Tanner seemed remarkably unphased by Bree’s reprimand; if it wasn’t for the numbers Ethan would never have known he was embarrassed, the man was stellar at concealing his emotions. Whether he was embarrassed because he was actually ashamed of what he said, or simply because he had gotten caught, that was a far greater mystery. Of course, her reprimand also did nothing to change Tanner’s certainty that there was some sort of foul play going on, and while he would undoubtedly keep it on the low-down now, it was still only a matter of time.

“Very well, Agent Walsh,” he replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Until next time, Ethan.” He gave Ethan one last searching glance before walking away. Somehow, the whole exchange between the group had passed unnoticed by everyone else in the area.

Ethan let out a tired sigh as he scooped up the bag of candies from the drawer, only barely noticing that he had grabbed it upside down before the whole bag would have dumped out on the floor. He quickly switched his grip, rubbed his brow, and followed after Bree. This was, indeed, going to be one of those days.

The story he gave to the FBI was identical in every respect to the story he had just given to Agent Royce Tanner. Not once did he fumble or misstep in his story, but nor was he so clean that it seemed as though he had memorized the entire thing. He was able to flip the story on its side, recite it from any angle, and maintain both the face and attitude of a victim. Such a shame that the only one there who could truly appreciate his acting skills was Bree, and he somehow doubted that she was going to nominate him for a Grammy.

When the questioner finished with him they both stood up and shook hands, before he was politely escorted to the door. Only once he was certain that no one of significance was watching did he cup his head in his hands and let out a sigh. It had taken a lot more effort than he had expected to keep the numbers in place to ensure that his acting skills did not slip. Ethan was not a liar at his core. Most of the time he simply implemented enough deception to keep the bouncers and money managers from getting suspicious of him. He grabbed one of the Werther’s from his pocket, unwrapped it, and began sucking on it. How he prayed that all of this was not going to go to waste because of Tanner's meddling.

“I guess that was it.” Ethan finally said, turning to face Bree. “Goodbye, Agent Walsh. I’ll see myself out.”

The world was... It was a little quieter now, on the other side of Ethan Sampson. No, not a little actually. No, that wasn't entirely true. A lot actually. As if someone had all the speakers in her world amped up to ten, the bass thumping loud enough to make her bones quake, and then suddenly - nothing. Silence, absolute.

It had taken some getting used to, living without the constant, nagging incessant doubt about her professionalism, her sanity - well, her entire world in truth - but Bree was beginning to realize just how quiet (and good) her life had once been, over a year ago. Before what should have been a simple illegal casino bust and scooping up a wayward informant, turned everything all so damned... Weird.

Bree could have never imagined, there would come a time when she would be almost nostalgic for weird.

It was a new day. A beautiful and bright day, a magnificent autumn day morning a sky overhead so pristine blue, it made the eyes ache just to look upon its brilliance. Just cool enough to be sweater weather, with a breeze that kissed the cheeks briskly, and did not chill. The scent of autumn leaves mixed headily with last night's rain as Bree jogged on the packed dirt trail, four miles already behind her and the fifth coming up with that welcome sense of unwinding in her stride. And though Freddie Mercury was lilting through her phone and her ear buds, about thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening me, she really was not expecting a bolt from the blue.

Bree winced as her phone's 'work ringer' went off, a wailing alarm that sang through her ear buds way too loud as she pulled up short, slapping at the phone screen bound to her arm with sweaty fingers.

"Agent... Agent Walsh... " Bree slowed, catching her breath. This was her day off - she wasn't even on duty - but the long habit of professionalism pulled her up short on her run, no matter who was on the other side of this line.

"Yes sir." Her brow furrowed as the sweat began to form a sheen on her face, walking quickly now, blowing out slowly.

"Yes sir, that's my case - one of my cases... Yes, that's the family... " Even though there was probably not another person around for at least another mile or two, it was the long, careful habit of years that kept her cagey about speaking too much aloud. "The family." Two otherwise innocuous words that, in this instance carried the weight of damn near a century of corruption, notorious villainy and ruthless, detestable deeds. This was the family that Victor had fled. This was the family that found him and blew his head off for his troubles.

And it seemed this new generation of the family intended to ratchet things up about a thousand notches, biting off a brazen mouthful that, to this moment, no one ever saw coming.

"Wait... Sir, wait... What!?" Bree's grey eyes widened as she stopped cold, as she listened several moments longer, shaking her head slowly. "No... No sir I'll... Half an hour. Yes sir, on my way now."

(( Sorry double post ))

For the first couple of weeks, Ethan found himself compulsively checking the numbers for the police simply by habit. He would pause, walking down the street, pulling out his wallet, and quickly scan them, looking for any indication that the FBI was somehow growing close again. It would take him a moment to remember that it was over, he was free, and he did not need to worry about people looking for him anymore. The FBI were off his trail, and there was no reason for Bree to look for him anymore. At that moment he would let out a small, secret smile, and resume his interrupted action.

The seemingly life-or-death habits of four months did not break easily, but eventually break they did. Ethan remembered the first day where he made it all the way into the afternoon before checking for the police. He actually laughed out loud, ignoring the couple of people passing by who turned to stare at him.

Then he was making it a full day. Then two days, then three. And then, quite suddenly, Ethan forgot about the FBI, and the trials of the last several months. He dove back into the life he had craved while on the run with a fervor that could almost be described as desperation. He got kicked out of two casinos in one night, the pile of chips he left behind easily clocking in at the millions of dollars. He didn’t begrudge leaving the cash behind. It was simply a rush, proving that he could.

Ethan went home with a woman that night, someone with bleached hair and spray-tan skin who was content to have cheap sex so long as her new suitor took her out to a four star meal before hand and briefly funded her ludicrous shopping habits. Ethan willingly did both. One week later he got piss drunk with a new “friend,” who mysteriously vanished after Ethan blacked out with the check for one hundred thousand dollars he had earned after that night’s exploits. Ethan woke with a hangover that would incapacitate an elephant, and a strange, overlarge smile on his face.

