Moving Forward

Admitting the Truth

Sven's POV

I listened to what Owen Blackbourne had to say, making notes on key information he was able to give me. Something about it was bothering me, some point I was missing. "Do you mind if my daughter joins us?" I didn't want to upset Blackbourne if I could help it, yet, Chel was great at putting puzzle pieces together. "She does most of my beginning research for me since she has ties to the FBI and can access their files." I summoned her once he agreed; we sat quietly as we watched her go over the notes, adding to them whenever she asked Owen a new question. She studied him for a few minutes, her gaze penetrating and making him uncomfortable. She brought up a program on her laptop and fiddled with it, then showed me what she had seen while she had been looking at him.

Once I noticed the resemblance, I couldn't un-see it. Hell, it even made sense. After looking at the two pictures side by side, I understood what had been bugging me; the two men were almost identical in looks. Owen had his mother's gray eyes, her reserved nature, and her elegance. The rest came from his father and his determination to be better than the man who had sired him. It was a common story among members of the Academy, those who had come from broken homes and suffered abuse. While it was merely a guess now, it provided me with a starting point, a direction to begin my search. I would need to go to England, Cambridge in fact but James or Colt could watch over Chel while I was away. I would need to question Sean Green; he may have some answers for us without knowing he had them.

"Your brothers are correct in stating you should receive counseling," I informed Owen. "I don't think you realize how much stress you are putting on yourself by living dual lives. You are under a great deal of pressure, the anxiety that it causes never leaves you. Being a ghost can take something from you; it denies you the comfort of knowing you belong, there is a feeling that you were not good enough for even your parents to acknowledge your existence. The thing is though, none of it is true, one or both of the parents are letting their child receive punishment for their mistakes. A child comes into this world innocent and until they grow and make their own mistakes, they remain innocent. By remaining a ghost, you were agreeing that you had no worth and that isn't acceptable. We are all special in our own way, have an area that we excel in even if it may seem useless to someone else. Accept what help you need, it will not make you less of a man; it will make you a stronger one."

"How much is this going to cost me?" Owen asked. "I don't mean to be rude, but I will need to work out a payment plan."

"As a member of the Academy, there is no charge. If you were been brought in legitimately, it would have been done during your processing. While it may add to your favor debt, it would only be two at the most and only because more may be required because you are older and it will take longer to research your background."

"The Counseling?"

"There will be no charge to you for that," I was firm on this point. "Someone in the Academy failed you when you joined, they will be responsible for any costs for the harm they have done you."

Luke's POV

As soon as the Panel dismissed us from the hearing, I headed to see Uncle at the Diner with Victor. We had plans to join up with the guys later, maybe do a sleepover. I felt sorry for Cupcake; she was stuck going to a social gathering after having dinner with her grandfathers. Victor and I usually attended with her but we decided that we should continue to work on mending fences. With Gabe recently released from the hospital, we both wanted to assure ourselves that he was doing well. I had already cleared it with Uncle for the seven of us to stay at the house; I just needed to invite them.

"How did it go for Sean?" Uncle asked as the three of us sat in a corner booth, the lunchtime rush over.

"He has been knocked down to an Intern and will be retaking some of his classes," I replied. "Some of the complaints against him were petty, made out of jealousy and spite. Those were dropped and the Panel told him he would have to get used to dealing with them because there would always be envious people no matter where he worked. That it was his choice on if he wanted to give fuel to their resentment or not."

"He is always going to be dealing with envy, his age assures that." Uncle was frowning. "Most hospitals are like trying to work in a real soap opera, it is a hothouse of gossip and back stabbing."

"Sounds like High School," Victor joked.

"Not college," Uncle asked in surprise.

"There might be some but I haven't had to deal with any of it," Victor replied with ease. "It helps that I am attending M.I.T., every student had to meet certain criteria and GPA to be accepted. The Professors help, they don't tolerate bullying and they are great at getting students involved in interesting projects during and after class. Most of us are so bogged down with homework and such, that we don't have the energy to make things harder on ourselves. Being younger than most of the student body and with what happened to Princess, several students have started watching out for each other. I don't know how long it will last, but everyone is enjoying it while they can."

"How is your school?" Uncle turned the question to my direction.

"We deal with jealousy like anywhere else," I shrugged. "I've found the best way to deal with it is to ask that person to help me with a dish they are really good at and then help them with one they are having trouble with. While I never seem to be able to master it as well as they do, I appreciate their help." My phone chimed, signaling a text. I pulled it from my pocket and read the message. "The guys agreed to a sleepover, they will be at the house around four thirty."

"What do you intend to make for dinner?"

"No Fish Soup," Victor narrowed his eyes at me in warning.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Since it is cold here, I thought Chicken Pot Pie soup would be great. We will get started on it once we leave here and have picked up what I need at the store."

"Set some aside for me," Uncle's eyes twinkled. "I know how much all of you can eat when you get together. Are you inviting Owen and Sean?"

Victor and I exchanged a speaking glance. "Not at this time, Sean has a lot on his hands emotional wise and Owen has a meeting with Sven." I knew we weren't fooling Uncle, it couldn't be helped. Neither of us was ready to meet with Owen yet, we were still working on our feelings about him. We didn't blame him for everything, we carried half of the culpability. We allowed him to take full control when we should have stood up to him, to make it clear that we were all equal in our family unit. We hadn't, we were to in awe of the older boys. We also had to process the fact that they had us do the jobs Sean was supposed to do to repay for his training to be a doctor. What hurt, he did it on our backs. I swear that if I ever heard him say he was a doctor again, I would blacken his eye. Maybe it would be childish, I wasn't worried about it. I did feel that he had no bragging rights, not when he hadn't done it on his own like the other doctors working with the Academy. I understood we were to help each other, but not in special training. It would be like if I decided to become a lawyer and expected Cupcake and Vic to do half of my homework, it wasn't fair to them or doing myself any favors. I couldn't see the others taking it easily, especially on top of everything else.

"I won't press the issue," Uncle assured us. "I will only say this, you will have to face him one day and it is usually best to get it over with. The longer you put it off, the harder it will be for all of you."

"We understand that it doesn't help that we learned today that they used us. Sean didn't do the jobs he was assigned to pay for his training; Owen gave the jobs to us and didn't tell us that they had been meant for Sean." Uncle didn't seem surprised, leading me to believe that North must have known and discussed it with him already. I guess we would have to discuss it with them tonight, work out a way we could share information between the two teams. North and I could be the go-betweens.