What light, through yonder window breaks? (Jack)

To see his only son being taken away by a peace keeper is something Mr. Dunham had never expected. He's brought him up to be on the right side of the law because few people in Panem didn't fear the peace keepers and their most dreaded 'tool', the detention center. It was much more than a prison. It was a way to break people down into tiny little pieces until they would never commit a crime again or to make them disappear for good if they were bad enough.

Once the cruiser was out of sight he turned his focus on whoever was calling his sons name and recognised the girl
"You? Maybe you should ask your father?" He looks at her with a mixture of anger but more he looks like a broken old man as he finds a spot on the front porch to sit down on.

As Kyanite comes closer he doesn't hold her back but simply runs a desperate hand over his old wrinkly face. He'd seen many bad things in his life. When his wife left was one of them but to see Matthew being taken away was much more scary.

"His trainer showed up waving some sort of an order to take him to the dc for questioning. Apparently your old man claimed that he was trepassing on his property."

On the contrary to Ky's father he waves her over to him.
"Come here, girl. Tell me what happened cause I have no idea."

His eyes find the pretty brunettes but don't fail to notice the hand on her stomach. Right. She's pregnant. She's not showing yet but by the way she holds herself it's not that hard to tell.

Why did his son risk it all for a girl like her? Why was he so stupid and blind?

The girl looks desperate enough to be telling the truth. There's something innocent about her and the way she talks so Mr. Dunham gets up and walks back inside his home after he heard her declare that there's was something going on last weekend when they tried to tell her father.

"Come on in. Let's talk. I promise I won't hurt you." Not like he could in his state anyway.

Inside he finds a spot on the dining room table and waits for Kyanote to sit down.

"I'm sorry I reacted the way I did." His thoughts go to the cruiser again and to his son wondering what will happen. Is he ever going to come back from that dreadful place.
"I just don't know why you kids had to be so ...you should have been careful. A Child at your age is bad enough but whilst becoming a peace keeper?"
He's starting to gasp for air when it all starts building up in his head.

"What if they know? We'll never see him again."
There are a few tears shining in the old man's eyes that will probably never fall. Mr. Dunham hasn't cried in years, not even when his wife left or when he son was defeated during the pregames. He's not a crier but surely feels emotional right now.

"That peace keeper...his trainer...he didn't say anything about your pregnancy. Just that he had to make a statement and was being charged for trespassing." There's a certain disgust in his voice when he uses that word. Even though he feels his son is one of the greatest things that happened to him he'd always see the connection to a woman as wrong. His ex-wife simply hurt he too deeply when she left while his own kids were still so yung. Why? he'll never understand because who can understand a woman?
Why would Matt ever go there after all he's taught him.

With a stoic expression the man listens to his sons girlfriends childish explanation of 'only once'. Everybody knows once is enough yet nobody seems to ever believe it.
He just shakes his head.
"At least it wasn't intended." That's what he hopes. Kyanite wouldn't be the first girl trying to tie a boy down by getting pregnant.She seems to clever for that though.

He watches her carefully when she presses herself against the chair as if it could protect her. Not that she'd need protection now. For a moment his eyes go up to a picture on the wall: It was taken a long time ago on a fishing trip. In the background a lake is visible and in the foreground it shows him, a little red haired girl of maybe 10 and a blonde boy holding up a large fish with a dorky grin, who can't be older than 7.

"Then, it shouldn't take no time at all. If he said nothing about the baby... then, maybe it's just a light sentence of questions. Surely, my father wouldn't be so stupid to keep it going. He's already done enough damage to us without making it worse. I wish I could talk to my father. I want to tell him to drop the charges. I asked him to the house. It can't be tresspassing if I allowed it, right? Right, Mr. Dunham?"

