"So Squirt, did you have fun on your date?"

"Are you going to start dating Andrew?" He asked pointedly and she looked at him with surprise. "What, you think I didn't listen to your conversation with Mom and Dad? How long have you known me?"

She laughed and tousled his hair, wrapping her arm around his neck as they walked the boardwalk. She made a point to get him out of the house so they could hang out every time she was home and since this was a short trip, a walk and a Jappa dog was about all she had time for. "You're right, I should've expected it. But today is about you and me, not my love life…so your date?"

"Yeah, whatever, I had fun. If we can't talk about your love life, we can't talk about mine—"

"Speaking of love lives…" She interrupted and pulled Isaac into the entrance of a store, "isn't that Rebecca's boyfriend?"

"I think so…wait, yeah, it is, I thought you said she wasn't here." Isaac said quietly.

"She told me she couldn't come." She pulled out her phone and dialed her sister.

"Hey, I'm studying right now but what's up?" Rebecca's voice said through the line.

"So you're still at school?" She asked as she grabbed Isaac's wrist and followed in pursuit of Greg.

"Don't know where else I'd be, what's up?"

'Crap.' She thought. Greg went to school with Rebecca and didn't live in Santa Barbara. "Oh, I just wanted to fill you in on the Squirt's date in more detail."

"Rachel, you know I can see right through your crap, what's actually up?"

She sighed, while she loved having a twin, having Rebecca know her so well sometimes was difficult. "I just saw this chick on the beach that looked exactly like you and wanted to make sure you weren't bailing. Turns out it was Mom." She said as convincingly as possible. She and Isaac were still following Greg, who was carrying two ice cream cones.

"Oh, can I talk to her?"

That had been a rookie mistake, she should've known Rebecca would want to talk to Mom. "She's on a case."

"Rachel…"

"Hey, is Greg around, I had a question for him about my car." The segue served two purposes, hopefully throwing Rebecca off her track and getting insight about Greg.

"He had an engineering conference to go to this weekend in Fresno, sorry. What's wrong with your car?"

"It rattles again. Sounds like I drive a beater, but that's okay, I'll just have to take it in." Her heart dropped, she'd hoped that Greg was at school and this man, who was handing the ice cream to a pretty brunette and gave her a kiss that was more than friendly, was just his long lost identical twin. "Look, I'll let you get back to studying. Love you Sister-mine."

"Love you too. Feel free to tell me what you're actually up to whenever you want."

She heard the phone click and sighed. "Well this sucks. You ready to do intel and recon?" She asked Isaac.

"Greg's cheating on Rebecca, I hope we're doing a lot more than just that." Isaac answered stiffly and she sighed again.

"Let's go."


She stared at her phone, puzzled. Rachel had been acting weird, she wasn't just imagining that, but why? The thing about mistaking her for Mom was total crap. A. She would've just gone up to her and B. Mom was definitely off today, she'd talked to her that morning. Then the random jump to Greg…Rachel's segues were never actually random, which meant this must have something to do with her boyfriend of nearly a year.

She grabbed the phone and dialed, getting more anxious with every ring. "Rebecca?" Greg's voice came through the phone.

"Hey, how's the conference?" She asked, straining to hear anything of his surroundings.

"Boring. It's all about safety and stuff, how's studying?"

"Boring." She answered. "At least you get to see Fresno though, right? Is it nice?" She heard a bird, so he was definitely outside, and she quickly looked up the weather for Fresno.

"Oh yeah. It's beautiful. Sunny and hot."

Her heart fell out of her chest as her computer screen showed thunderstorms in Fresno. "I bet." She said weakly. He was lying. Greg was lying to her, which could only mean one thing. "Hey, I should get back to studying."

"Yeah, and I have to head to the next meeting, but I'll take you out to dinner Monday after your test okay? Love you!"

"Bye." She mumbled and hung up the phone. 'Love you' he said, then why was he lying? Where was he really? In Santa Barbara? Doing what? She stared at her books, all motivation to study gone. All that was running through her head were possibilities of why Greg would lie to her. Rachel would have answers, and she clearly wasn't going to give them over the phone, so Rebecca grabbed her purse and her keys and headed for home.


He'd never been so angry. It took Rachel literally holding him back to keep him from attacking Greg. Greg, who had been so nice, who Rebecca had fawned over, who seemed like he might be 'the one' or whatever, he was cheating on Becca. On his sister. On one of the most wonderful people on earth. He may only be fourteen, but he knew that was unforgivable. However, Sis was right, Greg was nearly twice his size and probably not the best person for him to pick a fistfight with. But they had been watching him for hours now, tracking him and taking pictures. "Why are we just sitting here? We're going to do something, right?"

