A/N: Hey. So thanks for the well wishes everyone! I'm in Florida for the time being and it is, uh, well it is certainly an adjustment. I'll be happy to head back north when the time comes but the move is serving it's purpose. I've been writing like crazy so sometime next year I might have a bunch of original stuff to share (which is a super scary thought). I'm working on like eight projects right now so I decided to take a little break today and have fun with some fanfiction.

I'm nervous because you guys might hate this eeeee. Um, this will be the only chapter like it though, I promise, so at least you won't have to suffer long. It's pretty different, but if it helps, I really enjoyed experimenting and writing it. Anyway, not long now (chapter-wise) before we hit the end, so that's cool.

She opened the letter like all of the others, quickly and without ceremony. She was three lines in before her eyes focused and her mind sped up, before she realized it was something different from the rest, something she had been craving for years.

It was something she never dreamed would come.

Eight times she read the letter, steaming mug of coffee in her hand. It cooled more with each passing of the few words and never reached her lips. Eventually she remembered it and lowered the cup to the counter. The letter was read a ninth time.

The foreign handwriting seemed so unbelievably familiar, though it was likely a lifetime of regret that made it appear so. Guilt transformed the messy scrawl into some intimate friend she had been longing to become reaquainted with after years of separation.

It soothed her, comforted her, and beckoned her into the far off distant places of the past.

"You really need to be more careful," the woman informed her, sniffing importantly as she wrote only god knew what on the papers pinned to her clipboard.

It was incredibly unattractive, the self importance and the condescending lecture. Especially so considering it was coming from a woman no more than a handful of years older than Hannah herself.

"Yeah, well," Hannah returned with as much disinterest as she could possibly bring herself to convey, "live and learn I guess."

Karin Chakwas eyed her young patient warily, fending the disdain from her expression. Being polite was always key, even with the more unsavory types she was forced to deal with throughout the long hours of the walk-in's night shift.

Idiots and drug addicts, those were the two types of people who walked through the doors after midnight. The girl before her was an unfortunate blend of both, fingers tapping nervously against shaking legs as her wide eyes darted about the immaculate space. Only a curtain separated them from the hoards of others looking for an easy road to a handful of painkillers.

She spent as little time in the clinic as possible, but Karin had been around long enough to see through the act being presented. The girl had likely dislocated her own shoulder in any number of ways. 'Falling down the stairs' was always code for anything but.

"Well," the girl pressed from where she sat, legs swinging childishly over the tiled floor, "you gonna pop it back in, or what?"

"No," Karin responded absently, attention back on the papers she held, "You'll have to wait for the orthopedic physician. It won't take long."

"Or-orthopedic?" Hannah snorted. "Like a bone doctor?"

Karin closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply and summoning her patience. It was all a means to an end, she reminded herself. She was here because she had to be. It would all pay off, her exhaustion, her irritation. It would be worth it, she just had to keep pushing along for her future.

"Yes," she sighed out. "Yes, like a bone doctor."

"You're not one?"

Again, Karin found herself eyeing her patient warily. "I'm not, no."

The girl's face scrunched up. "Then, uh, why ya here, Doc? You're sorta wasting everyones time, aren't ya?"

Rather than huffily expend energy on explaining protocol and limited staff and efficiency to the undoubtedly impaired and likely unemployed, Karin simply took the opportunity to slip away and let the child be someone else's problem. She had gotten all the information she was required to.

"Hey, look who it is," Hannah exclaimed as the other woman approached where she sat. It was similar to the position she had found herself in not two months earlier. "Remember me, Doc?"

Karin turned to properly take in her most recent admission. She was distracted by the persistent ache in her feet and the thrumming in her lower back, but she thought that perhaps she had seen the girl somewhere before. Then again, at five in the morning everyone started looking the same.

"Vaguely," she offered, curt but hardly openly impolite.

Hannah sighed. "S'okay," she let out matter-of-factly. "I'm not all that memorable."

The memories came back to Karin as they spoke and she set about her work. It had been a fractured something or other that had plagued the younger woman in their first meeting and she had merely seen her in and gotten her settled. That had been much of the work she had done in the past. Now she was more trusted and experienced.

