"REMIND ME WHY WE DOIN' this again," Liam groaned. He let himself fall back defeatedly in his chair and sighed.

"To learn how to walk," the voice of instructor at the revalidation center said from a distance. She squatted down to help a woman on crutches next to Liam, who was already a few steps ahead in her journey to walk independently. While she could stand upright with the help of crutches, Liam couldn't, and he trusted Darren to keep him up. Meanwhile, Darren was crumbling underneath the weight of the former football player every time he tried to lift him up. The leg press Liam was on now was a much-needed break for Darren.

"You need to build some strength into your leg muscles again," Darren said quietly.

"My muscles are strong enough," Liam protested. He didn't like to be called weak, especially not if it concerned the legs he'd been winning many football games with.

"Your muscles are breaking off because you're not using them," Darren said. "These exercises will make sure that your legs can still carry your body once you're ready to walk again."

Liam grumbled. "I ain't weak." To support that statement, he upped the weight on the leg press with five more pounds and started pressing again. Darren saw him wince in pain, but on willpower, Liam carried on.

"Let me adjust the weight," Darren offered, and he leaned forward.

"It only twenty pounds, I can take it," Liam said. He didn't stop pressing, and because he was in motion, Darren couldn't take off any weight.

"Liam, please."

"I used to do two hundred pounds on this thing, easy. At my best, I did two hundred and seventy-five."

Darren sighed, and he knew he shouldn't say his next words if he didn't want to hurt Liam, but he did it anyway. "You're not at your best anymore."

Liam winced again, and his eyes met Darren's. Then, he stopped fighting, and his legs gave in. With a loud thud, the rolling chair he was sitting in came to a halt.

"Thank you," Darren said. He didn't look at Liam again as he got rid of the five pounds Liam had just added. Liam followed Darren's movements with a blank stare.

"Darren!" From behind him, the same female instructor from just now showed up. "Do you want to take Liam to the bars?" She pointed at two bars. "I want to see if he's made any progress since last time and if the home exercises have been helping."

Darren turned to Liam. With his eyes, he asked, Home exercises? He hadn't seen Liam do any exercises at home to speed up his recovery.

Liam just shrugged and motioned Darren to answer. As Darren replied positively, Liam rolled his eyes, thinking to himself that he didn't have any say in the matter of what he was going to do.

"Let me help you take him there," the instructor said.

Darren rolled Liam's wheelchair over and put it next to the leg press, and the instructor picked Liam up. Once Liam sat in the chair, Darren wheeled him over to the two bars on the other side of the room, maneuvering him between the other people exercising.

"What do you want me to do?" Darren asked, hesitant about what to do with Liam's chair and how to help him.

"Just put me down right between the bars, at the beginnin'," Liam said, using his hands to make clear what he meant. Darren followed his instructions. "I also need yo' help gettin' up." He grabbed the two bars with both hands, but he was not in the right position to pull himself up and stay up. Darren aligned himself with Liam's body and supported Liam's torso, providing the strength to keep Liam up that his legs no longer had. With this help, Liam managed to position himself between the bars while his arms kept him up.

"Thanks," Liam mumbled without looking at Darren. He didn't move.

"So, now you're supposed to walk?" Darren asked.

"Yes. Well, keep mah body up with mah arms while moving mah legs forward in an activity that looks like walkin', but really is just fakin'." Liam showed what he meant: with his arms, he exerted enough strength to push himself up and stay upright, but when he moved his right leg forward, Darren saw that his foot was hovering an inch above the floor. It wasn't walking; rather, it was an extreme upper body workout.

Darren didn't say anything about that. "Now the other leg," he instructed. He was just happy to see Liam upright again, engaging in an activity close to walking. The old Liam was within reach.

But just as quick, he was as far away as he'd ever been. When Liam tried to put his left leg forward, air hissed out of his mouth, and for a moment, his upper body forgot to deploy the strength to keep himself up. He landed on his right foot first, which was able to catch his body weight partially. It had just enough strength to delay the fall with enough time so Liam could catch himself by grabbing the bars.

Darren had been standing next to one of the bars, so when he rushed to help Liam out, he ducked underneath it and knelt down to help his host brother. "Are you hurt?"

"Always." Liam just grumbled, but without complaining, he attempted to raise himself up. Darren offered to help him and put one of Liam's arms around his neck. Supporting two bodies on one pair of legs, he got up, taking Liam with him.

"Should I take you to your chair?" Darren asked.

Liam shook his head, and he gripped one of the bars with his free hand. "Gotta try this again. To walk, right?"

Darren smiled. "To walk," he said, as if they toasted on a good night. He helped Liam stabilize himself on the bars and distanced himself, but he'd learned from his previous mistake. He stood behind Liam and was ready to catch him in case he would fall again.

"Don't look at me like that," Liam said in a low voice.

"Like what?"

"You scared, I can tell. You not the one in danger, remember?"

"I just don't want you to fall."

"It'll happen. Don't worry too much about me and mah problems, 'kay?" Liam turned his head away and downward, looking at his legs as he made another attempt to fake-walk. Darren watched anxiously, so much so that he didn't even hear Liam's next words. Liam pointed him at that fact when he didn't get a reply.

"Sorry, what?" Darren's head shot up.

"I wanted to know what's been on your mind," Liam said. "We've talked enough 'bout my problems."

There was only one thing that had been on Darren's mind. His thoughts were preoccupied with Dakota and finding her mother, and every free second in his day was spent gathering more information on Rebecca Kingsley that he collected in a production log that he could present to Dakota. However, he hadn't mustered the strength to tell her about it yet.

And neither did he want to tell it to Liam. "Nothing."

"You hesitated."

"What?"

