Brina looked across the crowded porch to see Declan sitting on the bench looking distracted. After the game, which her brother's team won, most of the team had returned to her parent's house for ice cream and to rehash the game. Declan had been having a good time, teasing her sister and tossing the ball with her brother and his friends. But then she went inside to help her mother put away some of the dishes and when she came back out, he seemed distracted, worried.

"Hey," Brina sank onto the bench beside Declan.

"There you are," he looked up at her. "I have to head back to the castle."

"What happened? Did someone call you?"

He shook his head and stood, "No, I just…I have to go."

She stood with him and laid a hand on his arm, "Declan, what is it?"

He looked down at her, "Something's wrong with Gideon."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I need to go."

"Just let me tell my parents we're going."

"You don't have to come, Brin, stay, have fun, I can send a car later."

She took his hand and squeezed gently, "I'll go with you. I'll be right back."

Declan crossed his arms over his chest, worried. He knew something was wrong, but he couldn't quite place it. He felt the fear, the nerves, the anger.

"Come on," Brina returned to his side. "Let's go."

Gideon was not up at the castle. He was standing beside Lynnai who was seated in a chair across from Paton's desk in her office at the police station. The two of them had hurried to Hunk and Paton's house and told them what had happened. Paton took the two of them down to the station to get an official report while Hunk stayed home with the children and called Keith and Allura. He had also offered to call Lynnai's parents, but she had told him it wasn't necessary. They would already be in bed, and since everyone was okay, she didn't want to upset them. She would tell them about it in the morning.

"Do you think you could pick them out from pictures?" Paton asked.

Gideon nodded as he gently rubbed his hand over Lynnai's shoulder. "I got a good look at the guy with the knife."

"I got a good look at the guy to the right," Lynnai said quietly, pulling Gideon's jacket tighter around her.

Paton smiled reassuringly, "That will be a big help guys. You did the right thing Gid, I don't want you to think there was anything you could've done to change the outcome of what happened this evening."

"Thank you, Aunt Pat. Do you have any idea who might have done this?"

She sat back in her chair and ran her hand through her short black bob of hair. "We've been following a lead for a while and if you two finger the men I'm thinking of, we'll finally have enough to arrest them."

"Who do you think it is?" Gideon asked.

"Well, I have a meeting with your parents in the morning and I was going to discuss it with them then…" She trailed off at the sound of the front door to the main station room opening and shutting.

"Good evening, Your Highness, sir." The night desk clerk greeted Allura and Keith. "Chief Landers is expecting you, go ahead on back."

Allura smiled absentmindedly at the young man behind the desk and followed Keith past the other desks and officers on duty to Paton's office.

It was obvious the Queen and her husband had been ready to turn in for the night when they received Hunk's phone call. Allura had hastily pulled her hair back into a ponytail and thrown a jacket over one of Keith's old t-shirts and a pair of blue jeans. For his part, Keith had forgone the jacket on this cool night and wore an old t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, his silver strewn black hair was sticking up like he had been running his hands through it.

"Gideon," Allura hugged her son. "Are you okay? Lynnai, how are you, sweetie? What happened?"

Keith stood, his arms crossed over his chest as his wife fussed over the kids. "Paton, what's going on?"

"Gideon and Lynnai are both fine, no one was injured, but they were held up by a gang of muggers," the police chief explained.

"A gang of muggers?" Keith's brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"They were lucky. There were four young men, Gideon and Lynnai think they can identify at least two of them from pictures, who held them up at knife point. The leader demanded Gideon's wallet while another boy made some advances toward Lynnai. Gideon did exactly what needed to be done, he remained calm and kept a cool head."

"Any idea who did it?" Allura asked, her arm wrapped around her son.

"I have some idea, but I want them to look at the pictures first." Paton stood and crossed to the filing cabinet by the window. "Gideon, Lynnai, we're going to leave you to go through these pictures. If you see the men who accosted you tonight, let me know. Take your time. I'm going to take Keith and Allura out to the main office to speak."

