Twelve days after punching Ryan, Jody was finally ungrounded but only because Mike and May-Li were one hundred per cent focused on disciplining the two boys who'd almost cost the latter her job and welcoming a new resident. As it happened, Jody's first outing since her release wasn't to the park or somewhere even remotely fun but to the local supermarket with the least fun person in the whole house. That was how she found herself hiding in the crisps aisle, staring at the Sensations she desperately wanted to buy but wasn't allowed to.

"Jody!" Charlie called, interrupting Jody's relative solace and pushing a trolley full of healthy food towards said girl. "We can't buy this bottle of cola. Please put it back."

"It's just one bottle," Jody pointed out, unwilling to budge. She wasn't putting it back. Mike and May-Li hadn't bought drinks other than squash and various different fruit juices in weeks. She was suffering from withdrawal.

"It's out of our budget," Charlie stated matter of factly, leaning over the trolley handle to pick the one-litre bottle of cola up.

Jody stubbornly crossed her arms. "Swap it for that awful squash then!"

"I can't! It's on the shopping list!"

Glancing at Charlie who was still reaching for the cola, Jody leaned over the other side of the trolley and grabbed the bottle of squash. She couldn't stand the stuff but Joseph and Archie were massive fans. Too bad. It wasn't anything they couldn't go a week without. She, however, had to get that cola or World War III would break out when she got back home.

"Jody..." Charlie trailed off warningly, now holding the cola bottle. "Put that down..."

Without another word, Jody bolted off towards the drinks aisle, an annoyed Charlie calling after her. Rounding the corner, she looked back to see Charlie chasing her with the trolley in tow and turned back just in time to narrowly avoid bumping into a random child. Ugh, children. The supermarket was always teeming with children of all shapes and sizes on the weekends which was one of the reasons she hadn't wanted to come here in the first place but Alex had been busy and Ryan had a good excuse for not wanting to leave the house, leaving her to become Charlie's unhappy companion. Just as she rounded the corner to the drinks aisle, one of those evil children walked straight into her path and the next thing she knew, both the bottle of squash and the child—a boy of about ten—were on the floor.

Great. Jody felt the urge to run straight out of the supermarket but restrained herself, knowing that such an action would lead to her being grounded again once Charlie reported back to Mike and May-Li. She awkwardly stood to the side, mumbling an apology as onlookers helped the boy up, spotting a security guard making his way over to them.

"What... happened...?" Charlie panted, stopping the trolley next to Jody as she tried to catch her breath. Jody raised an eyebrow; she and Brandon could do much more than that at the gym without breaking a sweat.

"He just appeared out of nowhere," she muttered under her breath as the security guard reached the scene.

"What's going on here?" he interrogated, a stern expression on his face as he towered over Jody and the boy. He had to be at least six foot tall. "Son, are you okay?"

"That girl ran into me!" the boy exclaimed, pointing his finger accusingly at Jody as if she was a criminal. The action reminded her of an eerily similar situation back when her old neighbours had accused her mother and brothers of assault in front of the police.

"Think this is a playground, do you?" the guard asked, looking his nose down at her like most outsiders did when they found out she was in care. "Little old for running amok, aren't you?"

"It was an accident," she said through gritted teeth, attempting to stand her ground. She hated that demeaning look, even though she knew the guard wasn't doing it for the usual reason.

"Benji!" a woman called, running over to the boy and hugging him.

"Mum, that girl pushed me!"

Jody clenched her fists. What a lying little rat! "I didn't push you, you little...!"

The boy's mother glowered at her, releasing her son and menacingly stepping towards Jody. "How dare you talk to my son like that?!"

"Your son is a liar!" Jody retorted, pushing past the guard to match the woman's step.

The security guard stepped in between them, appearing to be a little out of his depth. "Ladies, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the store if you can't stop shouting."

"Jody, let's just go!" Charlie hissed like the worry wart that she was.

Meanwhile, the woman glared up at the security guard as if he'd sworn at her. "Excuse me! This girl just assaulted my nine-year-old!"

"Assaulted?!" Jody spat, about to show the woman what assault really was when Charlie pulled her back.

"Kingsley!" the woman suddenly barked, startling Jody. "Get over here!"

As 'Kingsley' entered the aisle, Jody almost fainted. Her mind drew a blank as the screeching woman bitched and moaned about her and the security guard right in front of their faces and she vaguely registered Charlie nagging her to go to the checkout with her but all she could do was stare at 'Kingsley', a man who looked so much like her Kingsley, only much older and obviously not in handcuffs...

.:. QK .:.

