Facing the Past (1)

Although Ryan went to work and passed the day as usual, there was still something pressing on his subconscious mind. As he tried his best to forget about his parents and made himself absorbed in his work, he became too focused to even check the clock.

He did not realize that working hours are already over until Shelly came and knock on his door.

"Are you alright?" Shelly asked concernedly.

"I am," Ryan answered with a bitter smile.

"You're taking it better than I thought," Shelly praised him.

"I had someone to help me get over it," Ryan replied as he remembered last night.

"Oh! I didn't know that you have someone special," Shelly acted like a teen-aged girl excited over gossip.

"No. It's not like that. She's just a…"

Ryan did not know how to describe what Vivienne was for him. Was she an acquaintance? What kind of person would share his darkest past with an acquaintance? Were they friends? He did not think they were that close either. Until before last night, their relationship were purely based on business as they traded information with each other. So, were they business partners? An underground doctor and a cop became business partners… Yeah. Say that to Lieutenant Parker!

"She's kind of my therapist," Ryan finally found a word to entitle her.

"Ohh…" Shelly exclaimed dubiously.

"Anyway, it's good to see that you are fine. Do you plan to tell that to the other two?"

Shelly asked.

"I have to," Ryan said calmly. As fellow detectives working on the same case, Allen and Julian also had the right to know. Both his parents played too big of a role to go unmentioned.

"I see. Then, you should tell them yourself, Cap"

Ryan nodded.

"By the way, I've gone over all the information you provided us but couldn't find the exact cause of the explosion of the research facility. You guys never found out the cause?"

"Yeah. You've seen the state of the facility. Most parts of the building were gone. It was very hard to investigate the cause in such a condition. Furthermore, it happened five years before Derek took over the Corps so, he didn't know much about the explosion. It was only regarded as an accident," Shelly said thoughtfully.

"Okay. You can go now. We'll talk about this case again on Saturday," Ryan said.

They had planned to meet up again on this weekend to share their findings.

"Yes, Cap. See you tomorrow," Shelly left after bidding him farewell.

Ryan did not go back home yet but went off to snoop around Moretti Cartel's territory. Of course, he disguised himself as a buyer and hid his car in an unnoticeable place before heading there. He hid half of his face with a lowered black cap while wearing a grey jacket and a pair of worn out jeans.

He walked with his hands in the pockets and his head lowered. It was a norm to see people hiding their face in this area, so no one thought he was strange. He went straight to the seller he had been frequenting to in the past month.

He did the exchange as he had always done and were about to walk away when a man knocked into him. Because of his taut muscles, Ryan did not move an inch but the man fell down on his butt.

"Watch it!" Ryan growled.

He did not plan to stick onto his friendly persona while roaming around in this area. He was going to continue on his own way when he noticed the man's nose was bleeding. There was no way that his body was that hard. 'There must be something wrong with this man,' Ryan thought and approached the man.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

While complaining, Ryan grabbed the collar of the man to get him up.

"Sorry," the man mumbled meekly and stood up while trying to remove Ryan's hand on his collar with one of his hands. That was when Ryan noticed there was something on the man's fingers.

Actually, the man's behavior itself was strange because he acted as if he was guilty of something. Of course, everyone in this territory was doing something illegal in one way or another but they carried themselves as they were doing their everyday chores.

'He must be from outside of the city.' Ryan thought and looked at him from head to toe. He seemed to be in mid-thirties and looked frail, not someone who would be used to all the street fights in this city.

As soon as Ryan let go, the man hurried away in a fluster. Ryan followed after him with no hurry. The man walked towards his car which was parked just outside the Moretti's territory and drove away. Ryan noted down the plate number and walked around in the area for a while before going back home.

When he parked his car in front of his apartment, it was almost dawn. To his surprise, he found a guest waiting for him at his door.

"You were keeping yourself busy," Vivienne said with certainty.

Ryan did not refute and opened the door lock with his key. It was true that he wanted to be occupied so that his thoughts would not endlessly wander. He was not sure he would be able to contain himself if he thought about what his parents did in the past.

"You need to accept the truth. You can't run away forever," she said as she followed behind him into his apartment.

"You really don't sleep at all, do you?" Ryan changed the topic as he turned around and looked at her with a smile.

"I don't have any appointment tomorrow. I can sleep all I want the whole day."

She sat down on the couch comfortably as if it was her home.

Ryan removed his jacket and threw it onto a chair. Then he walked into the kitchen to get himself a beer.

"Do you want something?" Ryan asked.

"Do you have popsicles?"

"No"

'But maybe I should keep some if your visits are gonna be this frequent,' Ryan thought.

"What about milk?" she asked.

'What's wrong with this 31 year old woman's taste?'

"Yeah, I have some," Ryan took out the milk cartoon from the fridge and poured the milk into a glass.

"Thank you," Vivienne accepted the glass of milk expressionlessly. However, Ryan felt that he saw some joyous glint in her eyes.

'She's just like a kid.' May be that was the reason why he could face her with all sincerity.

"Did you sleep fine?" She asked after taking a sip of the milk.

"I did. Thanks to you and your medicine," Ryan answered.

She looked into his eyes intently, making him become drawn into those blue eyes and could not look away at all.

"Like I said, you need to face your fears head-on. Running away won't do you any good."

Ryan just stared silently at her as he knew what she said was truth. However, he felt like he would have a break-down and could not function any more if he did as she said.

As if detecting his confusion, she added, "You don't need to worry. I'll be here with you."

He was thoroughly surprised and moved by her words. Although he could feel that there was an invisible connection between them, they did not know anything about each other. The times they had met could be counted on ten fingers and yet she was already giving him so much. And he knew that she was aloof and did not want to bother with unnecessary details.

"Why do you care so much?" He asked in a serious tone.

"You once tried to save my life," she answered instantly.

"But you didn't really need my help at that time. Your body guards already had it under control."

"Even so, you are the first stranger who was prepared to take a bullet for me, that is, without hoping for getting anything in return."

Although she said everything matter-of-factly, he could feel the sincerity in her words. The sight of the petite figure wrapped up in an oversized-hoodie, sitting on his couch comfortably and holding the glass of milk with her both hands, made her seemed like a cat. He could not help but feel that she was very cute as she savored the milk from time to time as if it was the most delicious delicacy in the world.

He rubbed her head gently and said, "Silly woman. Did you think I would not know how to avoid getting hit in vital areas? I was not taking a bullet for you."

"Nothing is certain in this world."

Because of her unexpected remark, his thoughts were brought back towards his parents.

Ryan mustered up his courage and asked the question that had been lingering on his mind the whole day.

"Were you… one of them?"

He could not dig up anything about Vivienne before she was 13 years old and she had been paying particular attention to this new drug. He strongly suspected that she was one of the test subjects who survived the explosion at the research facility.

Even though Ryan's question was quite ambiguous, she did not have any difficulty realizing the deeper meaning.

"No."

Her answer breathed a life into Ryan. It was as if she brought him up onto the surface while he was drowning. He did not want her to hate him because of his parents.

However, her next words drove away the rays of hope he had just seen.

"But my friend was. She died in the explosion."