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"My death has not yet quite arrived, but it is near and inevitable as night follows day..." -George Washington

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Chapter 2:

Lillian had grown to accept her new name, Lillian Washington, or Lilly, which is what she prefers to be called by those close to her. She also had grown used to her new family who she loves very much like her own, maybe even more. She always shook that thought out of her head whenever she thought of this. She loves both her families equally the same even if her real family no longer lived.

She got to know her family as the days, months, and years went on. Lilly loves her mother Martha for sure, as they travel to the market to shop on sunny mornings, and they cook, sew, and found a common interest in checkers, as Martha and George play together. Lilly prefers cards more because it is less boring.

In speaking of George, she has been calling him father after her first week living at Mount Vernon. They sit in his office daily, reading, having intellectual discussion, and some nights they stay up late drawing maps and other artwork together. On rainy afternoons they sit outside on their back porch watching the rain fall on the dark Potomac River while her father gives her advice on life and the world. When it wasn't raining, he would take her and Jacky horseback riding teaching them the proper equestrian methods he knew so well.

Ever since George got to know his daughter much more, he very much wanted the young people in his care, including his daughters, to be given the educational opportunities he himself had missed because of his own father's passing. So he enrolled Patsy and Lilly to a small, all girls' private school close to home, and Jacky enrolled in an all boy's institution called Boucher's school. Patsy was pulled out, due to her low level of health and no desire to study wanting to be a "stay at home woman." Lilly stayed and flourished, soaking up all information she could like a sponge. Her teacher called her in one letter, "a girl of good genius." The same words were said for his son. Reverend Boucher considered Jacky "a promising boy" and expressed "anxiety" that as "the last of his Family," who would be coming into "a very large Fortune," he wanted to see the boy made fit for more useful purposes, than a horse racer. However, as early as Jacky's teenage years, George Washington began worrying about his stepson's work ethic. He could not understand why the young man he helped to raise could not or would not see the need to apply himself at school and his work.

Jacky, who was shy at first when Lilly first met him, now treats her like a little brother as they sword fight with toy swords, or just see each other whenever he's around the house. He's grown to be soft and lazy, and does poorly in school from what her father told her, with anger and disappointment in his face.

Patsy and she do everything else together: singing, dancing, playing dolls, running around outside when Patsy isn't weak that day or when Lilly wasn't studying and reading. Patsy always had a seizure at unexpected times, especially when swimming in the large Potomac behind their house where she almost drowned. Luckily Jacky was outside to help Lilly drag her out before she drowned, saving her life:

Patsy spluttered water out of her mouth, coughing violently with her eyes closed.

"John her eyes aren't open!" Lilly shouted over her shoulder to her brother running back to her.

"Open them Pat! Please!" Jacky kneeled on the opposite side of his sister looing down. "Father is coming."

"What happened?" Patsy whispered inaudibly, eyes still shut.

"You fainted in the river, almost drowned on us," Jacky told her, feeling for her heartbeat.

"Can you open your eyes?" Lilly asked her, with some tears in her eyes.

"No, I can't, there's water everywhere," Patsy coughed once more, spitting up more water.

"Sit up!" Lilly shouted, hand going behind her sister's back with the help of her brother. They help her sit up, and pat her back, causing her to spit up the rest of the water.

"Look down, and move your eyes around," Lilly told her next. Patsy, eyes still closed, moves her eyes under her eyelids weakly while looking down.

"Look up, and now try opening your eyes." Patsy did as she was told, and opened her eyes, shivered while doing so, and squinted at the light glaring on the water.

"Patsy!" George called, running downhill to his three children sitting along the bank.

"She can see now!" Jacky stood up telling his father, who is already kneeling by Patsy. "Lilly helped her."

"You did too!" Lilly said, looking to her brother before looking back at her sister, now being picked up by their father.

"I'm cold father," Patsy said curling into her father's arms who soothes her, pulling her closer.

"You'll be alright, your mother has some valerian and capsules, and you'll go rest in bed," he told her, standing up and walking away. "Thank you John, Lillian."

"You're welcome father," they chorus, just as serious. Their father only called them by their exact names when he was angry, serious, or introducing them to someone. Sometimes out of love on some occasions when he feels he doesn't say it often.

