"McNab?" Rachel asked as she opened the door to find the tall detective on the other side.

"Hi Rachel, grab your siblings, we've got to go." He said solemnly as he wrung his hands together. She started to ask him a question, but he held up a hand to stop her. "Just call them."

"Rebecca! Squirt!" She yelled up the stairs, still searching McNab for answers. Something was wrong, but what?

"What's up Sis?" Isaac asked as his head peeked around the corner. "McNab, what's wrong?" At nine, Isaac was easily the best reader of people in the family—a gift he often used to his advantage, but it came in handy at times.

Rebecca appeared behind him and urged him to walk down the stairs as she tried to make sense of the situation. "Buzz… Who? Who is it?"

"Your dad." The detective sighed, staring at his toes and Rachel's heart fell out of her chest. Something happened to Dad…

"He's…?" She couldn't even finish the question, couldn't let herself think the thought.

"He's been shot. He's in surgery now, your mom wanted me to bring you three down to the hospital."

She moved on auto-pilot, grabbing her shoes, phone, and a couple pillows from the couch—she still remembered uncomfortably waiting in the hospital room for Rebecca to get out of surgery with her appendix and she had no doubt a gunshot wound would take longer.

"McNab…it was bad, wasn't it?" She heard Isaac ask, he never was good at waiting, he was always moving forward, trying to fix things as fast as possible, sometimes even before they broke.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to shove her arm into her coat but it wasn't moving. And Buzz's lack of response was killing her. She punched her arm in the sleeve again and again, frustrated by the fact that she couldn't see anymore when she felt Rebecca's hand on her shoulder. "You can tell us Buzz. Please."

"He's in surgery, that's all I know." He repeated and she felt Rebecca reach for her hand, which she gladly took.


McNab took shortcuts he didn't know existed on the way to the hospital, lights flashing the whole time. He sat between his sisters in the back seat, desperately hoping everything was okay. Dad had been shot before, he often regaled them with the story of his epic leap to the top of Lassie's car. He had to be okay. Dad was always okay—he'd probably just make some movie reference or something, right?

"Let's make bets on what movie reference he'll make." He said softly, breaking the silence that overwhelmed them.

"Bubba—" Becca started but he interrupted.

"No, you know he's going to make one. Please, let's…let's.." He clenched his fists together and blinked rapidly—he was the man, he needed to stay brave for his sisters, even if they were older.

"Alright Squirt, you go first." Rachel said shakily and he thought hard.

It was a little unfair, Rachel and Becca were teenagers and allowed to watch way more movies than he could, but there had to be something he could think of. "Ummm, doesn't he get shot in Die Hard?"

Rachel and Becca both gasped and looked at him but Becca spoke first. "No way Dad let you watch that!"

"More like no way Mom let you watch that! Have you seriously seen Die Hard?" Rachel jumped in.

"Uhh."

"Oh Bubba, you're so dead. Seriously, when did you see it?" Becca prodded again and he saw just how much she looked like Mom. Aside from the eyelashes and age gap, they really could be twins.

"I snuck downstairs while Dad and Uncle Gus were watching. You can't tell Mom or Dad, they didn't catch me." He pleaded and both his sister's ears perked up.

"Seriously?" Rachel asked, now more curious than mad, "We've been trying to sneak down without getting caught for years, how did you do it?"

"Well it was at the old house and my—"

"The townhouse?" Becca interrupted, "So you were, what, five?"

He broke into a smile that he knew gave him away and got slapped in the arm from both sides. "I didn't get that there were bad words, I just thought it was explosions and stuff. That's why I got sent to the principal's office in Kindergarten."

"No," Rachel gasped, "you did not say that to Mrs. Johnson…" He let another grin reach his lips and both girls gasped and put they're hands to their mouth. "No wonder Mom and Dad wouldn't tell us why you got in trouble

"Kids, we're here." McNab said from the front and all at once he remembered where they were going and why.