Ethan did not worry about the potential consequences of his nightly exploits. He kept his eyes on the number, and knew with certainty, as he left his hotel each night, that he would return to it, still alive, the next morning. That was all he needed.

He would not slow down for nigh on two months. But when reality would once more rear its head, it would hit him as hard as a wave of ice water. He would be left, chilled to the bone and trapped once more. But this time, the trap would be of his own making.

The cold water hissed into the porcelain basin like white noise as her grey eyes stared, unseeing into its swirling, un-depth like a medium over her crystal ball. The difference between Bree and this fictional medium was, however, that she was not looking to see a single thing, but desperately to unsee what had just been seen. And she did have a hope, a miniscule distant hope that what she had just witnessed would one day fade from her memory.

There was not a chance in hell she could ever - not ever - un-hear those desperate, heartbreaking cries.

Somehow she managed to pry her desperate, white-knuckled grip from the granite edges of the office restroom sink, cupping them beneath the cold, running water and splashing her face yet again. The water was a cold, welcome shock, and she ran her wet fingers over and over again on her face, her cheeks before she raised her head to look in the mirror.

Bree had probably read a thousand times over, in one novel or another, that so-and-so character had "haunted eyes," whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

She understood now, exactly what that meant. Pink-rimmed and bloodshot, her grey eyes stared back at her from a thousand miles away, desperate, pleading, sickened... Terrified. She thought she had seen so much, so damned much in this shitty, evil world. But this was... It was just...

Bree squeezed her eyes shut. Tightly. And in that moment she just could not give a good damn who walked in on her, or who might see be able to tell the beaded water from those hard-wrung tears.

Victor's defection, the object lesson of his brutal and oh-so-public assassination - that had not been enough. Every snitch turned fed-informant knew he faced that possibility if he ran, that the U.S. Marshal's wouldn't be good enough, smart enough this time or hide him in a hole deep enough to keep the mob off him. Always, always there was that paranoid whisper in the back of his head, that "old friends" would be just around the corner, even the street corner of the podunk town in the butt end of Montana. It was simply... The way of the world really. If you made the company of very bad men, then very bad things might just happen to your limbs and your life if you turned on them.

And yet informants turned on the mob every day. It was almost an expectation really, that someone somewhere would become a rat and snitch out his old buddies eventually, or simply turn tail and run, try to disappear like Victor. That was a status quo, however, that had simply become intolerable. One faction of these very bad men, had been watching the new, brutal wave of the underworld: the Russian mob, the Mexican drug cartels...

Fear. Terror kept their own people in line. Horror kept the local communities and even some of the cops in line as well. Someone in the mob had been taking notes, and doing an awful lot of thinking.

Her name was Marianna. Marianna was 6-years old, with long, wavy black hair and great dark eyes and, from what Bree noted of her first grade photograph, graced by the most impossibly long eyelashes she had ever seen. Marianna had a little brother named Jacob, and a Mommy who loved her so very much, and brushed and braided her beautiful hair every day and told her fairy tales before bed every night.

She also had the great misfortune of a Daddy who knew far too much about "the books," about bad money gotten from doing very bad things. Her Daddy knew what was moved where, and when, and just how much. But her Daddy did not want to be a bad man anymore. He loved his little family so much, he wanted to talk to the very good men, and make things right again.

Marianna and 4-year old Jacob had been missing for some two weeks now. Of course the FBI had been on the kidnappings in an instant, but whoever snatched these kids from their home in broad daylight had been thorough, uncannily thorough and until yesterday, there had been absolutely no word at all. No threats. No ransom demands. Nothing until the arrival of a generic thumb drive at their family home, in an unmarked, untraceable package.

There was nothing on that thumb drive, but a single video.

They had put her in a box, so tiny, like a little coffin. Only a single touch light attached within illuminated the dank space, but it was just enough to give for the pin camera to focus unerringly on her face.

'Oh God... ' Bree whirled around, slammed open the bathroom stall door and fell to her knees at the toilet, heaving absolutely nothing but bile into the bowl until all she could do was try to spit the sticky bitterness from her mouth.

For hours hours, to the very end when there was simply no more air, Marianna had cried, whimpered, begging for her Mommy and Daddy... Bree groaned as she forced herself to her feet, eyes closed as she leaned against the wall of the bathroom stall to keep her upright. Her gut ached with the hollowness, the helplessness.

Jacob might still be alive out there, somewhere. And all the resources of one of the elite investigative agencies on the planet could not produce a single, solitary clue, where to even begin to start searching.

Atlantic City was the Las Vegas of the East Coast, and when his plane touched down in the Atlantic City International Airport, Ethan stepped out into the terminal like a king returning to his palace. It had taken him a great deal of consideration before he had returned to the East Coast. The anonymity of the west, the massive open spaces and the spread out towns, had served him well for three months as he hid from the FBI. Unconsciously, Ethan had found himself reluctant to leave it. He had stayed in Vegas for the first couple of days, blowing most of the last of Sampson’s money in case Tanner should get curious and look for a paper trail, before bouncing all across the great state of Nevada, up through the Indian reservations of Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, and then going east.

He had turned around at the edge of the Mississippi river, and made it two states back to the west before he realized what exactly he was doing. He had spent a restless night in a cheap hotel, unwilling to head east, but reluctant to return to the west. It felt like giving in.

It took him the rest of the night to figure out what heading west would be “giving in” to. Eventually, he was forced to conclude that it would be giving in to his own paranoia. He consciously knew he was done, but subconsciously he just couldn’t believe it.

Flying to Atlantic City was, to him, a little bit like spitting in the hand of the devil. If any sort of retribution was going to find him, it would find him there. He was proving to himself that, once and for all, the matter was over. He knew his fears were senseless and baseless, and the only way he was ever going to get rid of them was confronting them head on.

THe city welcomed him with open arms. Tourism was its entire business, and every street, every shop, every individual there lived and breathed consumerism. For the right price anything could be bought in that city.

He spent the night in a high-end hotel, reveling in the luxury and unconcerned about the cost. He’d make it all back up and then some tomorrow, when he visited one of the city’s casinos. That night, he slept like a babe. The sky had not fallen on him when he stepped off the plane, the police had not been waiting around every corner, ready to jump him as soon as they caught a glimpse. He was safe.

