A/N: Sorry for taking so long to write the next chapter. I will do my best to update this quicker.

Ezra opened the door to his apartment door to find his mother on the other side.

"I wasn't expecting you." Ezra said flatly.

"Well I figured I would stop by before heading out."

"You're leaving town again?"

"Yes, opportunity waits for no one." Maude smiled and seemed to be waiting for Ezra to ask her not to leave or something. Maybe to do their usual farewells where he kisses her on the cheek and she reminds him to look out for only him.

"Mother—" Ezra stopped himself. Thoughts of his mother's past now known to him as well as his father's. He didn't know what to say. Only what he generally said when she left him, "Take care."

Maude only smiled before turning around and walking back out. Ezra slowly closed the door.

"It's best that she don't know you know." Came Vin's voice from behind him.

"I surmised as much." Ezra gave a weak smile to the other man. "It would be difficult to explain who I learned that information. Though it would've been interesting to watch the expressions on her face." After the moment died, Ezra understood why Vin was standing there by himself. "You're next then."

"I would say, 'save the best for last' and pretend it's me. Though I know it's just me not ready to go yet."

Ezra walked across the room as if he were in an outside body experience before finding his couch and settling down.

"Have you been able to find the others that have left?"

"Nope, but I guess that's the point. Once they're gone, they're gone."

Ezra swallowed the growing lump in his throat.

"Reckon we best start before we change our minds." Vin grunted as he sat down next to Ezra. They joined hands and Ezra closed his eyes. "I will be revisiting your unstable life growing up."

~Ezra was five, seated in the back of his mother's chair, watching his mother talk to someone he didn't know. The person didn't appear happy at the conversation. Beside him, he had his suitcase packed his belongings. His mother said he'd be staying at a friend's house until both his father and mother had gotten enough money to afford better living arrangements.

When his mother returned to the car, pulling his door opened, he looked up with big wet eyes.

"Please can I stay with you and daddy? I promise I'll behave."

"I don't have time to have you begging. You know how much I hate that." Maude snapped.

Ezra bit his bottom lip and pulled his seatbelt off. He pulled out his suitcase which felt heavier for some reason and pulled it towards the house. When he turned around to get a hug and kiss from his mother, Ezra found his mother halfway in the car already. Shoulders slumping, he watched as she turned the car on and drove off. Not so much as a wave.

Looking back towards the house he was staying in, the person who his mother had been talking to was gone. The door was slightly ajar.

A month passed living in the house. Meals were scarce and always small. The college students he was living with usually threw parties and since he couldn't attend, he was locked up in a backroom until it was over. Sometimes they forgot until morning to unlock it and he had been holding his bladder the entire time. Once he couldn't hold it and had an accident. The hand that slapped him across the face sent him hitting the wall and for a minute he was in a daze. After that he had to clean up his mess.

When his mother came and got him, Ezra was determined to do everything possible not to go back to stay with those people.

Only a few months passed before his mother found some distant relative that he could stay with. It was a distant cousin. The father seemed nice enough, sometimes offering him sweets. The rubbing his back he felt nice as well as the shoulder squeezes. That was until he grew uncomfortable with the continued touches. No one believed him and if he claimed that the father was touching him inappropriately, he would be sleeping outside until his mother came and got him. The advances continued and all little Ezra could do was push through it and stay out of the man's way as much as possible. He took to sleeping in weird spots because the sleeping bag he slept in wasn't even safe.

That house, Ezra hated more than anything. Two months passed before his mother showed up to take him. After that, his family was together for five years before his father left suddenly. His mother began dating a lot of men and they began to move once more. Sometimes they'd sleep in the car. Other times old motels that had questionable sheets. When his mother said that she had to 'work' meaning a con, she'd send him away. Lonely days without anyone to talk to had him create imaginary friends. He pretended to play poker against them. His goal was to be good enough to help his mother in her work so that she wouldn't leave him behind.

When she married a rich business man, his new step-father sent him to boarding school. Ezra was excited to make new friends, but he found that no one wanted to talk to him. There was an invisible circle and he wasn't in it.

Instead of letting the loneliness get to him again, he remembered his imaginary friends and if anyone asked what he was doing on the weekends, he could say he was hanging out with his friends. The day his mother suddenly showed up at his boarding school and took him away had him confused, until she told him that she had divorced his step-father. She also added with a smile, took five thousand dollars in the divorce. His mother did this for several relationships and Ezra found a routine, never getting attached to one place because it was only temporary.

It affected his adult life, still on the move constantly. He never felt like he could settle in one life for too long before figuring it was time to leave. Ezra ran his own cons, taking after his mother's lessons. He learned how to manipulate and never trust any man. He didn't uphold women either, but he kept that to himself.

All he could think about was that he didn't want to disappoint his mother and have her leave him… for good. ~

Ezra opened his eyes and felt Vin let go.

"You know, each of your experiences are not that far from what we've had to go through."

"Josiah said the same thing."

"How about next time we meet, I'll tell you about it." Vin grinned.

"I thought after we finish we don't—" Ezra was cut off by Vin hugging him suddenly. The warmth enveloped him and he felt kind of sad he wouldn't be seeing the man again.

However, Vin felt sure they would. Did he know something the others didn't?