Chapter 70*

Jason's POV*

There was something inherently uncomfortable about a police station. Maybe it was the bustle and constant motion, with phones ringing, papers shuffling; it was a picture of productivity. Or it could have been the constant parade of uniformed officers, unsettling despite it being their natural habitat. But more likely, it was the way that they were very comfortable making you wait. It was a tactic meant to unsettle, according to my lawyer at least. I just hadn't anticipated they would actually do it, when this was supposed to be a reasonably friendly conversation. Yet while I had shown up a few minutes before 1pm, to show consideration for the appointment I had set, it was now nearing 1:45pm, and I had spent close to an hour in the little waiting area in reception.

"Sorry for the wait." Lt Tanner's voice cut through the bustling movement as she approached where I was waiting. "Thank you for coming in today, do you want a coffee or water?"

"Sure, I'd take a coffee." It was the first offering of a drink I had gotten, which had been strange enough. But I hadn't spent enough time in police stations to know if it was always this busy, or if something had happened. And it was definitely the first time that a scheduled appointment with a detective had been forgotten for so long.

"Would you bring two coffees to room 3, please?" Tanner asked the receptionist, receiving a nod. "Thanks."

It must be nice to be a detective, since I hadn't seen anyone else give a drink order to the woman sitting behind the desk. It seemed like a weird power play, but I wasn't going to question it. I'd take the sure to be terrible police coffee.

"We'll just be back here, sorry we don't have a conference room available, they're all occupied."

She led the way past the bull pen of desks, at least half of which were filled with people working through their paperwork. It contributed to the overall noise and chaos of the building, but as she led me into a smaller interrogation room the noise diminished. I wondered for a moment if she didn't have an office, trying to find an innocent reason why she was leading me into an interrogation. She closed the door behind me, then set a folder down on the table as we both sat down.

"So what do you want to talk about?" I asked, breaking the ice, not bothering to wait for her to start. It wasn't that I was in a particular rush, but I was uncomfortable being here so long already.

She examined me for a moment, gaze calculating as she took in my posture. I was trying not to be too stiff, though this was uncomfortable to say the least. I don't know what she was looking for, or if she found it before she began. "We are looking for information on Charles DiLaurentis, as I'm sure you're aware."

I nodded, waiting for her to get to a point. They had already been talking to my dad nearly daily over the last week, so that wasn't a surprise.

"What do you remember of your brother? I understand he was sent away when you were quite young." she started, surprising me with the easily offered excuse of why I wouldn't have much to say.

I breathed out, trying to figure out how I could answer. It wasn't like I had a lot of memories. And what little I did have I wasn't totally sure were real. It was as good a chance that they were dreams as real memories.

"Not much to be honest. My dad said I was about 4 when he was sent to Radley." I finally went with, not wanting to set her expectations too high for how helpful I could be with this. "I remember my parents telling me that my imaginary friend had to go away. But I can't really give you anything more than that."

It was all I could really offer up. After all, the thin threads of memory that I had managed to dredge up weren't really anything but dreams of childhood and playing outside. It seemed like it would be more damaging to give false information.

"So you don't remember anything about him?" she asked, clearly fishing for something.

I frowned, unsure just what she was getting at. I'm sure it wasn't too strange to not have a lot of memories from that age. I had taken a psych class that said something to that extent, but I couldn't remember the exact info. I hadn't exactly been focused on developmental psychology in school, more about addiction and emotional development in young adulthood.

"I'm not sure what I could remember. I spent a lot of my life being told that Charlie was imaginary, so I don't exactly have the best memories of it. And what I can remember, I'm not sure it's real." it hurt to admit, that my memory was so fallible. That I wasn't a trustworthy witness. That I couldn't help.

"Of course, I understand." she acknowledged, pausing for a moment before starting again. "Your father had mentioned an incident before Charles was sent away. I wondered if you might remember it."

I could feel the frown settling on my face. I had known there would've had to be something that had caused him to be sent away. Some early sign that he was dangerous and unstable. It had been a subject that my dad had been curiously quiet on. The decision to institutionalize a small child couldn't have been an easy one. Especially not when my mom had been so willing to put up with Ali's and my shit for so many years. Whatever the ultimate incident was, it had to be serious enough to shatter our family dynamic, and cause us to move to Rosewood.

"What incident?" I couldn't hide the genuine curiousity I had for this. The few moments I had been able to ask my dad about things, he hadn't really opened up. Just about the circumstances of us moving and settling in, like the rest didn't impact Ali and me or something.

Tanner's face twitched minutely. Not enough for a real facial expression, but almost enough to register as surprise. Did she think that my dad had been more open with me? How much had he shared with her that this was a surprise?