Ethan slept late the next morning, taking a long, luxurious shower before ordering room service and a bottle of champaign. By the time he left his room it was early afternoon. There was still several hours to kill before the casinos really came to life, so Ethan took a cab down to the boardwalk. Of all the things that had changed during his flight from Bree, one thing had remained the same. He still loved the water.

THe boardwalk was bright and comfortable, filled with a bustle of happy people, and lined by brightly colored shops that begged to be entered and examined. The waves from the Atlantic Ocean rolled up the beach between the two piers, leaving a froth on the dark sand. Ethan stood with his back to the various shops, staring out towards the water. On the beach, a number of families had gathered. Their young children flirted with the waves, while some of the older ones built a sandcastle. A light breeze tousled his hair, and Ethan let out a small, content sigh.

He was safe. There was nothing in New England to fear.

"Please don't run Ethan." Bree folded her arms as she leaned over the railing beside the green-eyed man, her own gaze falling over the bucolic beachside view. Truly she took in precious little of the otherwise lovely scene before her, beyond the irony that here, where her strange, impossible search finally ended, there were so many happy families on these dark sands, so many laughing children and sweet young smiles.

This place, this beach, was pretty much the very last location in the world Bree imagined she'd find Ethan again - if she ever found him, of course. But for the long stretches of beach, Bree did not care for Atlantic City in the least. Everything glittered and shone and begged for attention with sweet smiles and music, bells and flashing lights - but only ever on the surface. She could think of little else but the layers of vibrant cosmetics caked on an old whore, or a lovely, masterfully rendered vintage movie poster plastered over layers of ancient, torn bills and crumbling plaster walls. Every last thing was for sale it seemed, the sole reason this place existed, and Bree had never been enamored with the vice of gambling.

From the beginning, this search had not been much more than a half-assed wild hunch, not even worthy of the name "plan." The FBI had no way to find him, little Jacob. No leads, no tips, no evidence pointing any which way from analysis of the envelope or the thumb drive or the video it contained.

'Ethan... ' That name began as a soft whisper in the back of her mind, easy to ignore and push away for a time when she finally stumbled from the office bathroom. But by dinner time, it was a full-blown drumbeat through her skull, ceaseless, relentless in its march through the battered halls of her brain with a racking, thumping pain that had her burying her head in her hands.

Only when she was decided, irrevocably, to leave Richmond, to search for Ethan this very minute, did the agony suddenly and simply... End.

Bree tried the more conventional methods of finding him first, via identification and credit card and bank transactions. Unsurprisingly, "Ethan Sampson" played out pretty quickly, and had simply fallen off the radar soon after Ethan was swallowed up by the great wide world all over again. She had never believed he had given her his true identity of course, but at the time she had been content to let the charade go - not that it helped her efforts to find the green-eyed man today though.

She had closed her eyes with the frustration, stood from her desk with her head bowed with defeat - and that was when her own voice rang through her head. 'Drive. Get in your car right now, and drive.'

And she did. There was no sense, no rhyme or reason to her drive. Only hunches about where she ought to turn off, what exits she should take. There was only intuition and her own inner voice, whispering which highways would take her where she needed to travel, which streets she should stroll to get her to the best vantage point.

What she was doing made absolutely no damned sense in the least.

No matter. She found him. Somehow, she always found him. Bree had no name for the connection that seemed to bind her and Ethan. She saw no numbers in her head - hell, she'd been lucky to [barely] pass College Algebra. And yet here she was on this boardwalk, an impossible thing that, in truth, seemed damn near inevitable if she thought on it long enough.

"I'm not here to arrest you, or harass you," Bree said softly, her grey-eyed gaze torn with some effort from the ocean to the man beside her. "The reason I'm here isn't about you or me at all."

Slowly, one hand reached to the inside pocket of her jean jacket, as if Ethan were some nervous deer she might scare away if she moved too quickly and frightened him away.

"Go on. Take it. His name is Jacob Gianetti." A little boy with laughing dark eyes peered up from the photograph, an impish little grin on his wide, freckled face. "He's four years old, and his big sister is already dead."

"I don't know how this works, these numbers you see in your head. But I need to know if there is a chance, any chance at all, that he is still alive - and if there is the remotest possibility you can tell me where he is right now."

How could all of his illusions be shattered in such a short moment?

When the numbers had finally forced the awareness of Bree’s drawing presence into his conscious mind Ethan had stood petrified, like a deer in the headlights. Every muscle had become frozen and he prayed, vacant eyed, that their being drawn into the same area once again was nothing more than a coincidence. The United States wasn’t such a large area that it was impossible for two people who traveled frequently to find each other once every couple of months.

Right?

That was, at least, until he felt a presence by his right shoulder, something warm and electric and so frustratingly familiar. This was no coincidence. Or perhaps it was a coincidence, just the next one in the line of impossible coincidences that surrounded the two of them.

Ethan didn’t even look over at her and asked him not to run. He was frozen, and that probably was the only thing that kept him from disappearing right now. He was waiting for his beautiful belief that he had any control over his own life to come back, to remind him that he was not just some absurd toy for the universe.

Did he look calm? He hoped he looked calm. He hoped he didn’t look as though the floor had faded away from underneath him like it never was, and he was now falling into an infinite blackness.

But, after the faintest moment of hesitation, his hand took the photograph with an almost unnoticeable tremor. He was here and she was here, he might as well listen to what she had to say. But he only looked at the photograph for a split second, just enough to catch a glimpse of a childlike face, a hint of a smile, before he looked away, casting his gaze out to the ocean once more.

But it didn’t matter if he didn’t look at the photograph close enough to connect a person to the poor missing boy, because there was no way he was going to be able to unhear the quiet desperation in Bree’s voice. In that moment it finally occurred to him exactly how dire the situation must be for Bree to turn away from the police work that had guided her whole adult life, and request aid from something that must to her seem so supernatural. What would any of her colleagues say if they knew she was here?

