A/N: Well… I'm missing some of my favorite videos (a favorite channel of mine… and probably yours, if you're reading this story, is gone :( ). But I wanted to put this up since the Sean Donely episode is coming up! (May John Reilly rest in peace, he did a great job with that character, as anyone who watched back then would know!) There's tons of Sean in this chapter and its longer, so it felt right. Thanks BoandNora-ItsOneWord and Bostie for the reviews! It means a lot to get your feedback, believe it!

Chapter 13:

The following morning of Sean and Robert's conversation, Sean was feeling invigorated by newfound forgiveness. However, he was dismayed when Robert shoved himself through the car door with bruising under his eyes and a slightly crumpled demeanor.

"Sick, Robert?" Sean asked cautiously. The blonde former agent rubbed his face and shook his head tiredly.

"Nah… bad dreams," he grumbled. "Nothing as important as this."

There was a hot, piercing stab of instinctive guilt, as if it had something to do with him, and he didn't know why. But he forced himself to say, "Anything I can help with?"

"Not unless you know the Sandman," Robert joked, but it was half-hearted. "Look, let's just… just get this over with."

"You got it, buddy." Sean shifted the car into gear and they got on the move.

It was hours later that they made it to the gravesite in question, and it would be a deal more to dig it up. Sean was still recovering, so lifting a casket six feet out of a grave was not on his list of approved activities. Luckily, there were a few retired agents in the area that Sean knew could be discreet and were willing to help an old boss out on a rainy day.

But Scorpio was off.

The longer Sean spent with Robert, the more obvious it became that his old buddy was on edge in a way that was… unlike him. Robert was typically confident and assured even on the rough cases. There were few exceptions Sean could remember—most of them involving Anna. But this agitated, bubbling up, insecure Robert was a new animal. He couldn't put his finger on it. There had been other cases that had gotten personal for Robert, where he had even acted unprofessionally, been down to raw, nerve endings… but there was something else about what was happening with Robert now. It was an element that Sean hadn't seen, or if he had… he had long forgotten about it.

Maybe it had to do with Robin or Kate, but Sean's instincts told him it was something more.

Currently, he was muttering quietly to Sean as they walked through the fog of the cemetery, looking a little spooked.

"You know how many dead people are in this place? All of them," Sean finally explained. "You don't have to whisper, okay?"

Robert stared at him, unconvinced by his humor, but then they both heard footsteps.

"There's our boy now," Sean said. "Frank! Here."

"Old Director Donely."

"How ya doing, buddy?" Sean reached out to shake hands with the dark-haired stranger who approached them.

"Alright."

Sean patted his shoulder, turning the man slightly toward Robert. "Frank Chance, this is Robert Scorpio…" The retired agent glanced over at Robert and Sean saw a small light of recognition, but it passed without comment.

Robert managed the courtesy of shaking Frank's hand, despite that persistent, hooded look. "Hi."

"Frank retired from the Bureau a couple of years ago."

"Friend of Harry Steinfeld?"

"Yeah," Frank shrugged easily. "We started on the same year, but he uh… checked out ahead of me." He gestured to the ground. "I was here at the burial."

Robert glanced around. "You recall where the gravesite is?"

"Yeah."

"Where?" Sean asked.

Frank pointed to their right with his flashlight. "That way."

The men, excluding Sean, had shed their coats and were fully exhausted by the time they hit pay-dirt, so to speak. Sean was the only one not catching his breath as they hauled it over to a clear spot. "There we go," Sean said to Robert as they set the casket down. "My stitches ache for you, buddy."

"Yeah," Robert grumbled in an exhale.

"Crowbar, right down there."

Sean was accustomed to giving orders and Robert let it happen with minimal annoyance and even a few jests. They pried the lid off with some effort from all three of them and the mood quickly dropped into silence as Robert leaned over the contents of Harry Steinfeld's final resting place. Frank balked a little. And Robert dropped his hands to his knees, going still for a moment as he took it in.

"My God, Robert…" Sean said, as he caught sight of what the other two had. "This corpse has no hands."

"They're severed above the wrists," Robert said clinically. He craned further over and stuck his hand inside.

"What're you doing?" Sean said, a tinge of wariness in his voice. Robert didn't respond, and kept rummaging. When he withdrew, he had something metal between his hands.

"A cigar case." Sean automatically lifted the flashlight and the case gleamed in Robert's hands. "The initials C.F." Scorpio's voice had descended into a lower cadence. Sean felt his heart plunge into cold.