"Your father mentioned that you broke your leg as a child, do you remember how that happened?" she tried to encourage, just enough to get me to pick up the thread of thought.

"Yeah, my left one." I remembered, it had been one of those things that my parents had reminded me of. "I was jumping on my bed and fell off, somehow managed to break my femur."

It was one of those memories that stuck. It had been a warning to be careful on heights from my parents, telling me to be cautious of where the edge was. And unfortunately, one of the stories that my parents liked to drag out in front of guests. No, Jason doesn't play football, we were worried his leg might hold him back sort of things.

"Your father said it was a play structure." the correction was gentle.

"No, I thought-" I started, trying to justify my memory. That couldn't be right. Everytime that I thought of that story, me falling and crashing down, it was tied to my room. I couldn't remember ever falling off a play structure. It seemed strange. But what if I was wrong? Why would my dad be lying about something as pointless as that? Or bring it up to Tanner? I didn't think it could have anything to do with Charlie. Hadn't I broken my leg later?

"Why would my dad tell you about an accident when I was a kid, anyway?"

"It wasn't an accident, Jason. Your father said that Charles pushed you off the top of the structure."

"Huh." I managed to grunt out, setting back in my chair at that information. I didn't remember that at all. Barely remembered the neon green cast that was around my leg, only recognizing it from family pictures, the few that we had anyway. I had a lot of trouble tracking what I looked like at any given age as a result, until I had hit school and started getting yearly school pictures that is. The vague internal timeline of my life was confused, without some backing of what happened when. It made me doubt the vague memories that I had.

"You don't seem surprised that your brother broke your leg when you were a child." Tanner pointed out.

"I guess cause I'm not." I answered with an indifferent shrug. "Given what he's done, it's not really surprising that he'd hurt me as a kid."

It was a bitter thing to know. That my brother, the one that I had remembered fondly as my imaginary friend, didn't care about my health. But hadn't I already learned that over the years? If he really was the one behind the A game since Mona had been institutionalized, I had seen him do a lot sicker things than shoving me off a play structure. Even turning the ball shooter on Aria and I lined up with who I knew him to be. It would be more surprising if some of those tendencies hadn't been there when he was younger. That would at least explain how impulsive some of those actions were.

"What he's done?" she questioned.

Just like that I remembered that I was in a police interrogation room. This wasn't a friendly chat. And I didn't know what all I was supposed to be keeping secret. The threat against that Sarah Harvey girl if the girls said anything about their captivity to the police sounded in my head again. Even if I wasn't sure that I was included in that threat, it wasn't something that I wanted to risk.

"Taking the girls captive, everything he did to them down there, how he reacted at the arcade." I explained, hoping that wasn't saying too much, it should all be things that she already knew about.

Tanner nodded her head slowly, clearly evaluating if I was sharing everything. I must have passed muster, or at least she wasn't going to press the subject any further. Instead, her hand moved to the edge of the folder on the table. The police folder suddenly becoming the most important thing in the room.

"It's interesting how you talk about him. You keep referring to him as your brother, but it seems that, like your father, you don't want anything to do with him." her fingers were still on the edge, not opening the folder, just making sure that I was paying attention to it.

"I've come to the conclusion that he might not be the type of person that I want to know." my voice was even, trying not to reveal everything that I knew.

"So it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that he's not actually your brother?" she asked, flipping open the folder.

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, leaning forward in my seat to take a look at what was now showing on the table.

There was what looked to be a lab report, or results of some kind. A percentage match across the top of the page and then a chart below. It offered hope that it wasn't actually Charlie, a hope that I had just about given up on after the arcade and the way that he sent my dad running for the hills.

"We got the results back from the exemplar you submitted for comparison." Tanner explained, turning the sheet around to face me and sliding it across the table. "Your DNA match is only 19.8%. If he was your brother that number would be closer to 50%."

The hope that had swelled in the last moments deflated. That maybe it was some random guy who was obsessed with Ali for some other reason. Reality hit hard and true, absolutely crushing any other possibility.

"My dad didn't tell you."

It was Tanner's turn to look confused, apparently she had thought this was going to be a bigger shock to me. Which for a moment, it had been. "He didn't tell me what?"

"Of course not."I continued with a sigh. "Ken DiLaurentis isn't biologically my father."

Why did I have to be the one to break the news to people? I had tried to not be for Spencer, but had still been the one to confirm it for her. It pissed me off that he left it to me to deal with. I got that it must gall him to admit that his wife cheated on him, especially after just recently giving birth to their first son apparently. But that didn't mean that I had to cover his slack.

I swear I almost saw Tanner deflate, the ace that she thought she had to play, her way to get more information from me, had fallen flat. Her mouth was tight. "I see. That answers a few questions we had."

