In 25 Days

December 22nd

        Okay, yes I will admit that Rhaps is right. Being in the arms of someone you care about is way better for the soul then any amount of me time you could come up with. Especially when that person is not just a soulmate but your best friend. We had tried this relationship thing before but it hadn't gotten this far. Apparently Sicily never gave up on me, she knew I was hurting and just gave me time. Amazing isn't she... anyway... Invigorated Sicily and I got up early to get the suites done and were busy with that all day.

        Moving on... Rhaps focused on researching Echo, she spent all night looking through news reports and media posts to find anything that would help. She finally found one incident that could possibly get Echo extradited... really anywhere but here will do. She sure found something... Rhaps forwards the info on the it to the FBI agent that Nassa contacted and tells them what's going on. Bandon called his folks and asked that all of them come over for breakfast.... At breakfast Rhaps broke the good news.

When everyone was seated Bandon tapped a glass to get their attention "family and guests, please listen up... we have some news" he gestured to Rhaps "honey, go ahead."

      "I'll get to the point quickly... One of Echo's ex's died from injuries caused by the physical abuse of an as yet unidentified stalker. Echo being the woman's ex was a lead suspect until she fled when the detective came to talk to her. A warrant went out for her arrest because of it but the warrant was quickly withdrawn under mysterious circumstance and everyone behind the warrant was written up for harassing a witness."

       "This story has good news in it too, correct?" Mom was wondering at this point and so were Sicily and I who were eager to get back to the suite's remodel.

       "Yes, I sent that case info to the FBI that Nassa had contacted and included the death threats and the fact that she has managed to get officials to support her here. Turns out that is the missing piece the FBI needed. In spite of the induced coma to make the fight look worse than it was Echo is being extradited and charged with homicide. Funny part is the FBI choose to leave her sedated and transport her with their own doctor to monitor her, if their doctor find the coma unnecessary there may be charges brought against the doctor who treated her here." She giggled "Echo is going straight to a high security federal prison hospital."

     Cheers irrupted, and Ka'eo started crying with relief. The day was spent celebrating, in some unique ways. Rhaps got a lot of well deserved praise from the Koa family as well as the guests. But the part that still gets me is what happened immediately following Rhapsody's announcement...

      "On an unrelated note... I think today we should spend today learning about how to see things from someone else's perspective... maybe to incorporate it into the Holiday theme we focus on how other cultures celebrate in December." Nassa paused and took a nervous breath "I believe that knowing is the key to compassion... the moment we try to forget history or the humanity of cultures we are plunging our children into a horrible future."

      Dad smiled at him "well said Nassa, how about we add to it how to stand up for ourselves against the bullies too."

"I like that, so what do we do first." Nassa popped a cookie in his mouth and slid another one to Makaio making Rhaps give him a look.

"Nope. This is your idea, you tell us what we do first." Dad was really proud of him.

"Well we could get a trivia game going, does anyone want to host it?" A Jewish gentleman here with his family raised his hand. "Good and I know we have what we need to make some crafts, that will be a fun way to teach the kids." Hands went up amongst the staff "volunteers good."