A/N: Hello lovely readers :) So I've been wanting to write this for quite some time (really, I started drafting this last January), but am just now getting it to where I want it. Basically, I wanted to write a one-shot about what the Shepherd family's life would be like if Addison and Derek's six year old daughter Rinny had never died. However, once I really got started writing I realized that in order to make it really good I needed to split it up, so this story will be in THREE parts. Although I'll admit, a part of me split it into three parts also because I can't seem to let go of my character, Laurie.

Because this story is based off of another I've written (an AU of an AU...haha), I highly recommend reading "Finding Our Way" first if you haven't already. However, if you want to read this by itself then by all means go ahead!

Thank you so much for stopping by, and for sticking with me through my Fanfiction writing process! Hope you like this story!

Oh yes, credit for the character of Michael Montgomery Shepherd goes to LoveandLearn. Always a pleasure to use him :)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

What If

Lauren's POV

September, 2007

"You realize when you're forty and retired from dancing your feet are going to hate you and you'll barely be able to walk, right?" I say, sitting down and leaning against the mirror, pulling my five year old brother Michael onto my lap.

"You realize when you're forty you will have spent half of your life in school and the rest digging into sick, bloody bodies?" Rinny shoots back at me.

"Eww, blood is yucky!" Michael makes a face and shakes his head.

"Now that's what I'm talking about," Rinny looks at him before returning to her routine.

"So how's the Stanford essay coming?" She asks me, balancing on one foot with her other leg straight in the air, the tip of her toe shoe against the mirror. Having grown up with a sister obsessed with ballet, my little brothers and I are used to having conversations with her in weird positions, or stretching…either way.

"Well I've got a whopping six words written thanks to you and Beethoven over there," I nod towards Hayden who is now attempting to master Beethoven's Fifth on the piano in the next room.

"Oh whatever, at least I don't have to go run around in the dirt to get into college," my ten year old brother shouts over his shoulder. Apparently he heard us. Basically, after we moved into this house six years ago our parents had the entire basement turned into a practice room of sorts – ballet for my sister and then eventually piano and cello for my little brother. He's basically a musical prodigy if I ever did see one.

"You are so not your father's son!" I shout back. Never mind that Hayden's basically a clone of my father.

"Good thing too," Rinny cuts in, in a split on the floor. "Since Hayden and I are the only members of this family with any ounce of artistic talent."

"Speaking of applications," I say to Rin. "How's you-know-what coming?"

My sister shoots me a look.

"Oh relax, I haven't told anyone."

"Told anyone what?" Michael asks.

I look down at him, seriously. "Mikey, your big sister Katherine is going to Clown College."

He giggles. "With a red nose and everything?"

Rinny rolls her eyes. "Don't listen to her, kid. She's just jealous because her singing voice sounds like a drowned rat."

"It's true," Hayden says, turning around on his stool. "With all of my professional experience even I have to say she's un-teachable."

I laugh. "Okay well since this seems to be a game of three-on-one, I'm going back upstairs to finish proving my intellectual worth to Stanford. Rin, I'll be in the bedroom if you wanna talk about…you know…"

"Clown College?" Mikey asks, grinning.

I snort, ruffling my baby brother's auburn hair. "No comment."

Sitting in my bedroom twenty minutes later, I read the first page of my admissions essay over and over again. According to my guidance counselor, I've already gotten a good enough SAT score, it's just the essays I have to worry about now, and even though there's still two months until the Early Decision deadline, I can't help but feel like I'm way far behind.

Slouching down in my desk chair, I hear the subtle sound of my three siblings down in the basement. As much as I complain about the noise, I actually really love having all of them around; there are so many kids at Rinny's and my school – Harvard-Westlake Academy – who are only children, or have divorced parents, or both, so I know I'm lucky.

Rinny and I were our parents' only children for just over seven years. I remember coming home from our last day of Kindergarten back in New York, only to find out Mommy was going to have another baby. She and Dad had been trying for a third child for so long, and I had really wanted a little brother, so naturally I was the happiest kid in the world when later that summer the ultrasound said it was a boy.

Rin was so skeptical of another baby coming into our lives, like somehow he would ruin our relationship as sisters. I was so excited to have a boy to teach how to play soccer and roll around in the mud with, and I think, to Rinny's six year old brain that meant I wanted to replace her, even though she's always been my other half; my better half.

