Category: Untuckables

Summary: Amy finds out the secret, and that she loves Jim

Disclaimer: Not mine. SO not mine.

Spoilers: S1, S2, S3. Post-Graduation.

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Amy stared blankly at Jim.

She knew she looked horrible, but she just didn't care anymore.

Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair matted and in need of a desperate brush. She reeked of alcohol.

"What's this?" she asked, her voice dull and deadened.

Jim looked at her gently. "It's Liz's diary. It might help to understand."

"Understand what!" Amy yelled suddenly. "Understand that my daughter ran off, in the middle of her graduation, with her best friend, and some misfit guy! Oh yea, that's really hard to understand Jim!"

"I know this must be hard for Amy," he started.

She snorted. "Oh yea, real hard!"

Suddenly anger overtook him. "Stop being so selfish! You're not the only one who lost a child! The Parkers are going crazy, wanting to know where Liz is. The Evans have lost both of their children. And I've lost Kyle."

And Tess, a voice said at the back of his mind.

He shook the thought away.

Tears welled up in Amy's eyes.

"I'm sorry," Jim sighed. "I shouldn't have yelled."

Amy shook her head. "No, you're right. I am being so selfish. I just want to know why!"

He placed the diary in her hands. "This will help you understand. It may not take the pain away... Ok, it won't take the pain away... But at least you'll understand."

Amy nodded. It was worth a shot.

"Ok."

She took the book off him, and sat down to read it.

After the first few pages, after reading about the shooting, she looked up in shock.

"He's a what?"

Jim smiled ruefully. "An Alien," he answered.

"I let my daughter date an alien. Am I crazy?"

"You couldn't have known."

"Oh no? That hair was a dead give away!"

Jim stiffled a laugh. It was true that Michael's hair had been a little... outrageous... But he was really a good guy deep down.

"Keep reading. It gets way better."

Amy nodded, and picked the journal up.

So that's more people who know now.

Myself, Maria, Alex, Sheriff Valenti.

And now Kyle.

Amy looked up at Jim.

"You knew?"

He nodded, tensing.

"I not only knew, I helped them escape."

She stared at him in shock.

The only person she truly trusted after her daughter, had help her daughter leave town, and not told her.

Tears began to stream down her cheeks.

"Amy, I'm sorry. Their lives were in danger. If I'd told, they could have been killed."

She nodded slowly, the realization of what her daughter had actually been through hitting her.

"It's ok. I don't hate you."

She went back to reading. This time only putting it down when she had finished.

Jim watched her carefully.

"Well?"

She just stared at him in shock.

"I... I can't believe it. I'm speechless."

Jim had to laugh. In all the years that he had known Amy DeLuca, he had never known her to be speechless.

"It is pretty hard to believe, isn't it."

"So my daughter is out there somewhere, at the age of eighteen, running for her life with five aliens. Two of those aliens I've known since they were born, the other three, people I trusted. One of those aliens being the very same boy I caught in my daughters bed. I really can't believe it!"

Jim couldn't do anything but laugh as Amy rambled on, trying to piece everything together.

Finally he couldn't take it any longer.

He leaned over and kissed her, making her mouth stop moving.

Grinning slyly, he pulled away. Amy stared at him, for the second time that day, in shock.

"Just to calm you down," he whispered, still grinning.

Amy grinned, and lightly whacked him around the head.

Her daughter may have been running off having sex for all she cared, because at that moment, she realized that she, Amy DeLuca, loved one Jim Valenti.

Fin

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