repeating his mantra for the past three years. 'It'll take time for the people to trust me.' At least…he hoped it would. Part of him was afraid the people of Star would never trust him to protect them instead of terrorizing them. When he got to the roof, Red Arrow froze. 'Is someone following me?' He spun around, but there was no one there. 'I must be imagining things.' He shook it off, then continued on his patrol.

A few blocks away, he found another person trying to steal a car. One arrow through the open doors shocked the hands of the potential thief off the steering wheel. Red Arrow approached the car with an arrow pointing at it, but a gunshot rang out down the street. Something metal clanged! behind Red Arrow and made him jump. He looked around and saw two police officers running toward him. In the hard streetlights, he could see their guns pointed at him. Without thinking twice, Red Arrow shot a smoke bomb arrow at the ground and ran. He sprinted down an alley to the closest fire escape and climbed. By the time he was safely on the roof of the building, the smoke from the arrow had dissipated. He crouched down low, almost laying on his stomach, and watched the street below.

One of the cops approached the car, now devoid of the thief, and the other approached the alley Red Arrow had disappeared into; his gun still raised. Above his head, the vigilante's attention was on the cop alone. Red Arrow barely dared to move as the officer investigated the alley. When the officer apparently decided the alley was empty, he put his gun away and rejoined his partner on the street. They conversed for a minute, though Red Arrow couldn't hear what was being said before they left the way they'd come. Red Arrow waited a full three minutes before he moved. He stood with a sigh of disappointment. 'It's been three years, you'd think they could at least stop shooting at me,' he thought. Granted, he'd known from the beginning the police in Star wouldn't be quick to trust him. But he also hadn't expected to still be dodging bullets three years in.

'Healing is a long process,' Red Arrow reminded himself as he ran across the rooftops. 'I wasn't the only one traumatized by Oliver.' Since he had no desire to have another run-in with the police, he moved on to another neighborhood.

Unknown to him, however, there was a figure watching him. The figure crouched down on his own rooftop, eyes following Red Arrow as he disappeared into the night. He gripped the bow he'd "borrowed", then followed at a slower pace. 'Everything's going according to plan,' Connor thought as he threw himself to the next rooftop. His landing was rough and he scraped his outstretched hands and sent waves of pain from his knees up and down his legs. He didn't want Red Arrow to get too far away though, so he scramble dot his feet and followed. It was dead silent as he jogged to close the gap between himself and the vigilante down to something more sensible. 'Hopefully, after tonight I'll have a good enough idea of how to fight crime the way Roy does it.' Considering the fact he only had a few days to enact his plan, he needed to get a handle on the vigilante thing as soon as possible.

By the time he found Red Arrow again, the vigilante was grappling with a group of three men. Connor crouched down on the edge of a rooftop to watch. His heart jumped into his throat every time one of the men's makeshift weapon's got near Red Arrow, but the vigilante was good. Really good. A wrench was swung at his face, but he backflipped to avoid it. When he was in mid-air, he shot an arrow and hit the guy in the hand. The arrow zapped the guy and shocked him into dropping his weapon. Red Arrow didn't have time to dwell however, because the second man swung a broken pipe. Red Arrow spun around and caught the weapon before it could hit him. He jerked the man's arm forward and kick him in the chest at the same moment. The effective movement disarmed the man, then sent him sprawling to the ground. At this point, Red Arrow turned to the third man, who was unarmed, but he simply abandoned his friends and ran off. Without moving an inch, Red Arrow shot an arrow and a wire wrapped itself around the escaping man's ankles.

'He's so…good,' Connor thought as he watched Red Arrow secure the remaining men to leave them for the police. 'How did he get that good? Was it Batman or…?' His stomach churned at the thought of Green Arrow, as it had every time he thought about his father since the previous night. 'I hope it was Batman.' The teen was so lost in thought, that he didn't realize Red Arrow had finished restraining the men and was now standing perfectly still in the alley. Connor's attention latched onto the movement, then he shoved himself away from the edge of the rooftop. His heart pounded in his chest as he pressed himself down on the rooftop. He barely even dared to breathe as he waited for Red Arrow to scale onto the roof and find him. It didn't happen though. 'Did he not see me?' After a full thirty seconds, he crawled over to the edge of the building and looked.

