Author's Notes: Before any of you start to wonder about Crocker's first name, I couldn't remember what it was, so I changed it for this story. I'm also going to try and include more of all of the characters interactions with Lucas. And I really don't mind if anyone wants to save my work, feel free to save away!

Chapter 17

It was quite late when Lucas woke up and the sun was already pouring through the curtains of the hotel room. There were no curtains or locks on the window, so the crew always felt insecure in their rooms. Lucas was looking sleepily around the room, when he noticed a note poked through the door of their shared room. It had his name printed on in bold capital letters. Propelled by curiosity, the youth was careful not to wake his sleeping room mate as he crept over to where the note lay. The paper was no bigger than a postcard and, as Lucas opened it up, his heart beat faster and the colour drained from his face as he read the words on the page. It said:

"Keep what you value nearby, or YOU'll be the one to pay!"

     There was no signature at the bottom. Lucas suddenly felt like he was going to faint, or throw up as he rushed to the bathroom.

'OK, calm down you fool, it's only a note. One note. You've seen worse than this.' Lucas desperately thought, as he gasped for air.

    Gradually, his breathing calmed down and he was able to venture into the other room, without feeling dizzy. Bridger was up by this time and noticed his young charge exit the bathroom, looking slightly paler than he usually did.

    "You OK? You look a bit pale to me. Do you want me to get Kristen to look over you?" A frown creased the elder mans brow, as he noticed Lucas hurriedly shove something in his back pocket.

    "Yeah, I'm fine… I guess I must have eaten something dodgy last night or something." Lucas responded nervously.

    "What's that paper you had?" The killer question Lucas had hoped not to answer.

    "Um… Just something… Err… That room service dropped through the bottom of the door, wondering if we were… Staying for dinner tonight. I already phoned down the answer." Lucas faltered.

    "Oh, OK then. You coming down for breakfast? You've gotta eat something, or else… I'll send Kristen up to examine you!" Bridger joked.

    Lucas put on a mock horror face, before saying,

    "With the thermometer? And the prodding sticks? No man would be so cruel!" They both laughed at that.

    A knock at the door was sounded and, as Bridger looked through the peep hole to see who it was, he chuckled. Lucas raised a quizzical eye brow from where he sat cross legged on his bed. In answer, Bridger opened the door and presented Kristen Westphalen.

    "Well, look who it is! We were just talking about you, as matter of fact." Bridger laughed.

    "Anything good?" Kristen quickly replied.

    "No, actually Lucas was feeling a bit ill; could you take a look at him?" Lucas stared open mouthed at Bridger, which turned into a scream as Kristen suddenly playfully lunged for Lucas. Lucas had seen her move coming and had leapt off the bed and ran and hid behind Bridger, who still had the door open. Kristen crept up to Bridger, who was watching their shenanigans with amusement.

    "Don't worry, I won't hurt you!" Kristen tried to persuade the teenager, who was cowering on all fours behind the protection of Bridger. "Not that much, anyway!" Kristen laughed and lunged, finally managing to capture the struggling teen.

    "Hey, let me go! This is child abuse! HELP!!!!!!!!" Lucas screamed.

    Just then Matt stuck his head round the still open door at Lucas's screams. Temporally distracted, Kristen loosened her grip on Lucas, who managed to escape yet again. Kristen sighed.

    "Child abuse? Can I join in?" Matt laughed at the scowl on Lucas's face.

    "No one was being abused in this room; I just want to examine him…" Kristen explained.

    "That's a form of child abuse; it's just given a different name!" Lucas shouted from somewhere behind the bed, where he had hidden. The grown ups chuckled at this comment. As Lucas continued to talk, Kristen playfully and quietly crept round the other side of Lucas's bed. "They are like vampires. They take away you're blood and then prod you for days with sharp metal pointy things, just for…"

    Lucas's sentence was cut off, as Kristen captured the youth and dragged him kicking and screaming onto the bed. Matt chuckled, before saying

    "Wow, I wish my doctor would do that to me!" He turned around and jumped at the sight of his fiancée standing behind him. "Uh, hi honey!"

    "I heard your last sentence, now don't you 'hi honey' me!" Emily said, mock angrily.

    "I think I'm going to close the door and get changed now, OK? So preferably the whole world doesn't see my PJ's!" Bridger announced and shuffled off to the bathroom to get changed. Meanwhile, Dr Westphalen had finished sitting up and examining Lucas's eyes, nose, mouth and throat and explained,

    "OK, since look so pale and from what Nathan has told me, I'm going to assume it's something you've eaten last night. Now lift your shirt up and let me take a look." Kristen was in her doctor mode at the moment.

    "No! I'm fine now… Honest. You don't have to do this, I'm better and I don't feel sick at all. Not one little bit." Lucas became scared and started to hyperventilate, as Kristen tried to calm the youth down.

    "Hey, calm down! You don't have something I haven't seen before in any one else… There's no need to panic. I just need to do a quick examination, just to check there's no damage done."

