SYNOPSIS:

John Beckett, Katy's older brother from Cleveland, pays a visit to New York, but Katy is not happy to see him. After revealing to Shawn and Maya that she holds a grudge against John for killing their father, Shawn and Maya decide to get at the truth.

John is about to tell them what happened...

CHAPTER THREE

From the moment the judge declared him guilty and decided he was better off spending the next six months in jail, Roy Clutterbucket had only one thing on his mind: he wanted to get revenge on his own family for betraying him. Never mind the fact that he brought it all on himself with the abuse his wife and son suffered at his hands. In his own distorted way, he convinced himself that he was the one who had been wronged, and he was going to set things straight for himself no matter what. All he had to do was worm his way into the boy's bedroom while he was asleep, and then, "Smile for the obituary, boy. Bang, your dead". And then after he did the same to his cheating mother, it would be all over. And the sooner he did it, the better.

There was no visible moon, and the only sound was the incessant but sedate chirping of crickets nearby as Roy slowly wrapped his hand around the doorknob. He was somewhat surprised to find that the door wasn't locked, but he didn't care."All the easier for me," Roy thought as he slowly opened the door. He stealthily tiptoed his way into the darkened living room.

But it didn't stay dark for long...

It seemed as though every light in the room suddenly switched on all at once, flooding the living room in a bright and temporarily blinding glow. Roy had to take a second to focus, and when he finally did, he saw John sitting in a chair in a far corner of the room, holding a 12-gauge shotgun in his hands.

Father and son stared at one another for what seemed like a long time. It was Roy who spoke first.

"Well, boy," he said, "I warned you I'd be comin' after you, didn't I?"

"Yeah, and I warned you that I would be waiting, didn't I?" said John, "Or did you conveniently forget that part?"

"Why don't you put down that gun and let's talk." said Roy.

But John had no such intention. He looked at his father with incredulity.

"Really?" John couldn't believe Roy's words. "Is that what you busted out of jail for? To sneak up here in the middle of the night so we can talk?! Just what kind of an idiot do you think I am, anyway?"

"Don't be talkin' to your daddy like that, boy."

"The only talking you ever did was with your fists," John continued, "That's the only language you ever learned."

"Shut up, boy.."

"And that was the only communication you used with Mom, and it was the only communication you used with me," John continued, "We took your abuse for years, and you took the lives of my siblings before they ever had a chance to live," John said firmly, "But it ends right here, right now. You will never... never get your hands on my little sister."

Roy stared hard at his son as he pointed the barrel of the shotgun toward the door.

"You see that door behind you?" John asked, "You're gonna go back out that door, and you're gonna do it in one of two ways, but I'm going to let you decide: you can either walk out on your own and never come back... or you're gonna be carried out of here... on a stretcher, or in a body bag."

Roy was now seething, he slowly began to shake his head and, without realizing it, was beginning to move toward his son.

"You sorry little son of a..."

"Don't!"

John quickly jumped to his feet, cocking the weapon and raising it up to his chest, aiming it toward his father.

"Don't make me shoot you!" said John.

Roy stopped in his tracks and stood there for a moment sizing up the armed sixteen-year old standing in front of him. "I don't think you got the guts to shoot me, boy," he sneered, an evil smile curling over his lips.

"I swear to God, You give me an excuse and we'll both find out."

The smile went away from Roy's face. For the first time, Roy could see his son was deadly serious, but he continued playing as though he was still kidding. He began moving forward again...

"Why don't you give me that gun..."

"I'll give you the bullets first!" John growled, pulling the stock up to his shoulder to take aim.

"Now get out of here, and don't you ever come back!"

Roy turns around and starts to walk away, but at the last possible second he turns around, this time with a gun in his own hand intending to aim it at his son.

It would be the last deceptive move Roy would ever make.

The sound was like a cannon blast in the enveloping silence. Roy grunted in pain as the shot almost knocked him off of his feet, but somehow he kept upright and managed to haphazardly fire off one shot hitting John in the shoulder. The force of Roy's shot drove John back toward the far wall, but he also managed to stay on his feet and fire a second shot at his father. The force knocked Roy hard and flat onto his back on the floor. After a brief struggle to keep consciousness, Roy collapsed, never to move again.

