For every two steps forward, there's at least one back…
Jon allowed himself to lean back in his chair and close his eyes for a moment as he pondered the events of the last thirty hours. He had discreetly activated the motion-sensor alert on Jennifer's bed shortly after their return to MedBay, so he could allow himself this contemplative break – secure in the knowledge that he'd hear the alarm the moment the girl put a foot on the floor.
Just the same, he only allowed himself a moment before opening his eyes and focusing them on the patient again.
Still no change there. Even after almost four hours had passed since their return from the kitchen.
Jennifer had been silent through the entire walk. Once they were back in MedBay, he had gently asked her if she wanted to talk about what had happened back there. She'd answered with a terse "no", climbed back into bed, faced the wall, and apparently gone out like the proverbial light.
She's had her entire life turned upside down in less than two days – and she's still far from full strength. We need to be careful about when to press her and when to just let her rest.
Knowing that didn't make the waiting any easier, even as he mentally reviewed his notes about her in the latest entries he'd made in his Database Journal recordings. A part of him was itching to go ahead and add another one about everything he'd just learned from her at the kitchen table, but… it didn't feel right to start another recording with her just a few feet across the room from him. Even if she was fast asleep. Even if she couldn't hear him. Even though he wouldn't be saying much of anything that he hadn't already said to her back in the kitchen. It felt oddly… disrespectful, somehow.
Look at you, the great Captain Power, concerned about showing respect to a kid who's been raised to have nothing but contempt for just about the whole human race.
But the best way for her to learn true respect is to model it for her – and not just when she can see and hear you. So… back to watching and waiting…
His thoughts shifted back to the rest of the team. He hadn't heard anything at all from them since Hawk had departed for the control room. They must have been really swamped with that overload of comm traffic. He could only hope they weren't seeing leading indications of another massive Dread operation about to break – like last fall's Southern offensive. It still troubled him that they had missed seeing the signs of that first wave in time…
No. They'd learned from that gut-wrenching experience. And if his men had seen any clues pointing to something that big, Hawk would have commed him by now and they… would have figured out something…
He'd finally broken down and treated himself to a protein bar – thankful that Hawk always kept a stash of those in MedBay. He should have shared more of that meal with Jennifer, even though he hadn't been hungry at the time.
Tomorrow. We should get to share a real meal tomorrow – hopefully with at least one or two of the others. Doesn't look like she's having any adverse reaction to any food we've given her so far…
A chirp from his commlink broke into his thoughts. "Jon?"
Finally! "About time, Hawk. What news have you got?"
"It was a lot more chaff than wheat. Bunch of hackers flooding the airwaves and data streams with nonsense."
Jon sighed. There were still a few gangs of rogue hackers out there who were as aggravating to the Resistance as they were to Dread's forces. They weren't on anybody's side but their own, and they thrived on causing chaos all around. It had been over a year since their last big data bomb, and Jon had hoped that they might finally have seen – or heard from - the last of those jokers.
"Anything useful at all?"
"We're still working on some puzzle pieces from all around the sector– hoping to have something definitive to report within the hour. Just thought I should ask you to go ahead and give Jennifer another round of burn cream, if you haven't already."
How had he almost forgotten that? "Will do. Report to me ASAP once you've got that puzzle together."
"Copy that."
He cut the link and allowed himself a deep breath before he put a gentle hand on Jennifer's shoulder.
"Jennifer?"
She woke with a start, turning over and sitting upright in the blink of an eye.
"Easy there. It's just time for another application of burn cream. No need to be so jumpy."
He reached for the familiar jar, and her expression relaxed.
"Let me start with your face this time, and then we can have another talk."
She froze. "About something the others found?"
"Not yet. While you were sleeping, I was thinking about your next lesson in basic humanity."
She blinked, and then held perfectly still as he applied the treatment to her face and neck.
"For your second lesson, we're going to talk about feelings. Your emotions."
"Emotions are the enemy of logic." He didn't miss the wince she made the moment the words came out of her mouth. Words that had to have been ingrained in her for at least the last decade, to the point that they had become a sort of reflex.
"That's what they teach you in the Dread Youth?"
She nodded.
"Hands, please."
She held them out, and he moved on.
"What else do they teach you about feelings?"
"Emotions are evil and primitive. They are the source of all conflict – all of humanity's problems. We can only perfect ourselves by rising above them."