His blueish grey eyes scan the girl for a moment. Is she really that naive?
"You've heard about the dc, haven't you? Whatever happens behind those walls is beyond our grasp. People get treated in the most inhumane ways to prevent crime, Kyanite. I've seen cases on TV where trespassers got the tendons in their legs sliced." His words become lower and lower until their barely audible but he can see the look on her face. To scare her is not his intention. On the contrary, for some reason he feels like they should join forces now.
"I think it'll work in his favor that he's a peace keeper in the making and that his trainer came to pick him up."

"How was Matthew? Before he came to take him. Have you talked to him at all this week? Has he mentioned anything at all?"
"He was tired, feeling low. I figured that he'd been through the wringer at the academy because he had a black eye but I guess that was your father." Again there's this slight accussation in his tone.

"If I had gotten here just ten minutes sooner, I could have hugged him or something. Anything. Mr. Dunham, I know you disapprove of me and him, but you don't understand what a great boy you've raised. To waste his love on training alone would have been awful. His heart is so big and it's taken so long to bring it out of him. I imagine, it was your ideas about women that made it so difficult. But, I love your son. Now, more than ever because of what's to come."

This is the part the old man really doesn't want to hear...about love and devotion and about his ideas about women.
"Your love will dig a deep grave for the two of you. Peace keepers can't have children or families. I don't know what the hell he was thinking."

With a grim expression he gets up pondering whether to kick out the girl or not.
A brief look at her makes him feel a little pitty. After all she's carrying his grandson or daughter.
"I'm going to make myself a cup of tea, would you like some?" That's as close to a peace offer as he will get.
He might not have been able to make up with his son for what he told him, so why not start with the girl.
"It is what it is, girl. Now we'll have to live with the consequences. Let's hope they're not that bad."

The brown haired girl accepts the offer of tea so Mr. Dunham walks away to the small kitchen next to theliving room and puts the kettle on taking a moment of time before he hears Kyanites voice behind him.
"Consequences? Do you regret falling in love when you were young Mr. Dunham? Do you regret having kids at all?"
It's a very personal question she's asking and his first response would be 'None of your business.' but because his son might have told her many things, someright, some wrong, he simply tenses up.
"My wife left me when the kids were still young. You tell me."

"Aren't we all allowed to have a life? I understand about the peacekeeper academy, but we were together before that even came about. We met months before he even considered that damn academy."

He can see the visible discomfort she feels when talking about the academy and for once its a mutual feeling.
"I have no idea why he even wanted to become a peace keeper. He's good at engineering. It was just an intership but i offered Matthew a job. Damn stubborn boy thought he has to make something on his own."

With a sigh he turns back to check the water and grab two tea bags from a container on the shelf.
"Peppermint. It's allI got."

"I don't regret meeting him at all. I don't regret this little person that I'm going to meet one day. I hope you'll want to be part of it. There's already one less grandfather that this little one will know. It is what it is, Mr. Dunham. I intend to make the most of what I've got. Even if it means raising this baby alone. I want Matthew safe."

The grey haired man falls silent at her words. As much as he disagrees with having the baby her attitude is admirable and the fact that she'd rather bring up the kid alone than endanger his son make him understand just how much the two mean to each other.
"There's a lot of love between the two of you. Love complicates things but it can also be a great force. I hope you stick to him like his mother never did. I'm not sure what he'll do but it sounds like he'd do the same for you."
For a change a softer glance meets her.He then pours some water over the tea bags in two cups and hands her one.
"Careful, hot."

Then he directs her to sit back down because that's what he needs. It's been very hard to know that his son was no longer the hard headed career he had wanted him to be but chose a different path. One that he didn't agree on. Yet he remembered well how the love between him and his wife felt at first. It was a constant high and all the more disappointing when it ended.
"I didn't know..." His dark blue eyes flicker up for a moment in the same way his sons do when he shares a secret.
"Maybe the two of you could work...if it wasn't for the academy."