John was breathing hard as he leaned against the far wall staring at what remained of his wretched, hateful, violent, self-serving, pathetic apology for a father. The adrenaline he felt coursing through his veins began to attenuate, and John could start to feel a sharpening pain in his wounded shoulder as he staggered over to where Roy's body lay, his pistol still clutched in his now-lifeless hand.

He took a closer look at what was left of his father, and then stared for a moment at the weapon he used to defend against him. He didn't want to have to use it, but Roy gave him no other choice. He tossed the shotgun away and then slowly trudged across the kitchen toward the far door on the other side, the door to his mother's bedroom.

Without a word, John slowly opened the door. The light from the kitchen brought precious little illumination into the room, where John could see his very-pregnant mother sitting on the bed with her back against the outside wall, her eyes tightly shut and clutching a pillow to her chest.

"Mom?"

Angela gasped at the voice, she opened her eyes and gasped again at the sight of her son, blood seeping through his shirt from where he had been shot, but still alive. Still very much alive.

"John.."

Angela clambored off the bed and waddled over to her son. "John, you're hurt."

"I'll be all right, Mom.." John wearily said.

"But what about..."

"He had a gun, too. He would have killed all of us. I had no choice." John looked right into his mother's eyes as he said those words.

"So he's..."

"Yeah, he is..." John looked at his mother with a face full of remorse. "Mom, I'm sorry.."

Angela slowly shook her head. "No, John. Don't be. Don't say that."

"Mom, I didn't want to..."

"I know, honey.. I know," said Angela, "But you said it yourself: you had no choice."

John looked hard and long at his mother, choking back the tears that he knew would come any moment.

It's over now," said Angela, "It's all over."

She hugged John's neck, and as the sirens approached, mother and son both began to let their emotions go.. The tears they shed were tears of frustration, tears of exhaustion, tears of redemption. But now there was something else emanating from their sobs, something that Angela had not felt in a long time, and something John had never felt at all: an overwhelming sense of peace.

Shawn and Maya sat in the hotel room totally enthralled by the vivid story. John then undoes the last two buttons on his polo shirt and pulls the collar down off of his shoulder to show them the scar from the gunshot. Shawn and Maya both took a closer look at it, but it was Maya who reached out to touch it. She felt the small indentation that remained from where the bullet struck.

"My God," Maya whispered.

"Self-defense," Shawn was still processing the new information, "So... you killed your father in self-defense."

John nodded as he pulled the collar back up and redid the buttons.

"So what happened next?" Maya asked.

"After all the smoke had cleared," John continued, "Pretty much everyone else said the same thing: self-defense."

"Everyone?" Shawn asked.

"Police, lawyers, grand jury, everyone down the line."

"Then what happened?" asked Shawn.

"After it was all over, Mom and I decided the best thing to do was to move again," said John, "But not just to another part of town this time. We decided that after Katy was born we would move out of state."

"Arkansas." said Maya.

John nodded. "So I went and got my GED, and then after Katy was born we packed up what little we had left and moved to a place not too far from Little Rock called Possum Trot."

"How did you get the name Beckett?" Shawn asked curiously.

"I hated my father's name, so right before I went into the Air Force I decided I was going to legally change my surname," John explained, "I used most of the letters in the name Clutterbucket, and 'Beckett' was the first one I came up with."

"You had a good reason to be ashamed of the name Clutterbucket," Maya remarked. "I kinda know how you feel."

There was several moments of silence before Shawn slowly rose to his feet. "Listen, John,'" he said, "If you want me to, I'll talk to Katy."

John looked doubtfully at Shawn.

"I think enough water has gone under the bridge for this to finally be worked out," said Shawn, "And I want to see it worked out. I'll talk to Katy. I promise."

John said nothing, but his body language suggested all too plainly that he didn't expect any good results. Nonetheless, John sighed and nodded his approval.

"Good luck, Shawn." he said quietly.