Isaac's hand was sweaty in hers, just like it was the first time they went on a rollercoaster and he was so scared he was going to fall out. She squeezed her baby brother's hand and looked over at Rachel who then nodded and likely squeezed his other hand. Isaac always tried to be the bravest of them, but he was scared. Who was she kidding, they all were scared.

Buzz led them quietly to the waiting room and the second she saw Mom, she felt tears stinging her eyes. She hadn't seen Mom look that defeated since before her father died—the life and fun that normally lit up her eyes was dim and Rebecca felt dread well up in her own stomach.

"Mom?" Rachel broke the silence first and their mom looked up and tried to muster a smile.

"I'm so glad you're here. Thanks Buzz." She said softly.

"How is he?" She asked as she released Isaac's tugging hand.

Before Mom could reply, Isaac had crossed the waiting room and crawled on to her lap—something he hadn't done in years, much to Mom's disappointment. She wrapped her arms around him and her smile grew a little stronger as she replied. "GSW to the chest, just missed the heart but there was a lot of bleeding. He's still in surgery.

She and Rachel had sat down on opposite sides of the mother-son pair and unsure of what to say, she wrapped her arms around her family and felt Rachel follow suit.

"Where are Uncle Gus, Lassie, Gramps and Nanna?" Rachel asked after a while.

"Aunt Nicole is at a conference so Uncle Gus had to go take Krista and Bryan and to their tap lesson. He offered to stay but I told him to go, all he was doing was worrying here. Carlton was off duty today so he and Carol took Andrew, Sam, and Ellie to DisneyLand. And Gramps and Nanna are on their way, they should be here any minute." Mom rattled and she just tightened her hold on her family.

Dad would have to be okay. There was no other option. He was Dad—life of the party, adventurer extraordinaire—no bullet could stop him. "He'll be okay, he's got to be okay." She mumbled as she laid her head on Mom's shoulder, glad that at least they could worry together.


She couldn't believe how big Isaac had gotten. He'd refused to sit on her lap for over a year now and in that time he had only gotten more gangly and big. But as she rubbed his back and the girls arms, she couldn't help but be glad for the weight of love they provided. She thought back to the last time she had been in a waiting room—ten years, almost to the day—with 5 year old Rachel clinging to her as Reb had her appendix removed. So much had changed since that day and as she held her kids close, she realized just how blessed and amazing they had been. Her three kids were there, so full of love, so full of good, and she couldn't be more proud of the people they were becoming. Even the girls, at 15 they weren't moody or vindictive or any of that. They had their days of course, but compared to so many other kids, compared to herself even at their age, they seemed carefree and happy all the time. It's was like, as long as they had each other, nothing else mattered. They didn't worry about being anyone but themselves because they loved each other and that's who they really cared about so instead of suffering under peer pressure, they embraced high school with an ease she envied. And Isaac—all she had contributed to that boy were his eyes as far as she could tell, though as she felt one of his hot tears hit her shoulder, she realized his warmth and sensitivity—though often masked by jokes like his father—was more readily shown than Shawn's.

Shawn…she had felt the bullet herself when it entered his chest—ripping out her heart as he fell with a look of surprise across his face. Buzz, her partner for the day, had taken down the shooter with a gracefulness she didn't expect from the normally clumsy man, and she had made it to Shawn just before he lost consciousness—though, not until after he had made some goofy remark about her being an angel.

And now he was in surgery.

The entire ambulance ride over, she had tried to remain calm and composed, but it was nearly impossible with her husband bleeding out in front of her. He was still the love of her life, their love had only grown stronger each day of the past ten years, and she didn't know what she'd do without him. But she couldn't think that way. Reb was right, he'd get through this, he had to, Shawn could get through anything.

"Mrs. Spencer?" A nurse called as she walked through the swinging doors.

"Yes." She replied, unable to say anything else.

"He's out of surgery, he lost a lot of blood, but we were able to patch him up and he should be just fine, but we'll monitor him closely to be safe. You can see him once he wakes up."

"Thank you. Oh thank you." She replied, clinging to Isaac even tighter as the girls got up and hugged the nurse before piling on to her. The nurse smiled and nodded before walking away and Juliet just cried tears of relief as she held her children close.