"Is that what you think you've been doing all these years?" He did his best to keep his tone gentle. Not mocking or condescending.
Silence. He let her ponder that while he finished treating her hands and put the jar away.
"Emotions are an essential part of being human. And we're going to start with the two that have the greatest hold on you right now. The ones that have had a hold on you for most of your life. Fear and anger."
She bristled at that. "No, they haven't. They wouldn't have made me Youth Leader if I hadn't shown complete control of my emotions – that I'd risen above them."
"Showing no emotion doesn't mean feeling no emotion. And we've all seen plenty of fear and anger coming out of you ever since Scout first made contact."
She opened her mouth to protest, and almost immediately closed it again.
"You never rose above those emotions. All you learned to do was to keep tamping them down. It's no wonder they've been spilling out of you ever since we found you. And that loss of control is what keeps feeding your fear."
"I'm not afraid of - I'm no coward!"
"I never said you were. Feeling fear isn't what makes someone a coward. And anyone in this day and age who says they're never afraid is lying. I can assure you that not one of us here is ashamed to admit that we all feel fear sometimes."
"Even Tank?"
"Even Tank."
"What does he have to be afraid of?"
"Among other things, hurting people without meaning to. You can talk about that with him later. Right now, we're talking about you. What you've been taught to fear your entire life. What you're most afraid of now. Your own emotions."
For a moment, she looked ready to fire back with some sort of angry retort. A look that melted into a sort of horrified acceptance as tears glimmered at the edges of her eyes.
"How did it start? Did they hit you whenever you expressed emotions? Punish you with other forms of pain until you learned to associate pain and punishment with those same emotions? Then tell you it wasn't the pain that you feared, but just your own imperfections?"
Her shocked expression confirmed his suspicions, even before she nodded.
"It's another old tactic that Dread learned elsewhere. Get control of children by teaching them to fear and hate what you don't want them to understand. The worst villains in history pit different groups of people against each other that way. In a way, what Dread has done is even worse. He used emotions – he used fear and anger to keep you from comprehending your own emotions, and then got you to swallow the lie that you never felt the fear and the hate that kept you in line with him the whole time. In a way, it could be considered the ultimate form of gaslighting."
"Gaslighting?"
"It's a form of psychological manipulation. Distorting your reality so you don't trust your own emotions, judgment, and intuition. So a manipulator like Dread can maintain power and control over you, like he's done for most of your life."
For a moment, he thought he saw her turn pale underneath her sunburn as she began to shake.
"I thought… I had perfect scores on my logic and intelligence tests… year after year…I thought I was so... how could I not see… how could I not know…" She was angry again, but now she was turning that understandable rage into self-recrimination and hatred, which was the last thing he wanted.
"Don't blame yourself. It wasn't your fault. You were a child who had no way of knowing better."
She shook her head angrily as tears began to track down her face.
"It's okay to be angry, Jennifer. You have every reason to be angry. But don't turn that anger on yourself."
She balled her fists in her lap, and he could see she was ready to explode. So it wasn't a surprise when she started to raise those hands against him.
He caught both fists before she could land a blow. Felt the shaking that betrayed the physical weakness underneath her fury.
"I'm sorry. Better to hit me than hurt yourself… I can take it… but better still for you to learn that your pain and anger don't give you an excuse to lash out at other people…" He held her in place as she struggled and cried out in frustration… "otherwise you'll be no better than those people at the well!" He raised his voice to make that last point ring in her ears.
It clearly did, because she stopped fighting that same instant, her fists collapsing and face crumpling as she gave into a fresh round of sobbing.
He wanted more than anything to pull her into a hug and literally let her cry on his shoulder – but something told him not to – that she wasn't ready yet for that kind of closeness.
So he settled for holding her hands in his, talking to her – just loud enough to be sure she could hear him over her own sobs.
"It makes me angry too, Jennifer. What they did to you, the poisonous lies they fed to you, the way they stole your childhood from you - it makes me angry, too." It was the understatement of the century. In that moment, he wanted more than ever to strangle Dread with his bare hands.
"But I don't let that anger consume me. And you need to learn how to keep it from consuming you."
"How? You said I shouldn't fight my feelings."
"I did. But fighting your feelings isn't the same thing as controlling them. And you don't control them by denying them or suppressing them entirely."
"Then…how…?" Her anguish was palpable. Almost enough to make him start crying along with her.
But she needed his strength and wisdom more than his tears in that moment, and he knew it.
