Here's the latest chapter. It's mostly Dan/Karen, so it will be interesting to see whose interested. This chapter shows that there's a lot of history and present between these two and the secrets they keep. Sorry for the delay in posting. I kind of forgot about posting this story.

A Season in Purgatory
Chapter 8

Karen dropped the old photo album on her bed as a knock rang out from the front door. Looking over at her worn alarm clock, she noted it was just shy of 1 AM. Sighing, she headed for the front door, expecting the worse. Lucas had his own key and he'd never use the front door anyway, as he always preferred to enter and leave the house from his own room. She hurried to the door, knowing that only bad news came late at night. She forgot her robe in the rush to answer the barrage of knocks, fearing news of another car accident involving her son.

Fumbling with the locks, she finally freed the door and threw it open, only to find Dan on her doorstep. She stared at him like he was a strange creature from another planet, before finding her voice. "In most parts of the civilized world, this is considered a bad time to visit, Dan. It's 1 in the morning, for god's sake," she started, her eyes roaming his body for signs of drunkenness.

Dan hesitated, not realizing how long he'd spent reminiscing in the attic. "I had to talk to you, Karen. And when I drove by, I saw your light on," he defended himself, wanting her to know he was not a complete moron. That thought made him sheepish, causing him to look away from her tousled hair and down at the worn, creaking floor boards of the porch.

She folded her arms across her body, both from discomfort and the night chill that crept through the doorway. "My light? And what makes you think that's not the light from Luke's room? It's not like you've ever been in your son's house enough to know where he sleeps at night. What would you have done if he'd answered the door, Dan?" Karen questioned, completely confused by his actions.

Dan finally looked at her, finding her intense blue eyes. "Luke is at the party at the beach house. No self-respecting kid would be home on a Friday night when there's an after game party across town. I figured he was out and you were still up, based on the light," he offered, trying to show there was a thought process behind his actions.

Karen remained speechless a full minute before grabbing his wrist and shoving his sweatshirt sleeve up to reveal his expensive gold watch. "Yes, and as of four minutes ago, Lucas is official breaking his curfew. He could pull into the drive way any minute now," she argued, not sure what the point was for any of it. It was late and Dan shouldn't be there, she thought.

"Did you yell at him for the fight during the game?" Dan asked, watching her nod. "Then trust me, he's not going to come home for curfew. He's already in trouble and he's doing his best to avoid you."

Karen leaned against the doorframe, staring at her ex boyfriend with appraising eyes. "Wow...such insight into a son you know nothing about," she snarked, tired and facing a day of hard work with no sleep. Saturdays were the busiest day of the week at the café and she had a loyal following of people who showed up just for her homemade cinnamon rolls. Rolls that required her presence at work before daybreak. "Dan, why are you here?"

He hedged a moment, completely uncomfortable standing on her porch, knowing he wasn't worthy of being invited inside. "I need your help," he plaintively said, knowing that honesty was always the best policy with Karen. It always had been, which had caused him numerous problems over the years.

"Great, come see me tomorrow when I have clothes on and am awake," she commented as she started to close the door on him. He quickly slid a foot between the door and the frame, stopping her from shutting him out for good. "Kar, I need your help."

The plain simplicity of his words in conjunction with the use of his pet name for her gave Karen pause. Dan wasn't a man who ever asked for anything or showed any kind of need. For him to say those few words indicated that he was indeed desperate.

She absently rubbed her arms, finding her tight fitting tank top a bit too revealing for late night confessionals. "Dan, Lucas could show up any minute. I don't even know what he'd do if he found you in his house," she noted, wanting to help the man in front of her but not wanting to upset her son.

Slowly, Dan nodded in agreement, seeing the wisdom of not alerting the town gossips to his late night visit. "Then invite me in. If we hear him coming, I can hide in another room until he goes to bed," Dan suggested, not hearing how silly his words were. Karen laughed at him much to his confusion. "And of course he'd not see your Jag and realize you were skulking about," she pointed out, showing him the flaws in his plan.

"Give me some credit, Karen. I parked three blocks over and cut through some back yards. No one will know I'm here... that is if you'll let me in before one of your neighbors sees us together," he said, smiling as she stuck her head out the door, scanning for any busybodies that might be lurking. "Oh god, just get in," she said, pulling him roughly into her small living room. As she closed the door he took a moment to study her in the room's low light. He smiled fondly, thinking only Karen could make a tank top and flannel pajama pants look good. She'd always had a casual style that looked good in any setting.

Karen crossed her arms across her chest, not liking the fact that Dan was staring at her. "Okay, you've got 15 minutes to tell me what couldn't wait until sunrise. If you hear any noise coming from the outside of the house, run into that room and close the door," she said, pointing towards her bedroom door. "You can climb out the window and go skulking back through the yards from whence you came." It wouldn't be the first time that Dan Scott had climbed out her window in the middle of the night. They'd had that act down to an art when they were in high school.