"You hesitated, so there must be somethin' on your mind." Liam turned his head towards Darren, and his deep brown, kind eyes met his.

"Keep walking," Darren said instead. He noticed Liam had stopped the exercise to talk to Darren.

"If you start talkin'," Liam said. "I won't tell anybody else, if that what you're worried about." He moved his right leg a few inches forward, and looked at Darren with a now-it's-your-turn face.

Darren cast his eyes down and talked to Liam's feet. "You know Dakota, right?"

"Everyone does." Liam grinned. "Are you together with her yet?"

Darren had just opened his mouth to continue his story, but Liam's words startled him. "What? No..." But he too realized his way of saying it was hard to believe. "I mean, no."

"You sure? 'Cause after last Friday, I thought..." Liam wiggled his brows, as if Darren was supposed to know what he was getting at. "And you text her all the time. It can't be long before it happens."

"We're not together," Darren repeated with a stern face.

Liam raised his brows with a knowing smile, but turned away and started taking another step again. Darren walked with him to minimize the distance between them in case he'd fall again.

"Anyway, she..." Darren bit his lip, still uncertain if saying this was betraying Dakota's trust. "She's an orphan."

Liam narrowed his eyes. "Orphan?" He stopped in the middle of his movement, and both his feet were dangling above the ground. "I always see her with that guy, 'er brother."

"That's Dominic. He was also an orphan, and they grew up in the same orphanage. When he was old enough, he adopted her, and they live together now. He's not her biological brother, though."

Liam frowned, but told Darren to keep talking.

"So, she's never known her parents and lived in an orphanage before she lived with Dom." Darren rubbed his hands together. "Now, last Friday, it was her birthday..."

"Eighteenth," Liam confirmed, showing he was still listening.

"And her parents arranged for her at birth that she would find out who her parents were on her eighteenth birthday."

"Oh shit! She met 'em?" In his amazement, his voice got louder.

"She didn't meet them, she only got to know their names."

"So she can meet 'em if she wanna?"

Darren nodded.

"Has she?"

Darren shook his head. "She says she doesn't want to."

That puzzled Liam the same way it had Darren. "Why?"

Darren sighed as he tried to recall the exact words Dakota had said to him that one Saturday morning in the grass fields. "She says her life is good the way it is, and that she doesn't need them stirring up the equilibrium she's worked so hard on establishing. Also, she's convinced they don't want to meet her because they gave her away at birth."

"But they set up this thing for her eighteenth birthday," Liam said. He asked Darren to put his wheelchair at the other opening of the two bars that he'd almost reached with his baby steps, so he could sit down and listen more intently. Darren obeyed.

"That's the argument I gave. As a parent, you can't just not care about your child, right?"

"And as an orphan, you can't not wonder who your parents are, right?" Liam added. When Darren had put his chair exactly where he wanted to have it, he used the bars to turn himself around. By falling, he sat down in his chair, which caused the chair to roll backwards.

"There's more," Darren said, now finally able to face Liam while talking. He saw Liam raise his brows in curiosity. "I found her mother online."

Liam's jaw dropped, and he whistled between his teeth. "The plot thickens." His eyes shone in excitement and surprise. "Oh, the plot is thick."

"She's an editor at some entertainment company in Seaside, Florida. She's thirty-four years old, and she graduated from Englewood Senior High School, then went to Florida State University." He'd read over these facts gathered from Facebook and LinkedIn so many times that he could recall them at any time of the day, at any moment.

"Englewood Senior High School?" Liam repeated. "That's right here in Jacksonville!"

Darren nodded. It was one of the facts that made him more certain that he'd found the right Rebecca Kingsley.

"But ain't thirty-four too young to be Dakota's mom?"

"Not necessarily. It would make her sixteen at the time she gave birth to Dakota, and sixteen is young to be pregnant, but it's not impossible."

Liam thought about it. "It would actually make sense if she took Dakota to an orphanage if she was just sixteen. I wouldn't want to be a mom – or dad – at sixteen yet." That thought triggered another. "What 'bout her dad?"

Darren bit his lip. "I haven't found anything on him yet." There had been too many Walter Coxes on the internet, most of which had died, to be able to narrow it down to one.

Liam pursed his lips. "Too bad."

With those words, Liam expressed the very thought Darren had, but at the same time, having found Dakota's father would only complicate the real dilemma he was dealing with. "I just don't know what to do right now with this information..."

Liam tilted his head, asking for clarification.

"Should I tell Dakota I found her mum? Because she might be mad that I looked for her parents behind her back, after she'd told me she didn't want to meet them." Darren bit his lip. "I can send a message to her mum." He shrugged and sighed. "Or I just don't do anything, like I've been doing the past week."

"That's the worst option of all," Liam said immediately. When he realized Darren's next question would be what his next action then should be, he continued, "You could approach her mom, see what she's like and if she's still interested in meeting Dakota. There's no need to upset Dakota if it turns out her mom don't wanna get to know 'er in the first place."

"And what if her mum does want to meet Dakota?"

"Then you 'ave to tell 'er about it." His tone made it sound like the simplest thing, as if it wasn't something that would change lives forever.

"I'm just not sure..." Darren didn't finish the sentence, unable to express his doubts in clear words.

"What else you wanna do? You can't just sit on this information." When Darren didn't say anything, Liam shifted in his seat and looked him straight in the eyes. "Okay, you could also tell Dakota about it and leave it up to her. But we both know how that's gonna end."

Dakota and her mother would never meet, Darren thought.

"So, maybe it's better if you take matters into your own hands this time," Liam continued. "You already have by looking Dakota's mom up on the Internet, and approaching her is just the next step."

They both paused, and Darren used the silence to reach the conclusion Liam had been building up to. "So, send the message?"

"Send the message."