Red Arrow heading through the alley to the opposite street and Connor let out a sigh of relief. 'Thank goodness,' he thought. 'I need to be more careful than that. I don't want him to catch me.' He continued to follow Red Arrow around all night, watching him take down bad guys and taking mental notes of his style and actions. 'He can use his bow in close combat and as a long-distance weapon,' Connor thought as he watched Red Arrow save someone from getting murdered. 'He never uses more force than absolutely necessary. I wonder if that's on purpose. It feels like it is.' At one point he looked around and realized he could easily recognize the area of the city he was in. 'He must be heading home. I should too.' Once he followed Red Arrow back to his HQ, Connor was able to find his way back to the apartment. 'This is going to work,' he thought with a smile when he slipped into the guest room through the window. 'This will definitely work.'

— —

The following night, Red Arrow wasn't as focused on catching criminals as he was on tailing the Star City police. Specifically, detective Micheal Rodgerson. The man was talking to witnesses at a homicide crime scene, with Red Arrow perched above him on the edge of a rooftop. The archer didn't particularly know why he was following the detective, but it was more effective than deciding how to lie to the man.

'I can't tell him the truth,' Red Arrow thought. 'But…I don't know if I wan to confirm his fears either. The case clearly haunts him and I can see why. As far as he's concerned, a billionaire got away with murdering a 14-year-old kid.' The thought sent a shiver down his spine. 'This isn't exactly the kind of issues I thought I'd be dealing with when I came back to Star.' The detective left the alley and headed back to his police car. Red Arrow grabbed his bow so he could follow.

Meanwhile, several blocks away, Connor was trying to figure out which key unlocked the backdoor to Roy's office. Part of him felt bad about stealing, but he was going to return them, so it probably wasn't stealing per se. "Come on… Come on…" he muttered as he tried the third one. "I don't have a lot of time. I need to get some stuff, then head out.' And somehow make it back to the apartment before Roy got home. He finally got the door unlocked, then slipped inside. Thankfully, it wasn't difficult for him to find the secret passage under the stairs, then get into Roy's "arrow cave".

When he got downstairs, he immediately got a quiver and filled it with arrows. He tried to avoid any that looked like they had specialized arrowheads because he didn't know what they did and didn't want to misuse one. Once he had the quiver on his back, he grabbed a bow. Connor nodded to himself, tying his make-shift mask on. "Ok. Let's do this." He left the Arrow Cave through Roy's secret exit, then quickly took to the streets. He stuck to the shadows as much as possible, thinking this is where vigilante's belonged. 'It seems like Roy just wanders around and looked for crime,' he thought as he moved from an alley to a side street. 'So that's probably what I should do.' Somewhere in the back of his mind, Connor could hear his mother scolding him for doing something so dangerous. It sent a bolt of hard grief through his body. He inhaled a shaking breath, then tried to steel himself. 'I'm sorry, Mom. But this something I just have to do.' Despite the raw grief that could still wrack him, new emotions about his mother had joined the grief. Chief among them was confusion and anger. Confusion over why she would've had a relationship with someone like Oliver Queen; and anger for everything else.

A scream knocked Connor back to reality. He looked up and saw a young boy running down the street being chased by a group of teenagers. After a second of hesitation, Connor jumped into action. He sprinted after them. "H-Hey!" he shouted at the teens, trying to sound intimidating. "Stop!" They didn't. Connor huffed and ran faster. He remembered the bow in his hand, then tried to pull an arrow from his quiver. Unfortunately, pulling out an arrow while running wasn't as easy as pulling one out while stationary. When he finally managed it though, nocking the arrow while in motion was twice as hard. He couldn't get the arrow on the bowstring properly. The end of the arrow and the bow kept moving as he ran. When he finally did, he had to stop to even aim it. The arrow missed the place where he was aiming for and nearly hit one of the teens in the back. It scraped the guy's side and he yelped in pain.

"What the-" he turned around and laughed. "Hey guys, check it out." His friends stopped and looked back at Connor. "It's a Green Arrow Wannabe."

"L-Leave that kid alone!" Connor yelled, deepening his voice.

"Or what?! What exactly do you think you can do?"

