A/N: A big thank-you, balloons, cards, candy, and all the rest go to muchtvs for her invaluable help with this story. Thanks to all who are reading along and providing their comments.

Epilogue

Ryan pressed the hard ice pack against his left eye; the other hand propped up his chin, supporting his lolling head. The ice cracked and hissed as it melted in its plastic casing.

The rest of the house was perfectly quiet. He'd always found the silence of night to be eerie and unsettling. When everyone went to sleep, he could hear noises that, during the day, would be eaten by the activity of life around him. It was like the dark sharpened every little sound, amplifying it to the point where it would echo off every wall. Tonight, it was the melting ice and the tick coming from the clock on the wall. He swore he could hear the gears grinding within the small mechanism.

Ever since that week, he'd had problems sleeping through the night. Small bolts of pain would whip through his left temple, awakening him with a start. But they'd go as quickly as they came, leaving a dull ache in their wake, and he had come to accept them as a brief reminder of how bad things were. He'd shake off his tangled sheets, grab a glass of water, sit on the edge of his bed and stare at the faded, yellow eviction note from Trey's apartment—turn it over in his palm. Fold it up. Refold it. Remember. Recall. Relive.

Before the Cohens. Before the king-sized bed and overstuffed pillows. Private school and infinity pool. Friends. Family. Safety.

But the pain would eventually subside and sleep would pull down on his eyelids. The eviction note would find its way back under the alarm clock until the next night. The next reminder.

Tonight, however, the reminder was stronger. Sleep was being difficult—slippery—and his head throbbed furiously as a consequence of the punch he'd absorbed while trying to clear his brother's name earlier in the day.

A problem compounded by his uniquely sensitive left side. A problem that served as a reminder. Like that hidden yellow note. A souvenir.

When he returned from Chino to a house in complete holiday uproar, he'd smiled and joked and tried to pretend things were fine. Blended in as if his absence was merely a road trip and nothing more—nothing of consequence to note. He ate Thanksgiving dinner in the form of Chinese food on Seth's bedroom floor in the embrace of his girlfriend. He laughed in all the right places. Said all the right things. Life just continued as it usually would—the bruise encircling his eye a mere shadow of his past that no one really wanted to notice.

And maybe they all bought into it; he wasn't sure. But when he went to bed that night, he was almost convinced himself. He barely even looked at the note before turning off the light and curling up on his side. He didn't feel he had to.

But when he rolled over and the red numbers on the clock showed it was already one in the morning, he admitted defeat and tossed back the covers. A glass of water wasn't going to cut it. Not tonight.

He reached out and slowly lifted the clock—sliding the piece of paper out from underneath. Even in the dark, he could see the white along the worn creases where it would fold up into an uneven square, the corners rounded, bent and edged with dirt.

He closed his fingers around the supple paper and rose to his feet. Sleep wasn't going to come until his heartbeat stopped reverberating in his ears.

Quietly, he tiptoed through the kitchen, grabbed an icepack out of the back of the freezer, and climbed up onto a stool. He rubbed a finger along the perimeter of the large, black letters, flattening the paper against the granite.

He listened to the grinding of the clock and the settling of the ice until his eyelids grew heavy as the tender area began to numb.

As his mind was dwelling in that vague area between sleep and consciousness, a sudden flash of light nearly knocked him off his stool.

A loud crack was followed by darkness again—bright spots of light exploding in front of his eyes.

Kirsten held her breath, her heart hammering in her chest. When she walked into the kitchen to get a drink of water at one on the morning, she wasn't expecting a flick of the light switch to reveal another figure in the room.

She turned it off immediately, panicked thoughts of her son and husband sound-asleep in other areas of the house racing through her head. But her brain weaved through the panic, finally processing the mental picture that the burst of light revealed. Within only a few seconds, her dread ceased and she was able to herd up her scattered thoughts and nerves, and respond appropriately.

"Ryan?"

She stepped forward, the light from the patio illuminated the room just enough that, as her eyes adjusted, she could make out Ryan's wide-eyed glare—his surprise obviously outlasting her own.

When he didn't answer, she took another step forward, stopping suddenly when a hard, cold object grazed her sole, causing her breath to leap from her lungs—producing a soft yelping sound.

She heard her name being whispered, and it almost made her forget about the object she could now identify as an icepack, laying on the ceramic floor.

But even though her toes still tingled from the lingering affects of one too many margaritas, she couldn't refrain from picking up the icepack and placing it on the counter before she turned her full attention to Ryan.

His eyes were no longer big and round, but now a curtain of exhaustion swept across his features. A sliver of his blue eye was just barely visible beneath the swollen flesh that nearly sealed his lid shut—a dark, angry blue circle wrapping around the area. She cringed, reaching out with her fingers, letting them graze the edge of the tender bruise. She pulled back suddenly when he flinched ever so slightly.

An apologetic smile formed on his lips and disappeared in an instant, and had she blinked, she probably would have missed it.

