Rachel was ten.

James had an incredibly successful streak of putting people away in prison. Unfortunately, his biggest success – Damon Merrick – also ended up being his undoing. Only a few weeks later, an unknown guy came wandering into his office and shot him in cold blood. Naturally, he was captured instantly, but the damage was done and the message was sent. Don't mess with Damon Merrick.

The justice system came through, and he was squarely blamed for the murder and given a second life sentence. Rose was at least able to breathe a sigh of relief about that. But it would never bring James back. And now she was a single mother of a girl that wasn't even technically hers. She loved Rachel with all her heart, but Rose didn't feel confident that she could raise the girl on her own. She didn't even know how all the legal matters were supposed to iron out.

The funeral was quite the impressive affair. For every enemy James had made, he had another ten allies. Politicians and soldiers and cops and various other civil servants were everywhere in the church. The pastor was listing his many accomplishments as she and Rachel sat there at the front of everyone soaking it all in. She found that she wasn't even crying a lot since she had already done a great deal of that in the preceding days. Mostly she just felt dead to the world.

At the end, there was a reception in the basement of the church where everyone could come up and offer their condolences. That was when it happened. A woman approached her, tattooed and looking a bit worn out, shaking her hand softly. She didn't say anything, but she could see Rachel's features in her face so easily that she knew in an instant who she was. But she walked away again before Rose had a chance to say anything to her.

She wasn't the only one to notice. As they left the church, she felt Rachel gently squeeze her hand while they walked out to the car. The girl looked up at her with that almost perpetual curiosity in her eyes. "Who was that weird lady? She had so many tattoos."

Rose opted to keep it honest but evasive. "I didn't get her name. Maybe she was a friend from school?" Of course some part of her wanted to tell Rachel the full truth, go find her, let them meet up. But she also knew the story from James' side and it was... frankly, ugly. What if she was still on drugs? What if she tried to take Rachel away from her? Rose wasn't certain she could handle another loss so soon.

In the end, she didn't have long to wait. The following Monday, Sera was working around the house while her daughter was at school. The doorbell rang, and she was more than a little surprised to open the door and see Sera standing there on the other side. The only comfort she had in that moment of intense surprise was that Sera looked fully aware of the fact that she might not be welcome here. Her hands were clutched together in front of her, showing that she came bearing a gift of flowers, at least. "Rose? I was... wondering if we could talk for a while?"

She wasn't a strong woman, and it wasn't as if Rose would have been able to just kick Sera to the curb anyway. But admittedly she was pretty curious to find out what the woman wanted. She stepped aside so that Sera could enter, graciously taking the flowers from her. After some hunting, she managed to find a vase, filling it with water, snipping the stems from them before dropping them in. With the vase settled next to a few others she had gotten.

The two women sat down in the living room, fumbling their way through quite the awkward silence. Finally Rose realized that, as the host, it was up to her to get the ball rolling. She cleared her throat and glanced nervously at her guest. "So. You said there was something you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes." Sera suddenly sat up, fiddling with her hands in her lap. "Yes, and frankly I can't believe how shitty... s-sorry, how terrible... my timing is. I've been in town for almost a month now. I managed to get a job, though I've been kinda... couch surfing and... W-Well, anyway, I saw the news and had to go to the service. But the truth is that I'd been tryin' to work up the nerve to approach you all about letting me see Rachel again. Of course, I'm sure you might need some time to think about it, but I just wanted to make sure I at least asked."

Rose honestly had no clue what to say. James had made his thoughts about this issue quite clear. In his mind, no matter what the woman did to atone, he would never be able to see past what she had already done. At the time, it seemed reasonable to Rose that perhaps Sera should be kept away from their daughter. But now James wasn't here, and Sera was, and she was forced to look at the mother of her daughter and reach a decision on her own.

There was something damn near paralyzing about that phrase, 'on her own'. This really was it, this was her life now, a widow with a daughter that was only hers by choice. How in the world could she possibly tell that girl's mother that she had no right to see her? But by that same measure, if it was just her, then she had to learn how to make calls and keep her spine solid. The pieces began to slowly click together in her head. "I'll make you a deal. The simple fact of the matter is that I'm going to need help around here. You... said you've been crashing with people, and... well, we do have a room. But I mean it, if you want to be Rachel's mother, then I'll be expecting you to act like it. Being involved in her life, helping her through things, all of it."

Rose was preparing herself for resistance, so surprised her when Sera just started to laugh in a low, throaty way. "Hm, not what I was expecting. But honestly, I couldn't ask for a better offer. And that's all I ask, a chance to prove myself and get to know my daughter. I ain't afraid of a little hard work either. I swear, you won't regret this." She certainly hoped so.

After a moment's contemplation, she opted to extend the olive branch a little closer. "Do you... would you like to meet her when she gets home from school? It might be difficult, telling her the truth." Rose instantly wished she hadn't phrased it that way, because Sera looked crushed.

"You never told her?" She scoffed and stood up from her chair, moving toward the back door of the house. "Dammit, James..." The words were soft, as though she were suddenly having a side conversation with the man's spirit or something. "I still want to meet her, of course I do. I just... I need a second. Is it okay if I take a smoke break out back?"

