A/N I don't own anyone but Bella.

A/N Yay, over a hundred reviews, thanks! *Does very stupid happy dance*

Question was on monitor duty when his private cell went off. Curiously, he looked to see who was calling him.

It was Helen.

Intrigued, he answered it before cautiously asking, "Hello?"

"Vic? It's Helena."

"Oh, hello."

"Yeah, hi. Look I need you to beam down and come over to my house and do something with me, okay?"

"Do what?"

"A favor, okay. Look, I just need you to come to a conference with me."

"About?"

"Bella."

"Oh. Why?"

"She got in trouble, okay. The stupid teacher scheduled a parent-teacher conference and we have to go."

"Why is my presence needed?"

"I don't want it. Bella told her teacher she'd been hanging out with you lately and now she wants both of us there, alright?"

"When is it?"

"This afternoon at 2:30 in the school."

"Which school?"

"I thought you knew everything."

"Actually as time progresses I realize just how little I know."

"Huh; well it's at St. Anthony's, next to the church."

"The one by the coffee shop?"

"That's the one."

"Interesting. I suppose I'll see you soon."

"Yeah, unfortunately."

"Helena, I said I was sorry and I am. I just want to see you and Bella again. She's my daughter, don't I have some right?"

"Do you want my opinion or the government's?"

"Helena. . ."

"Look, I'm letting you see her today, aren't I? Besides, I didn't say you could never see her, just not very often."

"How often?"

"You're getting me mad now."

"Sorry."

"What did I tell you about apologizing?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good boy. See you there?"

"Yes. Goodb-" He was cut off by hearing her hang-up the phone without saying goodbye. He fought back a sigh as he stood up and stretched; that hadn't gone as well as he hoped it would.

He moped over to the teleporter pads and beamed down to where Helena lived.

He was just happy he got to see them again.

Helena tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for Vic to arrive.

She nervously ran her hand through her hair. What had her baby girl done that was so bad? Sure Bella wasn't perfect (if she had a dime for every time she caught her hacking something) but she definitely wasn't a bad kid.

She just had a tiny problem with telling the difference between the right to do something and whether or not you should.

"Ahem." Vic coughed from behind her.

She spun around to face him. "Yeah, hi. Come on, we have to go in now."

"What did she do?"

"I don't know." Helena hissed.

The rest of the walk into the building was silent.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence and cold shoulders they arrived at the classroom and took a seat.

Bella had been sitting in a chair next to the desk and immediately brightened up when they walked in the room. "Hi Mama and Daddy!"

"Hey sweetie." Helena sighed sitting down as Vic shot a weary smile in his daughters direction.

"Thank you for coming." The teacher said. "Now I've asked you two to come here because of a little problem Bella had with a student this morning."

"Not a student, the worst one ever. Sarah Dipman's a jerk!" Bella exclaimed.

"Bella!" Helena snapped.

"Well, it's true..."

"As I was saying, Bella got into a bit of an argument today with Sarah and told her to go to hell."

"Isabella Rosa!" Helen exclaimed in shock.

"Well when Daddy was my age he told a nun to go to hell!"

"Vic!"

"What? I was young and angry; and I meant it."

"Victor!"

"Ahem." The teacher whose name tag read Mrs. Jenkins coughed. "But as I was saying, she told her to go to hell and made her cry because, as we all know, that is a horrible place and a terrible thing to say."

"But I didn't say that!" Bella protested. "You don't even know what really happened."

"What happened, then?" Vic asked, intrigued.

Bella took a moment to smooth out her uniform before answering. "Well, I was talking to Sarah Dipman, Charlotte O'Hara, and Patty Gomez about parents. Patty said her parents were divorced then asked me about you two. I said that you weren't divorced because you were never married, duh! So Sarah gets all crazy and asks me if I knew what that meant. I said, 'yeah, it means they didn't have to fill out a bunch of paperwork' and she called me a dum-dum so I said she was stupid."

She took a breath and again continued. "So she asked me if I knew what that really meant and I was like 'well apparently not'. So then she said it meant that I was a bastard because I was born out of med-jock-"

"Wed-lock." Vic corrected weakly. He knew where this was going and he didn't like it.