Ironically, Hayden Christopher Montgomery Shepherd turned out to be more like Rinny than me. A passionate musician, he wants absolutely nothing to do with soccer and spends most of his time downstairs practicing with Rin. I remember just last year when he started struggling with his math class and Mom actually had to ground him from the piano.

Michael was the first Montgomery Shepherd kid not born in New York. In fact, he was the reason Mom and Dad moved us out to LA in the first place. Back in 2001, Dad had been offered Chief of Surgery at the hospital he and Mom were working at, Mt. Sinai. With three kids, he was already unsure if he wanted to take it or not, but then about a month later we found out Mom was pregnant again. So we left New York for a quieter life out in Malibu, and my parents both started working for a practice run by my godparents, Sam and Naomi Bennett, a practice that – thanks to a financial crisis a few years ago – they've since bought out and are now leading themselves.

Five months after we moved, my second baby brother was born and our family was complete. We were all happy together; Mom and Dad had a solid marriage, Rin was still my best friend, I finally had not one but two brothers, and we lived on the beach. I thought our lives would be perfect forever, that none of us would ever grow up and that nothing would ever hurt us.

Now, Rinny and I are almost eighteen and going through the college application process, and over the years I've slowly come to realize that there's no such thing as perfect.

"Hey," Rinny says, entering the room.

"Hey," I greet her. "What'd you do with Mikey?"

"Oh I set him up with Yellow Submarine downstairs; we really did well to get him hooked on The Beatles, he should be good 'til Mom and Dad get home. Did you get the paper done yet?"

"Almost," I reply. "Just have like 300 or so words to go. God, you'd think the fact that we've spent over three quarters of our lives going to school would be enough to get into college, but no…"

"Tell me about it. Sending in audition tapes are the worst. I've never not auditioned for someone in person…I just feel like it's so impersonal."

"Same with Stanford. They want us to apply and then they'll decide if they want to interview us. I don't get it…"

"At least the soccer coach already knows you and can put in a good word with admissions," Rinny says, changing out of her leotard into a tank-top and jeans. I give her a once-over; I'd always been jealous of her muscular build, slightly bigger bra size, and perfectly curled hair. "What are you writing about anyway?"

I swallow. It's not that I don't want my sister to know, it's just that she probably wouldn't like it if she did. "Um…"

"Come on, it's not like it should be a huge secret," she chuckles, snatching the paper out of my hands. Right away I notice her smile falter.

"What did you think I was going to write about, Rin? That was one of the scariest moments of my life," I say quietly. "And now you're secretly applying for the Boston Conservatory when Mom and Dad think you're going to Harvard? How do you think that looks?"

Rinny tosses the paper back at me, her eyes welling up. "So you just thought you could use me as a means to write some deep, insightful essay to get into your precious Stanford, and I'd just be okay with it? Well news flash, dear sister, I'm not."

"It's not like I put your name in here, Rinny!" I counter. "There's no way anyone could know it's you."

"It doesn't matter!" Rinny exclaims. "This was not yours to share!"

"Rin when you…when you passed out and fell off that stage last year I honestly thought you had died. Mom stayed by your side in the hospital for a week she was so scared. Only to find out you hadn't been eating for months?!"

"That's a lie," my sister shoots back. "It was my first lead role. I was under a lot of stress about the performance. You try eating with a constant stomachache."

"Oh come on Rin, who do you think you're talking to? I know you better than anyone; that's bullshit and you know it," my voice grows quiet. "I know you purge in the school bathrooms."

"Laurie, we weigh exactly the same. I'm sorry that I don't have a metabolism that allows me to eat whatever I want; unlike you I actually have to work for my body," Rinny pauses, taking a deep breath. "And every teenage girl with a pulse purges at school. I do not have an eating disorder."

"Have you eaten today?" I snap at her.

Rinny doesn't even hesitate before telling me to fuck off.

Suddenly we hear a knock at the door and both jump. Rinny quickly dabs her eyes and I pretend to be going over my essay. "Come in," I say.

"Hey guys," Mom smiles, standing in the doorway with our baby brother on her hip.

"Hi Mom, how was work?" Rinny asks, in a very Montgomery-esque fake-cheeriness.

"It was good – a quiet day – just wanted to let you know we were home. Dad's downstairs making dinner; no guarantees what it is but it smells good, so I'll just leave it at that."

I chuckle. My mother is a terrible cook, to put it lightly, so listening to her trying to decipher some of Dad's concoctions is pretty amusing.

"Mommy said Maya comeded into work today!" My brother says. "I heard you talking to Daddy but you didn't look happy…were you not happy to see Maya, Mommy?"

