Part 3 - Theorizing

Megan looked at the men in front of her and repeated, "Well, Colby, why do you think Don and Will felt they needed to give Nena the lesson they did?"

"I guess they thought she wasn't going to listen to what I said," Colby said sourly.

"Alan?"

"Because they think they're her parents, I suppose," Alan snapped.

"Charlie?"

Charlie's eyes shot over to Colby then they dropped back to the floor. "I think they've seen bad things happen to kids with guns and didn't want that to happen with Nena."

"Alan, do you really believe that Don thinks he's Nena's father rather than Colby?"

"No," Alan said grudgingly, then he frowned, "Not before. But he thinks she must be like he was as a kid, running around and waving a toy gun. Nena doesn't even have a toy gun."

"Do you think she'd like one?" Megan asked.

"She's a good girl," Alan said. "She has other things she likes to do than playing 'Fed.'"

"No one doubts that she's a good girl," Megan said. "But you didn't answer my question. Do you think she'd like a toy gun?"

"Probably," Alan grumbled.

Megan left that for a moment, then turned to Colby. "Does Nena always do what you say?"

"Of course not," Colby said. "But she does for the big things. And I've made sure she realized that this was a big thing."

"You don't think there's any chance she would not follow your rules, that the lure of a real gun would be too great?"

Colby grimaced and shook his head.

Megan wanted to press, but she made herself move on. "Charlie, you think that Don and Will have seen kids getting hurt in gun accidents and didn't want that to happen to Nena?"

Charlie nodded his head silently.

"Well," Megan said, leaning back into her chair. "I know that's true for Don, and I have to think that played into his decision to follow Will's lead in this."

She pushed her hair behind her ear and thought back to what she'd heard. "I don't know the details, but I know that a few years ago, a child of an FBI agent accidentally killed himself with the agent's gun. Don was the person who had to investigate the case, make sure there wasn't negligence on the agent's part. I can only imagine how that must have torn Don up, asking this parent who had just lost their child if it was their fault."

"I remember it," Charlie said quietly. "I came home one night and Don was sitting in the dark, with the TV on, but he wasn't watching it. There were tears on his face, and he was just sitting there, looking at nothing. I didn't say anything to Don about it, but later I asked Terry what had happened. She told me that day had been the kid's funeral."

Megan nodded, surprised yet not surprised that Don had shown such a strong reaction.

"Don's always had a thing about kids," Alan acknowledged. "Always wanting to protect them, getting more upset when it's kids who suffer."

"The agent probably didn't take care of his gun," Colby said, but didn't really sound convinced.

"So," Megan said, "Don didn't want this to happen to Nena, who he cares about a great deal. Don's said many times that he doesn't want to clean up after tragedies, he wants to prevent them. He saw a means to truly discourage Nena playing with guns and he took it."

There was an uncomfortable silence, which Colby broke by saying, "He still should have talked to me first."

Megan nodded. "That certainly would have prevented a lot of this mess … providing that he was able to convince you to agree with the lesson. If you hadn't, and he'd felt the need to go ahead anyway?" She shrugged eloquently.

"That would have been worse," Colby said begrudgingly, "but it doesn't excuse what they did."

"Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission," Charlie mumbled.

Megan pointed towards him. "Exactly."

There was another uncomfortable silence that Megan allowed to last a long moment, hoping that the others were thinking about what had just been said.

"Okay," Megan said. "That's my best guess on why Don did it, but why did Will? It was Will's idea and he talked Don into it and made all the arrangements. Will has probably seen his own share of kids who've been killed by accidental shootings. He loves Nena and wants to protect her, deal with a 'lack' that he saw in her upbringing. I think that Will believes these are his only motivations here. And they probably are, at least on a conscious level, but I think there's something else operating here."

She took a deep breath. She'd been on pretty solid ground before now, but this next part was a lot more extrapolation and hard-honed intuition.

"You probably don't know very much about Will's history," Megan said, then looked at each of them in query. They shook their heads. "It's not mine to tell you, but I can tell you that it was bad. Don has talked to me about it to try and come to terms with it himself. Will grew up in a negative family situation, followed by some extremely negative experiences as a teenager and adult."

Colby shifted and rolled his eyes.

"Now," Megan said to Colby, "Before you say I'm making excuses for him, I'm not. I'm just giving you information."

Colby subsided.

Megan folded her arms and looked at Charlie and Alan as well. "You need to understand that Will has never had a relationship that wasn't negative, that's including most of his family relationships. Either the relationship was always negative, or it seemed to start well then went bad. Even his best, longest relationship ended with fights and bitterness. You can imagine that, on some level, Will is just waiting for his time with Don to fall apart, because he believes that is the only possible outcome."

Alan grimaced and Charlie frowned. She imagined that they were remembering things that Will had said or done that corroborated what she was saying.

"So he had a shitty childhood," Colby snapped. "What does that have to do with taking my little girl to a gun range?"

Megan gave a helpless shrug. "Say you're walking across a rope bridge above a high ravine. You're 100 certain that, at some point, the bridge is going to snap and drop you into the ravine. Do you scoot along the bridge carefully, trying to make it as far as you can, or do you stomp your way along, hating the anticipation of the fall more than the fall itself?"

"Let me guess," Alan said. "You're saying that Will would stomp."

"Yes. Because he does believe that the relationship with Don will end, and end badly."

"I don't understand," Charlie said. "How is this thing with Nena stomping?"

Megan took a deep breath and let it out her nose. "Now, I'm just making an educated deduction here, but from what I know of Will, this makes sense. When he feels threatened, he goes on the offensive."

"And he's threatened by Nena?" Charlie said blankly.

"He's threatened by Don's closeness with his family. He figures at some point, Don's going to be forced to choose between Will and his family. So he made that point come now. I'm not claiming that Will did this consciously. Will's one of the most self-aware men I've ever met, but I think even he believes this has nothing to do with anything but protecting Nena."

"But you don't," Alan said slowly. "You think he deliberately created a breach between himself and us."

Megan nodded. "Making Don choose."

"By why would he have to choose?" Charlie said with bewilderment. "Will's part of the family now."

"I guess Will doesn't really feel like that," Megan said quietly. She didn't have to say more. Words hung in the air as if she'd said them out loud.

And now Will is sure he's not a member of this family at all.