All My Children 1. Chapter 1

_Title: Collisions  
Pairings: JR/Erin; assorted others of different varieties...  
Rating: Mature  
Arcs: Michael Cambias, Babygate, etc  
Timeline: Early October 2003, and then through...  
Notes: The biggest problem of this entire fic, of course, is the fact that Jon and Erin didn't even _exist_ at this time - I know this, but this idea wouldn't leave me alone, refused to. Basic storyline revolves around the idea that instead of bringing home Babe in 2003, he brought home Erin - and the things that are changed because of it, in relation to other connections and story arcs, and there are quite a few changes. Some things happen, and some things don't - and the relationship between Ryan and his siblings is just one of the things that is drastically different, as is Erin, and, yes, Jon, when he comes into the picture... At times, actual dialogue will taken from the show, but you'll be able to pick it up pretty easily, I think..._

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_Collision, adj. — a dynamic event consisting of the interaction between two or more bodies, usually of very brief duration, resulting in a change of momentum of at least one participating body._

* * *

_One_

-

"_That's it, somebody call Shady Acres! I'm going to retire this old man!"_

_Adam seemed to swell to about twice his size, eyes flying wide open and Tad enjoyed the vision of the old beast getting carted away to a place like that, no less than he deserved, was it? Nothing less than he deserved for carting other people, completely innocent people, off to insane asylums, right? "You—"_

_The pounding was sudden, harsh enough that it jerked Tad's awareness away from Chandler and Cortlandt, and he snapped his head around, blinking owlishly. He heard Adam suck in a sharp breath, felt his eyebrows fly up in surprise, and stood there, gawking like an idiot, for a few seconds, not sure what else to do._

"_Man, oh, man. Nothing changes around here. Same old scene. But there's no place like home, right?"_

_For a moment, Tad just drank him in, heart fill to bursting, something like a knot in his chest lessening for the first time in months. He was aware of Adam going still, and the fact that Palmer's jaw was hanging down around his knees. JR looked healthier than he had before he had left, older, eyes harder and softer than Dixie's had been, and—_

_What the Hell had happened to his arm?_

"_JR?"_

-

"So, I'm just wondering, who is she?"

"Don't have any idea what you're talking about," JR grinned, and Tad decided she had to be a blonde, _had_ to be. JR had finally managed to get the two old idiots out of the bar, and he sat working on his beer thoughtfully, not looking too bothered by his step-father's rather intense study of him. "I've spent the last months on a big tramp steamer; you think I had time to date?"

"You look like the cat that ate the canary, even with that stump for an arm."

JR grinned again, glancing down at his arm cast, and then cocked an eyebrow at Tad, tilting his head. "Got hit by a car, a few weeks ago," he grinned, and Tad's eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hair. "You got hit?" he repeated, dumbfounded, and JR burst out laughing, draining his beer, shaking his head. "I was heading to a pier in San Diego, and walked across the street without looking."

"You could have been killed."

"I know, believe me," and JR's grin grew so much that Tad half-expected his jaw to fall off and clatter to the table they sat at. "I got the full lecture when they were setting my arm," he snickered, and Tad narrowed his eyes, suspicious light flaring in his gaze. "And did you go after the guy that hit you?"

"Nah, he felt real bad about it."

Tad thoughtfully tossed a peanut at the cast, watched it bounce off and then skitter across the floor; watched that wicked grin on JR's face somehow grow even more. "If it was a he, then apparently you've come back _extremely_ different," he smirked, and was pleased when JR finally blushed the smallest bit. "No idea what you're talking about, Tad—"

"Careful with that nose, you could poke an eye out."

"Aw, you don't trust me?"

"Only because I know you, kiddo."

"Even so," JR started, but he couldn't keep a straight face and went back to that big grin he had, one that tugged at Tad's thoughts of Dixie in a way that made him ache. "Come on, Tad, let me have my fun, okay?" At his step-father's doubtful blink, he shrugged innocently, and poked his cast. "I'm wounded! You have to accommodate me, right?"

"If Adam explodes, it isn't going to be my fault."

"I'll help you get rid of the evidence."

Tad's heart felt odd, torn between a giddy relief at his son being here and a sudden thrill of fear at whatever girl JR had brought home. More than anything, though, he felt an almost painful kind of pride, the fragile boy now an admittedly fragile man who still had Dixie's eyes, harder but they were still hers.

As long as he could see Dixie there, everything would be fine.

"I gotta go, Tad."

"I can drive you."

"I already got myself a driver," JR snickered, and Tad made a face, lips twitching despite his attempt not to snicker himself. "And can this person drive, or does she just hit people crossing the street?" he asked, and got a look in response. "I told you, it was a guy that hit me."

"Yeah, right—" and in the next second, a peanut hit him in the back of the head before his step-son was gone, laughter finally dying away and leaving Tad in the mostly empty bar, heart still too full to handle at the moment. After a moment of thoughtful silence, he dug his cell phone and jabbed in his father's number, grinning like an idiot and fighting giggles.

JR had a girl, no doubt about it.

Here's hoping she was a sane one, though.

* * *

_Next - Chandlers and Cortlandts and Martins, oh my!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Notes: As I said before, things have been twisted a bit to try to let things make sense, so, yeah, ;)_

* * *

_Two_

-

"I don't think he wants those many cookies, Mom."

Ruth shot him a look and Tad exhaled quietly, making a face as he nonetheless reached out and snagged one for personal use, popping it into his mouth. To his family's great irritation, he was acting like a drugged squirrel, twitchy as all Hell and just as annoying when he got on a roll— he'd already dropped the open Tupperware container of muffins earlier that morning and been shooed out of the kitchen by his mother to join Jamie in the sulking.

Jamie still seemed perturbed at having been stood up the night before by JR— he'd spent the night playing Poker with his grandfather instead.

"I'm sure Stuart baked plenty by himself."

"JR likes my cookies better," she retorted with a touch of pride, and Tad rolled his eyes, snatching another cookie before drifting away to peer around the patio. Every so often Marian would rush out with yet another plate of carefully assorted meat and cheese and give him a good glare. He wasn't sure why, but she seemed to mean it.

"This feels like World War III," Jamie scowled, and Tad heaved a sigh of agreement, dropping onto the chair next to his son's. "Where's Adam, anyway?" Jamie prodded and Tad made a face, picking the raisins out of his oatmeal cookie and flicking them off into the bushes. "My guess is he's probably trying to figure out a way to wreck this for JR."

Brooke gave him a look that warned to shut his mouth and just eat his damn cookie.

"Where's grandpa?"

"No idea," he mumbled and ate the cookie quickly since Brooke's look was beginning to grow darker in intensity. His father had darted off early that morning, saying something about needing to check on a patient before vanishing out the door and leaving Tad and his grandson to help load the food into the car.

Why they couldn't just eat what the Chandlers made, Tad had no clue.

He doubted Stuart was running some fly-by-night poisoning operation.

-

"Are we running a bakery now?"

Stuart gave him a look, and Adam made a face right back, watching his twin stack the cookies first one way and then another. "He's a grown man, Stuart, and the Martins have brought enough of these for a lifetime already."

"Then you can have one."

"I don't need one," Adam retorted, but took one anyway, chocolate with white chocolate chips. "Like I said, he's a grown man. He needs meat and potatoes, real food, not cookies and cakes and nonsense like this," he added more furiously, and chewed in a vaguely angry manner.

