"Why do you need to see Rider's medical files?"

"You're trying to tell me that even though it's a clear violation of people's privacy, you'd be down to give me anyone else's medical files?"

"Rider is different." Dawn replied with conviction, only showing Flynn more that he was right. They were hiding things about Rider and he was clearly coming close.

"Why, because Rider is Damon?"

This thought had always been a creeping suspicion in the back of Flynn's head, even before he started his investigation into it but suddenly, everyone was being sketchy about it and it proved his prior hunch. Car accident? They really could have done better than that. Even the details in Damon's medical files seemed almost faked.

The colour came back on her face and Flynn realised that Dawn must have understood that if she didn't tell him now, he didn't mind sitting for the next week sorting through all of the files.

"You aren't going to let this go, are you?" she asked, already knowing the answer but hoping never hurt, did it?

He just let out a hard scoff before extending his arm to the files, showing Dawn the answer to his question.

Without much choice, she walked over to the third cabinet and pulled it open but instead of pulling out a medical file like Flynn was expecting, Dawn took out all the files in the cabinet and proceeded to pull out a tray like thing from the bottom of it, revealing just 5 different files. One of them contained the name 'Rider: Damon Harwood'.

"It was a codename, wasn't it?" he asked, a lot of pieces from the puzzle suddenly making sense in his head. Aniyah and Damon weren't just one time buddies that saw each other at a theme park. Damon, before his 'car accident' was part of the Protectors but clearly, his amnesia wasn't short term.

If he put four and four together, from what he saw in the car after Damon was shot and how she'd been acting around him, they used to be an item. There's no way that you treat a boy that followed you and compromised the exact essence of your alter ego like your life depended on theirs. It was just the cherry on top that both Ismail and Aniyah both slipped up and called him Rider. From that, he could easily tell that the three were close knit before.

"You're smart, I'll give you that. From that look on your face, you already figured most of it out. Look, personally I don't support the fact that they haven't let the boy know yet but I'm not going to get in the way of their ruling. If they don't want to tell him, that's on them but I need you to promise me that whatever you do, you don't drag my name into it, alright?"

Flynn noticed how during this whole thing, this was the only time that Dawn seemed truly uncomfortable, rocking from one foot to another as her brows were knit tightly.

"It's the least I could do for your help, I guess. But Dawn, I have to ask, why is this the one thing about this whole ordeal that made you the most uncomfortable?"

She looked up at him, the look of discomfort still not shifting from her face but Flynn was determined. If he was going to be living with these people indefinitely, it didn't hurt to get to know the people he was going to live with.

"It's a long story." she replied, not really wanting to divulge into something she'd kept hidden from people for so many years.

Even if Flynn had promised not to throw her under the bus, she wasn't exactly new to the idea of people betraying her trust.

Flynn just walked around the room and pulled two chairs from the other side of the room so they were both facing each other.

Pointing to the other chair, Flynn took a seat. "Good thing I have all night."

"I've already helped you out, do I really need to tell you?"

"I'm not going to force you but if you just asking me that simple favour made you that uncomfortable, it clearly isn't something you've gotten past. Talking to someone might help and if this really goes to shit, at least someone else will know your story. If you telling me turns out to be a mistake - which it won't- then you never have to speak to me again." Flynn replied with a smile, not wanting to force the girl but wanting to let her know that if she needed to talk, he would be there to listen.

"Least you give it to me straight. Ok, fair enough Mr. Makeshift Therapist, I have three conditions. No judging, no speaking while I am and whatever I say doesn't leave this room."

"Pinky swear." he said, bringing out his pinky again to which Dawn linked her own.

She took her seat opposite him and started twiddling her thumbs, another clear sign that this was something that ate into her regularly.

"It's going to sound pathetic, really. As a kid, I had a pretty amazing life with amazing parents and an older brother. When I was 12, my pa died of lung cancer, something he definitely got from all the smoking. He never used to smoke, you know? He only started after he married my ma, a bad habit that me and my brother always loathed but everytime we tried to get him to stop, he said that it was going to be harder than he thought. We tried to get him onto nico patches and gum but he never had the heart to stop. Suddenly he started having chest pains and we knew that didn't sound good but we didn't have any money to get it checked out. Then came the coughing and the blood. It didn't take long for him to realise he wasn't going to make it and given how expensive chemo was, we didn't have a choice, we didn't have the money and we couldn't have taken out a medical loan given how skint we were that we could pay back in this lifetime."

