A/N: Whew, I'm so nervous! Justice was a hit and I really hope this new version goes down well. It will be pretty much the same, just with more fleshed-out character backgrounds. This first chapter will show you what I mean. Some parts are much darker than the original, and I will try and bring a little more attention to certain aspects of the storyline.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Clique, but I own this plot.

If you met Massie Block on the street, you probably wouldn't guess that she was known as a prodigy in the world of psychology. You probably wouldn't guess that the impatient woman you were meeting was indeed an expert in child psychology.

You wouldn't know the things she keeps pushed to the back of her mind, mistakes she made that failed others, some that weren't in her realm of control.

You would, in fact, assume she worked for her father, or in fashion, or something as equally well-paying and glamorous. You would assume she was well-known for those reasons, and no more.

If you met Massie Block on the street, you wouldn't know she was the type of woman that defense attorneys feared, that police loved, that doctors had on their contact lists. You wouldn't know that she had ruthlessly taken down pedophiles, that she prepared children to testify at trial, or that she loved her job.

She knew what she wanted to do the day she graduated with her psychology degree. Her friend, lawyer Chris Abeley, a few years her senior, had arrived at her party. Arrived tired, worn down, and depressed. She can remember that his suit was wrinkled, his eyes were red, his hair, which was no longer the way it was in high school, but now gelled and styled, was in disarray.

"What's wrong?" At this point in her life, Massie hadn't yet encountered the horrible things she would have to face later due to her occupation. She was still new, and didn't really know the evils that surrounded her. Chris, however, did.

"Shitty day in court." He was nursing a beer. She frowned. He looked way too depressed for that to be the only reason. And because she didn't feel like dancing or getting completely wasted, she sat next to him and grabbed a beer of her own to sip.

"How so? Someone get acquitted or something?" Chris was a prosecutor, for what she didn't really know. All she knew was that acquitted wasn't a good thing for him.

Chris shook his head. "Didn't even go to trial. The witness failed at the competency hearing."

She was intrigued. "Didn't go to trial? Who was the witness? What is a competency hearing?"

Chris had smiled at her eager curiosity. "The only witness, therefore our only real proof, had to have a hearing to be deemed fit to testify at trial. And the defense attorney who got to ask the questions fired them at her too fast. Made her nervous. She cried." Chris rubbed his eyes tiredly. "She's seven. And because nothing came to trial, her father still has partial custody. Which means she needs to live with him. Even though five months ago she told her mom that he touches her in her 'bad places'."

Massie reeled back from the shock. How was this even right? How was it okay? Did the legal system really work that way? She was appalled. And yet, like those murder shows on TV, she needed to know more.

Chris smiled sadly at her face. "I know. It sucks."

Massie couldn't believe it. "Don't the kids get help? With testifying?"

Chris pursed his lips. "That's my job, and whoever we call to talk to the kid."

Massie was thoughtful. Like usual, the world of law was way more complex than she cared to observe. "Who do you call?"

"A child psychologist, who specializes in trauma cases. I call them in to give the kid a psychological evaluation, and to help get the kid ready for trial, which is awful. Or sometimes, when a parent wants to take something to court, I have to bring someone in just to get the kid to admit something even happened." Chris shook his head. "If she didn't have to live with her dad, it would almost be better that she didn't have to withstand trial. Unfortunately, that's the only way you get them away from these sick bastards." With a tip of his head he finished off his beer and pulled another one from the cooler at his feet. "His own daughter."

Massie was too curious to just let the conversation go at this point. Something was nagging at her. Sure, this was her graduation party, and all her friends were drinking, dancing, having a great time, but she couldn't leave Chris now. He was nice enough to come, even though he was obviously depressed, and now she was glad that he did.

"Why is trial so bad?" She couldn't help it. All this was leading to something that would change the course of her life. Her head was spinning. She hadn't chosen any sort of speciality, wasn't sure if she would, but now that she was hearing all this. . . it just seemed wrong, and a part of her was desperate to fix it.

Chris sat back, crossed his arms. "Well, let me paint you a picture, Mass. You're a little kid. You have to go and sit up in front of a bunch of people. You don't know a lot of them. You're scared. You can't answer any questions from the safety of your mom's lap. The defense attorney starts asking questions. What he basically will try to do, because you're a scared little kid, is confuse you, or make it seem as if you don't know the difference between a truth and a lie, or that you were coerced into saying the accusations. This is the best way to convince anyone that you weren't touched, because who can really trust a confused kid? So you're up there, and you have to answer questions that you haven't been coached on, and the whole time the person who fucked up your life is sitting there, staring you down, less than ten feet away, scaring the shit out of you."

Massie was stunned beyond words. Silently she stood there while Chris Abeley took another giant gulp of his beer, his face somber.

"I'll tell ya Massie, I love what I do, but sometimes I hate my job."

She knew exactly what he meant. He was doing something, trying to help people, but the same system that was designed to protect people like these children was the same one that failed them, every single day. And these kids were scared, and traumatized. They needed help. They needed to know that they would never be forced to be around anyone who had hurt them.

It was at that exact moment that Massie Block knew exactly what she wanted to do in life.

{}

"You can't save them all."

It was her mantra, her motto, of sorts. Well, not a motto. It was just a phrase she had to repeat sometimes, when she was haunted. Because they all haunted her, the failed cases.

The little boy who wouldn't admit to what happened, who jumped off the monkey bars, not putting his arms out to protect himself. The little girl who was threatened and never said anything, as hard as Massie tried, and later walked straight into oncoming traffic. A teenager violated by the varsity football coach, who was later harassed so badly by the town that loved him that she later took it all back.

Massie remembered them all.

They were everywhere. Standing at the foot of her bed, when she couldn't sleep. Behind her, when she brushed her teeth. On the other side of the refrigerator door when she went to close it. On street corners, the waiting room at the dentist, in the backseat of her car. They followed her. Walking through Central Park, doing a double-take, swearing she saw a desperate mother from a year ago, a scared little boy, a helpless little girl. She'd look at them again and realize that it wasn't the same person, but it stuck with her. She saw them everywhere.

"You can't save them all."

It didn't work.

"Yes you can. You just didn't."

"No, you couldn't save them all."

"Yes you could, but you failed."

Her mind was at war with itself. The guilt, all consuming, the guilt that was killing her. She loved what she did, but she hated her job.

Sometimes she wishes, for a few seconds, that she was at her graduation party again, a freshly graduated girl, and instead of having any sort of conversation with Chris Abeley, she simply smiled and gave him a wave.

She hadn't, though. Instead she talked to him which sent her on this path. And once those few seconds were over, she would realize again that she truly wanted to do what she did. Somebody needed to. She was fighting for a noble cause, and even if it was slowly killing her, she knew that she was doing something right.

There was another side of her, the rational side that rarely won the arguments, that tried to tell her it wasn't her fault. She had been told that by a lot of people - friends, family, her therapist. Yes, she had a therapist, she can't be her own therapist.

They all said the same thing, in the same voice. You can't save them all.

But that's the thing. She could.

Couldn't she?

Reviews are greatly appreciated! Was it worth it or not?