It was probably some blonde, some ditzy blonde with no education and no idea of what it meant to be a Chandler. And she'd come in and use JR to get herself a hefty amount of cash and then leave him to deal with his only son's heartbreak. The thought itself was downright terrifying for him, but the fact that Martin couldn't get past his own glee at the mere idea of it?

Just proved what he had always thought— Martin had no grasp of how the world really worked.

"Here, carry these."

Rather than have his brother ruin all his work by trying to carry them both, Adam obeyed, lifting the platter with one hand and swiping at his suit with the other, hoping there were no crumbs to see. A few of the maids were rushing around, looking overly flustered and ridiculously paranoid, and since Liza had headed out already to get Colby from school, most of the action was going on out on the patio.

His attempts to get Barry on the phone were useless— the little twerp had decided to go to Tahiti now.

Honestly, how useful was he these days?

It was chaos on the patio and he halted with a grunt when Brooke went rushing back into the house in a waft of perfume, flipping open her screeching cell phone as she vanished. When she was gone, he continued, setting the platter down and quickly moving away to let his brother and Ruth fret over the placement of it.

Martin was eating cookies, as completely and utterly useless at protecting JR as Barry.

If Dixie had a grave, she'd have been rolling in it.

"I don't want you to be mean, Adam."

He looked back at his brother, taking him in, far too innocent to ever survive in the world. He never would have survived, Adam was sure of it, but he had done it, kept his brother okay even after Lottie had abandoned them in her heartache. If they thought he was going to step back and allow some blonde bimbo to walk all over his son, the idiots had another thing coming.

"The door was open, I hope you don't mind me barging in," Joe announced, stepping out onto the patio with a grin from ear to ear. Adam opened his mouth but Brooke, stepping out behind Joe, beat her ex-husband to it, flashing the doctor a maternal smile and an arm pat as she passed. "Of course not, this is a family gathering."

"I brought someone with me," Joe chuckled, settling that broad grin of his on Adam as he nodded back at the redhead that stepped out of the house, blinking at the sunlight for a moment before glaring up at it with a vaguely threatening gesture.

Even after JR stepped up to her side, looking like the cat that had eaten the canary, it took Adam a few minutes to figure out who she was. He had expected blonde, with an overly bright smile and a depressingly dim look in her eyes, in pink, no doubt.

This woman wasn't blonde, although she had the paler skin most redheads had. And she wasn't wearing pink, instead clad in dark green and deep brown over her jeans. On the taller side, she glared up at the sunlight in an offended way for a few more seconds before she dropped her gaze and went from intimidating to completely horrified in the span of a heartbeat.

"Oh, God, are you _all_ his family?"

"This is—" Adam found words failed him, and snapped his mouth shut, rubbing it furiously with a palm for a second as he tried to get his axis tilted correctly again. "You didn't tell me you came from a tribe," she whispered furiously, snapping her head back to give JR a violently annoyed look.

Adam threw a glance over his shoulder, and was gratified that he wasn't the only one shocked to see somebody like this—Martin, however, didn't seem to be as cautiously delighted as Adam was, mouth hanging open with a horrified sort of disbelief.

"I told you I had a big family."

"Yes, but, not a tribe."

JR grinned, looking like an idiot as he set his uninjured palm on her back, pushing her forward a few steps. "You'll love these guys," he told her brightly, and then focused the grin on his father, nodding at the slim woman beside him giddily. "This is my family," he told her happily, and jerked his chin at the wide-eyed Tad, "And this is my father."

A tiny muscle in Adam's jaw twitched, and he blew out slowly through his nose as the redhead moved past him to stick one hand out, take Tad's and shake it furiously, looking like she had just been poked with a red hot poker. "JR told me all about you," she grinned and that muscle started twitching a bit more.

Good feeling was now gone.

"You would be…?"

"Erin," she said nervously, overly chipper in a terrified kind of way. "JR's wife," she added even more brightly, holding up one hand to display the slim gold band, cheap enough that Adam cringed slightly. "If you insisted on bringing home a wife, you couldn't at least give her a proper ring?"

"He said it'll be a Christmas present, he spent a lot of his money getting the arm fixed," she chirped, and grinned happily at Tad. "JR said you were a Cad?" she asked happily, and he gave a jerky kind of laugh, nodding slowly. "Yeah, well, I have a reputation—"

"Well, deserved, darling," Marian interjected from behind them, and Erin's eyebrows disappeared into her hair. "You can tell me later," Erin muttered, casting JR a glance that said he was in trouble. "And you are… you're… Jamie?" she asked, and the boy perked up, nodding happily. "JR told me about you, but he didn't tell me you wore glasses—"

"He doesn't," JR snickered, and Jamie gave him a dirty look, blushing slightly as he slipped off the glasses and crammed them quickly into a back pocket. "I've been straining my eyes playing video games with Aidan," he explained darkly, and blanched when Brooke fixed her own dark stare on him.

"These introductions aren't getting us anywhere," JR sighed, and stepped forward, pushing Erin forward again. "Erin, this is my family; family, I want you to meet Erin," he added, smoothing free fingers down her arms as he pushed her forward yet another step, right into the group. "My wife."

"Well, then, she's family, too."

That was Stuart, threading forward with his usual positive nature, grabbing her hand and placing a quick kiss on the back. "It isn't you," he assured her with a smile, adding, "I think everybody's just a bit shocked by everything; it's fine. Do you want any food?"

"You cook?"

"I bake."

"Oh…"

"This is my uncle Stuart, and that's his wife, my aunt Marian." Said aunt gave a quick flutter of her fingers and Erin nodded back, giving a nervous but completely sincere smile. "You met my step-brother Jamie, and Tad… this is Brooke," he added as the two women shook hands neatly. "She's—"

"Jamie's mother," Erin blurted quickly, and Brooke gave a short laugh, looking pleasantly surprised. "You've been giving her lessons."

"Of course— Oh, this is my grandmother Ruth, and Joe, but you met Joe—"

"Oh, you're lovely," Ruth laughed, ignoring the hand and pulling the redhead full force into her arms, a tight hold before she stepped back, squeezing Erin's face between her palms. "However, you and Joe—"

"Erin wanted to check JR's cast before he came over," Joe explained, and the slightly tense feel lessened somehow, allowing a few family members to relax finally, exchanging glances and silent opinions. "And this is my father," he finally exhaled, and Adam stepped forward quickly, taking her hand, pleasantly surprised when she tightened her fingers around his firmly.

It wasn't a threat or a warning, so much as a statement— and Adam grinned at it, delighted.

"Erin? Sounds Irish to me," he sighed, and she gave a brittle kind of smile, shrugging slightly as she smoothed her palms down her thighs. "It is, just another word that says I came from Ireland," she added, pausing for a moment before glancing back at the others, slightly uneasy. "I've never been to Ireland, though."

"Ah…"

-

Jonathon was all about the classics.

Space Oddity was his longtime favorite, pumped through his apartment as he worked, a calmer contrast to his brain's never-still awareness. It was probably a bad sign that a song that was so depressing could calm him down but, hey, what were you going to do about it, right? His last favorite had been House of the Rising Sun; it had lasted only a week before he'd once again gone running back to Major Tom, though.

Prostitutes and lost astronauts, his brain was such a happy place.

_"Ground control to Major Tom  
Commencing countdown, engines on  
Check ignition and may God's love be with you…"_

He'd managed to devour half his carton of teriyaki chicken before his appetite had faded, leaving him to set it to the side and go back to his current case, falling into the whirl of names and dates. It was a better day than usual, and Bowie was keeping him relaxed, keeping him focused as he worked, pen scratching against paper and computer keys clacking.