That afternoon, Jody sat on the sofa in a state of despondency as the world passed her by. With Tyler out visiting his mum and Sasha living with hers again, she found herself crippled by a sense of loneliness she hadn't experienced in years. There was no one else to talk to here, not really, even those she was closer to than others; Candi-Rose was too much of a loud mouth and Jody didn't feel comfortable approaching Charlie after the supermarket debacle.

"Hey, Charlie told me about what you did at the supermarket!" Jody looked to her right to see Alex sitting next to her, sipping from a glass of cola. "Nice one!"

Jody smiled weakly at her fellow fizzy drink addict but she couldn't bring herself to share his elation at her supermarket victory. The only reason Charlie had bought the cola in direct violation of the shopping list was that she'd been desperate to get Jody out of the supermarket as soon as possible. Knowing Charlie, it was only a matter of time before Mike and May-Li summoned Jody to their office for a serious chat.

As if on cue, Floss strode in and told Jody that May-Li wanted to see her. Jody sighed, getting up and walking out of the lounge to see May-Li standing in the lobby with a girl around Charlie's age. To her surprise, the carer smiled warmly at her and beckoned her over. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Either Charlie hadn't said anything to Mike and May-Li or the latter was the best actress ever.

"Err, Floss said you wanted to see me," Jody said, coming to a stop in front of May-Li and the girl.

"Err, yes. Jody, this is Ella," May-Li introduced the tired looking girl standing next to her as Jody finally remembered that they were supposed to be receiving a new resident today. Between getting ready for the shopping trip and trying to make sense of the aftermath, it'd simply slipped her mind. "Ella, this is Jody. She's one of the three I told you about—you know, the ones who've been here the longest. You'll meet Tyler later on, after he gets back home."

Normally, Jody wouldn't have minded that tiny bit of information about her being revealed to a new resident but after what'd happened at the supermarket, it felt like May-Li was rubbing her orphaned, care kid status in her face. She couldn't wait to get to the gym and let loose on those punching bags.

"Hi," she greeted, hoping she sounded welcoming rather than irritated.

"Hello," Ella responded demurely in an accent that could only be described as posh. Jody blinked. What was a posh kid doing here? Didn't their parents send them to boarding school, the rich man's version of the Dumping Ground? Ella turned to May-Li. "Home, you say? I don't think so."

May-Li cleared her throat, clearly trying to get past that awkward comment. "Ella met everyone else earlier and all she needs to do now is settle in. Would you please show her to her room? Sasha's old one?"

Was she still being punished for punching Ryan? She couldn't think of anything she wanted to do less than show a new girl around. What was a sixteen-year-old doing moving into a children's home in the first place? That was what semi independent flats were for. Despite her misgivings, Jody nodded and led Ella to what used to be Sasha's bedroom.

"So, how long have you been here?" Ella asked as they passed Jody's room and rounded the corner.

"Since this place became a care home," Jody replied, figuring that there was no point in refusing to answer when May-Li had already revealed her long-term status as a care kid to the new girl. It seemed odd that out of those who'd moved here from Elm Tree House, only three remained. In a couple of years, she and Tyler would move out and then Floss would be last man—woman—standing. "It'll be five years this summer. I spent my first year of care in the home Mike headed before we all moved here."

"I was placed in care when I was nine," Ella informed, "Got fostered for about six months and then ended up back in residential care. Now I'm here."

Pushing the door to Sash—Ella's new bedroom open, Jody attempted to mask her surprise. She'd thought that Ella was new to care but it seemed like she was more of a veteran than Jody herself—she even had six months of foster care under her belt.

She didn't know what to say in response. 'I'm sorry'? Would that make sense, given she'd never said it to any other new resident? Was she even sorry? They were all more or less in the same situation here... Instead, she settled for, "How old are you now? Sixteen?"

"Seventeen." Ella was now officially the eldest resident and the one with the longest tenure. Jody looked closely at Ella, noticing just how run-down she appeared to be. She wondered what her story was. Maybe she could ask May-Li on the way to the gym.

.:. QK .:.

"I'm sorry but that's private, Jody," May-Li stated, stopping at a traffic light.

"But you told her stuff about me! About how long I've been in care!" Jody protested, unable to believe that it was one rule for her and another for Ella.

"I told her that you've been here the longest, not how long you've been here," May-Li defended herself, turning right. "And I told her that to help her relax."

"Because she's been in care for eight years?" Jody questioned, realising that May-Li was right. She, herself, had been the one to tell Ella how long she'd been in care, not May-Li. Like Ella, she'd be hitting the eight-year mark at seventeen years of age. She didn't know how to feel about that.

