Thanks for the reviews!

It's been pointed out that it's been a little confusing with the names by both GoldieFlow and a friend of mine who enjoys reading this fic. I know that I have a tendency to jump between the characters' first and last names and that it can be a little hard to know what name belongs to who so here's some clarification:

Officer Ron "Ronny" Hill

Officer Carl Wilson

Sergeant Jack O'Connell

Jon Kin (the rapist in the last three chapters who won't show up again.)

Detective (No first name yet) Morris

Officer (No first name) Herm

Graham Altman (Ryan's dad. I haven't mentioned his last name before.)

This chapter will begin in present time but then there'll be about two small flashbacks, one to the episode "Burned" and the other one back to Amanda/Horatio time. This is kind of an explaining chapter and it doesn't affect the romances in the story.

Present

Horatio watched Natalia and Ryan talking in the DNA lab. Everyone had noticed that they were standing a little too close to each other lately, and that they always seemed to smile when the other came into the room. But they had resisted talking about it out loud considering how strict the new IAB agent was. Compared to him Stetler had been a real softy.

Natalia carefully touched Ryan by the eye where the nail had gone in and Horatio remembered the time when Ryan had barely been able to see. Any other man would have 'let him go', but Horatio hadn't had the heart to do it. Just like when he'd covered for him when he'd let his anger take the best off him, just like he'd done all those times with Amanda. Although in the end he did end up fired anyway because of his gambling problems.

To be honest he'd felt that there was something going on when Tripp had told him that Michael Lipton had asked to talk to Ryan personally, which was the real reason why he'd gotten Yelina to follow him in the first place.

Flashback to "Burned"

"Horatio!" Yelina said as she approached Horatio outside the MDPD.

"Hey." he responded.

"I have to say; twice in one day? It's more than I've seen you in months." she said smilingly.

"I apologize for that."

"No, I understand completely. Let's just say it's been a rough year for both of us. Why did you want to see me?"

"Yelina. Michael Lipton." He looked up at a man who was walking out of the building with his lawyer. "Michael Lipton just made bail."

"And you don't think he should have." she stated.

"Not by a long shot. Could you shadow him for me?" And see what kind off connection he has to Ryan?

"No problem. I'll see where he hangs out. What he knows*."

"Every step he takes." He turned around and left, hoping that there was no reason for him to be worried.

"So why are we out here?" Horatio asked Yelina as they walked to the bench.

"I tracked Michael Lipton to four locations." Yelina responded and sat down on the bench. "All of them secluded."

"Possible drug dealing?" he asked, trying not to think about Ryan being addicted; he was probably just overreacting.

"No, I don't think so. From what I could tell, he was just a bookie." Horatio looked down on her, not knowing if he should feel relieved or even more stressed out since he knew for a fact that Graham had gambled a lot. "But I found something else. Something you're not going to like. I shot this video in North Bay village." She showed him the video and he immediately felt his heart drop when he recognized Ryan walking towards Lipton on the bridge.

"What am I looking at?" he asked, even though he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Ryan handed over an envelope to Lipton on the video.

"There is money in this envelope Horatio." And to prove what she said Lipton opened the envelope and revealed the money. Horatio looked away from the screen; he didn't want to see anymore. Yelina opened and closed her mouth, trying to comfort him somehow.

"Maybe he had a good reason for it." she said at last with a bit of pity in her voice. She knew how much Amanda and Ryan had meant to Horatio and she knew that he was hurting.

"What if he doesn't?" Horatio responded roughly, avoiding to look at her, wishing for the first time that his gut feeling had been wrong.

"Hey H, you wanted to see me?" Ryan said when he walked into the room.

"Have a seat Mr. Wolfe." Horatio said and Ryan sat down in front of him trying to look confident, although it was obvious to him that he was uncomfortable. He sighed. "Michael Lipton."

"Yeah, Michael Lipton is a… Is a friend of mine. Why do you ask?" Horatio had noticed that just like Amanda always bit her lower lip when she was nervous, Ryan had the habit of scratching his face when he was nervous, or annoyed, or uncomfortable on any way to be honest. And right now he was definitely nervous.

"You interrogated him this morning." he said, trying not to sound like he was blaming him for something.

"Actually I -** myself for interrogating him because I ehm… Well I thought it'd be looked on as a conflict of interest."

"I have a piece of videotape that says otherwise." Ryan's face fell a little bit, but he quickly regained control.

"I don't know what you saw on that videotape…"

"Mr. Wolfe, I need to know what's going on." Horatio interrupted, not wanting to hear some thought out lie.

"Michael is a friend of mine who's having some sort of financial problem, and I'm just helping him out."

"So this has nothing to do with gambling?"

"No this has nothing to do with gambling."

Seems like he got a lie anyway, but he wasn't going to give up.

"If there's something I should know this is your opportunity." he urged him, seeing Stetler walking in.

"No there's nothing you need to know." Ryan insisted. "And this is my personal business and I'd like to keep it that way." But Horatio kept going anyway.

"If you don't level with me right now you're not going to have a choice, you understand?." he said, feeling a little desperate.

"Yeah, I understand." It got quiet and eventually Ryan stood up ready to leave. He scratched his face again, leading Horatio to hope that maybe the nervousness got the better of him and that he'd crack. "Are we done?" Apparently not.

"We're done." he said, feeling betrayed somehow.

"Okay." He turned and left and Horatio couldn't believe that the smiling little boy who'd used to love hugging his leg had turned into this man. But who could blame him considering that he'd spent ten years of his childhood with a man like Graham Altman.

Horatio found himself once again watching Ryan Adam Wolfe walking out of his life, this time though the building's window.

