THERE WAS A MOMENT of silence where both Dylan and Miguel just stared at each other. It was a scene between two friends who didn't quite know how to react at meeting for the first time in years, it seemed. It was a boy who'd been thought dead coming back to visit the girl he missed, after she'd been convinced of his worldly departure.

It was two pairs of eyes, one pair glassy and the other pair only just focusing, looking over each other like they'd been deprived of contact.

It was out of character for the Oakes girl who never seemed to show affection to give anyone a hug. Everyone knew that you didn't go in for one, even if you wanted to. Demetri almost never hugged his best friend, even after how close they'd been for years. It just wasn't something that anyone had ever suspected Dylan Oakes of ever wanting. After all, she'd spent years of isolation when it came to human contact.

So, it was out of character, to say the least, and even Miguel Diaz could tell, when one moment they were both staring at each other in surprise, and the next there was a girl grasping him by the shoulders and burying her face in the crook of his neck.

"This is still a dream, isn't it," was the first thing he could utter from chapped lips. Everything was too bright, and moving his arms felt like picking up lead weights. After how long he'd been in a coma, doing almost anything felt strange. "You're not really here, I'm still fighting that douche, and I'm probably still losing . . . " he trailed off, mostly to himself.

Dylan had no idea what he was mumbling about, but she knew whatever had been going on in his head for however long it had been couldn't have been great. She couldn't say much. Words had escaped her, and she just clutched the boy like he was her lifeline.

Because, in some strange way, he was.

"Jesus Dyl," Miguel rasped, awkwardly patting her on the back. "One would think I just came back from the dead."

"Don't even joke about that, Diaz. It's not even a little bit funny," She grumbled. Miguel had to blink twice at the feeling of her lips moving against his neck when she spoke. He gulped, and had to look up at the ceiling with wide eyes.

Surely he'd forgotten how to react around her. That must've been what his problem was. He had no doubt that when his mother walked in, if and when Hawk walked in, or even Demetri, he wouldn't know how to act around them either.

Dylan pulled back, and Miguel suddenly didn't know what to do with himself when he saw the lingering fear and grief in her eyes that he had a pressing assumption he was the cause of.

"Oh come on, last time I joked with someone was in a never-ending dream land," He complained. Dylan smirked when she heard how much he was struggling to use his voice.

"See any Freddy Kruegers around?" She tilted her head up with a small smile. Miguel watched her hair fall in waves when she moved it. He stared.

"I think I could take him." His face broke out into a grin.

"Sure thing, wonder boy." She rolled her eyes at him. She stood up from the edge of his bed and Miguel, from his laid back position, had to look up at her.

He thought that he quite liked the view.

His face contorted at the complex thought of where his thoughts had ended up, and it was as if he'd wiped the thought away like an eraser on a chalkboard. For probably the tenth time since he'd woken up, he blinked, as if trying to start over.

"I sound like hell, don't I?" He asked her, quickly trying to move on. She rose her eyebrows as she scanned him from his head to where his hospital garb started. Miguel moved awkwardly under her scrutinizing gaze.

"You look like hell," She clarified finally. "If you'd given it a few more days I fear you might become Frankenstein's monster. Nice tech by the way," She commented, pointing at the gear around his head.

"Hilarious." Miguel pursed his lips, scanning the room.

"Oh, here. You should probably drink this," Dylan said, finally remembering that there was a bottle of water on the table. "Your mom left it there earlier I'm pretty sure."

At the mention of his mother, Carmen had opened the door with such force that it made Dylan practically jump out of her skin. Miguel didn't seem as surprised, only taking the moment to laugh at his friend who'd had the terror of her life.

"Miggy! The doctor will be here in a minute," Carmen said quickly, rushing over to envelope her son into a warm hug. Miguel looked at Dylan with a smirk on his face. She frowned at him, already expecting a snarky response.

"You're a snake right? Aren't you supposed to sense these things?" He said with a high pitched voice, mocking what she'd once said — or a variation of it, when he'd come to her for help.

"I'm surprised you even remember that. You know, since you spent all that time in limbo, or whatever," Dylan said dryly, unimpressed with his teasing. "Hopefully I was in there, and hopefully I kicked your ass into Alabama."

"You weren't," He said, grinning impassively. She rolled her eyes.

The doctor came in with his clipboard, and luckily it was a different doctor than the one Dylan had, that had somehow fallen for Johnny Lawrence's embarrassing acting skills. Carmen smiled apologetically when Dylan had to be shooed out of the room.

Carmen watched her son's face fall when she left the room, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"Dylan!" Miguel's grandmother shocked her with a hug once she quietly shut the door. "How's my baby?" She said to her, as they both watched the serious conversation Miguel was having with both the doctor and his mother.

