A/N: Haha oh my God, there is no excuse for this late update. *Shot* But hey, the next chapter is going to be from Jayden's POV, and I love me some Norman, so maybe there will be less of a gap in time...?

ANYWAY, I FINALLY GOT TO PLAY HEAVY RAIN. My boyfriend brought his PS3 home from college and played it with me for about three hours, and we only got about 1/5 through the game. I can't remember where we stopped... I think it was right after the scene in the conference room where Jayden is harassing Blake with the shitty PowerPoint. (I changed the slides every five seconds. "... AND WHADYA GOT, BLAKE? ABSOFUCKINLUTELY NOTHING!" *slide change*) The two of us have some great inside jokes with Norman now ("Blake, that's not mud on my pants." and "Okay, Blake, I'm coming. All over your face"), and I can't take this game seriously anymore.

Oh well.

Anywho, enjoy, and please don't forget to drop me a favorite/review! :3 They are always much appreciated and cherished!

-Silent-Protagonist

()()()

The sun peeked through the blinds of Scott Shelby's apartment with the drowsy curiosity of a child; the early morning roused him unpleasantly, for he was sure he'd just gone to sleep. Seeping through the dusty plastic, the playful rays tickled his nose and pounced warmly on his base chest, forcing him to roll onto his side and grumble from aggravation. Yawning, he cracked open his eyes, turning his head away in time to not be blinded by the undeterred sunlight. Shelby blinked twice, focusing his eyes—blurry from rest—on the crowded bedroom around him.

There wasn't much to be said about his tiny apartment and even tinier room—there wasn't much else present other than his bed, vanity, and oak dresser closet, standing tall and regal close to the foot of the tangled sheets. Still, it was a quaint and lovely place, and Shelby could never imagine moving out of here into something larger and more confusing. This residence was simple, like him, and he cherished it with all his heart. Ten years he'd lived in this complex, as rundown as it was, with addicts napping on the stairwell and the rare graffiti painting the walls in the intricate, fading colors of washed-out spirits. There were ghosts haunting this building, but neither he nor any of the other tenants found them bothersome. The empty hopes and dreams that congregated here were almost welcome.

But as forlorn as the apartment would seem to an outsider, the latent form that was delicately quiescent beside him spread congenial warmth to every corner of the bedroom. Lauren had spent the night and was thoroughly exhausted from their activities, for she'd been asleep for almost ten hours now. Her sleek, pearlescent skin shimmered like diamonds in the light of morning as she lied completely naked with her side of the sheets kicked and bunched around her minute feet. With every breath she took, her small but full breasts rose and fell, peppered with goosebumps from the autumn Philadelphia chill and her nipples hard and brown like perfect pennies. Her long black hair fanned out on all sides of her head, encircling her with the faultlessness of a dark halo. As Scott watched her slumber, he felt a smile wider than any he'd ever had before he fell in love with her grace his face. She was utterly gorgeous in every way imaginable—he nearly felt that he didn't deserve her.

With a steady chuckle, manifesting itself in the base of his throat with contentment, Scott leaned over and kissed her gently in the valley between her soft knolls. "Hey, love," he murmured lowly to Lauren, careful not to disquiet her. "It's time to get up."

Stirring tenderly, Lauren's pale blue eyes opened as she yawned, focusing herself on her lover. "Oh, good morning, Scott," she sighed, an identical smile lighting up her lovely countenance with subdued joy. She rolled over on her left side and squinted with some disgruntlement at the shimmering curtains. "Wow, I feel like I've just barely been to sleep. Daytime already?"

"I know, I'm not fully awake, either," Scott admitted.

"Can't we just go back to sleep?" Lauren complained. "I don't wanna get up."

"Don't you want to look for the Origami Killer again today?" Scott prompted, trying to rouse her. "You're always so animated to search for clues. Your sudden lethargy surprises me."

