I don't own young justice. I'm back people all caught up with school after my operation and now I have time to write again, Whoo! am I the only one that's excited? If you happen to be reading Adjusting I will post the new chapter on sunday.

Artemis Crock had three big problems, Problem numero uno she was majorly hungover and had a big meeting regarding the biggest case of her career in 20 minutes on the other side of Manhattan, problem number 2 was lying in bed next to the particularly delicious redhead from downstairs that I'd been flirting with since he'd moved in a few weeks ago, problem number three she'd three missed calls from my sister; getting any sort of contact from her sister was never a good thing it was usually because she needed money or a place to crash for a few days.

She could blame Zatanna for two of her problems, the other one was a result of her parents deciding that they should have a kid before Artemis.

It all started last night she had come home from work as she always did with a bag full of paper work (one of the many joys of being the youngest partner at a top law firm), she'd worked until the numbers and letters on the page had started to swim, so she's wondered into the kitchen for a glass of water, possibly wine, she hadn't quite decided. Zatanna had just got home too, unusual because even though the girls shared the penthouse usually only Artemis was in it, as Zatanna was often away with her magic show or staying at her on and off again boyfriend Dick's apartment a few clocks away. Anyway Artemis had been muttering about numbers swimming as she's walked into the kitchen and Zatanna told her "It's the first sign of madness you know."

Artemis saw the ice cream and bottle of wine on the side, this could only mean 2 things: one, she was thinking about her dad, or her and Dick had broken up (again), either way it ended up with us drinking far too many mojitos, and from then on it got a little fuzzy, I'm not quite sure how I got here, maybe I was drunk checking my mail on the way back from the bar again(It's the only time I really remember unless I'm waiting for a package) and ran into cute downstairs neighbour guy, that I still don't know the name of.

Problem number 4, I keep on referring to myself in the third person, I gotta stop that shit. I peel back the covers and get dressed quickly pulling on a purple blouse and a black and white tribal print pencil skirt. Cute. downstairs neighbour guy woke up as I was pulling on my shoes, I looked at my watch 15 minutes I am not going to make this meeting on time. Fuck.

"In a hurry?" He asks with that, really sexy, gravelly sleepy voice guys have in the morning.

"I've got a meeting in 15 minutes, sorry to run out on you like this." I say tearing apart my bedside table looking for my phone where the hell did drunk me put it?

"Looking for this?" He says waving the offending object in the air.

"Yes. Thank you."

"Hold on, two seconds." He says. I look at him incredulously for a second, he's taking a selfie. On my phone.

"Yeah that's a nice one." He says tapping the screen a few times, "There now you've got my number and my photo."

"Thanks," I say a little sarcastically making his grin grow even further, I couldn't help but smile back "there's OJ and a few cereal bars in the kitchen 'Tanna and I need to do go grocery shopping feel free to have one." Somehow I get the feeling this wasn't going to be a typical one night stand, I mean I was offering him food, does this mean I like him.

I pull my bag and papers along as I sprint to make my 8:30 meeting, because according to my boss Mornings are the most productive time for humans, he made that sound like he wasn't, maybe he was a robot Mr smith certainly acted like it. But let me tell you my mornings are never productive late nights were a habit I got into as a teenager, after having all night study sessions and archery team practice both in conjunction was how I got a full ride to Stanford on early admission leaving my family behind. Not that they were much of a family anyway, I think as I use a chopstick from the coffee table as a hair clip.

I sprint into the glass walled meeting room, full of execs, I was a junior partner at a big law firm, and I had the copy of the folder we needed for the case. I'm not going to lie I probably looked like a mess, no makeup in sight, face red from running six blocks because the stupid subway was closed, and my second day hair was in a messy chignon on top of my head, I really hope they didn't notice it was a chopstick from the blue devil Chinese on fifth avenue, the blue stripes were kind of give away. A look from the ever disapproving Diana prince at the end of the table proved otherwise.

I inwardly groaned. This merger would be the death of me, this meeting was getting no one anywhere, I wanted to bang my head on the glass table but didn't because it would probably break, we'd been sitting her for over an hour and the meeting was a deadlock and Diana was glaring at me mercilessly.

A knock at the door took attention away from my makeupless face and dirty hair. It was Megan my dutiful secretary, she's great and has some, thing going on with the mail guy Connor, how the guy was allowed a dog in the mail room I don't know. "Um I'm really sorry to interrupt, but Miss Crock, we have a situation." She says, acting professional in front of the senior partners, I have to stop myself from snorting at being called Miss Crock, I tell everyone to call me Artemis. I hate my last name but I just can't bring myself to change it, I need to remake the crock name into something good.

