Opening the Can of Worms

Disclaimer: I do not own Alcatraz.

Note: Alcatraz might not be on because of NASCAR but that doesn't mean I can't still get my Alcatraz fix.

Rebecca watched her uncle – her real life actual great uncle – closing up the bar through the outside windows. She felt a bit like a creeper but it evidently didn't bother her Uncle Ray to have people be able to watch him unseen of he'd have shut the blinds.

She shook her head and mentally told herself to stop stalling. She opened the door which was thankfully not locked and slipped inside.

"We're closed," Ray said, not looking up.

"What? I'm supposed to adhere to the hours of operation now?" Rebecca demanded, faux-indignance dancing across her face. "What kind of nepotism is that?"

Ray broke into a huge grin at the sound of her voice and he looked up at her. "Becky!"

"You know you're the only one who gets away with calling me that," Rebecca said tolerantly.

"I know," Ray confirmed conspiratorially, going back to wiping off the bar. "Which is why I consider it my solemn duty to call you that as often as possible. And I don't need you to follow the bar hours but it might be nice if you actually knew them."

Rebecca's eyes widened. "I know them!"

"What are they?" Ray challenged.

Rebecca opened her mouth and closed it again. "I might need a minute."

Ray laughed. "I'm sure. So what brings you by my humble bar after closing, Becky? You can't be here for a drink or you'd have started making it yourself."

Rebecca sat down on one of the barstools. "You were kidnapped yesterday and I wanted to make sure that you were okay."

It was the truth but not quite the whole truth.

Ray nodded and held out his hands for her to inspect. "I'm grateful for you concern of course but, as you can see, I'm fine. And I didn't see you yesterday after I left the old house."

"I was…busy," Rebecca said lamely. Busy avoiding her uncle, perhaps, but busy all the same. "And you did say that you were fine."

Ray gave her a knowing look that made her feel about five. "So I did."

"But that reminds me…" Rebecca said, trailing off. He had graciously given her the opening she needed to pretend that she hadn't come in here for the express purpose of discussing what she really wanted to talk about. She knew that her uncle would see right through her because he always did but he usually didn't call her on it.

Ray raised an eyebrow. She had always been jealous of that seemingly effortless skill of his when she was a kid and even after years of practicing in front of a mirror she still didn't think she'd gotten it quite right. "Oh?"

"When I was trying to find you yesterday after you'd gotten kidnapped by a time travelling former guard of Alcatraz who had inexplicably turned violent despite even Hauser claiming he was a good man, I was looking through some old census records and found out that you're not just my pretend honorary uncle. You're my actual biological uncle. Well, great uncle," she amended. "Who knew?"

Ray looked pained. "Becky…"

Suddenly, she didn't want to hear what he had to say on the matter. Not yet. Fortunately, a thought occurred to her.

"Is it strange that, of all of that, all of the time travelling and kidnapping an unexplained violence, the thing that bothers me is our hitherto unmentioned relationship?" Rebecca wondered.

Ray gave her a look at her use of 'hitherto' but didn't comment.

"Maybe. Of course, this isn't your first time traveler, is it?" he asked, apparently deciding to go with the abrupt change of topic. "You were asking me about Alcatraz and Tiller's murder a couple of weeks ago."

"And you told me to stay out of it because you knew," Rebecca accused. She didn't want to sound that harsh with her uncle but she hated to be kept in the dark.

Ray shrugged. "It's the kind of thing that has to be kept secret, Becky. You didn't tell me about anything either until you knew that I knew."

"You knew that my grandfather is one of them," Rebecca said flatly. "And I am a police officer. That's the kind of thing that I would want to know."

"I know you would," Ray agreed, nodding. "But you weren't there and you don't know what kinds of people they were. Are."

"I'm starting to learn," Rebecca said dryly, thinking of Ernest Cobb, Kit Nelson, and Cal Sweeney. Even Guy Hastings, really, had surprised her. And then there was Jack Sylvane who had confused her and didn't really prepare her for the others but even then there were three dead bodies including a cop and another cop who was still on leave.

"And I never wanted you to," Ray said heavily. "People like Tiller treated the prisoners terrible, make no mistake, and it can't have helped now that they're coming back. But while I didn't always agree with what they did, I always understood. I can't claim that they were all the worst humanity had to offer but enough of them were. Why would I want you to go anywhere near them?"

Rebecca's eyes softened. "You can't protect me forever, Uncle Ray."

"No, I can't," he conceded reluctantly. "But I can certainly try." Done cleaning now, he leaned against the bar.

"There's no talking you out of this, is there?" Rebecca asked, slightly exasperated.

"None at all," Ray confirmed.

"So maybe the time travelling bit isn't surprising or even the sudden violence of the guard because guards at Alcatraz could be quite violent and the strain of suddenly being forty-nine years in the future with no way back and being told that his family was dead would only exacerbate that," Rebecca said slowly. "But still, I feel like I should have been more worried that my seventy-year-old uncle was kidnapped."

"You were plenty concerned," Ray said firmly. "When I got back here, all I heard was how frantic you were when you heard what happen and you found me in time."

"But still," Rebecca argued. He was making sense but she didn't want to concede the point so easily.

