Thank you to all of my absolutely lovely reviewers; you guys are way too nice. :) I can't believe I'm posting my fifteenth chapter right now! I never thought I'd post any of this, let alone write fifteen whole chapters! Apologies for how long it has taken; math is really killing me right now so I'm trying to focus on that...but I promise I will get better with the updates. :) Anyway, enough rambling...enjoy! :)

XV

"Hi," I said quietly as I cautiously entered my father's office. To the best of my ability, I had drawn out the process of checking in and receiving a guest pass for as long as humanly possible. Unfortunately, I was no miracle worker, so it was the usual relatively simple and quick operation, but at least I had done my best. Also, I easily could have gone with my impulse to leave the building entirely and run far, far away, so at least I had found a happy medium of sorts.

"Hey," my dad replied, not even looking up. I rolled my eyes without even thinking about it. For all he knew, I was just some co-worker coming in to ask him about whatever homicide they were currently investigating. He would probably prefer that, anyway.

I sat down in the rather uncomfortable chair that was positioned in front of his desk. I felt a pang of pity for whoever had also shared the experience with me of having to sit there and socialize with my dad, whether it be about work or not. The awkwardly tense atmosphere of the room couldn't have been around solely when I was there, right? Maybe it was still lingering from the last time I had been in the room. I wouldn't be surprised.

"Oh, hi Morgan," he said again, finally looking up. I had been correct in my rather facetious suggestion; he didn't even know it was me.

"You don't even recognize my voice anymore?" I asked, immediately chastising myself for thinking out loud. Of course, as part of my complete slip of the tongue, I hadn't used a lighthearted tone in any shape or form; the comment was full of the built up resentment and anger that usually occupied my mind.

"You know that's not it, M. I just wasn't paying attention." Like always. Didn't that go without saying?

"I figured," I mumbled. "Anyway, what kind of case have you been working on?" I asked, half interested and half merely changing the subject. I would be lying to myself if I said I wasn't fascinated by my dad and Catherine's line of work. It was like some sort of twisted jigsaw puzzle; analyzing and putting pieces of someone's demise together and actually doing something productive for society.

"Just finishing the paperwork on a break and enter turned triple homicide. What people do to each other can be terrifying," he explained. My eyes widened; that kind of stuff actually happened? I had somewhat let myself believe that those kinds of things only happened on crime shows on TV, not in real life.

"That's crazy. Is that, like, normal around here?" I asked, almost feeling nervous.

"I guess you could say that. Vegas has a pretty high crime rate, just like any other big city," my dad replied. Was this the way to have a continuing conversation with him?

"Not in LA," I scoffed, even though I knew I was kidding myself so the thought of being murdered wouldn't keep me up at night.

"Of course in LA. But as long as you don't do anything stupid, I think you're going to be just fine," he said with a close to humourless laugh. I raised an eyebrow out of pure annoyance. He didn't even know me enough to insinuate anything. Well, maybe he wasn't insinuating anything at all; to be honest, he was probably just trying to keep the conversation from coming to a halt, but that didn't really matter. No matter what, there was a more than solid chance I was going to take everything my father said very personally and with great offense. It always happened, and I rarely stopped it. It was just another aggravating part of the relationship that probably wasn't ever going to change.

"So, what's the plan for this weekend?" I asked, changing the subject yet again. Sticking to a specific subject for more than a couple minutes would only add a whole lot of unnecessary emotional turmoil (not that there wasn't already a prominent amount already, really).

"I don't know, M, work might keep me pretty busy, so nothing that extravagant," he replied, once again focusing more on his paperwork than he was on me. What was I even supposed to do anymore? Just let the situation die? After essentially sixteen years of trying to overcome the constant obstacles that my dad put in the way of a somewhat normal family dynamic, I guess the universe was getting fed up with telling me that it was never going to change.

I'd like to think that while I had possibly, maybe overreacted in a remote few situations, I was still at least trying to fix things. Yeah, maybe never calling, or ignoring calls altogether, or being a bit of an asshole when I did actually talk to him wasn't the best solution to anything, but it was mostly justified. I'm sure other kids would have had worse reactions.

"Okay, well, I can just hang out here, right?" I asked in a way that was more of a statement than anything. Well, a passive aggressive statement and question hybrid, actually. I decided to just brush past the previous reply and act like it didn't affect me in the least. It shouldn't have, so I shouldn't have let it.

"Yeah, I guess that would be fine, or I can drop you off at Catherine's for the day tomorrow," he suggested. My eyes lit up, but I tried to hide it. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction that one of his ideas was actually good. Also, I was more miffed than anything that I was being passed off to someone else, even if it was Catherine, so I didn't want to seem happy about it.

"Whatever," I said with a bit of an angry tone taking over.

"Morgan," he warned. I rolled my eyes for what was probably the hundredth time as I ran my fingers through my hair, annoyed.

"What?" I snapped back, not caring anymore. If my dad didn't care, than why should I?