"Can't it wait, Secretary?" Princess up her ass otherwise known as Diana Prince, an example of nepotism at its finest. She's also the rudest woman on the planet. Mr Kent narrowed his eyes, at Diana, he clearly wasn't impressed at his fellow senior partner, and Mr Smith stayed as stoic as ever.

"Thank you Megan. Artemis, you can have a quick recess to deal with whatever seems to be the issue may be, I'm sure we can cope without you for a little while." Mr Kent tells me smiling.

'Thank you.' I mouth as I run out the door. He winks as I run out of the door.

"Megan what is the problem? What's so important that you needed to drag me out of my meeting?" I ask as she drags me through the office to my small corner office that overlooks the Manhattan skyline.

"Um, do see the child sitting on the couch?"

"What? Are you sure your oven isn't leaking carbon monoxide?"

"Turn around." she says unamused, I spin around to see a kid of about 7/8 on the love seat in my office.

"Holy Shit! Why is there a kid in my office?"

"I don't know, I walked in five minutes ago to get the Lomaris file, and she was just sitting there. Oh and your sisters left you like a hundred messages, she's really trying to get a hold of you." She tells me. My eyes flicker between Megan and the kid.

"She won't talk to me I don't know how she got past security, I don't know how she got past me, and I don't know how long she's been here. Maybe you could try to talk to her?" she suggests.

"Kids don't like me." I tell her bluntly.

"Try, she's got to be here for a reason."

"Fine." I submit, I crouch down in front of the little red head, barely balancing on the front of my black louboutins, "Hey sweetie, what's your name?" I ask her. She shakes her head. If she's a street kid she'll be afraid of the police and child services. "Look, I'm going to level with you kid, if you don't tell me your name I can't help you and then I'll have to call the police." Her eyes widen and she shakes her head.

"No you don't want me to call the police or no you don't have a name?"

No response, I look around looking for anything that might give me a clue as to her ID, but kids don't really carry ID's with them. I see her little Minnie mouse rucksack with an envelope poking out of it, I recognise the writing, it's Jade's writing, and my name's on the front.

"My name's Artemis. Is this for me?" I ask she looks at me with her wide grey eyes peeking up from behind her red fringe, she nods. I rip open the envelope, my eyes skim over the page;

Artemis,

Congratulations you're an aunt, it's a little late seeing as she's seven and I've not seen you in nearly 10 years (It took me forever to track you down.), and seeing as you wouldn't return any of my messages I took drastic action. I see you're shot big shot lawyer, congrats on that. Anyway I'm in some trouble so I need you to take Lian (your niece) for a while, you're the only one I can trust with her. There's another letter in her bag that you need to read in private, I wouldn't recommend reading it in front of your nosey assistant

Love Jade

P.S. she's allergic to peanuts.

Great, Jade great, thank you, I have the biggest case of my career at the moment and you decide to dump your kid on me. Thank you such sisterly love, I hope you burn in hell jade. That explains how the kid got through security.

"Artemis?" Megan says waving a hand in front of my face, I guess I'd been standing staring into space. "What does the note say?"

"She's mine." I say absently, "Well not mine, my sisters, although this is pretty drastic even for her. I don't need this right now."I say massaging my temples, Okay Artemis, breathe, thin. "Alright Call Zatanna tell her to come and meet me, I'm going to take all of my work home with me, can you pack it up for me and put it in my bag, I'll go talk to Mr Kent. Lian, kiddo, Megan's my good friend she's going to look after you for about 20 minutes maximum while I sort some things out, Okay?" I say after a few moments.

She nods again.

"I'll pack up your stuff." She tells me.

"Thank you Megan."

"Hey Lian, do you like cookies? I made some yesterday."

A small, timid smile creeps up on the little girl's face, it's half of Jades Cheshire grin.

I walk back to the conference room. I'd talk to Mr Kent, he'd be fine once I'd explained the situation. I'd take some personal leave, I was due to use up some vacation days anyway.

"Mr Kent can I talk to you, for a moment." I say poking my head through the door. The broad shouldered man looked puzzled, but follows me out telling everyone to take a quick recess to go get coffee or whatever.

"Are you okay Artemis? I've told you before its okay to call me Clark."

"Can I take the rest of the day off? Please?"