"Me getting kidnapped, while terrible for you and worse for me, might be unexpected but entirely within the realm of possibility. You finding out about our biological relationship, however, is the last thing you were expecting," Ray assured her, neatly segueing back into what she had really wanted to talk about.

"It really was," Rebecca agreed. "Look, I…I can understand why you changed your name in the first place. You wanted to be there for your brother and you two were very close. They never would have left you be there if they knew that you knew an inmate, never mind were related to one. I guess you never wanted them to find out even after you left Alcatraz so you kept the name but…"

She didn't want to go on.

Luckily, she didn't have to.

"But why did you have to find out from an old census form from the fifties!" Uncle Ray finished for her.

Rebecca nodded. "Yeah. That."

"Your father never knew that I was his uncle," Ray explained. "When I started raising him it was too soon after leaving Alcatraz for me to feel safe telling him and he was so young. I only intended to tell him one day but after so many years it seemed like the moment was lost. How could I tell him after ten, twenty years that I wasn't just his honorary uncle but his actual uncle? And you were so young when your parents died, too, and you'd grown up thinking the same as your father. It was no easier to tell you than to tell him."

"He died never knowing," Rebecca said quietly.

"Yes," Ray agreed, equally quiet. "He did."

"And I had to find out from a census form."

"I might have told you one day," Ray told her.

Rebecca fought the urge to roll her eyes. "When? In your will?"

Ray didn't answer.

Rebecca sighed. "You should have told me."

"I know," Ray told her. "And I'm sorry, Becky."

Rebecca nodded, acknowledging the apology. "You know," she thoughtfully, "I don't think it's the fact that I didn't know that bothers me so much as the fact that you lied to me about it all these years. It's just like how you lied to me about my grandfather being a guard at Alcatraz."

Ray returned her stare unflinchingly. "I wanted to make you proud of your heritage, not ashamed of it. Having a grandfather in Alcatraz, the place for the worst of the worst…your father agreed with me though he would have told you sooner than I did, I think."

"So my father knew the truth about him," Rebecca said, frowning.

"Of course he did. He was old enough to remember his father being imprisoned before the disappearance," Ray told her. "We never took him to see his father, though. With the accusations about the death of his mother…and he was so young. Alcatraz was no place for a child, even on visiting day."

"I did sort of like that my grandfather was a guard," Rebecca admitted, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears. "What I thought he was and what you really were might have even played a role in my becoming a cop."

"Well there you go, then," Ray said, pleased.

"It's just that you have no idea how embarrassing it is to tell Doc about my grandfather the guard when all the time he's written a book featuring my grandfather the inmate!" Rebecca exclaimed. "I was wondering why he looked so awkward when I brought it up but he never said anything."

"You have to know that I wasn't trying to cause problems," Ray replied. "And that, honestly, when I was trying to decide if I should tell you what people who knew the truth might think of your misconception was the last thing on my mind."

"Fair enough," Rebecca allowed. "We're going to meet again, you know. It's almost inevitable now that I'm working with them to find the 63s."

Ray looked alarmed. "Rebecca…what do you mean by 'again'?"

"Oh, I guess I didn't tell you," Rebecca realized. Why would she have? She didn't know before accepting a place on Hauser's team and afterwards she was sworn to secrecy. "You remember the guy who brutally murdered my partner?"

Ray frowned. "I thought you said that he tried to knock him off of a roof and, while that probably contributed to his fall, he fell after the man took off."

"A brutal murder may not be exactly what happened," Rebecca admitted, "but it is how I remember it."

Ray nodded. "I see. Go on, I didn't mean to interrupt you."

"Well I saw my grandfather's mug shot and it's the same man," Rebecca said seriously.

"I'm so sorry," Ray said, looking stricken. "I had no idea."

Rebecca forced a smile. She didn't want to be thinking about that right now. "Why would you? And it's not your fault. You can't help what your convict brother is up to any more than I can."

"No, I can't," Ray agreed hollowly. He shook himself. "What are you going to do once you find him?"

"I don't know," Rebecca admitted. "I hope that I'll be able to do my job and arrest him. Life imprisonment is probably worse than outright killing him anyway."

"I just hope you don't do anything you regret," Ray cautioned.

"So do I," Rebecca agreed. "But I just won't know until it happens."

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes.

Finally, Rebecca broke it by saying, "So, just so we're clear, are there any other major things that I should absolutely know about but you've been keeping secret?"

Ray looked startled. "Like what?"

Rebecca shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. You lied to me about my grandfather being dead and him being a guard and him being your brother. I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't just Google everything you've ever told me about my family just to be sure."

"I think you're going a bit far," Ray said bemusedly.

"Am I?" Rebecca challenged. "Name one thing you've told me about my grandfather that was actually true."

"He really was my best friend," Ray said instantly. "But of course, that was a long time ago."

"Your best friend and brother," Rebecca pointed out. "Which, between us, I think is really the more pertinent fact."

"Really, Becky, how many giant secrets about your grandfather – that you think you can learn by Googling him – can I possibly be keeping?" Ray asked logically.

"I don't even know," Rebecca admitted, shaking her head. "But if you're letting him live in your attic then I hate to tell you but we are officially no longer speaking."

Ray smiled at her. "Don't be ridiculous, Becky. I don't even have an attic."

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