Mom sighs, and immediately I can tell she isn't being totally honest when she says it was a "quiet" day at work. "Honey, why don't you go get your brother and help Daddy with dinner, okay?" She kisses his cheek.

"Okay!" Mom puts him down and he runs back downstairs.

"What's going on?" I ask.

Mom sits down on my bed, facing my sister and me. "This goes nowhere. I probably shouldn't even be telling you, but we're all family and you'll probably end up hearing about it anyway. Maya came to me today thinking she had gonorrhea."

"What?!" I exclaim. "Are you serious? She's only thirteen!" I know I shouldn't really be talking; unbeknownst to my parents (or to anyone except my sister, who walked in on me once) I lost my virginity three months ago.

"Yes, I'm serious," Mom says.

"Do Sam and Naomi know?" Rinny asks, sitting down next to our mother. Mom takes her hand.

"No, honey, they don't, which is why you need to keep this to yourself. Technically Maya has the right to doctor-patient confidentiality, so I can't tell her parents…"

"But you feel like you should because they're your best friends," I finish.

"Pretty much," Mom says.

"Have you talked to Violet about it?" I ask. Violet is the practice's psychiatrist, and one of my favorite people in the world.

"Not yet, just Cooper and your dad know so far, and now you two."

"Wow…I can't believe little Maya had sex," Rinny muses. "Obviously she doesn't know about all the consequences yet, if she thought she contracted an STD."

Mom sighs. "Luckily she doesn't have it. I told her as much as I could today, about how to be smart and safe, but you know as her doctor I can't just order her to stop…I can only advise her."

"That must be really hard," Rinny says.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine," Mom says. "In a little bit of shock I'll admit, but it'll pass. Just do me a favor and stay virgins until you're fifty and I'm dead," she chuckles.

"For sure, Mom," Rinny jokes, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Ever since we were little, Rinny and Mom have always been really close, kind of like how Dad and I have always been really close. It was only after about a year ago when Rin had her little…episode…that I started overhearing my mother telling my father about how scared she is that she might be losing touch with her daughter.

I go sit on the floor at her feet, resting my chin on her knee. "I love you, Mom," I mutter.

"My girls," she says, wrapping an arm around each of us and kissing Rinny's temple. "I love you too."

I sneak a glance up at my sister; she shoots me a quick glare in return, and I feel a pang in my chest. Maybe she was right – even though her episode was a huge source of stress and fear in my life, just because I keep her name out of it doesn't mean the world needs to know. And as much as we fight, I could tell this time she was really hurt.

Once we've all composed ourselves we head downstairs for dinner.

"Hey Buddy," Dad says, greeting me with a one-armed hug.

"Hi, Daddy," I respond, looking down at what appears to be salmon on the stove. "Smells good."

"I thought I'd go for something a little different tonight," he says.

"Dad's pretending he's a wood-chopping fisherman tonight," Hayden says, taking out a log of wood for the fire pit outside.

I chuckle. "You know we live in LA, right? Not out in the middle of the woods?"

"That doesn't mean I can't live up to my alter ego occasionally," Dad says, placing the cooked fish on a plate. "And just because someone's a picky eater…" he looks out at my brother.

"I heard that!" He huffs.

Rinny takes the silverware and goes out to sit on the back deck, not even bothering to look at me. I know she's still upset, and it's only a matter of time before our parents notice. I don't go near her until everyone else sits down outside, my baby brother settled on Mom's lap.

"So Laurie, how's the admissions essay going?" Dad asks. I just about choke on my salmon.

"Yes Laurie, how is the admissions essay going?" Rinny asks, her voice dripping with sarcasm that only I can hear.

"Um," I start. "Well I got a couple pages written today."

"It's not due 'til November, right?" Mom asks.

"No, no it's not," I say, trying to figure out how to be as apologetic to my sister as possible without actually saying it. "I toyed with some different ideas today of what to write about, and I thought the one I had was pretty good, but I don't know…I still have a while, I think I'll change it up a little bit."

It wasn't until after dinner that Rinny gave me a hug for the first time all day.

Addison's POV

I still remember it like it was yesterday, the day when I watched my daughter collapse, falling off the stage and hitting her head. As a mother of four kids, I've dealt with injuries and hospital visits before. Laurie's broken two bones playing soccer – although I'll admit both times I was secretly just as hysterical as her – and Hayden had his appendix taken out when he was six.

