Kyle couldn't believe it had come to this.

"It's gonna be alright," Kay said, her voice soft as she played with her hand in his hair.

It calmed him down, and he needed it so much. Because once the shooting and the killing was done, everything came crashing down on him with a force that took his breath away. Was that what a panic attack felt like? It was only the silence and Kay's strokes that kept him from screaming.

"I know it's a lot to take in, sweetheart," she said, her fingers moving down the side of his face.

He looked up to her, blissfully distracted. "You've never called me that before."

"I know. I started doing it inside my head when I thought you were dead. I did tend to talk to you a lot."

Her words hurt, but not as much after everything. He chose to focus on the fact that they were together now. "I think I kind of like it."

Her smile drove the demons away. She grounded him, made everything so much less complicated because she was a constant reminder that even if the past had been a mess and the present was panic-inducing, their future stayed the same. He still had her and his family and they'd fortunately all escaped this mess somewhat intact. At least for now.

Where they'd go from here... Well, that was another matter which was suddenly up to him. It was was why he'd ended up in Davyn's office, sitting at his desk. A glass and a half-empty bottle of whiskey were still on it. He'd probably taken a drink to give himself the courage to do what had to be done. Had he predicted it would go so far? What would he have done if he were still alive?

Kyle took out the jewel from the drawer and glanced at it. It shone eerily in the neon light, as if hiding its true nature, much like Davyn had. It also seemed to shimmer in shades of blood. They'd started with blood and ended with it, hidden beneath the surface. So much loss. So much pain.

How? How could Davyn carry all that knowledge alone for thirty years? How could his mother and Freider? How did it not smother them? Kill them slowly?

Maybe it did. After all, Freider preferred to fake his own death, abandon his family and plot bring his own brother down rather than come clean. In the end, Davyn had been the only one brave enough to take the plunge.

Tell them the truth, once and for all, subject himself to their judgement and their hatred. And, in return, he'd gotten his own truth.

His father... For maybe and hour, Kyle had had a father who actually wanted him, who was proud of him and did anything to protect him. The thought tightened his throat and had his teeth clenching painfully.

"Kyle?" Kay sounded a little worried.

"I..." He didn't know what to say. Maybe it wasn't just an hour. Maybe it was a whole month hiding beneath snark and mumbled curses. A confusing month filled with teamwork in which Snitch Gravel had died and Davyn had risen from the ashes.

"I know it's all overwhelmed, that knowing the truth could've changed so much," Kay whispered. "But it didn't. And maybe he was right. Maybe all the misery and the pain was worth it to get us to where we are."

Kyle had no doubt about that and didn't see the point in spending any energy on potential what ifs. There was only one little thing he had wanted to go differently, and it had happened a mere hour ago.

"I wish he hadn't died."

Kay settled herself in his lap. He cradled her, leaning his cheek against hers. It still felt amazing to hold her after all the time they'd spent apart, after the doubt and the fear that they'd never see each other again. Even with all the craziness, he hadn't gotten used to being with her again, and having her there eased the pain.

"I know," she whispered. "I wish he hadn't died either. Especially after everything he did for you. For us."

"I think it's the height of irony that, in the end, he was a much better man than Freider."

"I don't know. Your-- Freider always scared me. He was a petty, devious man, always driven by hatred. And seeing him now, like this... He was much better suited for this life than Snitch Gravel ever was."

"Davyn," he corrected her automatically. "Snitch Gravel doesn't exist."

"Davyn," she said, her tone dreamy. "I actually really like the name."

"I always liked it, too. Thought it was cool, even if I never used it."

"What if..." She took his hand and placed it over her belly. "I think I want to name him Davyn."

Kyle jumped. Her words hurt, as if it was too soon to compute that they were naming the baby after his dead father. "You know it's a boy?"

"No. But I have a feeling it is. You don't have to decide now. Just think about it."

She was right. He didn't have to decide now. He had something a lot more unpleasant to think about. If everything went according to plan, by the time their baby was born, it would be over and they'd be safe. There was so much work to do. But if he could have just one more minute of silence with her...

