Aliya had stayed at Trevor's house until Sunday, and she tried not to show her annoyance whenever she noticed that Jill and Chris were parked down the street watching to make sure she was safe. The whole weekend had been a lot of crying from Trevor and his mother along with funeral planning once Phil's body could be released to them. She hadn't felt right leaving them in the state that they were both in but knew that she had to, since Leon and Helena would surely have an aneurysm if she stayed another night and kept sending them one-word texts.

Aliya walked into first period Monday morning and was surprised to see Trevor sitting in his normal seat. She had expected his mom would keep him out of school for a few days.

"Hey, why are you here?" she asks softly, taking her normal seat behind him as she took her textbook out of her bag.

"Keeping busy will help keep my mind off things. And yes, we're still going to my cousin's party on Saturday."

"Are you sure?"

"Like I said, being busy helps," he shrugs as their teacher started the lesson. She had horrible guilt about telling him the truth about his father's death, but she also didn't want to risk their friendship or Leon and Helena's cover by telling him the truth.

Aliya sighed, knowing that the best thing to do was let things run its course.

At D.S.O Leon and Helena were sitting in a meeting room waiting for Hunnigan to show up. Helena still hadn't said much since the incident at the facility happened only a few days earlier, opting to mostly stay in their bedroom. It worried Leon how withdrawn Helena was, but all he could do was keep a close eye on her and give her time.

The two looked up as Hunnigan entered, holding the files in her arm as she sat at the end of the table.

"How are you feeling, Helena?" Ingrid asks as she spread the files out for them to be easily read.

"Better."

Ingrid nodded, "So, we found a few things, one of the important ones being that when C.A.T. Co was in it's very beginning stages experimenting on test subjects, Natalia was bitten when she was pregnant with Aliya."

"That explains why she wanted to experiment on her own child." Helena says, grabbing one of the files with her good arm.

"Correct. Also, while looking through them, it looks like one of the files was a diary entry. Aliya may have been given a number as a name to be addressed verbally, but the file specifically about her calls her Daisy. So, she does have a legal birth name, she was just never told what her name was and was never addressed by it. For Natalia, calling her a number was easier to avoid any attachments."

"Wow. What a shit mother," Leon starts, "what else?"

"Natalia wanted to see how the virus affected Aliya, which brings me to the next thing. The blood samples that you found. The lab ran them and found that Aliya had started to turn but then she just…stopped. It's as if both viruses were fighting each other to decide which was going to come out on top and you can tell such as with her eyes being red that the transformation started."

"How is that possible? I've never heard of that happening."

"She truly is a special child; I've never come across anyone like her. When you gave me the serum for Aliya for the lab to test, you told me that Ada's employers were also looking into the child?"

"Yeah, that's correct."

"That's not good. It means that others know about her too. People are always going to be after her."

"You said the viruses started mutating and then stopped…should we be concerned about if she bites someone?" Helena asks, trying to see if there was anything in the file that may say something of the sort.

"Well," Ingrid starts, "About five years ago when they started to do more in depth experiments on Aliya when she was roughly seven years old, she did bite someone."

"Did they turn?"

Hunnigan sighed, "the files don't say because the person she bit killed himself before they could run any tests."

"Jesus Christ," Helena mutters, her heart breaking for Aliya. No child should have to go through the shit that she was going through. Helena got up when Hunnigan dismissed them and grabbed Leon's keys to wait in the car as Hunnigan pulled him to the side.

"So how is she doing really?"

"Well, this is the most she's spoken or come close to being her old self so that's something."

"Well, all you can do is be there for her. Maybe you can do something to make her feel better."

"Like?"

"Well," Hunnigan says, looking at her watch, "You have about four hours until Aliya needs to be picked up from school, make a day of it and bring her for a fun date or something. Preferably an activity that she can do with one arm."

Leon didn't say anything as he left, walking out to the car where Helena was already waiting with the car started.

"How's your arm?" he asks as he got in the driver's seat.

"Oh…it hurts but not as bad as when it first happened," she says, looking down at her bandaged arm in the sling.

"Well, you and I are going to do something fun."

Helena raised an eyebrow at him, "I'd rather just go home."

"No. You need to get out so name something fun that you love that you want to go do."

Helena thought for a moment, "Okay when me and Deborah were younger, we used to go bowling so bring me bowling I guess?"

