**Walk Away, Joe Walsh **

The ringing of the phone in Kat's hotel room caught her off guard. She hadn't known it worked at all. Plus, who called on a landline anyways? She had been getting ready to do her laundry and trying to decide if it would be ok to wear her undershirt and sleep shorts while taking her stuff down to the washing machines. She only had 3 outfits and she'd like to wash them all at once. Assuming the call was a mistake, she dropped her load on the bed and reached for the receiver.

"Uh, hello?"

"Kathleen! It's your old man." A flash of several emotions assaulted her. On the one hand, the sound of his voice made her so happy. On the other hand, her worry over him these last few days had turned to anger.

"Where are you Dad!" She demanded. "I've been worried sick."

Tex gave a nervous laugh. "Oh Kit Kat, you don't need to worry. You know I'm harder to kill than a wily old coyote."

She scoffed. "That's exactly the kind of thinking that will get you killed. Seriously though, where are you? Commander Green wouldn't really say, but I know something happened in Detroit yesterday. She came in all red eyed this morning and sent me home."

"Sometimes you are so like your mother." He sighed. "We had a little trouble, but I am fine. We're in Cleveland. We actually got some phone service here, so I thought I'd call and see how things are going, what you been doing, that sort of thing. I don't suppose you have cell service going in St. Louis yet."

"No, but Val says she's close to hacking the tower on top of the Hyatt."

"Val huh? That's who you're hanging out with? Well if you're getting out of your room and staying out of trouble, I suppose it doesn't matter."

She rolled her eyes. She supposed it was too much to expect that he'd have any idea what she was doing, or even what interested her in general. She should just be pleased that he asked. "Uh, well, I hear about what she's doing through Commander Green. I've been helping her out a bit, in her office and stuff." She wondered if he had any idea that his messages had been intercepted. Val and Kara had been all in a tizzy about one from Ontario until they got Lieutenant Green's call yesterday.

"You're a secretary? Somehow I thought you'd be doing something more active. I didn't know you were in to that? They paying you a fair wage?"

He was trying. He really was. She told herself. "Not really into it, but I'm getting paid in internet access, since you stole mom's computer and I have no other way to reach out to old friends!" She said the last with a little bit more bitterness than she'd anticipated.

"Sorry Kitty Kat. A dad's gotta do what a dad's gotta do. Besides, I think these days it would be wiser to cultivate some new friendships, in person, you know. You meeting any young people? Got a new boyfriend?"

Ugh, like the first thing any teenage girl wanted to discuss with her dad was a boyfriend. "No Dad, no boyfriend."

"Well maybe you should get one? Then I wouldn't worry about you so much when I'm away."

She wrinkled her nose. Sometimes it was hard to believe that her independent, hard as rocks mother and Tex had ever tolerated each other. But she knew they had more than tolerated each other, they had been deeply in love. Even after her Dad had disappeared for three years and her mom had set up shop with Court, she'd still pined for him. She might have hid it from everyone else, but not from her daughter. "Dad, that's so sexist. I can take care of myself already. You don't have to worry about me."

He laughed out loud at that. "Oh, Kitty Kat, someday you'll learn that parents worry even when they know perfectly well that their kids are alright. We start doing it from the day you're born and we won't stop until the day we die. But, taking care of yourself isn't a bad idea. You going to them Navy classes? Training for the first call-up?"

It was her turn to laugh. She'd known it was coming. "No, I don't think that's the life for me. As soon as we can, I just want to get back to normal."

Her father grunted. "Ain't no getting away from it now. You will be a grown woman before the world is back to normal." He paused and she knew he'd be smoothing a hand over his beard, thinking of how best to connect with her, exactly the way she needed to hear it. "Look, Kitty Kat. I get that you don't want the life your mom and I had. And I get that you don't want to join the Navy, but it might not be a bad idea just for a few years. Life is going to be chaotic for many years to come and the Navy would give you a home, a kind of family, never mind an income and three squares a day. Plus, the work can be very satisfying."

She had finished tossing her clothes on a towel to bundle up and carry to the laundry and throw in with the kids' so she plunked down beside them on the bed. "Is that why you do it, because the work is satisfying?" Once upon a time she would have asked out of anger, but now she was genuinely curious. She felt she ought to know these things about him, but she'd never asked, preferring to stew in her resentment at being left behind.

