Ryan stood in the docking bay, watching as everyone left the ship and made their way onto various parts of the station. When the crowds finally thinned down to next to nothing, he saw his uncle making his way towards him. Alone.

"Aren't you forgetting someone, Uncle Steven?" he asked as they shook hands.

Hackett chuckled. "I could ask you the same thing, Ryan. Where's your father?"

"One of his old marine buddies from back in the day just got stationed here. He's giving him a tour, though I didn't think it had been that long since we'd been here." Ryan crossed his arms over his chest. "So. Where's Katie?"

"Getting a lecture from Dr. River. The Trouble Twins broke out of the med-bay a couple of days ago and she's been fuming ever since." He turned around and started walking back toward the docking tube.

"So you just left them in there with her?" Ryan asked as he ran to catch up.

Hackett shrugged. "I got a lecture of my own when I tried to tell her it was time to leave."

Ryan snorted with laughter. "Why?"

"She may have found out I lied about what they –" Hackett's words were cut off as they, quite literally, ran into Jeff and Katie on their way off of the ship.

As the Admiral carefully steadied Jeff and his crutches, Ryan kept Katie from falling by pulling her into a bear hug.

Ryan watched as his uncle and Jeff slowly walked on to the station and then he pulled Katie into a tighter hug.

"Thank you," she whispered after they'd stood in silence for awhile.

"For what?"

"For... whatever it was that you said to Daddy that convinced him to check Marcus' apartment. He said you were the reason he found me."

Ryan sighed. "That was –"

Someone cleared their throat. The cousins looked over to see Hackett had returned and had found Jason who was standing by, waiting to talk to Katie.

"Not yet, Dad," Ryan growled. He didn't really know why, but he suddenly felt fiercely protective of Katie. He'd spent the last two weeks worrying about both her and his father, wondering if he was going to lose them both. But now, the anger he'd held onto for the last twelve years decided to surface.

"Ryan? What's wrong?" Jason asked.

"What's wrong, Dad? Really?" Ryan asked. "You're joking, right?"

Hackett and Jason looked at each other. Katie said nothing.

"Because of Marcus, may he rot in hell, the four of us are all that is left of our entire family," Ryan said quietly. "But because of you two –"

"Ryan, stop," Katie said. "Yes, Marcus is to blame for everything that happened twelve years ago. But everything that happened at the bar..."

"Started because they didn't believe us and Brent," Ryan insisted. "Katie, that wasn't your fault. None of it."

"We were kids," she said quietly. "And they had no reason not to believe Marcus."

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Sure, shoot four people execution style in the back of the head and hit the fifth in the fucking shoulder. That makes so much sense."

"I... can't... I can't do this, Ryan," Katie said as she ducked out of his embrace. The others watched as she ran down into the docking bay and disappeared into the crowds on the station.


Jeff's omni-tool beeped. He muttered curses under his breath as he read the message:

I'm stuck in a tree.

That was Katie Speak for "Help me!" He knew it must have been a family argument. That was the only time she ever used that out.


Text Chat

From: Jeff Moreau

To: Katie Hackett

13:50 JM: Where are you?

14:00 JM: Kat? You there?

14:01 KH: I'm wandering around.

14:01 KH: Trying to think of a place they won't automatically think to look.

14:02 JM: What happened?

14:10 KH: I'm at Kirby Dalton Park, by your place.

14:11 JM: On my way.

14:12 User Disconnected.


He found her sitting up against the maple tree in the center of the park. Her head was resting on her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. He eased down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Wanna talk about it?" he asked after they'd sat in silence for awhile.

"Apparently, Ryan is... well, you know he's always been kinda angry, ever since... I can remember. Since... that day," she said, talking to her knees. "But today, he started yelling at my dad and Uncle Jason and... then we started yelling at each other and... I couldn't take it anymore so I just... left. The last time Ryan and I got into a fight was when I was four, the whole coffee table incident. I guess we were long overdue for another one."

