Hans and I travel all day, and we've both been very quiet. We haven't really talked besides him directing me a few times, but other than that we've been entirely silent. I don't know what the game plan is — and I don't know if Hans knows either. So I don't ask. If he has a direction, we must be going somewhere. I hope.

But with the money that Hans stole from the gas station and pickpocketed from random people, we made it to a very run-down motel. Hans walks right in and heads up the steps, and I quickly follow. He already has a room here. He uses his key to get in, and already I can feel myself craving a shower and a good night's sleep. Without any words, I head into the bathroom and close the door behind me.

A shower feels wonderful. The water isn't exactly warm, but it isn't extremely cold either. For once, I'm okay with the water not being hot. The whip marks and cuts sting a little under the shower, but it's okay. Just standing here, the water cascading over my shoulders, makes me realise how absolutely disgusting I felt. The little complimentary shampoo bottles are hardly enough for me to properly clean my hair after all this time, but it's a start. A start I'm incredibly thankful for as well.

The blood, sweat, grime, and dirt that comes off of me is gross but feels amazing at the same time. I feel like I haven't been clean in years. My hair doesn't feel like a dirty mop head dipped in vegetable oil anymore.

I step out and dread putting on the same clothes that I had on before. I wish I had different pants since they're entirely covered in blood, but I don't have much of a choice. Unless…?

I wrap the towel around myself and pop the door open enough to talk to Hans without being obstructed. "I… don't suppose you would have any PJ pants I could borrow?"

His bright laugh comes, and my shoulders release the stress I didn't know I had. "Yeah, I do. I'll put them outside the door and knock when you can get them."

"Thank you!"

I close the door again and let the towel drop. For the first time in a long time, I finally get to see myself in a mirror. My face is a not-so-beautiful array of colours. My left eye is black and blue, my jaw has various bruises in different healing stages. The scar on my forehead looks horrific again since they've opened it back up about four times now. My shoulders have the same various shades of colours from the different bruises, bite marks, cigarette burns, and whip marks. I feel like it's going to take a long time for my body to fully recover. I'm hoping that at least some of this will go away by the time I manage to get back to New York.

I hear the knock at the door, and I give him a second to move away before I open the door and grab the clothes. He's given me a brand-new set of PJ pants (the tags still on them) and one of his shirts.

The new clothes feel nice. I didn't realise how desperately I needed to shower and change until just now. I can only imagine how disgusting I smelled.

Sitting on the bed felt even better. It felt nice to sit on something besides a concrete floor or the ground. Hans has already gotten into PJs himself — grey plaid-patterned pants with a simple white t-shirt on. He's reading something on his phone, all his focus on it. I clear my throat to get his attention before asking the first real question.

"So… how long has it been?"

He locks his phone and puts it on the bed, looking over to me with sorrow in his expression. "A little over three months. It took me a long time to try and get back into this country without being seen. I would have come and got you sooner if I could."

Three whole months. That means it was past even the new year. The boys went into the new year thinking that I was dead. Good god. My heart tightens in my throat as I look to the ground. I've missed so much time. I've missed everything.

Hans clears his throat. "I do have a plan to get you back, however." My eyes dart back up to him. "I have a friend of mine here that owes me a favour. Luckily, he also has a helicopter. He's going to fly us into Germany into an open field. We will travel a little bit again, probably about three days, and then we will be able to catch up with a buddy of mine. He has ties with people and is going to get us a plane into the United States. With about another day's worth of travel, you'll be home."

I mull over the plan in my head and nod along. "At least we have something in place. I wasn't entirely sure you weren't just picking a direction and heading that way."

He laughs, a hand going to his heart. "Oh, you wound me!"

We laugh together, then comfortably slip into silence. We watch the muted TV, both of us off in our own worlds. I can't help but wonder what happened between Dad and Hans — Dad acted really weird when he was mentioned, and Hans blushed a lot. I bite my lip and look over, gathering up the courage to finally ask.

"So. What's the deal between you and Dad?"

Hans looks away from me, his lip pulling in between his lips as he borderline stares a hole into the carpet. "You talk about him very vaguely, but I can tell you care about him a lot. And when I told Dad that you saved me, he got a weird tone in his voice and you had your head in your hands. So what happened?"

Hans sighs loudly and crosses his arms. "I fucked up, plain and simple." He stops for a minute, but I don't interrupt him. Hans deflates a bit before continuing. "Skipper and I were good friends for many years. Very good friends. But…" He stops again, then looks at me with a sad look. "Do you remember how your dad said he's public enemy number one in Denmark?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you guess who number two is?"

"... You?"

"Yup. And I'm the reason for it." Hans kicks at the ground and bows his head, his ears going a little pink. "I'm not going to get into the reason. But after the last thing I told him before we parted ways… it's difficult to think of him without embarrassment. But he saved my life, at one point. The least I could do is return the favour and save his daughter, even though he won't want to see me again."

Now it's my turn to cross my arms. "What did you say? I'm sure it was understandable."

Hans smiles, but it's not a happy smile. He's still staring hard at the floor in front of him, the heel of his foot bouncing on the carpet. "… 'I love you.'"

I blink. "What?"

"I don't know who was more shocked." He laughs, but there's no happiness or humour in the laugh. "Him, or me. I couldn't believe I had blurted it out. I thought I kept my feelings deep enough to not ever bring them to light. But when we were in that fight, screaming at each other, and he said he never wanted to see me again, it just… came out. We both went into silence, and I ran. We've never spoken again."

"So your last words were 'I never want to see you again' 'I love you'? That's… a lot different than I was expecting. With my dad's lifestyle, I was expecting like, explosions and shit." I leaned back on my arms on the bed. "You've been keeping an eye out on my dad for a while. You were the one that told me 'the dolphin is swimming the ocean' originally. So you knew Dr. Harris was planning something. Why have you been keeping tabs? How did you manage to tell him without him knowing it was you?"

Hans shrugs, and I can feel the tension rising from his shoulders as we continue on this path. "I… don't know if I should answer that."

I smile a little. "You still care about him, don't you?"

The blush gave everything away.

It makes me start to think. I never would have thought about my father's sexuality until now, but knowing how close he was to another man who did have a crush on him makes me wonder. "That's when you went to my mom and found out about me, isn't it? When you and Dad had the big fight, you went to her. Was it just to talk?"

"Mainly talk about your dad, but talk nonetheless. You deterred us a little bit from that course, considering no one knew about your existence. We talked about you and Skipper, caught up on things."

I nod slowly, my mind going in eight different directions at once. "Is… Is Dad —?"

"I don't know."

We both fell into silence after that for a long while. The idle lull of TV from the other rooms was the only sound in the room, leaving us both deep in our thoughts. Where do you go after that conversation? It was way deeper than what I was expecting, but… I'm glad he told me. I feel like I know Hans a lot better now.

"Thank you for telling me that. I know it wasn't easy."

"I haven't talked about it since that night with Kitka. It was… nice to have someone to listen to me again. Thank you."

We fall back into silence, and this time, my eyes start to feel heavy. It's been over three months since I've slept in a bed, slept for real, and it's going to feel good. Although…

"Hans?"

"Yeah?"

"I have PTSD. I have a lot of nightmares. With the — stuff I've been through recently, it might make it worse. I haven't actually slept well in a while."

He smiled lightly. "Don't worry. Skipper was the same way. I coddled him many a night, I'm sure I can do the same for you if you want."

All I could do was nod, my eyes falling closed as I curled up on the bed to rest. I don't remember the last time I laid down like this. It wasn't long before I fell asleep, resting on top of the covers.