Marie woke up in a room she'd never seen before. The bed which she was lying in felt soft as clouds and the sheets pulled up to her neck were pleasantly warm. Her head was heavy and her eyes ached from the exposure to light. Her tongue was stuck to the ceiling of her mouth and it was almost painful to unstick it. She groaned at the sensation.

There was a thudding of footsteps. Clint and Zack's faces appeared in her vision, their features lined with concern. "Mom?"

"Marie?"

"Are you okay?"

"...I heard you all screaming on the call..."

"...you threw up in the car..."

"...I was so scared..."

"We were all worried–"

Even in her lightheaded state, Marie couldn't help but chuckle at their bumbling. She blinked a few more times before her vision became clearer. She saw the worried faces of her husband and son slowly relaxing with relief. She smiled. "You two are so alike."

#

Zack and Clint filled her in on the details of everything that had happened since she'd driven the car into a fire hydrant. Marie had a mild concussion and was bleeding from her forehead. They told her it was Eli Hodges' personal bodyguard who'd come to their rescue while the steel heads had been on their trail. It had all been a fortunate coincidence that Hodges had been discharged not too long before Marie had called Clint that morning. So Clint had taken the best option he had and called Hodges to make the steel heads turn back and leave Marie and the rest alone.

Marie scoffed. "So you really just pulled out the ace and called Hodges himself?" she chuckled. "You guys really got that chummy?"

Clint just smiled sheepishly.

Marie reached out and took his hand. "It was the smartest thing to do." She planted the softest kiss on his knuckles making him blush deeply.

"It was smart! If mom hadn't banged the car so badly and passed out, it would've been really fun to see that man in suit and sunglasses scolding the steel heads," Zack said, almost ecstatic.

Marie cleared her throat and pinched Zack on his neck. "Let's not forget how it all began, honey. The reason we got chased around cuz you came in yelling and screaming what we had been doing." She pinched him harder.

The boy winced and cried out, "Owww! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! It was my mistake, please let go."

Marie actually relented, her face softening. "Not really," she said, looking down into her half-empty glass of water. "It wasn't all your mistake, sweetie. I was the one who took you for granted all along, who kept you in fear of everything without asking you how you felt. I was the one who kept punishing you for wanting to be yourself." She leaned back against the headboard and gazed out the window. The sunlight was getting dimmer. "We spent ten years of our life living in a hellhole, running from monsters and humans alike, forever in fear of some bomb blowing up everything in our sleep. You lost your childhood to that hell. When we finally had a chance to give you a normal life, we didn't even realize we were sacrificing your identity, your voice for its sake. It's good to have a normal, peaceful life. But what's more important is to..." she trailed off before turning to Zack. She touched his face with a gentle hand. "What's important is to be there for the people you care about. To make them feel safe, to make them feel seen and heard and cared for. I-I'm sorry, son...I wasn't able to do any of that...I...just want another chance...to become a better mother to you..."

Clint remained quiet and waited for Zack's response. The boy seemed at a loss for words. He probably hadn't been expecting his mother to unpack such a heavy confession out of the blue. But he also felt proud of Marie for finally bringing it up.

The mother and son both seemed to struggle finding their words. So Clint put a reassuring arm around the boy. "Zack, you wanna say something to mom?" he asked gently.

Zack let out the slightest whimper, as if he was choking down his tears. He looked up at his mother, his eyes brimming with emotion. "Y-You did your best, mom. I-I was being selfish. I-I was only thinking of myself. I'm sorry..."

Marie smiled softly and pulled the boy's head on her lap. "It's okay, honey." She caressed his hair. "Just remember that mom and dad will always be there for you no matter what happens. Always."

Zack wasn't choking down on his tears anymore. He cried quietly while Marie kept stroking his hair.

For the first time in the past few months, the Harrises felt like they were together again, in the best way they could've been.

#

"So you're the woman who saved my granddaughter?" Eli said. The old man was in a king sized bed that seemed two sizes too big for his frail, withering form. The stiff arrogance of wrinkled face made him look like he really belonged in that royally large bed.

Aaria and Daisy were on a settee with velvet cushions and hand carved lions on the armrests. Daisy was still a bit stunned from the event that had transpired in the past few hours. And even more stunned to be facing the 'Man of the people himself', let alone in his personal bedroom at his mansion. Daisy felt a weird sense of deja vu at the situation she found herself in. And words betrayed her when Eli posed his question.