The numbers turned slowly to focus on the boy... Jacob. The least he could do was give her the answers to her questions, for the sake of this boy, and the sake of his family. A family that undoubtedly loved him.

“He’s alive,” Ethan said, a faint trace of relief entering his voice. “And whoever has him isn’t intending to kill him yet. The chances he’ll be dead within the next couple of days are so small as to be insignificant.” He didn’t add that, in just over a week’s time, the probability rose suddenly to just under 50. For whatever reason they had taken this boy and kept him alive, it would all come to a head in eight days.

Concealing a shudder, Ethan turned his attention to location. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona... He went through the list almost as quickly as he could think, needing nothing more than a brief flash to see that the child wasn’t in the state. Finally, though, one rang true.

“Massachusetts.” He told Bree, fully turning to look at her for the first time. “He’s in Massachusetts. Not in Boston proper, at least not right now, but near it.” He glanced down at the picture one last time before trying to hand it back to Bree.

“I should go now,” he said. “And you’ve got a boy to find.”

"Yes, I... Yeah," she muttered softly, almost incoherently. He was alive. Jacob was alive.

Robotically, Bree took Jacob's picture back in her hand, her eyes riveted immediately to the sweet smiling face in the picture. She had a state, a city even, and Bree knew very well that the center of operations was located in Boston. It made sense of course, and she never once - not even for a moment - considered the possibility that Ethan was just saying something to get rid of her, to ditch her again. Somehow, some way, she just knew he wouldn't do that to her. Not now.

But there was simply no way for them to find him. Not in time at least. Even if they could get warrants for every single building in Boston and its environs, every last penthouse, shack, trailer and that was even remotely suspected to be owned, run or overrun by this mob, it would be the work of untold weeks. And Ethan had said one word that stopped her breath cold, gripped her heart with a panic that twisted her gut up so painfully...

"Yet."

"Please... Please don't go Ethan." She was desperate, as desperate and scared as she'd ever been in her life. And as simple as that, FBI Special Agent Brigit Walsh, former U.S. Army sergeant and all around serious bad ass, had come as close to begging as she'd ever done in all her life. She spit in the eye of anyone threatening her life, but for Jacob... ?

"That is such a large city, such an immense countryside to find such a little boy... " Her voice trailed off, and Bree could feel the tears welling up in her eyes, painful little pinpricks at the corners. She shut them tight, quickly, digging the heels of her palms into her eyelids. She still had that much pride at least - but that was all.

Her hands dropped to her side, and Bree opened her wet, reddened eyes as she looked into Ethan's green gaze. "They buried her alive Ethan," she began softly, "Jacob's sister, they buried her alive. Those bastards took video footage of a little girl crying and screaming for her Mommy and Daddy until she finally suffocated to death, hours later. Hours... "

"And then? Then they sent the video to her parents."

Bree's hands just couldn't stay still, and she ran her hands through her auburn hair, trying to catch her breath. "I need your help Ethan. Honest to God, if there was anywhere else to turn, I would. I know you just want to get away, far away - hell, you haven't even asked how I found you. But I know it now, even if it makes no rational, common sense at all. There's just no finding Jacob without you."

Bree took the picture, and Ethan turned away from her. And, even as he took his first step, he did his best to ignore the numbers that told him there was no way he was going to be able to just leave like that. The human mind was fickle. If he timed it just right, maybe...

But then she called to him, begged him to stay, and he found his feet halting, and then turning him back towards her. He listened to her words numbly, and the numbers concurred with everything she said. In his mind he saw an imaginary clock, ticking away to the almost unavoidable deadline for the boy’s death. A deadline that Bree didn’t even know about. And he was just going to walk away, and leave that little boy to rot?

Finally the situation ripped a hole in his emotional barrier, and everything came slipping out. It let out the sadness, and the pity, but it also let out the flood of indignation against Bree that had built up while she was talking, and that was what had to come out first.

“Have you gone mad?” Ethan spat, only barely managing to keep his voice in check so as to not draw the attention of passersby. “What are you going to do, waltz me into the FBI office and say ‘Here! This man, who we just went to a whole lot of effort to prove is completely unconnected to the mob, can help us find Jacob. I can’t tell you how, but I promise he can.’ Or, even better yet, ‘He’s psychic,’ or whatever term you want to use, ‘and can direct us right to the doorstep where the kid’s being held’?

“You are asking me to destroy my alibi with the American government, throw away everything I’ve built and everything I love, risk getting imprisoned, or worse, captured and studied to find out how my brain works, all because the FBI is incapable of doing its job!”

There was not a single thought behind what she did, not a moment's consideration as her hand shot out snake quick, and slapped Ethan full across the face. Her palm stung with little prickles as it dropped back to her side, but she ignored that utterly. In this single moment, Bree's whole body shook with rage, and a range of emotions she didn't even know had a names.

"Go fuck yourself," she snarled, grey eyes flashing like the steely roiling clouds of an oncoming thunderstorm.

"Go fuck yourself, you selfish, self-absorbed goddamned man-child!" she hissed, ignoring the quick glances of passers-by who turned away just as quickly. No one liked to watch a lover's spat after all - well, at least not out in the open where they could be seen gawking.

"Do you really think I didn't have some time to think about that on the drive here, how impossibly strange it would be to have you around again? How the hell I'd ever explain your presence to the other agents? Do you really think I haven't thought about the fact I'm probably going to lose my job for this - or worse? Not everyone can just walk out of a jail, you know." At first Bree had been incredulous, furious at Ethan's reaction to her desperate plea. Now, in the space of seconds, she could feel the bitterness roll through her, heavy and ugly - but it was still better than the despair she knew was right around the corner.

"Someday Ethan, when you finally grow up, you might realize there are things in this world bigger than you. That there are some things worth laying it all on the line, for no better reason than it's the right thing to do." Bree flexed the hand she'd slapped him with, her lip curling with disgust.

