A/N: Ohmigosh, you guys, I'm so excited! Four out of the five reviews I got were people saying that they read the first version! This feels like a reunion or something. Group hug! And new fans, I'm so happy to have you. I hope you like this chapter. Also, just a quick side note: the plot will move along a little slower because I'm not in such a rush, as I was the first time I wrote this. But I will try and be a good updater.

And the plot varies a little bit so watch for that! It isn't completely the same story, but I promise everything you loved about Justice will still be here.

Disclaimed.


"Daddy. Daaaaadeeeee. Daddy! Dad. Wake. UP!"

Derrick Harrington kept his eyes closed and stayed perfectly still. There was a distant hope floating in his tired mind that if he pretended to be asleep, Sydney would find something better to do.

She didn't.

"Daddy, please? I know you're awake."

He opened his eyes. It was just getting light out, the sun peeking through his shades. His little girl obstructed the light by standing over him, smiling.

"Good morning! Did I wake you up?"

He couldn't help but smile at her.

"Yup, sweetie, you did." He took another second to close his eyes again. How did she have so much energy? This early? Where did it come from?

"Daddy, it's almost time."

She was right, of course. Not ten seconds after saying that, his alarm clock began beeping, gradually getting faster and louder. Six am. Damn. As his hand came down to turn it off, Sydney began her usual excited rambling.

"Let's have pancakes. And waffles. And muffins, and cereal, and doughnuts, and cupcakes, and ice cream. . ."

"No, pumpkin."

"Why not, Daddy?"

"For the same reason it is every morning. You can't have ice cream in the morning, we don't have time for that other stuff, too much sugar in donuts. . ." He caught himself dozing off in his answer and shook his head to wake up. "Now get in the kitchen, I'll be in there in just a minute."

He took a minute to get his bearings, stretching and breathing deeply. It was early, way too early, and yet the exact same time he'd been getting up for years. It was going to be a typical Tuesday, which involved Sydney going to preschool and then daycare, and then his driver would get her delivered to his office around five, which would give him an hour before she started getting impatient and demanded that they go home.

When he finally made it to the kitchen, his coffeemaker was working away, as he set it to make his coffee at five fifty-five every morning. He poured himself a cup and added a bunch of sugar to it, taking a sip. Sydney peered at him curiously.

"Can I have some?" She gave him the look - big doe eyes, brown like his, and attempted to bat her eyelashes. It ended up looking like some fast blinking.

"No, sweetheart."

She frowned. "Why not, Daddy?"

"Because remember yesterday you asked? And I said you could, and you didn't like it. And the day before that I let you try some, and you didn't like it then either." He wondered briefly if this lapse in memory was normal, but brushed the thought away. She was only six.

"Oooh." Sydney looked down, scrunched up her face. "Now I 'member."

Derrick grinned to himself as he worked around the kitchen, pulling out the bowl and standard Cheerios she had every morning. On weekends he let her have what she wanted - usually Froot Loops, or Lucky Charms - but other days it was something with less sugar. Sydney on a sugar high was not a good situation.

She patiently waited for him to set it in front of her. And like every morning, he came over with the milk jug and she put her hand on it, "helping" him pour it into her bowl.

Sometimes, it was the little things.

Derrick himself also ate the Cheerios, and talked with her as they ate. Talking with a six year-old was more eventful than one would think. It's funny, because sometimes when Sydney leans in and tells Derrick that she has a secret, he wants to laugh - what kind of secret could she possibly hide that was important enough to keep secret?

She was six, it's not like she was holding matters of national security.

But he still nodded seriously and promised he wouldn't tell a soul.

This morning she was talking about school, and what she would be doing today.

"The butterflies are gonna be coming out soon, and we get to read 'Where the Wild Things Are', my favorite, Daddy!" She leans in, whispers. "I don't think any of the other kids have heard it yet, so I can't tell them what happens." When she pulls back she giggles and returns to her cereal. Derrick just stares for a second.

It would never wear off, the amazement of having an actual conversation with Sydney. When she first started talking, like all babies, it was one word statements. And you couldn't carry on a conversation. Then the older she got, the more Derrick could say something and she would say an actual response that made sense. And then he could say something else and she would have been able to follow and it was just. . . so great.

Being a father was both the most rewarding and yet most difficult experience of his life. Sure, there were moments when he was honestly confused as to how he ever thought he'd be able to take on a job like this, but then most of the time, he couldn't imagine his life any other way.