Turning back to him, Lauren regarded him with adoration, her gaze half-lidded with a wholehearted affection as she touched his golden eyes with hers. Immediately, Scott felt his heart swell—oh, how lucky he was—but at the same time, a deep pit of regret stewed in his stomach. What was he doing to her? Would she ever find out? God, he hoped not. Lauren was the only person he'd ever known—sans his late brother, all fault of his despicable father—that blended her color into him like this, painting him with her desire, as if he were a canvas. Scott had only known her for about a month or so, and yet she had absolutely changed him. He believed that with the rescuing of Shaun Mars and the supposed solving of the case with the capture of Ethan Mars would discourage her from exploring onward to find the man that had murdered her own son; he feared she would walk away from him, defeated, and give up, a soul lacking the closure that it so necessitated.

But she did not. Instead, she only began visiting him more. "A father would never do that to his son," Lauren said sagaciously one afternoon when Scott inquired to her presence. "He's not the one that did all this. I know it. My gut says so." Every day, she was getting closer—closer to discovering the truth, each step bringing her nearer to the edge of the crag that Scott only wished he could save her from plunging down. When he awoke after a long, dreamless sleep and studied Lauren's lithe, amorous self, he knew that she was one day earlier to leaving him.

Scott feared. At this point, he could do nothing but fear.

"Yeah," Lauren sighed, "but can't we just stay in bed for a little while longer?"

He leaned forward and planted another kiss upon her, this time slightly more urgent. His mouth traveled, wetly caressing her as if he were about to pare her like a supple piece of fruit. Immediately, Lauren's body responded, arching to meet his suckling lips with a lackadaisical hunger. Her pleasure parted and Scott felt her open up to him, welcoming his advances with a sultry moan. It was the most beautiful sound in the world—dulcet and attractive to Scott's ears, wind chimes dancing in a subtle breeze. Collecting her in his arms, he continued to touch every inch of her, exploring her thin frame without hesitation. A small mewl from Lauren heartened him to go on, slowly bringing his curiosity—and her—to a peak at which they could both feel satisfied.

"Yes," he gradually responded. "Let's stay here for a bit."

They did.

But it ended too soon.

Please don't leave me.

()()()

The bench beneath her gaunt thighs seemed cold—too cold for being a seat made from wood. Errant splinters poked through the fabric of her jeans, marring the already worn denim with minute holes of their own. The timber grazed her unshaved legs, the hairs scraping against her legs from the abrasion with prickling rage. Madison felt a rash coming on, so she crossed her right leg over her left and wrapped her spindly arms around her thin waist. She'd lost so much weight since Ethan's death; for some reason, every time the very vision of his face intruded into her mind, she shoved away her food and heaved up anything that she had managed to choke down. She knew it was unhealthy, and if it were up to her, she'd see a doctor. Yet she couldn't—Ethan was there, always there, endeavoring to tell her something in his state of nonexistence. Why? She asked herself. She'd only known him for less than two days, and the man with his unwavering diligence toward his son and family had permanently imprinted himself on her.

But whenever she inquired, there was no answer. Occasionally, the rain would beat against the windows of her loft apartment as inadequate sound to her silence, but that was never enough for her. Instead, she preferred to listen to the hollow white noise about her as she stared at the ribs poking through her skin and her hips, jagged as a mountain road that led to nowhere.

When it wasn't raining—like today—Madison rode her motorcycle to the park that was about ten blocks from her flat and sat on the very same bench that she was perched upon now to watch the other souls that frequented this city. She wasn't quite sure why she did, but she realized after a visit or two that she took comfort in the green slide with chipping paint and the set of seesaws that had no place in her own memories. There was also something charming about the patrons of this rundown playground as well—mothers and fathers bringing their sons and daughters to play after school, sitting at picnic tables with one eye affixed to their child's location with the watchfulness of a hawk to its prey. Even though Madison always came and left alone, no one gave her a second glance. She was a young single woman, and many parents simply presumed that one of the children was hers, frolicking on the monkey bars and swings with their school friends while she sat back in earnest.