And that's exactly what Leon did. He immediately brought Helena to the bowling alley that was downtown and had Helena sit down at a table while he went to get them a lane and some bowling shoes, returning just as quickly as he had left and helped her put the shoes on.

"Alright, we are in lane four so why don't you go get us set up and I'll go buy us some drinks."

"Yeah alright," she says, heading over to lane 4 and going over to the computer that belonged to their lane and put their names in. It had been a while since she was last at a bowling alley, the last time being almost seven years earlier when her parents had died. She only wished Deborah was here now for old times sake. Helena was taken out of her thoughts when Leon returned with a couple of beers for them, placing hers in front of her.

"Thanks," she says, taking a sip.

"Why bowling?" He asks, taking the ball and taking his turn, hitting all the pins except for one.

"Well, our parents used to take us bowling all the time. Our mom did anyway, our dad only came when he was sober and felt like being nice. He was a violent drunk, so bowling was kind of our escape away from him. After they died, me and Deborah came bowling and it was the most fun we ever had," she says, taking her turn and getting a strike.

"Well, you're certainly good at it. Even if you only have one working arm."

Helena chuckled, "me and Deborah came bowling almost every weekend during the grieving period."

"Ah so you've had practice."

Helena shrugged, "for the most part. I haven't really been to a bowling alley in seven years."

"Okay if I get a strike my next turn, then you buy the next round of drinks."

"Go for it," she says, sitting down and attempting to cross her arms as Leon took his next turn, only for the ball to go right into the gutter.

"Ooh so close but yet so far."

"Oh please. I'm just warming up."

Helena laughed, the first genuine laugh she had managed in three days, and it was music to his ears. Of course, it was only three days, but it felt like a lifetime, and he missed her laugh.

"Okay, if my next one is a strike, you buy dinner tonight,"

Leon chuckled, "sure."

Helena took her turn, rolling the bowling ball and still getting another strike. Leon was in shock that even with a broken arm, she was still so good.

"I guess you're buying dinner, Kennedy."

Leon smiled, "I guess so."

The two continued bowling most of the morning and into the afternoon. Leon had never been a huge fan of bowling but seeing how much fun Helena was having made it fun for him, even if she did win by a landslide. The two ended up leaving just after two in the afternoon to pick Aliya up from school.

"Think she's still mad?" Helena asks, knowing all about the argument that Aliya and Leon had on Saturday morning while she was resting.

'I don't know. She's barely said a word to me since it happened."

The two waited in the pickup line at the school, watching in confusion as Aliya said goodbye to Trevor and came to the car, getting into the back seat.

"I'm surprised Trevor is at school today." Helena commented, watching as the boy started walking home.

"Yeah, I was too but he told me that staying busy helps." Aliya says as Leon started driving them home.

"Staying busy is good."

"I just wish we could tell him."

Helena sighed, "you know we can't, and you know why we can't."

"Well fuck the mission. He deserves to know."

"Hey, language! I may not be your real dad but you're under our care and we can still ground you!" Leon says, using his dad voice on her, "and do you know what could happen if he finds out about all of this? You could end up in another lab, C.A.T. Co can find us easier, there's a whole slew of possibilities!" He adds, looking at Aliya in the rearview mirror as she slumped back in her seat.

"I hate you," she muttered, crossing her arms, and looking out the window as they drove home.

Leon tried not to let her hateful language bother him, but it was hard. The past few days, even before they infiltrated the facility, Aliya had been trying his patience and had nothing but attitude towards everything.

"Okay you're grounded for two weeks. Trevor can't come over nor can you go over there. No T.V or computer except for schoolwork and give me your phone. You can only have it when you're at school." Helena says, holding her good hand out to her and Aliya dropped her phone into Helena's waiting hand with an eye roll.

Aliya muttered something else under her breath that they couldn't quite hear as they pulled into the driveway. The tween didn't even wait for them as she got out and went into the house, going right up to her bedroom and slamming the door as hard as she could while Helena went to go put the phone in a drawer in the kitchen as Leon went to sit at the table, putting his head in his hands.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up about it. She'll come around."

"I know but she's also right. He has a right to know."

Helena sat across from him, "he does but he won't understand why you did it. Neither of them will until they're much older."

"In all my years doing this kind of work, I don't think I've ever intentionally robbed a kid of a parent."

Helena reached over and took his hand in hers, rubbing her thumb over the back of it to calm him down.

"You did what you had to do. If you didn't, I'd be dead right now."

Leon sighed, "God this kid fucking tries me sometimes."