"Yes," May-Li responded, pulling into the car park of the gym. "But I didn't tell her why you're in care so you can't expect me to tell you why she is. It's against the rules. Only she can tell you why she's in care, and only if she wants to."

"Yeah, I get that, but I only wanted to know why she got moved here, not why she's in care," Jody explained, wondering why she was suddenly getting so involved in someone else's business. Ella wasn't her problem. She had bigger problems, the chief one being the man she'd seen at the supermarket. Nonetheless, she pushed on; it seemed easier to focus on someone else's problems rather than her own. "I'm only asking because she looked kind of peaky."

"She's going through a tough time, I suppose," May-Li said with a sad smile as she turned the engine off. "She'll feel better once she settles in. They always do. You've seen residents come and go for years. How many of them settled in right away?"

"None of them," she answered, almost snorting as she reminisced about some of the worst first impressions some of the residents had made. Kazima, Alex, Mo and Bailey were all top qualifiers. "Okay, maybe Joseph did," she admitted as she grabbed her gym bag and opened the door.

"That he did," May-Li agreed with a laugh, doing the same as Jody.

Fifteen minutes later, Jody found the sweet relief she'd been craving all day in destroying the punching bag she regarded as a suitable substitute for Kingsley's face. After the funeral, she'd thought she was finally shot of the Jackson brothers and their dramatics but Luke had shown up and disrupted her fresh start with his stupid, offensive excuses. After she flat out rejected Luke, she thought she'd never see him or another Jackson again but she'd been proven wrong once more. Only, she was quite sure it wasn't a Jackson she'd seen in the supermarket, not unless she was suddenly living in a sci-fi movie featuring timewarps. No... her Kingsley didn't have greying hair, a partner or a nine-year-old son. But she knew a Kingsley who probably did.

She cried out, swinging relentlessly at the punching bag, recalling the way 'Kingsley' had fought the security guard in order to get Jody arrested for what his partner called assault. Assault. She despised the word. Assault was the reason her family had broken up in the first place, not that they'd been a great family to begin with. She recalled the way 'Kingsley' had looked straight at her but hadn't recognised her as she'd recognised him, regarding her as little more than a stranger in the drinks aisle as he fought on behalf of the child he hadn't walked out on.

Why? Why? Why? What was so special about that boy—Benji—that 'Kingsley' had stuck around for his first words, his first steps, his first day at school? What did she lack? Why hadn't she had that privilege? Instead, she'd been stuck with the wrong Kingsley as the primary male figure in her life for nearly nine years. She'd been wronged! She'd been grievously wronged!

"Jody?" she heard May-Li call, flinching as a hand came to rest on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Err, nothing," she replied faintly, realising she was soaking in her own sweat. "I just got..." she gulped, the words sticking in her incredibly dry throat, "I got a little carried away."

"I haven't seen you this active since..." Since the first time she'd gone to the gym after her mother's death.

Jody dropped her hands just then, shaking her head. A one time encounter with a man she couldn't remember from her childhood and the death of the mother she'd loved all her life were hardly the same thing. What the hell was wrong with her? Why was she so bothered by this?

"I think I just need some water," she told May-Li, taking her boxing gloves off and wiping her forehead with the back of one hand. Her skin was hot to the touch, something that only happened when she was overexerting herself.

As she sat down on a bench and drank from the water bottle May-Li had fetched for her, she thought long and hard about family. She'd survived her mother's death and her brothers' betrayals and had reconciled herself to the fact that there was no forever family out there for her. When she'd managed to deal with all that, it was no wonder that she'd got through thirteen years without a father. Why would she need or even want one now?

The name Gray would only serve as a fresh start for her as long as it wasn't tainted by association with yet another deadbeat family member. Her head knew that but her heart... her heart was another matter entirely.

No matter how much the rational part of her mind was telling her to drop her deep-seated daddy issues before she got in too deep, Jody reached for her phone as if on autopilot and went straight to Google. The name practically typed itself. Kingsley Gray.


A/N: Believe me when I say I don't like OCs. All of the OCs I've written to date have been pure cringe and almost every OC (across different fandoms) I've read has been the same or worst. Almost. Having said that, I think Sasha needed a replacement because the writers of TDG always replace every single resident who leaves. Sometimes, they even bring in two to replace one. Ella isn't going to be a main character or anything so just think of her as just another DG kid.

I'm concerned that the way Jody ran into 'Kingsley' was far too similar to how Alex met his mother in S6E6. I was going to have them meet a different way but it kinda turned into this. I don't know... I don't feel good about it.

Thanks a lot to the three reviewers: guest, Justice and CharlieSMarts12. I'm pleased that all three of you think I'm keeping the kids in character. Also, thanks for the follow, Justice.