"Maybe this'll teach you to throw boiling water in your son's face," he muttered as he pushed back his chair and stood, grimacing as a few bones shifted wrong beneath his skin. "Don't build us like they used to," he sighed, and carefully made his way to the fridge, listening to the fax as it worked, following his orders. Grabbing a beer, he started back to his computer, rolling his neck.

It was a complete accident that he looked up at the television at that moment.

_"This is Major Tom to ground control  
I'm stepping through the door  
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way  
And the stars look very different today…" _

Jon often left it on as he worked, felt odd about turning it off but he left it on mute, so he could work.

At the moment, it was on one of the stupid celebrity shows, flashing bright lights and fake smiles and false existences, the same kind of crap that he immediately flipped off most days. But he froze now, in mid-step, eyes flaring wide open in surprise as he wrenched rather painfully back a few steps. It took a few seconds for him to get what he was hearing but then he did and choked on it, staggering forward to turn up the volume hastily.

"—quite a surprise today for the little town of Pine Valley, home to the corporate world's best and brightest! In a shocking twist of Fate, one-time conman Ryan Lavery revealed last night that he is now in charge of Cambias Enterprises after the untimely death of company owner Alexander Cambias—"

"Son of a bitch!" he exploded, and flung the beer with a rather unsettling fury at the television.

_"Here am I floating round my tin can  
Far above the moon  
Planet earth is blue  
And there's nothing I can do…"_

-

"So… do you have any family?"

Stuart's question was sincere but it failed to ease the quiet tension twisting up the group as Erin sat at JR's side, tapping her fingers furiously against his thigh as she slid her gaze from one family member to the next. "Only one brother," she sighed, and offered the older man an awkward but equally sincere smile, nodding like a bobble head. "The rest of my family is out of the picture, though."

"Oh… oh, I'm sorry—"

"I'm not!" she chirped, and flashed the wide-eyed Chandler an over bright grin. "My brother's the only real family I have, you know?"

"Did something happen or… This probably isn't my business—"

"If she's a part of this family now, she can give us a little bit of info about anyone else she's bringing into this family," Adam said bluntly, and gave the redhead a slight salute with his glass of Scotch. How the salute could be both mocking and respectful, Tad had no idea, but somehow it was.

And where the Hell had the Scotch come from anyway?

"Shouldn't Palmer and Opal be here by now?" Ruth asked brightly, but fell silent when redhead and family patriarch began to stare at one another, not with hostility so much as an intense kind of carefulness, as if they were attempting to do some kind of tango without either taking a step back.

"My brother does very sensitive work."

"Oh?"

JR looked surprisingly calm, Tad had to admit, seemingly completely comfortable sitting between father and new wife, reaching out every so often to grab another cookie. Of course, Tad was rapidly losing his ability to summon his sanity at the moment, so off-course had he been thrown by this… new… step-daughter-in-law of his.

He'd expected bright eyes and sweet dimples, a musical voice and a silvery laugh.

There was something awkwardly hard about Erin's eyes, something almost disturbingly possessive about the hand she kept on JR's thigh. She seemed too tense to him—and while she had the excuse of meeting a new family at hand, Tad had the unhappy suspicion that she was always this tense, this tightly-wound and firm-eyed.

It scraped horribly at Tad's instincts, so he sat there dumbly, using cookies to ease his confusion.

"—does some work for law enforcement—"

Tad froze in mid-chew, eyes flying up to focus on JR's new wife, eyebrows shooting up. "Your brother?" he babbled quickly, realizing everyone was staring at him warily. "Yeah, he… well, he's a useful resource, you know?"

"'Useful resource,' Erin?" Adam echoed and Tad snapped his head again, leveling the elderly man with a rather disgruntled look. "He does… investigative work," she finally snapped, and jerked her head absently, shaking red hair from her face. "It's all very confusing, really, but he does good work, helps people."

"I see—"

"I told you he'd bring us a sane one," Palmer Cortlandt snapped back at Opal, stepping regally out of the house and gracing Erin with a thoughtful stare as he smoothed fingers across his suit and flashed Adam a sideways smirk. "I notice you aren't showing off your little shack yet, Chandler."

"You're Palmer," Erin decided, and he shifted his attention to her, looking vaguely wolf-like as he moved forward and planted a kiss on the back of her free hand, cocking one eyebrow. "Lovely to meet you," he started only to grunt when Opal shoved past him, dragging Erin out of her seat and locking her arms around her. "Oh, you're gorgeous," she sighed, pulling back and holding the redhead's face between two palms to stare deep into her eyes.

"Look at those big browns," she laughed and tugged her rather roughly into another hug, hard enough that Tad winced in sympathy for Erin's ribs. "Natural redhead," she murmured a second later, flicking a finger through dark locks with a pleased grin. "I'm Opal, Tad's mother—the biological one, of course…"

"JR told me all about you…"

"Oh, and JR… oh, honey, Tad said your arm was bad, let me see that," she ordered, moving around Erin to poke worriedly at the cast, ignoring his attempts to wave her off. "It's just a fracture," he finally managed when he could pull his stump of an arm away, chuckling nervously and holding it close. "Not that bad, really…"

"Still, honey…"

"In a few weeks, it'll just be a sling," Erin blurted out, inserting herself rather impressively between the older woman and her husband, flashing them all that jerky grin of hers again. "I mean, he's hurt, but he'll be fine—"

"Your arm's broken!" Colby shrieked, darting past Palmer and the others and shoving Erin to the side as she launched herself up and into JR's lap, looping small arms around his neck. "And your face is hairy!" she yelped, pulling back and giving him a dirty look. "His face is hairy," she told her mother plaintively, and Erin snorted, muttering something under her breath about taking care of it when he fell asleep.

"It's a statement," he smirked at Erin, and Liza cocked one eyebrow at him, dropping tiredly into the seat between her mother and Adam, eyes at the same time sizing up her new-step-daughter-in-law. "It makes you look evil," she told him with a dry but sincere smile, and he made a good-natured face back at her.

Adam took another sip of his Scotch, a muscle in his cheek twitching.

And where the Hell had the Scotch come from, anyway?  
Katie was a true sweetheart.

Peering over the edge of the playpen, she babbled at him happily in her own little language, random little cooing noises peppering the gibberish. She was a beautiful child, blonde and blue-eyed of course, gummy grin perfectly matching the light in her eyes as she bounced on the balls of her feet. The band-aid wrapped snugly around one tiny digit, a soft blue in the bright light, perfectly brought out those brilliant eyes of hers.

Greg had long since grown used to her conversations.

He clucked his tongue at her as he labeled the blood sample, checking his writing once and then twice before dropping it into its holder and peeling off his gloves. "There's my girl," he finally chuckled, bending with a soft pop of his old bones as he lifted her up, chuckling again when her arms curled around his neck and she pushed her feet against him, excited. She was a sensitive little girl, always aware and always on the watch for anything that might hold her attention.

It just made it easier for Greg to do his research.

"Go take those to the lab," he ordered absently, longtime care for Hazel softening his tone, and she left with a last air-kiss to the baby girl, closing the door behind her with a click. Alone at last, he eased down onto the couch that ran along one side of his office, grinning delightedly when he found Katie rummaging through his shirt pocket, blue eyes intent on what she knew was waiting for her.