"Guess who, huh?" Sean said in order to belie the awful feeling that arose from that clue and Robert's overly calm pause. His slight joke had no effect on the plummeting mood.

"I have had this!" He yelled at Sean, though Sean knew not to take it personally. The object of Robert's hatred was on an island, likely waiting for them to find his present with secret delight.

"I HAVE HAD THIS! This man is… this man is SCREWING with all of us!"

Robert paced furiously around Sean, whose eyes were still affixed to the hands-less corpse. "Including my daughter."

"Alright," Sean said evenly, knowing that if he kept Robert talking and made him strategize, it might lower his temperature. "What do we do now, kemosabe?"

Robert took a deep breath. "We go to war." He turned back to Sean. "We go to war. All-out, unequivocable, bloody, WAR!" Robert roared as he bent down and slammed the lid of the casket back over the useless body that rested within it. Wordlessly, Frank snapped the lacquered wood back into place, rescuing it from Robert's wild motion.

"And I'm gonna win this one," Robert swore with a furious bite that Sean hadn't heard in a long time. Then, as if he hadn't spoken the tirade at all, Robert moved back around Sean and started getting into position to move the casket back into its grave.

Frank looked a bit startled by the sudden change, but moved to help him. Sean observed them, feeling himself sinking into thought as they started to replace what they had unearthed. And only once the work was done and Sean moved to thank Frank, did he realize that the ex-agent looked a little shaken by what he had seen. Robert was in his own brooding world, so Sean dropped a hand on the man's shoulder. "Frank…"

The dark-haired man lifted his hands with a faint smile. "I don't need to know the details, Donely. It's alright."

Sean nodded, pulling back as Frank frowned a little at the ground, marking some hesitation before he spoke again. "But look, if this business ties you up again, I will give you a hand." There was a horrible moment where the inadvertent pun hit them both and Frank swallowed hard as they ignored it. Out of the corner of Sean's eye, he saw Robert grimace. Frank looked between the men, addressing them both. "I don't know what's going on, but I know what the big ones look like… and I knew the gist of Steinfeld's last mission. No questions asked."

That type of offer between agents wasn't one to be taken lightly. Spies didn't like what they didn't know, and it was a sign of great respect to volunteer to fly blind in a mission. Sean wondered if Frank had a family now, if he had anything at all that he couldn't stand to lose.

"That's uh… that's really appreciated, buddy…" Sean said seriously. "We won't forget."

"See that ya don't," Frank responded lightly. And with a wave, he disappeared back into the fog towards the lamppost-lit gate of the cemetery.

There was a stretch of silence, and then Robert turned slightly towards the now-quiet grave, muttering, "He had no idea what he was getting on-board for…"

"Maybe not," Sean said quietly, still thinking of Frank's offer. "But apparently he knew that Steinfeld's last case was Faison, so maybe we aren't giving him enough credit." He squinted at Robert's form, feeling glum at the lack of progress. "We gotta go back and… tell Anna…"

Robert kicked at the grass angrily. "Yeah, and I can guess what our next fight is gonna be about. Every time we hit a dead end, it's the same thing." He glared at Sean. "Well, I'm getting real sick of hitting dead ends."

"Something will come up," Sean said automatically, for lack of a better response. Robert scoffed, tilting his head toward the sky, and Sean's brow furrowed at his slumped, tired form. "But you know, I don't think losing sleep is going to help anything."

Robert chuckled emptily and didn't look at Sean… he didn't even get angry at the pointed recommendation.

"Ya know… I didn't tell you this before, but… when you and Anna were shutting me out with that whole dog-crystal business, I went to Washington to check the files for anything that would help me figure out what was going on… And afterward, I ran into some old field agents out for drinks. They were either behind desks now or retired, but I knew all their faces. They were giving me a hard time about my… former reputation with the ladies. And about the rules, that the rule about not marrying would have suited me fine. And about… how it was forbidden to be in the Bureau and get involved like that."

Oh, the irony. Sean was silent, knowing that wherever Robert was headed with this, he would eventually get there.

"And you know what Ben Puvel said?" Robert smiled. "He said, well, they didn't make it any easier hiring agents that looked like Anna Devane… And then Johnson mentioned that I had been partnered with Anna and that we had gotten the choice assignments all the time. That it was always Donely, Devane, and Scorpio. And the whole time… the whole time, all I kept thinking was… that they knew. That they knew I had married Anna, covered for her, that I left the Bureau because I was a lovesick traitor—"

"That's ridiculous!" Sean broke in.

