Keep in mind, this is an AU of the main stuff, and in no way affects it. Nothing from the Main Storyline will make an appearance here, other than some characters.

I will be uploading two chapters per week [Tuesday/Thursday], since the chapters are so short.

Thank you for clicking this story, and I hope you enjoy! Please leave a review!


Part Thirteen – Arrested

Dex frowned as he stared at the blue semi-transparent phone in his hand. He was finally getting everything he ever wanted – his room back, Beary gone, and no more bears in the family. Yet... Something felt wrong. He wasn't as happy as he should be.

He set the phone back down in the receiver and glanced about the room. This was the second night without Beary, and the room was cold. It had been even colder when his parents had confronted him in his room, accusing him of being the one who made Beary leave. Saying that Beary's birth parents abandoned him and didn't want him.

But then they said something that surprised him. That they had a feeling who Beary's parents were, and it all had something to do with why he was so fond of The Country Bears. They wove him a story of a fateful night's drive and a drunk driver. That they believed that Beary's birth mother died of her injuries, or was in a coma, as no news of her had been made after a while – they claimed last they heard was that she was in a coma.

When Dex had asked why they hadn't just given Beary back to his father, his mother had replied with a simple "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons". Dex accused them of kidnapping, but his parents denied it. They hadn't kidnapped him. They had simply thought he'd be better off with them while medical bills were taken care of by the father – if it even was his father.

The teenager frowned again. He knew that despite what his parents were saying, they had unwittingly kidnapped the little bear cub when they failed to return him to his father. It explained a lot, actually, why they were so secretive with him. Why they pretended he was their son. Why there were no adoption certificates or anything – which begged to question how on earth they enrolled him in school; perhaps they had gotten guardianship and simply pretended he was adopted? It wasn't that they didn't want him to realize that he was adopted, it was so that they wouldn't get in trouble! It all made sense now to the teenager. No wonder his family was crazy.

Of course, Dex had told all of this to Beary over the phone when he'd called, telling him that in reality, he'd never been adopted but kidnapped by his 'adoptive' family. The news seemed to work. Beary didn't want to come back. In fact, he'd come up with some lame excuse about it, too, so that Dex wouldn't know his pain. He claimed he was getting The Country Bears back together for a couple benefit concerts on the next two Saturdays. Ridiculous.

The thing that surprised the human, though, was how much Beary defended it. Claimed it to be true. So either he was delusional or was actually telling the truth.

Dex thought back to what he had briefly heard James and Jade say, and came to the conclusion that Beary was indeed with the band. Of course he was. He got to go hang out with a famous band while Dex had to stay in his room, grounded! It wasn't fair.

Then again, that band was all bears, and one was even a drinker. There were even rumors that one did drugs, and another was a big crybaby, while the last was just an egotistical jackass. Ha! Maybe Beary would realize that his so-called 'heroes' were nothing more than lamebrain, idiotic, flea-ridden bears that had no influence over anyone anymore!

But... why did he feel guilty? Why was the room so cold?

.~*~.

Allison sighed as she pulled back the blankets of the bed with her husband as they readied themselves for sleep. She set some pillows down on the chest at the foot of their bed, and sat on the mattress, gently rubbing her pregnant belly. "Norbert? Do you think we did the wrong thing in taking Beary in all those years ago? Is Dex right? Did we kidnap him?"

Norbert frowned and went around the bed to sit next to her. "Allie, of course we didn't. We found him a month after that crash in the woods, barely surviving. He came to us when we called out to him. He wouldn't even willingly go near the ranger, and definitely stayed away from him when he was picked up by the leg. I think he was probably made that the ranger put that strange collar on him when they first found him a week or two prior. They had made an effort to capture him, but to no avail. He'd gone wild." He gently put an arm around her shoulders and his other hand on her belly, smiling with his little baby kicked. "We took him in when he had nowhere else to go."

"He had a father, Norbert. We took him from his father."

"The same father who stopped searching after little over a month. Plus, we don't even know for sure that Beary is the missing cub!"

"Norbert, it even said in the newspaper article that his name was Beary! It had a picture, too! They matched, and we never came forward with him, nor did the ranger. Maybe we're all at fault... Do you think he knows the truth?"

"Well, we did tell him he wasn't adopted, which is true. We couldn't adopt him legally, but we became his guardians. It's lucky that the judge didn't look too closely at him, otherwise..." Norbert shook his head. "Stop worrying about it. What will happen will. James said he's with who we all know to be his birth father. He also says that Beary has no idea yet, and probably won't guess, but that Henry Taylor, the boy's actual father, does have a feeling."