A long moment later, with a sudden giddy bounce against his chest, she had the prize he had tucked away for her, a strawberry lollipop that she scrambled to unwrap and happily pop into her mouth. She had learned quickly the trick to it, the reward she would get when she was a good girl and didn't fuss when he took a sample. It was another in a long list that delighted him, how brilliant the little thing was.

"My brilliant little girl," he murmured, pressing a quick kiss against her crown as he allowed her to settle in his lap, all attention completely focused on her treat. "So much more impressive than I ever would have given you credit for," he added, absently dabbing away a bit of the sticky drool dribbling down onto her pink-clad chest. "As if you don't have a single flaw…"

His Kate did have flaws, though, and he frowned unhappily at the thought of them, how many of them were threaded right into her, as much a part of her as those big blue eyes. If he didn't know better, he never would have found them, but they were there, just hidden to him. "I'll find them, though, and keep them from destroying you," he told her in a long sigh. "Track them down and fix you," he finished almost silently, staring at where her blood had been a few minutes before.

It was just a matter of time until he found what he was looking for.

-

Erin thought she was coping very well, and thought it could only get better.

Adam was a bit scary, but it was a comforting kind of scary, not the scary of beer bottles thrown at her head when she pissed Dad off. It was a nice change, reminded her a bit of Jon when he went off on one of his 'I am the older brother and I will cut your steak into pieces and feed you because I know better' rants. She doubted Adam would ever try to feed her, though, which made it all the better; she knew she could hold out until she won him over completely.

She would win him over— she would allow herself to believe nothing else.

Optimism was a new but strangely exciting feeling for Erin.

And Ruth was nice, a comfortingly cliché grandmother figure that made Erin rush after her when she headed back in to see if there were any muffins left, the only thing that they were rapidly running out of. "I knew I should have brought some more with us," she was saying as she led Erin through the front room and around several corners into the rather sprawling kitchen. "But Tad thought we had enough— Oh, wonderful, here," she ordered, and handed Erin a plate of mostly-cool but still impressive looking muffins. "They're on the plainer side, but we'll all make due."

To Erin, who had grown up with canned soup and rock-hard microwave pizzas, they looked anything but plain and she wondered with a knot in her stomach if Ruth would be irritated if she devoured half of them right now. Probably not, just from what she had seen in the last hour or so, but the last thing she needed was JR's father coming in and finding her pigging out all over his fancy kitchen tiles.

"Come on, dear, and be careful, don't trip."

"I'm very good on my feet, Mrs. Martin," she insisted, and the elderly woman clucked her tongue, waving a hand lightly. "Oh, don't call me that, makes me feel like someone's little old aunt and I'm a grandmother, an entirely different old." She pushed the door open, allowing Erin to step through carefully; a few heartbeats later, Erin was following her back the way they came, through a rather awe-inspiring dining room and into the main room, pausing as she threw a curious glance around, picking up even more on her third trip through.

It was antique looking, in some ways, but in no way frail, strong dark wood and heavy furniture causing a mix of comfort and intimidation that Erin wasn't quite ready for. She arched her neck, staring back the way she came, taking in the way the light reflected neatly off the gleaming wood that trimmed the wood, wondering how much polishing went on every morning.

Randomly, unsure of where the thought came from, she wondered if it would be easy to get a job here, easy to find people who needed her to help them. It had been easy enough in a place like California but a little town like this? Sure, JR had said it was a crazy place, but, really, what all could be that scary about a little town with families like the one she was now learning her place in?

"She sure seems fascinated with that wallpaper."

Jerking, almost dropping her plate, she swung her head around and felt her heart do a painful lurch in her chest, cutting off her breathing rather nastily when it decided to stick itself in her throat. It only lasted for a few seconds, the sick feeling, but it was enough, nausea leaving her suddenly light-headed and painfully woozy. Ruth was looking at him with slight distaste, as if she wasn't sure what to say, and Erin clung to it as she struggled to breathe, fingers curling with white-knuckle intensity around the edges of the platter.

"What?" she wheezed, and shook herself hastily at the way his eyebrows rose in amusement.

"It's okay, I get it all the time with my good looks," he chuckled, and stuck his hand out before he realized she couldn't shake it because she was holding the muffins. He squirmed slightly, dropping his hand awkwardly at his side. "I'm guessing you recognize me, from the papers…" No, she didn't, but she wasn't about to tell him how she recognized him, not over her dead body. "Ryan, Ryan Lavery."

"Tad had told me you were back in town, but I didn't realize you would be making house calls…" Ruth still looked uneasy, and Erin swallowed down the sudden bitterness in her throat, eyes dropping for a moment down to the muffins, hating how the image of them now made her want to gag. "I'm—"

"JR's new wife," he said brightly, and jerked a thumb back at Ruth, not noticing the odd way she was staring at him, lips pursed together into a tight line and eyes stormy. "It's Edith, or… Eva," he started slowly, and she had a sudden horrible image of him going through every E name he could think of. "Erin, my name is Erin," she half-choked out and he winced, shaking his head, looking at least a bit chastised. "Sorry about that," he muttered, grimacing as he rubbed the back of his neck. "It's, uh, been a long couple of days, you know…"

"Of course," she babbled, even though she had no actual idea what the Hell he was talking about. He was gone, she had known that, the only reason she had allowed JR to bring her back here to his family, and the chances of him ever coming back, JR had insisted, were way less than zero. And yet, curses of curses, here he was, staring at her with such a bright sort of ignorance that she wanted to bash him in the face with the plate.

No, she couldn't do that, it would only make people suspicious of why she would try to beat him to death.

Tossing red hair from her face and managing a completely forced but surprisingly impressive grin for him, she shrugged happily and started around him, nodding. "I read about you, coming back to town, but I've had a long few hours, you know, meeting JR's family and... stuff…" And she kept moving, right up until she smacked right into her new but surprisingly comforting husband, recognizing his scent even before he placed a hand on her back and kept her from falling on her ass.

He looked, to her great relief, equally shell-shocked, a sadly hilarious image as he stepped to the side and took her with him, allowing his father to step in behind him. And just like, Ryan's attention was off her and on the older man, looking so imperiously smug that she again wanted to beat him with the damn plate. It seemed ridiculous, on top of everything else, to see him trying to engage in a pissing contest with her father-in-law not over the marriage but over something... something about money... or something...

It all seemed, for Erin, completely ridiculous, especially as she felt her eyes burn and her throat clog again, shuddering when JR's healthy arm got a hold on her wrist and tugged her neatly behind him, an impressive feat since she was still carrying the damn muffins around like an idiot. With a sudden push against her middle, she found herself shoved a step towards the staircase and, in the next heartbeat, she was moving hard and fast, carelessly shoving the muffins into a startled Tad's arms as she bolted up the stairs.

The sound of Adam and Ryan Lavery, going at each other like dogs, and JR's playful way of keeping them both calm followed her.

She only barely made it to the bathroom in time.