Maya got up to walk out with Shawn, but just as they got to the door, Maya turned to look back at the disabled man rubbing his forehead and looking at the floor in frustration.

She couldn't possibly look at him the same way anymore; all of her life, Maya saw John as the funny uncle; funny and wise, but always remote. But looking at him now, she began to see a whole new layer to the man; now he looked as if he had come to fully accept that he was permanently alone, and that he felt he had no other choice but to take himself out of the world because he couldn't forgive himself for something that ultimately wasn't his fault.

Shawn and Maya both heard the story, they saw the scar, and Maya knew that Shawn would not just sit on this new information, and she didn't want him to. She wanted to get to know her uncle better, even better than she knew him now.

Maya slowly walks back over to John, knelt down next to his wheelchair, and gently wrapped her arms around his neck.

Josh is right, Shawn thought, she really does have a great capacity for love.

Maya pulls back enough to look her uncle John in the face.

"Thank you, Uncle John." she whispered through sniffling and misty eyes.

Outside of his mother, John had almost never been given so much affectionate gratitude before, certainly not for this. Wordlessly, he looked back at his niece and nodded.

Maya tenderly gives John a kiss on the cheek and one more embrace before she pulls herself back up to her feet and slowly walks out with Shawn.

The elevator stops in the lobby and Shawn and Maya make their way out of the hotel. The two say very little to one another until they get back into Shawn's car, but Shawn is in no hurry to start it up just yet. He sits in the driver seat still contemplating the amazing story they had just heard.

"I agree with you, y'know," said Maya, "Mom needs to know about this."

Shawn nodded. "Yeah, but telling her is not going to be so easy." he quietly said

"Why wouldn't it be? It's basically the same as when you told me the truth about... Kermit."

Maya didn't even bother to refer to Kermit as her biological father anymore; he had willfully given up that title and everything that went with it, and according to Shawn, he did it all on his own, and the fact that Katy, albeit reluctantly, backed up what Shawn told her, to say nothing of the fact that Shawn is so much a part of Maya's life now, puts it beyond all dispute that it was true. As far as Maya was concerned, Shawn is her father now, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

"No, this is different." Shawn said.

"How?"

"Well, for one thing," Shawn began, "When I told you about Kermit, your mother eventually backed me up. I don't think I can count on John's backup here."

"Why not?"

"You saw the way he reacted when he told us what happened. It's remained fresh in his own mind all this time. He's kept it to himself for so long I don't think he could bring himself to tell the story again, let alone corroborate it."

Maya nodded in agreement. "So what are we gonna do?"

The wheels began to turn in Shawn's head. "Well, he said it went before the grand jury,"

"Yeah.."

"So it would be a matter or record... of public record."

"Yeah, I guess it would." Maya replied.

"..and it would almost certainly have been covered by the media.." Shawn continued.

"What are you thinking, Dad?"

Shawn's eyes began to light up, and a smile started to form on his face.

"I just got an idea." Shawn whips out his cellphone and touches a speed dial number on the keypad. It doesn't take long for the person on the other end to answer.

"Hey, Topanga, it's Shawn. Have you got a few minutes? I need you to do something for me and Maya..."

BRIDGE

"Self defense?"

Over the phone, Shawn told Topanga a condensed version of the story John had told him and Maya.

"That and defense of another person. It's all true, Topanga," said Shawn, "The grand jury ruled it self-defense, and John even showed us the scar on his shoulder from where his father tried to kill him."

"Maya was there with you?"

"Yeah, she was there. She heard the story too."

"So what do you need me to do?"

"Do some digging and get any information you can about the case. Court reports, newspaper articles, anything you can find."

"What are you going to do with it?"

Shawn took a deeper breath before he spoke, "I think it's going to take a lot more than just my word this time. I need something to back up what I tell Katy, so I'm gonna need everything you can get your hands on, Topanga. Will you do it?"

Topanga nodded. "Okay, give me an hour. I'll see what I can find."

"Thanks. Oh, and one more thing..."

"Yeah?"

"Let me break it to her."

"Right. See you in an hour..."

END OF CHAPTER THREE