"I won't lie. I enjoy my work. And I get a certain satisfaction about knowing how many bad guys with bad plans I've been able to stop. But what motivates me is the idea that I'm making the world a little safer for you. Otherwise I'd probably be laying in the sun somewhere, with a beer, treating this whole flu thing like it was some giant holiday." He paused for a minute but she had the feeling he wanted to say more. When he did his voice was softer. "You know I missed you, every minute I was gone Kitty."

"I missed you too dad. And you should know, kids worry about their parents too. Even when they take their computers away."

"I know. I know. I remember how it was when I was little, back when the sun rose in the west. When I was 16, my Dad took away my motorcycle. I got in a little wreck and my Mama had already given me a piece of her mind. Next thing I know he's come home out of the blue. But he just left his old truck behind and rode off on it the next time he got work. I hated that man for months. Buuuuut, by the time I saw him again, I'd realized that he probably saved me from a premature death."

"I'm hardly a kid and I don't think writing stories and messaging people is likely to kill me." He was destroying all her bitterness over the computer with his happy go lucky attitude. It was almost impossible to argue with him. "Was your dad in the Army too? I didn't know you didn't see him often."

"Nah, my dad drilled oil wells for a living. He used to take off for months at a time to California or Texas or even Alaska. Sometimes the only way my mama knew where he was was by the address on the checks that arrived, every month like clockwork..just like the new babies, every other December. Times were different back then."

She supposed then that her loneliness must just be her own problem. Obviously he'd turned out ok. "You think Uncle Benny or Joey or maybe Aunty C are alright? I mean, some of them lived pretty far out. They could have stayed isolated. Maybe I should go look for them, see if I can help them in some way?"

"It's a nice thought, ain't it, family living by themselves in the high mountains, not needing anything, no support." Her father sighed. "But it's a fantasy Kathleen. Don't you go leaving St. Louis without me. I know you want to help. You got a generous streak a mile wide. But you got to channel that to the people around you now, not some imaginary people half way across a country that doesn't really even have phone service yet."

"Well, I have been helping with all those orphans from Florida. I hang out with them every afternoon so the older kids can do their training."

"Babysitting? They got a brilliant girl like you babysitting?"

He was trying. He really was. So she told herself to just grit her teeth and try back. "Yeah, actually, I kind of volunteered myself for it." She explained how she had introduced herself to Brie and been accepted into the group. "The kids are nice. It's still not too safe to be wandering around town so all I'd be doing otherwise is sitting in my room by myself, with no computer." She couldn't resist that dig. "At least this way I'm busy. Right now I'm getting ready to go take over the laundry room and see if I can reduce Ray's never ending pile. I might as well be productive in my boredom."

"Whoa now girly! You're doing their laundry? Kat, you do not have to work like that. I may not be getting paid in cash yet, but you are supposed to have complete access to food and anything you need. Do I need to call Chandler? Do not let this guy take advantage of you and foist all of those kids on you."

She was stunned for a moment. Half of her mother's complaints about her father had always been that he couldn't earn two pennies without giving three away. He didn't sound at all like the man her mother described. Unless.. "You have some kind of problem with Ray? He is a total jerk most of the time, but he really does need help with all those kids."

He father snorted. "Ray? No, he's a good kid. No doubt about that. But you careful Kathleen. You're going to be attached to those kids before they know it and them to you. One day you'll be home making babies and he'll be half way around the world, not telling you he's been shot or worse, all because he doesn't want you to worry about him."

"That from experience dad?"

"What do you think?"

"I think that it's nice to be attached to people and sad when they have to go, but that's what happens in life. They will get over it, so will I. And you're also crazy if you think Me with Ray is even a possibility. I love you dad, I really do. But I'm going to do all my baby making with someone who has a very boring and very local job. Maybe a nice farmer or plumber. I still want to have my own ranch you know."

Tex laughed. "You sound so much like your mother." But int he end he made her promise not to take on too much responsibility anyway. When they finally hung up, she sat on the bed for a little while, just thinking over his words. It seemed like every time she was introduced to someone new from the Nathan James, they told her how nothing would stop her father from trying to find her. She'd thought it was just a platitude, something people assumed because who would imagine the opposite, that such a seemingly nice man had gone off and made a life without his wife and kid? But now she wondered if she had been the one making assumptions all along.

Sighing, she gathered up her laundry. Tex would be home soon enough. Until then, she might as well get something done.