-

_Next - Jon and Erin talk and try to keep each other from panicking, JR scrambles to figure out what the Hell is going on and Kendall makes her first appearence as JR tries to figure out what the Hell is going on in his hometown..._


	3. Chapter 3

_Three_

-

_Erin was nine years old again, a scrawny girl with large cinnamon eyes and flat red hair._

_She remembered this day, when the stern-faced men with soft eyes who came into the disaster of a house and lovingly scooped her up, held her close as they carried her out of the kitchen where they had found her, cooking the last two eggs in the house nervously. She remembered the old green dress she'd been wearing, and she remembered beginning to panic until a few of them had gone back into the bedroom and grabbed Ollie for her._

_The stuffed red cat might have been a joke for some kids her age, but never for her._

_She remembered them carrying her out of the house and down the sidewalk, asking her questions she'd been too confused to answer and holding her as if they'd been afraid they'd break her. She remembered them gently setting her in the back of the car and buckling her in, talking to each in quiet voices, mentioning names she didn't know._

_Remembered looking past the men outside the open car door just as they led Jonathon out, an angry boy who wore short-sleeved shirts eve though they showed off the dark marks that smattered his arm, a skinny teenager who shifted more and more uneasily the farther away he got from the house, as if he expected the house to jump forward and snatch him back._

_Remembered, with complete clarity, the strongly-built man walking behind and beside Jonathon; remembered watching the man raise his hand over and over again as if he wanted to pat the boy's shoulder only to drop it back down each time, grimacing to himself._

_She remembered reaching out to her brother, confusion beginning to badly frighten her, and finally relaxing when Jonathon slid into the seat beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pressing quick kisses to her forehead, comforting her even as he exchanged words with the man that had walked out of the house with him._

_She remembered looking up at her brother and finding him looking giddy but terrified, dark eyes overly bright and mouth trembling with unspoken emotion. Remembered the way his arm had tightened around her convulsively as the man promised Jonathon, again, that things would go fine and that he had everything under control._

_She remembered the man reaching in to just barely touch Jonathon's arm before stepping back and closing the door, giving her the slightest wave through the window with a hand that shook slightly_—

Erin woke completely, throat raw with emotion, eyes still closed as she clung to her covers for a moment.

JR was a closet cuddler, she had quickly discovered— had a tendency to use her as an all-in-one teddy bear and blanket and while at times it was annoying, she enjoyed it well enough, liked the feel of breath against her neck as she slept. She reached behind her to sweep her hand across the blankets and found her suspicions correct, that she was alone and had been for a while, at least to judge by the absence of any warmth.

Finally opening her eyes, reaching up absently to swipe away the moisture, she glanced at the dresser to check the time and stopped, finding a note taped to the clock. Smirking despite herself, she reached out and tugged it off, holding it close to read it with slightly blurry eyes, snorting in amusement at his pathetic early-morning scrawl.

_Roped Jamie into driving me to go see Kendall (the crazy make-up businesswoman we talked about), will be back for lunch (Stuart's making those Monte Cristo things you like (he wanted to know what you liked so I told him))—call if anything comes up (or if you want to have phone sex because I can distract Jamie with a piece of string, it's really easy).  
— JR (your husband (the guy you almost killed with your car))_

Dropping her head back to the pillow with a muffled snicker of laughter, Erin flicked the paper back at the dresser and took a long moment to think, processing everything she found on her plate at the moment. She had a new family to bond with, try to fit into, and now she had to deal with Ryan suddenly popping up in her new life like one of those moles in that stupid whack-a-mole game.

It was truly the last thing she needed at the moment.

Erin had a knack for handling stress, always had been gifted at it—she was good at compartmentalizing the things life threw at her, tucking them away until she knew she could handle them without coming completely undone. She kept her sadness and her grief buried deep down where it couldn't hurt her, kept her panic tucked away so that it could never overwhelm her.

Never let herself think about things that left her feeling fragile.

Drained from sleep that had been entirely too emotional for her, Erin reached for her cell phone plugged in on the dresser and pulled it close, blinking a few times as she scrolled through her voice mails— one from JR ("Remember, my father's good at pretending to be Stuart so be careful."), one from her old boss (she deleted that one with a roll of her eyes, in no mood to deal with the nagger) and three from "J," matching a single initial blinking up at her desperately.

_"Erin, it's your brother—call me, we need to talk."_

Making a face as she erased that voicemail, she dialed the number by heart and stretched out again, closing her eyes as she counted the rings. One, two, three, four and, "Christ, Erin, people are supposed to wake up in the mornings—"

_"There is a house in New Orleans  
They call the Rising Sun…"_

"Shut up," she sighed, and heard him snort, heard a series of thumps through the connection, and then his swear. "Jonathon?" she cautiously asked when the silence stretched past a minute, only the vague sound of music reaching her ear.

"I dropped the damn phone on my foot."

"Graceful."

"Shut up," and despite the chaos she felt surrounded her, she couldn't help but smile at the amusement in his voice.

_"Now the only thing a gambler needs  
Is a suitcase and trunk..."_

"Are you okay?" she asked a long moment later, heard his grunt of reassurance. "What are you doing?" she demanded, unnerved suddenly at all the noise she could hear, something that sounded suspiciously like furniture being pushed across a floor. "Jon!"

"It's okay, everything's fine…"

_"Oh mother tell your children  
Not to do what I have done..."_

"Jon, could you turn the stupid music off?"

"I always put up with your country crap…" but the extra noise ended abruptly and she gave a sigh of relief, eyes still closed as she tried not to panic, tried to stay calm. "I talked to him, Jon; he popped up like that weird little gopher in Caddyshack, with this big stupid grin—"

"Wait, wait, you talked to him?"

"Um," she said slowly.

"Erin!"

"It's not my fault, like I said— He just… popped up!"

"Erin!"

"He didn't know who I was," she sputtered, eyes flying open as she sat up, tucked her legs close to her body and scowled at the phone she gripped with a white-knuckled hand. "We talked and he didn't have a clue who I was—"

"Not yet," her brother snapped, and she swallowed, tightened her hold on the phone convulsively.

"He won't find out, not from me—"

"You know what, don't do anything—"

"No, Jon—"

"I'll handle it," her brother stated flatly, and hung up on her.

-

_"Hey, it's Jon… we really need to talk about something, something you really need to know about— unless you already know, and if you do, I'm going to shoot you. So, either way, you need to call me back— unless you can't, so, just… call me when you can— you know I'm always by the phone."_

-

Dr. Greg Madden kept a small army of nannies, carefully assigned each to a different child.

Kate (she was just Kate, no surname, not that the nanny would have dared to ask) happened to live with the good doctor in his manor following the tragic death of his wife only a few months before, and her nanny, a quiet-voiced delicately-built woman by the name of Samantha, lived in the bedroom next to the little girl's nursery.

Quite a few children were brought to his room on a regular basis, but Kate was the only one to stay at his side always.

This meant that Samantha spent a lot of time at Greg Madden's side.

When Samantha wandered into the kitchen that morning, Kate settled neatly on one hip and babbling, she found the doctor reading the newspaper with narrowed eyes, brows furrowed unhappily as his food grew cold. "Something the matter, Mr. Madden?" she asked worriedly, moving around the table to settle Kate into her highchair, used to the schedule by now— every morning, the chair would be set up and the food always laid out, always a meal that he picked out himself.

Even as Samantha closed the front, Kate reached out, tugged at the older man's sleeve— he didn't look away from his reading, didn't seem to have heard the nanny's question, but he brushed a comforting palm across the little girl's crown, smoothing down soft blonde hair with a quick fatherly touch.

Reassured, Kate leaned back patiently, swung socked feet as Samantha eased into the seat on the other side of her, picked up the bowl of baby food and the plastic spoon. "Mr. Madden?"

"Mm," he responded, staring hard down at the newspaper.

"Is something the matter?"