    Kristen was worried as she watched Lucas pace around the room. A normal teenager wouldn't have reacted the way he was now and Kristen had a sneaky suspicion as to why he was so nervous.

    "No damage done? No damage done?" Lucas was almost screaming now. "Yeah right! After all he did to me." Realising he had said too much, Lucas went quiet but continued to pace. Kristen's suspicions were right; he had been abused. A knock at the door startled everyone in side and Kristen went to answer it. It was Baz.

    "Is everything all right in there? I thought I heard shouting!" Baz looked worried.

    "I might ask you the same thing. What have you done to him?" Kristen snapped, closing the door behind her. "He's only fifteen years old. How many years have you been…? How could you! You're a monster and I'm going to call the police. You've no right to do it and I'm going to put a stop to it once and for all. And to think last night, I thought you were…" Kristen's speech was cut short by an interruption from Baz.

    "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Now hold on just a minute…"

    "No, you hold on, mister… If I can even call you that. I mean…" Kristen started.

    "You think it was me who abused Lucas?" Baz was getting worked up, too. "Well it wasn't."

    "Do you really expect me to believe that? Coming from you?" Kristen nearly shouted, but kept her voice down for Lucas' sake.

    "Listen to me. Don't you think it was weird how Lucas was living with his uncle for all this time? Don't you think he would have run a mile when he saw me? Don't you think its strange how Lucas never talks about his father or any other relation? And how his father never calls his only son on board a military sub? Well, I'll just fill you in on a couple of home truths before you go galloping off on your horses again. Yes, Lucas was abused, but not by me. It was his father, who is now in prison serving a ten year sentence. That's why you never hear his name mentioned. Do you know how many times when he was younger I've had to listen to Lucas scream after yet another nightmare he's had and re-account the different ways his father used to abuse him? And then I have to comfort him, whilst trying not to break down at half the stuff he tells me, trying not to blame myself for not seeing what Lucas went through, for missing all the signs. And then you come out here and accuse me of child abuse? I think you should check your facts first before accusing everyone left, right and centre. I was the one who rescued him from that monster." Baz's eyes blazed with fury.

    "Look. I'm sorry. I didn't know, OK…" Kristen was still trying to absorb the information she'd just been told.

    "No, you didn't know. You just assumed it had to be me, right? But listen. At the moment we've got bigger problems than our arguing out here. Lucas is still inside, remember?" Baz quickly made his point. "Now are you going to let me in or have you just locked yourself out, too?" He nodded towards the closed door.

    "No, I've got the key," Kristen shook her head.

    As she opened the door and peered through, she couldn't see Lucas at first. She entered the room, closely followed by Baz.

    "Lucas?" Baz softly called.

    He was rewarded by the sobbing Lucas, who had appeared from the other side of the bed. The bedraggled youth flung himself into the elder man, crying harder. Lucas looked as though he was about to collapse when Baz led him towards the bed. They were now sitting on the edge of the bed, when Bridger appeared from where he had been talking with Lucas. He motioned to Kristen, who mouthed that they should go outside to talk. Bridger nodded in agreement, as they left the pair to talk."

***

    "You can't be serious! But this is Lucas we're talking about. I mean, he was fine last night. Why now? I mean…. Was there signs? There had to have been signs. Did we miss all of them? How bad was it? How did you find out about it before me?" Bridger started to pace around, anxiously

    "I don't know. All I know is what Lucas's uncle, Baz told me, but I know we can't tell the crew or anyone. What Baz told me is confidential. And that's final." Kristen was very strict about this. "I mean, it'll be embarrassing enough with us knowing, let alone the whole crew knowing, treating him like he's gonna break all the time won't help things."

    "I agree. What are we going to do about them two in there?" Bridger asked. "Should we just leave them to sort things out on there own?"

    "That would be for the best," Kristen sighed and softly added, "I hope I was right in trusting Baz, for Lucas' sake."

***

    After Lucas finished his story, Baz gently rocked the youngster to calm him down. He had almost been hysterical at first and could barely string two words together.

    Baz softly spoke. "Whatever set you off; it was before the shirt incident wasn't it? Come on you can tell me, pal." He could feel Lucas nod against his chest.

    "It came this morning." After a moment's hesitation, Lucas passed his uncle the note that was posted under the door. He watched as his uncle read the note, his concern growing. "I'm sorry…"

    "Hey, what is there to be sorry about? For not telling me about the note?" He felt Lucas nod again and placed his arms around his young charge. "Listen; do you remember what I said about the tattoo and the donkey? And remember after that I said I loved you, well nothing's changed between us and nothing ever will… OK?" He looked down at his young charge, who smiled back.

    "What are you going to do about the note?" Lucas questioned.

    "Good question. I won't tell anyone else about this, but I'll do some private investigating. But for heaven's sake, don't worry about it. Just leave it to me and everything will work out fine! I promise." He smiled down at the sleepy youth, before laying him down on the bed and holding his hand, until he at last fell fast asleep. But little did Baz know that pure evil in the shape of a human lurked just outside of the window, listening to everything that was said and watching every move they made.

TBC…