When Violet woke, she was laying in a hospital bed, an IV stabbing in her arm, and her parents sitting on the couch near the bed. Her father was paging through a magazine absentmindly. Her mother stared out the window, chewing her nails. Somehow, Violet had never noticed the grey creeping in to their dark hair. Violet coughed.

Almost in a single motion, her mother snapped to attention, crossed the room, and hugged her, a little too tight for comfort. Violet winced. Her dad came over as well and smiled.

"Vi...we got yelled at by a disheveled boy in black for a solid twenty minutes before we could get in the room to see you. He is very angry at us for not believing you." Her father said, chagrined. Even his suit jacket seemed lifeless.

"He's in a rock band, dad. He's very good at anger." Violet croaked.

"And he's right. We saw the...bear. In the woods." Her mother said, shaken. Violet was confused. "What? How?"

"The police have it barricaded off, but Officer Giffords took us in to see...the body. Ian insisted. It looked like it was melting, or evaporating or something. It was awful." Her father stammered. "To think, that's what you see all the time -"

"Not all the time," Violet cut in. "They're usually smaller. And less...everything. Some of them are even nice."

Violet's mother was torn between laughing and crying.

Violet scanned the room. "Where is Ian?"

"He went to check on the other guy who was getting bandaged up. I'll go see if he's nearby." Her father left.

Violet's mother took Violet's hand. "Your knee is fractured, but otherwise the doctors say you'll be fine. Mostly just heat exhaustion and dehydration." Only then Violet realized she was freezing. She thought about just gritting her teeth, but then she looked again at her mom's face. She was still on edge, twisting her wedding ring. She needed something to do.

"Mom...I'm cold. Can you find me another blanket?"

"Of course!" Her mother promptly started rifiling through the cabinets in the room.

When Ian came through the door, he was the epitome of what her father would qualify as 'disheveled'. Buttons ripped open, tie completely abandoned, and dirt everywhere. There were damp spots on his shirt she hoped were only from rinsing off mud.

"Hey," hey said with a smile.

"'I'll bring it to you?'" Violet chided. "Stupid grandiose boy." He came to her bed and stared up at the ceiling. "This is the abuse I get." She reached out and grabbed his hand. She suddenly became very aware of her parents watching them, but now seemed as fitting time as ever to stifle the shyness.

She pulled on his hand and scooted to one side of the bed gingerly. His eyes went wide, but without a beat he crawled in to bed next to her.

Her throat tightened. She didn't know how she was supposed to say what she needed to next. But she had to.

"It was a trap. It was a trap for me that whole time."

"I wondered that for a bit," he said, quietly. "But I didn't know if you'd believe me. Or if that even made sense, so...I didn't know what to do."

She swallowed. "I get it. I'm listening from now on. This is all my fault."

"Don't," he snapped. "Don't start on that path. If we start with that, we also blame me for not saying anything. We blame Eric for having a hard time. We blame procedural cop shows for glorifying a dogged pursuit of of the bad guys, despite the personal cost."

She half smiled. "Well, we wouldn't want that."

Her dad said, "You blame us for not believing you for...years. That...that one you should do."

"No, stop, Dad." Violet shook her head. "I don't even want to go there."

Her dad pressed. "If you can say that, then you can forgive yourself. Everyone's safe and alive."

Ian continued. "That thing is dead, and it can't hurt anyone anymore. It's literally evaporating in to smoke. Delgado's watching it until it's all gone."

"Poor guy. Giffords owes him big time."

The room fell in to silence. Her mother finally remembered she was holding a blanket, and covered Violet with it. She started wringing her hands, but finally asked, "So...how did you two first meet?"