"You need to start by recognizing the emotion and its source. What you're feeling and why. That's not going to come easily to you. But we're all going to help you, okay? We're all going to help you learn.
"Start by saying what you feel. Everything that you feel in this moment."
"I'm… angry…"
"I know you are. Now tell me how that makes you feel."
"I feel… I want… I want to hit someone… anyone… until they hurt as much as those people at the well hurt me. Until they feel the same kind of pain I feel." He could feel the anger pulsing through the hands that were trying to clench into fists again, but also the weakness that kept her from pulling those hands out of his gentle grasp.
"I understand. Believe me, I understand that feeling all too well. But trust me when I say that it wouldn't make you feel better, even if you had the strength for it."
"I hate this… it hurts… I don't want to feel any of this anymore! It was better when I didn't feel anything at all!" She made a feeble attempt to pull her hands free from his, but he held on – gently, but firmly. Like holding on to a wounded bird.
"I know it hurts, and I'm sorry. But we both know you can't go back to the way you were. And I promise you it won't always hurt like this. There is hope in the future for you… and joy… and laughter… and wonder. You have no idea how much good you're going to learn …and feel. But first, you need to learn how to cope with all the hurt you're feeling right now. And the only way out of that is through."
She was shaking again – her entire body racked with sobs – and his heart hurt more than ever for her.
"But you don't have to go through it alone." He squeezed her hands gently – hoping the gesture helped more than it hurt. Why was he only now thinking about how painful that sunburn still had to be for her– even after multiple applications of burn cream?
There was no gasp or cry of pain, but he felt a sort of shift in her shuddering – and the sobbing abruptly ceased. Was it from his words or the physical gesture? Maybe both.
He plunged ahead. "And having all of us here to help you will make it hurt less."
She peered up at him, still trembling. "How…?"
"It's called compassion."
"Compassion?" she echoed.
"It literally means 'to suffer with.' It's looking at someone in any kind of pain, having some understanding of what their pain feels like, and helping them as best you can. It's what everyone here has been feeling for and offering to you – starting with Scout when he first saw you out there."
"Compassion…" There was that look again of almost, but not quite grasping the concept.
"Compassion," he repeated, almost unconsciously giving that gentle squeeze to her hands again – thinking too late of the sunburn again. Holding his breath for half a second as he hoped again that he was helping more than he was hurting her.
But then he felt it. Feather-light, but he was sure he hadn't imagined it.
Both of her hands squeezed back.
Her eyes met his again – and for just a moment, he thought he saw a glimmer of understanding in them.
She blinked – and it was all anguish again.
He didn't even try to blink back his own tears. All the better to let her understand – or at least try to understand – the full meaning of "to suffer with." He made sure she got a good eyeful of the twin drops making their way down his face – watching her eyes widen in response.
Easy there. You still need to be the strong one here.
But she also needed to know that real strength can be found in vulnerability, too. And not just her own.
So he let go of her hands just as gently as he had been holding them – his instincts telling him that she wasn't going to lift those hands against him or try to run again. Not in that moment, anyway.
She held almost perfectly still as he released her – those tearful blue eyes sweeping from her hands to his eyes in utter confusion.
"I think that's enough for your second lesson." He put his best Captain voice back in command. "You should rest for a while. We'll talk more about fear later."
She lay back against the pillow, turned her face to the wall, and began to sob softly again.
He put a hand on her shoulder in a gesture of comfort, blinking away a couple more tears of his own.
When he looked up, Scout was standing in the doorway, looking shamefaced.
Jon crossed over to him. "Got something to share that couldn't be said over the comm?"
"I'm sorry, Captain. I know I shouldn't have been eavesdropping, but-"
"How long have you been standing there?"
"What you said to her about not letting her anger consume her - I remember when you had to tell me that, not long after you first found me..."
A memory he didn't think he'd ever forget. Jon felt his irritation fade into empathy for the junior soldier, and he nodded. "And I told you how Hawk told me the same thing, when I was around the same age."
Before either of them could say anything else, Tank came trotting up.
"How is she?"
Jon sighed. "Crying herself to sleep. Again."
Tank turned to Scout. "Did you tell him?"
Scout shook his head. "They were having a talk that didn't feel right to interrupt. And I think Hawk was right when he said we probably don't want her to hear this yet."
"He's got more intel to share with both of you. I'll take the watch for a while."
