Disclaimer: The Magnificent Seven belong to Mirisch, CBS, MGM and Trilogy and were used without prior permission. Nickelback owns the song "How you remind me".

The yelling had been heard throughout the room. Maude had shown up yet again, and Ezra had finally lost it. The other's heard him yell that Team 7 was more of a family than she had ever been to him and that the only time she had any use for him was when she needed him for a con and that he was tired of it. She had replied with words that were obviously calculated to tear Ezra's heart to pieces saying that if he hadn't been such a disappointment maybe she would have kept him closer as a child. She had followed that blow with the comment that she had never actually wanted a child so he couldn't really have expected anything else. At that point, Chris and Josiah had had to be forcibly restrained from going in and throwing the maddening woman out.

Ezra watched the door slam as Maude exited the room and wondered why he had ever believed that this time it would be different. Determined not to let his coworkers know how the conversation the entire team had just been treated to had effected him, he called on all his reserves to bring his poker face into place. Waiting until he was sure that Maude was no longer in the building, Ezra exited his office to be met with the sympathetic looks of his teammates. Maude had been incensed that he would choose this ragtag group of men and his civil servant's wage over her and her latest surefire plan. Schooling his features and his voice, Ezra said,

"Mister Larabee, I believe that I will be taking an early lunch today." Nodding to the others, "I will see you later, gentlemen."

"Take whatever time you need, Ez. You sure you don't want some company, though?" Replied Chris still trying to come to grips with how any mother could have and did treat her child the way Maude treated Ezra. The latest conversation between Ezra and his mother appeared to have dragged his undercover agent through the ringer even more than usual, something Chris hadn't thought possible.

"Thank you for the offer gentlemen, but I ..." the compassion in Chris's voice and the sympathetic looks from the other's almost defeated Ezra's control, but he held on by the merest shreds until the song coming from JD's radio penetrated his whirling thoughts.

"...Tired of livin' like a blind man
I'm sick of site without a sense of feeling." 

That was what his mother had always taught him, not to let himself feel because you only got hurt. 

"This is how you remind me
This is how you remind me of what I really am."

Unfeeling, was that really what he was? It was what she had tried to make him. No wonder he was a disappointment to her. He had never managed to completely shield his heart. Hide it yes, protect it no. If he had managed that one, he wouldn't currently be feeling like his heart had been shredded into pieces by the words she flung at him as she left him again.

"It's not like you to say sorry, I was waiting on a different story"

The story of his life, he was always waiting for Maude to say she was sorry. Waiting for a different end to the scene that was played over and over again in his life, as she abandoned him until she needed him. Until he was old enough to make his own decisions and had the resources to back them up.

"This time I'm mistaken for handing you a heart worth breaking"

He remembered the first time he had turned her down. He had a scholarship to Harvard, and she had told him that was unacceptable. She had already told her latest potential conquest that her son was going to be attending the school he had graduated from. How foolish he had been to think she would have been proud of his accomplishment. To think that he might finally win some measure of approval and love from her. He knew it was his fault for letting her hurt him. He gave her his heart on a platter and she threw it on the ground and stomped on it without even realizing or caring what it did to him. Her only concern was that it spoiled her plans when he didn't continue to play at being the dutiful son.

"I've been wrong, I've been down, been to the bottom of every bottle"

He had for once refused to give in to her, staging his own emancipation at long last, but he hadn't thought it would hurt so much. That night he had drunk himself into a stupor as he tried to find some measure of peace and to forget the hateful words she had cast at him when she realized that for the first time he had stepped out of her control. For the first time, he was the one leaving her behind, and it had infuriated her beyond belief.

"These five words in my head scream "are we havin' fun yet?"

Caught by the song and the memories it was calling forth, Ezra froze in midsentence, his eyes filling with tears. 'Are we having fun yet?' The question echoed in his mind. There had been precious little fun in his life.

Chris and the others stared in surprise concern as Ezra suddenly stopped talking. His poker face collapsed in on itself and was replaced with a look of pure agony that shocked them to the core. No wonder he tried so hard to hide everything given how expressive his face and eyes could be. In the silence that filled the room, the words of the song could be heard clearly.

"It's not like you didn't know that
I said I love you and I swear I still do
And it must have been so bad Cause livin' with me must have damn near killed you."

Ezra crumpled to his knees unable to control the emotions raging through him any longer. Chris caught him before he hit the ground and lowered him to the floor in a controlled fall. Ezra gasped and managed an agonized whisper that carried through the room, "She never wanted me. She never spent anytime with me if she could avoid it, and I still love her. What kind of fool does that make me?"

"It doesn't make you a fool, Ez. She's your mother. It makes you human." Chris whispered in reply tightening his hold on the figure shaking in his arms. They had ended up on the floor on their knees surrounded by the rest of the team. Ezra felt hands on his back and on his arms as his friends reached out to him, offering him what comfort they could.

"This is how you remind me
This is how you remind me of what I really am"

The touch reminded him of what he was now, or rather what he was trying to become. A better person than his mother had taught him to be, and a person that he hoped would make the other members of this family he was being dragged into proud. He tried desperately to drag the tattered remnants of his control and his dignity back together. He didn't want to show these men he had grown to admire how weak he really was. The display he had already put on for them was unforgivable, and he doubted he would ever be able to live it down. He kept his head down not wanting to reveal how little control he still had over his emotions, unwilling to give them any additional ammunition to be used against him.

"It's not like you to say sorry, I was waiting on a different story"

Chris' next comment, however, brought Ezra's head up as if it were on a spring. "I'm sorry, Ezra." Ezra's shocked eyes looked at Chris. He had never thought he would ever hear their leader apologize for anything. "I shouldn't have let her in here knowing what she does to you, and I shouldn't have let you go on thinking you were on the outside looking in for as long as I did. You're one of us now."