The young prince took the other chair in front of the desk and dragged it over next to Lynnai. He sat and opened the folder of photos so they could both study them while Paton motioned for Keith and Allura to follow her.

Brina walked quickly to keep up with Declan's long strides as they hurried through the castle hallways. He stopped quickly in front of the rec room's open door and walked in.

Years before, Lance and Hunk had figured out how to pick up Terran channels, specifically sporting events, on the castle satellite system. Tristan was thrilled when he found this out and most evenings now he could be found in the rec room watching the Red Sox play. On this evening, Cady had joined him and was sitting on the couch curled up beside him flipping through one of the several bridal magazines that had accumulated in the castle as of late.

"Hey, have you seen Gideon?" Declan asked as he stormed into the room.

Cady looked up, "Uh, no, Mom and Dad just got a call. He and Lynnai are in town with Aunt Paton."

He furrowed his brow, confused and worried, "What's going on?"

His sister shrugged, "Don't know. I'm waiting for a call or for them to come home."

Declan looked around as though he expected the answers to his questions to appear in thin air.

"Sit down, Dec, I'm sure everything is fine," Cady assured him. "If anything was wrong we'd have heard something by now."

Tristan looked up from the screen, "What's wrong?"

Declan shrugged and sat on the edge of a chair, "I don't know what it is, but something is wrong, I can just tell."

"Freaky twin sense," Cady whispered.

"Really?" Tristan seemed intrigued. "I've heard of that, but I didn't think it was real."

Declan scowled, "We're not a freak show, it's not like we can read each other's minds. I can just tell when Gideon's hurt or in trouble or if something is upsetting him."

"They had their own language when they were kids," Cady added.

"Not really, we only pretended to annoy you."

"But you held whole conversations."

He shook his head, "Nope, made it up as we went along and pretended to understand each other just because we knew it bugged you."

"Jerks."

"Brat."

Brina sat on the arm of the chair Declan occupied and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder, "I'm sure everything will be just fine."

Declan nodded and sat back in the chair, "Yeah, I can tell he's not as stressed as he was before."

"Gangs?" Allura repeated the word slowly as though she was testing it on her tongue to see how it felt.

Paton nodded, "We have found at least two, possibly as many as four, small gangs in the area. We believe the vandalism and petty thefts may have been forms of initiation and I'm thinking Gideon and Lynnai's attackers may have been gang members."

"What are you doing about these gangs?" Keith asked.

"We've been monitoring them for a few days now, we know the two main gangs consist of roughly a dozen members, ranging in age from sixteen to thirty."

"But why?" Allura asked. "We never had gangs before, why now?"

"Well, that's the tricky part," Paton admitted. "We have a theory that it can be traced back to drugs, the way Gideon described their attackers as being kind of misty eyed, makes me think they were high."

Keith rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the floor, "Where would the drugs have come from?"

"Many different people from many different planets have settled on Arus."

"So you don't know."

Paton shook her head, "Not yet. But once we pin the gang members down, we'll start to trace its origins. We are working on it, I can have a copy of the investigation's file sent to you first thing in the morning."

Allura nodded, "Yes, please do that. I want to be kept updated on everything and let me know what we can do to help."

"Of course. Luckily, Alforia is not a huge city, so I'm hoping to have this problem solved rather quickly."

"The kids aren't allowed to leave the castle without an armed guard until this has been taken care of," Keith said quietly.

Paton nodded, "Extra precautions would be a good idea."

"Do you think this could have spread out to the other towns and cities on the planet?" The queen asked.

"Not that I know of," Paton replied. "I've been in contact with the police departments around the planet and they haven't reported any similar problems, but now they know what to look for. As of last month, Alforia's population had grown to over fifteen thousand and with new people arriving on Arus every month, I'm hoping to nip this in the bud before the problem gets any bigger."

