He knocked at her door. She was probably asleep, but he needed to talk to her now. He felt badly ashamed for what he had said and how he had behaved. He had acted like a child. He shouldn't act like a child. He should be supposed to act more prudential. She opened the door. She had been sleep. Her hair was tousled and her eyes were only small slits.

"Neil?" She asked him confused. 'Nice, she hadn't count on me. Maybe I better go again. She's sure mad at me and she has all reasons to.'

She hadn't count on her son now. She had thought he had turned his back towards her, that he had left for ever. And now he stood there in front of her. 'My son. He's still so full of heart. No matter what will happen. He's never going to turn into an emotional block of ice, like his father does once in a while. At least one thing I was able to teach him.'

"Uh…yeah. Uhm… I wanted to apologize. I shouldn't have said something like that…I mean…that's not…" 'Not…not what? If I say that's not true I would tell them that it was okay how they treated me, but it wasn't. But I can't tell her that. At least things weren't that dramatic or…Nice, the first time I start to apologize and now that? Maybe I should have enrolled for a lecture about: how do I say sorry to my Mum. That would have been helpful now.'

'No, this is not going to start from new. He always had known what he had done wrong and had apologized, in somehow. If I want things to change, we need to talk. No blaming, no screaming, no punishment. Maybe this is my chance to explain and to say sorry. No, not maybe. It is and I'll take it.'

"Don't you want to come in? I'm not likely to talk about this in front of an audience." She took his hand and forced him in. He had started slight attempts against it, but it was useless. He didn't want to hurt her more than necessary. His words had been enough he should start with a limitation of damages. She put on a bathrobe and sat down on the bed, he took a seat on a chair in a corner. She felt his uneasiness. It was something unnatural. A child shouldn't feel uneasy in the presence of his mother. There had gone so many things wrong and her heavy heart told her, that it was to be doubted whether she was able to repair the damage again.

"This is our problem isn't it?" She asked him out of a sudden. He looked questioning at her. He had no clue what she was talking about. He only wanted to apologize and thus he was searching for the right words, but as it seems there was more coming towards him and he was a bit afraid. He didn't want to fight again; he didn't want to blame or to be blamed and didn't want all this screaming and crying. He only wanted to say sorry.

"I mean this distance. You're sitting there, I'm here." She went on. Marc always had set down next to her when they started to talk about sever issues. Neil never had done so. He always had kept a distance between them, as if he was afraid to come too close to her. No, not as if, he was much too afraid of them Children never should be afraid of their parents. Respect was one thing, but fear? She saw how her son looked at her. He didn't understand. Sure he didn't.

"Come here." She said to him in her usual warm voice. He felt a huge uneasiness. He wasn't sure what this was supposed to mean. He wasn't sure if he wanted this conversation. No, he didn't want it. Inwardly he knew what this was going to be about. Inwardly he didn't want to have this conversation although he had wanted it so bad since he can remember. But now? He was afraid of it, afraid of the reality that all had been his fault that he was the reason for his misery and that he was never able to make things undone. He already knew that. He didn't want to hear these words. He has had a desire, but he was much too afraid to satisfy it now.

"I better go." He said, got up and went to the door.

"Don't." She should have known that he wasn't ready for this, that this might be way too much pain for him, more than he could bear. But this conversation was the only option she had to help him feeling better, to make him understand. He turned around, shaking his head slightly. He wanted to tell her that he saw no other way.

"Don't go." He remained. He couldn't go back to her. He didn't belong to her. He didn't belong to his whole family and that was got clear to him now. In fact the only thing that had kept him had been this time travel and their attempt to save the earth. If they had come back from a succeeded mission, he would have gotten into his car and drove home. No word to his father, no word to his mother. He just would have gone, enjoying the weekend before he would go back to his job where he would have tried to avoid his father as much as possible. He never would have visited his Mum or gave her a call. This wasn't only a mind-game, but the bloody truth and he felt worse due thus thought.

"Neil please, come here and sit down. We need to talk." Her son sighed. He was thinking. He was an emotional person, but he tried to act rational. Sometimes she thought his head was blocking his emotions. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to ease the pain he was suffering from. She needed to talk to him, to explain, to say that she was sorry, to give him what he needed.

He had no idea what he had to do. If he just would go out the door. He would avoid this conversation, he would avoid rude words and blames and he …? And things won't change. Things couldn't be made undone, but things could change. He wanted it so bad, but he was afraid of this change. He wasn't ready for this. He wasn't ready for a change.