He turned her face and kissed her, enjoying the feel of her, her lily scent, the way she pushed the monsters away. There was still happiness in the world. Sure, there was pain, but the pain was worth it. Because as far as he was concerned, his real father deserved the storm inside him, the regret.

There was a knock at the door. Kyle pulled away from Kay, but kept her in his lap.

"Yeah?"

Eye Patch stepped in, looking a bit apprehensive. "Boss?"

Kyle winced. "Just call me Kyle. What's up?"

Eye Patch hesitated a moment, his gaze moving from him to Kay in his lap. It was probably very odd for him to answer to someone he'd been ordered to kill before, but he'd taken up his role without faltering.

"We're done with cleanup," he reported.

And with those words, the silence and peace were over. "How many?"

"Fifteen. Seven of ours, eight of theirs. I put theirs in one of the cages."

Smart. Which was a bit shocking coming from Eye Patch, really. "What about Von Crooken and Freider?"

"In the cage with the rest of them. Do you want me to move your-- Um, Freider out?"

Kyle didn't. He was where he belonged. "Ask Sam when he's done."

Which might be a while. After everything, Sam, Jerry and Jessie had retreated to Von Crooken's former office with Davyn's research papers, trying to figure out just what they'd gotten themselves into.

"What about the others?" Kyle asked, referring to the other men which might have been on Von Crooken's side.

"Rounded most of them up," Eye Patch reported. "Jimmy and Tom are very efficient, and with Rud and the Billy kid, I think they might've gotten everyone. What do you want to do with them?"

Kyle shrugged. "They either stay with us or we let them go. Do you agree?"

Eye Patch looked shocked to be asked for an opinion. "I... Um, yeah. There's no point killing them, I guess."

"Definitely no point." Kyle tried to hold back a smirk.

Eye Patch slid his hand down his face. "I'm sorry, this is so creepy."

"Creepy?" Kay asked.

"He... Sometimes, you look so much like the boss. You didn't use to when you were a kid. But now..."

Kyle pursed his lips. Yeah, now when he'd grown up more, when Davyn had changed himself, it was so damn obvious. Now everyone could tell that they looked similar, even if no one had caught on before.

"My mother and Phillip are still with him?" The question hurt for some reason.

Eye Patch just nodded, his jaw clenched tightly. It was obvious that the death of his boss had touched him on some level.

"Okay," Kyle said. "After you finish rounding up the other men, tell Tom and Jimmy to come to me and go rest. You deserve it."

"Yes, boss-- um, Kyle." And he backed out of the office, bowing his head slightly.

"This is so weird," Kay mumbled, the moment the door closed. "And yet, you're so good at it."

"It is weird and crazy and I think you're hallucinating that I'm good at it." He squeezed her against him. "I think you should go rest. It was a horribly long day."

Kay hesitated, obviously exhausted. Hell, they all were. Angie had hopefully finished preparing the next room so that they could all get some sleep. Kay had wanted to stay with him rather than engage in any other activity and he appreciated it more than she could ever know.

"Yes, but you still need me."

"And I have you. That's good enough for me. But I also want you to rest. You and the baby both need it."

This seemed to convince her because she gave him a long, lingering kiss that made him want to keep her in that office with him forever, then slipped out of his arms and into the bedroom.

Now he was alone, and the realization weigh a ton. The air became heavier with each breath and he couldn't help but wonder how Davyn had survived this, just being there and knowing there was no Kay in the next room, just waiting for a sign to comfort him and love him, no brothers and friends. No one.

"How did you do it?"

He put the jewel back in the drawer, then stood and started pacing. After a while, he stopped in front of the filing cabinet which contained their personal files. They'd all looked around and Sam, Jessie and Jerry had taken the Agency related files for analysis. There was so much information there, but they'd take it in the order of importance.

Not that the stalker files were important, but Kyle really needed a distraction, so he picked up his own file and held it up wondering what he expected to see in it.

It was just what it looked like. A folder containing basic details about himself. The first page itself was just his chart, though it was wrong.