The three of them looked up when the door to Paton's office opened and Gideon looked out.

"We've found them," he announced.

Lynnai sat with two photographs in her lap, "These are them."

"Are you sure?" Paton asked, taking the pictures.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"You both have to be one hundred percent positive."

Gideon nodded, "We are. I know that's the one who held the knife on us."

"And that's the guy I saw," Lynnai added, pointing at the other picture.

"Okay, thanks guys. I will make copies of these and pass them out. These two will be brought in before dawn." Paton promised.

"Are we done here?" Keith asked.

"Yes, of course. If you guys think of anything else or if you have any questions, please call. I'll be up to the castle in the morning with the report."

"Thank you, Paton, for everything," Allura hugged her friend. "We'll see you in the morning."

A few minutes later, Keith and Allura sat in the idling car while Gideon walked Lynnai to the front door of her house. The light over the door was on, but, for the most part, the house was dark and quiet.

"Well, this was an exciting evening," Lynnai said dryly as they climbed the steps.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," Gideon mumbled.

"You were amazing," she told him, turning to face him when they stopped in front of the door. "You're my hero, Gid."

He chuckled, "I'm not a hero, I was terrified."

"I said you were my hero, not a machine. You were incredible, you kept calm when I thought I was going to wet myself."

He leaned down and kissed her gently, "Good night, Lynnie."

"Good night, Gid."

"Oh, wait," Gideon touched her arm before she entered the house. "Do something for me."

"What?"

"As long as this problem is going on, until we know exactly what's happening, don't go any where alone, especially at night."

Lynnai nodded, "Okay."

"If you need anything, just call me. Day or night."

She smiled, "I know. Thanks Gideon, same goes for you."

"Love you," he stole another quick kiss.

"Love you, too. Good night."

He waited until she was inside and he heard the click of the lock before turning and jogging down the steps to the waiting car. When he got into the car, Keith was on his communicator talking to Declan.

"He was worried about you," Allura whispered to Gideon. "He knew something was wrong."

He nodded, "I'll talk to him when I get back."

Early the next morning, Sven stood over his son's bed and sighed. It had been over a week since Erik had returned to Pollux and in that time he had slept, drank, moped, drank, brooded, and drank.

Romelle kept pleading to give him time, he had gone through a horrible ordeal and needed time to deal with it. Sven disagreed. He was watching his son slide deeper into depression and he knew that if he didn't do something now, it would only get worse.

"Erik," he said loudly, shaking his son's shoulder. "Erik, vake up."

Erik groaned and rolled onto his side, his back to his father.

"Erik! Vake up now!"

"What time is it?" Erik mumbled.

"Seven."

"Too early."

Sven gritted his teeth and glanced around the room until his eyes settled on the half empty carafe of water on the bedside table. Without another word, he picked it up and turned it over Erik's head, dousing him in room temperature water.

Erik sat straight up, gasping, "Dad! What the hell!"

Sven grabbed his son by the arm and hauled him off the bed, "As long as you are living in dis house, you vill never raise your voice at me or curse. Get out of bed now! I vant you showered and dressed and downstairs in ten minutes." With that, he stormed from the room.

Erik stood still a moment, clutching his head, waiting for the room to stop spinning. Moving more out of habit than anything else, he crossed the room to the bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as he could stand.

Sven checked his watch again, gritting his teeth.

"Sven, maybe you're pushing him too hard," Romelle said.

"I don't tink ve've been pushing hard enough."

"He's been through so much…"

"But he's only getting vorse. Ve can't allow him to just vallow in self pity, it vill only hurt him in de long run."

"He was injured terribly, his girlfriend broke up with him, he…"

"Stop making excuses." Sven turned to see his wife of over twenty years sitting at the kitchen table. "Romelle, I am just as vorried as you are. But letting him lie around all day and drink all night vhile his life passes him by is not going to help him."

