The chill of the tiled wall where Danny was resting his head was slowly turning the left side of his face numb. But he was too tired to care. Katie had gone, Ross had gone, the Bings and Joey had gone. He was completely alone.

He was at the police station, and had been talking to an FBI agent for almost two hours. Chandler had had to call them after Danny had recognised his father in the police files. They had all been separated and Danny had been here since.

MJ Cooper was tall with a long, horselike face and grey hair tied in a tight bun atop her head. Danny liked her. She'd listened to everything Danny had to say, and asked questions with a sympathetic drawl.

She'd left for a while, then returned about ten minutes later to tell him that a picture of Dan's dad and the name Simon Vesper was being circulated to police forces around the country.

He knew this was good news, but his mind was still on the Bings. What happened now? Who would he live with? What would his mum say? The whole thing was so complicated it was giving him a headache.

"Daniel?"

Danny looked up from the floor. MJ put a plastic cup of water in front of him and stretched in her seat. "You're mom has been called, she'll be here real soon." Danny nodded and MJ left him, saying she needed to check on something. He curled up in his chair and laid his head on his arm.

A confusing mix of anger and shame was making his stomach squirm. He hadn't told MJ about how he was sure his mum knew about him being kidnapped as a little boy. He could barely think about it himself. He definitely wasn't ready to see her.

He closed his eyes and felt tears prick the corners. He didn't want to see his mum, or the Bings. The only person he wanted to see was Katie. If his questioning was over for now Katie's must be to.

The door opened and he jerked upright, hoping it was her.

Instead his mum stood in the doorway.

She looked livid, livid and utterly terrified. They looked at each other for a long second, and before Danny could even blink his mother had somehow crossed the room and was beside him. Shaking him and hugging him at the same time.

"Daniel, oh Daniel you stupid, stupid boy…Thank god you're ok. I couldn't find you…. Then a police officer he…"

She drew back, her hands still digging into his shoulders. Danny made no move, he just stood there. Stiff and awkward.

"Daniel" Her eyes sought out his, fearful and questioning.

"How could you?" His voice was flat, emotionless.

"Daniel-" Her voice was nearly above a whisper

"You knew" His mother's fingers dug into his shoulders

"Daniel let me explain-"

"YOU KNEW" Blind fury surged through him and he shrugged himself free of her hold

"Daniel, please. Let me explain-"
"EXPLAIN WHAT! YOU STOLE ME FROM THEM. YOU STOLE ME FROM MY REAL FAMILY"

She looked as if Danny had slapped her in the face "What?"

"Don't lie. You knew. They've connect dad with the case. You knew" Tears Danny had been trying to hold back since he first entered the police station rolled down his cheeks.

"I didn't take you from another family. We adopted you properly, officially"

"STOP LYING!"

Danny and his mother just looked at each other for a long moment. Her face was creased with frowns. "Come on, we're going for a walk"

"A walk, What?"

"Come on"

"What, no! I don't-"
"Daniel. I think it's time you saw this situation from another person's point of view."
Danny didn't have the heart to argue. The cool, calm, professional women he was used to had been replaced by an emotional stranger. He let himself be dragged out and reluctantly followed his mother.

Just as they entered the lobby and headed toward the front door, a young police officer called from behind the front desk. "Excuse me Ma'am, I can't authorise you to leave with a suspect"

Danny's winced as fury overtook his mother's face. "A suspect! He is not a suspect in this mess, he's fourteen."

"Ma'am I can't-"

"I will bring him back if he needs anymore questioning, now let me talk to my son in peace."

If the situation wasn't so tense Danny would have laughed at the terrified expression on the fully uniformed police officer's face. The policeman looked to his colleague on his left for guidance. He just shrugged, mumbled something to the young police officer and pressed a button to open the front door.

"Thank you" She said, not impolitely. And strode purposefully through the door.

"Where are we going?" Danny asked, not surprised when he didn't receive an answer. He followed her in silence.

They walked up a busy road until they found a small park. Young children were playing on a playground nearby. Danny briefly wondered if he'd even been here before he had been taken, back when he was Matthew.

"Daniel, let me explain. You know how much I love you, how special you were to me." She took a calming breath "But there are lots of things you don't know."

"Why are we here?" Danny interrupted, too angry to care about his rudeness.

"We won't be interrupted here. You need to hear the full story Daniel. I need you to understand." Danny nodded but refused to look at his mother.

"Just…just tell me the truth. All of it" Penelope nodded and led Danny to a bench in a quieter area of the park.

"I'll start at the very beginning." Danny looked at her expectantly and she took a deep breath. "But first, tell me how they've connected your father to the case."

"What! Mum no, you tell me-"

"Daniel please. I'm as much in the dark about this as you are. He was my husband…well still is my husband I guess."

"Not much of a husband" Danny muttered under his breath.

Penelope smiled humourlessly. "No I suppose not. Not much of a father either."

He bent his head and stared at his trainers, watching as he drew a line across the dirt with them.

"Mum can't you just-"

"No Daniel. I've always had questions when it came to…him…Just tell me what you know and it might fill in some blanks. I promise I'll tell you everything afterwards." Danny knew his mother well enough to know she wasn't going to back down.

The conversation with the Bings and then the police seemed so long ago, even though it had only been a matter of hours.

"Chandler didn't call him John Haddigan He-"

"Chandler's your-"

"My real dad yeah." Danny didn't fail to notice his mother's grimace at the word 'real', but chose to ignore it. "His police file said Simon Vesper. But there was this picture in the corner. And it was him mum, younger. But it was him." Danny tried to keep his face free from emotion but one look at his mum's expression told him he wasn't succeeding.

