I want to know everything

"I was hoping, however, we could start discussing the matter of Alex custody." At the sound of the words Allen dreads most, a cold shiver runs through her body as a wave of dizziness washes over her.

"What?" Allen manages to choke out.

"Look, I don't want to fight or make it ugly," Damon goes on quickly, gesturing with his hands. "I just want a chance to get to know my son, and I want to talk about shared custody."

"No." Allen quickly blurts out in a panic, shaking her head frantically, "No, you can't have him."

"Allen, I don't want to take him away from you." Damon tells her, but it does nothing to calm her. "I just want..."

"I don't care what you want." Allen snaps angrily, slamming her hand down on the table, causing it and everything on it to rattle, and earning some strange looks from the people around them. Damon jolts slightly at the sound and outburst, and Allen can't help but get a bit of satisfaction out of that.

As the people around them seem to settle back into their own conversations, a tense and heavy silence settles between Damon and Allen.

"Look, I know I hurt you, and I know that this is all very hard on you." Damon finally breaks the silence, and they look back up at each other, then Damon pulls out papers from his briefcase and says, "I just want a fair chance."

He slides the shared custody papers across the table and says, "Please just go over the papers and think about it."

...

"You're an idiot." 

"What?"

"You heard me; don't play dumb." Jenny slumps down onto the seat next to Alex at the lunch table. "What in the world has gotten into you?"

Alex snorts, "Seriously?" He snaps angrily, glaring at her, "Are you going to give me shit over being angry at my mom for lying to me my whole life, too?"

"Alex -" Jenny tries, but Alex quickly cuts her off.

"Or are you also angry that I actually dared to try and get to know my dad?" He asks, then averts his gaze back down at his food.

"No, Alex, of course not." Jenny insists, laying a gentle hand on Alex's arms, "You have every right to, but your mom's..."

Alex snaps his head back up to look at her. "Please don't," he hisses warningly. "The last thing I need right now is you pleading with me to make up with her."

Jenny worries about her bottom lip as she seems to be contemplating how to proceed. "Look, the last thing I want is to upset you or force you to do anything," she finally begins, choosing her words carefully, "but I saw her with my mom the other night, and she looked really bad."

A flash of concern runs through Alex, but he quickly steels himself: "Look, I feel bad for her; I do, and I hate being angry at her, but she brought this on herself." He says it coldly, in a tone Jenny has never heard from him.

"At least hear her out; you need know what actually happen between them, she feels terrible." Jenny insists again.

Alex squints his eyes at her suspiciously. "Did she put you up to this?"

"No, of course not." Jenny is quick to deny, and when he continues to glare at her with doubt, she goes on, "I'm just really worried about you too; you've always been so close, and you mean the world to her, and the other night, she seemed so... broken."

"Well, then she should have thought about that before she hid my own father from me and lied about it for 14 years." Alex snaps impatiently, then stands abruptly, grabs his tray, and walks away.

Later, Jenny finds Alex at their usual spot, hidden behind a large tree at the back of the school grounds. She was concerned when he never showed up for English class and went looking for him.

From afar, she can see that he's hugging his knees to his chest, with his face buried between them. As she approaches, she notices how his whole body is shaking as silent sobs fill the air around him.

"Alex?" she questions in a soft, concerned voice as she discards her bag on the ground and falls to her knees beside him. When he makes no move to respond, she lays a gentle hand on his shoulders and asks, "Alex, what's wrong?"

As she starts to rub his back, Alex sniffles and finally looks up at her, his cheeks stained with black streaks of tears and his eyes red and puffy. "What have I done?" he asks in a tiny, weak voice that strikes her straight in the heart. "Jenny, what have I done?"

"How unfortunate, Alex! What happened?" She questions him as she pulls his large frame into her arms.

"There's this anger in me that I can't control, and it just... it just takes over and consumes me, and there's just so many confusing emotions." Alex rambles, his voice shaky, as he clutches onto Jenny's shirt. "I made a huge mistake, and I don't know how to fix it."

Fortunately, Jenny knows him well enough that she immediately understands exactly what he's talking about without him needing to explain further. "You just need to talk to your mom," she tells him softly, "and everything will be okay."

But Alex quickly shakes his head and says, "No, I can't; she hates me." Alex croaks out, as new sobs escape him, "She's never going to forgive me for what I did."

"Oh, Ray, of course she will; she loves you." Jenny counters, as she continues to stroke his back, "You just need to talk to her."

"I abandoned her; I just left after all she's done for me, after everything she gave up taking care of me." Alex shakes his head as he continues to sob. "I just left her for a stranger."

"Well, he is your father." Jenny tries to help with reasoning.

Alex snorts, "I don't even like it there." He complains in a small voice.

"That bad, huh?" Jenny asks with a grimace.

"Damon is a great guy; he's been taking good care of me, but he's not my mom." Alex explains, finally looking back up at her as he wipes his eyes with his sleeves, "And everything's so fancy; it's like living in a museum; I hate it."

Jenny chuckles. "Well, then go back home," she suggests, as if it were that simple.

"I can't." Alex shakes his head again. "And I don't want to go back to Damon."

"How about a sleepover at mine then?" Jenny suggests with a smile, "We can binge Netflix and eat ice cream and popcorn, then tomorrow I'll come with you to get your things from Damon, and we can go back to your home together."

Alex sniffles but shook his head, "No, I am going to talk to Damon and then we are going to mom. I am going to know everything today. I am going to know what actually happen between my mum and Damon."

...

When Allen gets back from her shift at the diner, she sighs heavily as she stands at the entrance to their tiny apartment and soaks in the heavy, prominent silence. Then she quickly shrugs it off and heads to take a shower and get changed.