"Okay, I guess. I mean, he seemed happier a minute ago, but since the doctor's lecturing him on whatever it is they do, he looks pretty disappointed." What she said was obvious to the eye, but she hadn't known what else to tell Rosa Diaz. Clearly the woman was itching to go see her grandson.

"Of course he was happier a minute ago. You were in there. You should know better," She swatted Dylan's arm with a small smile on her face. Dylan smiled sheepishly.

Carmen was holding up the comic book she'd left for him from Demetri. He'd left the most detailed note ranting about his thoughts on it and why it shouldn't be left in the window because of the UV rays. Dylan had groaned just thinking about it when she'd read it on the way over. Miguel gave her a knowing look through the window at the torn envelope. Clearly he could tell she had opened it beforehand.

She shrugged and held up the finger when Carmen wasn't looking. Rosa guffawed at Miguel's pained reaction to the obscene gesture. Dylan forgot the older woman was standing next to her and she shrunk into herself in embarrassment.

Miguel stared at it and the basket that Dylan had read the tag from. It had said it was from the LaRussos.

She pulled out her phone when it buzzed, seeing the unknown number followed by a series of texts. She stared at the messages in confusion before she finally opened it. Her face fell as she read them.

All of them were from Johnny, most likely drunk texting her that he was sorry, that he'd been arrested, that he had to sit in a holding cell for hours before the guy finally let 'Applebees' Guy' out and more. He was asking about Miguel, about her, apologizing for leaving her hanging, and then explaining that he was trying to find Robby.

Dylan looked up. She couldn't stand thinking about the kid.

Because as much as she hated him, she also couldn't hate him completely. He was a total shit-show and had garbage for brains, but he probably didn't have murder on his mind when he fought Miguel.

It still didn't mean she didn't hate him anyway. Even if it wasn't as much as she wanted to.

She breathed in, and kept reading through the texts.

The most recent was a complaint about how the woman at some rehabilitation place thought that Daniel was checking him in.

She grinned to herself.

"What's going on with that?" Rosa asked her, peering nosily over her shoulder to read the texts. "Alcoholic family member?"

"No, nothing like that," Dylan said, still trying to figure out if she wanted to respond or not. "Well, he is an alcoholic but he's not family. It's Mr. Lawrence."

"Ah, the sensei. I always liked him, you know. Kept an eye out for Miguel for a while, thinks about kissing my darling Carmen a lot . . . "

"Yeah, I guess—I'm sorry, what?" Dylan whipped her head around. She looked at the woman who stared at her, proud of that revelation.

"Yes, I'm sure of it. I know these things, you know." Her voice was calm as she dropped that bomb.

"That makes so much more sense!" Dylan groaned because she hadn't realized it yet. "It's also a lot more disgusting."

"Why? Because you're not the only white one to join the family?" Rosa answered her own question with such an absurd answer that Dylan had to think it over and make sure she heard what she thought she did.

"Oh-kay, that's a little much, don't you think?" She laughed uncomfortably. She rubbed her finger against her brow bone with wide eyes as she stared at the floor. "I don't like Miguel like that . . . "

"I told you, Dylan." Rosa threw up her arms in exasperation. "I have an eye for these things!"

The doctor came back out, after the long wait of watching them take off the head gear, giving him a check up, explaining the scans, and checking how well he could move certain things.

"Do you want to come back in?" Carmen called out to Dylan. "We can give you a ride home later, if you need one."

"Oh, uh, sure." Dylan walked in awkwardly with Rosa, who gave Miguel a quick hug and a kiss on the forehead.

"I'll be back later," Rosa told them both, winking at Miguel who stared at his grandmother slack-jawed.

"Don't you want to stay with—" Dylan started.

"He's not dying anymore, is he? I'll see him later," Rosa cut her off, waving her arm as if to say it was no big deal. She blew a kiss to Miguel who was still shaking himself out of his stupor.

Miguel stared at her again, this time giving her a look filled with exasperation, and pain as he watched his mother break down in tears at whatever the doctor told her. Dylan looked over her shoulder at Carmen Diaz. Miguel tried to play it off, like he wasn't paying attention to whatever bad news about him was being explained.

"You know you're gonna get better, right?" She asked him, voice filled with sincerity. "If it's what you want, then you'll be doing karate again. It's just a matter of when. So, whatever that guy tells you, don't let it break you," She advised.

"I think this is the most sincere you've ever been. Today's just full of surprises, isn't it, Dylan?" He joked halfheartedly. She gave him a half smile and sat down in a chair across from him. "Things were so much easier before all of this."

"All of this?" She repeated in confusion.

"All of this," He didn't elaborate, and Dylan didn't push him to. "I'm surprised you're not telling me 'I told you so,' or any of your other 'karate sucks and that's what ruined my life' bullshit," He said honestly. He was right.

Why wasn't she?