"And if he comes after us for taking him?"

"I'm fairly certain he will realize that we did the wrong thing for the right reasons, Allison. Do not fret. You'll upset the baby." He kissed her head lovingly. "We'll rest up tonight. Tomorrow's a new day where we can figure things out. We also... We need to apologize to Dex for our outburst. He was right all along. We never should have hidden things. He also was so jealous of Beary when we brought him home and gave him special attention. Maybe if we hadn't, they would have become great brothers. Then again, he was the one who wanted Beary to stay... Maybe if we hadn't interfered with their relationship, or had declawed Beary in his youth, Dex wouldn't have become so afraid of him."

Allison let her tears fall, miserable. She just hoped things would work out for the best.

.~*~.

Ding dong. Ding dong.

Dex groaned when he heard the doorbell at almost the crack of dawn. Who the heck was there so early?! Beary wouldn't have come back!

Growling almost, Dex threw off his covers and stormed down the stairs, ready to tell off whoever it was at the door. He stomped down the stairs unhappily and pulled open the door. "WHAT?!" He drew back immediately when he found Officers Hamm and Cheets standing in the doorway. "Oh, great."

Hamm looked at the teenager in amusement, while his partner shook his head. "Just wake up, eh, young buck?" Cheets asked.

Dex glared at the officer in annoyance. "Go away. Beary's with The Country Bears. We don't need you anymore."

"The Country Bears? Unlikely. He probably just told you that because they made him say it. He's probably being held hostage right now."

"At least he's not making an idiot of himself like you two did at the car wash. Yeah, Sgt. Stone told us all about that." Dex fixed a glare at the officers.

"James Stone?" Hamm asked in surprise. He elbowed his partner. "Dude, the Sarge knows what we did!"

"We should be getting a commendation for thinking outside the box," Cheets responded.

Dex rolled his eyes. "Look, can you just go away? You two are incompetent."

"Do not mock your elders, boy." Cheets was starting to get annoyed with the teenager.

"I'll mock those who deserve it, like the geniuses who decided to chase a bus through an automatic car wash," the teenager mocked, ready to close the door. "Besides, we don't need to find Beary anymore. He's not missing, as I've already told you. If anything, it's his birth father that's missing him, not my parents."

"Birth father?" Hamm asked.

Dex stared. "You don't actually think my HUMAN parents gave birth to a BEAR, do you?!"

"Of course not," Cheets responded, though he had been thinking just that.

"Oh, for the love of... My parents kidnapped him when he was three!"

Hamm and Cheets both paused and looked at the teenager with concern. "Kidnapped?" Hamm asked, pulling out a notebook. "What do you mean 'kidnapped'?"

"Just what I said. They found him a month after some car crash and never took him back to his birth father. They kept and they raised him." Dex crossed his arms. Maybe this would finally make him not feel so guilty about things.

"Are your parents home, son?" Cheets asked.

"Uh, yeah? Hey, what are you doing?!" Dex was pushed aside as the two officers moved into his house and upstairs, guns drawn. What had he done?! They weren't seriously going to arrest his parents, were they?!

He heard shouting, confused cries, and his mother's cry of "I'm pregnant, you asshole!". When he heard footsteps on the stairs, he quickly went and hid in the kitchen, actually frightened.

"Don't worry, young buck," Cheets said. "We'll send Child Protective Services over to pick you up soon." He led a crying Allison Barrington, in handcuffs, out to the squad car, with Hamm following with Norbert.

Dex stood stock still, stunned. What had he done?!

.~*~.

Reed Thimple sat in his green office, staring at the model of Country Bear Hall he had built in his spare time. He had made quite a few of these over the years, and whenever he got angry, he'd destroy them.

Now was one of those times.

"How dare you, Henry? After all we've been through, you're going to betray me like this?" Reed studied the little model, and then opened his desk drawer and pulled out a few figurines of bears – four were very noticeably The Country Bears. He strategically opened the roof of the model building, put the four Bears inside on the stage, and another couple on the side of the stage, and closed the roof again. He peered in through the little windows, smiling. "You and your precious band of bears. So cute. We had something special, Henry. Why'd you have to go and ruin it by getting those freaks back together? Why do you have to ruin my plan?"