But Madison had never really wanted children. She was afraid that she wouldn't be good enough to raise another human being. It was too much responsibility, too much time. Time that was definitely not wasted, but it was time that she was scared to relinquish.

Here she was at this park, one unusual evening when no clouds blanketed the sky. The sunset painted the horizon instead with its vibrant oranges and reds, pinking the formerly blue dome with the shades of evening. Along with her jeans, she'd slipped on a simple white shirt before going out, a formerly tight ensemble that no longer clung to her wasting body. She'd become too small, she thought as she wrapped her arms around her waist, shaming herself for forgetting to bring a jacket along with her. Clawing desperately for a warmth that eluded her, Madison rubbed her frail arms rapidly, trying to compress the hairs that stood at attention from the chill that nestled around her snugly. She opened her ears and tuned into the noise of the brood, hoping that maybe their joy would somehow penetrate her shield of relentless solitude. For a while, that was all she chose to do—hear the thundering of the tiny, sneakered feet hitting the yellowing grass, the shouts of young comrades as they pulled each other up on the platform of the slide, the slight sobs emitted from cuts and bruises and the coos of their mothers, nursing them back to health. She craned her neck and stared at this park from an angle, her feet brushing the cracked sidewalk below, and thought back to her own childhood. Her mother had rarely taken her to play, despite her many promises—not that Madison had many friends to begin with, but the gesture was a lovely one in theory. And her father reiterated this habit, but she could never bring herself to be desensitized to his lies.

I'm not alone, she told herself. There were at least twenty other people here—none of whom she recognized, and for good reason. She'd lost her job at the newspaper five months ago for her failure to fully cover the Origami Killer case, a decision she doubted that she regretted. Her time beside the dauntless heart of Ethan Mars was enough to convince her that she had no right to pry into the private shadows of others. This newfound logic was not exactly one that fit well with the nosy dogma of the media world; the silent adage that huddled in the midst of the flashing camera lights and photographs of supermodels so altered that the originals were unrecognizable. If one was a journalist, one had to snoop. Madison was once comfortable with snooping—and suddenly, she wasn't.

Those hours with Ethan Mars had changed her.

They had changed everything.

"I'm not alone," she repeated to herself, this time aloud. Her quavering, solid tone, feminine and sounding torn to shreds, was easily lost in the mud of children's laughter that surrounded her on all sides. They suddenly seemed distant, miles away from the wanderlust of Madison's thoughts. She no longer heard the jovial chortles of the mischievous characters that stamped about in the yellowing grass, ignoring the dankly overcast sky as it loomed with an intermittent rumble here and there. Instead, she only perceived that menacing force that sat far above her—a foreboding rain that was out of her sphere of control. The clouds whispered bitterly in an esoteric message that Madison was too afraid to decipher.

You are alone.

"Hey, lady. I said, I think you are alone."

A tiny voice shook Madison from her spent stupor, meek as a mouse, but still carrying a weight of confidence that she'd never remembered having herself. She had not succeeded in sinking in and blending into the wood of the park bench well enough, for a very small young man had spotted her. He stood before her, his little hands balled into fists and shoved into the pocket of his tan raincoat with wide black buttons. The material of his green cargo pants billowed slightly in the minor breeze that was skirting the shins of Madison's jeans—as did his hair, which was as silken and brown as molten cocoa. His eyes, spacious and tinged with the same shade of his glossy locks, regarded her with the congenial curiosity of a child his age. Though diminutive in his stature, he stood with the regality of a boy prince that had no fear in conversing with strangers.

Reaching up, the boy scratched his curvilinear nose that slanted downward like an eagle's beak, staring at her as if he were waiting for a response. Unsure of how to approach this unexpected visitor, Madison cleared her throat and feigned a smile. "Why, yes," she said. "I am by myself right now. My daughter is at home right now with my husband."

