While Joan is pondering this, she sees her father and Adam get out of the first car; Will's holding up his gun. He says, "Put your hands in the air!" Steve turns around like greased lightning and has his weapon drawn on Will. Joan shouts, "Wait!" Will tells him to drop his weapon. Steve: "No, you first!" Will tells Joan to get in the car. Joan: "Dad, listen...I can explain!" He tells her again to go to the car. Steve screams, "I didn't hurt her!" Will decides -- interestingly, after the situation he found himself in in the last episode, although of course the uniformed officer has a gun on Steve, too -- to put his gun down on the hood of the car and start carefully walking around the long stretch of fence toward Steve. Will tells Steve to put down his weapon and then they can talk. Steve sobs, "You're not gonna listen to me! You already got your mind made up!" Will: "You stole my daughter and threatened her with a gun -- yeah, I'm drawing some conclusions." Steve says he didn't steal anyone. Joan: "He didn't, Dad! I went with him!" Will says, "Joan!" in a way that means, "Shut it, girlie." He keeps walking slowly toward Steve, saying, "Now, you wanna shoot me, Steve? Is that gonna make it better?" Steve: "Maybe!" Will promises him it will end Steve's life as he knows it: "I don't think that's what you want." Steve shouts, "What do you know about me?" Then he screams, "You don't know anything!" Joan covers her face and gasps some more. Will, still steadily advancing: "Let me tell you something -- and you're not gonna believe me until you're older -- this will end. This...hell you're living through right now is mostly made up of things you had no control over. But this next place that you end up...that's gonna be all you." He's much closer to them now, only a few feet away. Steve sobs, "Well, maybe I'm ready to go to hell, 'cause it can't be any worse!" Joan begs, "Steve, don't!" Will: "You hear that? My daughter sees something in you. Now, that counts for something in my book. Are you telling me she's wrong, that there's not something worse saving in there?" Steve doesn't answer, but his resolve might be weakening a little. Will: "Now come on, son -- let's you, and me, see tomorrow." Will's practically inches away now, and Will just gives him a puzzled, encouraging look: "Come on." Steve sobs a bit and drops his hands to his sides. Will gingerly reaches for the gun and Steve hands it over, crying. Will puts his arm around him as they walk toward the car, saying, "Attaboy. It's all right." And then: "Hey, is that my tie?" Hee. Laughter through the tears, always welcome. And a good thing too; my exclamation point is nearly gone from my keyboard, and I can't remember the last episode that didn't make me cry. Which is okay. I'd rather cry than cringe. I just wish we'd gotten at least one reaction shot of Adam in there, although from a direction/editing point of view, it probably would have seemed stuck in, and it's better the way they did it. It's also interesting to me that both Helen and Will tonight had to give the "it won't always be like this, it won't always be this awful" speech to two different boys, neither of them their own.