Sorry it's been so long! Again ^^ - Somehow knowing that season 5 has just started while I'm still waiting for season 3 paralyzes me.

"Oh come on!" Danny squinted. Not now. He had the right to sleep. Especially at the weekend.
The phone kept beeping.
"No!"
Linda sighed, and Danny cursed himself. Somehow his wife had learnt to ignore his cell, but not his growling. "What's wrong?"
He quickly turned over and kissed her. "I don't think I want to find out."
Linda frowned. "It's… three in the morning, Danny."
"That's exactly why" sighing he reached over to switch off his phone and froze. "No."

Frank rose from an uneasy slumber in the living room. In the past few weeks it had become more and more frequent for him to stay down there, just as it had been in the first months after Mary's death. Being in the house had been hard enough, but the thought of laying down alone in the bed they had shared for almost thirty years...
He had refused to go upstairs, even when the pain in his back had started to linger the whole day. His children and his father had tried to coax him into buying a new bed, into doing a therapy for his back, but he hadn't listened.
It took Sean, in the end, to make him wanting to feel younger again. His youngest grandson was just learning to walk. How was Frank supposed to watch over him, play with him, if he couldn't move?
Seven years had passed. If someone had told him, then, that the worst was still to come, he would have probably ended it all.
By now, however, he was happy to be alive. His children – those who were still with him – were happy, and his grandchildren, too.
Talking about grandchildren. As he reached for the little thing on the table that had woken him up, Frank felt a familiar weight settle on his shoulders, bearing him down. This was not a good time to be called, not by Jamie. Not for the next seven weeks…

"You are not going out with Dylan again!"
"It wasn't his fault, mom! He protected me! And nothing happened!"
"This time, maybe! It's three in the morning and you just came home! What does that tell you, Ms. Future-Detective?" Erin was foaming, but the reason her hands were shaking was not rage. It was relief. This night had brought firefighters and cops alike to the verge of a breakdown – almost fifty thousand people filled the streets, and worse, they filled houses and cars – with fire. The closing of one of the biggest firms had not only cost thousands of workplaces, it had also broken the faith of many people. New York was bankrupt, had been for a long time, actually. But now people knew it. And despite her beliefs, despite everything she had promised to fight for, Erin had come to realize that she didn't want the people to know everything. She didn't like lying, but seeing what the truth did to her family, to her city… where was it all going to end? And what was there for her to do to make it better?
And why, why on earth had her daughter go dating someone two years her senior – and a future firefighter, of course, they had met when she had visited Beth's second family four months ago - on this night?
"Mom…" Nicki's voice was shaking, from the same mixture of anger and relief as her mother. They had walked straight into a very aggressive group attacking cars, and it had needed all her persuasion and a lot of kisses to stop Dylan from running against them. Her best argument had been that he couldn't get her home safely if he was knocked out, and at the mentioning of that, the young man had wrapped his arm around her and led her home, through small but empty streets. Despite the fear lingering in her stomach, a part of Nicki had wished for the way never to end.
"Mom, can we please talk about this in the morning? Please! I…"
"There is nothing more to talk." Erin shook her head, suddenly tired. "Just go to bed. You're grounded for six weeks."
"Mom!"
"I will not lose you just because the world is going crazy!"
"Nothing's going crazy, you're just getting old and afraid of everything!"

Two heartbearts passed in silence, then, as Erin opened her mouth, the phone on the table in front of them beeped. Both women bowed forward to read the caller, and Nicki's eyes widened. "Do you think…"
"Let's find out" Erin murmured more to herself. She could only hope that Thomas Reagan was not being born right now, because it was way too early. True, the most dangerous times were over, but he was still not ready. And Beth neither.

"Jamie, what happened? What… oh my god. And how is… alright, alright, it's going to be okay, you hear me? Just… yes, we're on our way, we… of course. Jamie! Everything will be alright." She closed her eyes as she hung up, a habit she and Danny shared.

"Mom?" Nicki's voice was down to a whisper as she moved closer to her mother again. Without opening her eyes Erin reached for her daughter's hand. "You're grounded after tomorrow. Now we're gonna see your cousin."
Nicki gasped. "He's here? How is he?"
"Alive, for now." She bit her lips as her heart seemed to break for her little brother. "But he's in intensive care."
"And Beth?"
"Too."