He let out a silly giggle and stood up, shuffling over to his big door in just his vest, shirt, and boxers, wearing bunny slippers, and moonwalked back after making sure the door was locked. "Soon, you'll be nothing but a distant memory! Even your company is going under, while mine is thriving! Maybe I'll even buy out your company. That'll teach you to mock me." He grinned and went over to a shelf, intent on pulling out a picture of Henry to stare at.

He found the binder he was looking for, well-hidden and labeled after some business contract, and pulled it off the shelf and opened it. Inside were numerous newspaper clippings. He shifted through them, getting more and more angry as he read about The Country Bears success, and Henry's talented business.

And then at last, he came across an article dated back to May 29th, 1995. The article itself was about a crash on a country road involving two cars, but only one car was ever found. A hit-and-run that had left the driver of the other car in a coma, and a child was missing.

Reed turned on the light and took a closer look at the slightly grainy image of the missing cub and frowned. Why did he look so familiar? White face? Light fur? Wait...

The banker thought back to his visit to the Hall a few days prior, trying to remember a few details. Then it hit him. The cubs. The cubs that had visited the building. One was golden, and the other was an older version of the missing Taylor cub.

"So, he survived after all... Where has he been all these years? No articles about him being found... That means he never went back to Henry. Someone took him in, perhaps? Does the boy know his linage? Is that why he's come back now? Or perhaps he does not know, and it is mere coincidence."

Reed picked up the binder and brought it back to his desk. He sat down in his oversized chair and propped his feet up on the metal desk. How was he going to stop this? Legally, he could not move up the date of the demolition, and his demolition expert was booked until the set date.

He needed a plan. All this started years ago when he'd been driving late one night and happened to spot Henry's very familiar 1948 Willys Jeepster driving along one of the roads. He had seen in the moonlight a single driver with long hair, and knew it was Henry's wife Helen. Not going to let such an opportunity go by, he ran her vehicle off the road, where it rolled and rolled and rolled until it reached the bottom of the steep hill, a smoldering wreckage.

Reed, having seen that the damage had been done, went down to check for survivors. He couldn't get close to the female, but he had found a toddler stuck in a bush, looking very confused. Of course, he did what any sane person would do, and threw the cub into the river.

After that, he left the scene of the crime, his car all scratched up. The next day, he'd taken it to the shop, and had it repaired. That was when he'd saw the crash on the news. To his dismay, the she-bear hadn't died in the crash, but survived and was in a coma. To his surprise, the only mention of the cub was made from speculation that he'd been thrown from the car during the crash.

Soon after, Henry sought out loans at the bank, using the Hall as collateral, and the people that owned the bank before Thimple did gave him the money he needed for the medical bills. A few years later, Reed came into power, and had silently changed the contract of interest from .5% to 5%, and later claimed that Henry had merely misread it.

Slowly but surely, Henry started faulting on his loans and getting further and further behind, until he stopped paying altogether. Oh, Reed gave him the benefit of the doubt and let the debt grow and grow until Henry had no possible chance of paying it back, and then decided to take action when Henry was at his weakest.

But now those two cubs were there, and somehow got Henry hopeful about getting the dumb band back together for a benefit concert right before Demolition Day, and his stupid board of trustees had gone behind his back and told Henry that if he could raise most of the money on the first concert night, that he'd be given another chance to finish raising the money and pay off the debt!

He'd just have to deal with this problem personally. There was an abandoned warehouse the bank owned that would be demolished that weekend – the charges already set – with a big cage in the center of it. It would be perfect for getting rid of those pesky bears. All he had to do was find them.

He pulled out his phone and dialed his old friend. "Rip, hello again. Yes, yes, I have the money all ready for you. You'll get it this weekend. Now, you've been in contact with Henry, right? Yes, good. Tell me, who do they have left to pick up? Ted? Do you know where he is? Atlanta? Very interesting... Yes, thank you. You've been most helpful, old friend. I will see you this weekend with your money."

He hung up and grinned. Atlanta, eh? That's where Ted was. If he recalled... Reed moved back to his desk and pulled out an envelope. Opening it, he read the invitation and smiled. A wedding, eh? Perfect. He knew they would be going there to get Ted. No doubt about it. That'd be the perfect place to nab them.

He reached under his desk and unhooked the remote for the giant weight that resided in his ceiling. With a touch of the button, it crashed down upon his desk, crushing the model Country Bear Hall and all that resided within.

He got up and left his desk with the mighty weight, and carried out of his office his invitation. He had some stops to make.