"Yeah Ez. You're part of our family now. You're our brother and she'll have to go through us before she ever hurts you again." JD's enthusiastic commentary broke into Ezra's thoughts.

"This time I'm mistaken for handing you a heart worth breaking"

"Hey Ez. Ya know I never lied to you. Sides, accordin' to you I can't lie to anyone, so believe me now." Vin's voice seemed to come to him from far away and he found himself having to concentrate to hear the softly spoken words. "Until the guys, I ain't had a family since I was five years old, and you're part of my family now. We won't let ya down, and we ain't gonna let ya go. Ya might as well accept it. My word as a Tanner on it. You're my brother, and if'n ya ever need me, I'll be at your back."

"I've been wrong, I've been down, been to the bottom of every bottle
These five words in my head scream 'are we havin' fun yet?'"

He didn't want to crawl into the bottle again. He had come to consider that as taking the cowards way out. True it let him forget for a time, but it only hurt even more when he remembered why he had taken refuge there in the first place. 'Are we having fun yet?' The words rang through his mind once more. Most of the fun he had had in his life came after joining Team 7. He had been dragged on fishing trips, had practical jokes pulled on him, had been coerced into going to barbecues at Chris's ranch. He had even learned how to play football.

"Never made it as a wiseman"

He knew he wasn't a wise man. After all according to Maude, if he was wise, he would have heeded his mother's advice. But he couldn't bear the thought of returning to the life of conning that he had known as a child.

"I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealin'"

The team didn't know it, but he had been poor once. He had ended up on the street after fleeing from an uncle that had put him in the hospital each time he was sent to stay there. He was ten and was being sent back there for the third time. He had gotten on the bus to his uncle's, but he had gotten off and cashed in what was left of his ticket long before he reached there. He had ended up on the streets a time that he had for the most part successfully blocked from his conscious mind -- although like many of his past experiences, it returned to haunt him in his dreams periodically. Surprisingly enough, the time on the streets had led up to what had been one of the best times of his life. He had found a home for a time with the policeman that had found him on the streets and his wife. It was the only time as a child that he had felt like he had a real family, but then Maude found him again and tore him from it. Joe and Michelle had loved him, and they had wanted him as their son.1

If they could love him, then maybe someone else could too. May be it was true that the others on the team wanted him for their brother. Why they would want him was beyond his comprehension, but they certainly seemed adamant about it. May be it would be safe to trust again, but that would mean letting them in.

"This is how you remind me
This is how you remind me of what I really am"

The words of the song brought him back to himself. No, he couldn't risk that again. He had almost forgotten that letting someone into your heart meant risking the pain that would occur when they left you, and they always left you.

He wasn't worthy of being a part of this family and he never would be. He had been deluding himself to think that it was a possibility. He began withdrawing again behind his shields when he felt a hand gently force his face up and found himself looking once more into Chris's eyes.

"Don't do it, Ez. Let us help. Closing yourself off just makes it hurt worse. Trust me on this, I know. If Buck hadn't been there to drag my sorry ass out of the pit I was in, I'd still be there. Don't go down the same path I did. Please."

Ezra was stunned once again. He had never thought that their formidable leader would ever confess to any weakness much less admit it to him in front of the entire rest of the team. He felt another hand touch his shoulder and he turned to look at who was there meeting the blue eyes of Buck Wilmington.

"Come on, Pard. Don't make me go through that again. If Chris didn't out stubborn me or scare me off, you have to know that you won't. I'm not giving up on you either, and I'll be there every time you turn around if you make prove it to you."

"It's not like you to say sorry, I was waiting on a different story"

"Ezra," he heard Nathan's voice from behind him. "I know we haven't always gotten along, and I'm sorry for that. I know I was wrong about you, and I've known it for a long time. I was just too stubborn to swallow my pride and admit it. I am sorry for the way I've treated you Ezra. You're a good man."

Ezra heard the truth and the regret in Nathan's voice, although the words were almost beyond his understanding. Why would someone like Nathan ever apologize to someone like him, he wasn't worth it.

"This time I'm mistaken for handing you a heart worth breaking
I've been wrong, I've been down, been to the bottom of every bottle"

"Son," Josiah's voice rumbled in his ear as a gentle hand closed on his shoulder and pulled him into a gentle hug. "We're not a family without you. You make us whole."

Ezra fought to order the thoughts that were crashing through his mind. Vin gave his word as a Tanner, and JD called him his brother. Buck said he wouldn't give up on him, and Nathan apologized. Chris asked to be allowed to help him, and Josiah said that he made them whole. Ezra fought to reconcile what he was hearing with what had gone before.

Hesitantly he began to consider that may be this time, he could trust someone with his heart. Maybe this time is wouldn't be broken into a thousand pieces. May be this time it wouldn't be a mistake. But it was so hard to trust, given his past record, he wasn't sure he could do it again.

"These five words in my head scream 'are we havin' fun yet?'"

God help him, he wanted what they were offering to be true. He wanted to have a family. He wanted to know what it was like to be around people who wanted him there. He didn't want to continue the way he had lived most of his life until now. The question repeated again, 'Are we havin fun yet?' and he wanted to be able to answer 'Yes' for once in his life.

Slowly, hesitantly and with great trepidation he raised his head and looked at the men surrounding him, meeting the eyes of each one of them searching for the truth. He made his life reading people, telling truth from lies, but he couldn't spot any deception in their eyes. Finally meeting Chris's eyes once more he swallowed hard before whispering softly, "I never had any brothers before."

END

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