"I know," she twirled her coffee cup in his hands. "I just hate seeing him hurt. I can't believe Sky would break up with him after he was so badly injured, when he needed her…"

"Romelle," Sven interrupted sharply. "You can't completely blame Sky and you know dat. Erik has changed, I know you don't vant to tink about it, but he has. He is as much at fault for dere breakup as she is."

"What are you going to do with him today?"

"Ve're going to get some vork done, ve'll talk."

Romelle stood and put her dishes away, "Just…just be careful with him."

"I know," Sven took Romelle's hands in his. "I love him too, he is my son. I vant to help him."

She smiled and kissed his cheek, "I know. I love you."

"All right, I'm up. What do you want?" Erik's voice was raw and hoarse as he entered the room.

"Good morning, sweetheart," Romelle greeted him cheerfully. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Yeah," he fell into a chair at the table. "I can really use it."

Sven studied his son quietly. Erik wore his dark glasses and a baseball hat covered the short, dark blonde hair that appeared to be growing back a little darker and with a bit of a curl. None of them had seen his eyes or much of his face since he had come back. His friends had come to visit, but he hadn't seen any of them. When Tristan had called, Sven had hoped it would help snap Erik out of it. Intergalactic calls still had to go through the castle's switchboard and when word had reached their small house on the castle grounds that a call from Arus was coming through, Erik had appeared to perk up a bit. When he found out it was Tristan his face fell, but he did accept the call.

"So, Dad, what's up?" Erik asked as he sipped his coffee.

Sven sank into the seat across the table from his son, "Ve need to talk, Erik. So, vhat are your plans now?"

"What do you mean?"

"You can't just lie around de house all day and spend all night drinking. You have to have some direction, vhat do you vant to do? Are you going to finish your schooling? Do you vant to help me vork vith de soldiers? Are you planning to go back to Arus?"

Erik sat back and groaned, "I don't know."

"Vell, you're going to have to give it some serious thought."

"I will."

"I mean now, Erik. I vant you to start vorking out again, build yourself back up so you can help me out. Ve can do it together."

Erik shrugged.

"Son, ve're vorried about you, your mother and I. If you vant to go back to Arus…"

"I don't," Erik interrupted.

Sven looked over his son's head to see Romelle leaning back against the sink, quietly watching their interaction and nodded toward the door to let her now he wanted to be alone with Erik. As soon as she left, he looked back at their son. "Erik, have you given thought to calling Sky, to talk to her."

"No."

"Come on, I know you have. Just call her…"

"I don't think she'd take my call."

"How do you know if you don't try?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Fine," Sven sighed. "But you can't keep moping around, you need direction, you need to do someting."

"I know, Dad," Erik snapped. "I have a lot on my mind right now, just let me deal with it."

"Not vhen I see you like dis. Let us help you. Your friends have all been by to see you, dey're vorried about you. Get together vith dem. You need to start living again."

Erik scowled into his coffee cup. Start living again? He thought. Living for what? I've lost Sky, I can't fly, what the hell am I supposed to start doing?

"Erik?"

He looked up at his father.

"You can't just give up son, you have so much to live for. Let us help you. Ve're your family and ve love you. And I know you love Sky and she loves you, don't give up on her. Ve vant to help you get your life back together. Let us help you."

Erik realized with a bit of a start that his father was pleading with him. He looked up into the lined eyes of the older gentleman and felt horrible. He thought about everything Sky had said to and Tristan. And now his father was pleading with him to help.

"Erik," Sven reached across the table and laid his hand over his son's. "If you allow yourself to slide to deeply inside yourself, it will become more difficult to come back out."

It was barely a whisper when he replied, "I know."

"Come on, let's get someting to eat and den you and I are going up to de castle. I have a meeting vith Bandor and some of our pilots, I vould like you to be dere."

"Dad…"

"You don't have to do anyting or say anyting, just be dere. Get out. It's a step in de right direction."

Erik hesitated a moment and then nodded, "Okay."