Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.

The last thing, the absolutely last thing Ash wanted to do after the events at the wrecking yard was go to the warehouse. But his mother was away on a job and he was staying with his father.

He checked and double-checked his hands and wrists. No rookie wound this time. But there was blood on his shirt and jeans. Tiny specks…

Alec said nobody would notice, but he didn't live at a place where a Guerrero was frequently dropping in. And his father had damn sharp eyes, too. Ash borrowed a T-shirt and jeans from Rudy. Still suspicious, but explainable. At least better explainable than blood splatter.

With a little bit of luck nobody would be at home except Ilsa. From all of his family, she was the easiest deceivable.

Of course he was not lucky.

As the elevator doors slid open, his father was lying face down on the floor. Ames and Ilsa were towering above him, Ilsa with a chainsaw in hand, Ames carrying an axe. Winston and Guerrero were standing a little aside, studying what looked like blown-up black and white photos.

"Nah, Ilsa, you need to get down on one knee, sawing off the arm from that position is practically impossible", Winston said.

"And you happen to know that because?" Guerrero arched a questioning eyebrow at him. "Ilsa's position is fine. It's Ames' posture that needs adjustment…"

As Ash stepped out of the elevator, they all turned and looked at him. Oh great. Could somebody maybe call his grandfather and Uncle Baptiste? They'd surely want to join the fun.

"Hey dude", Guerrero greeted him. Chance raised a hand and waved from his position on the floor.

"Don't want to interrupt", Ash mumbled, rushed past them and dashed up the stairs.

CLAP

The door to his room fell shut behind him.

"What's the matter with him?", Winston asked, frowning.

"He's changed his clothes", Guerrero remarked.

"We'll continue this later", Chance decided. His son's behavior was definitely off.

Ames reached out and helped him to his feet. Before he could make it upstairs to the mezzanine part of the office, however, the door to Ash's room opened again and out hurried Ash, dressed in workout clothes.

There was no way he could have stayed inside the walls of his room, not with the ghostly remnants of the dog's painful wail still ringing in his ear.

"Wanna spar?", Chance yelled from downstairs.

"Nope, just sandbag." And whoosh, he was past them again, heading straight for the back part of the office where his father had created a makeshift gym. Carmine, always excited when the boy was around, got up and proceeded to block his path, he wanted his regular TLC.

"Get out of my way!", Ash yelled at him.

Shocked and upset, Carmine turned his stumpy tail and trotted off.

CLAP

The door to the back part of the office slammed shut.

"You should talk to him", Ilsa told Chance.

They all decided it would be better to let him blow off steam first, though, and thus they disbanded, resuming the activities they had been busy with before Winston and Guerrero had started arguing about an old murder case from San Francisco's mob days.

Winston's telephone rang. A familiar number he had ignored lately. This time Winston picked up the call, partly because she was so insistent, partly because he was still thinking about Ash and not really paying attention.

"We need to meet you, Winston", his ex-wife told him.

Winston took a deep breath. "I already know what you want to tell me, Michele. I know about Hank. I know you're engaged and soon getting married. We don't need to do this face-to-face. I appreciate the gesture, but it's not necessary. All the best…"

A split second before he hung up on her, she replied. "That's not it, Winston. You're right, it's true, I'm engaged, but there's something else… something I need to tell you… I got myself into some sort of trouble…"

"What…?"

"Not over the phone. Let's meet." She gave him a time and a location.

Under normal circumstances, Winston would have told Chance about the call, maybe even brought him with him to wait in the car and watch their backs, Michele had sounded really freaked out, but with Ash's odd behavior Chance was definitely needed at the home front. Winston decided he'd manage. Quietly he took the freight elevator downstairs.

… … …

Chance entered the gym area from a side entrance they rarely used. Silently he watched his son tearing into the sandbag, punching and kicking with all his might.

Unbidden, an image from the past came a-knockin'. He remembered his 14 year old self in some rundown social project gym, ramming his fists into a patched up sandbag till his whole body seemed aflame with pain.

He had been so angry back then and he had never found a real outlet. Till….

Two years later the Old Man had found him.

Ash was covered in sweat and breathing heavenly from attacking the sandbag over and over again when Chance decided to make his move. "You sure there's nothing you want to tell me?"

If Ash had been surprised by his father's sudden appearance – he sure hadn't heard him coming – he didn't show it. Baptiste's training. Or Guerrero's.

"I'm fine. Just wanted to train." He stepped back from the sandbag. His eyes were red and puffy. Not from hitting the bag too hard, Chance was sure.

"Gonna shower now." His arms shaking from all the punching or maybe from something else, too, he turned away.

"Ash…" Chance put a hand on his son's shoulder. He forcefully shrugged it off.

"'m fine, Dad."

The shuttered look on his face, something between pain and wrath and nothing, Chance had seen that, too, in the stained mirrors of some rundown social project gym.

What in the world had happened?

Ash slipped away, towards the showers. Chance pressed his lips together. His son sure as hell wouldn't tell him voluntarily, so what was he going to do now? Force the answer out of him somehow? Jeez, parenting was hard.

There was another option, but it was hardly better than force. Should he really…

Pondering the issue, Chance made his way back to the office area. Guerrero was in the conference room, messing with the computer.

"What are you doing?", Chance frowned, looking at the map of San Francisco displayed on the monitors.

"Took a look at Agent Barnes' things… figured she didn't need the receiver for her tracking bugs anymore… state of the art gadget, dude. Stores data as long as the bug is active, and since trackers tend to stay in a body's system for a week…"

"You're suggesting I track down my son's itinerary for today." It was not a question. Guerrero had come to the same conclusion he had moments earlier, only that he was already one step ahead.

"You want to force the answer out of him instead?" It was more a rhetorical question and when Chance didn't reply, Guerrero took that as silent consent. With no trouble at all, he opened the device's data storage.

"Dan's Scrapping and Wrecking Service tell you something, dude?"