Her hands started shaking and Flynn was about to tell her that she could stop if she wanted to but before he got the chance, she carried on explaining with a shaky breath.

"He died of it a month later. Ma stopped smoking in his honour but she always blamed herself ever since. She was so distraught for two years, nearly every word she said since all just self pity and blaming herself. Me and my brother carried on going to school but ever since, I always found myself in my free time reading up on any medical book I could get my hands on, hence why I'm here right now in charge of everything medical. Anyways, one day I got back from the library after ironically having read a book on mental health. I walked in and saw my brother just standing stock still in the kitchen, silent tears running down his cheeks. I didn't have a clue what he was looking at until I ran over, seeing my ma on the floor with blood still pooling around her wrists when she cut herself. If I had been home just a half an hour earlier, I could have talked her out it of. Her note was her saying that she didn't deserve to parent such beautiful smart children after what she did to pa. After my brother witnessed that, he was 18 so he was legally allowed to look after me as well but after he saw that, he just broke down."

Flynn reached over and put his hands over Dawn's tiny, trembling ones, holding her in a gesture of comfort. This wasn't an easy story for her and he wasn't going to make it worse for her by not letting her have someone to lean on.

"He started coming home drunk and high, a new girls scent on him each day and even though he never took it out on me, he started fighting underground. Some nights he won, some nights he lost. One night, he lost forever. I waited in my bed till 4, confused as to why he wasn't back, He'd have usually been back by 2 but still, I tried to believe that this fight might have just been scheduled later than usual. He had been gushing about this fight for a long time, something about being able to fight someone his level for once. Turns out that was his last ever fight. I remember the day an 18 year old Ismail came to my house with the news and since that night, I knew that I was going to bring down the Protectors for not having found out about the fighting earlier and stopping them from pummeling my brother to death."

By now, the tears were free flowing and she found herself clinging onto Flynn's warm hands, trying to find stability somewhere in this messed up story of 3 years ago. Flynn knew this was getting harder and harder but it was then that he understood that stopping her wasn't going to help her. She needed someone to talk to and after so long, he doubted the fact that anyone else had even heard this story before him.

"I joined them instead, planning to bring them down from the inside. I was bitter for so long but that's when I met all the others my age. There was me, Spoon, Rider and Jaguar; Ismail, Damon and Aniyah respectively. They were so kind to me, along with everyone else in the group and yet, I was still bitter. I was bitter until my second year where a man I hadn't even spoken to took a near fatal shot for me during a mission, the mission where I had planned to sabotage them for good. He survived because of the reading I had done in those years of hours of spare time. Even though they weren't blood, they did more for me than my real family had done. Instead of giving up like my other family had, these guys kept fighting and fighting and even when my dark thoughts came, they backed me. I had only ever told this story all to the Captain before so when I heard he'd gone, you don't know how hard it hit. The one person I had actually trusted with it all had gone. But this time, I wasn't bitter, knowing that everything that he had done was for the good of Ripley."

For the first time during her explanation, she looked up at him, teary eyed but even through the tears, Flynn could make out gratitude.

"Thank you for making me explain, I've needed to tell someone that now for a month or so. You didn't need to listen to me and the fact that you did means more to me that you'd think."

"What kind of person wouldn't listen?"

"Not many people ask."

In that moment, Flynn felt a fraction of the loneliness this girl of his age must have been feeling. It couldn't have been even an eighth of what she must have felt and yet, the feeling of despair he felt was so much. So heavy. He knew that no words would have been able to bear the weight of the story he had just been told so instead, he got up and brought Dawn up with him with their still intertwined hands.

He pulled her into a hug and when her smaller frame fit right into his, he pushed a hair behind her ear and bent down a little just so that he was next to her ear.

"I'll be here for you, all you need to do is ask."

Dawn hugged him back, the tears flowing and full force against his chest and yet still, Dawn had never felt more appreciation in a long, long time.

"Thank you." she said and for the first time in a long time, she meant it for real.

---

a/n: so this was a bit heavier than most of the other chapters but it wasn't too bad i hope. it was needed for the story between flynn and dawn to progress.

who felt moved by this chapter? who wanted to cry with dawn? and who at the minute totally wants flynn to be their hubby because i cant be the only one for sure :9

please leave a vote if you think the chapter deserved it :)

hope you have a good night my lovelies <3

Lolaalvilivi