Aaria had to nudge the woman to bring her back to reality. Daisy perked and looked at Eli. "Um, 'saving' sounds like such a big word," she blurted. "I just...saw a scared girl at a dockyard and I took her in."

"So you're pretty and humble. My god, is your kind a rare one?" Eli scoffed. He looked away at a wall but gazing somewhere beyond it. "Had my wife been alive today, you two would've been great friends."

Daisy blushed.

Eli had almost forgotten the compliment as soon as he made it. His thoughts had already shifted back to his dead wife. His mind was already walking the well-trodden grounds of his past with her hand in his. Selene, he thought, I wish you really were alive today.

Absently, his eyes wandered back to the young girl with short hair sitting nervously next to Daisy. Eli smiled a smile so gentle he almost looked like someone else. "Do you recognize me, kid?"

Aaria looked up at the old man before nodding shyly. "You are grandpa Eli. Dad told me about you."

Eli's smile turned sad. "Did he?" He leaned further back against the downy pillows on his large bed. "Did he tell you that I was a crooked politician who filled people's heads with lies?"

The girl shook her head. "He said, he missed you."

Eli raised an eyebrow. "You can't be serious."

The girl shook her head again. "He did say that. It was about two years ago. Just a few months before...before my parents helped me escape the small cottage where they were keeping us."

"What else did he say about me?"

Aaria smoothed out the skirt of her dress. "He talked about you quite a bit. Mostly what he said was that you were a good man. But you let others take advantage of you," she said. "He was mad at you because of that. He wanted you to do something about it. He wanted you to stand up for yourself."

Eli just quietly listened to his granddaughter talk. When she was done she met his gaze. Eli smiled in that gentle way once again. "I never thought...my son would think of me like that. Not after that day..." he paused as his voice started to crack a little. "When he left me..."

Aaria looked at her grandfather with deep sympathy. That's when the old man started to cry. Tears cut damp trails in his wrinkled skin like ravines in a desert.

Daisy was quick to react. Reaching out towards the old man and offering her handkerchief. Eli accepted her help and wiped his tears.

"I'm sorry, grandpa Eli," Aaria said. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

"No, kid." The old man shook his head. "Trust me, I needed this." He sniffled and dried the rest of his tears. The old man then reached for his remote and pushed a button.

A quiet buzz went off somewhere. The door to the large bedroom opened. Larson walked in. "Yes, sir?"

"Larson, take Aaria over to that doctor and his family," Eli said. "I want to talk to this lady on my own."

Aaria frowned worriedly at Daisy. Eli noticed and quickly said, "It's okay, kiddo. I'll send her back to you in five minutes. It's just some boring adult talk."

Aaria looked over at Daisy again. The woman nodded in silent reassurance. Aaria still seemed reluctant but she got off the settee and walked out of the room with Larson. Eli quietly observed the wordless exchange that had happened between the two. There was a sense of familiarity in the way that the girl and the adult had communicated. It seemed well rehearsed and precisely executed and understood by both of them. That's the way families sometimes interacted.

The old man felt himself smile again.

Daisy turned back to him after Aaria had left the room. "Um, so what did you wanna talk about?" she said, scratching at the cuticle of her thumb with her forefinger.

"Just a few questions." Eli shrugged.

Daisy noticed that the man on the bed wasn't the grandpa with sad, nostalgic eyes anymore. He was replaced with someone a bit more pragmatic, colder, almost cunning. "I assume you weren't originally from Kingsville, were you?"

"No, I'm not." Daisy looked down at her hands. She already knew where this conversation was going. 

"What did you do before you met Aaria?"

She closed her eyes. She knew this was exactly what the old man was going to ask her. She remained quiet.

"From what you told me, it seems, you and my granddaughter both assumed different identities," Eli said. "That must've needed forging some pretty solid documents. I'm gonna assume you are either an experienced con-woman or you know someone who could've forged your fake identities for you."

Daisy was tapping her foot against the floor. She really needed a cigarette. "Mr. Hodges, does it really matter who I was?" she said. "I still took care of Aaria. In the past year and a half I spent with her, I was always kind to her. I've never been a mother before. But I looked after her like my own daughter. So does it really matter who I was?"