But with Rinny it felt different. It's not as if Laurie or Hayden's traumas were expected, but (as much as I don't like to think about it) kids get hurt playing soccer, and Hayden had been having flu-like symptoms for a few days leading up to the surgery. Rinny's episode was as unexpected as they come.

I knew she had been stressed out leading up to her performance. Like me, my daughter is not a stress eater; she may be an emotional eater, but not a stress eater. I knew her stomach had been bothering her – or so she told me – and that kept her from eating at times. But at the hospital when the doctor told us she collapsed because she hadn't really been eating for months, I – and I think Derek too – got very scared. Did my baby girl develop an eating disorder and I didn't even notice?

So you can imagine when Maya came into my office today and admitted to having sex and thinking she had gonorrhea, meanwhile her parents had no idea, I was hit pretty hard with the reminder that I didn't know what was going on with my own child either.

I've brought this up with Rin a hundred times, always making sure she's feeling okay to the point where sometimes she gets frustrated with me. I may be a doctor, but seeing my kids in the hospital is not something I enjoy very much, and for the entire week Rinny was in there I honestly thought I would lose my mind. It doesn't take a genius to know how common eating disorders are among ballet dancers; I guess I just thought my smart and beautiful girl would always be an exception.

Derek on the other hand, is far less convinced. Rinny doesn't think I know she's applying to college for dance, but I'm her mother, I'm not stupid and it's my job to know these things. But I know Derek definitely has no idea, and I also know he wouldn't be okay with it. Seeing what happened to her a year ago scared him too, and he thinks if she pursues ballet any further she's just going to hurt herself again.

"Anything you wanna share with the class, Addison?" My best friend Naomi asks me, poking her head into my office the morning after my appointment with Maya. I jump, startled out of my daydreaming.

"No, no I'm fine," I smile at my friend.

Naomi raises an eyebrow. "Really? Because you looked about a thousand miles away."

My palms start to sweat, thinking about Maya, but I don't say anything. "I guess there's just…stuff on my mind right now."

"Oh yeah, like what stuff? Come on, spill." Naomi sits down on my office couch, propping her feet up on the table.

I sigh, going to sit next to her. "I was just thinking about Rinny."

"About last year?"

"That, and now she and Laurie are just starting to apply to college and it's stressful…"

"For you or for them?" Naomi chuckles.

"Both," I say. "Never mind that I've always dreaded the day when they move out and go to college…Laurie's a shoo-in for Stanford, I just know it. The soccer coach already loves her and wants to recruit her, she has the SAT scores, now she just has to finish the admissions essay and send it in, and by this time next year she'll be seven hours away from me. And Rin…I'm worried about Rin again."

"Addison no offense but I don't think you've ever really stopped worrying about her over the past year," Naomi says. "Did something else happen?"

"No," I sigh. "But…she's sending out audition videos to for dance programs. She doesn't know that I know, and she's keeping it a secret from Derek and me. I've always known she doesn't want to go to Harvard, which of course is where Derek wants her to go, but I just didn't think she would ever hide this kind of thing from me."

"And you don't think Derek would want her to go to school for dance?"

I snort. "I know he wouldn't, if only for the reason of not wanting to see her get hurt again. I guess I just don't know what to do about this one…if I should confront her about it, or wait for her to come to me."

Naomi opens her mouth to respond when we're met with a knock at the door. It's Violet. The both of us look up in silence.

"Why do you two look like that?" Violet asks.

I snap out of it. "Like what?"

"Like someone just killed your cat," she says.

"Oh, Addie's stressing about Rin again," Naomi says.

"You think she's relapsing?" Violet immediately goes into shrink mode. "You think you ought to bring her in again?"

"First of all, she'd kill you for using the word 'relapse' since she doesn't think she was intentionally starving herself. But no, I don't think so. Just college application stuff…and of course I worry that she's afraid to talk to me about…stuff…"

"The most you can do is just let her know you're there for her, Addison," Violet says. "Don't let her shy away if she seems like she's having a problem, or…if she's relapsing."

"Derek, you don't think Rinny's relapsing, do you?" I ask my husband later that night, the both of us getting ready for bed.

"What?" He asks, poking his head out of the closet.

"Rinny. Do you think she's…okay?"

"She seems fine to me," Derek says, walking out in pajama pants and a wife beater. "I just looked over her Harvard application today and it was great."

"Really? You haven't noticed anything…off about her lately?"

"What are you trying to say, Addison? Are you worried about her?"

