... Fuck. God damn, Igraine.

... Well done.

That's the mob, then? The same one that killed Victor?

Glad you like, and yes it is "that" mob. I can't really chat too awful long since I'm in class right now, but this was the only kind of scenario I could envision where Bree would actually beg Ethan to return. I don't go into too many details of "that mob," simply because they were always just backdrop for me, so if you have any particular aspects you'd like to play with? Do feel free!

Not really, but it probably wouldn't hurt to figure it out. I imagined them as being based in the Massachusetts area, and being big in importing nasty exotic things, exporting nasty local things, and the like. They'd have ties through a good chunk of the eastern US, and are probably looking to up their business into something... more. Iunno. We can work out the rest of the details as we continue.

Finding the girl is, in my head, going to be about a third of the way through this particular arc. It is going to be the "big break" that gets Tanner really suspicious, and ultimately causes him to... "find" Ethan, for want of a better word. The three of them will figure out something else, and then ultimately arrest the mob boss. Nice and vague, but a general idea. Does that sound good to you?

What would you like me to do for my post? Should I set the location where Bree will find Ethan? Something else?

I'm afraid Marianna did not make it, Jiskastya - they'll be searching for her little brother now. And yes, feel free to set up a location where Bree might find Ethan. She suspects there is... Something or other, that leads her to him, one way or another.

Whatever you might want to do with this crime syndicate is fine with me, but may I suggest human trafficking as the business they are or will be getting into?

And it sounds as if you have something already in mind for Tanner and Ethan thus far, so I couldn't say. I simply pulled together the best scenario I could, that would make sense to have Bree hunt Ethan down again.

Boy. Sorry. I knew that, just forgot.

Human trafficking is just fine. They are basically set up for it already, so it wouldn't be that big of a step. That could be why the FBI is suddenly so especially eager to stop them, and why they won't let Bree and Tanner off the case until they do.

I have a... general plan, written off the scenes I wrote over the summer. It is basically setting Tanner up to become a pretty major antagonist of this story, and setting up a final scene where Bree and Ethan get hosed down with several semiautomatic rifles, but don't get hit. For the most part, I'm just going to let this go and see what happens, since I don't think anything could break this idea too bad (I did my best to leave it wide open) but if it does break, I'll let you know.

I'll get you a reply... soon. I can never leave this sitting for long.

Well, that feels remarkably dissatisfying after that wonderful, dramatic post you just wrote, but it sets the scene, and therefore serves its purpose.

Your post was just lovely Jiskastya. I might need a day or two to write back - school has started back up, and I have to catch up in other places as well - do you want him to be found on the beach then?

Yup. That keeps him from having the ability to immediately run, and the crowds will make him feel more confident.

No hurry on the reply. Do your school. Just come back soon.

Dankeschön!

Now I just need to figure out how I want to respond. *headache*

Probably tomorrow. Today's already over.

There's absolutely no hurry to reply Jiskastya, take care of your poor head and write when you can!

So I set that up, pretty cleanly in my opinion, for Bree to remind Ethan that the only reason the boss of the mob (whatever his name might be) isn't behind bars right now is because Ethan killed their lead witness. But if you think Bree'd take it in a different direction, feel free.

I'll be honest and say that the whole "you have to come back because you killed my source" guilt thing was pretty much what I wanted to avoid from the start, and the reason I developed the scenario of the murdered and kidnapped children. It had to be a seriously desperate reason for her to even try to find Ethan again - or rather, that the universe would "allow" her to find him again. Laying down guilt trips about the past just isn't a Bree thing to do, but she'd be desperate enough to try damn near anything in the present.

I do, however, have something else in mind, another tact that, I hope, would be just as powerful. I'll try to get it written tonight, but I have some other writing to get done, after I finish my homework and reading, and I just don't know I'll have the time until, likely, tomorrow - just to let you know *grins*

I wasn't really imagining it as her purposefully trying to guilt him, but rather just as a statement that than becomes guilty over. Mostly because that would hold him in place until the mob boss was in jail.

But, really, that's all I care about. As long as Ethan has a reason in his own head to stay after they find Jacob, I'm good. I can't wait to see what you have in mind.