"I never told you why I hated it so much, did I?" She asked him, squinting her eyes as she looked for an answer. He shook his head no.

"Not even in the slightest. You were a woman of many mysteries then and I'm thinking that you still are, Oakes." She gave him a look when he called her by her last name.

"You wanna hear a story then?" She questioned him calmly. She had the smallest of smiles on her face, but her eyes told him all that needed to be said.

This was a personal story to Dylan Oakes, and yet she was still willing to trust him with it.

He only motioned for her to go on. If he'd spoken, the words wouldn't have come out just right. Sometimes silence was the best answer.

"My dad died in Afghanistan when I was four, A tragic war for everyone, and I mean everyone," She clarified slowly. "My mom didn't have much money. We got snuffed out of a lot of it, or at least that's what she said. She grew up with an absent dad, got into some tough shit as a teen and even more as a young adult, and then had to spend my childhood paying off debts."

"Shit, Dylan . . . " Miguel sighed. "I didn't know it was that bad."

"Yeah, well, it was. She sold drugs for a while. Got busted for it. But she didn't get more than 10 months that time, so I lived with my grandmother. You can just ask Demetri and he'll be able to tell you all about her. She's my dad's mother, and she's rich as hell. The problem's that she's never around," Dylan grumbled as she continued her great life story. "Anyway, Marlene Oakes got put away for the death of someone she'd been selling meth to eight years ago, give or take a few months. I try not to count. She didn't take it herself, but she did what she did, and she got blamed for his overdose. Rich parents like to cover for their kids mistakes, so they swept that under the rug and my mom went to jail. She's still there. It probably would have been a shorter sentence if she wasn't already known for dealing."

"My guess is that you couldn't hate her if you tried," Miguel whispered. She smiled blankly at him because it was try.

"I could never. We write letters sometimes. Sometimes it's about a new friend she made during her break, or when she's working lunch duty. Other times it's making sure Demetri's okay, and Eli's not letting the bullying get to him," She listed off. "I didn't have the heart to tell her about what happened to him. She thinks he's good old Eli who played Bingo with her after school because we couldn't afford the cool games."

"You haven't told her about the karate battle, have you?" Miguel asked her quietly, heart swelling with grief for the girl who sat their spilling more to anyone in five minutes than she had in five years.

"No, I have not. And I don't plan on it unless I have to. I think it would crush her. She knows about you though, and Moon, and Aisha. I only mentioned Tory briefly. I'm pretty sure she knows who Sam is, so I don't try to talk about the LaRussos. Might bring up bad memories," Dylan said quickly.

"Wait, she doesn't like them?" Miguel asked. "She knows Mr. and Mrs. LaRusso?" Miguel's mind was jumbled.

"Of course she knows who they are. And of course they know who she is. Jail time like that makes local headlines, you know," She pointed out. "But no, there's nothing specific that I know of. It's just . . . karate wasn't kind to my family, you have to know that. It's less about me than it is about her." Dylan paused, thinking about it. "She didn't have a good time with it as a kid when she was taught. Naturally, I inherited that dislike. Daniel's whole brand is based on winning the all valley in the 80s," She said, playfully rolling her eyes.

"You don't have to go on . . . " Miguel said, trying to make sure she understood that he didn't need to know everything there was to know about Dylan Oakes.

"I need to, Mig. I really need to."

And so, she continued. Dylan told him about her years growing up without her mom, with only an estranged grandfather to help her to and from school, giving her shitty advice about the art of growing up, and every so often, the odd art of karate. At the time, Dylan hadn't known that he wasn't a part of the family for a reason. And that he was her mother's absent father, the catalyst of Marlene's problems.

Karate was fascinating when she was maybe nine or so years old, but Dylan left that behind as soon as the rest of her family left her behind. As strange as it was, her mother was the only one to check in.

Jail could not keep Marlene and Dylan apart, and the only child born to a strange family with stranger history hoped it would stay that way.

Dylan finished her story, and Miguel's thoughts raced through his mind a mile a minute. She smiled at him, a heavy weight lifted off of her shoulders. No, she hadn't told the boy everything. She could've gone on and on about her father, her mother, her sets of grandparents, her fragmented friendships . . . but for now, that was all that needed to be shared.

And the smile on Dylan Oakes' face was genuine.

author's note —

Finally a little bit of a look into Dylan's backstory. I'd had a lot of that thought up long before I decided to write this story, so I'm glad she's finally starting to open up to people. Miguel is such a great guy oh my gosh.

I just wanna write more Demetri and Dylan getting ice cream scenes is that too much to ask for?

Anyways, the story line is REALLY starting now for season three and I'm excited to keep going with this story. There's so much to cover with the Demetri/Hawk rivalry and I'm excited to write more of that, even though it hurts my soul.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Let me know what you think!