"I'm trying really hard not to be," I say, pulling my hair back into a loose bun. "But I wanna know…what would you think about her going to school for dance, you know instead of Harvard or any of her other back up schools?"

"I would say not a chance in hell," Derek replies, getting into bed.

"Honey…"

"Okay, maybe not that harshly, but that would be the general response."

"But why? I know, I know what happened last year was…awful, and scary…but she's so passionate, and she's really good. Just like how Laurie is with soccer, and she's halfway to reaching her dream already."

"Addie I just can't help but think that if we send her to one of those schools for dance all they're going to do is just push more body image issues on her. I had a patient once, a ballerina, Juilliard alum, said it took her almost five years to overcome the anorexia that place left her with. Rin is so smart, she could do anything, and I just don't want to see her throw that away and get hurt in the process," Derek sighs. "And Addie, I remember as well as anyone that day back in 1996 when they almost got hit by that car walking back from ballet…how we almost could have lost them. It was only lucky someone saw it coming and pulled them back. Thanks to that I…I don't think I'll ever stop worrying about either of them."

I slide into bed next to him, wrapping an arm around his middle. He wraps his arms around me tightly. I pause, remembering the near-accident myself. How I came home to both of my little girls in tears, and Rinny's best friend's mother there with them, telling me about how, if they had crossed the street two seconds earlier they would have been hit by a drunk driver, speeding through a red light. Never mind being worried about Rinny now; I could have lost her forever that day. "Have you ever tried talking to her about it?" I ask quietly.

"I think…I think Rin and I basically talk about everything but school," Derek says.

"You're not pushing Harvard on her too hard, are you?"

"No, I mean I hope not. I try not to bring it up every day."

"Well, maybe try to bring up the whole dance school thing," I say, trying to give myself advice just as much as my husband. "Just hear her out if that's something she really wants to do."

"Since when did you become such an expert on teenage girls?" Derek smirks.

I laugh. "Honey, I used to be one once upon a time."

"Oh yeah, what was that, about fifty years ago now?"

I shove him playfully. "If you're aiming to sleep on the couch tonight buddy keep it up."

Derek wraps his arms around me from behind, kissing my neck. "Mmm you love me too much to send me to the couch," he mutters.

"On your good days, yes," I smile. "And just for the record, I expect you to be the expert once our sons get to be this age." I shudder…my youngest is only five; I don't want to think about him growing out of that "sweet little boy" stage yet.

"Oh good well that gives me another seven years to prepare," Derek mutters into my neck. Turning off the night stand lamp, I relax back into his arms. My daughters would be okay. Maya would be okay. Everything would be okay.

Lauren's POV

I storm into the girls' bathroom at school in a huff one afternoon, desperately trying to hide the tears clouding my vision. It had been almost two months since my ex, Jason, had broken up with me, but still, I don't think seeing him strut down the halls with his newest flavor of the week will ever sting any less. And the way he smirks at me while he does it…well to put it lightly it completely pisses me off.

Jason Weaver and I had been together for almost a year; my parents were never very attached to him, but that never mattered to me because in my mind he was perfect. A tall, muscular soccer player and honor student…he was basically everything I looked for in a guy. Everything I thought I looked for.

My parents don't know a lot of what happened in that relationship; about how Jason took my virginity, how instead of to a soccer tournament like I told my mother I actually spent a weekend with him at his uncle's beach house, and how two months ago he cheated on me and broke my heart.

My best friend Hannah from New York – one of about three people from New York I still really keep in touch with, and another Stanford-soccer-hopeful – has offered to fly out here and beat the crap out of him a dozen times, but I always tell her I'm fine. Looks and all, I am my mother's daughter; I can hold my own when people tear me down.

Standing in front of the mirror, I take deep breaths, my knuckles turning white from my grip on the sink. "Don't let him get to you," I mouth silently to myself, staring into the mirror. "He's not worth it."

Suddenly the once quiet bathroom is filled with the sound of retching. I jump, not thinking anyone else was in here. My mind flashes back to what Rinny said a couple days ago – "every teenage girl with a pulse purges at school." I shudder, hearing vomit hit the toilet bowl and quickly wipe my eyes. I'm just about to turn and leave when the bathroom stall opens; I can't help it, curiosity gets the better of me and I look to see who it is, with every intention of asking if she's okay.

Then I see her, and immediately I know that she is in fact, not okay.

It's Rinny, and I know exactly what she was doing.

Reviews would be most welcome. Thanks so much for reading! :)