Sly tumbled down through the darkness. He couldn't see anything, just the thick, inky blackness. He could feel himself falling, but that was the only indication he had of where he was. He was dropping down into the abyss. He couldn't breath. He couldn't scream. He could only fall. There was no way of telling how far or for how long he fell; his senses were completely blocked out, it could have been ten seconds or a million years. He only felt the landing.

He hit the bottom. Hard. It might've killed him, if the bottom had been physical. He felt the landing like an electric charge through his body. It took the raccoon a few moments to feel around and pull himself doggedly into a sitting position. He looked around. He couldn't see anything around him, it seemed like starless outer space as far as the eye could see, but, strangely, it wasn't as though he were in pitch darkness. He could still see himself perfectly, his own gloved hand wiggled its fingers in front of his face and the blue fabric shone as brightly as ever. That was when he noticed, with a start, that he hadn't been wearing these clothes earlier. He jumped to his feet. He'd worry about that later. He remembered what had happened to sent him here.

"RUBY!" He screamed out into the darkness furiously. "RUBYYYYY!"

A bitter silence greeted him. He glared upwards, the surrounding dark tinted red by his fiery rage. He had no idea what that scaly witch had done to him, he could be in a coma, or worse, but he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try and do something about it.

A primitive growl of anger escaped his lips. Why? Why hadn't he kicked that woman's green ass the second he saw her in that doorway? And now what? What was happening to Carmelita, Bentley, Penelope and Murray? He couldn't protect them whilst he was stuck in this…place.

He blinked away tears as he took several deep breaths.

"I'm afraid Mz. Ruby isn't here at the moment, Sly." A voice said, directly behind him. Sly's body stiffened, as an electric tingle rippled over his skin and made his fur stand on end . The voice was oddly familiar, a distant and shadowy memory. He turned around slowly. Another raccoon was standing in front of him, dressed in the dark blue garb that Sly used to use for his thieving missions, except that his was arranged more like a suit, and he had no hat. He carried a cane that was identical to Sly's, but he held it more like a walking stick. This raccoon's one extravagance was a white carnation that he wore on one of his lapels. His fur and markings were the same as Sly's, except that he had one noticeable difference; he only had one black ring around his left eye, like he was sporting a permanent monocle.

"Dad…?" Sly whispered.

"It's good to see you again, son." Sly father replied with a small smile.

"No." Sly said, stepping back, fear raising his voice for him. "My father's dead. I don't know what you are."

D. Cooper looked down sadly for a moment, before he spoke again.

"You always were smart Sly, even when you were little. You're right, your father is dead, but I'm here, all the same."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a memory. I'm all that you know about your Dad, unlocked by Mz. Ruby's concoction."

"You're a part of my mind?" Sly asked incredulously. "Why is Ruby doing this to me? Is this a part of her plan? To trap me here while she murders my friends?"

"Not at all. In the morning you'll wake up just like normal, and all your friends will still be there, along with Mz. Ruby. Take it from me, she's good now."

"Did she make you say that?" Sly snorted.

D. Cooper smiled broadly.

"Yes. That's the one part of her magic that she altered. She thinks that if she unlocks some of your old memories for you, you'll trust her."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure son, but if I were a betting man, I'd say that it's your birthday, and this is her misguided attempt to give you a nice present."

Sly took a moment for this to sink in. He looked about himself whilst he gathered his thoughts. Darkness still surrounded him. He looked back to the vision of his father, and fought the urge to embrace the one man he had looked up to his whole life. A tsunami of emotions raged through him, and he fought hard to maintain his composure. Finally he replied.

"Misguided is the word. But how do I know that I can trust you?"

"You can. You do. I'm a part of your mind remember Sly, I can only tell you things you already know. If you want me to tell you that Mz. Ruby's evil and that she's going to commit vile atrocities while you sleep I will, but that won't change the truth."

Sly shook his head slightly, reeling from the information. His father was right, he did trust him, despite the bizarre situation.

"Well, I appreciate the thought, but what's the point? If you're a part of me, how can you possibly tell me anything I don't already know?"

D. Cooper shrugged his shoulders.

"You'd be surprised, Sly. The magic Ruby gave you has unlocked the whole of your unconscious. Did you know for instance, that my first name is Daniel?"

That stopped Sly in his tracks. He rolled the name around his mind a few times. He hadn't known his father's full name until this point, but now that he placed it together it just seemed to fit so perfectly.

