Author's Note: If you haven't guessed by how long it's taken me to update I've caught up to where I actually need to write more chapters for this story so updates will slow a bit from now on. Once again thank you for your reviews and I hope you enjoy!

Her body hurt like hell – that much was true. And to sneak out of the Shelby house while her body hurt like hell was even harder. Her leg was swollen and her face equally hurt like hell, but she had to get to Ada's place and make sure she was okay. Why she had decided to sneak out while everyone else was in the gambling hall and trudge down halfway across town just to see if her cousin was okay went beyond her head. She should have been upstairs resting, but instead she knew she had to do something to make sure they were alright.

She hated that about herself, she loved her family more than anything else in this world – she would do anything for them. Loyalty like that was rare these days and the Shelby's were lucky as hell to have her on their side. Her leg was on fire and she knew that she was bleeding out through the bandages – she could feel her pants leg starting to stick to her skin as she walked. And she wondered if by now – now that she had finally somehow made it to Ada's doorstep if the rest of the Shelby's had noticed her gone… they had.

Tommy was furious and the concern showed greatly as he marched around downstairs in the dinning room. John and Arthur both sat there and looked down at the kitchen table while Aunt Polly stood up having a smoke. The chatting still continued behind the closed door of the gambling hall – but it lacked them.

"Where the fuck would she have gone?" Arthur asked, running his hand through his hair, concerned for the girl's well-being.

John shook his head and snorted, he hadn't figured that she was even able to become mobile, let alone leave the fucking house without anyone hearing her. They had noticed she was gone about half an hour after she had left. Finn had been sent to go check up on her and he came back running downstairs in to the gambling hall shouting that she was gone. This raised alarms greatly with the family and they left the hall and tried to figure out where it was she had gone.

"I checked the Garrison, she weren't there." John said. That was the first place he had checked and she hadn't been there and the doors were all locked up.

Tommy ran his hand over his face worried about her greatly. After last night he was afraid of the worst – had she ran off after becoming afraid of what had happened, was she doing this to protect him, was she feeling guilty about everything? Tommy shook his head and took a deep sigh trying to calm himself. He knew Aunt Polly's eyes were on him with curiosity, but yet she said nothing and only watched him from her corner of the room. The other boys only shook it off as Tommy's concern that he would have for anyone else, but Aunt Polly started to think greatly on it all.

"There's only one other place that I can think of where the girl would have went." Aunt Polly said speaking up finally after the thought crossed her mind. Tommy looked at her quickly and waited for her to give her answer. Aunt Polly just stood there quietly until all the eyes were on her – she finished with her drag.

"Ada and the baby." It was almost as if lighting had struck Tommy and he snatched his hat up from the table and whipped his jacket on around his body.

"I wouldn't go there if I were you Thoma - " But the door slammed shut as Tommy rushed out the door and had Aunt Polly's words hanging there in the middle of the room.

Nichole knocked on the door repeatedly. After seeing the baskets of food that Aunt Polly – more than likely – had been leaving at Ada's doorstep, she knew that the girl wasn't wanting to see anyone. But, she also knew that she was home because she could hear the baby string.

"Ada, it's me." her voice was still horse and it crackled. Nichole cleared her throat as she leaned her body against the door.

"It's Nichole, Ada." she stood there tapping the door with her finger.

Her leg started to become numbed from the blood loss, knowing that she'd have to sit down and prop up her leg soon. The younger woman on the other side of the door still didn't speak out, but Nichole knew better. Honestly, Nichole didn't know what she'd ever do if she were placed in Ada's situation. Ada had her husband and the father of her child taken away from her on the same night she was given one and then the other was taken.

Nichole rested her head against the door and a small smile a guinea smile came across her lips.

"Do you remember when you were little and I still wrote to you here in Birmingham?" She heard Ada shuffle her feet at these words, but she couldn't tell if she was coming closer to the door or just moving around in the room.

"I use to write every week to see how everyone was doing, and even though we hadn't ever met, I wrote to you once you became old enough to write. We'd exchange pictures of each other so we'd know what we looked like – do you remember?" Nichole winched, she needed to sit down and so she turned her back to the door and slid down it slowly till her butt reached the floor.

She ignored the fact that she was sitting in a pile of her own blood now, she knew she had to get through to Ada.

"I remember the first time you wrote to me about Freddie, about how you thought he was 'sooo handsome'. When I read that letter I just laughed to myself and remembered the shaggy looking boy who I use to know as Freddie Thorne that ran around with Thomas as they watched me play in the streets. I remembered thinking to myself, 'No, she can't possibly be talking about the same Freddie Thorne that I remember!'" Nichole laughed to herself, coughing slightly as she did.

"I should have figured back then that you'd marry your toad and turn him into a prince." Nichole swore she heard a slight chuckle come from directly behind her, but her head was in too great of a haze to fully know if she had or not.

"Then remember when the letters stopped during the war? I'm sorry I wasn't able to write you back then, but with the war things had changed and I had to change quickly with them too…" Nichole shook her head, the hallway was getting darker than before.

"But, remember that my last letter said? Do you remember Ada?" Nichole waited for a reply to come as her eyelids batted slowly and she felt as if she was drifting on air.

