Dark and Silent

Carry on...

 It had been a long cold day. The Blackbourne team had already started counting time in relation to when everything went silent. The end of the first full day, or day two they had decided, had found them in the basement of a church. Owen was sitting with his back against the wall staring at the small picture in his hand. It was a snapshot which somehow felt oddly out of character for him in Sang's eyes. Not that it should, she supposed. He'd had all the pictures boys had taken on their phones the same as the others. Sitting beside him gave her a good view of the picture in his hand. It was a picture of a small child holding a black stuffed bear and grinning at the person taking the picture. The woman in the photo was beautiful. Female perfection.

"Who is she?" Sang finally asked him.

Sean glanced over and made a small face. Owen never talked to anyone about that picture.Sean knew the whole story of course. The boys knew parts of the story.

"My mother," Owen said after a moment and he moved the picture slightly closer to Sang.

"And the little girl?" She said studying the picture. The jeans, faded gray shirt, and short curls had not hidden the feminine cast to the girl's face.

Sean's eyes widened. Most people assumed the child in the picture was Owen.

"My sister. Her name was Veronica," he cleared his through slightly and paused as though considering before he continued. "She disappeared the day my mother died. They never found a trace of her. The police assumed my father had killed her, a girl child he hadn't wanted, and then my mother; and had already....disposed of her body and was in the process of removing my mother when he was caught."

"I'm sorry. Did...did they ever...," Sang stumbled over her question.

"No. I had them check every time they..."

The gaps in the conversation were understandable. Some things you just can't bring yourself to say, no matter how many years it has been.

"Was the bear her favorite? It looks.... well-loved," Sang smiled at the stranglehold the child had on the bear.

"Yes," Owen gave a slight huff of almost laughter. "She adored Owen."

"She named it Owen?" Sean said equally quietly, as he gave up pretending he wasn't listening.

"Accidentally. I was using it to get her to follow me one day. She'd only had it a few weeks and we needed to...get out of the way."

Sean nodded. Lots of them had needed to "get out of the way" at one point or another.

"She chased me to get him back and, of course, she was three so not everything was said the way it should have been. She was so upset she was yelling 'give me back Owen' so the bear became Owen.

"You miss her," was Sang's next observation. Not that the sad longing in his voice was hidden in any way.

"Every day. I'm not the only one who misses someone in this family. It's not something you get over. Just something you learn to live with. So we've learned together."

Sang nodded. Owen sighed, gently stoked his thumb across the small grinning face, and put the picture away as Sang settled to sleep.

The boys had all stayed quiet as they listened to the whispered conversation. None of them felt slighted that Sang had learned about Veronica so quickly when Owen couldn't bring himself to talk about her to them. Apart from Sean, Gabe & Silas had known the most about Owen's blood family, of course. Owen had never held back his pain if it spared his brothers. It was unspoken that she was a taboo subject. The others knew, but like his birthday isolation, they had respected it.

*~*~*~*~*

The sunset was casting creepy shadows as the Toma team approached the Taylor place. They were all exhausted and in need of rest. They hadn't gotten as far as they had wanted. Sophie would get antsy and want down for a while. She was a curious child so any time she was on her own feet she was wandering back and forth and around in circles looking at everything around her. After a little while she'd get tired and cranky and in the way only toddlers can, demand to be held and cuddled.

It took a couple of tries, but they figured that by ranging out a little when she was walking, the guys could herd her in a mostly forward direction. It was easier when they had her push her stroller with Owen the bear in it. She wasn't very big but she somehow managed to become a hundred pounds heavier when she fell asleep in someone's arms. Nic was her preferred victim. But she had fallen asleep on all of them by the time they trudged up the dark driveway.

"We should check for..." Marc had begun before being interrupted by furious barking.

They all stopped short.

"Well," Nic observed, "at least we know the dog's okay."

The others shook their heads at the observation and smiled as they started moving forward again.

"The property isn't fenced, where do you think Max is? They wouldn't have locked him inside if Uncle wasn't supposed to be back until today, would they?" Marc asked.

"He'd be nearby. I think the house has a doggy door so he'd be able to get in and out, but I remember Kota talking about training him to stay near the house unless he was on a leash," Corey offered

"Hm," Brandon said as he dug a key out of his pocket. "We'd better hope they left a leash then so we can take him with us."

Brandon fumbled with the lock for a minute before finally getting the key to work. He carefully opened the door. Max knew all of the Toma team, but Max was also, despite being a Golden, a very good guard dog.

The tense stand-off between the dog and the men was both nerve-wracking and comical to Nic. Once Max realized he knew and trusted the people coming into his house (of course it's his house. He's in it isn't he?), he settled down into a series of whines and growls as Axel pulled out the dog food (thereby earning Max's instant devotion for the moment) and served Max some dinner.

"We're safe here?" Nic questioned as she set Sophie down and let her explore. "I mean it's pretty isolated, but..."

"We are safe," Raven rumbled as he began poking around for anything they needed.

Axel stared at Max eating his dinner as he thought. "We'll need to take dog food with us, We can't take him with us without food."

The stroller did ok I think. At least it helped enough that I think we should keep it with us as long as we can," Nic observed tiredly as she got Sophie ready for bed.

"I agree. We can use the space in the second wagon to carry the dog food and any other emergency supplies we pick up here," Axel nodded.

"Da," Sophie whined as she tugged at Raven and began to fuss and cry.

Raven picked Sophie up, wrapped her in a blanket, and began walking her around the room. Less than two minutes later, Sophie was out like a light. Brandon and Corey had grabbed mattresses from bedrooms while the others moved furniture around in the living room.

"Puppy pile again," Nic smirked after a brief visit to a bathroom that they had been able to flush. Nick had changed into flannels and thermals again and settled into the bed with Sophie once again cuddled into her. Nic didn't last long before she had passed out in exhaustion as well.

Axel checked Marc and Raven's move to join her as the twins slipped in on either side of the girls.

"We need to have a meeting when we aren't all exhausted," Axel said a note of command in his voice.

"Yeah, for everyone's sake," Marc agreed quietly. "Before it gets messy and everyone gets hurt.

AN: I've been gone for a while, mostly because life is absolutely insane right now. I'm sorry it took YEARS between chapters. I hope it won't be so long next time.