He looked up from his reading, studied her for a long moment with a closed but amused expression. "This," he finally murmured, lifting the paper enough for her to read the headline. "I had hoped the entire situation would improve by itself but clearly not…" He trailed off, lips quirking into a sad frown as he laid the paper down and plucked up his heavy mug of coffee, taking a sip. "Erica's already been through so much tragedy in her life… " And his mood shifted, jerked, his voice snapping out, "Here, Samantha, give me the food, you're not doing it right."

Samantha knew the tone, suddenly sharp and hard, a voice to be obeyed—so she did, unquestioningly passing Kate's food obediently as he set his coffee back down, took over the feeding. She watched him for a long moment, his food and coffee forgotten as he doted on the little girl in much the same way someone would coddle some kind of toy dog. "Do you mind if I…?"

Madden shrugged, all focus on the little girl, and she reached out, caught the edge of the paper and pulled it close, scanning it carefully, cautiously. In bold letters across the front it read "Michael Cambias Murder Mystery Deepens with a New Mrs. Cambias Revealed," a single grainy image of Kendall Hart, daughter of Erica Kane, set below the words.

She flicked Madden a sideways look but he ignored her, all attention on Kate, so she went back to the paper, making it halfway through the article (a mix of rumor and fragile fact) before she caught a word in a corner of the page suddenly jumped out at her, caused her heart to leap into her throat. Licking her lips, she flicked to that page, read the short story with greedy eyes, took in the pitiful grainy image of the newlyweds with slightly wide eyes.

It was only a marriage, not worth the same amount of time as the murder but she memorized the words fast, the names and the woman's face, blurry though the image was. Then she carefully closed the paper and set it back down, hiding her shaking hands in her lap before Madden could see it—he saw everything, she had found.

"You can have Kate for the day," he told her a moment later, setting the bowl down and wiping down the girl's face and chin, brushing blonde hair from her face. "I'll be out of town until next Wednesday, Samantha, and since we've already had Katie's appointment for this month—" Samantha swallowed slightly, unsettled by blood tests every month. "—so she can be spoiled until I'm home."

Samantha knew this tone, too, knew what it sounded like to be dismissed and stood instantly, gathering the little girl up even as Madden caught her eye, pulled her to a stop. "Remember what I told you, Samantha, about my son— if he shows up while I'm gone, you—"

"Call security and then call you," she interrupted, relieved when he chuckled at her like a proud father, lifted his coffee again and took a long swallow, leaned back in his chair. Knowing he was done with her for now, Samantha adjusted his hold on the little girl and left the kitchen again, passing the maid as she made a beeline for Kate's nursery.

Dressed Kate for the day and tried to figure out how unbelievable it was that JR Chandler had married Erin.

-

_"It's me… You have to call me, right now— I just read it in the papers, on some tabloid— I know you knew, you must have, you should have told me… Look, just, call me, okay, and we can talk about this— and you can tell me everything else you've been keeping to yourself the last few months."_

-

JR couldn't travel quite as well as he usually did, but then, the cast had a bad habit of smacking into walls if he wasn't careful. It was surprisingly easy to shoo Jamie off with a request for take-out (a few breakfast platters with extra butter and syrup) and he crossed the street quickly to dart into the Fusion offices, hoping Kendall still worked the same hours she did before he left town.

JR suspected she did, especially if she was using work as a coping mechanism for the sudden return of her ex.

Ryan Lavery's return, just as he had finally convinced Erin that there was nothing to worry about, was the reason he willingly stepped into the confined insanity of his friend's company. Despite the respect he awarded Kendall and the rest of the women who ran it, it didn't change the fact that as far as he was concerned, the women who ran it were certifiably insane. Even knowing that, however, didn't stop him from rocking to a stop at the image that greeted him.

"Kendall?" he asked cautiously, when he could trust his voice.

Furiously shoving at each other over the cold pot of coffee, Kendall and her tiny sometimes-friends-sometimes-enemy froze as they both stared at him, wide-eyed and impressively innocent-looking. Tiny Greenlee du Pres was still tiny and Kendall was still tall, presenting an unintentional hilarity to their passive-aggressive battle; he hadn't the faintest clue who was winning, but he had the sneaking suspicion that it didn't actually matter.

They'd probably only stop when one of them keeled over from exhaustion.

The mental illustration brought even more hilarity as he found himself confronted by a picture of the two women weakly kicking at each other with high heels even as they eventually passed out from exhaustion.

And the fact that tiny Greenlee had her arm in a fashionable pink sling just made it all the funnier to him.

"Told you he was back," Kendall smirked at Greenlee, and JR cocked one eyebrow as Greenlee made a childish face back, even going so far as to stick her tongue out at the taller woman. "Got back a few days ago, had the big bash last night," she added, and Greenlee shot her a lethal evil eye, looking like nothing so much as a petite lawn gnome. "Wanted to come, I did, but…"

"It's not a problem," he said quickly, realizing how horribly Kendall's face had suddenly fallen, and stepped in into the insanity, grateful when Greenlee turned away in a useless but sincere attempt to give them privacy, fiddling with her stapler. Reaching Kendall, he wrapped his healthy arm in a quick embrace around a tiny waist, pulling her tight for a moment in a crushing hug before letting her drop back. "Although if you really feel shitty about forgetting me, you can sign my cast…"

"Except for the arm, you look okay."

"Yeah," he sighed, tapping awkwardly at the cast, glancing up again to find Greenlee peering at it, edging closer. "I heard you were in an accident, too?"

"Just a little one," the tiny woman shrugged—and then grimaced at the movement, making a face down at the sling. "I got out of the hospital the next day, so, yeah… I'm fine, really… a dislocated shoulder and a few bumps and bruises but I'm fine." She paused, gave Kendall a serious case of the evil eye. "If, you know, anyone cares."

Thinking about the shoving match, JR bit his cheek to keep from laughing, nodding solemnly in sympathy.

"Sure does hurt, though…" she added, and then gave Kendall a sideways glance. "Ryan was worried about me…"

"Ryan must have a weakness for short women in distress," Kendall snapped back, and Greenlee made a funny sort of buzzing noise, spinning threateningly in the other woman's direction only to squeak when she began to teeter in her high heels. She had no choice but to reach out and grab hold of Kendall's arm, catching her balance.

There was a long awkward moment as a wounded Chandler, a wounded Smythe and a Kane all stared at one another.

Finally JR nodded absently, looking between Kendall and Greenlee and then swinging his eyes back to Kendall with a meaningful stare. It took another moment but finally Kendall realized what he was doing and nodded furiously, snatching her bag off the desk and grabbing his free hand, pulling him along as she made a beeline for the break room, leaving Greenlee staring after them, blinking like a stunned owl. "We can talk here," she explained, slamming the door behind her, locking it and dragging a chair forward to hook it under the doorknob.

"I hear you got hitched."

Yes, she was still Kendall.

"I did," he sighed, and nodded a bit, feeling useless and annoyed by it. "She's back at home, getting settled in," he added at her questioning glance, and shrugged as well as he was capable. "You'll like her…"

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing…"

Kendall just stared at him and he sighed, picking unhappily at his cast.

It was exceedingly difficult to lie to Kendall, and even when he could, she saw right through him.

"It's complicated," he finally breathed, and couldn't help but laugh at the way she narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. She looked like she hadn't been sleeping well, looked stressed, and he felt vaguely guilty about it, that he hadn't been around to help her out over the last several months. "It's not… it's complicated," he repeated dully.

"What's she like?"

"Complicated," he stated again, and she cocked an eyebrow, setting her hands on her hips.