"I know, damnit!" Robert exploded. "I KNOW, but...in that moment, it was like the roof fell down on my head. How they could have just happened to bring her up…"

Sean didn't find it to be that amazing of a coincidence, really. Ironic, yes. But Anna's beauty had been famous back then and she had risen up the ranks more quickly than most agents put through, only reporting directly to Sean for most of her time there. It would have been very difficult for most agents at that time not to be aware of her, unless they were deep undercover. That some old agents would bring her up in a conversation like that was not surprising. Of course, Robert had his head up his ass about those types of things back then.

Which is likely why he had looked so stunned and tongue-tied when he finally did lay eyes on her.

"It's not gonna work, Sean, you putting me with Miss Divine!"

"Look," Sean said gently. "Thinking like that is going to drive you nuts…"

"Exactly," Robert said flatly. "But that's what I'm thinking. I'm paranoid as all get-out…because we can't answer the one question that needs to be. And that is: how are we going to blow this wide-open without exposing ourselves?"

"We'll find a way," Sean sighed. He stretched, because his stitches were aching now. But Robert was so far in his head that he didn't notice, and Sean wasn't about to drop the chance to be a friend to him, after what had gone down.

"If I can't kill him…" Robert rubbed a hand down his face. And Sean blinked at how casually he had said the words. "Anna said before that she went to you when she found out Faison was alive because she was worried about what might happen, what we would do if we ever encountered each other…"

"She was," Sean said, remembering Anna's hushed words and her panicked, dark eyes when this had all began. When she had first discovered that Faison was alive and Sean was lying about it.

"After all this time, he STILL has a hold on me!" Restlessly, she stood up and paced and Sean couldn't calm her, especially not as he scrambled to cover his own tracks of his involvement with Faison. Anna rounded on him, about Robin, and then pressing her delicate fingers against his lapel with insistence.

"Promise me you won't go near him, promise me that! And don't tell Robert either. I mean…the two of them, they can't meet…"

"Alright, I won't tell Robert, okay?" Sean told her, rubbing two fingers against his forehead, realizing how many secrets were mounting between all three of them.

"If Robert ever finds out that he's alive, he's gonna kill him," Anna let the words out in a rush, releasing them to the only person she could at that moment.

"With very good reason, I know that too." Sean agreed, he watched Anna's expression move with barely restrained emotion—things she hadn't allowed herself to feel in so long as she confessed her fear about Robert.

The Swede was still something hidden darkly between her and Robert—the man Robert as good as killed for her, or so they thought. The human sacrifice of his love…the sacrifice that an honorable man like Robert could hardly bear to commit, what had torn them apart. And Sean could see now her terror that such a thing might ever happen again, but this time with no innocents and everything on the line—including her daughter. Anna was so close that he could feel a slight warmth from her frightened breath as she spoke low enough that no one had a hope of hearing except him.

"Faison. He has all the winning cards, right? I mean, all he has to do is open his mouth once… Once." Her hand came up from his chest to mimic her words, one simple gesture. "He destroys all our lives—yours, mine, and Robert's, that's all he has to do…"

"If Anna can find a way to deal with Faison and leave you out of it, that's what she'll do," Sean told Robert.

"That's what we need to keep her from doing, at all costs," Robert responded tightly. "You didn't see her at Wyndamere, the dress, the game she plays… it scares me… what she'd be willing to…" he trailed off, his eyes faraway.

What had they been willing to do before, when they were agents in love with each other? Re-composing himself, Sean slipped one hand into his pocket and put the other on Robert's shoulder, pushing him away from the Harry Steinfeld's fresh burial and from their conversation. It wasn't going to do Robert any good dwelling on these things in the middle of a graveyard. "Unfortunately, I don't have answers for you yet. But we will get them. And there's no sense standing around with the dead all day, friend. We have re-convening to do."

Robert didn't react to the determined hope in Sean's voice, but he did follow.

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

"The die is cast, right?" Robert said, rhetorically. In his hands was the cigar case, safely tucked in a plastic bag. As he passed Anna, she traded the evidence he was holding into her own hands, the motion fluid like water. Sean leaned against the desk, watching them. They were both wearing the floor out.

"And no Faison fingerprints," Anna said, examining it.

"He's made his last call," Robert said to Sean, pointing angrily. "His last call!" Anna was hardly impressed as she rounded on them.