Silently, he nodded, realizing that he couldn't dictate terms in her house. He looked around the small living room and noted how it reflected Karen's eclectic style. While most of the room's furnishings were modest, there was a sense of comfort that seemed to elude his own expensive house. The sound of Karen's foot tapping impatiently against the worn hard wood floor broke his reflection.

Dan sighed. "Could I have something to drink? Maybe some coffee?" he asked, unsure how to explain what he was feeling. Karen shook her head, not caring if she was being a rude hostess. "You'll be gone before the coffee could brew."

"Water?" he hedged, deciding that mundane conversation about beverages was better than digging around his feelings. Karen frowned at him. "Not even a glass of tap water. Now either tell me what couldn't wait until tomorrow, or take a seat and deal with Lucas when he stumbles in from that party," she offered, knowing that Dan couldn't face Lucas in the gym after games, let alone on the boy's own turf. They'd spent years choreographing a delicate dance between "their" parts of town, trying to ensure that Lucas wouldn't run into his long absent father. It was only recently that those measures had failed, sending both men on a crash course for each other's lives.

Dan ran a frustrated hand through his hair, not sure how to begin. He'd always sucked at talking about things like this, important emotional issues that seemed to constantly bombard him. He did much better with cold financial deals and unemotional discussions. He looked up at Karen and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know how to do this," he simply said.

His words caught her off guard. She'd expected some fluff about Lucas and Nathan and basketball, but his statement surprised her. "Don't know how to do what, Dan?"

"I don't know how to fix this. I don't know how to approach Lucas or what to say to him outside of snide comments," he confided, embarrassed that he had to tell Karen about the type of conversations he normally had with their son. Dan's words rushed out, the panic he felt about his lack of control evident to her.

"It doesn't have to be wrapped in prose, Dan. Just say something nice to him, like 'hello' or 'good game'. You have to start off slowly or he'll immediately shut you out. He can smell ulterior motives a mile away," Karen warned. Dan was so blunt that casual conversation usually eluded him. Lucas was a perceptive boy, perceptive enough to realize that anything nice that Dan said was more than likely forced, which would cause him to withdraw even more than normal.

Dan leaned against the back of her worn couch, feeling the need to blend in more with his surroundings. It was rare that he ever felt insecure about anything or anyone. But his oldest son had the singular ability to make Dan feel tiny and insignificant. "He hates me," Dan whispered, even now having trouble admitting that he couldn't influence or control people's opinion of him. To have someone openly hate him was one thing, for it to be his own child was a completely different and somewhat unacceptable situation.

Karen sat down in a faded wing chair, her weariness finally catching up with her. "What do you expect, Dan? You've made a lot of bad decisions over the years," she concluded, sad that her son had to suffer so much at the hands of his own father.

Dan looked at her with a raised eyebrow and a look of incredulity on his face. "I've made bad decisions?" he said, laughing in a completely mirthless manner. "I think we both need to accept that we've made bad decisions, Kar. Both of us."

She absently played with a throw pillow before answering his accusation. "Nobody told you that you couldn't visit him, Dan. And I don't recall suggesting that you question his paternity in public or that you snub him whenever you saw him in town. Those were all your decisions," she reminded him, her anger and pain growing with each passing moment. Part of Lucas had been wounded in a way that she doubted he'd ever truly recover.

Dan leaned over the back of the couch, bracing his strong arms along the padded back. "Well maybe I should just corner the boy after a game and apologize to him. I mean, maybe it's time he knows that I tried to be a part of his life and you decided that wasn't going to happen," he said, accusation and past pain evident in his voice.

Karen's heart lurched, knowing that she should have expected this from Dan. He wasn't one to live and let live. "I told you that I'd never agree to joint custody Dan. But I never told you that you couldn't be in his life. You decided that it was all or nothing and you chose to walk out on your son."

Dan stalked around the couch and sat down on the edge of the object, barely two feet from where she sat in her chair.

"You offered me a 2 hour supervised visit once a week. That's not parenting, that's a conjugal prison visit," he argued, still angry about her attitude from all those years ago.

Karen shifted, subtly moving away from the intensity that was Dan Scott. "Those two hours a week would have radically changed your son's life, Dan. He didn't care how long you came to visit, only that he never got a chance to know you. You had that chance and you turned us down flat."

16 years worth of accusations broke forth from inside Dan. "I'm so sick of hearing you whine about being a single mother, Karen. You didn't have to be a single mother, you made that decision the day you kicked me out of our child's life. All I wanted was to take Luke to my house a couple of days a week and be a real parent. You could have used that time to rest or do whatever it is that single mothers never have a chance to do," he retorted, failing to keep the pain and anger out of his voice. He looked at her in irritation, his eyes blue storms of confusion. "I don't get it, Karen. We talked about having kids for years and then when we finally get one, you decide I'm not good enough to be a father?"