"That was scary," Lilly said to her brother, with unshed tears in her eyes still from almost losing their sister.

"It was, but she'll be alright, she always is," Jacky comforted his baby sister, pulling her into a hug.

All the family ever did together was worry about Patsy, who had finally stopped her usual routine for some months, but after the break she started doing it again, only more life threatening: twelve times a month and sometimes twice in one day as she got older. In the summer of 1770, George Washington kept a log of these episodes in the margins of a printed calendar in his almanac. The summer was the main time due to it being overly hot outside, and the month of June in 1773 was when things took a drastic turn.

A number of family members were visiting Mount Vernon, a fun and pleasuring time for everyone. Around four in the afternoon after everyone had finished dinner, Patsy and Eleanor Calvert (the fifteen year old fiancée of Jacky, who was nineteen) were talking quietly while Lilly pestered her brother with questions claiming even she, his youngest sister, is older than his fiancée! She also claimed it was inappropriate and Jacky only responded

"That's how love works Lil's. You'll be married off one day soon as well."

"No I won't. I'm busy with my studies, I have no time for that," she told him with a look of disgust. "And I'm young," she stresses the word young as she gestures over to Eleanor.

"She is right. She won't be married off, especially anytime soon. You should be saying and doing the same John," George joins their conversation as he took a sip from his water.

"You're not arranging her with anyone?" A family member whispered to George, his eyes holding shock.

"No, I do not believe in such customs. She is deserving of great things, of that I am confident, and she will come to see that she is useful to society and become successful. Only then I'll approve of who she loves if it is a man of good morals and character."

Jacky glared at his father from across the living room, remembering those words were said to him, but they were altered to fit his sister. His father winks at his son, assuring him he sees his glare.

"Love? To carry on the pedigree of the family?" The same family member questioned resulting in an angry George standing up from his chair to get fresh air.

"I will not be arguing today," he said walking out the door.

Patsy went to her room to retrieve a recent letter from her brother who was away at King's College in New York. After some moments, hearing a strange noise coming from Patsy's room, Eleanor found the young woman on the floor in the throes of a life-threatening seizure.

"Lillian!" Eleanor caught sight of the young girl in the hallway running towards the room already, hearing the strange noises as well.

"This happens all the time—Patsy!" Lilly's face paled at the sight of her sister. "John! Help!" She screams loudly.

Patsy was moved onto the bed by the two women by the time George and some of the family members came.

Martha frantically sought help, while George knelt beside the stepdaughter he had raised since she was a toddler with tears streaming down his face, praying for her recovery.

Jacky hugged Lilly close, restraining her from going to her sister.

"The doctor will be here soon Lil's," Jacky told her, rubbing his little sister's back.

"He better hurry!" Lilly hisses at him before looking to her sister who doesn't look right, almost too pale, and dead.

In the blink of an eye it seemed to Lilly, as soon as she thought it, less than two minutes later Patsy was dead, without uttering a word, a groan, or scarce a sigh.

"My little girl! My innocent girl!" George cries, falling in the crook of his daughter's shoulder.

Jacky and Lilly have choked sobs, watching everything in front of them, their father wetting she sheets from his tears, and their mother on the floor with her head against the footboard of the bed, gasping for breath from crying so hard.

Lilly went to her room, silently, holding back anymore sobs that tried to escape, and from what her mother saw, she stayed in her room for almost two days straight, no more noise coming from her. She only came out for the funeral the next day, standing close to her father, brother, and mother, holding her mother and father's hands tightly as they listened to the eulogist and priest who traveled in.

A distraught Martha and George promptly turned all their attention to their son and other daughter, and Jacky returned home, leaving college and New York City all together, and his newlywed wife, to be with his family. Eventually, and slowly, two months passed since Patsy's death. It was nothing but the wind blowing the clouds, and it's only the start of the storm. It will only get worse

A/N: How is it so far? This story already has me tearing up as I write. Next chapter will be when Lilly takes up her role as main character, and you'll learn more about her (Benjamin later on ;) ). Thank you wildcat717 for favoriting, following,and reviewing! I appreciate it so much! Thank you to everyone who is reading silently. Please review and follow! More to come!

-BrownEyedGirl87