"What happened?" Blue eyes filled with concern.

"Um, what do you know about my family situation." Mr Kent was my boss he'd red my file.

"Uh, you don't talk to anyone in your family, both your parents are alive or at least they were when I hired you because that's what you told me, and you've a sister. How is this relevant?" He asks as I lead him to my office.

I point to Lian through the glass wall, "My sister dropped her off this morning without telling me. She's been trying to get a hold of me, I just ignored the calls, so Jade being Jade went to drastic measures."

"Woah."

"Yeah, woah isn't the word that I almost said in front of a 7 year old when I read the letter."

"Have a few days off Artemis, trust me you'll need it, I know I did when I found out about-" He stops midsentence, "Just take some compassionate leave, I'm sure we can function without you for a few days." He says looking shell shocked.

"Thanks Clark, Megan's packing up my work for today, so I'll do some paperwork from home and get it either messengered or walk it over later."

"Take your time, it's fine."

"Thank you."

"Have fun. Alright recess is over, we all need to return to the conference room." He calls out as he turns around and walking back to the room full of uncomfortable chairs.

"The leave is cleared at least for a few days, have you talked to Zatanna?"

"She's on her way in now. She told someone she's borrowing the Bentley."

That'll be Dick, she loves to drive his Bentley, although she scarcely is allowed to drive it meaning, the miniature billionaire playboy is probably still half asleep. Dick Greyson took after his adoptive fathers past tendencies before he settled down with his long term on and off girlfriend. I met Dick when I was in high school, I'd got him out of a tough situation when he'd got lost in the slums, in response his father had given me the precious Wayne foundation scholarship to Gotham Academy, where'd joined the Archery team and got an extremely good education.

I owed a lot to Dick, and eventually he'd met my best friend Zatanna when she'd been in town with her dad after they'd gone on tour, and they always made sure to stay in whichever city my family was in for a few weeks, once when my dad had gone to jail for about 30 days I'd gone on tour with them. Dick and Zatanna had started their weird friends with benefits relationship back in high school occasionally going along calling each other one another's boyfriend and girlfriend, respectively.

I held out a hand to Lian pulling her off the love seat in my office, we walked out the glass door to Megan's little officey desk area, and before you ask what's with all the glass, Clark believes having transparent offices that can be looked into shows transparency in our law firm, how we are exactly what we say we are, it's symbolism basically means Clarks off his nut, but at least he's nice.

"Artemis, I've packed up the Lomaris file, and do you want to take the Jones file and the Hawkins file? Or do you just want me to file them for you to sort out another day?"

"File them for another day." I say absent mindedly watching Lian out of the corner of my eye, Megan had given her the bear from her desk and she was playing with it, making it walk around the room, my guess is she was pretending the bear was a spy from all the forward rolls and back flips.

"Somebody call for a ride? " Zatanna calls as the lift dings. He eyes zero in on the kid, "Did I travel forward in time or something, because I know you screwed that sexy redhead from downstairs last night, and I'm really bad at biology but I don't think things happen that quickly." She says pointing to Lian.

"Very funny." I tell her, she smiles at me.

"Is that the sexy guy from the mailbox?" Megan asks, I nod at her briefly and she smiles happily.

"But seriously who's kid is that?" she asks me.

"Jade's, I'll explain in the car. Let's get going, before Diana finds out that I'm leaving work early." I say walking over to Lian, picking up her bag and holding her hand.

"Oh is her royal majesty in a bad mood?" Zatanna asks.

"The worst, she's so rude." Megan told her.

"Lian, what do you say to Megan for letting you borrow her teddy bear?" I ask the seven year old as she hands the teddy back to Megan.

"Thank you." She says quietly, it's the first time I've heard her speak, she's got a quiet voice, smooth but still childlike.

I take her hand and lead her into the elevator with Zatanna.

"So let's take her back to apartment, then I can go grocery shopping after we make a list of what Lian might need. That way we can show Lian her home for the time being and I can get Dick to come with me. Plus you know he'll want to see this." She flashes a shit eating grin at me before exiting the elevator, sauntering out the doors of the building to the car that had been parked haphazardly out front blocking the traffic. Only Zatanna parks like that it's a miracle she passed her driver's test.

"You know most best friends would be more supportive and helpful when they find out they've been put in charge of their seven year old niece that they only found out about this morning."

"I'm being supportive, in my own way. Come on Arty it'll be a laugh you'll see."

Why do I get the feeling I won't be laughing anytime soon.