A/N: I wasn't even going to post this story, but it just came to me and I kept writing and writing until suddenly I had a pretty long chapter on my hands, so I thought, why not? This goes along with my other story, "Life After," and my work in progress, "On a Perfect Day." The stories aren't exactly connected, but they concern the same group of people, including my version of Amy Lindley, Jack, Doug, Amy's boyfriend Andy, and her friend Ben. For the background story, please read "Life After." More to come on "Perfect Day." Thanks in advance for reading and reviewing! I love feedback! =)

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She could hear them talking downstairs, and had a sudden, intense urge to climb out her second-story window and escape to the safety of Andrew's house. But she knew better. She'd have to come back eventually, and it was best to face the music now than get them even more worked up by making them worry. She sighed heavily and lay facedown on her bed. Oh, this sucked. It was bad enough that her dad had found the ecstasy in her backpack. It was worse that she'd had to lie and tell him she hadn't tried it, and it was just about unbearable that he'd shared the news with Doug, who was apt to explode from anger. She could remember the lectures from way back when she was a little kid, hearing about some "punk" he'd taken to jail for drug possession, the party he'd busted for marijuana...("Amy, I'd better not ever hear about you or your friends trying any of this stuff, you understand?") She could only imagine how he'd take this news.

Heavy footsteps on the stairs. Her stomach clenched. Ridiculous, she told herself, what can he do to me? He's not going to throw me in jail. Still, she jumped when her door swung open a moment later. Dougie's eyes were icy blue and angry.

"I guess Daddy told you," she said, trying to keep her voice light and casual, as if she wasn't concerned with his wrath.

He strode over to her bed, pulled her up by the elbow, and shook her slightly. "What the hell is the matter with you?" he demanded. "I knew you were testing the waters lately, Amy, but I didn't think you were stupid. Where did you get this?" He held up the infamous plastic zipper bag that contained three pink pills. She stared at him defiantly and refused to answer. He tightened his grip on her arm. "Tell me who you got it from."

Jack appeared in the doorway, watching them with a slightly worried look on his face, and Amy glanced from Doug to him, feeling betrayed. "Why did you have to tell him?" she demanded angrily. "Couldn't you handle this one solo?"

Doug shook her again, not hard, but enough to refocus her attention on him. "You've got five seconds to tell me who you got this from, or I start making phone calls. Official ones," he added threateningly.

"I don't know, okay? Just some guy at school!"

"Amy..."

"Honestly!"

"Is it that Chambers kid? It is, isn't it?"

"No! Of course not!" She knew immediately that she had answered too quickly, her eyes had registered a second of panic and she had given herself away. The last thing Ben needed was more trouble from her dad. He had given her the pills, but not willingly. She thought sickly of the protest he'd put up when she'd asked for them. It wasn't his fault.

Doug held her gaze for a few long moments, then released her arm. "That's what I thought," he said. He looked at Jack. "Didn't I tell you that kid was bad news?"

Jack sighed and looked at Amy, who refused to meet his eyes. She had begun to cry. "He didn't force it on her, though," he said unhelpfully. "Amy makes her own decisions."

Sticking to her earlier lie, Amy spoke up, "I didn't! I didn't take them, I just held on to them."

"Get dressed, then," Doug said suddenly, clapping his hands together. "Come on down to the station, and we'll do a drug test and make sure you're remembering correctly. Come on, let's go."

"No." Amy was irritated to hear that a slight whine had crept into her tone.

"No? Why not? If you're telling the truth, what've you got to worry about?"

"Daddy!" Amy cried, looking to Jack for support. His stare was unwavering, cold. It scared her to see him looking at her like that. "For God's sake, it's just a little X! My mom did it, didn't she?" she blurted out.

Jack's mouth fell open. "Who the hell told you that?"

"Come on, Dad, I've heard about the rave you guys went to, when Aunt Andie got hold of a pill that belonged to my mom and took it. You didn't talk to Mom for days because of it. But that almost killed Andie because of the reaction with her prescription drugs. There's nothing wrong with trying something like this just one time. It's usually harmless."

Doug and Jack gaped at her. "So did you try it or not?" Jack asked.

"Yes, okay?! I did. I tried it one time. Kill me."

Doug closed his eyes briefly. "Don't tempt me."

"You lied to me?" Jack said in a sharp voice that was a strange contrast to the usual calm, light tone he used when addressing his daughter.

Amy locked eyes with her dad. "You forced me to. How was I supposed to win in a situation like that?"

He rolled his eyes. "This is not about winning, and you know it."

"Well then it's not about lying either, is it?" she countered.

"Stop being such a smart ass! You're not in any position to start digging yourself in deeper."

But Amy, queen of quick temper, found that she couldn't stop. She was insulted and worried and hurt by their anger and coldness, especially Jack, who had always been the pushover, the one who could be counted on to forgive and forget and understand whenever she did something wrong. It wasn't as if she had murdered someone, so why was he, her daddy, looking at her like this, like she was a stranger?

"Can we get on with it?" she asked, knowing that she was pushing her luck but not caring. "What's my sentence? Am I grounded or under arrest or disowned or what? Should I pack my bags? Head to the orphanage?"

"I'm warning you, Amy. Don't push me right now." Jack's voice was weary, and he ran a distracted hand through his dark hair.

"Just tell me how long I'm grounded for."

"Right now? Till your eighteenth birthday."

"Dad, this isn't funny."

"Do you see me laughing at ALL?"

Doug chimed in. "You're lucky I'm not handling this the way I handle any other kid I find with drugs on them, and haul your butt down to lockup. You should be thanking Jack for talking me out of that."