"…I- I'll stop you!" Connor tried not to take a step back as the teens advanced on him, or check to see that the mask he'd made was still tied around his face. 'I can take them. I can do this.' He took a deep breath, then reached for another arrow. Unfortunately, one of the teens ran froward suddenly and he had to abandon that for dodging him. He reacted instinctively and dropped the bow so he could grab his opponent's arm. The teen was unprepared when Connor grabbed his arm, then slammed him into the ground. He let go, then stopped a punch from another teen and flipped him over his shoulder. 'They're easily twice my size,' he thought as ducked under another punch, then landed a solid kick to the teen's knee to send him to the ground. Something hit him from behind and Connor stumbled. He tried to turn in the same moment, but a hand snagged the bag of his sweater. He threw his elbow back and hit his opponent in the face, then ducked down and threw him over his body. "I told you to leave the boy alone. Now get out of here!"

The teens didn't leave though. They got up and charged Connor as a group. He held his ground and ducked under their hands. He swept their legs out from under two of them, then kicked another in the face. "You can't beat me," Connor warned them as he caught another fist that came toward him and twisted the arm to send the teen to his knees. "Leave!" When he let go they finally gave up. He watched them go with a deep sense of satisfaction and a slow smile spread over his lips. 'I did it!' he thought. 'I was able to fight them off! If I keep this up, Roy will have to let me stay!' Emboldened by his win, Connor picked up his bow, then continued on his solo patrol.

It didn't take long before he came across more trouble. He was wandering across a side street when someone ran into him. Connor took a step back, but couldn't catch himself in time. He fell to the ground with the person on top of him. "What-" he began, but the woman cut him off as she quickly stood.

"Help!" she cried. "Someone took my bag! I have something important in there!"

"I'll get it back for you! Which way did he go?"

"That way!" She pointed down an even narrower and darker side street.

Fear crept up Connor's insides, but he ignored it to creep toward the street. "Stay back, I'll handle this." He pulled an arrow from his quiver, then stopped for a moment to nock it to the bow. 'Ok, I can do this. I can do this.' He poked his head into the street. There was a figure huddled over something near the middle, outside an abounded storefront. Connor walked closer as silent as he could. He raised his bow and pointed the arrow at the figure. 'Hey!" he shouted. "What're you doing?!" The figure moved like he was standing up, then Connor's stomach jumped into his mouth when a gunshot rang out. He threw himself to the ground. For a second the only sound Connor could hear was his rapid heartbeat jackhammering against his chest. He swallowed and pushed himself to his feet with shaking arms, only to drop back to the ground when another gunshot rang out.

"Did she really send me some kind of Green Arrow Jr.?" the figure asked as he approached Connor.

"Wha-" Connor had to roll to the side when the man shot at him again. He wasn't fast enough though, and burning pain ripped down his side. "Ah!" Connor put his hand to his side and felt warm blood trickling past his fingertips. He rolled again to avoid being shot and quickly took cover between an old newspaper box and a closed store. 'I lost my bow,' he thought as he looked at the bow laying on the street a few feet away.

"Come out, kid," a voice said and Connor's eyes widened. It was the woman who'd fallen on him. "The longer you drag this out the worse it will be."

"Yeah!" the man agreed. There was another gunshot and Connor's whole skeleton jumped.

'I have to move!' Connor took a deep breath, then threw himself forward to grab his bow. A hand grabbed his arm, so he twisted around and whacked it with the bow. The hand retracted and the woman shouted. Connor scrambled to his feet and pulled out an arrow. 'I have to get out of here!' He thew himself into a deep shadow and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm his frayed nerves. 'I don't know what they're doing, but I still want to stop them.' Despite his extensive knowledge of calming techniques, it was hard to think when in so much pain and shaken so badly. 'Remember: I have to be a vigilante. I have to.' Connor swallowed and nocked the arrow to his bowstring. He stepped out from his hiding spot, then shot it the man. It scraped his arm and the man yelped. Connor darted to the man and swung the bow to hit him in the head. The man stumbled and fell to the ground. "Get out of here!" The man ran off with the woman right on his heels.

Connor watched them with a bit of relief. He took a few steps to leave the street himself and grimaced when pain shot through his body. "What-" His hand flicked down to his side. Warm blood seeped through his fingers. 'Right. I got scraped by a bullet. I need to get back to Roy's apartment.' Each step Connor took sent waves of pain throughout his body. It hurt way more than bruises and sore muscles from normal sparring. 'It wasn't like the monks encouraged us to try to hurt each other.' He stumbled but kept going. 'I need to make I make it back.' If Roy found him passed out on the street somewhere, he'd never let Connor stay. 'I can't prove I'll be a good vigilante if I can't survive one fight.'