Jon nodded, and he and Scout headed back for the control room. The sergeant waited until they were well out of Tank's earshot before he spoke again.
"I know I already apologized for-"
"It's all right, Scout." Jon sighed. "I owe you an apology as well. You're the one who found her, but you haven't been able to spend much time at all with her so far. At least, not when she's been awake."
"That's my own fault. You and Hawk both told me that I'd more than earned a full night's unbroken sleep after we brought her in."
"And it didn't surprise either of us that you couldn't take advantage of that until after you'd seen her regain consciousness. You feel responsible for her. We understand that."
"Yeah, well … I'm just starting to realize the repercussions of my actions…" Scout stopped and looked back down the hall toward MedBay. "I knew that teaching… trying to rehab a Dread Youth Leader was never going to be a walk in the park, but…" he swallowed hard and looked back at Jon – tears threatening at the corners of his eyes.
"Captain… what have I done?"
"The only thing you could have done. The only thing any of us could have done out there. There was no other choice."
"I know, but it's already completely upended our lives… and I never stopped to think how…arrogant… it was…thinking I could somehow save her …soul… along with her life – even with you and the others to help."
"That wasn't arrogance, Scout. That was all part of the compassion I was just trying to teach her about. As for the rest, all we can do is take it one day at a time."
Scout gave a resigned nod.
"But if she wakes up on your watch later on, maybe you could try getting her to laugh?"
"From what I've seen and heard so far, I wouldn't bet on me getting her to even crack a smile. But I'll try."
"I'd appreciate that." Jon gestured for them to start walking again. "Frankly, we could all use a good dose of your humor right now."
Scout let that go without comment, and Jon let the better part of a minute pass in silence as they made their way through the base.
"So, what were you coming to tell me, anyway?" he finally asked.
"That we should have gone to Hardscrabble sooner to have it out with them."
Here we go – "You mean-"
"I mean Hawk finally told me and Tank what they did to her. Everything they did to her."
"Scout-"
"You had your proof and you sat on it all day." The words were cool and clipped, but every syllable still dripped with anger.
"She wasn't even up to telling us until almost lunchtime – so I'd hardly call that all day." Jon calmly pointed out.
"We still could have gone out there sooner – confronted them sooner-"
"To what end, sergeant?" Jon's patience with Scout's thirst for retribution was wearing thin again.
"To give them that lesson in basic humanity that you promised! And to hear them try to justify themselves, before it was too late."
"Too late for what?" Jon had a sinking feeling that he already knew.
"It took forever to find anything useful through all the noise from the data bomb – and Hardscrabble hardly ever sends any outgoing comm traffic, but from what we've been able to glean, Dread's forces swung back through there - right about the time the data bomb hit and everything else started blowing up the airwaves."
"Any evidence of survivors?"
Scout shook his head. "But we're picking up chatter from Marauders roving through the quadrant – moving into what's left of both Providence and Hardscrabble."
Picking the bones clean, as usual.
"At first light, I'd like to send out that drone of Dread's that we captured last month, get some video, see if we can recognize anyone that Jennifer might be able to identify…"
"You're assuming that they left any bodies in recognizable condition. And even if they did, I'm not sure she's ready to see any of those faces again."
"You mean you're not sure you're ready to put her through that."
"No, I mean exactly what I said. You heard her just now. Do you honestly think she's ready for the flood of emotions that's going to bring down on her on top of all the ones she's already struggling with?"
"When you put it that way, no, but – do you honestly think there's ever going to be a good time for her to see Hardscrabble and its people again?"
Scout had a fair point there, and Jon admitted as much. "But not until Hawk and I are satisfied that we've found all the puzzle pieces we're going to get. In the meantime, I don't want any of us to breathe a word to Jennifer about anything Dread or Marauders might have done to Hardscrabble or the people there. Is that clear, sergeant?"
"Crystal."
"Good. Now, has there been any chatter about a missing Dread Youth Leader?"
Scout shook his head. "Not that we've been able to pick up, which makes the rest of us think that Dread Youth Leaders really are more expendable than we would have thought." Something in his tone made that sound almost too good to be true.
"You don't sound completely certain of that."
"I'll let Hawk and Mentor explain that. Probably easier to show you then tell you." They were at the control room entrance now, and Scout gestured for Jon to go in ahead of him.
A weary-looking Hawk stood up as Jon came through the door, but his eyes were already looking past him. "Did you get all of that righteous anger out of your system?"
