Sorry this update took so long, there should be another up soon.

Please R/R ;)

I didn't walk out into a dangerous city by myself to spite Rory, or even my Dad. I couldn't go home until I had sorted myself out, figured out who I was, and what the hell it was I was doing with my life. I couldn't figure out those things in Stars Hollow, and New York just happened to be there. One visit from a wayward mother and a bus ride away. I didn't know where I was going, or what was going to happen to me.

I ended up in Central Park, hiding myself amongst the trees and listening to the distant sound of the City, smoking and thinking. I don't lucidly remember much I thought about that night, but I knew two things: I wasn't my parents, I didn't have to act like them, I didn't have to be like them, I was an individual and nothing either of them said could possibly change that. They had created me, they had shaped who I was, some of my interests, the way I acted, but at the end of the day I was Addicus Mariano and every thought that came into my head was my own, my responsibility and all mine. The second, was I wanted to be home. It took all of my self control not to run to the bus station, or even the nearest phone. I had never missed home so much, Dad, Le-Le, I missed them. But I stayed because I had to stay. If I had gone home in the middle of the night, I would have gone home to the same unresolved problems.

I woke up cuddled next to a pine tree, wrapped in a prep school blazer, with a middle aged homeless and rather drunk man standing over me his hands on me, perhaps he wanted my wallet, perhaps he wanted something else. I didn't want to know. I didn't stick around to know.

I got coffee and walked to the bus station and got on the first bus to Stars Hollow, no regrets, I had done what I had to do. I was glad I had done it. My Dad was sitting on the bench in front of the bus station, his mobile clutched loosely in his hand, his eyes closed, sleeping. I stood in front of him, wondering how long he had been sitting there, how long he had been dreaming up worse case scenarios for me, waiting for me to come home.

"Dad." He jolted awake, blinking his eyes and looking at me with his mouth open.
"Addy?" He asked with a sigh of relief.
I smiled uneasily, waiting for the happiness to break, for the anger to set in.
"Jesus Christ, let me hug you, and then I'm going to kick your ass." He reached out and pulled me in, touching my hair and tapping his fingers on my back, as if you to reassure himself that it was really me.
"Oh Christ Addy when Le-Le got off that bus and you weren't there. I wanted to run over to Lorelai's house and kill her myself." He had his hands resting heavily on my shoulders, starring right at me.
"You spent the night in New York."
I nodded, and rubbed my eyes. "Central Park."
"I've done that myself, more than once, not the best place to be." He looked at me in all seriousness and I swore he looked right through me. "You get everything worked out?"
"Yeah."
The short ride home was eerily silent, he didn't say a word, and nor did I.

I dropped my bag, by the door, and my Dad standing in the middle of the room, looked at me sternly.
"Sit." There was a look in his eyes, a look I rarely saw, it was a serious look. I knew he wasn't angry at me for why I had done it, but I could see in that look that he was sure as hell angry at me for how I went about it.

"Where's Le-Le?" I asked innocently, attempting to prolong my fate. A proper tongue lashing was not a pleasant experience, and I didn't want to hear it. Because every time I did, my Dad always ended up saying the things that were true, and it always hurt to hear the real truth.
"She's at Emily's."
"You sent her to Emily's?" I asked with a more sarcastic and incredulous tone in my voice than I had intended, considering the situation I was in.
"Yes, sit." It was not a voice to be messed with.
I sat, in a big hurry.
He sat opposite from me, and leaned in.
"So there is a few things, I'll start off with."
I nodded weakly, my father reviewed books for a living, and he certainly knew how to review big mistakes with a vengeance.

"Number one, your sister." I knew there was two ways I could take this, I could sit and take it, or I could argue and take it. But hell, I was a Mariano, I wasn't taking this sitting down.
"She's fine." I pointed out.
My Dad, looked at me with eyes that said, don't do that.

"Yes, perhaps she is fine, but that does not excuse the fact that you took a ten year old, into New York City at night! I know what's out there Addy, and you know what's out there. Le-Le does not, she's ten years old, she lives in her own little world, do you know the things that could have happened to her?" He wasn't screaming, but he was looking me straight in the eyes, with a stern look, and I knew he was right.

"She's fine. Do you think she would be any better off here, with Rory around? She didn't even know me Dad, Leigh knows what she looks like, can you imagine if she went up to her, and Rory just fucking brushed her off!"

"I get what you're saying Addy, I do. But at the same time, Le-Le is not going to get raped, or kidnapped, or sold into the sex trade in Stars Hollow. She's not going to see Rory, Addy, I promise." His mind must have been racing the whole time we were gone to come up with getting sold into the sex trade, which I'm pretty sure only happens in Asia.

I opened my mouth to say something else, to challenge him, but I couldn't, I'd put my little sister at risk, I'd brought her to danger, and for that I deserved to be held by the ceiling with hooks, because I was supposed to look out for her, and I guess that's what I thought I was doing. But I was wrong.

"I'm sorry."
"I know."
"Just because you apologized does not mean we are done Addicus." His eyes only softened a little bit. I knew from the way he was standing, he was just getting started.

I sat back in my chair, I had enough experience to know things were about to get ugly.

"What about you?"

"What about me?" I shot back at him.

"Did you even stop, did you even think for one moment what could have happened to you?"

I opened my mouth to say something, but apparently he was asking me one of those hypothetical questions, as he just kept talking, his voice raising.

"So Rory arrives, who has successfully avoided you for 8 years, and you are a little angry. But did you ever think that there could have been a better way to do this, other than run away with your little sister in tow?"

I considered it for a second, deciding in my mind, how angry I wanted him to get, how much energy I had to scream at him. How much I wanted to avoid talking about all the things that could have possibly happened to me. Realizing then how stupid I had been to think that I had sorted anything out about myself. So I hit him with the low blow.

I smiled a little.

"What Dad? Like father like son." My voice was full of bitterness.

He stopped dead in his pacing. He turned to me, his face a little shocked, a little angry.

"No Addy, like mother like son. I don't know what the hell you've heard but I am not the one that fucking runs away in this family. If I had been the one running, you would have been raised by Lorelai, your sister wouldn't have existed, and your mother, your fucking mother, would still be a world famous journalist! I'm not the fucking one running! Who has been the one that has always been here for you? And who has been the one who has never been in your life? Who was the one that dragged her away from the abortion clinic? Who was the one who fucking left you? Because goddamn it Addy, it wasn't me, so don't ever, ever, say something like that to me again!" An eerie silence filled the kitchen, the air felt thick with conflict. My Dad stood unmoving in the middle of the kitchen, grinding his teeth, his eyes boring into me, just daring me to say something back at him. Pandora's box was at our feet and I didn't have the guts to open it.

Yet there was something he had opened up, and I had to know the answer.

"Was it.. For me at the abortion clinic?"

"No Addy, it wasn't for you, it was for Le-Le." His voice was a drastic change, from the angry one that had been screaming at me just a few moments ago. He almost sounded as if he was giving up, he sounded defeated, he sounded sad.

"Well that's that. Lets go get your sister." I think he originally had more to say to me, more irresponsibility on my part to shove in my face. But I think he knew that neither of us could stay there with the things he had said still bouncing off the walls.

I got up silently and we left.