Thankfully, through some stroke of good luck, Connor made it back to Roy's "arrow cave" to put back the equipment he'd…borrowed. After he put the quiver and bow back, he noticed an area with medical supplies. 'Perfect,' he thought with a smile as he limped over. This area contained a cot, cabinet, and a sink. Inside ether cabinet, Connor gathered some gaze and bandages, then sat on the cot. When he pulled up his shirt, he was able to get a look at the cut on his side. "Not deep…" he murmured. "Good…" He held some gauze against the cut, then waited for the bleeding to slow down. As he sat, some of the words he'd heard that night came back to him.

Green Arrow-wannabe.

Green Arrow Jr.

It sent fear and anger through his body. His stomach rolled and his hands started shaking a little bit. 'No…' he thought. 'No. I'm not like him. I won't be like him!' The resolve pushed him to bandage his cut and dispose of the evidence he'd been there. "I just need to sleep," he muttered as he moved carefully; mindful not to disturb his bandages. As he shuffled back to Roy's apartment, Connor could practically her this mother scolding him for getting hurt like this. He scoffed. 'Honestly, after all, she hid from me, she wouldn't have the grounds for judging.' His eyes started to burn and Connor shook his head. He wiped the tears that started to form in his eyes.

When he got back, Connor went right to the guest bedroom. He wrapped himself up under the covers and cried quietly. Whether it was from pain or exhaustion, he wasn't sure, but it all suddenly felt like too much.

Losing his mother.

Finding out his father was a monster.

Almost getting killed the first time he tried to be a hero.

Connor shook as he sobbed quietly. 'Why can't everything go back to the way it was?' he wondered. His heart ached for how easy life had been just six months before. He wanted to go back to the monastery. Back to his friends and the one-room classroom. Back to sunrise meditation and gardening. Back when he had his friends and the monks, as well as his mother. 'Now I don't have anyone,' he thought miserably as he wiped his eyes. 'No one but a guy who probably resents me and would never want to let me stay. No matter how hard I try to prove I can be a good hero.'

Overwhelmed and utterly lost, Connor eventually cried himself into an uneasy sleep.

— —

When Roy returned home, he was still wide awake; despite it being nearly 3 am. His tailing of the detective hadn't given him anything besides how dedicated he was to his job. 'Which isn't a bad thing,' the vigilante thought as he kicked his shoes off. 'Definitely not a bad thing. Just…makes it hard for me to decide what do about him. I definitely can't tell him the truth. I don't even know if he would believe me if I did.' And yet the man showed such dedication to his work that part of Roy couldn't help but feel like he'd probably thrown the same dedication into that missing person's case seven years ago. In the end, all trailing the detective had really done for Roy was make him wring his hands and sigh. 'Guess this is just a problem I won't solve tonight.' He froze as he passed the door to the guest bedroom. 'One of many I guess.'

After a moment of hesitation, Roy silently opened the door. The only sound inside was Connor's near-silent breathing. It was deep and even enough that Roy was certain he was asleep. He slowly walked closer, apprehension swirled inside of him as he approached the sleeping teen. Connor was partially uncovered by the blanket from the was it up, so Roy could see his abdomen. He frowned when he saw something white peeking out under the teen's shirt. 'What-' the thought stopped cold when he pulled up Connor's shirt. 'A bandage?! Why?! Did he hurt himself?' The wound wasn't in a place where he was likely to hurt himself in the apartment. Roy's eyes narrowed and he frowned more as he pulled the hem of Connor's shirt back down, then re-covered him with the blanket before he left.

— —

The following night, Red Arrow hung around the harbor, watching the water with keen eyes. He sighed lowly as he leaned back against the second level roof behind him. "Waiting… Waiting… Waiting…" he muttered. Something moved in the water, then someone climbed out of the water and onto one of the docks. "About time." Red Arrow smiled as he jumped down from the rooftop. His smile grew as he walked down the dock to the edge. "You're late!" he called.

"I apologize," Kaldur replied. He held his hand out to his boyfriend for Red Arrow to pull him up. "I had to take care of something at the Cave."

"Real or proverbial fire?"

"A little bit of both." Kaldur sighed as he leaned in and kissed Red Arrow in greeting. "I am glad to see you though."

"Me too." Red Arrow joined Kaldur on the edge of the dock, with their feet dangling just above the water. He intertwined their fingers and leaned closer so he could rest his head on the Atlantean's shoulder.

"You seem stressed."

"Life is stressful sometimes."

"Hmm." Kaldur kissed Red Arrow's hair. "Tell me about it."