"He overheard something in MedBay that stopped him in his tracks first," Jon told him.
Hawk's expression immediately turned concerned. "Is Jennifer okay?"
"As okay as a girl in her situation can be. I'll fill you in once you've brought me up to speed here. But don't worry, I still got a bit of the earful that Scout planned to give me."
The sergeant looked shamefaced again as he took his seat next to the one Hawk had just vacated.
"And to be honest, Scout, I think we're all disappointed - even angry- that it sounds like Dread's forces took out Hardscrabble before we paid them a visit. Their lesson in humanity was overdue even before all this happened," Jon admitted.
"On that we can all agree," Hawk concurred as he returned to his seat. "But I also can't say I'm entirely sorry that we weren't out there when Dread dropped the hammer on them. I don't think any of us would have been keen on defending those miserable excuses for human beings."
"They were still human beings. Not good ones, but still…." It was what his father would have said, so it came out almost as a reflex. But this time, the words left a bad taste in his mouth. "Scout said this all apparently went down about the same time the data bomb hit?"
Hawk nodded. "We caught fragments of several Dread transmissions – similar to the ones about Providence that we ran across in the middle of the night. They all referred to 'cleansing the site,' same as Providence."
"Makes sense. But they certainly took their time circling back that way. It must have been at least twenty-four hours after Jennifer passed through there."
"Wouldn't be the first time we've seen Dread take the patient approach – lull the nearest neighbor of a scoured settlement into thinking they've been spared, and then attack them when they least expect it," Hawk reminded them.
"Fair point. Still…none of their transmissions made any mention of a missing Dread Youth Leader?"
Hawk shook his head. "Which would make one think that even those shining stars are expendable after all."
"But neither of you sounds fully convinced of that. Why?"
Hawk sighed. "Mentor, show the direction of Dread attack on Hardscrabble plotted from available Dread radio communications."
Jon watched the details falling into place on the screen with mounting astonishment.
"But that's… from the other side of Hardscrabble. They didn't come back through Providence and the woods… Why would they take the long way around…?"
"Unless they were following a trail of breadcrumbs from the opposite direction." Scout spoke up.
"They could have conducted an aerial sweep after we rescued Jennifer and saw something that gave them some burning questions of their own." Hawk said.
"And they didn't like the answers Hardscrabble had for them." Jon exhaled. "Although that brings us to a couple more troubling questions. Did we leave any traces of our own where Jennifer's trail ran out, and do they suspect that their poster girl is in our hands?"
"If so, they've been keeping quiet about it." Scout answered.
"Can you blame them? That's one hell of an embarrassment and liability to them, to have one of their stars fall into the hands of their mortal enemies. The treasure trove of secrets in her mind- her training alone-" Hawk cut himself off. "Sorry, Jon. I don't mean to talk like one of them. We all agreed from the beginning that we need to think of Jennifer as a human being first, and source of intel a distant second."
"But the intel is still important. Could be crucial to us in a lot of ways." Jon sighed. "And we're still left wondering what they know – or think they know - about Jennifer's disappearance."
He let himself drop into a chair as he pondered the possibilities.
"I was thinking – I think we've all been thinking - that the Overunits must have thought that someone on the edge of Providence lured her into an ambush in the shadows – or into one of the houses they were burning – and she's been presumed dead ever since."
Scout nodded. "If it all happened like Jennifer said – nobody noticing her following the other girl into the woods – that would make the most sense. And it would explain why they didn't spend the rest of the night tearing apart the woods trying to find her."
"So, why don't we all feel more settled about that?" Jon asked.
A moment's heavy, awkward silence.
"Because it's not like Overunits to be sloppy with an operation like that," Hawk finally spoke. "Jennifer herself said the Overunit kept her close in Sand Town. So, unless someone did see her failing in her duty as a Youth Leader - flinching in the face of fire and letting the other girl go far too long before heading into the woods after her…"
Jon nodded. "If another cadet or an Overunit saw what really happened, the leadership must have thought it would better for the corps to have a Youth Leader end up as a martyr instead of a live failure…"
"Unless it's the third scenario that not one of us wants to consider," Hawk reminded him.
"That she's a plant with a hell of a cover story," Jon sighed. "God knows we've seen some convincing actors infiltrate more than a few Resistance groups over the years. But nothing like this….and if anything, the more we talk to her, the more her story rings true." His mind finally flipped back to something Tank had said earlier.