It wasn't pleasant work, as the girl seemed incapable of shutting her mouth for longer than mere seconds at a time, but Karin was fueled by the early hour. Her shift was over, and once Hannah was out the doors and back on the streets she was free to head home and rustle up a warm breakfast.

"Like I said," Karin reminded her patient absently as her hands manipulated the gauze bandage they grasped delicately into place, "it will be annoying, but it's nothing serious."

"Yeah, well, you're not the one feeling it," Hannah returned through a wince as the burns across her palm were agitated.

Karin paused. "Too tight?"

The girl laughed. "I don't know, Doc. You're the one who has been trained, not me."

Her doctor let out a huff before continuing. "If the pain is too much feel free to take an aspirin or some ibuprofen."

"Nothing stronger?" the girl tried hopefully. "It hurts like a bitch."

She was dismissed quickly. "Those will be more than proficient."

Karin hesitated as she finished, warring with herself. She held the girl's hand lightly in her own, eyes trailing up the forearm to wounds that hadn't been brought to her attention. Her bed was calling out to her, beckoning her home, but her sense of duty forced her to linger.

"These happened at the same time?" Karin questioned carefully, so as not to spook the younger woman. She wasn't inexperienced enough to really believe the ugly purple markings staining her patient's skin were made just hours earlier, but it was best to let people such as this think they had the upper hand.

"Uh," Hannah started, nodding her head as she reclaimed her hand far too quickly, "yeah. Happened in the fall."

"Right," Karin accepted. She couldn't force honesty. "You really need to be more careful," she added.

Hannah laughed. "So you keep telling me, Doc." She slid to the floor on unsteady legs. "I suppose that goes double around hot stoves, huh?"

Most people were waking up, rolling into work while Karin was just leaving. She only worked at the clinic three times a week, but she certainly had a routine. With her head held high, she stepped out into the brisk morning. It was still dark, but the first rays of sunlight were starting to peek over the buildings of the city. She was on her way home, but wasn't prepared for the particular disruption she was about to run into.

"Free at last, eh?"

Hannah was just outside the doors of the clinic. Her eyes seemed heavy and she looked a little lost, as though she wasn't quite sure why she was still hanging around. A cigarette burned between inexpierenced fingers. They held the stick awkwardly, betraying that this habit was a new one for the girl. That, or she was used to using the hand that was currently incapacitated.

Karin reminded herself she didn't care what the answer was, all she needed was to make the bus headed home.

"Have a good morning," she offered awkwardly, pulling her jacket more comfortably around her as she started down the sidewalk.

Hannah pushed away from the wall against which she had been leaning, falling into step beside the other woman. "You don't enjoy this doctoring business very much, do you?"

"Of course I do," Karin replied before she could stop herself.

"Fine then," Hannah allowed as they pressed on together, "but you don't like doing it for people like me." Karin faltered, straightened, and the girl was laughing. "Little rich girl doesn't like mingling with the peasants."

"Little rich girl?" The girl had no idea, though Karin guessed she shouldn't have been surprised. People like her were close minded and selfish, only ever focused on the easiest way toward instant gratification. They played the victim and played it well with a ridiculous air of superiority, as though the turmoil they put themselves through made them better than everyone else. "Why are you following me?"

"I'm headed for a ride home, same as you." Hannah didn't seemed bothered by Karin's clear discomfort in the slightest.

"Well, maybe find a new route."

Hannah laughed. "Very unprofessional," she scolded.

"My shift is over."

"So this is the real you then?" the girl pressed. "This is you when no one is watching?"

Karin sniffed. "Obviously not, you're here." she picked up the pace as they rounded the corner of the sidewalk.

Hannah kept it easily. "Yeah," she allowed, "but i'm nothing to you. I don't count, do I?"

Just a few more steps and they had reached the bus stop. Karin had nowhere left to run. She reluctantly stopped just before the curb, sure to look anywhere but her unwelcome companion. Hannah moved to her side, tossing the shriveled butt to the pavement and stamping it out.

"You want to help people, want to make yourself useful, you thrive on it." The girl was lighting another cigarette that had seemingly appeared out of the air.

Karin tried to bite her tongue, but failed spectacularly. "And where did you come up with an idea like that?"

"Because we're pretty similar, you and I," Hannah informed her solemnly, "in the ways that matter at least."