"Chandler said that a couple years ago they put a new team onto Matthew's case…or my case I guess. One of the detectives had worked on a similar case back in like 2001 or something. I can't remember exactly. Anyway he was a suspect in the attempted abduction of a four year old girl somewhere upstate, but they never had enough evidence to charge him with anything. It then came out that Vesper's mother had lived in a house on the same street as the Bings until she died, which was like in 2011 or something. So now he's a prime suspect. But…he's disappeared. So they can't find him to question him."

"He told me his parents were dead." Danny heard his mother mumble, he looked questioningly up at her.

"That's all I know mum. It's your turn."

Penelope nodded. "I'll start from the very beginning." She took a deep breath and paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. "I met your father in a bar back in 2002. I had just got a new job and was new to London. I only knew about five people at the time. He…he was older than me, but he was kind, and charming…and…we fell in love. We got married in 2004 in what had to be the quietist ceremony ever. He told me he had no family, and the only family I had left was my dad, who as you'll know is hardly a party animal." Danny grinned knowingly. His grandfather was a stern, tall and now almost completely deaf man a couple weeks shy of his 95th birthday. He liked nothing more than his own company. "It wasn't a lively wedding by any means, but it didn't matter. Because we were finally married. We soon decided we would start a family. We tried. Tried for six years to have a baby. We went through four full IVF cycles and countless other failed attempts. Eventually, in the summer of 2010, I got pregnant." Danny took a sharp intake of breath. Penelope didn't appear to notice, her eyes were fixed on a little girl playing with her mother in the grass. "We were over the moon…completely ecstatic. But six weeks later, I miscarried." A couple of tears fell down her face. Danny didn't know what to do, he had never seen his mother cry before. He reached over and took her hand in his, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"After that I…I wasn't coping very well." She looked over at Danny with a horrible, cold look in her eyes. "I tried to take my own life."

It was like she'd punched him right in the stomach. He caught his breath. She tried to kill herself? His mum was so in control of everything, so organised. How could she have ever even considered suicide?

"Mum" He whispered softly.

"So your father and I agreed not to do anymore IVF. It took a while for me to recover, but once I did we turned to adoption. But with my history of mental illness no local agencies would even consider us. I'll admit I had almost given up at that point. We called agencies all over the world. China, Australia, America. But nothing. Then your father came back from a business trip one day, he said he had found a way to adopt from overseas. He told me we'd have to bend a few rules, but we'd get a child."

Danny's heard thumped in his chest.

"He said that there was a young American man living in Maine who had just been widowed, and couldn't care for his son. The adoption would be straightforward, but there was a catch. He wanted more than the normal expenses that got paid by adoptive parents to birth parents….He wanted to sell you, for a lot of money."

Rage surged through Danny. He ripped his hand out of hers and jumped up "So you bought me! Like.. like an object!".

"Please Daniel, I know giving him all that money was wrong but-"

"Wrong!" He scoffed "Mum you-"

"Daniel you have no right to judge! None!" She shouted, she took a calming breath and looked him in the eyes. "I know it was wrong but that man was claiming to be your father! I agonised over what we were doing, I was so desperate for a child…So desperate. And that man didn't seem the slightest bit interested in you. When we finally met you you were terrified of him. You didn't speak at all and would flinch if he even came near you! I thought I was saving you from him. He didn't care about you Daniel, all he cared about was how much money he could screw out of us. It's why I've had to work so much, why I'm never home. I still owe that man so much money."

"I never asked you to do-"

"I know"

She took his hand again. Danny didn't resist but didn't sit down. Her whole face was contorted, pleading with him to understand. He closed his eyes to let all she had just said sink in. She didn't know he had been stolen, she had only paid the man because she thought she was protecting him.

"What was his name?" Danny asked

"He told us it was Todd Carson, that's what's on your adoption certificate. But with all this" She made a small swooping gesture with her free hand "That's almost certainly not his real name"

Danny nodded and sat back down next to her

"But why…you made it sound like dad had no idea that I was stolen. The police here obviously think he was involved"

"I don't know Daniel" She said, looking more fragile than Danny had ever seen her before. "Before I never would have imagined…but now…I guess there's more to the story."

They sat together in silence for a while, both lost in their own thoughts.

"So what happens now?" Danny asked. His mother shrugged, then stood up and brushed the dirt off her clothes.

"We go back to the police station, and I tell them what I just told you."

"But mum, what you did was illegal, won't you be arrested?" Worry creased Danny's face and he looked up expectantly at his mother.

"Don't you worry Daniel, it'll be fine" Danny was sure it most definitely wouldn't be fine, but knew arguing wouldn't change her mind. They made their way back to the police station slowly, and were met with MJ when they walked in.

"There you guys are" She led them back into the room Danny had been questioned in and shut the door behind her. "We are going to have to interview you ma'am" she said, tilting her head to Penelope. "And Daniel the Bings are naturally very eager to see you again. But before all that" She pulled a small plastic bag with swab in out out her pocket. "We need to do a DNA test."

Wow, remember me? I can't believe its taken me so long to update, and cannot apologise enough. But hopefully the circumstances surrounding Danny's past and his parents involvement are becoming more clear.

Once again thank you to everybody who reviews, favourited or followed. It's incredibly encouraging and I can't thank you enough.

ChocoholiclikeLupin x