"Yelling about what?" Jeff asked.

"Ryan was trying to say that what happened two weeks ago was ultimately Daddy and Uncle Jason's fault. That if they'd just believed us twelve years ago, none of this would have happened."

"And?"

She sighed. "And I said it just wasn't reasonable that they were going to believe two kids –"

"Their own kids," Jeff said.

"Whatever. The fact remains that we were just kids."

"So if that's your line of thinking now, what the hell prompted you to confront Marcus at the bar?"

"I... don't know."

"I do."

Jeff and Katie looked up to see Ryan standing beside the tree.

She glared at her cousin. "Did Daddy tell you I was here?"

Ryan grinned. "Maybe."

"So much for 'someplace they won't automatically look,' genius," Jeff said with a smirk. He kissed her on the cheek and then looked up at Ryan. "Give me a hand will you? I'll give you two some time."

Ryan carefully hauled Jeff to his feet and then sat next to Katie as Jeff started back towards his apartment.

"So, you were saying?" she said as she leaned her head on her cousin's shoulder.

"Back then, we both thought the fact that we were their kids meant they should just automatically believe us, whether the cops did or not. Plus, we were telling them the exact same thing Brent was telling them, so that should do it. I guess we believed in majority rules."

"You'd think we would have gotten smarter as we got older and realized that's not the way the world works."

"Reasonable people would have done that, yes. But we've been so blinded by anger for the last twelve years, we couldn't see past that. We couldn't see that it just wasn't reasonable for our dads or the cops to believe kids, or the guy who'd 'kidnapped' us and had the murder weapon, over the adult 'witness.'"

"Yeah, I guess. So, are they mad?"

"At you, of course not. At me, very."

Katie grinned. "Sorry."

Ryan stood up again. "Are you done running? They may not be mad at you but they are worried about you."

She rolled her eyes as he hauled her to her feet. "Surprised they sent you then. They weren't worried there'd be another coffee table incident?"

He chuckled. "I think they trust we've matured beyond that, if only just. Thank you so much for mentioning the reason behind that, by the way," he added sarcastically. "My dad has been yelling at me about that since yours called to say you'd finally woken up."

"Yeah, I didn't really mean to..." she sighed. "I was on a roll and once I started talking about all the crap that happened back then, I couldn't stop. Basically, it was like a reflex; he asked the question, so I answered it."

Ryan wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they walked towards the Hacketts' apartment. "It's okay. It would have come out eventually, I'm sure. Now walk faster. My dad's exceptionally pissed at me since he hasn't even gotten to say 'boo' to you yet."

When Katie and Ryan got back to her apartment, they found their fathers pacing anxiously.

"It's all right. Look. Nobody's got glass shards embedded anywhere," Ryan said as he held out his arms and Katie turned her head to both sides to show neither of them had any new injuries.

Hackett and Jason both rolled their eyes. Then Ryan gave Katie a little nudge in Jason's direction, since her feet seemed be glued to the ground, before he and Hackett made a quick exit.

Jason looked at Katie, who looked away. He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her. She immediately burst into tears.

"I thought you were dead," she said after awhile. "I'm sorry. If I hadn't provoked Marcus –"

"If you hadn't provoked him, then he'd still be... how long, Katie?" When she didn't answer, he put a finger under her chin to raise her head up so she was looking at him. "How long had it been going on?"

She tried to look away but couldn't. "F-four weeks," she whispered. "It started a couple of days into my summer visit."

"The whole goddamn time? Christ," he muttered. "I knew you two were spending an unusual amount of time together but..." He pulled her back in and tightened his arms around her for a moment. "That son of a – bastard deserved so much more than a simple shot between the eyes. He needed a goddamn beating."

"I..." She didn't really know how to respond to that. However she had caught his creative wording. She pulled back and canted her head as she looked up at him with a smirk. "I'm sorry, did you almost call your mother a bitch?"