"You're lying," the boy said, sharply blunt, narrowing his eyes as he rapidly saw through her ruse. "You don't have a daughter. And you're not married." He calmly pointed to the brittle, bony hand that rested upon Madison's thigh, almost accusatory in the motion. "You aren't wearing a wedding ring."

This child was perhaps no more than ten years old, and still, his words sliced through Madison with the force of a rusted knife. She flinched, reminded by his innocuous cleverness how forlorn she truly was. "That doesn't mean I'm not married," she said.

"My mom still has hers," retorted the boy, "even though Dad's been gone for a while."

He has? Madison opened her mouth to say more, but she thought more wisely and closed the problematic chasm before anything could slip out and betray her. For nary a moment, it dully dawned on her that she wasn't the only person in the world that struggled. This child hadn't spoken for more than a few minutes to her, and already she couldn't find the words to answer his somewhat acerbic inquisitiveness. What happened to him? Is his mother here? Or is he alone, too? The boy's doleful eyes settled upon her again, and Madison leaned back further into the prickly base of the bench, clearing her throat.

"Can I sit down here?" The boy gestured to the empty space beside her. Blinking once to process his request, Madison found herself nodding blandly, her very short hair dusting her forehead, the hand of a concerned parent. Visibly, the boy's face brightened at the acceptance of his invitation. A barely discernible smile was a lighthouse of joy on his sweet expression as he climbed up on the wooden surface and curled up against the railing on his side. He hardly took up any room whatsoever; Madison couldn't remember how it had been to be that small. Expectantly, the young man glanced up at her with his shining gaze, brown as the mud at their feet, but much more vibrant and alive.

"Where's your mother?" Madison asked, unsure of what else to say.

"She's at work," the boy told her, kicking up a chunk of soppy mud with his sneaker. The brown tarnished the bright, pristine white, soiling the brand-new shoes with the earth. "She works at the office right down the street." Reaching up, he pointed just cater-corner of the north fence of the park to a skyscraper, its walls nothing but sheer windows from the first floor to the fifty-second. It was fairly in mint condition—in fact, Madison vaguely remembered having to help report on the construction of that very building a year or two ago. One of the tallest structures in Philadelphia, she recalled, it housed several companies in the looming floors, the slender constitution swaying noticeably from side to side from the meager wind. Her stomach dropped with a mere glance—she couldn't imagine working in such a precarious place.

"My mom has a job with lawyers in there," the boy continued. "She's a parachute."

Parachute? Madison tried to process his words for a moment before she understood the childish innocence behind his interpretation of his mother's position. She felt a smile creep on her face—the first in a very long time. It was as if she were trying on a dress too small for her, as the tired grin only served to corrode her further. "You mean a paralegal," she gently corrected.

The boy frowned and tucked his legs into his chest, only sliding her a passing glance. "Really?" He mumbled. "Oh. Okay." He paused for only a beat before he began to speak again. "Do you have a job? Are you a parachute too?"

Madison duly noted that he'd ignored her chiding adjustment completely. He didn't seem to be a problematic child, but there was no doubt in her mind that he was a stubborn boy to care for. "I… I used to," she said. "I used to be a reporter. For the newspaper."

"Was that fun?" The boy asked.

She thought for a minute, carefully timing her response. Had it been fun? She supposed that it had been, at least in the beginning—there was a beautiful thrill to discovery and understanding, placing her experiences into words and sharing that slight piece of her heart with the world. Madison had forgotten how wonderful working once made her feel. In days past, she was on top of everything, a vigilant gargoyle that knew every rumor and could pin every lead. Once upon a time, she'd been called one of the most prolific journalists in the city. And now, of course, she was nothing—"every star has to fall sometime," her absent mother had said to her as a child during one of the sparse days she was home. At the time, Madison hadn't believed her, for she knew a wise, hectic mind couldn't always speak from knowledge. In her eyes, the constant dearth of a parental figure in her life was equivalent to abandonment. Her mother, to her, was no better than the father she incessantly cursed.