He felt like he'd been shot. Which, of course, he had, but nothing really described the pain of getting shot. Not that he felt terribly in pain right now, just a dull throbbing in his chest, but as he followed the IV in his arm to the bag that read 'Morphine', he realized that his pain was being well managed.

"Jules." He groaned. He couldn't wipe the image of fear in her eyes from his mind. It was why he fought so hard to hang on, he couldn't leave her. Or the girls. Or Isaac. His life had become so much about them and so little about himself, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

"She's in the waiting room with your kids. How are you feeling Mr. Spencer?" A nurse asked as she recorded his vitals off the machine."

"Never better…" She gave him a disbelieving look and he revised his answer. "I feel like I've been shot and on pain killers. 3 of 10 or so. And call me Shawn, Mr. Spencer is my dad."

"Glad to hear it Shawn." She replied with a smile before logging off the computer. "Would you like me to send your wife in?"

"Can you send the kids in too? I promise I'll be good!" He gave her his most winning smile and she eventually sighed—which he took as a good sign.

"Alright, but only for a couple minutes. And no getting worked up."

"Scout's honor!"

The nurse smiled again and left, only to reappear a minute later with his beautiful family.

"Daddy!" All three kids said as they walked through the door and cautiously approached for hugs. He was almost never 'Daddy' anymore, unless Isaac slipped or the girls really wanted something, but it warmed his aching heart to hear it from all of them.

"How do you feel Sweetie?" Jules asked and he thought he had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.

"A bit like Olaf." He answered.

"Dad, he was impaled." Rach replied dramatically and he smiled—he still remembered her, just two years old, walking around the house bumping in to things and saying 'I've been impaled' just like her favorite snowman. Even now, he knew it was one of her favorite movies, though she and Becks pretended to not love Disney as much as they still did.

"Wow, Bub, you were totally wrong about the film reference." Becks said with a nudge to Isaac as Jules crawled into bed with him, careful to not disturb the various tubes hanging off him.

"What was your reference Ice?" He asked as he wrapped his right arm around his wife and wiped a tear off her cheek with his left—the little bit of pain it caused was worth it to let her know he was okay.

"Uhhh, nothing." His son guiltily replied before shooting a dirty look at his sister.

"Come on Son." He said, but winked at his kids, whatever they were hiding he'd let slide for now. "How's this, I'll give whoever sneaks into the kids' unit and makes it back here with either Sorry or Life twenty bucks."

"Shawn…" Juliet chided half-heartedly—he knew she was glad he was as obnoxious as ever.

"Alright…no money bribes…just my ice cream!" Juliet lifted her head to give a somewhat stern look and he shot her a winsome smile. "No, you're right, ice cream is too delicious to share. I guess that means it's time for Stories with the Spencers—kids only, Rach, you start." So Shawn held his wife as tightly as he could and listened to his three beautiful children compose a story sentence by sentence, amazed at all he had to live for and incredibly grateful to those that had saved him so he could enjoy every minute.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I'm back again! A little bit of drama this time but still a happy ending!

cac0066…I'm so glad you actually liked the epilogue of SC because honestly I was a little worried that you hated it! I still go back and read it every once and a while and really, I love it. I'm impressed with myself, I never thought I'd be able to write anything like that… And I'm glad you like the first chapter of this too! This one is a lot of building the family relationships.

MaggieJaggie…sorry this took a while, but hopefully you like it!

Potato…I'm glad you were excited to see this (and recognized that it was me!)! I do love this family so much and I love writing them!

Cupcake…another one-shot! Hopefully this is another good one! {#}

To the rest of you, keep writing reviews! I've been really busy lately and will remain really busy for a while-plus I go on vacation next week which either means I'll have lots of time to write or none, so hang with me and I'll try to update things as quickly as I can! Read and review! (Also, if there are any moments that you would particularly like to see written out, let me know and I'll try to make that happen! They can be at any point in the 50 years.)