"Oh, he's always one step ahead and he never misses a beat. That's the way he operates."

"I don't wanna hear about that, Anna!" Robert sniped at her. Sean almost groaned at what was going to come next. "Alright—?"

"Then why don't you just listen to me and let me handle him—"

"As I recall, we did that once before, remember?!"

"And it would have been fine if you hadn't interfered!" Anna threw back roughly when Robert closed in on her. Better a verbal blow than for her to start swinging, Sean thought. Though, she looked near it… Faison must have really unsettled her at the school for her to be in this form. With the two of them so wired lately, Sean was beginning to wonder if they really would have enough nerve to handle this problem.

"With your impression of the happy hooker? Ooooooohhh…" Robert said mockingly, pissed.

"You are being unbelievable," Anna muttered, turning away in a fashion to make a show of ignoring her ex-husband. However, said ex-husband had been cranky all day long, so Robert reeled closer to her again, refusing to let her do it.

"If you're in such control of this, why did this guy turn up at Robin's assembly?"

"It's strategy."

"Oh, rubbish! You don't any more than anybody else does! Or where this guy's gonna turn up next."

"Says you."

"Damn right," Robert said. He leaned in toward Anna heatedly. "And neither you, nor anybody else, is gonna call the shots on this one!"

Anna's mouth dropped in indignation and Sean finally really interrupted before Anna leapt on the fight Robert was spoiling for with his he-man routine. "Alright, Robert, Robert! Please calm down." Robert turned away, trying to shake off his anger to no avail.

"All you men ever do is talk, talk, talk—I want some action! I want him." Anna snapped back. "And I know his M.O. better than either one of you!"

"We're gonna do this together. Got it?" Robert snarled.

"He's right," Sean threw in. He stepped toward Anna, attempting to take her focus off of Robert and remind her of the days when he was the Director of the WSB and he gave the orders. "This is not the time to split our forces."

Anna stared between them and Sean knew that in the midst of this, she just felt hunted and ganged-up on. "Okay, so it's you two against me, is it? Right? Fine!"

"The operative term here is 'togetherness'," Robert responded. "Cooperation. Now, we told you what happened at the grave, you're gonna tell us what happened at the school and then we… are gonna sit down at that table, work out a plan, and take out this SOB once and for all!"

Anna was still sulking, looking petulant and young, like the irreverent prodigy Sean recruited, too confident for her own good and every reason to be. Sean shook his head, but Robert took some steps toward her, much gentler this time. Anna tilted her head, shifting away from him as he got nearer.

"C'mon, sweetheart," Robert murmured coaxingly. His hand stretched toward her and Anna gracefully avoided him with a poisonous glare.

"Stop," she warned him, avoiding his hand again to move around him and towards the table, like he had demanded earlier. With a faint smile, Robert caught the ends of her hair as she departed and let it slip between his fingers, something playful that she didn't even notice with her back to him. But Sean did…

The dramatic, light shift in Robert's demeanor only lasted until Anna's raven locks left his grasp and then he sobered and darkened again to the Robert that Sean had accompanied all day. They sat together at Anna's table, though Anna leaned against the wall nearest her seat, seeming unable to sit still. Robert cleared his throat.

"Okay?"

Anna shrugged. "What do you want to know, Robert?"

"Start at the beginning then."

"He showed up…after she began her speech." Anna's voice was measured, but there was some sort of exhaustion in her tone. "Robin… she apologized to her class for not being in school enough, and she talked about the rumors, about me." She moved away from the table as she spoke, stretching her arms like a cat, the sleeves of her over-long shirt hitching up as she did. The men followed her languid movements patiently. "There she stood, in front of all these people, telling them what a wonderful mother I was and I couldn't take it…" Anna hugged herself, turned away from them.

"You never could handle a compliment," Robert said, the burr back in his voice.

Anna wandered toward them again with a joyless smile. "She was talking about my honor and my loyalty, all those things that I never was…"

"Oh, come on, Anna, it was a long time ago," Sean told her practically. "She'll never find out about it."

"Yeah," Anna responded sarcastically. "In the same room as us, stood the one man alive that could tell her all about it!"

Robert exhaled wearily. "We're going to take care of that."

"So could I! Absolutely."

"Can we get beyond that point, huh?" Sean interjected, looking between the two exes. He wanted to avoid going another round, but getting between them was like exposing your carotid artery to an angry bear.

"So then what happened?" Robert asked, ignoring Sean's exasperation.