"You know exactly what. Don't do this." I gave a more than audible exasperated sigh and looked at him pointedly.

"Don't do what?" I challenged, fully aware of how obnoxious I was being. "Actually care and express emotion when you try and send me to someone else for the billionth time in my life? Because if that's what you mean, I'm sorry I have feelings." I was probably skating on extremely thin ice, but that was fine by me.

"Morgan, you don't need to make such a big deal of everything. Things happen. Do you think I'm trying to avoid seeing you for the whole weekend?"

"Well, yeah." Don't ask questions if you don't already know the answer, right?

"That's not how it works. I can't control my job… And I thought you liked Catherine," he said, throwing the last part in at the last possible moment, maybe hoping to distract me.

"I do! But that's not the point," I exclaimed, feeling nothing but overly frustrated. Our conversations always went in infuriating circles that only ended when someone stormed out of the room.

"Then what is your point, Morgan? Are you just trying to make me feel bad?" my dad asked, proving my theory of how our conversations worked. Sometimes, I don't think either of us really listened to the other; every thought that was vocalized was usually conceived before any speaking actually took place.

"Shouldn't I be asking you the same thing?" I asked angrily, somewhat defeated in my voice, yet trying to hide the feeling all the same. I got up out of my seat and turned around for the door, hoping I would be able to find somewhere to hide out for a while.

"Morgan, come back here, you're being ridiculous." Was I, though? I really don't think I was. I'd been much more 'ridiculous' in the past, at least.

"You know what?" I exclaimed from the doorway, my mind rapidly searching for something to say. "I hate you."

With that, I kept going… Where, I wasn't too sure, but I had to be somewhat out of the way of my dad's office. I could just find a restroom at the lab to hide in for a while as I let myself relax.

I couldn't really believe that I had actually let myself say that. I had accidentally told my mother before of how I was sure that I hated my father, yes, but I had sworn to myself I wouldn't say it to him. This was only going to make things much, much worse than they already were. I had really screwed up this time.

Wasn't it true, though? If I had admitted it twice, and thought about it on more than a few occasions, my true emotion of hatred towards him had to have a bit of truth behind it, right? It was a truly awful thing to think, I know, but I couldn't help it. When I was younger, I had seen kids on television or in movies say that they hated one of their parents, or both of them, and I had always regarded it as utterly absurd. It couldn't be possible, or that's what my less mature and developed brain had believed, anyway. Eventually, I had been taught that reality wasn't quite so perfect, and the drama didn't make things end in such a way that they were better than how they started.

I found the women's restroom and headed inside, electing to just sit on the counter and let myself think. There wasn't as much to think about as I thought there would be. Maybe the whole conversation with my dad had left my brain emotionally drained; I had not had to deal with that in quite some time. I guess I took the relatively smooth relationship with my mother for granted in a way. We never had fights quite so frustrating, and they had never ended like that, nor would they ever. I would never be able to tell my mom I hated her; it was simply not true. Just because we had major disagreements sometimes didn't mean I could actually feel such a way towards her. It just wasn't how it worked, even though it was completely different with my other biological parent.

This time, I don't think I was overreacting. Sometimes, when I reflected on what my dad and I thought about, I was able to recognize and admit that I had maybe messed up a little more than I had thought at the time, but that wasn't the case this time. My last three words were certainly a bit of a mistake, but I was totally in the clear for the rest of the fight. Hell, I had held my own quite well; usually, my emotions escalated too quickly for me to have that ability to be at least a bit rational and think about what I was going to say.

As for my very choice words at the end, I wasn't totally sure what my next move was going to be. It's not like I could totally ignore what happened (or could I?), but I really didn't want to apologize. The whole situation would be too forced; in a way, too awkward to be sincere. That's because I don't think any apology would be all that truthful. Even though I hadn't really meant to say what I did, half of me didn't regret it. Also, it's not like my father was going to suddenly change his mind, apologize as well, and become my best friend for the weekend. Neither of us really wanted that to happen, I don't believe.

It was possible that I shouldn't have made a big deal about staying with Catherine. I would've enjoyed myself more, obviously, and it was another compromise, kind of. Even though my dad and I had agreed to this visit together, I knew now that he didn't want it to transpire into anything that major, just as much as I didn't want it to. But, if I hadn't made it a big deal, that would have been letting my father win, and I hated that. He didn't deserve to win in such a situation like this one; he brought it up in the first place, therefore it all had to be his fault. I could've pretended to be okay to spending the whole day in his office, whether or not he was there, but I still had to make my point.

No matter what was going to happen, at least I was going to be heading back to LA sooner than I thought. I had somewhat accidentally made this trip much more painful than it was going to be originally, but what else was I supposed to do? Well, actually, I could have just kept my mouth shut, but that proved difficult for me sometimes. I could get through whatever was going to happen next, of course. I had dealt with almost every other situation for years, so this wasn't anything I couldn't handle, as much as I didn't want to.

Hope you liked it! I posted it before sending it to my editor, so please let me know of any mistakes so I can fix them :)