pretty sure I messed up my numbers somewhere. let's assume that erin was 18 in 1992, and that it's season one right now... that means no blue templar (yet) and Nicky is about 14 or 15 here.

"Mom I don't think I can do this!" Eighteen year old Erin Reagan screamed at the top of her lungs. She was in so much pain- the baby was coming, and fast. Mary stood by her side, grasping her daughter's hand tightly. They were in the middle of nowhere New Jersey in a quiet hospital room at three in the morning. Erin was beyond exhausted.

"Erin you're almost there just keep pushing!" Mary supported.

"The head is crowning. Come on just a couple more pushes!" The nurse supported. Erin didn't think she had it in her to push anymore- how did her mother do this for four children? She was certainly done after this one.

It was just like in the movies- Erin gave a bloodcurdling scream and then the baby's cries were heard. Erin let out a smile before throwing herself back onto the bed. Her breathing was heavy- she was exhausted, but her baby had finally been born.

The nurse cleaned her off before handing her to Erin. Erin looked down at the bundle in her arms. She had created this life all by herself, even though she hadn't asked for it. And she needed to protect it.

"Have you figured it out Mom?" Erin asked.

"Yes, she will be completely safe."

Erin looked down at the beautiful brown eyed baby looking up at her. It was like she knew that this was her mother, and she knew what was about to happen because then she decided to burst into tears dramatically and Erin didn't know how to react. She put the baby close to her and hummed a song as she rubbed the baby's back. She couldn't grow attached to it, not after the arrangements had been made.

"Erin... do you know what you want to name her?" Mary asked, standing close to her with her arms crossed. She didn't want to seem mean but she knew her daughter would grow attached and that would not end well for either her or the baby.

"Francine Marie. After the two best parents a girl could ask for." She cried, holding back tears. Her mom patted her on the shoulder.

"Erin, you have to do this. He is after her and you. If we can protect her than she will be safe."

"I know. But she's my baby... and I'll never get to see her again..." Erin cried.

"You don't know that honey. Now give me the baby." Mary held her arms out. Erin kissed the baby on the forehead, whispered an 'I love you' and passed the baby to her mother. Her mother cuddled the baby and walked out of the room.

Erin let out another cry, one that was more pained than the one she had while giving birth. She wanted to tell herself she had done the right thing.

But had she?

Lizzie Johnson, voted most likely to succeed on Broadway by the kids in her school, couldn't fake a smile if she wanted to at that current moment. She had been sitting on a bus for 8 hours without getting off once to get from her hometown of Chicago, Illinois, to the Big Apple, NYC. She smelled awful, needed a shower, and was starving.

She knew that running away from home was not her greatest idea ever, but she didn't know what to do. She had no one to talk to or turn to. The police were looking for her, and yet...

Her grandmother used to tell her that if she was ever in trouble, she needed to find the New York city police commissioner as soon as she could. She had looked the guy up years after this had occurred- to find that a guy with a mustache was the Commissioner, and his father was before him.

She played with her hair, loosely thrown back in a french braid. She was wearing her red flannel and jeans, her phone and earbuds on her lap. Her eye throbbed in addition to the bruise running down her face. No one asked, and she didn't mind.

Lizzie didn't know the guy, but she had no choice. So here she was, sitting next to a fatter man who had been snoring since they left eight hours ago, on a bus that's seats had no comfortable place to put your head.

The bus stopped suddenly and the driver announced a gas station stop- to go get food and use the restroom while the buses were being gassed. The man next to Lizzie continued snoring loudly, and Lizzie jumped at the opportunity to get off the bus.

Walking through the gas station, Lizzie stared at all of the junk food in front of her. She hadn't eaten anything since it happened, and yet the thought of eating made her sick. But at the same time... she was starving...

She grabbed a bag of gummy bears off the rack and paid for them, staring at the TV in the corner, reporting on homicides in New York. For some reason, she couldn't take her eyes off the screen, watching the cop push the bad guy into his car. He looked familiar... and Lizzie couldn't put her finger on it.

Going back to the bus, she munched on her gummy bears, staring at the empty roads in front of her.

Start spreading the news, Lizzie left the Windy City today.

Erin Reagan (formerly Boyle) sat at her desk in her office at the District Attorney's building. Just a normal day of looking at cases and flipping through file folders of papers to convict people of murder, stealing and rape.

What else was new?

She opened her desk drawer and pulled out the envelope. There was one picture of her holding the baby, among a bunch of other ones showing her child growing up. The one she hadn't seen since she was born 18 years ago.

And every time she saw one of those pictures, Erin felt an enormous pang of guilt in her stomach- she had missed so many years of this child's life. Technically, she wasn't a child anymore, she was probably graduating soon.

They had eventually locked up the man, a couple years after the baby had been born. He had come back for Erin. Her brother Danny the fresh detective had been so happy putting him behind bars.

Little did he know that man was the reason she had a child at eighteen and had to give her away to protect her.

He had said he would come after her to get the baby and her, so her mother had, without getting the commissioner involved, taken her to somewhere in the middle of nowhere and hid her there for the remainder and got the baby adopted somewhere she would never be found by him.

Her mother knew the family that had taken her in- they sent her pictures, for some apparent reason they thought that seeing pictures of her would make Erin feel better about the whole ordeal. It didn't, yes she was glad her daughter had grown up safe and getting everything she could have ever wanted, but it was the fact that she didn't get to see her grow up that hurt her.

