Stretched out on the bed with his eyes closed he tried to make it look as though he were asleep. It was the only way he could think without being disturbed. Seeing Robyn being dragged away by their grandfather had made him angry but as the Network officers had grabbed him and shoved him to the ground he had squashed that anger. His mind at that moment had turned to the tattoo on his right arm, the saying that had spared him many times but seemed to mean so little now.

'If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.'

It was his sincerest doubt that he had a hundred more days left to live. Langford had come to see him after his brief conversation with Kit. A date had been set for his extraction from Lazytown.

A team was coming to take him within seven days.

He had accepted long ago that he would be taken from this place and face the punishment he deserved for his crimes but it seemed that they were making him wait. Perhaps they were testing him, trying to see if his mother would come for him. See if he would rejoin her. Perhaps they were trying to see if they could break him down. He had remained submissive, obedient. Grateful to his hosts he had helped them around the house but even though they conversed with him and seemed comfortable to sit with him he knew that it would be a different situation were they to be alone with him unguarded.

More than once the woman with pink hair had come across him. Her hostility towards him hadn't waivered and seemed to grow the calmer he remained in the face of it. Deep within himself he fought the urge to live up to her expectations of him but his need for Robyn's approval prevented him regardless of what was coming in the next five days.

It was the pink woman's voice he heard now; she was here with some of her friends. People he had seen staring at him, keeping their distance. He heard the front door being opened and two new voices. One of which belonged to his sister's fiancé, the other to the man in the stripy suit he had seen.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, keeping his eyes closed he listened as the door opened and someone entered. They seemed to be waiting for him to respond to their presence. He wondered for a minute if his ruse was see through but feeling a hand touch his shoulder he could tell it was not.

Slowly opening his eyes he focussed them and saw Kit standing above him.

Never being one to find herself short of words, Bessie struggled to find the right start to what she knew would be a difficult conversation. Her and Robyn hadn't spoken since she had handed the girl the results of her paternity test and every scenario she had generated in her mind of trying to reconcile with her fell flat as they looked at each other through the computer screen.

"It's hard isn't it?" Robyn's said at last, making the first move. "We've known each other for the best part of twenty two years, my whole life and we don't know what to say to one another. But what can you say to someone you trusted implicitly? Someone you viewed as a mother figure in the absence of either parent who in the midst of their own self interest sacrificed that relationship. What can you say to someone you loved and looked up to, never thinking that they'd hide something like that from you. What possible justification could they have for trying to string people along as if they were in a great puppet show and lying to their face?"

Bessie couldn't identify the emotion the words were spoken with but they stung nonetheless, she made to speak but Robyn interrupted her.

"You had your own reasons for keeping those results from me. I don't know what your motivation was but you had no right to interfere. You should have handed me those results in the hospital. I know you had them there. To think you looked me in the face and told me you didn't know why Lily attacked you. I should have known otherwise. Why did you do it Bessie?"

"I never hated you," Bessie protested in earnest, "Things seemed to be fixing themselves between you and Sportacus. You seemed like you were getting past things. If those results weren't what you wanted I did want it to destroy what you'd rebuilt."

"And keeping the truth from me was better was it? Everything I'd ever believed in was taken away the second you pulled those results out of your pocket. I thought I'd found myself again after all the shit, I thought I'd got better after all the time spent at that clinic and getting my head straight and you made me lose myself again. I still don't know if I even know who I am anymore. I'm not Robbie's daughter, I'm not Sportacus' daughter and all I have is the knowledge that I'm the daughter of that despicable whore. What does that make me? Who am I?"

Robyn felt a pair of hands press on her shoulders as she felt the scrape of a beard at her ear, the words whispered into it leant her an unexpected measure of comfort.

"You're my granddaughter."

Kit smiled at Morgan and was greeted with a slight nod in return. He'd wondered how the man would take being woken up but he'd tried to do it as gently as possible. There was no telling how he would have reacted had he been woken up in a manner he considered rude.

"Sorry to wake you. I just thought I'd let you know we've spoken to Robyn. She's ok. The powers have be over that end have given her three days to work out whether she wants to come home or not. We're not sure which way she's going to go yet, we're hoping she stays where it's safer for her." Kit updated Morgan.

"Whether or not she comes back or remains there I'm sure our paths will cross again."

"What do you mean?" Kit asked, not sure he liked the sound of the answer that would come.

Bessie closed the lid of the laptop and set it on the table in front of her. Her heart beat a little easier now she had been able to voice her regret at her actions but she knew that though they had made amends hers and Robyn's relationship would never be quite the same as it had been. She was glad that she had been able to speak with her and go some way to clearing the air in the eventuality that she decided not to come home. Not seeing Robyn in person or sharing their late night chats over cocoa ever again would be hard but she at least had the consolation that modern technology would enable them to remain in contact.

As Kit sat down at the table in the Mayor's kitchen he couldn't quite get his head around what Morgan had told him or how calm he seemed in the face of what was coming. His friends looked at him with questioning expressions as he ran his hand through his short hair and sighed while shaking his head.

"What is it?" Robbie asked as he lay a hand on Kit's shoulder.

Kit looked up, his eyes meeting the faces of Trixie, Stingy, Ziggy, Pixel, Stephanie and the Mayor. They all looked at him worried that something had occurred in the room with Morgan. Stephanie's face began to turn pink with anger as she went to stand and confront Morgan for what she imagined he might have done but Kit's words stopped her in her tracks.

"They're going to hang him."

Mayor Meanswell nodded as several of the others shook their heads in disbelief, "Bessie told me, Morgan told her that Langford had come to see him and told him what was going to happen. He came earlier and told Morgan that in five days people are going to come and take him away. I think it's rather sad, he seems like such a nice boy underneath it all."

This last comment made Morgan's guards look at each other and caused a stir amongst the permanent residents of Lazytown.

Stingy scoffed at the Mayor's remark and made one of his own, "Nice boy or not I hope where they take him they have a good priest because the only salvation he'll get is the knot on his noose breaking his neck and killing him instantly. Though I doubt he deserves less than choking slowly to death while he dangles."

"Stingy!" The Mayor exclaimed in outrage.

Had he not detected motion in the hallway and allowed his eyes to follow it he would have said more than he had but as he felt the blood drain from his face and a lump build in his throat he remained silent as the dark blue eyes of the one he had spoken of burned into him.

Morgan had heard every word.