"Cause my dad's DNA matched how you thought?" I hazarded a guess.

"We had thought perhaps Charles was the half-sibling." she admitted.

We sat in silence for a moment. Her clearly thinking, and me wondering if there was actually anything else she needed from me, or if I would manage to escape mostly unscathed.

"Thank you for coming in today." she finally said, closing the folder back on the dna report and moving it back to her side of the table.

"Sorry I couldn't be more help." which was true, I wished that I knew more about Charlie to be able to share that information if it meant his capture. Not so much that I wanted to know about him for my own interests or well being, my curiousity on that subject had decidedly dried up.

"Not to worry. I appreciate what you've shared. I wonder if you might be willing to work with the profiler from the FBI when they arrive. If you're comfortable with that, of course."

"Sure, I can do that." I agreed to be amiable, but hoped that Tanner wouldn't actually follow up.

It definitely didn't go the way that Tanner had clearly been hoping for. Though I wasn't sure exactly what her end game was. If she had been hoping that I could share who the other parent was for Charles, I don't know why she would have asked me in the first place. It would be way more likely that my dad would know. But I guess he wasn't sharing everything with her. She led me back out to the front of the building, where the receptionist was just now getting our coffees. I almost laughed at the timing, but instead just said goodbye and took off. If I was okay to leave, I wasn't going to linger. Not to mention that police coffee wasn't that great in my admittedly limited experience.

Checking the time once I got outside, it was a little after 2pm. Which meant if I was a responsible businessman, I would go back to work, continue working through my paperwork and the endless pile of emails that filled my inbox, and do all the prep for my personal day tomorrow. Instead, I swung by a drive thru coffee shack and headed home. A latte was definitely better than the pot at home. When I pulled up to the house, I came up short.

There was a woman with a large sunhat on her knees weeding the flowerbeds, the gloves painfully familiar. For just a moment, I thought it was my mom. Hair in a low ponytail down her back as she faced away and a small pile of uprooted plants to her left. I took a step towards her, mouth already opening to call out her name.

Then she turned slightly, and I recognized Ali's profile. My breath whooshing out at the recognition. It was unsettling to have mistaken Ali for my mom. Probably too many false memories stirred up by the conversation with Tanner. And Ali was wearing the hat she always used for gardening on sunny days. I hadn't realized it was still with the gardening equipment. Not that I had really had a large part in clearing up her stuff. My dad had managed most of that, seamlessly moving into the space that she had previously occupied.

"You're home from work early." she commented, getting up from the ground and brushing the dirt off her stained jeans.

"Yeah, I had a meeting with Tanner and didn't feel like going back to the office." it wouldn't do to try and hide things, we needed to be transparent with everything that was going on. It would help reduce surprises from the police or Charles.

"Oh? Anything interesting?" she questioned, her voice automatically dropping lower so that the patrol officers in their car wouldn't be able to hear us.

"Not really. Apparently dad hadn't told them about my parentage, so they had some questions about the DNA results." I replied with a shrug.

"They've confirmed it was actually Charles though? Actually our brother?" her voice was barely above a whisper, but the earnest desire to know and have it confirmed made me uncomfortable.

"Yeah, unless we have another secret sibling that our parents never told us about." I half joked, hoping that it was really a joke and not something else we would uncover.

"Let's hope there isn't. Our family tree is already complicated enough." her voice picked up that hard flat edge it did when she was getting annoyed.

"You coming in anytime soon?" I asked, eyeing the current state of the flowerbeds.

"Probably not until later."

I nodded as she went back to pulling dandelions, and then headed back into the house. Moving straight to the office, I set my coffee down and turned my laptop on. I should probably do some actual work, but as I settled down at the desk, coffee in hand, I realized this was probably one of the few times that I would have alone today.

I opened my settings and switched on my vpn, then plugged in a wireless keyboard. It was probably paranoid, and worse yet probably not enough. I had chatted with my sponsor about my security concerns, worried about surveillance. He had recommended getting a VPN so that my data was encrypted on the network and using a new keyboard if I wanted something to be more likely private. Something about logging the keystrokes, it wasn't my area of expertise, but the past few weeks had revealed that to be a huge weakness for me. Last, I ran another virus check, hoping that there wasn't anything lingering on my laptop that would let Charles see what I did on my computer.

Finally, I was able to start in on my research project. Hoping that Alison would really be a while in the garden, I started looking into what an appointment at a family planning center entailed.

End Chapter*

Science Note: I'm not a geneticist, or even really well trained in science. But apparently full siblings tend to share between 32 and 52% of their DNA, while half-siblings are between 18-32%. With half-siblings that share the same mother having less DNA in common normally.

Hope ya enjoyed the chapter, let me know what ya think