"I doubt that."

"You've been beaten down and need the constant reassurance that you have meaning to anyone besides yourself." Hannah snickered wickedly. It was a hideous sound. "Well, anyone but people like me. Our need for you doesn't matter. We're a means to an end. A box to tick on a resume." She paused for a moment, coughing lightly. "You need validation alright, you just want it from the right kind of folks. That's the only difference between me and you, I've just been beaten down so low I've lost my standards."

Karin contemplated the idea of simply walking home. Her feet didn't hurt that badly. "That's the only difference?"

Again, there was laughter. "Well, that and money."

"If only," Karin muttered bitterly.

Hannah wasn't supposed to have heard, but she did, and she suddenly wore an inquisitive expression.

"I'll bite," she said quietly, "let's say I'm wrong. Let's say i've gotten it all backwards and you're broke, poorer than dirt." She smiled. It wasn't a kind smile, it was twisted with too much unwanted experience. "Okay, so you're breaking away, clawing up to the top. You're desperately trying to reverse your lot in life. Everyday is a struggle but it will be worth it in the end when you achieve your goals. One day you'll be on top of the heap, victorious."

Karin refused to meet her gaze. "Please stop."

Her meek request only seemed to fuel the younger woman on further. "And that's it, that's why you hate us. You were us once, or maybe a couple steps above. We're that reminder. We're the fear of what might have been, what still could be with just a handful of slip ups."

The hissing of the bus pulling up to the curb interrupted Hannah's analysis, as Karin didn't waste a second in leaping aboard.

"You can't smoke on here, love," the driver called down to Hannah as Karin ascended the stairs.

The girl shrugged, stuffing her hands in her pockets. "I don't want in," Karin heard her calling back to the man as she found a seat, "i've got a ride coming."

The heavy man shrugged before stretching over to close the doors. Karin peered out the window as they pulled away, watching her former patient lazily saunter down the sidewalk until she faded from view.

Six weeks had passed and Karin had been so close to forgetting the unsettling encounter until she slipped behind her patient's curtain to find an eerily familiar scene.

"Hey, look who it is," Hannah exclaimed from where she sat, legs swinging childishly. "Remember me, Doc?"

Karin bit back a groan at hearing the greeting once more. "Yes," she allowed after a moment. "I remember."

The girl didn't miss her dismay, though merely snickered. "I got a doozy for you today, Doc," she announced nonchalantly, throwing a thumb up towards her forehead.

"Jesus," Karin muttered as she caught sight of the wound, annoyance slipping away. She moved up beside the girl, instantly assessing the damage. There was a nasty gash on Hannah's left temple. The area around it looked sticky, the blood not quite yet dry. Karin pulled on some gloves before setting to work.

"Did you lose consciousness?"

"Not that I know of."

Karin bit her lip as she attempted to brush back Hannah's hair without agitating the injury. "Can you tell me your name?"

Her patient seemed to find the question amusing. "Hannah Shepard."

"And the date?"

Hannah was full on laughing then, thought she winced and stopped rather quickly. "Shit no, Doc." she returned easily. "I couldn't before the fall either."

Karin sighed heavily, leaning back to get a better look at the girl. "Another fall?" she didn't bother disguising the annoyance in her voice.

"That's me," Hannah replied cheerfully, hands in the air. "Big klutz. Slipping and sliding all over the place."

"Headache?"

"Well, i mean, it hurts, obviously."

"Nausea?"

"Nope."

"If I ask you how this happened again are you going to tell me the same story?"

"Yes, ma'am."

And so Karin dropped the topic, focusing her energies instead on cleaning and dressing the wound and ensuring the girl wasn't concussed. It took longer than their other visits, but Karin was satisfied with her work and felt confident in sending Hannah on her way once more.

"You shouldn't be driving. Do you have someone who can take you home?"

"My boyfriend Anthony will pick me up."

"Good."

It was two and a half hours later that Karin was once again heading out into the world on her way home, and she once again found herself running into an unexpected face. Hannah was leaning against the wall beside the clinic doors, cigarette in hand, just as she had last time.

"What are you still doing here?" She wasn't even sure why she had stopped long enough to ask.