"You said that if I was ever in any trouble, that you'd be there for me and you'd set it straight again." Ada's weak voice sounded from behind the locked door. Nichole smiled and leaned her head up against the wood. As her eyes closed her heard the front door to the building open and quick feet heading down her way.

"That's right, Ada. And that's what I'm gonna do." Nichole swore she heard Tommy's voice shouting at her as a body came into view.

Suddenly she was grabbed by someone and their shouting was loud, but Nichole couldn't focus on what they were saying. Suddenly the door behind her flew open in ward and she heard only more muffled screaming before her vision left her completely and everything became quiet.

Nichole awoke to the sun peeking through the curtains of the window. Her head was heavy as she tried to last recall how she made it back to her bed after going to Ada's house. She was groggy to say the least. Shaking her head she lifted herself up into a sitting position on the bed and sighed deeply – fuck her leg hurt. She looked around the room and noticed that she was alone. Placing her throbbing leg on the edge of the bed she pulled up her pants leg and winched when she seen the area around her leg was red – it was infection.

She sighed, it needed cleaned which was apparently something that had been lacked in doing. She shook her head thinking that every fucking body in this house had went to war and yet they couldn't even remember to follow the simplest rule of cleaning your wound and keeping it dry. Gritting her teeth she pushed herself up off the bed and hobbled over to the door. She needed to pee and clean up her leg before she risked the chance of losing it. Taking the doorknob in between her fingers she tried to turn the knob only for it to jiggle each time she tried.

She narrowed her eyes. Someone locked her fucking door on her. She frowned deeply and placed both hands on the knob of the door and started pushing and pulling on the handle – which made quiet a lot of noise. She became frustrated as she took her right arm and started beating on one of the panels of the door, knowing that if she were to hit hard enough on one of the four weakest points of the door it would give in and she could get out. But it seemed in her weakened state she didn't have the strength to break out the panel. She screamed out, knowing that someone was downstairs.

"I'm not a fucking prisoner! Lemme out! Hey! Someone come open this fucking door right now! God fucking damn it! Fuck!" She screamed as her hand kept on beating on the door only to have the last hit causing her to lose balance and fall sideways and hit the floor.

She closed her eyes as the pain shot up through her leg and caused her an imminence amount of un-comfort. She took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to calm down just how pissed she was right now. And it wasn't until she heard feet shuffling up the stairs did she even think about getting up. She quickly tried to stand as she did her best to ignore the pain in her leg, but she couldn't scramble fast enough before the door came flying open and in came Aunt Pol and Tommy behind her.

"What the bloody hell is wrong with you!?" Aunt Pol shouted as she had unlocked the door and barged into the room. Tommy, however stood out in the hall just watching and listening.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you and locking the fucking door!" Aunt Pol raised her hand and brought it down upon Nichole, who had blocked the smack to her face with her hand so it only enraged Polly that much more.

A rain of several smacks to the face came after that, but still none hit her as she blocked them with her arm as best she could.

Once she was done Polly paced around the room in front of Nichole before she turned to yell some more at her.

"What the hell makes you think you can just hobble off with the wound you have? What if the coppers had seen you and taken you into custody? What would you have done then, aye? We would have had no bloody idea as to where the hell you would have been!"

"Aunt Polly – "

"Don't you 'Aunt Polly' me! You listen here and you listen well – " Polly took a deep breath to try to calm herself down.

All the while Tommy continued to stand out in the hallway and just kept his eyes on Nichole's body that laid on the floor.

"If you're gonna be apart of this family then you're gonna stop doing this and you're gonna play by our rules, not whatever rules you had back in America – understand me? Running off like a child isn't what us Shelby's do you understand me?" Nichole just sat there and looked up at Polly with as equal gaze as she had given to Nichole.

The room was silent for a couple of seconds before Nichole lowered her gaze and nodded her head. Polly uncrossed her arms and placed them down at her sides and shook her head.

She knew that there wasn't much else that she had to say to Nichole so she left it at that and decided to leave the room before she were to smack the girl around some more. Nichole raised her gaze off the wooden floor of the house and looked up at Tommy – he wasn't happy with her at all. Tommy and Nichole just staid there and looked at each other knowing that neither one was going to speak unless the other spoke up first – so Tommy figured he'd be the bigger man.

"You had her worried."

"I know."

Nichole dropped her eyes, unable to look him in the eyes. She wasn't suppose to be the burden to him, she was suppose to be there to help him and support him; not cause him more trouble. She shook her head and tried to stand up but the pain in her leg kept her there on the floor. She heard Tommy's footsteps approach and then felt his hand underneath her arm as he helped her to her feet. She winched, the pain now a burning sting.

"My leg needs cleaned – wound's infected." she told him plainly. He looked down at her face, she wasn't looking at him. He nodded as he helped her back over to the bedside and allowed her to sit down, slowly.

"I'll have Finn bring a wash bucket up and a rag so you can get it cleaned." He stood back up and started to head for the door, but stopped right before he reached the threshold.

"Don't do it again." Was all he said before he left the room while closing the door behind him.

After she was left alone she just kept her eyes on that door. How was she going to redeem herself after something like this? She was wounded and made everyone worry – including Tommy. She was suppose to be stronger than this of what she was right now. Her fist found the mattress in anger and sadness. Angry and that she had worried them all – Sad that she had fallen this low.

She was a fucking Shelby after all – and it's time she started to act like one.