"Well, then he just came over and he was talking to her, and he said that… he thought she was marvelous…" Her voice was breathless, distant. She started watering a plant.

"What else?"

Anna sighed. "Well, she asked him… if he wanted to meet her teacher, but… thankfully, he had the class to decline. She just thinks… he's such a nice man…"

Robert got to his feet and strode over to her. "We've got to deal with this problem once and for all."

"Well, you can't kill him, Robert… can you." Anna continued watering her plant, her voice still airy and pensive. Sean swiveled in his chair to watch Robert stop in front of her and then look outward, thinking seriously about it. It was… interesting, Sean thought, that this had come up twice today.

"Yes, I can," Robert said. There was an intent, unmoved occurrence in his eyes.

And his words finally drew Anna's to him, slightly startled out of her trance. "But you won't." There was the merest plea in her voice, and it confirmed for Sean what he had thought all along. To the exclusion of everything besides Robin, Anna wanted to protect Robert from this case…and it was setting them at conflict.

The phone rang as Robert caught her gaze and Sean hurried to the desk, hoping perhaps not to call them away from the conversation. "I'll get it!"

"No! I'll get it! It's my house," Anna insisted as Sean raised his hands and she ripped the phone from the cradle, tossing a hand through her mane of hair as she did. "Hello!" she exclaimed grumpily.

Her voice changed as soon as the person over the line spoke. "Yeah, it's me..."

"Yes, Cesar…" Anna glanced warily at Robert, who stiffened mid-shift and started listening with all of his attention. "Yes, it's fine…Robin's…Robin's really well. Dinner?" Anna frowned, obviously searching for an excuse. "Well, I really don't think that I… that I could…"

Robert cleared his throat very softly and Anna caught the sound, looking over at him. Robert nodded very firmly and Anna didn't need any other signal, though it was clear that she had no idea why Robert would want this.

"Oh! Robin is—is staying at a friend's tonight," Anna recovered quickly, her dark eyes still locked on Robert's. "Nine?" She returned to that breathless voice she had before, that enchanted-sounded inflection. Sean's mind was working, but Robert tapped him on the abdomen, drawing him away from what Anna was doing. "No, it's…I'll be able to make it."

"What's your plan here?" Sean said in undertone, as confused to Robert's aim as Anna clearly had been. Robert had been fighting tooth and nail to keep Anna from contact with Faison, and now he was encouraging her to accept a date?

"My plan is to get her and my daughter as far away from this ghoul as possible," Robert said, putting his hands on his hips. "She's not going out with him. I just needed her to get him to a location when and where I know he is so that I can throw him in the slammer."

"Robert…" Where to begin with this? "You can't throw the man in jail unless you have something concrete on him. And what about Anna?" Once she heard about this, Sean highly doubted that she would agree, if her foul mood from being out-voted was any indication.

"I can get myself 48 hours and that'll be all I need. I want you to take her and Robin on vacation," Robert said. "I want them out of town and without notice so Faison can't contact them in any way. And that will free me up to deal with him and force him to go very public... with the possible help of your wife. You can do that, can't you? Beach vacation?"

"Sure, I can, but Robert…"

Robert's eyes were blazing ice as he met Sean's gamely. "Tell me that she's not a loose cannon right now."

Sean couldn't argue that. Anna was desperate to keep Robert out of this, and it was screwing up her judgement. And yet… "She is… but I'm just not sure you're not one yourself," Sean said baldly. As far as he was concerned, both of them were proving that they were compromised. He actually thought Robert had a good plan, but only if Robert was in a proper state to handle things.

Whatever was going on emotionally with Robert, and it definitely wasn't just the break-up with Kate, he was not in top-fighting shape lately. And Sean was a not entirely confident that it was a good idea to leave it to him. Yet, he also had enormous faith in his friend and had seen him beat incredible odds before. And with Anna and Robin on the line, there was no minimizing what was at stake for Robert. He would go to the ends of the earth. "You're going to have to keep in control if you're going to pull this off," Sean said tactfully.

"I know that… and I'm going to be able to do it a lot better if my daughter and her mother are away from this person," Robert said. "With the three of you gone, my hands aren't tied. He has nothing to threaten me with. And with any luck, someone will come out of the woodwork with enough information to checkmate this guy." His point was fair. But then Robert's head turned towards Anna, as if something she had said or done had caught his attention, though Sean hadn't noticed anything himself. He glanced over at Anna and saw the tail-end of a spaced-out smile, a strange expression. But it took her no time to realize Robert's focus on her without even looking and the quality dissipated and she had already come back to earth before she turned her head. She straightened, "ah… I'll just meet you there."