"What happened?" she asked, like she could actually do anything about it when she knew damn well this was way out of her element. Alone with Ryan in a dark kitchen at one on the morning wasn't exactly smack-dab in the middle of her comfort zone. She was swimming against the current, but she had to try. Walking away and pretending this was normal was not going to make things any easier in the future. For either of them.

He turned his face away from her, laughed shortly, then grimaced before going blank again, and for a split second, Kirsten thought he just might cry. God knows what she'd do then.

Instead, he swallowed and stared out the window above the sink. "S'no big deal."

Ah, yes, she'd heard that before. In fact, Ryan and Sandy shared more than a few qualities, she'd noticed. She was almost certain her husband had uttered those exact words when he found out that his father, the man who'd abandoned his family many years ago, had died in a car crash. She'd survived that, and she would make it through this too. This was starting to look more and more like her territory after all.

She smiled smugly and turned to grab a bottle of water out of the fridge. "If that were the case, you'd be asleep right now."

When she turned back around, Ryan had an amused expression on his face.

"What's your excuse, then?" he asked, casting his eyes downward afterward, like he was trying to figure out whether or not he'd just said something he was going to regret.

Kirsten walked around to his other side and pulled out an empty stool, sitting down and rolling the bottle of water back and forth between her palms. "Well," she started honestly, "I let my dad get to me, and now I'm suffering the consequences." She gestured to the bottle of water before raising it to her lips and taking a long, urgent swallow.

He nodded—his stare fixed on the counter. "I let my brother get to me." He paused, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, hesitating for a moment. "And now I'm suffering the consequences."

Kirsten felt the blood drain from her face—disappointment and fear gnawing at her already unsettled stomach. Deep down in her naïve soul, she had been praying for an accident to explain his swollen eye. Hell, even finding out he had been mugged would have been better than this, because she couldn't come to terms with the idea that a member of Ryan's family would treat him that way—intentionally hurt him like that. "Your brother did that to you?"

He was silent for an agonizingly long period of time. Motionless. The ticking from the clock on the wall exemplifying the silence. Just as she opened her mouth to prompt him again, he shook his head. "Not really. Not firsthand, anyway…."

Neither spoke or moved for a second, and Kirsten would have paid a million dollars to gain the rights to Ryan's thoughts at that moment. Why were his hands clenched into tight fists? Was he angry? Scared? And if so, of what? Would he tell her if she asked? How far could she push this kid before he shut down on her? How many more questions did she have in the bank before he fled the scene?

She filled her lungs with air to speak. About what? She had no idea. At this point, anything was better than nothing—but she stopped, exhaling suddenly when her eye caught a flash of yellow as Ryan adjusted his grip on himself.

She tilted her head quizzically. "What's that, Ryan?"

She didn't even think about the question. Just genuine curiosity—no over-thought words, no psychoanalytical driving force. Ryan must have been thrown off guard because he opened his fingers suddenly, like he was surprised to find the crumpled piece of paper in his palm.

"It's…uh…nothing."

But it wasn't "nothing." "Nothing" found its way into the trash quite quickly. What Ryan had in his palm had been held onto. Scrutinized. Agonized over, even. It was most definitely something.

Kirsten reached out toward the mysterious object slowly—pausing several times so that he could see her intentions from far enough away to stave her off if felt he had to. If he really didn't want to her know, he could have protected himself—reacted. But he didn't, so she gently pinched the paper between two fingers.

He never took her eyes off of it she lifted it from his palm. Not once.

The letter was not what she had expected. Even in the dark, the faded, large, bold letters were easy to read. The message was clear, its meaning was not.

It wasn't until Kirsten's eyes wandered down to the bottom of the note that the light bulb came on.

"The date," she whispered, looking over at Ryan suddenly, his eyes jumping up to meet her gaze. "Is this from...?"

The mask slipped over his face so quickly—like it was on a timer or something, set to come on as soon as conversations crossed a certain line. He shrugged and frowned, his feigned nonchalance so obvious now to Kirsten, making her feel more like his mother than his landlord.

"The day you came to stay," she pressed louder, maybe too loudly.

Ryan leaned forward and let out a stressful sigh, cradling his head in his hands.

He didn't look well, and the alarmed lump rolling around in Kirsten's stomach was gaining momentum. She was done convincing herself; she honestly had no idea what to do. What did Ryan need right now? A friend? A mother? A doctor? She was still holding onto the hope that Sandy would hear the commotion and come to investigate. Until then, she would have to stay afloat.

She grabbed the icepack and slid it across the counter until it touched Ryan's elbow. He angled his head and glared at the object.

"You should hold that against your eye. It looks pretty sore."

He obliged, but the shake in his hand couldn't be ignored. She thought about offering him something for the pain he was trying so hard to keep under wraps, but she decided to hold off for a minute. She wasn't ready to change the subject.

When he appeared settled in his new position, she continued. "What's this from?" she asked softly.

He took two very calculated breaths before any words were uttered. "Trey's apartment. The day…." He paused, frowned, and shifted on his stool. "The day…you know."

"The day you stole the car?"