"You're acting weird, way weirder than you were when you left…" She stared at him hard, eyes narrowed and lips pursed and he squirmed slightly, uneasy under the force of the gaze. "Kind of twitchy," she added softly, beginning to circle him like a slim shark in heels. "Is it true that you married the girl who tried to mow you down?"

"Where'd you hear that?"

Kendall just stared at him and he abruptly dropped his gaze, grimacing. "It was an accident," he explained calmly a long moment later, watching at she poked the cast thoughtfully with one nail. "I was crossing the street and didn't look where I was walking, and she caught me, threw me to the ground. My ribs are a bit sore, but my arm's the only big injury."

"I can't believe you married her," and she scraped at his cast instead of poked it, staring at it like it was some kind of alien. "Hell, I can't believe you're married, period."

"Hey," he huffed and she smirked, flicking his fractured arm lightly. "I'm amazed you willingly came back here…"

"People I love are here," he said immediately, catching her hand when she went to flick the cast again, curling his fingers loosely around hers, "and my best friend." This time when she smiled, it was a real smile, the brilliant grin he remembered seeing. "I think you'll like her," he added, and she chuckled, shaking her head in amusement. "I mean, she's nothing like you, but I think you two might be able to bond a bit…"

"JR—"

"It's complicated."

-

_"Hey, it's Adrian, and— Goddamn, woman, stop hitting me—You are such a fucking asshole, you know that, Chris? Look, you'd better call me back right now, safe connection or not, do you understand me? She's over here and she is losing her mind— Stop hitting me! Look— just— no, I'm not letting you have the phone—Just call me back, okay?"_


	4. Chapter 4

_Four_

-

Adam Chandler wasn't completely sure about her— but he didn't hate her.

Erin had the revelation as Stuart was dishing up the plates, found herself startled when he noticed her reaching for the raspberry preserves and instead snagged it for her, setting it neatly at her side as he met her eyes in a short pointed look. Startled, she'd stayed quiet as Marian and Stuart chattered behind her, finally given him a short stare back and turned back to her food, processing what it meant.

She'd certainly braced herself for a war, but maybe it would just a little battle?

"You said you were interested in social work last night, dear?"

"Yeah, but I'm still young so I'm basically shoved around by my bosses." She paused to glance up at Marian, found herself smiling without having to try. "That's my passion, though, helping people…" and she trailed off, staring down at her food again, struck dumb by how stupid that sounded. It had been this bad last night but at least she'd had JR there, and she'd been able to focus on him and keeping him from doing something stupid with his arm to keep her head from spinning. "My brother, too, but he's a bit more obsessive about it."

"What does he do for law enforcement?"

"Helps."

It was the wrong answer, as evidenced by the quick way Adam's eyebrows contracted for a heartbeat, and she gritted her teeth at the surge of panic inside her, wishing she was better at getting to know people without letting them know her. "I mean, his field," the older man explained, ignoring the narrow-eyed look Stuart settled on him.

It was surreal, to find the same face both being protective of her and also leading her interrogation.

That was what this was, she knew, an interrogation, and the fact that there were two people sitting between her and Adam was proof that the rest of the Chandlers didn't completely dislike her. "He does a bit of moonlighting as a PI," she finally managed, realizing it was the only word for what Jonathon did. "Handles family cases, helps out when the police are a bit too slow to handle all the ends."

"What kind of family cases?" Marian asked curiously, and she licked her lips, shrugging.

"Whatever comes his way."

"Sounds like he does good work."

"Yeah," she said flatly, and fiddled with her Monte Cristo uselessly.

"Is something the matter, dear?"

_I hit a guy with my car and then ended up falling for him in the few minutes we spent in the waiting room before a doctor saw him and then the next morning I took him home with me because he looked so pathetic. We ended up watching bad romantic comedies two nights in a row before, after sharing a big plate of Chinese food, we started making out before he ended up going down on me on my couch. Within two days of this experience, I lost whatever was lost of my mind because when he asked me if I would marry him, I didn't just say yes, I actually tracked down the justice of the peace myself. We tied the knot less than a week after I hit him with my car— and I'm still not sure how I did this because, as Jonathon so often tells me, I'm actually the one who has a stick up my ass. Nonetheless, I am now a married woman and I was excited so I came back to his home town with him to meet his Big Scary Family and my long lost brother decided to pop up after nearly a year far away from the place. My other brother, my real one, found out before I could tell him and he told me this morning that he would handle everything and although he happens to be a responsible adult on most levels, he gets all cave-man when it comes to protecting me because our roles are reversed now . Oh, and I'm worried about my new husband because he's walking around town with only useful arm._

"I'm just worried about JR," and, okay, that was not a lie at all, not in the least.

Marian more than brought it, she grinned in delight, losing years as she shifted in her chair, relaxing slightly. Despite herself, Erin smiled at the almost motherly elation, a new emotion to meet. Her fingers still itched to dial JR's number and make sure he was okay, but she loosened up slightly, glancing away from JR's aunt just in time to see Adam and Stuart exchanging a long look. It was impossible to decipher but she recognized it after how good she and Jonathon had become over years of stress at sharing a private language.

They were arguing about her.

It continued for another heartbeat before it was abruptly over, leaving Adam sour-faced and Stuart delighted—

And Erin utterly overwhelmed when both settled intense looks on her.

* * *

Jamie Martin wasn't just glad to have his brother back; he was almost giddy with it.

Okay, a tiny part of him disliked Erin simply because she was now hogging up all of his brother's time but he would never admit that and besides, he did like his brother's new wife— she was nice and funny, pretty in a non-Playboy bunny way and she actually looked like she'd be able to balance out some of JR's more crazy qualities. Then again, she wasn't at all what Jamie would have expected, and just because she was kind of twitchy and kind of scary with how she'd stare into your soul.

Plus, she had hit JR with her car, and, well… what kind of chick married a guy she had hit with her car?

At least with the fractured arm, Jamie had an excuse for hogging JR's time away from Erin.

But first he had to save his brother from Fusion and the crazy women who ran it.

Jamie could admit he was intimidated by the women who ran Fusion since, one, they were seriously crazy even though, at the same time, they all seemed like it was everyone else around them who was crazy while they were the only sane people in Pine Valley. In addition to this, there was a simple fact that they made no actual sense—they would be tearing at each other one second and then grouping together as a herd to go after some guy that insulted them the next.

Why JR always went in there willingly, Jamie had no idea.

Plates of take-out held before him like a shield, fully prepared to fling it at any female who rushed at him, he exited the elevator nervously when it dinged to a stop, glanced warily around the main office to find it missing both Kendall and his injured brother. When none of the other women even noticed him, he edged towards her desk, paused when he found Greenlee Smythe peering at him over her desk like he was the biggest idiot she had ever seen.

"What, kid?"

"My brother?"

"What about him?"

Simone made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snicker.

"Do you know where he is?"

"Maybe he teleported," Mia chirped.

Why did they love torturing him so much?

"I mean—"

"In the break room," Greenlee told him with a smirk, pointing behind him with one well-manicured nail.

Relieved, he spun on his heel and took off for the room with the shut door, shifting the now cold breakfast food in his hands. It was lunch time now, and it hadn't helped that he'd spent a good forty minutes wandering around outside Fusion, unwilling to go in.

It wasn't even breakfast time anymore, dammit.

He pushed his hand against the door, found it locked and then froze, realizing he could hear voices through the door. No, not hear them, not even when he pressed his ear to the door, but he could hear the murmurs, male and female, talking fast and furiously.

