For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Here's a couple things you might need to know or maybe you just forgot: Ellie bakes Casey a pie in thanks for coming to her rescue. She also realizes that there are better things than being awesome.

Twenty Questions, Part 3

"That one's easy."

Ellie's eyebrows drifted up her forehead. "You mean, you have an answer already? One off the top of your head, not one you have to think about?"

Casey smirked. "Are you going to let me answer?"

"Please," she said, eager to hear it.

"A cowboy."

"You... That was your dream job?"

"As a child, yes."

"Cowboy John Casey?"

Cowboy Alex Coburn, but she didn't need to know that. He shrugged. "I was three."

And she was grinning like an idiot.

"What?"

"I'm just imagining, y'know, you... tiny... in cowboy boots and a hat and those little silver cap guns with the white plastic handles."

"Grips," he corrected.

"You had one of those stick horses, too, didn't you?" Her smile got even broader as he didn't answer outright but rather just cleared his throat. "Please tell me your mother has a photo of that somewhere."

"I'm not confirming the existence of any potential blackmail material for you."

"Oh, come on. That is too good to keep... pardner."

"What about you? What did you want to grow up to be?"

It was her turn to grow quiet.

He watched as Downy, bored with batting around a hackey sack Casey had confiscated from some kid at the Buy More, moved towards Ellie, taking up residence at her feet. He was learning that Downy was quite perceptive, more so than he ever realized possible. "You still have a veto," he reminded her gently.

"It's not that... It's just..." She looked up at him, at his kind eyes. They weren't judgmental. She knew he'd never repeat anything she said outside the confidence of the laundry room. It was just painful to think about. Painful to admit. "My dream job," she began slowly, "when I was a kid... it came true."

"Somehow, I think 'doctor' isn't what you're talking about."

She shook her head.

"I wanted to be a mother," she said. "I just didn't imagine I would take over that role from my own mom. That things would turn out quite the way that they did."

"Chuck's lucky to have you," he told her.

She smiled a little. "I like to think so. These days, I'm not so sure. It's..." She exhaled. "His life is going one way, it seems, and my life is going a completely different way... But that seems so completely impossible because we're all under the same roof. Not the same apartment anymore, but he's just across the courtyard. It's not like he's gone far... Or that I've abandoned him or anything."

"Sometimes life doesn't always turn out the way you intend for it to. Like me, never becoming a cowboy."

She smiled a little. "If there is a photo somewhere, John, be advised... I will find it."

"First, you would have to know who to contact."

"Never underestimate the power of a woman on a mission."

"I would never dare," he told her honestly.

"Who's turn is it?"

"Yours."

She inhaled slowly. "Well, instead of asking you something, can I amend a previous answer?"

He smiled. "You wanted to be a rock star, didn't you?"

She laughed, but it never met her eyes. "No, from the other week..."

He looked at her curiously.

"I just wanted to amend that I do have regrets."

He looked at her seriously.

She took a slow breath and, as she did so, Downy jumped into her lap. "Hey," she murmured, petting the cat as it tried to find a comfortable spot to sit. She met his eyes. "I regret a lot of things. I regret feeling like most of my childhood was my fault. That Mom left because of something I convinced myself that I did. Dad, too. I regret feeling like a pretty horrible failure when Chuck was kicked out of Stanford for not... for either not instilling enough confidence in him that he didn't have to steal things, or for not believing him when he said he didn't do it. Maybe both." She corrected herself again. "Definitely both. I regret things that were completely and totally out of my control, and not being smart enough to realize that there was nothing I could do about them, about any of them, for wasting time thinking there was something else I could've done..."

Casey could feel her heartbreak. He wondered if Chuck knew, if Devon had any idea. Mostly, he wondered why she was confessing all of this to him.

"And I regret not believing you when you said you didn't have any. So, I hereby reinstate your veto... and if you have any idea on how to impart wisdom about... about not having them... I'd appreciate it."

"If I knew... If I knew how to tell you, Ellie, believe me, I would." The guilt was crushing, lying to her. The more time they spent together, the more time he was around her, the worse it felt, the more he was dying to tell her the truth.

"Well, just... for future reference. Whenever you figure out a way to share that knowledge...?"

"I'll tell you first."

Stay tuned...