As she gets ready to curl up on the couch and watch some Netflix and wind down from the day, Maya calls to let her know that Alex is at her place all day and he left hour ago. And maybe the children are planning something.

After a brief conversation, Allen settles down and lets the TV run in the background as the papers Damon handed her earlier that day distract her. It's all big words, and Allen is in no frame of mind to actually read it properly, but she does skim through it.

Then there's a knock on her door, and Allen see through the peephole to discover Damon is at her doorstep, looking just as put-together and handsome as always.

Allen automatically hugs herself and looks down at her sweats and oversized shirt, feeling self-conscious yet again at being so... not put together. When she looks up at Damon again, however, the alpha is looking at her with longing eyes, much like he used to when they were just freshly weeded.

And damn it, Allen Omega is keen on it.

Wanting to get this over with as soon as possible, Allen greets him quickly, then barely waits for a response before she questions, "What are you doing here?"

"I get the sense that you're trying to get me out of here as quickly as possible." Damon finally speaks up, voicing his observation with a mixture of amusement and nervousness.

"Well, I just got back from work, and I'm exhausted. I also have another shift tomorrow morning, so forgive me for not having the energy to entertain you." Allen said, and any sign of amusement Damon previously displayed vanished.

"I just... I hate this tension between us, and I hate that I keep screwing up and making more of a mess." Damon confesses sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck, "And I was hoping we could..."

When Damon's voice trails off, Allen snorts and crosses her arm. "You what?" She spits, "Hope we could catch up like nothing ever happened? Like you're not trying to steal my son away from me."

Damon sighs heavily and runs a hand through his messy hair, allowing it to linger there before he responds, "Can we please go inside and talk about this properly?"

Allen snorts and folds her arms again. "What about your precious Porsche?" She feels a deep satisfaction at the cringe that appears on Damon's face. "I wouldn't want to leave it alone for too long in the neighborhood."

With a painful grimace, Damon nods as if admitting his guilt: "Yeah, I guess I deserved that." He sighs heavily before going on, "Look, Allen, this isn't an easy situation for any of us, and I'm just trying to make it more amicable."

Allen gives him a skeptical gaze, her arms still crossed. "At least don't insult me by pretending you actually care, because if you had, you never would have left me to begin with." As soon as the words escape Allen's lips, she regrets them. Perhaps if she wasn't so exhausted, she wouldn't have let them slip.

"So, this is what this is all about?" Damon is quick to retort before Allen can recover from her shock and horror: "You're so upset that I left you, that you're giving me a hard time just to spite me?"

God, how do things deteriorate so quickly every single time? Allen's jaded mind can barely catch up with all the words and accusations being thrown at her, and she definitely has no energy to argue any further.

Allen just shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders in defeat, watching as Damon fumes.

"We always knew that there was a chance that my being in love with that bitch would rip us apart." Damon goes on, a bit calmer but still harsh. "And even if not, you are being angry and hurt by my breaking up with you is no excuse to keep me from my son."

Allen gasps loudly and stares at Damon for a long moment, her eyes and mouth wide. Then her shock turns into pure rage as she pierces her gaze through Damon for a moment longer, then spins around and stomps back into the apartment as Damon calls her name after her.

"What's going on?" Damon asks a few moments later, when Allen comes back to the doorway, and instead of answering, she slams his hand against Damon's chest, her anger helping to ignore her inner omega, who jolts at the small touch.

It takes Damon a moment to shake out of his shock and understand what is going on. He looks down at the check held between his own chest and Allen's palm.

"What?" Damon asks in confusion, a deep frown between his eyes as he looks between Allen's face and the check and hand on his chest.

Allen gestures with her head towards his chest. "Take a look for yourself," she urges, and so Damon lifts her hand and grabs hold of the check and eyes it for a long moment.

"What is this?" Damon chokes out in a weak voice, eyeing the check intently, then looking back up at Allen, searching her eyes for answers.

"It was during your half-term." Allen tells him coldly, "I saw you in town the day I was supposed to leave for another city, and I freaked out. But then I found myself outside your house later that day, but when I knocked on your door, your lover answered."

Allen gives them both a moment to let the information sink in, then she takes a deep breath as she continues, "She threatened me and gave me that to shut me up."

"You never cashed it?" Damon states this in a low voice.

"Cashing it would mean letting her control me more than she already had." Allen explains with a shrug of her shoulder, "I didn't want that money to taint and haunt every single moment of my life."

It's been a very long time since Allen could read Damon like an open book, but in this moment, she can see in his eyes loud and clear that she understands exactly why she couldn't take that money.

"I am so sorry, Allen," the speaker exclaimed. Damon whispered, the pain and regret evident in his voice and eyes, "All this time, we could have..." His voice trails off as they both just stare at each other, the 3 feet of space and years of regret, pain, and anger weighing heavy between them.

"I know but as I said it doesn't matter." was all Allen could say, because, well, what was she supposed to say?

"Mom." 

Both Damon and Allen fitch and they heard Alex eyes. Allen turns around and look her son standing with Jenny.

"Who is she mom?" Alex asks again which make Allen gulp.

"Alex you are here..." Damon tries to talk but Alex shook his head.

"Mom who is she? What she did?" Alex eyes fill with question.

"Baby."

"Mom, I want to know each and everything. What happen between you two? Why didn't you tell dad about me? And why Damon rejects you?"

Damon closes his eyes tightly, but he knows it's time for his son to know about everything he did to Allen after marriage. A marriage which is set by their parents for peace between their packs.