OK... so, welcome to my first All My Children story! I've been watching back Minx's storyline on YouTube in recent days and was inspired to write my own continuation of how I think things might have gone at the end of the show's TV run, rather than the *spoiler* mess which Prospect Park made of our beloved Minx.

I live in the UK and was never able to watch full episodes of AMC; what I know of the show's other characters comes simply from the Minx compilations available on YouTube and some (pretty confusing) character biographies which I've read online, so I apologise in advance if I make some mistakes with regards to some characters or simply don't include others. I'd love to watch past episodes in full but I'm not sure that's possible.

But, regardless, here's my take on the shooting and its aftermath. I'm not sure how long I want this to be yet but it will focus on Bianca & Marissa; I may not be able to update for a while due to crazy real-life stuff at the moment but I will do my best. I hope you like it!

JR Chandler's fingers shook as he cradled the loaded gun in his hands, overcome by a torrent of turmoil which was raging inside his alcohol-riddled brain. He could hear the voices of Marissa, of Bianca, of Krystal, telling him that he could never see AJ again. That his son would be kept away from him… his jaw shook with fury at the thought.

But he also heard his mother, and Tad, begging him to control his anger. Sweat poured down JR's quivering brow as he tried, and failed, as he so often had, to suppress his fury. He was too much his father's son. He had failed AJ, he had failed Babe, and he had lost everything. He had nothing left to lose.

Turning back to the gap in the panel behind him, JR watched as Tad gave some kind of speech about Pine Valley. It was all just a deafening buzz to JR, unable to compete with the pounding of blood in his ears – that is, until Tad mentioned those who were no longer with them. Babe surged to the front of JR's mind and he recoiled, salty tears threatening to spill over. He brushed them away angrily, as Babe's voice filled his head;

"Please, baby. Don't do this. Please."

Gripping the gun so tightly that he could feel the metal imprinting itself on his skin, JR grunted; whether it was in physical or emotional pain, he could barely tell.

"You're dead," he told the voice in his head, "I'm sorry that I couldn't save you. But I can save AJ."

He felt logic fighting back at him so he closed it off, Babe's desperate pleas fading away until all JR was aware of was himself, the gun he was holding and the gaggle of people in the room just a few feet away from him. The room where he had once been so happy…

Gathering his resolve, JR raised the gun to the gap in the wall and, quivering, found his target, his finger tightening around the trigger…

Marissa smiled as Tad made his speech. She'd only lived in Pine Valley for a few years, but already it felt like she'd been part of its crazy community for decades. Her free hand shifted slightly to find Bianca's, and her smile grew even wider as she felt the other woman's fingers interlock with her own. The past couple of months had been perfect… well, almost perfect.

Just a few minutes ago, she had felt a growing sense of unease at Scott's insistence that he had not texted her about attending this gathering. Her instincts told her that something wasn't quite right... what with all that she'd been through in the past through months with JR and the custody of AJ, a feeling of unexplainable dread had begun to form in the pit of her stomach. But, Bianca had sensed her unease, taken her hand, given her that amazing smile and told her not to worry. Now, she was so caught up in Tad's emotional reminisces that the feeling was far from her mind.

"And again, I always like to think that," Tad went on, a reflective smile on his face, "no matter what; the family, and all my children… you're always with me." He raised his glass. "So here's how. What d'you say?"

A fond round of applause broke out as Marissa raised her glass with the rest. She could see Bianca's smile out of the corner of her eye and it only made her own smile even wider.

Adam raised his hand as he moved to the front of the group of gathered families, friends, neighbours and even the occasional nemesis. "I have one more thing, one more thing, I would like to add, to make these festivities perfect."

A slight hush fell over the room and Marissa felt Bianca squeeze her hand fondly. The two of them turned their attention to the recently-returned Chandler twin.

"Brooke…" Adam reached into his jacket and Marissa felt Bianca's hand squeeze tighter; "I've been holding on to this for quite some time, unable to, uh… offer it to you. But, um, now, with all my heart, ask your permission," he raised aloft a ring, which caught the light and sent a sparkle across the room, "to put this on your finger."

Marissa looked at Bianca and found her girlfriend looking right back at her, the same cheesy grin on her face. An unspoken thought passed between the two of them; they knew that one day, they would be making the same commitment to eachother. They practically already had; moving in together was certainly planned as a permanent, non-reversible arrangement in both of their minds, she knew.

As she turned back to watch the elderly couple, she saw Scott staring at a section of the ceiling with a distracted expression of his face. She barely registered the blip in the room's contented bubble, and returned her attention to Adam and Brooke.

Scott, on the other hand, was beginning to feel the same unease that had begun welling up in Marissa earlier. His eyes had followed the glint of Stuart's ring across the ceiling until it caught something on the opposite wall. The resultant flash of light was gone in a second, but it was enough to divert Scott's attention. And as he looked more intently, he realised that the panel was not level with the others, as it should be. He'd spent so long making certain that the nearby gatehouse was perfect that this bothered him; he hadn't ever noticed this anomaly before, and he'd been in this room hundreds of times.

Scott shook himself slightly; he was meant to be celebrating the miraculous fact that his adoptive father was still alive, for goodness sake; why was he thinking about the panelling? But he couldn't get away from the feeling that something was somehow very wrong. His eyes began to slowly trace the displaced panel from ceiling to floor, trying to work out why he felt so uneasy all of a sudden. Was there something he was forgetting?

Erica Kane bursting into the room dramatically drew Scott's focus for a couple of seconds, as she restored some drama to the occasion in true Erica Kane fashion. Still distracted, Scott raked his eyes up and down the wall panel – and saw something move.

Scott was now feeling alarm bells beating furiously against the inside of his head, alerting him to something which he couldn't quite make sense of. Squinting, he saw more movement in the slim gloom of the crack – and whatever it was once again caught the light.

Scott's blood ran cold as he realised that it was the shaft of a gun.

Everything clicked into place in the space of a second; he knew exactly where it was pointing, who was standing there, and he had a pretty good idea of who was wielding the weapon. But as he surged to his left in what felt like slow motion, letting out a shout of warning, he saw Marissa fall as he reached her. The shot rang out across the room with a blood-curdling finality, as a deathly shadow loomed over the Chandler mansion.

Sorry for the cliff-hanger. Reviews would be hugely appreciated, and they motivate me to write faster. Just sayin'... :P