Matt looked up as a weary looking Gil and Catherine came in through the door. "Hi. You guys look terrible."
Catherine arched an eyebrow. "Thank you."
"No problem. So, what's for dinner? I'm starving."
"Why is the house so quiet?" Gil said. "That's not normal."
"Lizzie's in her room listening to some weird chick music. Jamie is downstairs. Max…well last time I saw Max he was in his room."
"Doing what?"
"That's a question I wasn't sure I wanted the answer to," Matt replied.
Catherine kissed her son on the forehead. "Okay. I'll go upstairs and check on them."
Matt watched curiously as his mother disappeared upstairs and then turned to Gil. "Is she okay?"
Gil furrowed his brow. "I'm not sure."
"Did things go badly today?"
"That's why I don't understand. Things went fine today." He mentally gave his head a shake. "How was your day?"
Matt shrugged. "Fine. Just school and stuff."
"Any problems?"
"Some of the kids think it's a bit weird that some woman comes visit me and that I keep missing bits of school, but it's okay."
Gil sat down beside him. "I guess your mother and I haven't thought about that."
"It's no big deal, Dad. I'm just looking forward to all this being over so we can just get on with our lives."
"Matt…you know, that we might have to talk about…what happens if…"
"Gil!"
Gil sighed as he saw Catherine standing at the bottom of the stairs. "Catherine, we have to…"
"No we don't." She tried to stem the tears that were threatening to flow. "Go and check on Jamie. We'll find something for dinner. I'll be upstairs."
Gil watched her go, a small frown on his face. He patted Matt's head. "I'll go round up our little scientist."
Catherine peeked into Max's room, where he was building something with his Lego.
"Hey, little guy."
Max looked up and grinned. "Hey, mom."
"What are you up to?"
"Me? Nothing."
Catherine arched an eyebrow. "You're always up to something."
Max grinned at her winningly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Max…"
"Just building buildings, mom," he replied. "Of course, someone might stomp them down and Fang Man might come to the rescue, but I promise I'm being good."
Catherine smiled softly. "Okay then." She kissed him on the top of the head. "I'll find something for dinner soon, okay?"
Max nodded. "Okay."
She headed down the hallway to Lizzie's room next, finding her daughter with her headphones on and bopping away to some sort of music. Catherine walked over and lifted the headphones slightly.
Lizzie jumped. "Oh! Mom. It's only you."
"Thank you," Catherine murmured.
Her daughter rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."
"How was your day?"
Lizzie shrugged. "Fine. The guy that tried to feel me up didn't come anywhere near me today. I think he might be scared." She wrinkled her nose. "Boys are weird."
Catherine chuckled and hugged her daughter. "I won't disagree there."
"Cath?"
She turned around, seeing Gil walking into the kitchen. "Hey. How's Jamie?"
"Trying a new experiment."
"Does it involve my CSI kit?"
Gil grinned. "No."
"There's a relief."
"Cath, are we going to talk about it?"
Catherine started loading the dishwasher. "What are you talking about?"
"What happened earlier. With Matt."
Catherine said nothing, but continued loading the dishwasher.
"We need to discuss, particularly with Matt, what will happen if…"
"No," she finally said. "No, we don't need to."
Gil's hand gently cupped her cheek. "Cath…"
"No. I won't think about it."
"Not thinking about it doesn't mean it might not happen."
"I can't think about it." She looked up at her husband. "It hurts too much to think about it."
"I know it hurts," he murmured, taking her into his arms. "I know it does, but…" He sighed and just held her for a moment. "We're going to have to talk about this at some point."
"No we won't, because Matt is staying with us."
"You can't predict the future, baby."
"I want to."
Gil kissed her gently. "I know. Me too."
Max scrutinized the building blocks and then dashed them with the toy car. "Nope, that way won't work."
Jamie walked into the room. "What are you doing?"
"Plotting evil and sinister plans," Max answered, scribbling something out on his notepad.
Jamie sat on the bed. "Okay. I'll bite. Against who?"
Max looked up at him. "Who do you think?"
Jamie groaned. "You're banned from seeing her, remember? You don't want to get mom and dad in trouble with the judge and Matt gets sent away, do you?"
"Of course not!" Max cried. He rolled his eyes. "I'm nine, not stupid," he muttered.
Jamie slid down to the floor next to him. "So why are you plotting against her if you can't do anything about it."
Max looked up, a sly smile on his face. "I can't go near her. But you can."
Catherine and Gil were glad of the day off from court. After having a lie in together, they started catching up on everything that had been left by the way-side since the case had begun.
"You have a cute butt," Gil decided, watching as Catherine crouched down to pull out a couple of weeds.
"I'm glad you think so, considering how much you like to touch it," Catherine shot back.
"Mom!!!!!!!" Max yelled out of his bedroom window.
Catherine rolled her eyes. "Max, how many times do I have to tell you, no screaming out the top window!"
The head disappeared and he came downstairs, sitting beside her. Then he leant up to whisper in his mother's ear. "Is this better?"
"Max…"
"I'm pushing it, aren't I?" Max said, squatting back down again.
Catherine and Gil nodded.
"Okay. I'll be good."
Gil arched an eyebrow. "I think I'm going to faint."
Max looked up at him, a withering look on his face. "That's hurtful." He turned back to his mother. "Can I have some friends over?"
"How many friends?"
Max shrugged. "A couple."
"How many is a couple?"
Max held his hand up, with two fingers. Then slowly, as his parents kept staring at him, he continued putting up fingers, until he had 5 fingers in the air.