The girl's eyes flickered over her briefly. "What do you think?" She was petulant, bitter. "It's okay to laugh. I won't get mad."

Karin shifted awkwardly between her feet. "I wasn't planning on it."

The girl was snickering again. It was a sound Karin was growing used to.

"So what do you do now, ride home, eat breakfast, and then pass out for a few hours so you have the energy to do it all over?" She gave a mock shiver, as though the idea was so horrifying it physically repulsed her. "Jesus, I can't believe you actually paid a school so you could live that life. Textbook sadist."

"Masochist," Karin corrected before she could stop herself. "Being a sadist is when you…" She trailed off and cleared her throat.

Instead of laughing, Hannah considered her carefully. "You're hungry, aren't you?"

Panic coursed through Karin. "No."

Now that had Hannah laughing. "Liar." She grinned, but it was broken by a cough. "Don't get all weird about it. It's not like it's a date. I don't swing that way."

Karin was going to refuse. She was going to refuse profusely. But then she thought about the markings she had discovered in their last encounter. She thought about how Hannah seemed to 'fall' far too frequently. She thought about how two and a half hours later the girl was still waiting patiently for a ride, and then she said yes.

"Where do you work?" Hannah continued only after seeing Karin's bemused expression. "I mean besides the clinic, obviously."

"Edward Franklin Memorial."

"That place like a mile from Berkley's?" She continued only after Karin stiffly nodded. "Yeah I always got a kick out of that. 'Come eat out at Berkley's! Clog your heart tubes! The hospital is just round the bend!'." She cackled loudly. "I love that shit."

Karin glanced around the quiet diner, praying no one overheard the crass conversation she was unfortunately a part of. Luckily, at the obscene hour only a single man was present and he sat alone at the other end of the room, clearly dozing.

"Oh don't look like that, Doc, so ashamed to be seen with me." Hannah was stretching out along her side of the booth, completely at ease. "I'm the one doing you a favor here."

Karin sniffed. "This is for my benefit, is it?"

"Well I don't see anyone else jumping at the chance to hang out with you." Hannah absently fiddled with her silverware. "I mean, you're kind of stiff and unapproachable."

"And here I thought you were just looking for a free meal." The comment earned a hearty laugh. "If I'm so intolerable then why bother?"

"Because you weren't always this way."

"Okay, here is your coffee, ladies," The waiter interrupted, appearing beside their table suddenly and setting the steaming mugs in front of them. "Are we ready?" He collected their orders and menus and was off as quickly as he had come.

They ate their breakfasts, which were very overpriced, and Hannah talked. Hannah talked a lot.

She liked to see bands live but never bought their CDs. Her favorite color was blue. Not that baby blue shit, but the dark stuff. Almost black but not quite. Old people freaked her out. When she was bored on the weekends she would go to the craft store to look at all the different scrapbooking stickers they had lined up. She got a kick out of them, always did. Every night at three thirty three, no shit, she would wake up on the dot. No lie, it was the freakiest thing in the world. Cats were cool, but dogs were too in her face about everything. If she went to the movies with someone and they talked through it or checked their phone she would pretend to use the bathroom and then ditch them in the theater. Skittles were better than M&Ms and Pepsi was better than Coke. If she could have any power in the world, it would be flight.

And when her hands started shaking she threw her napkin on her plate and stood. "Leave a good tip," she said before making her way towards the door. "I can't stand it when folks leave a bad tip."

Karin treated Hannah three more times in the eight months that followed, and by her own wits she was able to stitch the bruises and cuts and burns she tenderly eased into the story of Hannah and Anthony and the life they were wrapped up in living. It was a life she could have at one time fallen into, a tale her own scars may have told.

She wondered more, Karin, as Hannah clawed further into her life. She wondered more about everyone who wandered into the clinic with a swollen eye or a broken bone. They were becoming victims to her, they were winning her sympathy, and suddenly a side job she had felt forced into pursuing had become an immersive ocean that consumed her daily.

And when Hannah limped out of her doors she would wait for the doctor and they would dine on watery eggs until the sun rose and nicotine cravings became too severe. Sometimes, Hannah wouldn't need to be treated at all, and she would be leaning against the cold cement wall of the clinic and startle the older woman with a gleeful smirk. They would talk as they ate, though most words were offered by Hannah.