"Neil honey, I know things went wrong. A lot of things went wrong, but it can't go on like this." She began.

"Mum…don't…this…"

"No, Neil. There had been a point of time on which we've lost you and we need to find out why."

"Mum, we know what the reason for this was. We don't have to talk about it." Why was he so reluctant to talk to her? What was he afraid of? She knew what it was. Every conversation they had, had ended with a lot of screaming and of course this wasn't easy to handle.

"You're talking about drugs and strange parties, but that isn't what I mean. What I mean happened far, far before that and you know that." He shook his head. He was right. How should he know that? For him the truth was what they had told him over years. He had been too young to understand what went wrong maybe he still was too young to do so.

"Mum, don't start with that." He felt uncomfortable. He didn't like it when his Mum started with something like that. This was not the way things went.

" Neil, I have to." She got up, took his hand. Then she let him to the bed and he sat down next to her, focusing his look onto the floor. She saw that he felt uncomfortable.

"Neil, honey, look at me." He looked at her. And there she saw these brown eyes, full of heart, full of pain and confusion, but strong. No matter these eyes had seen it never had broken their owner. She stroke through his hair. He didn't want her to do that. He tried to get some distance between them again.

"Neil I know, we've blamed you for a lot of things and we've been way too hard…"

"No, Mum…you had your reasons…I shouldn't have been that troublesome." The last thing he wanted was his Mum taking then blame for the shit he had caused. This wasn't fair. He didn't want to be blamed for mistakes he hadn't done thus he didn't want his Mum to blame herself for something she wasn't responsible for.

"Let me finish my sentence. We should have seen that you needed more attention. We should have seen that you needed be assisted. We should have pushed you a little more and giving Marc a little more space for himself. We should have seen that you needed help, that you have been underchallenged, but we didn't and I'm really sorry…"

"No Mum. How should you have seen that? I haven't given…" He hated it, when his Mum began with this.

"Neil, we could have realized it. We only should have said yes, instead of always no. When you asked for help, we should have helped you instead of saying you can do it on your own. When you begged for a little more attention you we should have given it to you, instead to ignore you more and more, only because you never made any trouble as little boy. We should have spent some time with you instead of sending you to summer camps year after year." They hadn't had enough time, but they should have taken it from somewhere. Things wouldn't have ended that way. She shouldn't have allowed Chuck to put his career into first place. She shouldn't have allowed Chuck to pay his whole attention to his job and also she should have paid less attention to it, but more to her youngest that had needed it so badly.

No he listened to words he had thought about so many years. How often had he wished that his parents would realize that he had needed them, not only a good school, not only their money. Now he got what his desire had begged for so long, but it didn't feel good. He felt hurt and uneasy. This wasn't what he had wanted or?

"Mum, that's not true…it…" He had no clue what to say.

"You feel bad because of the trouble you've caused." She helped him to find the right words. He really felt bad because if this. At least this had been the reason for all fights and screaming.

She knew that he felt sorry for that. He knew how stupid all this had been and this should have shown her how grown up he already had been. She should have realized this change in him. She hadn't. He was no boy anymore. He was a man, a hurt man who had dealt with a lot of issues due his life, a strong man who didn't know how to bear a grudge, a young man who already had found his way.

"You don't have to feel bad about it. You've found your way, even without our improper help." She again looked into these slightly confused eyes. He had stopped to gainsay her. She got a bit closer to him. He didn't try to bring a distance between them. She put one arm around him. Carefully, not to frighten him, because of something unknown. When had been the last time she had been physically and mentally so close to her little boy? It had been years ago, maybe she never really had been that close to him.

He stopped his attempts to stop her from coming closer and closer. He had no chance against her. Nobody ever had. If she wanted to reach something, she always had success with it. He began to wonder why she knew him that well? He never had thought that she ever had paid any attention to him, but if she knew what he thought, before he had found the right words, she must know him better then anyone else.

She took him into her arms and he didn't fight this close contact.

"I really love you. And I promise you something like this year is never going to happen again." She told him. She wanted to show him that she meant what she had said and that she wanted him back as her little baby he always had been.

The peace got disturbed. The earth began to shake. She began to be frightened, but Neil's presence made he feel safe. He was there and he wouldn't let her alone, she was sure about that.

"What was that?" She asked him. He looked at her. The glance in his eyes had changed, from emotional into a rational calculating.

"Nothing good."

Someone knocked at the door. He had a suspicious feeling. He got up and opened it carefully.