Sydney was everything to him. She was his princess, his little firecracker, the center of his world, the sun which he revolved around. It didn't help that she was a dead ringer for Megan, with the same hair, high cheekbones, pink lips. The same tiny nose, the way it would scrunch up just like Megan's when she was concentrated on something, or pouting. Her little mouth, which screwed up in a scowl when she was annoyed. An identical giggle, which always popped up at the most mundane things - a caterpillar tickling the skin of her arm, a cloud shaped like a turtle.

Sydney was his consolation prize - it was during her birth that he lost Megan, her mother. Sydney, he's convinced, was sent to console him. She wasn't supposed to survive either. It was a car accident that put Megan in labor early, too early - just thirty-two weeks - and neither the mother nor the baby were expected to survive, considering the injuries that Megan had sustained in the accident.

Sydney was not the doctors' main concern, anyway. The mother always comes first. And when they had to deliver her via c-section, because Megan had gone into labor and they couldn't stop it, they were still concerned mainly with Megan.

Instead, it was Megan who died of blood loss, brain damage, and a punctured lung at 2:35 am on a Wednesday morning. He remembers the whole thing perfectly because he was there, the whole time. He remembers because every time Sydney asks him what time she was born, he knows it was at 2:33 am. Two of the most pivotal moments of his entire life were separated by just two minutes.

He shouldn't have let Megan drive.

She was so eager to get behind the wheel. Jubilant. Her car was being repaired, the zippy little Audi she loved so much.

"Soon," she said, "my belly will be too big."

He had relented, not that it took too much convincing. It was going to be a bigger pain to pick up her car if he didn't just let her drive.

They both drove down to the shop in his car, his beloved Porsche. On the drive back, Megan was in front of him, he was trailing behind.

It all happened in slow motion. Her, driving through the intersection - she hadn't had a stop sign, the other car did - and the car, going right through it, colliding with the side of her car, blindsiding her.

The whole thing was less than two seconds, but ask Derrick and it was years.

He rode in the ambulance with her. She hadn't held his hand, instead he clutched hers, limp as it was. He didn't think about what that meant, instead just focused on what had to happen. Megan had to live. There was simply no other choice in the matter.

She was already brain-dead when they got to the hospital. That's what the doctors told him, anyway. Her spine was broken beyond repair, as she'd turned as far as she could when the car hit - her back taking the brunt instead of her belly. Her body was close behind her brain in death, that's why they got Sydney out so fast.

He hears the beeping in his mind sometimes, clear as day, then the slow tone that went on forever.

He couldn't believe what happened until things stopped happening. Sydney was being taken care of on a table in another room, he had seen the oxygen mask they had pressed against her tiny, doll-like face. The words they used, so fast and complicated he wouldn't know what they meant if he tried to figure it out.

"I'm sorry," the doctor had said and that was when he collapsed on the chair. He knew that she was gone because they weren't trying to save her anymore. But what would they do? She was brain-dead anyway. She was gone long before they made it to the hospital.

His face was in his hands when the nurse approached him.

"Mr. Harrington?" she'd murmured. "Mr. Harrington, do you want to see your daughter?"

She led him to the place where Sydney lay, under a plastic shield from the world, a light that radiated heat. She had on a diaper that was too big, and a breathing tube. She looked tiny and frail, and still beautiful. She had Megan's full lips, and the lightest swirl of cinnamon colored hair on her head. Ten fingers, ten toes, but so tiny. He stared at them, shocked that fingernails could be so small. And the thin tube that snaked past her delicate collarbone, taped under her nose.

"Just for the time being," the nurse explained. "She's doing remarkably well, considering. Great weight for this early - 2 pounds on the dot."

He had smiled then, just minutes after the death of his wife.

And that's how he knew that he would make it. Because he had this baby. She was going to get him through this.

"We never got to fill some things out for the birth certificate, which we would have done shortly before her due date." She began pulling out forms, asking him questions. He didn't even think before telling her the name.

"Sydney Lynn. Megan's grandma."

And at that moment he burst into tears, because Megan - she was gone. She never got to meet her daughter. She had been so ridiculously excited. They already had clothes, the nursery, diapers, everything. Megan always said the same thing.

"I can't wait to hold her. I just can't wait."

He thanks whatever higher power that is out there for Sydney, every single day.

And again, every single day, he asks the same question: Why couldn't he have Megan too?


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