Karin learned not to mind listening, though it was a role she was unused to. It seemed to her that perhaps Hannah was not always so talkative, that perhaps moments like those were the only ones when she was allowed to be.

Being a willing ear was just another service she could provide.

It was the last time Hannah came to the clinic that she walked in wobbling and woozy, hands to her stomach.

"It's a weird one this time, Doc," she moaned out pitifully. "Every morning I wake up feeling like crap. It gets better throughout the day, but I just can't shake it off."

Karin tried a lot of things before she tested for the obvious, mostly because she desperately didn't want it to be true. Still, even after the procrastination, she found herself standing before the younger woman informing her of the pregnancy.

Hannah laughed and shook her head. "Shit, Karin. You didn't tell me you had a sense of humor."

It took a good ten minutes for the information to really sink in.

It was a good fifteen weeks before she started showing.

For as long as she lived Karin would never forget the image her friend struck. She stood awkwardly in her doorstep, leaning much too far to the right. It was raining, because of course it was raining, and her lip was bloody where it had been cut, and her left eye was purple and swollen, and she swayed as she waited to be let into the warmth of the living room.

"I told him it wasn't his," Hannah offered once she was sitting and wrapped beneath a downy comforter.

"Is it?"

"Yes."

Her lips trembled at Karin's curious expression.

"I didn't want him to love it the way he loves me."

The doctors hand lingered on the projected image before them, tracing the faint outline of human life. She smiled at the young woman before her.

"Congratulations," she announced with a soft smile. "It's a girl." She sorted through her tools, setting them aside on the table but leaving the screen on and facing the expectant mother. "I'll give you a minute."

Hannah waited until the woman was gone before speaking, eyes never leaving the image. "A girl, huh?"

Karin shifted beside her. "You sound sad."

"Maybe," Hannah sighed out softly. "It, uh, it's just hard, you know?" She sniffed. "It's hard being a girl."

"Sometimes," Karin allowed with a soft smile. "But we'll make sure it isn't for her."

It was two in the morning, and then three, and then four and Hannah was yelling, shouting, screaming, screeching.

Positively screeching.

"Karin," she begged through a sob. "Please, Karin. Please." Her fingers were drumming against her thighs, only halting when she dragged her hand across her nose as it ran. "Please, you gotta let me. The baby, I can feel it inside me. She's screaming for it."

"No," Karin insisted, just as she had been. By then she was certain she looked no better than her guest. "That's you. Lay back, relax."

"No, please," the girl returned, making to stand. Karin guided her back to the bed immediately. "I have to go. You have to let me. Please." Her forehead was slick with sweat as it crinkled in pain. "It hurts, Karin," she moaned. "It hurts."

"I know." She refused to lessen her hold despite the nails digging into her arms.

"It hurts," Hannah wailed. "It's burning. Please. Please just let me go."

"Hannah, calm down," Karin soothed. "Relax. Try to relax."

"I said let go of me, you bitch," she screeched.

It was the longest night of Karin's life, and she took a sick day the next morning.

And then Hannah got a call, and then another, and another, and her bags were packed and once again she was in the frame of Karin's door.

"Then clean up, Hannah." It was Karin doing the begging that time around. "Please. Stay with me. Let me help you. You don't need Anthony."

"He needs me."

"As a target?"

"He's trying."

"He's always trying, until the moment he's not and you're back at my door."

"We're gonna clean up together," Hannah insisted. "He bought us an apartment. He got us a place not far from the clinic, actually. A few blocks east."

"Oh, well, how sweet," Karin mocked. "At least he made your commute easier."

Hannah's face softened. "Please don't do that, Karin. Not today." She wanted a fond farewell.

Karin didn't. She rushed her friend. "I can see you under all this, Hannah. You're right there, trying to claw your way out. I can see you, even if you can't see yourself. Aren't you tired of this?"

The younger woman laugh. "Fucking exhausted," she sighed out.

"Then stay with me," Karin begged once more, "please."

"He needs me," Hannah repeated, shrugging as though it had been inevitable, as though it were nothing she could control or help.

"Your baby needs you."

"My baby needs her daddy."