"I didn't steal the car," he answered defensively, like a tired, worn teenager who had given his testimony a million times already.

"No, I know that, Ryan," Kirsten quickly amended, shaking her head. "But I didn't know Trey was evicted."

He nodded weakly.

"Where was he going to go if he hadn't…you know?"

"Home," Ryan whispered. "We were going home."

Her mind was fighting against the sluggishness of the alcohol, trying to pinpoint what, in that sentence, was off. "We? Ryan, were you living with Trey?"

He set the icepack down on the counter and leaned back in his stool—his chin tucked against his chest. Kirsten was able to obtain an answer from Ryan's body language, and a pang of guilt latched onto her heart—this was obviously not a jovial trip down memory lane for the kid.

"A lot happened that week." He met her eyes very briefly before refocusing on his hands in his lap.

"But you kept this?" she pried, sliding the note across the counter until rested in front of him.

He shrugged. "I just thought…. I don't know," he conceded wearily, his hair falling over his eyes. "It's just hard to forget."

Kirsten placed a hand on his shoulder and nodded. Not because she knew what he meant, but because she knew what it felt like to be so lost—so unsure—that there were no words capable of describing the hopelessness.

She glanced around the kitchen and cleared her throat. "You know...that we don't want you to forget, right? You know we realize that you have another family, and had another life before you came here?"

He swallowed and bobbed his head up and down once unconvincingly, like he was barely listening—like he was barely in the room.

"But this," she said, pointing to the note and squeezing his shoulder supportively, hoping to ground him in some way—made him realize he has found stability, "is never going to happen again."

He rubbed his palm over his eyes and turned his face away from her. And as much as she knew Ryan wasn't Seth, or Sandy, or even her dad, as a human being—as a mother—she couldn't respect his silent request for personal space anymore.

She gently pulled his shoulder into her chest, wrapped her arms tightly around his body, and rested her chin on top of his head.

She's not sure how long she held him there, but despite his rigid silence, he didn't fight her; he didn't resist in any way. And upon this realization, her vision blurred with tears she refused to shed tonight.

When she finally let go and met his eyes, he gave her a shy half-smile and reached out to the counter, grabbing the note and letting his hands fall back into his lap. A couple seconds later, the paper was scrunched into a ball and rolled around several times in his fist, as if to reduce the reminder to its smallest form, rendering it officially irrelevant, but not forgotten.

Ryan was a little nervous when Kirsten followed him back to the pool house. She was whispering something about a bottle of water and some pills, but his head was in no shape to pay her absolute attention. It didn't seem like she needed his input, anyway. He couldn't help but notice how she continued to whisper quietly, even though she was now out of earshot of any sleeping people. Just because she knew that was what he needed.

He gratefully climbed onto the bed, letting his head drop into one of the many fluffy pillows. His headache was waging a full out war now, forcing him to bite back waves of nausea with dry swallows when the pain peeked.

Kirsten fussed quietly behind him in the kitchen area for a while, returning with the pills and water and placing them on the nightstand. She straightened, twisted her rings around her finger and tilted her head to the side, flashing a sympathetic smile.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked softly, her gaze never faltering.

Ryan swallowed and lifted his hand just off the pillow in response, afraid to nod.

She frowned and bit her lip. She didn't ask anymore questions. Instead, much to Ryan's relief, she leaned over and turned off the lamp.

He let his eyes drift shut in the soothing darkness and forced a few deep breaths.

Light footsteps encircled the large room, finally returning to his bedside followed by the gentle brush of fingers through his hair.

"I'm just going to put this garbage can right here beside your bed. Just in case you need it, you'll know where it is, all right?"

Ryan barely managed a nod; his head suddenly weighed a thousand pounds, anchored on the pillow.

There was something said about a doctor's appointment amongst the squeaking of springs as Kirsten leaned over the bed, gently running her hand through Ryan's hair one last time, letting her warm fingers pause on his forehead, then trail down his neck and onto his shoulder. The mattress shifted as she gave one last encouraging squeeze before pulling away.

Had the door knob not clicked into place, Ryan never would have known she had left the room.

He gritted his teeth as another stabbing pain assaulted his head, forcing him to latch onto the side of the bed and desperately pull his body toward the edge.

Supported on his elbows, he stared at the bottom of the garbage can, blinking through the dizzying spots of light. When his arms started to shake in protest, he flopped down onto his chest, his head lolling lifelessly over the edge. When he was sure that the threat had subsided, he allowed himself to inhale again, his lungs greedily gulping in the oxygen.

As his muscles relaxed, he released his death grip on the linens, stopping suddenly when he felt the crumpled ball of sweat-soaked paper clutched in his left hand.

He closed his eyes and felt the texture of the note as he rolled it between his fingers, so different now in its new circular form.

With a shaky sigh, he opened his fingers and let the paper fall to the bottom of the garbage can. He didn't want to remember anymore. It was time to forget. It was time to look forward. It was time to believe, himself, the words he had said to Sandy earlier that night.

I am home.