She considered his words, knowing that those past emotions lay too close to the surface, too accessible to her despite the passage of time. "Right, I should have just turned my baby over to you after you missed the entire pregnancy, his birth and the first four months of his life. Not to mention that you spent all your time at work back then. Did you think I was going to give my baby to some strange woman who had her own baby to watch? Lucas was better off with me than enduring that kind of stress," Karen refuted.

Dan sat back into the couch, complete amazement written on his face. It had been such a tumultuous time, a time of school finals, impending pregnancy, babies coming left and right and the never-ending barrage of criticism he'd weathered from his and Deb's parents. "What does Deb have to do with this?" he asked, seeing by Karen's reaction that he'd hit a sore point. "I had to work hard those first few years to get my business going. But I originally thought I'd try to get Lucas on my days off. Besides, Deb was a good mother, she could have watched both boys if I had to run to work to take care of something." He'd discussed this with Deb, who was more than willing to watch both babies if worked called him away. His wife had been so encouraging regarding Lucas. She cajoled Dan every opportunity she had, trying to get him to take an interest in his oldest son.

But for Dan it hadn't been lack of interest or time. He'd simply been worn out by Karen's conditions and stipulations. She'd made it nearly impossible for him to see his boy without her present. And he'd never really felt free to open up the few times he spent with Lucas, to really enjoy being around his distant son. Lucas eventually became a symbol of the fights and legal threats of his mother, something that Dan had come to see as a burden. The few visits he'd had with Luke were draped in animosity and regret, encouraging Dan's decision to stop fighting for extended visits and to eventually stop fighting to see his boy at all.

Karen's face grew tight and hard, Dan's words clearly hitting a sore spot with her. He assessed her reaction, still confused. "Wait... this had more to do with Deb than with your concerns about my sucky parental skills," he challenged, the pieces of a very confused puzzling dropping into place after so many years.

Karen's shoulders dropped in defeat, the lateness of the hour finally wearing down what was left of her defenses. "I was young, Dan. I was worn out from working two jobs and worrying about how to take care of my baby. The last thing I needed to add to that situation was fear that I'd lose my baby to the same woman that I lost you to."

Her words were filled with regret and pain, even more so as she noticed the affect they had on her ex love. His shoulders slumped and he stared at her in confusion. "I don't understand..."

Karen stood up, moving around the room to gain distance from him. "I was jealous, Dan. We spent four years together and yet you married some girl you barely knew, picking her over me. I was afraid that if you had joint custody of Lucas, or any kind of overnight visitation that he'd eventually want to stay with you and not me. I didn't want Lucas around her, seeing her as another mother figure," she softly said, finally confessing her most private thoughts from the past. "I was afraid that Lucas would pick her over me and want to live with you and Deb."

Dan stared at the floor, not sure if his anger would win out over his doubts from the past. He'd been horrible to Karen back then. He didn't deny that, and that fact tended to eat away at him at night, adding to the chorus of regret surrounding Deb and Daniel. But he wasn't sure why Karen's voice held so much anger regarding Deb. The woman was practically a saint. She'd taken the nasty circumstances of her husband's multiple fatherhood in stride and done everything within her power to convince Dan to be a part of Luke's life. Why would Karen resent that kind of woman to the point of pushing her son out of his father's new family? "I didn't want to take him away from you, Karen. I just wanted to play a role in his life. Deb pushed me to ask you for joint custody, because she predicted how this would turn out years ago. She didn't want my son to be a stranger to our family. It was never a competition," he emphasized.

Karen laughed at him derisively. "It's always about competition with you, Dan. You don't know any other way to do things other than to form a game plan and annihilate the opposition. I knew that you'd eventually get mad at me over something, or you'd feel the need to dominate the custody agreement. It was easier to cut you out in the beginning than give you grounds to sue for sole custody later on."

Dan stared at her in both anger and amazement. "You denied our son a father and screwed up his life in order to outplay me?" He knew he shouldn't have been surprised, but he was. Karen had been one of the few people that could hold her own around Dan. He'd never been able to push her around unlike most people that surrounded him. He stood up and moved, unable to contain his restless nature, hoping that some of his anger at this woman might diminish if he could just get some distance from her.

Karen shrugged her shoulders at her former love, not particularly liking the sadness she felt at seeing the disappointment and anger he currently held for her. "You taught me a long time ago that the best offense is a good defense. I was being overly defensive. I figured that eventually you'd agree to my limited visitation schedule, which would allow you to spend some time with your son, yet would keep Lucas away from your wife."