"Make no mistake, little brother, Rebecca and I may be like minded in most ways, but I am not nearly as demure as her. We're doing something, I'm just trying to figure out what will have the most impact and cause her the least amount of pain."

He hadn't thought about that. This would crush Rebecca. She was undoubtedly the sweetest of them, the most tenderhearted. And he loved that about her, but now that Rachel said something, he realized they did need to handle this with some degree of delicacy. "So what do we do? We know it's him and we know he's cheating."

"And we have proof, which is imperative. Unlike you and me, she's inclined to believe the best of people." Sis added. "But I want to make him pay, really pay for what he's doing to my best friend."

He clenched his fists again, subconsciously; he knew exactly how he wanted to make this guy pay. Then, a plan dawned. "We could tell Dad." Dad was extremely protective of the twins, but possibly more so of Becca just because Rachel was less likely to take crap from guys anyway.

Rachel looked at him thoughtfully, then shook her head. "Dad might kill him."

"He wouldn't kill him—that would be too hard on Mom and Becca, but I guarantee Greg would learn his lesson."

Rachel thought some more, staring at Greg in the distance before turning back to him. "You do think just like him, don't you?" He tried to hide his smile. "Alright, let's go Squirt."


"Nate McNabb…it's been a while. How are you?" He asked the young man sitting across from him.

"I've been better." He sighed.

"So how can we help you here at Psych?" Shawn had been surprised by the phone call from the young McNabb asking to make an appointment. Gus was out at some tap show for Krista for the weekend but he figured he could handle anything Nate could throw at him.

"I'm pretty sure my girlfriend is cheating on me and I want proof." He said matter-of-factly.

Shawn nodded solemnly. He didn't often take cheater's cases these days, but for Buzz's boy it seemed doable. "What makes you think so?"

"It's just a gut feeling I have. I can't really explain it, but do you think you can help me?

He sighed. "Yeah, I'll need some information from you though." He rose to grab a sheet of paper when the door burst open and two of his children spilled through the door.

"Dad!" Rachel cried. "Dad, we need your help."

"It's Becca." Isaac added and his heart skipped a beat.

"What's Becks? What's wrong?" A stream of possibilities began rolling through his mind, each worse than the last.

"Greg is cheating on her." Rachel answered. "We have proof."

"Wow, cheaters all around today." He heard Nate say from behind.

"What's the proof?" He asked stiffly, anger flaring up inside him. If what Rach and Ice said was true, Greg would have to pay.

"Pictures." Isaac said as Rachel produced her phone and began scrolling through pictures. Each one made him more angry than the last. Greg was cheating on his Peanut, his little love, his daughter.

"That's my girlfriend." Nate said softly. "That's Rebecca's boyfriend?"

Shawn nodded, seething too much to speak initially. "Evidently my children did my work for me." He said to Nate and then turned to his kids, "Where?"

"Down the boardwalk a ways." Isaac answered through clenched teeth, clearly as angry about this as he was.

He stormed out of the office and started down the street, looking for Greg and only seeing red. He hadn't been this angry since Juliet told him what Declan had done to her, and this time he was going to do something about it.

"Dad, wait up!" His Baby Girl called and he kept walking. "Dad." She said as she caught up. "He was at the Mexican place on Fifth when we left."

"I'm here for backup." Isaac added as he caught his breath. "No one messes with the Spencers."

"Count me in too." Nate said, having caught up to them and Shawn nodded, they were getting close to Fifth now.

"There, that's them." Rach pointed to a couple sitting on the patio, laughing, enjoying themselves, the filthy cheaters.

Shawn jumped over the small iron rail, yanked the boy to a standing position by his collar and landed the first punch before Greg even had time to react and the pain he felt in his hand was immensely satisfying.


She had tried dialing Rachel twice to no avail and punched Isaac's number in the phone. He'd only had a phone a couple months, but he was usually pretty good about answering it. "Isaac!" She cried when she heard him pick up.

"Becca, um—"

"Bub, I'm in Santa Barbara, where are you?" She'd driven like a mad woman and cut her travel time significantly, narrowly missing a couple tickets, but she didn't know where anyone would be.

"You're here? Seriously? Come to the Mexican place on Fifth, but Becca…"

"Don't…just don't tell me yet, I'll be there soon." She interrupted and drove to the place he said purely on instinct—her brain seemed to have shut down temporarily with blind fear of what she would find when she got there.

As she pulled in to the parking lot, the fear increased at the sight of a squad car with lights flashing. She jumped out of her car and ran toward the commotion on the patio. "Dad?"

"Becks." He said with a heart-breaking half-smile. "Hey Peanut."

"Daddy, what happened?"