"My God…" Sly whispered.

"There you go." Daniel grinned. "And there's other benefits too. C'mere."

Sly's father moved towards him and embraced him in a tight hug. Sly hesitated for a second before hugging him right back as hard as he could. He squeezed his face into his father's shoulder, and as he did so a smell entered his nostrils that he obviously hadn't experienced since he was a baby, the smell of cleanly pressed clothes mingling with the faintest hint of aftershave, the smell of his dad.

"I'm proud of you son." Daniel whispered in Sly's ear.

Sly broke down as the emotion became too much for him. He tried to say something, but the words just wouldn't come. His body shook with sobs, and he hugged his dad even closer. It was something he knew, had always known, but hearing it for real was the best birthday present he could have ever received. His father patted his back and rested a hand on the back of his son's head, but Sly wasn't moving, not just yet, if only because he didn't want to let his father see him cry.

"This is…unbelievable." He finally managed to say quietly, rubbing at his eyes.

"It's a lot for you to take in, I know." His father replied quietly. "Grasping back so many old memories all at once is never easy."

"I'll be alright." Sly said. "It just feels so good to be able to talk to you, even if it is like this."

"I know son. Say – how'd you like to see the old house?"

"The old house?" Sly blinked. "You can do that?"

Daniel Cooper flashed a row of pearly white teeth, raised his hand into the air and clicked his fingers with a snap that reverberated all around through the blackness.

Sly looked around. He was in a small living room. The carpet was threadbare paisley, interspersed with the odd stain here and there. He could see an equally worn antique armchair in front of the fireplace. The lighting was soft, the walls were yellowed, the air was warm. He was home.

"God…" the raccoon whispered.

"It's something isn't it?"

"It…it's coming back to me now!" Sly ran to the armchair. "This was your chair! You used to sit here and tell me stories about the jobs you ran."

Daniel leaned in the doorway to the stairs.

"That's right," He smiled.

"This door," Sly darted to the closed door across the room, adjacent to the fireplace, "is the kitchen!"

He flung the door open. A tiny redbrick kitchen met his gaze. Pots and pans shimmered on a shelf above the stove, while opposite, the massive refrigerator hummed quietly at them. The walls were tiled, and a chrome teapot rested on the oven hob. Sly let out a small giggle.

"There's two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, right? You and Mum had the back room with the double bed, and I was in that old cot at the front! Are they here?"

"Yeah, they're here," His father laughed. Sly's eyes darted excitedly around the room. They finally settled on a second closed door, behind his father's chair.

"That door…" he faltered suddenly. "That's the closet. That's where I hid when…"

His voice trailed off.

"It's a tough memory, Sly." The raccoon felt his father's hand on his shoulder and his voice in his ear.

"It wasn't fair dad." Sly whispered to the floor. "Just because you were better at what you did…"

"Sly, you find something fair in this life, you let me know, son."

Sly turned to face his father.

"Why aren't you angry?! How can you be so casual about this? You and Mom, The Fiendish Five, they… I mean there was no reason for it. None at all."

Daniel Cooper met Sly's gaze evenly, an odd bittersweet expression playing about his face.

"You already know why, son. Some small part of me still lives in you, and you know that I could be bitter and twisted about it, but what good would it do me? If those feeling lived in you too then you'd have been consumed by them."

"I don't understand." Sly sniffled.

"You will. If you're asking me if I could have changed things, then yes I would have, without a shadow of a doubt, but if you're asking me if I regret the way things turned out, then no. Not at all."

"What do you mean?" Sly asked. He paced around the worn carpet, the weight of several years worth of bottled up emotions pressing down on him.

"If things hadn't turned out the way they did, then maybe you wouldn't have turned out the way you did. Sly, you adhered to the Cooper code like it was gospel. In many ways you are the best our family has ever seen."

Sly stopped his pacing and smiled a small sad smile at his father.

"If you are a part of me and can only tell me things I already know," Sly spoke carefully, articulating his thoughts "then I must be one conceited son of a bitch."

His father chuckled lightly.

"You may think that Sly, but look at it logically. You were the only Cooper to have grown up without access to the Thievious Raccoonus from the start. You made your way up and got it back all on your own. No relatives of ours taught you how to do our family moves. You stand here now, with several generations of skills under your belt and no one taught them to you but yourself."