Kyle Jacob Grant. Born August 29, 1993, 1.7050 kg, 55 cm. Muscle dystrophy, reduced bone density, nearly blind, underdeveloped lungs, arrhythmia...

The more Kyle read, the more his skin crawled. How the hell had he survived long enough for Freider to approve the serum? And what had that thing actually done to him?

Saved your life. Actually, gave him a chance at life. And oh, how he'd taken it.

He flipped through the rest of the folder which turned out to contain random events from his life accompanied by photographs and Davyn's own observations about him. Honestly, it wasn't as much as he had expected, which went to show why his middle name hadn't become an issue. On the last pages, there were more handwritten notes and he faltered.

Davyn's handwriting was a little similar to his own, so it was easy to understand. The updates of the information had stopped around the time Freider supposedly died. His wedding to Kay was handwritten, and it was nothing but a date. Then, there were a few questions logged in about two years later.

What are you doing?

Are you happy?

Could you have kids?

And yet, he hadn't stalked them to find out because he'd promised.

Kyle closed the folder all together and placed it back in the filing cabinet. At one point, maybe he'd pour over all of it, but right now, he couldn't.

Instead, he left the office and headed down the hall. He could hear fearful voices, whispered questions, even muffled cries, and atmosphere fitting for what had happened.

I can't believe it was just an hour ago.

And he couldn't believe where he was going, but he needed it. So he entered the tiny office where they'd brought Davyn's body. He lay on the desk, while his mother sat on a chair, one hand on his cheek, the other in his hair. Phillip was there too, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. They both raised their eyes when he came in. Her mother's face was swollen from all the crying.

Kyle watched them, but didn't know what to say, so his gaze drifted to the body. Jessie had done her best to clean him up, and he now had a  clean t-shirt on. As fate would have it, Kay had found he owned an Uncaged t-shirt and they'd dressed him in that one. Everything was so strange, so surreal.

They brought me to the morgue to identify my father's body.

The memory made Kyle shudder and he couldn't help but be grateful that Davyn had been shot in the torso rather than the face. This way, he could ignore the wounds.

"How's it going?" Phillip asked.

It was maybe weird that Kyle knew exactly what he meant. "I understand they're gathering the last of them now."

"What are you going to do with them?"

"Let them go, unless they want to stay. We won't be lingering here more than necessary anyway." His gaze stayed on Davyn. "Do you have any way we could bring him home?"

Phillip stiffened and pushed himself off the wall. "If necessary. But it would be a dead giveaway, wouldn't it?"

"Maybe I don't care," Kyle said. "Maybe I'm willing to take this risk just to make sure he doesn't rot in this jungle."

"Is it okay if I run this by your brothers?"

Kyle understood the subtext of the question. Phillip wanted to confirm with people who were maybe a little less fucked up by all of this than him. People who weren't as emotionally tied to the dead man. And that in itself was so strange, how he'd come to consider that Davyn belonged to him.

"Sure, go right ahead."

Phillip nodded and headed for the door. He stopped next to Kyle for a second and grasped his shoulder. "I know he hurt you a lot, but in the end, he really cared about you."

"Yeah, I know. He actually told me that much." He didn't need Phillip, or anyone else for that matter, tainting the original message. His muscles tensed as he remembered Davyn's breakdown, his confession... It just made him feel like he'd missed the chance to maybe grow to love his father back.

Phillip nodded and let himself out, leaving Kyle alone with his mother. For a moment, they both stayed silent and Kyle started wondering what he was doing there in the first place. Who should be offering comfort in that moment anyway?

Well, no matter the answer, Maxi had never been capable to handle pain. It grated on his nerves for some reason.

"You really loved him, didn't you?" he asked.

"Yes," Maxi whispered, turning to Davyn and continuing to play with his hair. "All my life. Even when I thought he could really hurt you, kill you."

Yeah, he'd figured that much. "Then why didn't you do anything about it? Why all those years stuck in a sham marriage with Freider?"

"Freider..." The name was lost in a breath as Maxi seemed to remember that she'd killed him. "Davyn was right, you know. We were all bad people, the three of us. And I think that what happened today proved it more than anything."