"Tank said you had some new info for both of us. Is it about Hardscrabble or something else?"
"Hardscrabble. There was a really staticky bit of…something… that Mentor's been working on detangling from that data bomb. We all almost missed it – but I asked Mentor to run another deep dive through the initial data explosion – this time specifying any voiceprints matching anyone from Hardscrabble we've got on file."
"And?"
"It's only a seventy percent match because of all the static, but it sure sounded like Erik to me."
Erik – the self-appointed "mayor" of Hardscrabble.
"How big a break is that for us?" Jon asked.
"Judge for yourself. Mentor, replay last bit of analysis, same place."
"A moment…"
An ear-splitting whine, a burst of static, and-
"… nev…saw any… pass…" The words were hard to make out, but it did sound like Erik's voice. "take… air… own…"
"Think… lying…" That sounded like the emotionless tone of an Overunit, even if most of the words were lost in the static. "Where… girl…?" Jon couldn't quite tell if the last word was singular or plural.
Another high-pitched whine before a louder burst of static, then silence.
"That's it?"
Hawk nodded.
"I thought you said there was no chatter about a missing Dread Youth Leader?"
"We can't be certain that's what we heard there. According to Jennifer, there's another girl in the wind, remember?"
Jon nodded. "And there's no way to know whether that Overunit was talking about Jennifer or the mystery girl from Providence."
"Or both." Scout spoke up.
"At any rate, we've got nothing so far that contradicts any part of her story. But there are still too many unknowns here for my liking." Hawk frowned.
"Think there are still more puzzle pieces to sift for in that tangled mess?"
"Possibly, but I think our comms specialist is our best hope at recovering any more of them." Hawk gave Scout a meaningful look. "I'll leave it to you and the Captain to figure out how to balance that with keeping watch over Jennifer."
Scout looked expectantly at his Captain for orders.
"Whatever works best for you, Scout. We can tag team this or I can be your extra set of eyes and ears for at least the next couple of hours."
"Thanks, Captain. I think I'm good here for a while – at least long enough for you and Hawk to catch up on everything else. We can figure out the rest before Tank's ready to call it a night on his end."
"Okay. We'll just be in the kitchen pulling together something a little more substantial than protein bars. Anything in particular you'd like us to bring back here for you?"
"Whatever's easiest for you." Scout was already reaching for his headphones.
"Hey, Scout? You can set your alarm for first light and send the drone out then if Mentor's not picking up any further Dread or Marauder activity in the immediate vicinity. And if possible, I want you to take it for a pass through Providence and the woods as well – assuming there's any of the latter still standing."
"Will do. Thanks again."
He and Hawk turned toward the kitchen, and this time Jon was the one waiting to be out of earshot before speaking.
"Care to tell me how and why you chose to tell them the rest of Jennifer's story in the middle of all that?"
Hawk sighed. "When we finally untangled the first transmission about the Hardscrabble cleansing, I was so tired and cranky that I said something about them getting exactly what they deserved. Scout just lost it. Dug in his heels until I told him and Tank everything, and then he really lost it. I honestly thought he'd try to put a fist through the nearest wall before he stormed out."
"And I can't really blame him for that, either."
"I don't think any of us can. Now, would you care to tell me what our dear sergeant overheard just outside of MedBay that kept him from unloading on you with both barrels?"
Jon couldn't help greeting that with a chuckle. "Remember when you had that talk with me about not letting my anger consume me?"
"Like I could ever forget," Hawk answered with a chuckle of his own. "I take it Scout still has the same crystal-clear memory of you having that same talk with him?"
"He does. And hearing Jennifer on the receiving end of it – and everything that came after that – brought him to tears."
"Why do I think he wasn't the only one so moved?"
Jon sighed. "She's in so much pain, Hawk – and the emotional hurt's even worse than the physical. Much worse. I think I got through to her for a minute there, but…I don't know…"
"Hey." Hawk stopped and put a hand on his shoulder. "It took some time for my lesson to sink in for both of you – just like it did for me when I was on the receiving end of it. This was bound to be a marathon from the time Scout first laid a hand on her."
"I just hope that one lesson works as well for Jennifer as it did for the rest of us."
"Well, who knows? If it does, maybe we'll live to see her pass it on to the next generation." Hawk paused for one of his half-laughs. "Wouldn't that something?"