"Lose everything you built? Everything you love? Psh... The only thing you have to love is you. Have at it. I'll just get back to doing my job, and pray to God I don't somehow manage to trip over my own feet like the Keystone Cop I am. Hell, I couldn't even keep Victor alive, and get these sick bastards shut down for good. You're right Ethan, why fuck up a moment of your precious life, when the poor kid's as good as dead in my 'incapable' hands, right?" Bree could feel the tears or rage and helplessness begin to prick at the corner of her eyes, and whirled on her heel from the green-eyed man to stalk away before they could fall. She'd be good and damned if she let that bastard see her cry.

The numbers gave him only a split second’s warning, and it was nowhere near enough time for him to dodge the blow that was now landing solidly across the side of his face. Ethan felt his head snap sharply to the side, and a bright flame of sharp pain crossed across his cheek. Every thought left his head, and for a moment the numbers were alone, drifting before his mind’s eye.

Her words drew him back into focus with all the subtlety of a bucket of cold water. They cracked against him like a whip, and he felt his temper growing with every word. Who on earth did she think she was, looking down on him from her high horse? Oh, she thought she had life all figured out. The perfect, noble, self sacrificing Brigit Walsh knew exactly what was right and what was wrong, and understood all of the consequences. She had everything all figured out, and anyone who didn’t agree with her, who hesitated even for a moment at going along with her perfect plan, why he was nothing but a kid, too pathetic to understand her grand, wonderful design.

Her complete ignorance left Ethan so furious that he couldn’t even begin to form words. She was the one who had come to find him, had asked for his help, and then she dared to turn it all around on him, act like it was all his fault. He couldn’t believe her naivety, couldn’t even begin to comprehend how she could fail so completely to understand what she was asking from him. He had answered her question, had told her where the kid was to the best of his ability, and all she wanted was to take more and more from him.

In the end, she was just like everyone else. All she wanted to do was use him, turn him and his ability into another tool for her FBI arsenal. He should never have told her, not even in part, about what he could do. He had broken his one, cardinal rule, and look where it had landed him. Another situation outside of his control, another person who made presumptions, and then used those presumptions to decide what he was supposed to do, and god forbid that he dare try and reject doing exactly what she expected of him. No, that simply could not stand. Not against Bree and her god damned righteous anger.

Even Victor’s name, and the knowledge of what exactly it meant, was not enough to blot out the wave of fire that roared through his veins and left his heart pounding. He heard it, and then he forgot it, her words unintelligible in the face of his fury. She wanted to go storming away from him? Fine. So be it. Let her stew in her fury, let it consume her until it fucking bled her dry. Ethan had no obligation to her.

All of the tension and fury in his body released suddenly, and he turned towards the ocean, letting out a bellow of pure, primal rage. On the beach the kids stopped playing, turning to look at him with wide, frightened eyes. He didn’t see them, didn’t see the people who were suddenly doing everything in their power to avoid getting any closer to him than was absolutely necessary. How dare she make so many presumptions?

Ethan left the pier, parting through the crowds like a ship in the water, his face carved into the mask of a demon. The numbers riled before his eyes, unable to hold still long enough even for him to comprehend them. They changed with the same churning tide that seemed to be bound within his own body, causing his heart to beat so loud that it seemed to be the only thing he could hear. He grabbed the numbers viciously in his mind and twisted at random, uncaring as all the lights on a storefront suddenly went out in one bright burst, and a man walking on the pier suddenly tripped over his own feet, skidding painfully and sending a shower of relish over a nearby woman from the hotdog he had been carrying. It lessened some of the tension in his heart, calmed him down enough that he was able to slow his pace and start watching where he was going a little bit.

That night, when he made his way over to the largest of Atlantic City’s casinos, he ripped the place out for as much as it was worth with an icy, furious passion. By the point he hit $150 million, and it became clear that he had no intention of stopping at any point, the casino could no longer ignore him. Having absolutely no way to prove that he was cheating, having watched him bounce his way from poker to roulette to blackjacks to the slot machines to craps, they could also no longer afford to leave him be. Already he was breaking the point that they would be able to pay out in a single night. His funds were taken from him, even the 10,000 with which he had entered the casino, and he let it go the same way he had won it, without even so much as a blink. The bouncers who had been put in place to watch him felt shivers crawl up their spines.

It really hadn't been all that hard, convincing the task force to move a good portion of their resources north to the Boston area. This was the epicenter after all, of the Donnelly and Hagan and Tills triumvirate of families, and as likely a place to search for the boy as any.

No one really had to know, this move was as much penance as hope for Special Agent Brigit Walsh. A newscaster droned on about a storm front moving across the Midwest, a tornado watch in the Oklahoma panhandle. But Bree absorbed as much of anything useful from the television white noise, as she deciphered in the patterns in the hotel ceiling tiles overhead - which was to say, not a single damn thing.

At the moment, she was far too "busy" wallowing in the fourth straight night of self-recrimination, wondering what in the world she could have done, what magical words she could have conjured that would have somehow, some way, proved the siren song to convince Ethan to be here now. Four days. Four days and all the man with the numbers had given Jacob "the next couple days" or so. Sure, Ethan might have thought he was being clever, leaving off the deadline implicit in his reassurance

But now those couple days were past, the better part of a week was already irrevocably behind them. Though Bree knew they were at least closer to Jacob by hundreds of miles, the suburbs of Boston were immense, and the judicial system byzantine. Law enforcement could provide list after list of warehouse, homes, buildings and offices associated with this family triumvirate all day long, but search warrants weren't given out for suspicions about very bad people. Whoever of the families' hirelings conducted these kidnappings had been very, very thorough. As with the arrival of the thumb drive, there had been not so much as a slightest whiff of an evidence trail to follow. Nothing. Nada.

She still didn't regret what she'd said when Ethan refused her. She still didn't regret slapping him. Not even a little, just on principle. During the daylight hours she'd managed to maintain a pretty solid facade, grim but determined and undeterred no matter the developments - or lack thereof. Tanner was here - he'd actually been insistent enough to qualify for "demanding" that he'd be coming with Bree to Boston. She suspected it might have something to do with the way he'd made a complete fool of himself in her office with Ethan, a little ingratiating maybe - but Bree didn't care. Not really. There was something almost soothing about the indomitable, dogged presence of Tanner; reassuring, solid, dogged - but they still weren't getting any closer to figuring out where Jacob really was, and inevitably the seconds turned to minutes, then hours, and now days.