Biting back the urge to give a firm no, Rose just nodded her head. Tattoos, smoking, an attitude she was just barely managing to suppress... She had no clue why she had to go and give such a massive open door to Sera, but it was done and there was no taking that back. Granted, she hadn't seen her with Rachel yet, but if past behavior was anything to go by, then this could very well be a huge disaster.

Once the sliding door shut, a sigh of relief rushed out of her and Rose moved hurriedly to the kitchen to busy herself with something inane. Her mind whirled away as her hands worked, trying to correlate all of this. She was welcoming this woman into her home – or rather, James' home, against his wishes. The true mother of her husband's child. A tattooed smoker with some slightly strange mannerisms. But... well, Rose needed help. There was nothing else to it.

It wasn't until the door shut again and Sera was standing there with her that Rose even thought to examine what her hands were doing. "Baking something?"

Sure enough, she was working on putting together various ingredients into a bowl – egg, milk, vanilla, chocolate chips, etc. "Oh, um... cookies. I thought... you know, if the house smelled nice and Rachel had something delicious to eat, it might make the conversation a little easier."

Sera's hand suddenly grasped her wrist, just as she was about to tip in the measuring cup of sugar. "That's how much you're putting in?"

That simple question wasn't quite enough to gauge whether she thought it was too much or not enough, but Rose was fairly certain she was doing this correctly. So she just gave a dumb nod of her head. "That was the plan."

"Rose. She's a kid. Whose father just died. And we're preparing to tell her that I'm her real mother. She doesn't want cookies with a reasonable, responsible amount of sugar in them. She wants moist, fluffy cookies that taste like heaven. Even if they're a little unhealthy. Ya know?"

Finally, she released her hold and the two stared at one another for a moment or two. Rose wasn't fond of the paranoid idea creeping up in her mind, telling her that Sera was planning on taking over, bullying her into letting her smoke outside and putting extra sugar in the cookies. But then she remembered that this was an insane theory to cook up and relented. She dumped the sugar, then added another scoop before moving on to the next ingredient.

Naturally, Rachel was confused to walk into the house and see her mother and that 'weird lady' with a plate of cookies. "Sweetie, please come over here. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

She dutifully crossed her way over to the living room and sat down across from them. Her hand immediately went for the cookies, and she paused for a second as if waiting to be told to stop, then hurried to stuff it in her mouth. "Um, so... what's up?" she mumbled through the chewing.

Admittedly, Rose wasn't really sure what to say, but Sera had assured her that she would be able to take care of this. It was 'the least she could do' for inserting herself in their lives. As promised, Sera got up and went over to where Rachel was seated, kneeling in front of her. "Hey there, kiddo. Your mom's told me all about you. I'm Sera, I... ah... well, I'm the woman who gave birth to you."

Rachel didn't look nearly as shocked as either of them had expected. "Uh, sweetie? Are you alright? Do you need a moment?" Rose said softly with her head cocked.

"Yeah, just..." she shook her head with a tiny nervous laugh. "I sorta thought it might be true. But meeting you for real is weird."

"You were expecting this?"

Sera looked back at her, laughing as well now. "Hey, you're the one who told me she was sharp."

"Well! I-It was when we were learning about peanut squares in science class..."

"Punnett squares, dear."

"Right! And it made me think about you and dad and how you both have brown hair. And it reminded me of my friend Susie cuz her parents are both super ginger but she's adopted so she's got dark black hair? And I thought that maybe I might be adopted too."

Finally even Rose was starting to laugh softly, though she did attempt to hide her amusement with her hand over her mouth. "Well, you were half-right at least, and that's still pretty impressive even for an adult!"

Sera gave the girl a winning smile as she popped up to sit next to her on the couch, grabbing one of the cookies for herself. "James was your real dad, one hundred percent."

Her daughter's face fell as the cogs in her head began turning once again. She really could be too quick for her own good sometimes. "So... you left? Can I ask what happened?"

"Of course you can ask," she confirmed for her, before Rachel got too worried. "After you were born, I remember looking down at you and... and you were just so beautiful and amazing. In that moment, I was so scared, because I knew you were meant for good things, big things. And I was so scared that I would screw that up for you. And I got really really sad. So I told your dad that I needed to go away so I didn't accidentally make your life bad, and that he needed to marry someone who could teach you to be an awesome woman. And he did just that..." That was as close to the truth as one could get without entering 'childhood scarring information' territory. But it was obvious that the most honest parts of the explanation were hitting Sera pretty hard, even after all these years. Her eyes were more glazed now, shimmering slightly. Even Rose couldn't help but sniffle just a little.

"But now, even I'm getting a little bit nervous about taking care of you. And since Sera wants to be closer to you, I thought it might be nice for her to stay with us for a while. How does that sound?" Granted, the decision was technically made without Rachel. But it still felt like the right thing to do, to ask her how she felt.

Rachel looked up at the woman who actually birthed her, then across the room at the woman who had been her mother for so long, then back and forth a few more times before breaking out in a big smile. "I think... that would be nice."