And after all of this time, the Commissioner still didn't know. Her mother had arranged for Erin to take her college classes in the middle of nowhere because Mary didn't want to risk her daughter being found by the man. Frank didn't know about the granddaughter his daughter had named after him, and probably never would.

Well, she had intended to name after him. Her name had been changed at some point down the line so that Erin didn't know, so he couldn't know. She had no idea where she lived, the envelopes always came with no return addresses, but Erin was fine with that. Anything to protect her baby.

It wasn't that she didn't want to tell her family, it was that she knew they would furious she hadn't said anything at the time. They would have claimed that they would've helped raise her and that she should have kept her. But Erin was 18, going to school to become a law, and as much as she loved the child, she knew it just wouldn't have worked out.

Erin sighed, putting the envelope back in the drawer. She wondered what her daughter was doing at that exact second. She knew she shouldn't dawdle, but she would never stop feeling the guilt and regret pinging in her stomach.

"Hey Mom," Erin was startled by the sound of her own daughter's voice ripping her away from her thoughts. It always made her feel better knowing she had at least done one of her children right.

"Hey Nick... is it three already?"

"No... I just wanted to come see you because you're my favorite parent."

"That's not saying much."

"I know... but I looovveee you." Nicky said, attacking her mother in a hug.

"Alright what did you do wrong?" Erin smiled knowing her daughter was up to something.

"Well some of my friends invited me to hang out with them after school..."

"And you came here to sweeten me up so I would let you go..."

"Mom... I know you want what's best for me and all of that but I am 14 years old. I want to be able to go hang out with my friends without having to beg you."

Erin thought back to the pictures in her drawer. She only had one daughter she could show her love to...

"Yeah. Just call me when you get there. And you have to be home for dinner. Call me and I'll come get you."

"Alright, Mom... I love you." Nicky said, looking at her mother.

"I love you too honey."

"Do I hear the Reagan girls having a moment?" Danny walked into the office, receiving an immediate hug from Nicky.

"Hi Uncle Danny!" The teenager said, before going back to sit down on one of the seats in her mother's office.

"What can I do for you Danny?"

"Need help with a case."

"And..."

"Kids were shot in a bar. Need to look into their backgrounds..."

Erin rolled her eyes. "Why couldn't you have asked someone else for help?"

Danny grinned, "because I wanted to come here and see you sister..."

Frank Reagan sat at his desk like he did everyday scrolling through the New York news on his laptop. He couldn't explain the gut feeling in his stomach that said today was different, although he had no idea why. Danny was working on a case, Erin was in her office, Jamie was patrolling with his partner... his children were fine. His grandchildren were all at school. His father was sitting at home working on a new recipe. Everything was the same as always.

Baker walked in, the look on her face clearly agitated. "Sir, there is a girl here to see you. She doesn't have an appointment but she says it's important. I tried to get rid of her, but.."

A brunette girl about five feet five inches walked in. The first thing Frank noticed about her was the black eye and bruise that took over half of her face. For some reason she looked a lot like Nikki, same eyes, same nose, same color hair. The only difference was that this girl's hair went halfway down her back, like Erin's did when she was in high school.

This girl looked like Erin.

"What can I help you with, young lady?" The Commissioner asked.

"I'm looking for the Commissioner. I know he knows my grandma."

"And who might your grandmother be?"

"Her name was Mary..."

Frank's eyes widened. "What was her last name?" He asked. He pushed the thought of his Mary out of his mind. He still missed her. It had been almost five years and he still missed having his other half around. And his children and grandchildren missed him as well.

"She told me I couldn't know that. She used to come visit me all of the time when I was little. But then all of the sudden she stopped. She sent me a letter when I was 12 telling me that if I was ever in trouble I needed to find the New York Commissioner because he would be able to help. She died later that year from cancer." The girl glumly looked down.

"And what is your name?"

"My friends call me Lizzie. Look, I know I was rude to just show up here, but it's bad. My parents were murdered in front of me by some man. The man has this weird obsession with me and he made me watch as he killed my parents, claiming they were fake and that soon I would get to have my real ones. I escaped and took a plane here as fast as I could."

"Where are you from?"

"Chicago..."

"I'm sorry about your parents... but this is a case for the Chicago PD, and I have nothing to do with them."

"Look, my grandmother told me to find you if something went wrong. My parents are dead and there is a psycho man trying to kill me. I'm sorry that I consider that being things going wrong!" The girl started crying at that point and collapsed on the floor of the Commissioner's office. The Commissioner sat in his chair, shocked by the situation, not quite sure what to do as his next move.

Baker opened the door and picked in with a questioning look as if to ask him if he wanted her to get rid of the girl for him. He shook his head and she disappeared on the other side of the door.

"My son is a detective, I'll ask him to look into the murder for you." The Commissioner declared, pulling out his phone to call Danny. He was about to call when the girl let out another cry.

"Where am I supposed to go? I have no one!" The girl yelped, still in hysterics in the middle of the Commissioner's office.

Frank thought for a moment. He could take her to the homeless shelter for the night, or have Baker deal with it, but the look of desperation in the girl's eyes were one he only seen once before, when his only daughter saw her mother die right in front of her. Frank looked down at his hands, but he couldn't get the image out of his head.

"Well, you can join me for lunch." He said, looking back up at her.

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