Now of course I can change anything in this last post - even delete it entirely and start over again if you don't like it. I only figured she managed to make contact, because Bree does manage to kinda screw with his numbers a bit, and it was instinct, not a thought on her part.

So again, if you no like? I can change easily, as much as needed. ;)

Hehe. Spitfire indeed.

I'm not saying he doesn't deserve that, he most certainly does, but that doesn't change the fact that morality isn't going to be enough to hold him in place, especially not after they find the boy. As nasty as it is, Bree's insults would probably be enough to push him over the edge and he really would just walk away. Or stand there, and let her walk away. It would make him feel awful for quite a while, but he'd just find a way to drown out his sorrows until he could (somewhat) comfortably ignore them.

For now, and I have set this up to be a massive part of his character development over the course of this arc, the only way to get Ethan is to appeal to Ethan. Make it about him, one way or another.

... If there's no way for that to happen, just tell it to me again, and I'll try and come up with some other alternative.

So glad that was a fun bit of writing for you too, and yes, Ethan completely had it coming.

I have to admit, I'm at a loss though, how to make this any more about Ethan than this already is? What Bree is saying right now, aren't just insults to pop off, like when two friends/lovers are angry with each other trying to hurl the most hurtful thing they can think of. Yes, she's pissed, but not because Ethan "hurt her feelings." She is furious and terrified for the life of a little boy, and stunned that his moral compass is [apparently] so stunted, he can't see this.

This is her honest assessment of Ethan to date, not a fit of pique because he left the toilet seat up again. Bree doesn't know that he saved her life the first time with the bullet - he's hidden that away. The second time around, she wound up pulling him from the river he took them down, talked to him, gave him the chance to explain, swallowed the most impossible thing she'd ever heard and then jumped through every bureaucratic hoop known to man to get his former life back, arranging for everything to be put right with the feds (all while knowing very well that "Ethan Sampson" was a false identity - who the hell has to go to Denver from Washington state, just to get their "real" identification? )

So yes I can edit, I'm not sure where you want me to do so? Well, without completely breaking my character as well, because in no way would Bree be cool enough in this moment to "rationally appeal" to anyone.

What if, perhaps, Ethan does watch her walk away - but then has a dark midnight of the soul or some such and comes after her? If she can find him, surely he can find her as well. At some point during the attempt to retrieve the boy, he assuredly will discover that this mob is the same one that Victor had turned on, and that Victor's defection from this particular crime syndicate (which might have brought down the entire organization if he lived) predicated such vile measures.

Oh, I know it was an accurate assessment. But that doesn't change the fact that she's really, really angry as she says it, and Ethan would just take it as insults against him, not something said in an attempt to get him to change. Because that's how he is. :)

Hmm...

I'd kind of forgotten the fact that Ethan doesn't know that the people who kidnapped the children was the mob that Victor worked for.

You know... if Bree threw out that piece of information in the process of ranting, something about why she "can't do her job" . She mentions, right at the end, that's she's going to keep trying to do her job, it would probably be natural for her to try and justify why it is so hard, right? Or no?

Actually... Never mind. I've been thinking about what you sugggeted, and I think I can get that to work well. It would also put a great rush on finding the kid, because of the week deadline.

Remember how I said it was a 50% chance? Would you be cool with it if the condition for the kid's survival was for his father to commit suicide?

That's really how he is? God above, he really is such a man-child, isn't he? And I don't know that Bree was trying to get him to change - she can't read numbers after all, and gauge how her words work or don't work - but simply horrified and disgusted that an honest plea to help save a life turned so badly. She was in the U.S. Army, and is now an FBI agent - her entire mind set is geared to serve, protect and save. She honestly cannot fathom ordinary people who don't think the same way.

And there we go, edited at the very end and I hope it works? Even if he does let her walk for the moment, he'll have the bits and pieces to mull over, to perhaps come to the realization if you like, that if Victor were alive and testified in federal court as he was meant to, one child might not be dead, the other one, in all likelihood, about to be as well.

Well talk about crossed lines! But I'll let the edit stand, it really doesn't change the context or content much at all.

And for what it's worth, I left any threats or demands wide open, so sure, why not? Let the demand for Jacob's life be the suicide of the father, however you'd like that to be delivered to him. That's absolutely horrible, so of course it will work just fine with me!