Okay, _ow_.

JR was talking more to Kendall than he had so far to his own brother.

He pressed himself more firmly against the door, strained to hear but there was just a murmur, rising and falling. Scowling, bending to set the take-out containers to the floor by his feet, he peered intently at the door, looking for any place where he could get a better listen at what they were talking about. But there was no keyhole and he closed his eyes, dropping his head dully against the door.

It landed with a thunk.

_Oops._

* * *

Kendall Hart came with heartache and contentment, exhaustion and exhilaration, offered no compromise.

Kendall had given him his heart back with one slim hand and then stabbed him in the back with the other; she cried and killed him, smiled and brought him back to the life; reached out to him for comfort and then gave him a one-two punch when he opened his arms like a big idiot to take her in and give her what she wanted.

Kendall did things to him, weakened him, made him stupid and didn't even understand what it was she did to him.

Didn't even realize he was acting stupid because she was making him act stupid.

No, he didn't want Kendall anymore, was done with drama and craziness and didn't want her extremes anymore.

"I look like a big stupid penguin."

"No," Nancy said, lips twitching into the slightest hint of a smirk, "you look like a very handsome penguin."

Ryan gave her a doubtful look and her smirk became a broad grin as she stepped forward and fiddled with his tie, a quick motherly movement. She'd come with the Cambias name, a middle-aged pleasant woman who had apparently worked for Alexander for quite some time—she also, he had found, owned a lot of cats.

How she didn't walk around all day covered in cat fur, he had no idea.

"You look like you're trying to figure out the secret of life," she chuckled suddenly, and he grimaced, wanting to smack himself for letting his thoughts stray to Kendall again. He had made a conscious decision that nothing would happen when he had come back to Pine Valley and yet, something had happened, several things. "Care to talk about it?"

"It's nothing."

But it wasn't nothing— because he'd already screwed up.

He'd kissed Kendall.

Without thinking, acting on pure idiotic instinct and the heat buzzing under his skin at the bite of her voice, he'd kissed Kendall, found his mouth sliding over hers with an overwhelming ease. And before he'd been able to give himself a mental slap and push her away, she'd kissed him right back, matching him with an effortlessness he desperately wished he could hate.

It had been just like before, as if he had never been gone, and it wasn't supposed to be.

Even through his suit, she had burned him like she always had, small hands sliding against his sides and searing him, igniting him, causing his breath to catch in his throat. Her pulse had beat fast against his palm and that had made it all worse, feeling her react like that, the loose way she tightened against him, just like before.

"If you keep staring at me like that, I'm going to have to hit you."

"What?"

"Like you want to eat me," Nancy said flatly, only the twitch of her lips betraying her amusement.

"I don't want to eat you."

"Then who do you want to eat?" she asked innocently, fluttering her eyelashes at him as if he wasn't blushing furiously at the words and squirming in the stupid suit. "I'm just saying… I have to live vicariously through you, Mr. Lavery."

"It's Ryan."

"Mr. Lavery—"

"Ryan," he repeated more firmly, and she gave him a sharp glance, a narrow-eyed look as she reached out and flicked an apparently invisible piece of lint off his lapel. "If you're going to make dirty comments that make me feel like I need to go scrub down, then you can at least not address me like a schoolteacher."

"I'll call you Ryan if you tell me who you want to eat."

How had he found himself being taken under the wing by a dirty old cat lady?

"It was over a long time ago."

"Sure are thinking about her awful hard for something that's long over."

He thought of Aidan and Kendall over a year before, an image imprinted on his thoughts, a movie he had played every night in his head after leaving Pine Valley, trying to train himself to stop thinking about her, to stop caring. It just caused a spike of emotion, though, a surge of hurt and he looked away from Nancy, looked down as he fiddled with his tie nervously, yanked at it uselessly.

"I don't like this tie."

"Then we'll try something else," she shrugged, turning away as if she didn't care about his romantic life.

It was proof she actually liked him, Ryan decided.

* * *

It cut him to pieces, how easy it was for him to fall back into his old habits.

Although not all that surprising on a rational level (he had found that the type of person who did this kind of work could never just walk away from it, willingly or unwillingly) it was still startling how damn much he had missed this life.

Two weeks after his death, he woke up sore on a hospital gurney being fussed over by nurses, managed to catch a single glimpse of Nick before his eyes had rolled back his head and he'd passed out again. When he woke up for good another week later, three weeks after his death, he'd opened his eyes to find Nick sitting at his side, watching Jerry Springer on the small television suspended in front of the bed.

He'd been sure then, closed his eyes in denial and struggled to breathe past the panic, past the appalling thrill he felt.

Just a few days after that, emotions still ripping him to pieces, he went back to work.

It was bittersweet consolation that he found himself handling the case he had kept tabs on even during his retirement.

The fragile little blonde he'd found so many years before on the streets was now right in the middle of it, eyes bright with determination and mouth set in a way amusingly familiar after several years of Pine Valley, moving with the grace he'd glimpsed when he'd run her down after she'd snatched his wallet so many years before. It was crushingly easy to feel the swell of paternal pride, and it numbed the sharp ache inside of the one person he missed the most these days.

He hadn't lied three years before, when he had told her that she was like a daughter to him.

It had been downright overwhelming to find Adrian in front of him, not just involved in the case but essentially keeping it together as it tried to unravel around them. He had never been a big believer in the idea of destiny, had seen too many horrible things in his life, done too many horrible things, to believe that any higher power could give a damn about anyone and yet, that it would be _these_ two people that had become the linchpins of this operation…

It almost made Chris Stamp believe that there was a method to the madness around him.

He had always been proud of finding Adrian, of tracking him down and luring him into the work and still remembered the pleasure he'd felt at how well the kid (he had been just a kid when Chris had found him on the MIT campus) had always handled every operation they sent him into. He had a natural knack for it, certainly, but more than that, he had a level of control Chris himself had never possessed, a calming quality that at times made him better at their work than even their favorite New Yorker operative.

Not a surprise that the kid would go back into work after losing his father but that their superiors had allowed him to later take this case even with the personal involvement spoke of how highly they respected Adrian's self-control and dedication to the intricacies of his job. They were all close to this, far too close, but the two of them especially and the surrealism of it all, of all of them being caught in the middle of this…

Chris was grateful to be back on this job despite the pain he was in, was thankful for another chance at the bastard after so many close calls—but he still desperately wanted to know what the hell Madden had done to finally get the agency on his ass like this. It nagged at him, gnawed at him, and was why Chris had a separate private investigation going on.

And if this extra case kept him busy enough not to think about his son, well, that was just a coincidence.

So he was asleep, exhausted after thirty-nine hours of straight work, when his people started to call him.

The first from Jonathon, a combination warning and death threat and despite the usual stutter in his chest at the younger man's voice, he grinned at the message—and the grin had died as he flipped on the television and found out about his son's big return to Pine Valley; the second came from the young lady he'd found in New York so many years before, the little blonde who demanded an explanation for an entirely different marriage announcement he had consciously kept from her—she'd get back at him for it, he knew; the third came through Adrian, and it was the one he had been dreading since he had first heard that Erin had decided to get hitched to JR Chandler of all people.

It must have been love at first sight since only something that insane could make balanced Erin get hitched.

Chris considered the whole thing proof of what he had always believed in his heart of hearts— if there was some higher power orchestrating their lives, they had a real sick sense of humor.


End file.

All My Children, Drama, Romance