"Not him," Karin shot back, shaking her head. "Please, not him. Never him. If you want to go back then that is your choice but give that little girl a chance. Give her some kind of chance, Hannah."

Hannah's expression soured. "I won't give her up," she shouted. "It's my baby. We're gonna do this right for her. It's gonna be perfect because I love her, Karin. I love her."

"What do you love the most though?" her friend snapped. "The baby? Anthony? The drugs? What wins in your mind? When push comes to shove, who will you choose?

"How dare you." All pretense was lost. "You forget this has nothing to do with you. This is my decision and his, it was never yours." Hannah's fists clenched at her sides. "How can you stand there and talk like you know anything about us?"

"Because I see your kind all of the time," Karin shot back. "You're a dime a dozen."

"Fuck you," Hannah shouted, snatching her bag and storming out into the yard. She was halfway to the street when Karin popped out onto the stoop.

"You're going to kill that baby, Hannah," Karin called after her retreating form venomously. "You're going to destroy yourself and she's going to fall right down beside you."

Hannah never answered.

She heard the wailing first, and somehow Karin knew just who it would be. Somehow, even though it had been almost a year, her body reacted on instinct to the sound, muffled as it was. And then the doorbell sounded.

The baby looked terrible, though not as terrible as Hannah herself. She held the child tightly to her chest, bracing it to her body as it cried out it's distress.

"I'm sorry," Hannah said, and Karin let her inside.

"But what will happen to her?"

Karin sighed. What did she know of such things? It wasn't exactly her area of expertise.

"I guess she would be put in the foster system and adopted when the time came." Hannah's expression fell at her clear uncertainty. "It will be okay," Karin tried to recover, "there are always couples looking for babies. She'll have a great chance of finding a home quickly."

"I'll never know though," Hannah insisted. "I'll always be wondering."

And Karin didn't have an answer, because that was undoubtedly true.

"I can't just raise a child - your child. It would disrupt everything. My entire life. My entire plan. Everything would be destroyed."

"I'll do whatever I have to, just please, I want her to stay with you."

"What makes you think I can take care of a baby?"

"You took care of me."

Except that she had failed, clearly, and even now Karin knew what was going to happen. Hannah was going to unload her child, and then she was going to try and make it on her own. It would be hard, too hard, and then she would go back and regress and the cycle would continue until she killed herself, or let Anthony do the work for her.

"Please," Hannah pressed, "I just want to know she's safe, from him, and anybody else who comes along. I've done foster, Karin. It's not good. I've done it."

Karin rocked on her heels and crossed her arms and plastered a pout on her lips to put on a good show. Really she was remembering though, remembering how it felt to watch Hannah walk away with that baby in tow the first time around and spending countless sleepless nights wondering what had become of the pair.

"I'll probably have to do something," she said slowly. "I mean, there might be a test, or a class, or someone might have to come for an evaluation, i don't know. But I have a decent job, and I could hire someone," she paused, stifling a groan as she ran a hand through her hair. It all sounded like a giant inconvenient headache. "And if you said it was what you wanted, then maybe they would agree and…"

"You would take her?" Hannah supplied.

Karin was quick to shoot her down. "Temporarily," she cut in. "Not-not long term. I mean, I don't know how long it would take, but I'm sure babies go quickly."

"Oh, and she's real good, Karin," Hannah announced quickly, urging her old friend along. "Real well behaved. Real quiet. She won't be any trouble. She won't give you any trouble at all."

Not entirely true, but neither woman could know that.

"I don't know, this is insane. I'm sure there are all sorts of rules. I mean, I'm in no position to-"

"Wait," Hannah cut in, "please. We can just look and see. Just ask. Please. I'll do whatever it takes. And you said it yourself, it would be temporary. That's nothing for you, an easy thing, and you would be saving her. You'd be saving me too. We need you."

Karin glared at the other woman. "You're so fucking manipulative."

Hannah gave a soft laugh. "Yeah, I know."

Years later when Karin thought back on that moment she realized her friend probably knew what would happen. She knew Karin would fall in love, that 'temporary' was never an option. She likely even knew how much Karin would be changed by the child, even more so than she had been changed by the mother. Hannah had twisted the situation perfectly because she understood her friend's loyalty, and she knew that were she ever ready, were she ever able, she could pop back into existence and try again. Sometimes the idea would leave a bitter taste in Karin's mouth, but what could she do? She had been in way too deep from the very beginning.