"Babe he just attacked me out of nowhere!" Greg, whom she hadn't recognized at first because he had cause on his nose and his right eye was swollen shut, exclaimed.

"You, shut up." A group of voices replied and Isaac and Rachel appeared on either side and hugged her tight.

"Rebecca, what are you doing here?" Rachel asked in a whisper.

"You're a sucky liar so I came down. Broke my record. What's going on here?"

At that, Iris appeared. She was a detective now and just as awesome as the Chief had always been. "Officially, nothing. Hi Rebecca, it's good to see you, although not under these circumstances." Then she turned to Dad. "There will be no charges pressed Mr. Spencer, but if there's a next time, try to take care of this in private because I'm not sure other officers would look the other way. But family looks out for each other, I'll see you later and make sure you ice your hand." Then Iris smiled sympathetically at her and walked to her car.

"Someone please explain." She pleaded, looking to her brother, sister, and Dad.

"I'll tell you—" Greg started to get up but someone shoved him back in the seat and as she looked at the man who did, her confusion grew.

"Nate? Nate McNabb? What the hell is going on here?"

"Rebecca," Her dad said soothingly. "Peanut, sit down."

"I will not!" She remarked, feeling like a child again.

"Becca, Greg was cheating on you." Isaac said as soothingly as Dad had spoken.

She looked to Greg, who at this point at least had the sense to finally look guilty, then back at her family. "You're sure?" As much as she trusted her family, she still couldn't believe it.

But Rachel pulled out her phone and began showing her pictures. Pictures that shred her heart into pieces. Pictures of Greg and some girl who she didn't see around. Pictures of them laughing, hugging, kissing. "The girl is Nate's now ex-girlfriend. He was in Dad's office when Isaac and I stormed in."

"Rebecca, I'm sorry." Nate said softly. "I'm sorry this happened to you, I'm sorry you had to find out this way."

Her knees were buckling and she sat in the seat Dad had initially pointed to. "I'm sorry too. For you." She noticed one of his knuckles was bleeding and several were bruised. "Did you hit him too?" It hadn't taken her above-average detective skills to figure out Dad had beaten the crap out of Greg, who she couldn't bring herself to even look at.

Nate nodded and she found herself unable to hold back the tears that had been looming since she left school. Suddenly, the hand that had those bruised and bloody knuckles laid on top of hers while the other cautiously wiped a tear off her cheek. "Don't cry Bec." Nate whispered as she opened her eyes to see him crouching in front of her. "He's not worth your tears." Then he gave her a weak smile before standing up abruptly and clearing his throat. "I should go. I, I have some pictures to burn and stuff." Then he nodded curtly to her family and started walking down the street.

"Babe—I'm—"

"We're done." She interrupted Greg. "I don't ever want to talk to you again. I'm going home." She added in as strong a voice as she could.

"Rach, drive her home. I'll take your car to pick up some ice cream with the Iceman and you can drop me off at work tomorrow before you leave." Dad said and she smiled gratefully at him.

Isaac pulled her to her feet and gave her a warm hug. "I love you Becca, I'll see you at home and we'll gorge on ice cream with extra fudge."

She smiled and kissed the top of his head, then hugged Dad before letting Rachel lead her to her car. When they got home she walked to her room in auto-pilot, crawled into her bed, curled up in a ball and let out the sobs she'd been holding in. A second later, she felt Rachel crawl in, wrap her arms around her, and hold her tight.


She came home from a day of errands to see Rebecca's car in the driveway. That was the second time that weekend she'd been surprised by a daughter's arrival, so she walked in excitedly and called for her likeness. Instead, Shawn came to the door and her attention was immediately drawn to the bandage on his hand. "Shawn…"

"Rachel and Isaac caught Greg cheating on Rebecca today—with Nate McNabb's girlfriend actually. I took care of it." He said in an uncharacteristically serious tone.

Her mind reeled. Greg, a cheater? He had seemed so nice…but she'd been there before. Her heart broke for her daughter in a way it hadn't since she was small. "How is she?"

"She's upstairs with Rach. You should talk to her." He replied, answering the question in his own way. She nodded, kissed him tenderly, planted a kiss on Isaac's head as she passed him on the couch, and went upstairs.

She stopped to listen outside Rebecca's door and what she heard both warmed and broke her heart. First, she heard Rebecca whimper—that all to familiar whimper of betrayal and heartbreak, but then she heard Rachel's soothing voice—a Spencer specialty she had come to love—stream a constant flow of affirmation and love.

"I love you Rebecca. I'm so, so sorry. I love you. He's an idiot. I'm so sorry he hurt you, I love you." Rachel's voice came through clearer as she cracked the door and saw them snuggled in the bed, Rachel wrapped around Rebecca and gently stroking her long golden hair. "I'm so sorry. I love you Sister-mine."

