When Kat Came Back

Chapter 1

Patrick looked out into the crowd and saw the same thing he saw every night. Happy, smiling and crying faces of girls and boys who had been so moved by Fall Out Boy's music that they actually paid to see them perform.

Fall Out Boy had gotten a break in 2005 when 'From Under the Cork Tree' took off.

Now, here they were, playing an arena in LA, thousands of people there, singing their lyrics back to them. There was nowhere else Patrick would want to be.

While Pete was chatting up the crowd, Patrick scanned the first few rows that he could see. A pair of blue-green eyes caught his attention. But it couldn't be. It had been fifteen years. And in Illinois. Patrick shook his head and tried to focus on Pete and his antics. But his eyes kept finding their way back to the blue-green eyes in the second row. She didn't look like she was enjoying herself. She kept looking behind herself. Patrick kept looking. She had the same reddish-brown hair as him, so far as he could tell. She was also really thin looking. And not in a healthy way. But she could easily ... but it's impossible.

"Right Pat?" Pete said.

"Sorry, what?" Patrick said, being drawn back to the present.

Pete frowned at Patrick.

"It's time for another new song," Pete said, the joke ruined by Patrick's inattentiveness.

"Oh, yeah," Patrick smiled, putting the girl out of his mind for the moment.

Though his eyes kept finding their way to the girl, his concern growing as her unease seemed to also grow, he was just barely able to concentrate for the rest of the concert.

As the band left the stage, Patrick looked for the girl again. She'd been swallowed by the crowd.

"Patrick!" Pete said as Patrick climbed down from the stage.

"What?" Patrick asked.

"What the hell happened to you? You disappeared in the middle of the set."

"Sorry. I saw, I got, I thought I saw, I got distracted."

"No shit," Pete frowned. "That's not like you. What happened?"

Patrick just shook his head. He didn't want to say what he was thinking with so many people around.

"Later," he said simply.

The guys went into their dressing room and started peeling off their concert wardrobe and changing into, well, clothes that aren't that much different.

The tour ended here in L.A. but the label wanted some meetings and they were going to be filming some videos while they were in California. There was one more night of the tour tomorrow and then the slightly less hectic schedule set by the label.

"Pat, you okay, man?" Andy asked as Patrick zipped up his bag, ready to head to the hotel.

"I'm fine," he said tersely.

The label had ordered them a car, so the four of them headed out of the venue, ready to head to the hotel to shower and change and get some sleep before doing it all again.

As they walked out of the venue, there were fans lining the fence that surrounded the back lot. Patrick scanned the crowd and he saw her again. She looked uncomfortable and was pulling on the sleeve of a dark haired girl beside her. She seemed eager to leave. Patrick had to know. He had to find out something.

Turning to his manager, Josh, he asked for two tickets for the next night and backstage passes. He took them from the manager and approached the girls.

As was typical, the screaming increased. But Patrick was focussed.

"Hi," he said to the girl.

She didn't even realize he was talking to her. She was pleading with her friend.

"Lexi. Please," she was saying. Lexi, the friend, kept shrugging her hand off.

"Hi," Lexi said to Patrick. He finally looked at her. Lexi had raven black hair, which Patrick thought might be dyed.

"Uh yeah. Hi," he smiled at Lexi. "So, I saw you guys in the second row and, I don't know, you didn't both look like you were enjoying yourselves. I thought maybe we could try again tomorrow?"

He offered the tickets. Lexi stared. The girl looked terrified.

"I can't come again tomorrow. Lexi, my parents are already going to kill me if they find out I'm here now!"

Typical teen overdramatization or... was there something there?

"Ashlynn, you're such a buzzkill," Lexi said. "You got out tonight, you'll get out tomorrow."

"Ashlynn?" Patrick said, looking at her. "I'd love it if you came tomorrow. You both have backstage passes so you can come early and hang out with us, if you want."

"Ash, we are coming back tomorrow!" Lexi said.

"I don't know. I'll try," Ashlynn said. "But only if we leave now."

Lexi rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Fine," she acquiesced. Patrick watched the two girls leave.

He climbed into the waiting car and took his seat beside Pete.

"What was that all about?" Pete asked. Patrick was still staring at the fence.

"I know it's impossible. I know it. I know it's been 15 years and in another state, but that girl. She. I. She looks like I think Kat would look now."

"Pat," Andy said with sympathy.

"Patrick, it's been 15 years. And there was never any trace of her found. You know she's probably..." Pete said.

"I know," Patrick said, looking at his lap, trying to hold back tears. "But, she just looks so much like I think Kat would have looked. She looks a lot like Megan. And a lot like my mom. And her body was never found."

Joe, Andy and Pete looked at Patrick with sympathy. They knew the story of Patrick's baby sister and what had happened.

Patrick stared out the window thinking just how much the girl looked like his older sister had at that age.

But still. It was impossible. The police had told them with no leads, no ransom request and no body was ever found, that even still, chances were that Kat was gone. Probably dead. Why anyone would want to kidnap a baby only to kill them, didn't make sense.

When they arrived at the hotel, Patrick went straight up to his room and laid on the bed thinking. He didn't want to get anyone's hopes up, so he didn't text or call any of his family. He'd have to hope that Ashlynn and her friend both came to the concert tomorrow.