"I told you he wanted to arrest me!" Amy said hotly. "I bet you're sorry I'm only fifteen, aren't you, Dougie? If I was eighteen you could put me in jail and forget about me." She hated the whiny tone that kept coming out of her mouth but seemed powerless to stop it.

"I think we're both sorry you're fifteen. You weren't such a brat before you were," Doug snapped.

Jack took a deep breath. "Listen, Amy. I think we should put this on hold for now, before anyone goes too far. So you just hang out up here until we come back."

"You're making me stay in my room? How old am I, five?"

"You sure are acting like it."

"People tend to act with the level of maturity with which they're treated," she said infuriatingly.

"Have we considered boot camp?" Doug asked Jack, presumably kidding but without a trace of amusement in his voice.

"Stay here," Jack said, pointing a finger at her as they left the room.

Amy groaned with frustration and flopped back on her bed, seething. On impulse, she picked up the phone and dialed Ben's number. He answered on the second ring.

"It's me," she said. "We've got a problem."

"Lindley. What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"Not really. My dads found the pills in my bag."

Silence on the other end. Then, "Damn. How bad is it?"

"It's not good. Doug guessed it was you who gave them to me. I tried to tell him it wasn't, but I don't think he believed me. He's probably going to try to make trouble for you. I'm so sorry, Ben!"

"Yeah, well, I can handle him. You just worry about yourself. But I've got to say, Amy, I wish you'd listened to me in the first place. I told you it was stupid to try that crap. I wish I hadn't given them to you. Andy still doesn't know, does he?"

"If Andy knew, you'd know about it. He'd be at your door in five minutes flat waiting to punch your face in." Amy sighed heavily. "I think I'm the only kid in the world who never gets away with anything. You'd think the odds would be in my favor just once. Is that too much to ask?"

"Listen, you just hang in there. Agree with whatever they say; that's the safest path. Don't go shooting your mouth off like you usually do."

Amy smiled bitterly. "That's easier said than done."

They hung up and Amy lay on her bed for what seemed like hours, staring at the gradually darkening ceiling but unable to doze off. At last, there was a short rap on her door, and Jack came in again. He looked so tired, for a moment she felt sorry for him, sorry that she had hurt him like this. He pulled the chair out from her desk and sat down facing her. She stared at him impassively.

"Where's your sidekick?" she asked.

"I thought this might go more smoothly without him. I'm not in the mood to listen to you two sparring." He took a deep breath before continuing. "Listen, Amy, we're worried about you. Lately, you just haven't seemed like yourself. You seem so angry and sad, even when Andy's around. I want to know what the problem is. You used to talk to me; now you're so closed off, I don't know what's going on in your life. And now this." He gestured vaguely to indicate the whole situation. "I don't know what to do with you anymore."

"So I'm changing. Is that a crime?"

His eyes flashed at her. "No, young lady, but those pills in your backpack are. And I'll be damned if I'm just going to sit back and watch you try to self-destruct because you're going through some period of teenage rebellion."

"You don't know anything about my life."

"That's my point, Amy. I want to."

"No you don't, Dad. You want to control it, not be a part of it. That's not the same thing. I want to be a normal teenager, not the kid with two dads, not the sheriff's kid or the teacher's kid, or the kid whose mom died when she was a baby. I need to be myself without you and Dougie and Joey and Pacey constantly looking over my shoulder. You've sheltered me all my life. I'm trying to find out what the world is really about before it's too late."

"That's a lovely speech, Amy, but I'm not buying it. You can't talk your way out of this. You're fifteen years old; the world for you should be sheltered. And as long as you're living here, that's the way it's going to be."

"Maybe I shouldn't live here then."

"Too bad, that's not your choice."

They stared at each other across the room. Amy looked away first.

"What's the matter with you, Aim?" he asked her, his voice softening a bit. "What's going on in your head? What would make you do something so stupid as taking drugs?"

"I'm my mother's daughter," she said quietly. She jumped a little when Jack slapped his hand down on her desk.

"Stop it. This has nothing to do with her. Do you think she would condone your making the same mistakes she did?"

"I don't know. I didn't know her."

"Well I did. And let me tell you, she wouldn't have." He came over to the bed and sat down on the foot of it, facing her. "Please talk to me, baby. Tell me what's going on with you."

Amy shook her head. "Nothing."

"Well then, I guess I should just assume that this is all your friend Ben's fault. That's what Doug thinks. Is that it?"

"No," she said firmly. "It was all me."

"Would you talk to Joey? Could she help you?"

"No."

He sighed. "All right, I'll stop pushing you. But if you want to talk, you know I'm here, right? And so are Joey, Pacey, and, even though you don't believe this, Dougie. He loves you so much, babe. And he's just as worried about you as I am."

She turned her head so he wouldn't see the tears glistening in her eyes.

He cleared his throat and got back to business, realizing that he wouldn't get through to her now, in this mood. "As for the drug thing..."

"I won't do it again," she said.

"I want you to promise me that, Amy. Promise me this is the one and only time. Look at me." He put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up so that she had to meet his eyes.

"I promise, all right? Are we done here?"

"In a minute. You're grounded until further notice. That means no hanging out with Andy or Jessie. School and home, and work at the Icehouse when Pace needs you, that's your life for the next few weeks. And I'm warning you now that Ben had better not show his face around here for quite a while, not with Doug on the warpath."

"Fine."

"Amy, you know I love you, right?"

She nodded, and he stood there for a few moments watching her. When she didn't say anything else, he left the room. Amy rolled over on her stomach and began to cry.