PSA: so the first couple chapters of this fic are the same as before, if not slightly tweaked. It will also be fairly shorter than my other fics only because it's the conclusion to a trilogy that took me like two, three years to finish? I'm not sure exactly how long it'll be but it probably won't be more than 25 chapters.

Josh hated family reunions.

They were always awkward and uncomfortable for him, especially after being outed by his younger sister at dinner one day when he was still too young to live on his own. Since he was the first and only out  person in their immediate family, get-togethers were terrible.

His father was a strict catholic and pastor, while his mother was an newspaper editor with severe OCD, so neither of his parent's occupations helped his upbringing. At least his mother still loved him, until she died. Dear old dad kicked him out barely a week after her funeral.

It didn't help that it was almost Thanksgiving and a great deal of his extended family would probably be there to greet him as well as his siblings and arrogant patriarch. They always tried to play it cool about him being gay, only to gossip about him behind their backs like he wouldn't find out.

He always found out. Nobody was actively trying to hide it, anyways.

This family reunion, though, had to be the weirdest one he had to date.

Everything was just the same as it had been the day that Josh left. The shingles on the roof were still cracked down the middle from when a tree fell on their house when he was seven. The same lilac trees still grew abundantly in their overgrown front yard.

A single large oak tree grew near the sidewalk with the wooden swing their father made swaying in the wind. In the grass, somewhere near the corner where the sidewalk reached the driveway, was a simple white cross.

Tyler stood beside him on the porch of Josh's childhood home. Their hands were interlocked, Tyler squeezing Josh's for emotional support. After the Heaven's Templar's massacre in Toledo, he was getting better and being more emotional and not an apathetic robot like when they met. Perhaps it was a side effect of the serums, like Ryan's blindness and Josh's death sentence.

No matter the cause of his new found empathy, Josh appreciated it. He wouldn't be able to face his family without him.

Taking and holding in a deep breath, he knocked on the door three times, a habit he inherited from his mother. The porch light flickered on, despite it being three in the afternoon. A young girl opened the door, looking no older than thirteen.

The only reason he knew the girl staring up at him was Abigail was because of her age and the fact that she still wore the rose gold cross pendant their mother bought her the Christmas before Josh left him. Ashley was probably eighteen by then, and Jordan was probably twenty-four.

Oh, how the years had passed them all by.

Josh froze at the sight of her all grown up, exhaling sharply so he didn't get emotional. He remembered her as a toddler before he left. Now, seeing her as a teen with a nose ring and blonde streaks in her hair reminded him too much of himself. When he left, she was only three years old. There was no way she would remember him after a decade.

"Hello? Do you need something?" Abby stared at him weirdly when he didn't reply, looking back into the house when a man's voice asked who it was.

Tyler cleared his throat. "Excuse my boyfriend's idiotic silence. You see, he hasn't been back home in quite some time. Your family probably wasn't expecting his arrival."

Recognition flickered across her face, her eyes shooting from Tyler to Josh, then back to Tyler, who just grinned. Josh smiled awkwardly and waved with his free hand. He hoped he was able to scrub away all of Jenna's blood off of his skin.

"Hey, Abs. It's been a while. Ten years, actually. I know you must not remember me, but-"

"Give me- I'm just gonna-" She held up one finger, slamming the door in their faces.

Tyler sighed. "So much for a welcome home."

"Dad, Josh is home!" Abigail yelled.

"What the fuck?" It was a woman's voice. Not their mother's. She was dead. It must've been Ashley. "Sorry, Pops. I'll put change in the swear jar later."

"Why's he here?" That was most definitely his father's voice. Josh didn't realize how much they sounded alike until that moment.

"I don't know! What do I do?"

Josh couldn't hear the response given, but he didn't have to. Their father's ever present stomping around the house was answer enough. None of them were expecting him after so long, especially after he was suspected dead for nearly two years.

"Should we leave?" Josh glanced over his shoulder and at the new car they'd stolen.

Ryan's voice came in through the radio hooked on Josh's belt. "Don't leave yet. Someone's coming back to the door. Male. He seems upset. His heartbeat is erratic."

"How can you tell that he's upset with just his heartbeat?" Tyler asked. They don't even bother speaking into the radio anymore. Ryan could hear them perfectly fine even from where he sat in their car parked across the street.

"I didn't. He just called Josh an asshole."

Suddenly, the door swung open with a force to make it smack against the wall and dislodge the screen portion of the door. Josh involuntarily jumped at the sound, gripping Tyler's metal hand enough for the panels to bite into his skin. He realized that their hands were still together and let go.

Despite being a literal super soldier who could probably bench press a small building and was several inches taller than his stocky, middle aged father, he was still terrified of him. The terrors of his past never left him, not even his childhood traumas. Verbal abuse was still abuse, after all.

He was a spitting image of his father. They were both averagely tall, stocky, with awkwardly broad shoulders and a long torso. That, and the eye and hair color, was where the resemblance stopped, however. His father was a dictator, forcibly rejecting anything he didn't deem absolute perfection. After their mother's death two months after Josh's graduation, there was nothing left keeping Josh off the streets.

Dad and Tyler stared each other down.

"Hey, dad," Josh said meekly. "Can I come in? We need to talk."