"Yeah, that. So apparently I'm a bastard and she said that meant I was gonna go to Hell because of you guys. And I said 'no, Mama and Daddy are awesome! They wouldn't send me to Hell!' and she said it wasn't they're choice. So everyone was freaking out because I was apparently gonna burn and I said 'Sarah, if you're so fascinated with Hell then why don't you go there?' and she got sooo upset. Mama, what's a bastard?"

"...It means your parents weren't married when you were born." Helena explained weakly.

"Oh, so I am a bastard?" Bella asked in confusion.

"No!" Vic snapped.

"But you just said-"

"There's more than one definition." Helena lied.

"Oh, okay." Bella blinked. Why were they so upset?

"Look, if you could maybe just tell her why it's not a good thing to tell people to go to hell-"

"Did you hear a word of that?" Helena spat, cutting off the teacher. "She didn't do anything wrong. It's not my fault you believe the kid with two rich parents who fund the school."

She stood up and grabbed her daughter by the hand. "Come on, we're leaving." She looked in Vic's direction. "You come too."

Bella happily sat on a bench licking her ice cream cone.

If this was punishment, then she really wanted to see a reward.

She wondered why Mama and Daddy seemed so upset by the whole Hell-thing. Okay, so her parents weren't married. Big whoop, neither were most Americans. It didn't mean she had to go to Hell.

Mama and Daddy had seemed so quiet and sad. She asked Daddy (after Mama stepped out for a minute) if she really was a bastard.

Daddy looked so guilty.

Then he told her that in a legal sense she was a teeny-weeny bit, but she really wasn't. She was more of a love-child. Bella thought that word was nice and pretty, a good thing. Bastard sounded mean.

Why would you call someone something mean when they didn't do anything? Adults were so silly sometimes. She looked over at Mama and Daddy talking a few meters away from her.

Mama looked mad, really mad and was making all these weird hand gestures.

Daddy looked like he was gonna cry.

That couldn't be right. Daddy's' never cried, it was a rule. Wasn't it? She hoped she didn't make him so sad, she was still feeling guilty for the whole brat stunt she'd pulled.

She watched her parents calm down as they talked. Mama even smiled a bit.

She hoped they'd start loving each other soon.

"Now do you get why I don't like you very much anymore?" Helena hissed, trying to keep her voice down.

"Yes, but damn it I didn't know! If you'd have told me-"

"Nothing would have been fixed. I didn't want you to come back because you had to, idiot! I wanted you to come home because you loved me, not that I still want you to come back..."

"I get it, alright! I just want to spend some time with her, please Helena; she's my daughter too."

"Yeah, 'too', but she's mainly mine." Helena glared. "You honestly want to be her Dad now after all these years?"

"Yes, and I don't think you really hate me so much or want to keep me away. Otherwise you wouldn't have left her in my care."

She opened her mouth to yell at him, her face red. Why the hell did a guy who needed a therapist have to act like one? She couldn't think of a thing to say.

If she was hoping for him to gloat, she was severally disappointed. An unbelievably sad look flashed across his face. "Helen...please."

Oh, she wanted to yell at him so badly! But. . .

He looked like he was ready to cry.

Coming from a guy who was as calm as Buddha, rarely even smiled much less cried, and had been beaten to a pulp and dragged through Hell and back, well, that got to her a little bit.

But only a little bit.

Okay, he wasn't asking for a second chance with her, he just wanted to know his child. She took a deep breath. "Look...I don't like you very much." It made her feel a tiny bit better when she saw the look of regret on his face. "But you are Bella's' father. Blood means a lot in my family; family's important."

"Your Father told you that." Vic remembered.

"Yes, he did. So I might not like you but...for Bella, I'd be willing to work something out. In a father-daughter sense, I mean."

"Okay." Vic nodded.

She smiled at him sadly. "You remembered what I told you about my Papa?"

"Of course, I remember everything about you. I loved you like crazy." I still do, but I like my jaw where it is so I won't tell you that.

"I know. Uh, Bella's pretty much done eating so let's go get her before she starts chewing off some old woman's ear." Helen suggested.

"Okay." Vic shrugged as they walked off.

Helena only had one thing on her mind, not that she would ever admit it to anyone. She could barely think it in her own mind.

If you loved me so much, then why did you let me go?

A/N Eep, this chapter was pretty angsty. Maybe I'll do a fluffy one next:)

A/N See that little blue button down there that says 'review'? You should really click it and write me one:D