The steam travelling from the cup looks somehow soothing when he watches it before he looks back at the pretty brunette sitting opposite of him talking about love, which is a subject that's udderly foreign to the old man.
"Matthew and I are different. We've been through too much to give up now or anytime in the future. He's risked his neck for me more than once and I owe him so much more than he'll ever know. My heart is fully his. If that's the only kind of repayment I can give to him, I will never break his heart. "

For some reason her words sound true even though they are so big. What they had experienced during the pregames and the alceration with the guy who stabbed his son and , as he learned, tried to kill the young girl in front of himmust have glued them together.

"Big words for a young girl." He smiles a little. "You sound like my daughter."
Once again a frown makes his face look older.
"Did Matthew tell you that he has a sister? Trinity. She moved out a couple of years ago. Never talked to him again, called him an overprotective ass."
He can only shake his words at that.
"We only have bad experiences with women and girls. I'm surprised he let you in. You must be special."

The room becomes silent with only a few sounds coming in from the street outside.
So he watches her dip her tea bag in and out of the water and sip on it. Kyanite surely was a pretty girl. Easy to fall for.

"If you could have your son back, unharmed and away from the academy, how would you feel?"
She asks.
A bitter sweet smile creeps to his lips as he lowers his eyes.
"The same as you I imagine."

"Do you think that the questioning and stuff about the tresspassing will be enough to release him from the academy? I know... I think he wants out. I'm not sure what he's going to try to do, but I think he wants to come home?"
A little irritated and concerned he looks at her.
"That would be a dangerous attempt. Whatever he does I hope he know what he's risking. But I have no idea how peace keepers work. I just know the draconic punishments they deliver. Hopefully he'll be treated as one of their own."

The tea has cooled down enough so he drinks some and asks.
"You like it?"
Then his eyes travel to the street through the window before he asks.
"So your old man is gone. What about your mother. What did she have to say to your whole pregnancy?"

He reallyput his foot in his mouth with that question. Her mother is not only indifferent or absent but dead.
"I'm sorry." He mutters for his feau pax.

As she explains about her brother Jeran not liking Matthew it rubs his father a little bit the wrong way. How could anybody not like his son? He's not a great talker or very personable but dislike from the get go?
"Another career?" He assumes that a rivalry could be the reason.

"Though, he would never admit to it openly in front of anyone. I think he's going to have to accept Matthew. I mean, afterall he's going to be an uncle. I miss my mother though. Losing a parent should never happen. I don't care what the circumstances are... it's never easy. Never right."
It's hard to keep his eyes on the cup of tea that he'ssipping on and enhaling the menthol scent when it comes to this topic because he too 'lost' his wife.
"Yeah. I know."

Maybe that is the reason why these two young people are so adament about staying together and actually having the baby.
"Maybe your child won't have to go through that. I've had a few long days, weeks even, to mull this over. Not that I agree with what you did but I think you two should stick together and give this baby a home."
Gosh, that was one of the harderst things to get over his lips. It's only half hearted but fuelled by the wish to get his son back in one piece. If that happens he can be a father all he wants to.

"Do the peace keepers know about you? And ..." He motions for her midsection.

His heart sank when he learned that O'Rourke knew about the baby. Things could be a whole lot worse than he first thought. Maybe this morning was the last time he'd ever seen his son.
He simply couldn't let his mind go there.

Kyanite has an equally hard time dealing with all of this as she gets up and drains the rest of the tea before she says.
"I should probably go. I don't want them to return and me being here. It.. it... won't look good. Umm.."
"It takes them over an hour to even get to the detention center from here. I think your okay."
He joins her in the kitchen to offer the girl what could be defined as a smile.

"Umm, if you hear from Matthew... will you please let me know? I just.. he has to be... if anything happens to him..."
The tears are threatening to fall, which is something Mr. Dunham has never been good at handling. When his dauhter cried he'd usually remind her to be strong. A hug was seldom given.

Today is different though.
He steps a little closer and places a big hand on her shoulder.
"Of course I will."
With another soft smile he adds.
"Don't give up, Kyanite. You're welcome here. Please come back if you feel like it. And you don't have to go now. If you want we could go for a walk together? Anything is better than being alone now, I think. That only gives you time to be afraid."