"I still need to know, Daisy." Eli shrugged his thin shoulders. "And I'm just asking about your past profession. What can be so embarrassing that you'd be so hesitant to tell me about it?" He cocked his wrinkled head, almost like a vulture. "Does it make you ashamed?"

"Yes it does!" Daisy snapped. "I was a prostitute! There, I await your judgment on my ethics. Go ahead."

Eli's face remained stoic. For a long moment, Daisy's anxiously tapping foot did all the talking in the room. And then Eli scoffed. "Young people these days are so frail. All they care about is the perception of others on themselves." He rolled his eyes. "If only a person's profession was an accurate reflection of their ethics, huh? As if real life is ever that cut and dry. Look at me, I'm a politician. Man of the people. Everyone lines up to see me in person. Yet the first thing I do when I get on the stage is spew a bunch of lies. And they applaud me. You think I'm gonna care for something as disposable as ethics?"

Daisy was even more stunned now than she had been the first time she saw the old man. For a second, she almost couldn't believe what he'd just said. Eli kept going.

"I only asked about your past profession since I was curious if you were gonna go back to that life now that you won't have to take care of Aaria anymore?" he asked.

Daisy gawked at him. "Of course not! You think it was fun enough for me to miss that life? Hell no!" She shook her head, wincing as if she'd been punched. "I was miserable. I had to get high just to get through the day, sleeping next to mobsters and smugglers and hoodlums and angry married men who were too afraid to speak up to their wife but daring enough to beat me just because they were paying me. Do I wanna go back to that life? No thanks."

Eli nodded quietly. "I'm glad to hear that. That explains your past. Now about your future." He met her gaze again. "Did you ever see my granddaughter as a burden on yourself?"

This time Daisy almost looked appalled. "Never." She shook her head. "If anything, Aaria is my last hope in this world. It was as if I was waiting to find something that would pull me out of the hell that I was living in. Aaria became that thing." Her face turned sad. "I was going to become a mother a few years ago. The problem was, I didn't even know who the father was. And even if I found out, I don't think he would've taken me for a wife. And I didn't want to make a child a part of the life that I was leading. So I aborted. And Aaria showed up like a miracle. She made me wanna protect her, care for her, provide for her. I feel connected to the child, Mr. Hodges. Even though I have no biological ties with her." She gripped the lion's face on the armrest. "I know, I can never be her real mother because I'm not. But, if I was allowed to be with her, I'd raise her like my own daughter."

Eli was still quiet. He pushed the button on his remote once again. Larson walked in once again.

"Get me that notepad and my pen, Larson," he said. Larson did as he was told. Eli started to write something on the notepad. "All that you said, just now, I'm gonna hold you to it. You still have time to go back on it. Are you sure you were being one hundred percent honest about everything that you said?"

Daisy didn't hesitate to nod. "I meant every single word that I just said."

"Good."

Eli continued to write something on the notepad. Daisy couldn't tell what it was from where she sat but she could see that he had filled almost half a page in the past five minutes. His hand was swift and his words sharp and clear. Eli filled two whole pages with his writing before he signed at the bottom of the second page. He folded both the pages and looked at Larson.

Larson nodded and walked over to the desk in the corner. He pulled out a manila envelope from the drawer and what seemed to be a stick of lac and stamp. He first handed the envelope to Eli. The old man slid both the pages into the envelope and then closed the envelope with his seal on the lac.

"You know what to do next, Larson," Eli said. "It's time." He handed the envelope to Larson.

The bodyguard looked at it gravely before nodding again. Larson took the envelope.

#

Aaria was with the Harrises in their room when Daisy appeared at the door, looking both happy and sad and confused all the same. And Larson was next to her.

In his usual baritone, Larson said, "We need to get going."

"Go where?" Clint said, frowning.

"Mr. Hodges' safehouse up in the north. We need to board his boat now to get there by tomorrow morning."

"But what about grandpa Eli?" Aaria asked.

"Yeah, his injury is still healing." Clint nodded. "He needs to rest."

"Well, he has already left." Daisy shrugged.

"Where did he go?" Marie said.

"He didn't tell." Daisy shook her head.

"And we need to hurry too," Larson said. "It's time." 

(to be continued...)