For the first time since she had opened the door, Karin leaned forward and took a genuinely good look at the child in Hannah's arms. She was small, likely too small for her age, not that Karin could be certain. She looked scared, cold, and she desperately needed that chance the two women discussing her had argued about before she had even been born.

"What's her name?"

"Jane."

"Just let it go," Shepard whined. "It's fine, we're fine."

"But it's tradition," Karin moaned childishly. "All of your friends are going to have them."

"I don't need to get one, Mom," Shepard insisted. "It's just a waste of your money."

"Nonsense," her mother chided. "In a couple of years you'll love looking back on it. Everyone gets one. It's a staple."

Across the table, Shepard sat beside Miranda, putting on a great show of huffing and puffing her disdain. "Yeah. How often do you pull out your book?" she challenged.

"Don't get fresh." Karin glanced back down at the papers before her, dinner plate completely forgotten, preparing to write once more.

"Oh wait, sorry," her daughter playfully mocked, "they chiseled out stone tablets back then, didn't they?" Miranda snickered into her water glass.

"Don't encourage her, Miranda," Karin chided. She glared up at both of them. "You'll both be getting yearbooks and that's the end of that."

"That's really not necessary," Miranda tried.

"Well, it's happening so you'll both have to get over yourselves."

Any further protests from the girls were interrupted by Grunt, who had begun barking furiously at the front window. It was a common commotion, one that took place around the same time every day. Karin sighed and dropped her pen for the time being, rising to retrieve what must have been the mail. Shepard seemed to have other ideas however as she shot a wide eyed look in Miranda's direction and stood up herself.

"I'll get it." Her voice was a few pitches higher than usual.

Karin raised an eyebrow. "Why so eager?"

"I just made one joke about how old and decrepit you are, would you like another?"

"Uh-huh," Karin returned, openly dubious.

"Okay, you caught me," Shepard drawled out sadly, throwing her hands up in surrender. "It's my special mail order fetish porn stash. I didn't want you to see it."

Miranda choked on her food.

"Oh," Karin allowed simply.

She wasn't all that suspicious really. Jane was awful at keeping secrets from her and whatever she was hiding certainly couldn't be more alarming than, say, attempting to run away in the dead of night with a friend and stolen baby. She was happy to let 'secret letters' slide.

"You know you can find pretty much anything on the internet for free, right? Don't waste your money."

Again Miranda was coughing.

"Small bites, dear," Karin soothed teasingly. "It goes down easier."

Shepard chuckled before jogging off to calm Grunt and retrieve the mail. Karin settled back down comfortably and set back to work on her order forms.

"That Allers woman is hounding us again," she offered up conversationally as she ticked off the necessary boxes and signed the appropriate lines. "She's very tenacious."

"I'm sorry," Miranda sighed out quietly.

"Knock it off," Karin returned absently, as she always did when Miranda fell into her habit of apologizing for things that were out of her limited control. "We'll tell her off good this time."

Shepard trotted back in the room and tossed what was bound to be mostly junk mail onto the counter. She caught Miranda's eye as she sat back down at the table, Grunt settling at her feet, and nodded.

"You know I don't like him in here while we're eating," Karin warned halfheartedly. It was a battle she was never able to win.

"He's being good," Shepard argued, leaning down to pat him softly. "He's a perfect gentleman."

"Oh, yeah," Karin added wryly as Grunt snorted loudly under the table, "a real charmer."

Karin glanced up from the couch as she heard the girls trail out of the kitchen and head for the stairs. "Thank you for cleaning up, ladies," she called out over the soft murmur of the evening news.

"Yup," Shepard returned as she shuffled up the stairs with Miranda and Grunt close behind.

They headed for her room as soon as they made their ascent, closing the door securely behind them.

"Well?" Miranda pressed as soon as Shepard had pulled the crumpled paper from her pocket and begun unfolding the envelope.

Grunt yawned, completely disinterested with events while his owner pried open her letter. Shepard skimmed the contents twice before meeting Miranda's questioning gaze.

"She said yes."

A/N: Those Shepard gals sure have a way with melting icy hearts.