Sly breathed deeply, absorbing his father's words. It sounded so big headed to think that this praise was coming directly from somewhere that was hitherto locked up in some distant part of his own sub-conscious, but all the same, the truth in Daniel Cooper's words could not be denied.

"I…I dunno dad…"

"You've done our whole legacy proud, Sly. Your mother and I are proud of you. You know it, just as somewhere out there, we know it."

Sly moved to his father's old chair and sank down into it as the urge to cry took hold of him once more. He fought it off just long enough to say:

"I'm sorry. This…all at once this is too much too…"

His voice collapsed in on itself. Daniel moved to the side of the chair and placed a hand on his son's shoulder.

"No Sly, I'm the one who should be sorry." The older raccoon looked regrettably at the carpet at his son's feet. "This was too much to tell you all at once. I didn't mean to overwhelm you."

"It…It's fine dad. You're right, when I stop to think these are all things that I've known since I was a child, it's just…hearing them, you know?"

"Yeah son. I know."

Sly stood up from his chair and embraced his dad for a second time. Daniel Cooper responded in turn by offering Sly a close hug.

"I love you Dad." Sly said simply.

"I love you too," The greying raccoon replied, it now his turn to get choked up. After a few moments the pair parted, both quickly rubbing at their eyes and noses with blue gloved hands.

"Yes. Well," Daniel said, perhaps sounding a little too gruff to be his normal voice "I'm pretty sure Ruby didn't intend for this birthday present to be a sissy love fest."

"Aw, dad…" Sly started.

"I'm just kidding, Sly, just kidding." His father laughed. "Here, take a seat."

He gestured to the chair that Sly had been sitting in just few moments ago, and as the young raccoon turned around to look, he realised that a second and seemingly identical chair had appeared opposite it. He shrugged. It seemed that physics didn't really apply to this area of his mind. He sat down, and his father took the second chair. His Dad sighed contentedly as he sat, then paused to remove a pipe and some tobacco from a pocket concealed somewhere in his blue shirt. As he filled his smoking accessory, he glanced at his son, the trademark knowing smile playing about his face.

"So," he murmured as he lit up and took a healthy drag, "What would you like to talk about?"

Sly breathed in the familiar and comforting smell of his father's pipe, and for a moment found himself at an utter loss for words.

"I…I dunno Dad. I've always imagined about what I'd like to ask you if I ever got the chance, but now that you're here, I…" Sly broke off and chuckled to himself slightly, "I honestly can't think of anything. I guess I'm still pretty blown away."

"That's fine son." His father smiled. "It's understandable. Here, I've got one for you. How about I tell you one of the stories I used to tell you when you were a tot? You used to love them."

"Yes please," Sly replied enthusiastically. "I can't remember any of them."

"You can't," the older racoon chuckled, "but I can. You'll like this one. I'll tell you the story of how I hooked up with your mother."

"Wow." Sly breathed. A tingle began to form in his stomach, the feeling of excitement that he hadn't felt for some time, perhaps not since he was an infant, and his father had told him the story for the first time. "Go on then, how did you get mom?"

"The same way I got anything in this life Sly," His father paused, pipe in mouth. "I stole her."

"You're kidding." Sly grinned widely.

"You better believe it. Now then; are you sitting comfortably?"

"Yes sir!" Sly said quickly. He pulled his knees up to his chest and listened intently as his father took another drag from his pipe and began to unfold his tale. As he became more and more engrossed in his father's words, the last traces of worry about where he was and Ruby faded away. His father said that everything would be alright, and so they would. His memories from the past had been unlocked, and for that he was eternally grateful. Somewhere in the back of his mind he made a grudging mental note to let Murray's reptilian girlfriend off the hook when he woke up.

Author's Notes:

I am so sorry this took so long to get out. I can't even hide behind university work as an excuse for this anymore. I have fallen out of the habit of writing, but it is something I plan on correcting, hopefully the fan-fiction will help. Also, sorry this chapter is a little shorter than my usual fare, just wanted to get it out quick to get me back into the swing of things. Next chapter to follow very soon, and if it doesn't, for god's sake, nag at me people. No excuse for resting on my laurels and all that. Thank you all for all the kind words you reviewers have left me, and if you like this chapter feel free to leave some more! Comments, suggestions and constructive criticism are always welcome. Thanks very much!