Catherine glanced at Gil, who shrugged. She looked back at her son. "Okay. But remember that there are other people in the house beside you boys, okay?"
Max smirked. "Are you referring to the guys who accidentally walked in on Lizzie in the shower?"
"That's exactly who I'm referring to."
"It wasn't our fault. How were they supposed to know there was a girl in there!?" Max wrinkled his nose and made a face. "I think they were scarred for life."
"So was Lizzie," Gil said.
"No." Lizzie tossed out another shirt. "No. No. No, not that one either."
Catherine glanced in on her daughter. "Honey, is this an energetic spring clean?"
"Nope. I'm trying to decide what to wear."
"Wear to what?"
"Well, I'm going to be doing a victory dance over Sara's grave."
Catherine arched an eyebrow. "Do you know something I don't?"
Lizzie smiled. "All I know is, that Jamie is down in the bug museum tinkering on something. Oh, and that we're going to win."
"We are?"
"Well, duh! Jessica told Marty who told Emma who told her mom, what was going on, and Emma's mom's friend is a psychic. So she told Emma's mom who told Marty, who told Jessica, who told me, that we're going to win."
Catherine scratched her head. "A psychic?"
"Yeah. Isn't it so totally cool? Emma told Olivia who told Rebecca who told me that her house is so awesome and that it's just like the ones in the movies!"
"How comforting."
"So, yeah, I figured that after we win, Jamie's probably going to blow her up, so I want something floaty and fun to dance in."
Catherine hugged her daughter and kissed her on the forehead. "Then you keep at it, sweetheart."
With a smile and a flourish, Lizzie turned back to her wardrobe. "No, no, no no."
"Our daughter has consulted a psychic."
Gil looked up from the book he was reading and peered over his glasses. "I beg your pardon?"
"Apparently it went down her friend grapevine to Emma's mom's friend and she related back through said grapevine that we're going to win."
Gil took his glasses off. "I'm sorry, you're losing me. We're part of the school grapevine?"
"No, we're the topic of the school grapevine."
Gil frowned slightly. "I'm not sure how I feel about teenage girls discussing me."
Catherine giggled. "It's kind of cute, but I don't think they're talking about what you're thinking of."
Gil put his book down. "Would you have talked about me with teenage girls when you were a teenager?"
Catherine walked over to him and sat in his lap. "Truthfully?"
Gil nodded. "Always."
She smiled and caressed his cheek. "Yes."
Gil's eyes widened. "Really? Cath, I was a ghost in high school and…"
Catherine pressed a finger to his lips. "Your eyes. Right from when I first met you, your eyes just…they're beautiful. And when they're on me, I know I can do anything. You have no idea how much they helped when I was
dancing. Or when Eddie had…" She smiled sadly and then leant in to kiss him. "I love you, Gil."
His eyes were wide but they finally softened and he took her hand, kissing it. "I love you too, Cath." He kissed her gently, then held her in his arms. "Very, very much."
Max handed around the photocopy to his friends. "This is our target. We will watch her at all hours, at all times. You each have your roster." He patted a radio. "Thanks to my brother, James, we have been equipped with this.
You can report to me anything. I mean anything, and I will hear it through this device. Any questions?"
A big boy named Bruce cracked his knuckles. "Can we intervene at any time?"
"No physical force shall be used, unless target attacks." Max shrugged. "Sorry, Bruce, but I don't want any casualties on this one."
Bruce looked downcast. "Okay."
"So, men, are we ready?"
"YEAH!" the boys cried.
"Let's move it out!" Max said.
"I really appreciate this Ben," Jamie said, attaching the cable to the boy's laptop.
"No problem. I like recon work," Ben replied, tapping on the computer. "We should have a visual…now. There we go."
The two boys peered at the video image of Sara's room.
"So, explain how this works again?"
"When the spies change shifts, they'll transfer the cap. The cap contains a tiny micro camera that video feeds into my computer." Ben grinned. "Dad and I love ebay."
"Does he know you borrowed this stuff?"
"I said it was for an assignment. Of course, he was fixing a famous person's security camera at the time, so he may have been a little preoccupied, but he did say yes."
Jamie grinned. "Excellent."
Catherine watched as Max and Jamie wolfed down their dinner. "What are you two up to?"
Max looked up innocently. "Whatever do you mean?"
"Nothing, mom," Jamie replied. "Just really hungry. We're growing boys, remember?"
Finally, the two boys pushed their plates away.
"Can we be excused?" Max asked.
"May you be excused?"
"Yeah, that one," Max replied.
Catherine glanced at Gil, who shrugged. "Okay."
She had barely gotten the words out of her mouth by the time the boys disappeared.
Gil glanced at Lindsey, Matt and Lizzie. "Do any of you know what's going on?"
"I did warn you that Max was on his way to becoming a juvenile delinquent," Lizzie reminded them.
"Who's following her this evening?" Jamie asked, glancing at the screen.
"Bruce. You know, this is almost like a cool reality TV show. "Stalking Sara". Whaddya think?"
"I'd watch it."
Max grinned, and then the smile slowly left his face. "What's going on?"
Jamie looked at the screen. "I don't know. They're going into some building."
Max's head cocked to one side. "This is weird."
"Very weird."
Max flipped through his notebook. "This isn't on the schedule that we previously observed."
"Where the heck is he?" Jamie asked, trying to pick out a landmark.
Max looked around, then spied a flyer. "Uh oh. This is not good. This is really not good." He began frantically searching for his walkie-talkie. "Bruce has to get out of there. Now. Before anyone sees him."
Jamie looked at the flyer that Max had pointed to. "Alcoholics Anonymous?"