Yes, the daylight hours with Tanner, the other agents - they were almost tolerable. But it was the nights that were the worst -

Bree winced - though with a small wisp of a grin - as she felt what should have been soft paws turn into a dead weight that stole her breath for some seconds. Her enormous black cat Riddick pounced atop the bed, and then made himself quite at home on his favorite 'mattress' atop Bree's chest. all warm and soft, with the rhythm of Bree's heart a nice little accompaniment to his naptimes, rather like the sound of rain on a rooftop.

"Hey Riddy," she whispered, one hand cradling her head against the too-soft hotel pillow, chin tucked toward her chest as the fingers of her other hand gently scratched behind the cat's velvety soft ears until his deep purr rumbled all through her chest.

"So what do you say buddy?" she murmured softly, welcoming the painful pinpricks of his needle-sharp claws kneading into her skin, a distraction from the painful ache in her chest that wanted to crush her with dread, a little more with every passing, futile minute.

"How about rubbing off a little of that black cat luck on me? Screw numbers. Who needs numbers anymore? Right now we need a goddamned miracle, and I'm willing to toss every rock and building and mobster in Boston to make it happen."

It took Ethan more than a day after his unexpected encounter with Bree to fully calm down. At times his anger and frustration would fade, but then some small, seemingly random event would remind him of what had happened, and he would feel his fury rise again. In that the numbers proved to be far more of a hindrance than a help, for more often than not they were the things that would remind him of what had happened. But, as is the nature of all emotions, it couldn’t last forever. He did eventually calm down.

Where the rage had been before, now there was just an emptiness. It was neither hot nor cold, it didn't hurt or feel particularly good. It was simply the absence of something that had once been there, and it left Ethan feeling drained. That morning, two days after he had met Bree, he lay in the hotel bed that was just slightly too hard to be comfortable and waited for the energy to convince himself to get up. When it finally came he left the house in a hurry, walking down the block with his hands shoved deep in his pockets to protect them from the cold sea air, to a respected breakfast diner a couple blocks down the street. He ate the food slowly, savoring every bite, and waited for it to fill up the empty feeling in his gut.

God damn her for making him feel this way. He had done nothing wrong. She was the one who had gotten furious the moment he expressed even a hint of reluctance at ruining everything about his life. She was the one who had stormed away before he had even had a chance to respond.

No. He didn’t want to be thinking about this again. He was done thinking about Brigit Walsh.

Once more, the numbers became a hindrance. He could redirect his thoughts, focus on the city, on trying to find a casino that hadn’t been given his description and would give him a place to forget things for the night, but the numbers couldn’t be distracted. He would push the numbers away, from Bree, from the little boy, from his family, from the people who were threatening them, but the moment he stopped trying they would flit back to that, to the matter that had become ingrained in his subconscious.

All he wanted to do was forget. But his own mind wouldn’t let him.

The next morning, the third day, Ethan noticed something in the ever-persistent numbers. The boy’s chances of surviving had gone up. He felt a sense of relief flood through him suddenly, and he nearly rolled back over and went to sleep. See? Bree hadn’t needed him after all. They would find the boy.

Except... they wouldn’t. The chance that they would find the boy hadn’t changed to match the the increased chances of the boy’s survival. Was that even possible?

He checked the numbers again, wondering if he had misinterpreted them in the foggy state between sleeping and waking. Maybe he had just dreamed it. But he hadn’t. For some unknown reason, and it certainly wasn’t that the boy’s captors had suddenly gained a conscience, the chance that the child was going to survive beyond that arbitrary deadline in five day’s time had risen. What was he missing?

Once more, Ethan lay in bed as the hours of the morning rolled slowly on towards midday. But this time he wasn’t moping. He was thinking. Ethan stared blankly at the ceiling as the numbers flitted before his eyes, moving so fast that they were nearly a blur, even to him. He knew that it was growing more and more probable that in five days time the organization was going to get what they wanted, and they were going to let the child go. It was good business. Somehow, somewhere, at some point, these people had let someone know something that would keep the boy alive.

It didn’t take long for the numbers to confirm that a member of the boy’s family had the key to his salvation. Only a split second later, and Ethan knew it was the boy’s father.

So the morning and the day went, with his body hardly moving an inch even as his brain raced on. Slowly he began to put together the pieces. The father knew something about the organization, and rather than holding his silence he had decided to testify. When they had found out they had decided to clean things up. They hadn’t been able to get at the father before he had entered into witness protection, but they had grabbed the children on their way home from school, only a few minutes away from the safety of the FBI.

Ethan ordered room service for lunch, and he ate mechanically, not tasting what he put in his mouth. Now that Ethan had committed himself to finding the details, he wasn’t going to stop until he understood everything. As soon as the plate was clear he stood up and began to pace around the room.

It wasn’t until late evening that he was finally able to find the last piece. There was no way for the mob to get at the father as long as he was in witness protection, and as long as he was alive there was a chance for him to testify. If they couldn’t kill him, they would have to get him to kill himself. The survival of the boy was contingent on his father committing suicide, and the closer it got to the deadline the closer the father got to committing the act.

Shocked, weary, and with a migraine reminiscent of the one from his trip down the river in Oregon, Ethan fell into bed and slept nearly twelve hours.

Ethan woke to the sound of a fly buzzing around his empty food plate and sunlight streaming through the closed curtains. As soon as he was awake, Ethan’s thoughts went back to the mob, the boy, and his father’s pending suicide.

It wasn’t as though this was the first piece of experience Ethan had with a mob wanting to kill someone who could testify against them. That had, after all, been the reason that the FBI had come after Victor.

And, in that moment, the numbers spat another shock at him. It was something he would have known if he had been paying attention, but the rage of his fight against Bree had washed the significance of one poignant sentence away. This was the same mob that had come after Victor. If he hadn’t died to allow Ethan’s escape, the man in charge of this operation would be in jail by Victor’s testimony.