"Yes, Mom, you killed Freider. There's no dancing around that one."

"And he killed Davyn," she whispered. "After all the years he dreamed of it, he finally did it. Because I'm sure he knew. Knew that I'd never let him go, that I thought about him every time he touched me, that..."

Kyle was glad she'd trailed off because it was getting disgusting. But it also answered some questions he'd always had. "So that's why you wanted me and Kay together so badly? Because we reminded you of the two of you?"

Maxi nodded, her eyes still on Davyn. "You always looked so much like him when he was your age, and Kay--"

"Don't say that. You and Kay don't look alike apart from the hair color." The whole thing was sick enough without that. "And okay, I looked like him, but..." For a moment, he wondered how he could put it nicely, but then he realized that he didn't have to. "That's why you showed obvious favoritism towards me, isn't it? It wasn't about me at all. It was about him."

Maxi didn't answer right away, focusing on the movement of her fingers. "What you have to understand is that you were born out of love. Yes, I cursed his name at the time, but when we conceived you, even if you were an accident, we both wanted it. Your brothers..." She shook her head. "It was all out of fear. I never wanted more children, but I was afraid of Freider, of what he'd do if I refused him."

His mother's words made his blood boil, and he was half-tempted to tell her to shut up. But with all the pain already smothering him, he felt like he could take one more blow and get it over with.

"Did Freider force himself on you?"

Maxi shook her head. "I let him take me so that he wouldn't realize I didn't want him. But it was so hard. The days after we finally took you home from the hospital were a haze. I couldn't sleep, I always had to be by your side to make sure you were breathing, and through it all, I had Freider breathing down my neck and the terror of him catching on, finding out the truth.

"Much before I was ready, I was pregnant again and everything became even harder. After what happened with you, I refused to take any risks, refused echos and checkups and medicine. Half of me hoped I'd lose the baby, that I wouldn't be forced to go through that again. Giving birth to you had hurt so much. The labor with Jerry was even worse."

"Jerry and Jimmy," he whispered.

She huffed, but there was obvious pain in her voice. "It hurt so much I couldn't even focus, all I wanted was for it to be over. I didn't want twins. I didn't even want the one baby. I had such severe postpartum depression it actually sounded like a good idea when Freider suggested we leave you with my mother and Max for a while. Then, before I could even get used to Jerry, I was pregnant again." She sniffed, drawing her hand away from Davyn. "I asked them to knock me out for the birth. I couldn't handle it anymore. I just wanted it to be over and just stop having children. Freider was fortunately satisfied with the two and stopped pushing for more."

The story made Kyle sick to his stomach. "So you basically didn't want any of us."

"That doesn't mean I don't love you," she whispered.

"Oh, yes, obviously. Especially me. Abandoning me because it was easy for you."

"You don't know the terror--"

"I don't care!"

Maxi jumped and turned to him, her eyes wide and full of tears.

"You had Max and Maman. You could've left at any time and they would've supported you one hundred percent. The terror was your choice, a punishment of your own making for what you knew you'd done. Married the brother of the man you really loved and lied to them both."

"Kyle--"

"And don't give me this bullshit about how you loved me. You didn't love me. You loved the person I reminded you of, what I represented. You don't even know me. I was nothing but a stand-in for Davyn to you."

"That's not true," she said, her voice shaking. "Yes, I saw Davyn in you, but you are my child. I know that I wasn't cut out for this, that I've been a bad parent..."

"No, Mom," he said, cutting her off. "It's time you were honest with yourself. You're not a bad parent. You're a shitty person as a whole. You and Freider both were. And you'll just have to live with it."

Maxi stared at him, her eyes wide and tearful, but he really didn't care anymore. Half of him wanted to throw her out of there so that he could spend a few more moments with his father, but he was dead, so there was no point. Instead, he wheeled around and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

He took a few steps down the corridor, then stopped, leaning against the wall. He had no idea why this hurt so much. It wasn't like he ever felt protected by his mother and telling her that to her face had been strangely liberating. And yet, he felt emptier than ever.

"Kyle."