Ryan turned around and looked in at him, meeting his gaze, and for a split second he thought he saw recognition go through his eyes. Maybe he too remembered that day all those years ago? But then an officer walked into him and he seemed to forget whatever he had been thinking about and continued walking away without glancing back.

But Horatio wasn't going to let him away again, even if he wasn't the boy he remembered. He was gas going to make sure that he'd get him back to the department. Although he had to admit that he kept thinking that if only he'd trusted him enough to tell the truth, things would've been a lot easier.

He recognized the stubbornness from Amanda, although she'd always known the line between being stubborn and being stupid, which was something Ryan clearly hadn't inherited

Horatio had noticed a lot of similarities between Ryan and his mother: they both took the job very seriously, they both fought for justice no matter what, they both didn't hesitate to use physical violence to get what they wanted, and they both had their problems with the OCD and the anger. Horatio had just like with Amanda covered for Ryan in many ways because of the last thing.

But there was also a lot of things he'd gotten from his father, like the selfishness he'd shown in the cases with the tax men getting killed (although he had to admit that at the time he'd been rather proud of Ryan for finding the "gun"), and his competitiveness. And even though he knew that gambling problems, unlike drinking and drug problems, couldn't get passed on genetically, he knew that it was from his father Ryan had gotten his gambling habits.

Flashback

"You took him to a strip club?" Amanda shouted to Graham who looked back at her rather calmly. Horatio stared between the two of them. He'd gotten there for dinner and found out that Ryan's father had stopped by and picked him up a few hour earlier. Amanda had been very tense during the whole dinner and had literally sprinted to door when they'd finally gotten back. Now Horatio was standing in the middle in one of their famous, loud arguments, trying to resist killing the man who'd hurt Amanda.

"I don't see what's so wrong with that? Guys love strip club." Graham responded casually.

"He's not one of your guy friends, he's a kid! And he's terrified!"

Horatio glanced at Ryan who was sitting rather stiffly on the floor, wearing the same expression on his face as the one Wilson had had the first time he saw a dead body. Sitting next to him was his older half-brother Tyler, who was trying to get him interested in playing with some cars, but he was unsuccessful. Not to far away from them his other half-brother, George, was trashing around with the toys looking rather bored.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I needed the girls to distract the men while they were playing." Graham shrugged.

"You took him out gambling?" Amanda's voice had turned to a new level of anger that he'd never heard before and he had never felt happier that he was on her good side.

"Yeah, poker. It was real fun. I was trying to learn him some tricks, but as you said; he's just a kid, so it didn't go too well. Plus, he got rather distracted by the girls."

"You tried to teach my three and a half years old son how to gamble, on a strip club." Horatio took a few steps back. He couldn't help but wonder if this particular level of anger was reserved just for Graham, because the scenes with Thomson and Kin were nothing compared to this.

"Yeah I did. Look, I don't get why you're so upset, Minnie never complains about me taking Tyler and George."

"Tyler and George are your sons and you and your wife can do whatever the hell you want with them, but this is my son, and I'm the one who's in charge of him. And I do not want you taking him out to work with your illegal business."

"He's my son too you know. Both of them are." he added and Horatio immediately saw the change in Amanda's body language. She seemed to calm down quickly and the anger got replaced by something that looked suspiciously like fear. But she covered it up quickly and he doubted that Graham had even noticed, although her anger didn't come back. "Where's the second one anyway. Alan or something."

"Adam." she said quietly.

"Adam, right. Where is he?"

"He's sick, I told you." she mumbled.

"Yeah, well, it was too bad. I'd really liked to take them both with me this time. Oh well, maybe next time. It's time for me to get going anyway. George, Tyler!" His sons immediately went over to him and he took them by the arms and left without even giving Ryan another glance.

"Adam's sick?" Horatio asked when he'd closed the door. Amanda avoided looking at him and went over to Ryan.

"Let's get you into bed." she said softly to her son and hurried away to his bedroom, leaving Horatio on his own. "Adam's sick?" he repeated to himself, trying to figure out what he'd missed. Adam was dead, not sick, he knew that, so why did she say he was sick?

She returned after about twenty minutes, still avoiding his gaze.

"Adam's sick?" he repeated again and she sighed.

"Remember when I told you about the custody agreement?"

"Yeah…" Like he could forget anything she told him.

"Well, the only reason he agreed to it was because I pointed out that his wife wouldn't want to take in a kid that wasn't hers, let alone two kids who weren't hers."

"But you don't have two kids."

"He doesn't know that. I might have, ehm, forgotten to mention it. And since Ryan's middle name is Adam I wasn't exactly lying in court when they asked me about my son Adam and I started talking about him." she bit her lower lip and gave him a nervous glance, as if she was afraid that he'd judge her.

"And he doesn't suspect anything?"

"You saw him Harry, does it look like he notices things like that?" she said skeptically.

"You've got a point. But don't you think he deserves to know? It's his son after all." She bit her lower lip again.

"Do you think that I should tell him?" she asked him anxiously. He looked at her, knowing that she did indeed feel bad for lying, and shook his head.

"Not if it means that he'll get custody over Ryan." he said. She looked relieved.

"Thanks, I really needed someone else except for Ron to agree to this." she mumbled and gave him a hug.

I thought this chapter out when my friend said "So this is why Horatio rehired him after he screwed up." after reading the fic. She also asked me why people always end up beating each other up in my longer stories :P

I don't know if you remember but in chapter 3 I mentioned that the words "What if I've already met the woman I love?" brought back memories to Horatio. Well, in next chapter anyway, those memories are to be reveled : )

*Just like with the flashback to "Under the influence" I watched this episode over and over again, but I still can't figure out exactly what she said there.

** English is just like I said not my first language and I've got no idea how to spell that word or what it means, but you guys have seen the episode and you get it, right?

Reviews?