It was like a blow to the gut, and for a moment Ethan lay there, trying to remind himself how to breathe. Did that make it... his fault? Was it his fault that girl was dead, and a young boy was going to have to grow up without his father?

Bree didn’t blame him. If she had, she would have had the perfect ammunition against him in the fight of four days ago. She had seen his remorse on the bank of that river, and it wouldn’t have taken much to twist that into a reason to force him to help. But, even in the heat of the moment with all that rage inside of her, it hadn’t occurred to her to use that weapon against him. But that didn’t lessen the twisting sensation in his own gut.

He hadn’t actually told her no, he wouldn’t help, anywhere in that fight. He had gotten mad and he had gotten scared, but he hadn’t actually told her no. Perhaps she had simply stormed off before it could get to that point, but why hadn’t he simply started with that? The thought stuck with him as he got dressed, showered and combed his dark hair, and left the hotel, bent on finding breakfast after having skipped dinner last night.

Perhaps it was because a part of him had wanted to be convinced, would have been convinced, if Bree had heard the fear behind his anger, and had convinced him that he had nothing to be afraid of. But what did that say about his continued refusal to help? It would have been so much easier if Bree had persuaded him, but why did he need it? He would know the moment the father killed himself, and Ethan didn’t know if he would ever be able to get the burden of that soul off of him. Victor did not need company, however indirect the death. He was never the person who pulled the trigger, but he still felt like the killer, simply because he could have done something to prevent both of their deaths.

Ethan found himself turning around in the middle of the street, and for a moment he wasn’t quite certain where he was going. Then he realized he was going to the airport, to rent a car and drive to Boston. It would likely take him the rest of the day to get there, and find a way to approach Bree without any questions being raised, but he would have plenty of time to tweak the numbers and figure that out once he was on the road.

He knew the nerves would find him later, the confusion and the regret and the uncertainty, but right now he was committed. He would help Bree find the boy, and then he would help her gather the evidence she needed to get rid of that mob for good. Only then could he truly get rid of the guilt, and move past that one, catastrophic choice he had made in Richmond.

She was running, screaming his name over and over again though no sound came out of her throat. Something bad was coming, something absolutely terrible and faceless and it was right behind her - but she wasn't scared for herself. No, it was the kid sprinting in front of her, the one who was slow, just too damned slow to get away but was somehow always frustratingly just out of arms reach. But then she suddenly put on speed, her legs free of whatever morass wanted to hold her still, keep her from the boy as she reached out once more for his shoulder –

She was too late, a cold storm wind shoving her aside just as she felt the fabric of his shirt beneath her fingertips, and she fell. She fell and fell and just kept on falling, screaming though nothing came out of her mouth and she finally hit –

Bree woke with a loud snort of a snore that wracked her whole body, grey eyes suddenly wide with terror as her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest. Riddick yowled as he was bucked off his warm perch on her belly to the deep blue carpet of the hotel room, amber yellow eyes flashing back up to the top of the bed where his woman sat straight up gasping.

’Shit… Shitshitshitshit… ‘ Bree groaned as she let her face fall into her hands, rubbing swiftly and angrily at her cheeks and eyes. She was still in the same clothes, far more rumpled now than they’d been just hours ago, the flickering of the television screen now the only light in the night-darkened room. She panicked for a moment until her fingers scrambled for the keyboard of her laptop lying next to her on the bed, running her fingers over the keys until the screen lit up again and she could see the little clock in the corner.

Bad enough though, she’d lost two hours here in the mediocre bed of this mediocre airport Comfort Inn. She shouldn’t have been sleeping. Some small viciousness whispered in the back of her head that she didn’t deserve to sleep, not when she’d done nothing, absolutely nothing that had brought them even a little closer to finding Jacob. Oh sure, they were here in Boston – right outside Logan Airport at that. But that didn’t have a damn thing to do with anything Bree had pulled together herself.

Ethan. The only reason they were here now was because of Ethan, and she hadn’t the least idea where to go from here now. The sheer number of wiretap requests they’d dropped in the past four days was unprecedented, the surveillance teams from Boston and Richmond, New York and D.C. were working 24/7, but there was nothing – not a damned thing. There were cell phone records of course, but the sheer volume of people involved was simply staggering, and no matter the hundreds of possible leads generated that sent agents over what had to be every last inch of Boston there was still nothing. No Jacob. No sign of Jacob. Not even the littlest hint of where the boy could be…

Bree groaned softly in the back of her throat as she swung her legs over the bed’s edge, vaulting herself up off the mattress and making her way by television screen light toward the bathroom. She blinked swiftly when she hit the light switch, definitely not impressed with the pasty-skinned, bleary-eyed woman who stared back at her from the mirror. The deep blue-black bags under her eyes made her look like she’d been sucker punched, and Bree couldn’t really help but think just how appropriate that really seemed.

Mechanically, she began to brush her teeth, pulling a brush through her hair to pull it back into a ponytail that didn’t look like she’d been sleeping on it. She couldn’t sleep now. Wouldn’t sleep. Still didn’t deserve it but all she could think to do now, was to drive out to the surveillance team Tanner had set up tonight on one of the known warehouses, and know good and damn well to the bottom of her soul, she was a thousand times worse than useless right now.

For the first hour of the drive, Ethan was only ever a heartbeat away from turning around. His hands locked tight around the wheel, his gut churned, and only the thought that he had made his choice when he rented the car kept him on his path. After the first hour it got a little easier. He ran over the conversation with Bree that he knew was coming so often it almost began to sound like a mantra. He plotted out conversations, whole swathes of dialogue so that when they finally met again he would be in control of the whole situation. He checked the numbers over and over again, knowing that there was only so much aid he could garner from them, but unable to resist the compulsive behavior.

It didn’t take him very long to decide that he wasn’t going to tell Bree much about the situation. He wouldn’t avoid her questions if she asked, but nor was he going to offer information that she didn’t strictly need. Like the fact that Jacob’s father was getting closer and closer to committing suicide the longer his child was missing. If he told her, Bree would undoubtedly place the man under constant observation so that he wouldn’t go through with the act. And if they failed, for any reason, that kid’s soul would join his sister’s, resting squarely and permanently on the father’s shoulders. Ethan knew how unbearable that weight was just for Victor, what would he have felt if he thought he was responsible for the death of his own child?