Dan closed his eyes and sighed. "And people accuse me of a being a cold, ruthless bastard. St. Karen, the town's poor abandoned woman... if they only knew," he bitterly retorted, happy when he saw her flinch in response to his harsh words.

Karen recovered quickly and her eyes narrowed, her anger growing. Only Dan Scott was capable of evoking such deep emotions in her. "Oh don't play model father with me, Danny. We both know that with you it's all or nothing. You would have never been satisfied with controlling Lucas only 50 of the time. You'd have ruined me, said anything you had to in order to prove me unfit to get sole custody. I was young and I was hurt and I made a lot of mistakes. But in the end, I did what I had to do," she concurred.

Karen had spent years worrying that Dan and Deb would mount a custody battled based on their wealth and her status as a single mom who worked long hours. A lawyer had advised her that they were in a good position to win any custody battle based on their financial status and having a home with both a mother and a father. It was bad enough that she barely made ends meet, but her lawyer advised her that Dan would look more favorable to the court since Deb was a stay at home mom. Giving Dan any kind of foothold in Luke's life might have helped him take her boy away. By impeding Dan's visitation, she proactively built a case against him, allowing her to say that Dan had never been involved in Luke's life.

Dan stared at her in amazement, so many questions from the past finally making sense. "Oh...you made our boy feel abandoned and worthless, so that you could win? That's great, Karen. I'm sure that will make a world of difference to Lucas when he finds out the truth. I mean, any one can tell that you've fed the boy nothing but lies about me, turning him against me. I never had a chance with him," Dan complained, wounded by the past in a way that seemed mortal. She spent all night encouraging him to make peace with their son knowing that it was futile, that she'd already ingrained hatred toward his father in him.

"No, Dan. You did a lot of the damage yourself. You could have smiled at him in public, or even talked to him at junior leagues. I told him you didn't want to be involved with his life, that you had another family, and he shouldn't expect anything from you. Your rejection and public snubs just reinforced that." The hatred and pain in his eyes forced her to look away, giving him that slight concession in their long-standing battle.

Dan sank wordlessly back onto the sofa, lost in a sea of past doubts and what ifs. "So the only way I can ever convince my son that I tried to be in his life, that I didn't hate him from birth, is to tell him that his mother manipulated and lied to both us," he blandly stated, realizing that there was no way to create a happy ending in this situation. "He doesn't want nice words, Kar. He wants answers about the past and the only explanation I can give him is that you cut me out of his life because you were mad that I married another woman."

A tear trickled down Karen's cheek, knowing he had a point. In the past, Karen hadn't cared what Lucas thought about Dan and if the boy put all the blame on Dan for not being around, it was fine with her. But Lucas was digging in the past with a renewed fervor the past few months. And she feared that she was about to fall off the pedestal he'd put her on.

They sat there in silence, as the hall clock tolled 2AM. She briefly wondered where Lucas was but that concern was overshadowed as Dan leaned in toward her. "We need to find some way to fix this, Karen, without telling Lucas about the past." There was an earnestness in Dan that she'd not seen in years.

She sniffled a bit, attempting to wipe away the signs of weakness she knew was written all over her face. She looked over at him. "The lies are catching up with us, Dan. He's already been digging around the house for things, and he's been asking Keith a lot of questions about the past, including the accident."

He looked up sharply at her words. "Do you think he's finally starting to remember? That the memories have broken through?" The doctors had warned them that Lucas might never remember anything about the accident or the aftermath. He'd seemed to have lost a week on either side of his coma, not remembering anything from school before the wreck and not remembering much until he was home from the hospital and nearly fully recovered.

Dan slowly nodded, realizing that this couldn't be a good thing. "What does he know?" he gently asked, having only been around long enough for the basic agreement that they'd just remove Dan from every aspect of that night's events. The fact that he'd rescued his brother and his son, provided CPR for the boy and gotten his heart going again were mere footnotes to a lost historical textbook.

Karen recited the "official" account from rote. "We told him that there was a wreck and that Keith got him to the hospital in time for surgery.

Dan frowned, not liking the over simplistic lie. "Did he not wonder about Keith's own injuries and the fact that Keith's truck was totaled?" he asked, knowing that Lucas was smart enough to know that the hospital was too far way from the accident scene to walk.

"He never seemed to think about that...until recently," she admitted, worrying about what Lucas was up to. Much like Dan, Luke had a tenacity curiosity and her son was always convinced his hunches were right. He wasn't likely to let this go anytime soon. The custody issue...the wreck... so many past lies that threatened to rain down debris.

Dan sighed and looked over at her, happy that she was as disconcerted as he was. "This isn't boding well, Kar."

Next: We finally move off this day and head into Monday

Brooke gets grilled, Lucas realized he's solo mio come lunch time,

and Dan and Karen get a plan worthy of the Superfriends.