But, as it was, Madison found that she was right all along.

"Yes," she admitted eventually, the void sobbing of the rainless sky filling her gaps in speech. "I guess it was pretty fun."

The boy, hardly troubled by her ruminations, began to kick his feet merrily. "I want to be a policeman when I grow up," he told Madison. "They were really nice to me when they saved me. And they must have been smart to find me, too." His voice fell to a hush. "My dad… my dad wasn't. I don't even think he tried."

He lifted his face to meet hers, and the fog surrounding Madison instantly lightened. She stared into the eyes of this boy, his vaporous orbs bringing her further back than she ever desired to go. Within moments, his identity came crashing down upon her with the shock of a thousand pounds of brick. Six months ago, his mug had been plastered on every television channel, newspaper front page, and milk carton in the state—his despondent gawk pleaded with every passerby that happened to meet his faraway look. The freckles bridging his nose seemed to define themselves more now as Madison recognized the same birthmarks from a tumultuous era that felt to be years in the past, those pawprints stamped on the face of the man that Madison couldn't ignore. The ghost of Ethan Mars's body pressed against her side once more, weighing himself into the ocean of grief from the loss of a child and drowning in the rain that fell too heavily around them. Ethan had those identical eyes, a piece of him remaining in this little boy—a shard of the frenetic searching, the struggling ventures to find his son forever embedded in the callow skin of the young man that sat beside her this evening.

You're wrong, Madsion wanted to tell him. He did look. He tried so hard. He loved you so much. But what would he say to that? He was far too youthful and immature to fathom the hours that his father spent hitting dead ends and risking his life for the sake of his own. Madison wished so strongly to speak—to tell him how lucky he was to have a parent that cared. He possessed memories that she did not have the privilege of sharing, and she prayed that he would never take them for granted.

Of course, she did not dare utter any of that. "What's your name?" She asked, trying to set aside her qualms about his earlier quip.

"I'm Shaun," he introduced. "What's yours?"

"… Madison," she said after a pause much deeper than she intended. "I'm Madison."

They sat there beneath the wordless, cloudy sky for a a bit more, time stretching on like taffy in a pulling machine. They did not look at each other, nor did they try to kindle the fire of conversation. Madison was not good with children—and she was especially disarmed by the fact that Shaun Mars was so close to her, forcing her to dust off the cobwebs clotting her reminiscences. Just when she was about to excuse herself and walk back into her vacant world, Shaun glanced at his watch and emitted a small gasp.

"It's five-thirty already!" He exclaimed, jumping off the bench. "I have to get back to my mom's building. She'll be getting off soon, and we're going to walk home together." He turned around to face her, a charming smile breaking the cool atmosphere between them. "Will you be here again tomorrow? Same time?"

Shaun, Ethan Mars murmured with his toneless lilt, hollow and distant. I'm looking for Shaun.

"Yes," Madison said. "I'll be here."

"Good!" Shaun said. He began to walk away, waving behind him as he went. "I'll see you later, okay?" Madison could only nod as he disappeared into the churning crowd of parents and offspring as they gathered, getting ready to head home as the sun hung over the horizon from behind the cloud cover, fading behind tall edifices and barely glinting off the windows of the skyscraper where Shaun was heading. Even as the people trickled away into cars and buses, Madison did not want to move. Instead, she pondered, allowing the shortest minutes to understand what this meant for her. She now had a scheduled play date with Shaun Mars, and there was doubtfully anything she could do to get out of it. She had been assigned a fate—and she vaguely wondered if Ethan had anything to do with it.

She had found Shaun, and she didn't know what to do.

()()()

A/N: You may or may not have noticed, but I tweaked the chapter titles. I thought "Jayden-2" and "Madison-2" were kind of toolish sobriquets, so I... I named my chapters, which I never do. First time for everything?