Disclaimer: The Pretender is not mine.

He wanted his child back. That was all that he wanted. It was all that he had wanted for so long that he had never even realized that it had pushed so many other things out of his head.

It might be irrational. It might be flat out that his mind was broken in ways that he didn't even realize. He just wanted that little boy that they had kissed good night and put to bed before finding him gone in the morning. That was all there was to it. He even knew that it was something that he couldn't have. He knew that time had kept moving. He knew that that little boy no longer existed. He knew. He just wasn't always sure that he really understood.

He wondered, sometimes, what would have happened if he had stumbled across the boy when he was younger (closer in age to the chubby cheeked little one instead of an awkwardly growing teen). Maybe he would have been able to make the mental transition more easily. Maybe he would have just stepped right in to where they left off and pretended as if time had stopped while they were apart.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Maybe he was completely delusional. He wanted back a world that no longer existed. There was a part of him that was always focused on getting them back and never on what would happen when they managed. He had been so focused on the past that he had forgotten that a future came after. He, sometimes, even forgot about there being a present. That was part of why he had ended up split off from his remaining child. He had lost her childhood as well in his quest to regain her brothers, but he was learning a lot about himself in the days that he spent with the boy that kept referring to himself as a project. He was learning that maybe he was too far gone to ever have any of them back.

Maybe he was so far gone that Emily would always be a little girl in his head. He might always see her that way. Maybe he wouldn't ever be able to cope with a grown up her. Maybe Margaret would always be the fiery eyed red head that he had walked away from on that last, fateful day. He would never be able to adapt to her with gray hair and tucked up with his arm around her shoulders while they rested on a porch swing and watched their grandchildren play in the yard because he was still looking for their babies - not the grown men who would be capable of giving them those grandchildren that they should have become.

It was a disturbing series of thoughts - ones that he still chose not to examine too closely. He, as always, blamed the Centre for coming after them in the first place. He, as always, found there was little for him to do about it.

He had known where the boys were. It wasn't as though that complex tucked away in Blue Cove had gone anywhere in the years since he had attempted a break out. He had always known exactly where to go looking for them, and he had never gone back. Margaret had known exactly where the grown up Kyle was in the aftermath of his attack on Harriet, and she had never gone to see him.

It would have been risky maybe, but would it really have been? In all the years of his incarceration, they had never tried to take him back. They were happy to leave him shut up in that place. What would they have cared about either of them making an appearance in an attempt at seeing their son? He didn't know what she had been thinking. He wasn't completely sure that he knew what he had been thinking other than an unwillingness to believe that that was what their baby had become. Would they have even wanted Kyle back in the end? He had to admit that there was a part of him that was relieved when he had gotten news of his younger son's death. He would never have to face that moment of deciding. He got to hold it as yet another grudge against the Centre. He couldn't decide how he felt about his own level of cowardice.

He had spent decades of his life telling himself that he was a dedicated father out for some sort of rescue or vengeance for his children, but what was he really? A grieving man who no longer knew for certain what it was he was grieving? A posturing hypocrite who was pretending that he held a moral high ground that he had ceded with his own actions (or lack thereof)? He didn't know who he was any longer.

He didn't want the boy. That was all there was to it. He couldn't lie himself into any semblance of dissembling. He forwent sipping at the drink in his hand any longer and drained the remainder of his glass in one fell swoop. He made a small motion with his hand to gain the bartender's attention and the next glass had barely appeared before it joined its fellow in being emptied.

He did not want to go back to what passed for home these days. He hadn't had a home in so long. He had been moving from place to place and scampering at the first hint of an unwelcome altercation so often that being settled felt wrong. He had tried for the boy's sake, but he was finding that telling himself that things were for the boy's sake was doing very little to encourage him to continue.

He reminded himself for the umpteenth time that this was not the boys fault. None of this was his doing. He shouldn't be getting so unnaturally angry at the child simply for being himself instead of who it was that he wanted him to be, but he was. He couldn't seem to make it stop. He didn't know how much longer he could make this work. It might be best if he found some place to leave him. It might be better that way.

He didn't want the boy, and the boy didn't need him - especially not with the thoughts that were swirling more frequently to the forefront of his mind. He didn't like the way he found himself wondering about offers and deals. He didn't like the way he looked at the boy as if all he might really be was a commodity.

He would let himself have one more drink. Maybe that would help all of the thoughts go away. Then, he would go back to what passed for home and try to make it work again.