Faison said something else and Anna's act faded slowly. "Yeah, okay." Her hand holding the phone drifted away from her ear as he hung up and Sean could tell that she was realizing what she had just agreed to. Robert was watching her carefully. She put the phone back, her hand stilling in position as she dissolved the act before turning to them.

"Terrific," Sean said.

"That was great."

"Why… did you want me to have dinner with him at Katherine's?" Anna asked dangerously, glancing back and forth at both men.

"Granted, Delafield's isn't ideal," Robert said. "But as you're not gonna turn up, it doesn't really matter."

"Would you mind enlightening me?" Her tone didn't sweeten in the least and Robert started getting polite, sensing trouble.

"I realize we're a little ahead of you, but you're gonna like it." Robert put his hand on her shoulder and she shoved him away, a lit fuse.

"Try me," she challenged him, stepping away from his reach again. "Just try me." She held up one finger, her gaze steady.

Robert took a breath. "Alright, this guy wants to go public, we'll accommodate him."

"In a much bigger way than he'd ever expect," Sean filled in.

"Go on."

"You're not gonna turn up for dinner…" Robert told her. "You're gonna take a vacation. With Robin." Her jerked his head toward a grinning Sean. "And Signor Donely here."

Sean bowed gamely.

"Vacation," Anna said, as if the word was foreign. More like it, she was bewildered. "Now?"

"Strike while the iron is hot, I say."

"Ridiculous," Anna muttered, walking away from Robert.

"Not necessarily," Robert said. She was walking around to the couch and he followed.

"Absolutely ridiculous! And Faison will think it's ridiculous too, because he's gonna—"

"Not necessarily," Sean cut in, putting a calming hand out.

"Well, what is going on then?!" Anna shouted, her hair flinging aside as she turned.

"Will you shut up and let me finish?!" Robert said, losing his patience again as well. Anna walked right into him, her eyes flashing and intimidating, even at her lesser height.

"If you're trying to railroad me out of here so you can nail Faison on your own, forget about it!"

"Anna, will you—" Sean tried to be the peacemaker, but she barely acknowledged him.

"—because I don't need—and don't tell me it's for my own protection! 'Cause if that's the case, then I will just have Robin sent away with Olin. Because I'm not going anywhere." She was yelling only at Robert, who had his hands in his pockets, waiting for her to be finished with a long-suffering expression.

"On that note, I'm leaving," Sean said.

"You coward! Stick around!" Robert cried. But Sean was already picking up his coat, knowing that even Anna would have to admit that this was the best plan they had at the moment, and that Robert wasn't about to budge anyway. They could duke it out privately.

"I'm not a coward, I have to go and face Tiffany and convince her that I'm well enough to travel." Anna and Robert were turned towards him, both looking displeased. He didn't care. He had to think about what was going down and he had his own wife to deal with. Robert, who had had the honor of being married to Anna Devane (against the rules), could deal with her and set his own home in order. "Alright? You handle things over here," Sean said to Robert as he jerked his coat on.

"Don't patronize me either!" Anna blasted Sean; her temper now hair-trigger. Yes, Robert could certainly deal with this.

"I'm not patronizing you," Sean said placatingly.

"Yes, you are—"

"I'm not!"

Robin picked the perfect time to walk through the door with Olin and Sean was able to extricate himself from the conflict, uncaring as to how abruptly he left.

He had a lot to ponder over and probably would still be pondering while he was on vacation with Anna and Robin. Robert and Anna were both up to their ears in stress and there was something that Sean was sure he didn't know about. You didn't get to where Sean was in the WSB and not know when there was more to the story. And what he did know?

Anna was horrified at the prospect of Robert dying for her and the prospect of Robert killing for her.

Robert was headed for the same pit he went down when he saved Anna's life thirteen years ago, and was walking around looking haunted.

And Sean… he had to figure out how to hold this mission together when the other two were being forced into the corners of their past, and also figure out what it was they were keeping from him. Because they were definitely keeping something from him and he wasn't sure whether it pertained to the case or not. Sean was hoping that perhaps little Anna would shed some much-needed light on the situation while they were baking in the sun, waiting for Robert to work the problem...or not.

A/N: Plot and plot and more plot! I forgot how this story moved, and I really miss this GH. Please review if you have a spare moment, it's very appreciated and I think you can expect another chapter soon!