Of course, Ethan saw no reason for them to fail. Once Ethan found out where the kid was located, he could help Bree find the one piece of evidence that had to be out there pointing in the direction of the kid. It would seem lucky, almost impossibly lucky, that they happened to come across it, but that was what Ethan did. He created luck. No one, except Bree, would ever need to know he was involved, keeping his identity secure. Then Jacob’s father would be able to testify against the organization and all its members, they would go to jail, and it would be over. No more guilt traps, no more feeling responsible. Bree would leave him alone, and he would be free.

Five hours after he started driving, almost to the minute, Ethan entered into the city limits of Boston, Massachusetts. He wound his way into the city, making his way towards a spot where the numbers told him there would be parking, before walking a couple of blocks to get a late lunch. He wasn’t sure whether or not his stomach would be able to handle it, now that he was closer to Bree all the tension that had been in his gut when he had started driving seemed to have returned, but he had skipped breakfast and barely eaten the day before that. He could feel the lightness in his head and, assuming he didn’t puke, the meal should do something to stabilize him.

As he sat and slowly worked his way through a cheap burger and basket of fries, Ethan began to think in a little more detail what exactly he was planning to do now that he was in Boston. He knew that he was going to have to find Bree. He was here, and he was committed to that. But he was going to have to find her at a time when she was alone, and when there was no opportunity for someone else to show up without warning. As little as he liked the idea, he was probably going to have to find her at her hotel, and wait until a point when she was the only FBI Agent there.

He paid for his burger and left the building, returning to his car just as the parking meter was running out. At the present moment in time, there was only ever complete certainty. Either something was, or something wasn’t. Because of that, Ethan was quickly able to find out that Bree’s hotel was to the north and the east of him. At every intersection he checked the numbers again, winding his way ever closer to her hotel. It wasn’t the most efficient means of travel, and more than once Ethan found himself trapped in a dead end he would have to work his way back out of, but eventually he pulled into the parking lot of a Comfort Inn near the Boston Airport. He settled back into his seat and waited for the chance to go up to her without being seen.

When the moment came he nearly let it pass. This was his last chance to back out, to run away and leave everyone to their own fate. But how could he turn around after going so far. He got out of the car aggressively, slamming the door to the car and locking it closed behind him. He knew what he was going to say. He had it all figured out. There was no mystery in the matter.

He walked through the lobby, nodding politely to the attendant, before heading deeper into the hotel. She wasn’t on the first floor, but she was on the second. He worked his way from room to room slowly, checking each number until the numbers finally told him he had found her room.

Last chance. Last chance. It was running over and over in his head. He knocked three times, before clasping his hands tightly together.

When the door open, he nearly froze. “Please don’t run, Bree.” In his head it had been a witty opener, something to break the tension that would undoubtedly rear its head as soon as she saw who was at her door. Instead it came out mechanical, sounding every ounce the script it was. He tried to smirk, but it came out looking far more like a grimace.

Why was he doing this? This was a bad idea.

Bree's head whirled over her shoulder as the knock came at the door, her brow furrowing with a sudden worry as she shrugged into her black leather jacket. No one had called to tell her they were coming to her room, for either a pick up or a briefing, and cold suspicion lanced through her chest. Working in the Organized Crime unit had already imbued her with a healthy overabundance of caution, and the horror that was this case now colored everything with a toxic layer of genuine paranoia. She pulled the Glock from the shoulder holster beneath the jacket, holding the pistol to her side as she opened the door, grey eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Please don't run, Bree."

He needn't have worried, even if his words were simply the form of a weak, half-hearted jest. No, Bree couldn't have run, even if she wanted.

"Ethan?" she breathed softly, shaking her head incredulously as she holstered the Glock again beneath her jacket. He was here. Thank God, he was really here!

She didn't know how, or why, or what in the world or in Ethan had changed inside these past four days. It simply didn't matter. In an instant Bree wrapped her arms around Ethan's shoulders tightly, throwing herself into the embrace as she pulled him close in the motel room doorway. In that moment, she wasn't thinking about what she was doing, who might be watching or what they would think or how anything might appear in that moment, what she was supposed to be doing, or much less what she should be doing. Tears welled up in her grey eyes, and suddenly she wasn't simply Special Agent Brigid Walsh, nor even former Army Military Policeman SGT Walsh - not even a tiny bit. Right now, she was just Bree, only Bree, a woman who could not even begin to hide the relief that nearly brought her to her knees.

"Thank you Ethan. Thank you so much. I'm sorry - God I'm so sorry, for every last thing I said," she whispered, eyes shut tight against even more tears as she buried her face in his shoulder.

"Thank you," Bree whispered one more time, as an enormous black cat padded behind her, rubbing his wide, soft head against her calf, and then winding himself about Ethan's calves with a purr deep and loud enough to rumble all the way to the bones.

She was sorry?

It was the last thing that Ethan had been expecting to hear. He had been preparing himself for more vicious words, for more insults and affronts to his manhood. He had his response to her imagined accusations all prepared.

Of course, a small part of his mind whispered, she was only sorry now that he had decided to go along with her plan. If he had somehow run into her on the street, would her words be so polite? In many ways, it was just more of the same. But Ethan did his best to push those angry, frustrated thoughts away somewhere that they wouldn’t be recognized or affect his attitude. He was here to help her find a kid, and there was no need to make it any more complicated than that.

“May I come in?” he asked, still somewhat numb, before untangling himself from the cat and stepping into the small room, trying to avoid tripping over the creature. He sat in one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs, near a small desk that, other than a nightstand, dresser, and bed, was the only furniture in the cheap room. He sat stiffly, almost like a wooden chair himself, and his knees angled towards the door, his only route of escape.

“Well, I’m here,” he said, more than a little bluntly. Best to just get things out of the way. “What exactly do you want from me?”