He turned to his left. Sam and Jerry made their way towards him, looking as drained and as exhausted as he felt. But the closer they came, the more energy seemed to fill him up.

"I just yelled at Mom and told her she was a shitty person, just so you know," he said the moment they reached him.

"I'm sure you had your reasons, beyond the obvious ones," Jerry said at once.

"Phillip said you want to take Davyn with us," Sam said.

"Yeah. I want to bury him home."

Sam nodded. "Okay." He looked down the hall towards the room the body was in. "We have a lot of information we need to go through, but I think we can get to that once we've secured our kids."

"Agreed." Hell, he missed his kids so much, he felt like he was breaking apart every time he thought about them. "We'll need to find a base of operation."

"I was thinking..." Jerry nibbled on his lower lip. "This place is safe."

"The crypt full of blood and bodies," Kyle said in disbelief.

Jerry shrugged. "Well, no one could find us here."

Right on time, Jimmy and Tom appeared at the end of the corridor together with Billy and made their way towards them. It was so odd and yet so natural to see Billy again, looking a bit older and a lot more sure of himself. But even if he'd been gone for years, once he decided to join them again, it felt as if he'd never left.

"Job's done," Tom announced. "Phillip and Eye Patch are seeing who wants to stay and who wants to risk a nice trek through the jungle."

"Good," Kyle said. "We need to rest as well."

"Yeah, but what's the plan, though?" Jimmy asked. "I know we all want to get home as soon as possible."

"Jerry was actually suggesting we stay here," Sam said with a smirk.

"No way are we bringing the kids to a jungle," Tom said, shaking his head. "Too many poisonous things they can shove in their mouths."

That drew a laugh out of Kyle. "True. I say we bring all the kids to Max for the time being. They can stay there with the girls while we take care of Davyn. Then, we activate code red."

Jimmy nodded. "I'm sure there are some other safe bunkers Davyn had lying around. We'll find one suitable enough and set our base there while we figure out what to do next."

"Agreed," Sam said. "So kids, funeral, then we bring down the Agency."

They all nodded in agreement and Kyle felt a bit better with a half-formed plan.

"Then we'll figure out what to do about the jewels."

"And the satellite," Jimmy added.

"And everything else." Tom glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. "Honestly, we really do need to take it one step at a time. Because after everything that happened... We have a lot of cleaning up to do. I mean, Steve is obviously going back with us, but what about Eric? I mean he wasn't even supposed to be here."

Kyle pondered on this, because he hadn't really given the matter much thought. "Eric is a good guy. He'll keep his mouth shut."

"You do know he'll probably want in on this," Jimmy said.

"And what's wrong with that?" Kyle asked. "He is competent, smart and crazy resourceful."

"Look, if you're cool with it, so are we," Tom said.

Kyle hummed in agreement. "I sort of wanted to ask you guys something. Did you mean it when you said you forgave him?"

They all hesitated for a few moments, then Jimmy sighed. "I did. Because I had a feeling at some point that he was the hooded guy and I just rolled with it. After all, he was right. He did make us what we are today. And it's only because of that that we can even hope to face the Counters and take them down."

"Counters has a better ring to it, doesn't it?" Tom asked, drumming his fingers on his chin.

"It's such a mess, really," Sam said. "And after witnessing Mom killing Dad, I have the feeling that maybe, in the end, Davyn was the least horrible out of them. They were all horrible, but... At least he had the balls to own up to it and apologize."

"What are we going to do about Mom now?" Jerry asked.

"Nothing." Kyle gave a half-shrug. "Or at least I'm not going to do anything. She did this to herself. Let's get some sleep while we still can. Things are not going to get easier."

And as they all agreed and headed for Davyn's office together, Kyle had the apocalyptic feeling that it was an understatement.

End of Part IV

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And we've started winding down. Yes, there is so much cleanup to be done and, unfortunately, not much assistance.

You probably realize that the next part is the last one as well. Also, it won't be very long, just a wrap-up of everything that needs fixing.

I'm really hoping you're enjoying the story and are curious to see how this holy-shit-long saga will end.

So, stay tuned, give me your thoughts and don't forget to vote and comment.