She walked up quietly, though a subtle shift in the girls' body language told her they knew she was there. As she reached the bed, she placed a hand on Rachel's shoulder and her Sweetpea extricated herself from Rebecca, smiled weakly at her, and silently walked to her room. "Hi Sunshine." She said softly and Rebecca slowly sat up but still faced the wall. She sat in the vacated space and pulled her daughter close, holding her tight as a new wave of sobs overcame her. "I know Baby. I know."

"I'm so mad at him." She mumbled through the tears. "I'm so mad, but at the same time…"

"You just can't believe it's true. That this man you loved so dearly could actually hurt you this deeply." She spoke from experience, an experience she'd hoped either of her daughters would never gain.

Rebecca cried harder and Juliet just kept holding her and kissing her head, unable to say anything. "It was just so easy, everything with him was so easy and good."

She wiped away a tear from her own eye, then pulled Rebecca's face up and wiped away her tears so she could look into her eyes. "Reb, Baby Girl, listen to me. Love isn't easy, but it's worth fighting for."

Rebecca sniffed again. "But it seems so easy for you and Dad."

At that, she laughed lightly. "It's never been easy for Dad and me, but I'm going to tell you what I told him so many years ago. I think that sometimes, maybe, the best things, the richest things aren't supposed to come easily, and that sometimes the moments that make the most sense happen when everything else doesn't."

Rebecca looked at her thoughtfully. "When did you say that to Dad?"

"The night of his first date with Rachel's mother." She answered honestly and watched as shock registered on her daughter's face. "Yeah, and you know what? We went through years of pain and heartache because of decisions he made that night, because he chose the easier route, but I wouldn't change a thing. You see, I stand by what I said. I thought that moment made sense, but it wasn't the right time yet. Had we gotten together then, we wouldn't have you and Rae, we wouldn't be the family we are today, and in the moment my life made the least sense—Shawn was there. Finally the moment was right and our family is the best thing of my life."

Rebecca hugged her again, likely thinking through what she had just said. "Nate told me not to cry over him, that he wasn't worth my tears. Did you cry when Dad went out with Rachel's mother?"

"Yes." She mumbled. "And I cried over your father. But Nate's right, Greg isn't worth your tears."

"I'm sad for him too. For Nate. I wonder how he's doing." She mumbled, then she chuckled. "I can't believe it, my boyfriend cheats with the girlfriend of my first date." As if on cue, Starfish, their mutt of an apology for that first date, nosed the door wider and came trotting into the room, laying her head on the age of the bed and looking at Rebecca lovingly. She patted the bed and Starfish jumped up, licked Rebecca's cheek lightly, then gently laid her head on Rebecca's lap. "Hey sweet-girl." She mumbled, playing with the dog's floppy ear. "Maybe I'll call him in the morning." She said distractedly. "See how he's doing."

Juliet smiled and kissed her daughter's golden head again. "That would be very sweet. You ready for ice cream fest? Your dad and brother bought all your favorite flavors."

Rebecca smiled at her and nodded. Then she leaned down and kissed the top of Starfish's head and added, "I think you're right too. I'll wait for the richest things because they're worth fighting for. Let's go eat way too much ice cream with the best things in our lives."

/\/\/\/\/\/\

Hey guys! I'm back again! Sorry it's been a while between chapters but I'm finding this school year incredibly busy! Just a little about what I'm doing here with the whole "Part I" thing in this and "The Development"...I'm going to tell all the kids' love lives in parts because they're ongoing stories. Now obviously, Rebecca and Nate already had their first date, but that was different because they were just kids and it was one little date...plus I didn't decide to do this till after I wrote that...anyway, Isaac will get a Part I of something too and then I'll eventually write Part II for each of them. It in phases-like the Marvel movies, but with random other chapters in there too. So yeah, hopefully that long-winded explanation makes sense and if it doesn't, just roll with it!

ShulesFan99-I feel like Iris would be awesome too. Even though her part in this chapter is small, I love writing bits of her into this.

boxofpandora16-I hope this chapter lived up to your family attitude expectations! And sounds like you have a great family, mine is like this to a degree, but my goal is to have a family like this when I have kids eventually.

TheShulesLovinPsycho-I got your whole handle on this one ;P! Glad you liked the last chapter and sorry for the bit of confusion. Hope you like this one as well!

cupcake-glad you liked the chapter and I hope you've caught up on sleep!

Potato-I'm glad everyone likes Iris, she is pretty darn awesome! And this chapter is less Spencer Twin antics and more just love, but I hope you like it!

Well that was a longer author's note than I intended but I love replying to your reviews so please keep writing them! Hope y'all are doing well!