I Want You to Know

Part 38

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I stood there looking at her and really seeing her for the first time, this frightened little girl, in a woman's body. She was breathtakingly beautiful, a lot like her father, with a little of her mother thrown in for good measure. That was a dangerous combination and she used it like a weapon. She could flash that smile she inherited from her father and melt any man within a fifty mile radius. Including me.

I could tell she was fighting the urge to run to us and hold on for dear life, and I took that as my cue to make the first move. I crossed the room in a few strides and gathered her in my arms, trying to ignore the fact that she was barely dressed.

"Hey there kiddo, how is my little Sunshine?" I kissed her cheek, and pulled her even further into my embrace.

"I'm fine, Brian. Who called you?"

"The police called us, Sascha," Justin answered from behind me. I could hear the irritation in his voice and did my best to help this go smoothly.

"Sascha, where are you staying?" I asked her.

"I'm not going home, Brian." She sounded way too fucking much like me at her age. Taking a deep breath, I continued.

"You are, and you will stay put this time. No more running away, do you understand?"

"I said, I'm not going, and I meant it. I have a job here, one where I make a lot of money.  I can take care of myself."

Closing my eyes I waited for Justin to speak, "What prostituting yourself?  Is that your idea of taking care of yourself?  Because if it is, then you have a serious problem, young lady."

"Justin, thats enough, don't make this any harder than what it is already." I turned to  Sascha and did my best to convince her she wanted to come home. "Ok kiddo, let's go." I wrapped my jacket around her shoulders and waited for her to zip it up over her exposed flesh. She led the way out of the precinct and down the block to a run down, dirty motel and opened door number 47. The room was immaculate, and she had tried to make it homier by putting small touches of herself in there. She had pictures of her sisters and even one of us on her bedside table. I looked around and found her old tattered copy of Charlotte's Web on the small table in the room.

As I walked around the tiny room, I gathered up some of her things, putting them into her backpack haphazardly. She sat on the edge of the bed, watching me with tears building up and threatening to fall any moment. I smiled at her, while Justin cleared out the bathroom. Once he was inside with the door closed, I sat next to her and held her hand in mine.

"Sascha, I know that you think that by going home, you've lost, but it isn't true. We love you, we  have been going crazy looking for you. I don't know exactly what has happened to you, but I do know that I'm glad we found you. I missed you."

"Fuck you."

"You can be as hateful and rude to me as you want, Sascha, but I'm not going anywhere. We're family and that means something. I love you, and I always will."

She looked at me as if she wasn't quite sure that what I had just said was true. Once she decided it was, she looked at me with those brilliant blue eyes and smiled sadly.

"I didn't do what they said I did, dad. Well I was going to, but I have never ever done that before."

"I believe you. We're going to fix it, kiddo, I promise. But you have to be honest with us, and don't shut us out or run away again. I can't help you if you aren't there to help."

She smiled at me again and leaned in to just barely hug me. Justin came out moments later and we packed our little girl into the car and took her home.

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Justin was very quiet on the ride home until Sascha fell asleep in the back seat. "What the fuck was she thinking, Brian?"

Brian took a deep breath before answering, knowing that whatever he said was going to piss Justin off. "She was thinking she had to support herself."

"Like that? By selling herself? She could have came home, or called and asked for money."

"Would you have done that? I seem to remember you ran off and used my credit card because you wanted to be found, she didn't. She did what she had to do."

"So it doesn't bother you that your daughter was a hooker?"

Brian took another deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, "she was not a hooker, Justin. She danced at a club and she got herself into a situation she shouldn't have been in, but she is only seventeen years old, and she says she never did it before."

Justin shook his head at his partner, "And you believe her? Look at how she was dressed Brian, look where she was living."

"She was taking care of herself, and as for what she was wearing, well it was a little too revealing for my taste, but considering she was a stripper, it was to be expected. Its not like she walked around the streets of New York wearing that."

"Why are you so calm about this?" Justin questioned.

"Because I believe her and she was only doing everything we have taught her since she was born."

"That's right the infamous Kinneyism, 'The only person you can count on is you'." Justin looked at his partner in disgust,  "I am so sick of the world according to Brian Kinney. This is my daughter we're talking about here."

"OUR daughter, or have you forgotten that? I may not have any biological connection to them, but I AM their father as much as you are."

"And look how well that has turned out," Justin spit at his  lover.

"You know what Sunshine, I'm not going to do this, I refuse to fight with you about something this silly. We have bigger problems right now. But I am going to tell you this, don't you dare make her feel bad about what she did. She needs us to love her, to protect her and to help her pick up the pieces of her life right now. If you go at her about this, we're going to lose her again and we may never get her back."

Sascha sat in the back of the van with her eyes closed listening to her parents argue about her and felt a small sense of happiness that Brian believed her and was standing up for her. She knew that Justin would be the one who would question her and doubt her. It was Brian who would support her and never let her down. All of her life, whenever she had a problem she went to her dad, rather than daddy. She allowed herself to drift off into a quiet sleep for the remainder of the ride.

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Justin's POV

Two hours later we walked into the house and she ran upstairs to her room, slamming the door behind her. I watched her go and heard him come up behind me and put his arms around me. He leaned in and kissed the spot right below my ear and whisper, "She'll be fine. Just give her time."

When he walked away to the kitchen an emptiness settled over me. As much as he irritated me I still loved him after all these years. Sometimes I asked myself why, but then he did something like the moment before and I knew. There were times in my life that I wondered how I could love someone who seemed to care so little about what others thought but then I would see him with our children, the way he looked at them with such love in his eyes, the way he sat on the ground and played tea party with five little girls and it all made sense.

I heard him in the kitchen, whistling softly, and went upstairs to watch a little tv. He found me twenty minutes later watching Happy Days reruns and just shook his head at me. Brian had always  made fun of my crush on the Fonz, but I just didn't care, he was hot. I couldn't explain it but Arthur Fonzarelli reminded me of Brian Kinney. Maybe it was the bad boy image with the heart of gold that did it. I was still thinking about the similarities when Sascha knocked on the door.

She stood just inside the room and stared at the floor, looking more like her seventeen years in sweats and a tee. I waited a moment for her to speak and when she didn't say anything I started the dialogue.

"What's up Sascha?" I said patting the cushion next to me on the couch. She hesitated then took the offered seat.

"I wanted to say I was sorry I made you and dad worry about me."

"Ok."

"Do you forgive me daddy?" She looked so innocent that for just a moment I forgot that she was in a lot of trouble.

"Of course I do, but just because I forgive you doesn't mean you're off the hook. You're in a lot of trouble Sascha, legal trouble. Not to mention the fact that you're grounded for the rest of your life."

"Yeah I know. Thanks daddy. I just wanted to make sure you forgave me." She leaned in and kissed my cheek, "I'm going to bed now."

"Night, sweetheart."

"Night daddy," she called out to Brian, "Night dad."

An hour later I was downstairs looking for the ice cream when the front door opened and our lives were about to change again.

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