Red Arrow sighed. 'I want to tell him. I want to tell him everything. The detective. Connor. I- I can't though. This is so much to handle alone, but I don't think I can dump all this on him right now.' He nuzzled his head against Kaldur's neck. "I don't want to think about it for a little bit."

"Ok. Then don't." Kaldur's thumb traced small, intimate circles across Red Arrow's knuckles. "Just sit here with me. I haven't seen you in almost two weeks."

"I know. I was starting to feel neglected."

"I apologize, my love. As the Team grows, so does our strength. I need to spend a lot of time there, managing missions and increasing our training. However, I do miss having you with us."

"I know, but it was time for me to leave."

"You're doing great on your own. Tula and Garth have mentioned how impressed they are with your skills and dedication."

"I finally did something to impress them?"

"They are always impressed by you."

"No, you're mistaking them for you. You're impressed by me. They're always making comments about how I don't have any actual superpowers."

"It is a form of…what is the word…amusement?"

"Mhm…"

"They like you!"

"Is that why Garth calls me Pale Surface Boy?"

"You are pale. But in a good way."

"Uh-huh…"

"It is not that they do not like you. They just…are my oldest friends. They can be…protective. No more protective than your siblings or Batman."

"…True." Red Arrow titled his head back so he could look up at Kaldur. "I guess I don't have it so bad since I don't have to be scared of Batman."

"You would do well to remember it."

Red Arrow rolled his eyes and shoved Kaldur into the water. He snickered as his boyfriend floundered in the water for a moment. Kaldur's head popped up a second later. He was clearly trying to contain a smirk into a frown but didn't fully succeed. Red Arrow smiled down at him innocently. "What?"

"You should not-" Kaldur's sentence stopped suddenly, but the playful smile never let this face.

It was a move Red Arrow recognized easily, but he didn't change an of his demeanor. He leaned forward, keeping his body language relaxed as he did. "What is it?" he asked.

"I do not wish to alarm you…but we have someone spying on us. Behind the grey building on your left."

"Hmm…" Red Arrow gave Kaldur a slight nod, then his friend grabbed his bow and slid it back several feet. "That wasn't nice." Trying to act natural, Red Arrow looked back and grabbed his bow. As he did, he spotted something green flash against the grey building in the dim light. He turned back to Kaldur. "Don't worry about it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It's…not something you need to worry about."

Kaldur nodded. "As long as you are sure."

"I am." Red Arrow held out his hand and pulled Kaldur back out of the water. "Ignore it for now."

"Right."

Their conversation moved on, but after several minutes, the figure behind the building stuck his head back out. He watched them for several minutes, slowly frowning in confusion. 'Why is Roy talking to him?' Connor wondered as he observed. 'Are they…friends?' It seems like it but their body language, particularly the intimateness of their movements with each other (like the other guy constantly running his fingers through Roy's hair) suggested this relationship was something else. Something…more. 'Roy never mentioned if he had…boyfriend. I mean, I've also known him for like four days.' The more Connor watched though, the longer he wanted to. It was a soft side of Roy he'd never really seen before. 'He isn't all…tense and distant like he is with me.' Whoever this other guy was, he must've been something really special to Roy.

Roy stayed with his friend for a long time, the two of them sitting and talking about things Connor couldn't hear. Eventually, they both stood and embraced. They held each other close for a while, probably kissing judging by the angel of their heads. When they broke apart, Connor jerked back behind the budding he'd been using as a cover. 'I don't think he knows I'm here,' he thought as he waited for Roy to leave. 'It'll be fine, I just have to wait until they finish and Roy leaves.' His plan for that night was to follow Roy around to get a better idea of how to copy his vigilante style. 'Five minutes should probably be good,' he thought. 'Five minutes and I can try to follow him.'

"Waiting for something?" someone asked.

Connor jumped and spun to the right. His eyes winded when he saw Red Arrow standing in front of him. "Uh…"

"Good answer." Red Arrow's eyes narrowed as he surveyed Connor. The kid was wearing a dark green hoodie with the hood pulled up and a makeshift mask made of a strip of cloth that had eye holes cut out of it. "Let's go."

"But-"

"Connor. Let's. Go."

The archer's voice was hard and left little room for argument. Connor swallowed as he followed him. 'He seems really mad,' he thought. 'This will probably make it harder for me convince him. I have to convince him to let me stay though. I have to find a way. I have to.'