AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter is for phnxgrl, for being such an amazing and loyal reviewer since the early chapters :) As a certain tiny redhead would say: "Love to you!" By the way, phnxgrl: there is a nod to you in this chapter. Let me know when you find it! Other orders of business: special shout out to Writer200 for having the 200th review! 200 gold stars to you! One last thing: Happy late birthday to my dear friend Ellkat! I hope it was the best! :D

CHAPTER 36: 11:11

(Lanie's Point of View)

I couldn't trust myself to speak because I could hardly believe what was happening, and I was so shocked and so happy. After all of these years, our baby girl was home? She's all grown up, too…

Miracles really do happen…

Who is that little girl next to her, watching me through those adorable frames on her face? She must be my baby's baby. (Wait. That makes me an abuela…) The little girl looked like a four-year-old version of me, except with lighter brown skin and thicker and curlier hair. Speaking of hair, hers added to her cuteness factor by ten because it was long and done up in dozens of braids, each one decorated with multiple cowrie shells. Dressed in a yellow tutu dress and sandals, she was just flat out adorable, and I suddenly hoped (more than usual) that the baby growing inside my womb was another girl, because when I was little, most of the family planning I did was for having a family of girls. I had to suppress a laugh when the little girl started blinking at me in an owlish manner through her glasses because her beautiful brown eyes were magnified to a great a great degree, giving her the overall appearance of a cartoon character.

Looking at my mini-me for another minute, the doctor side of my brain kicked into high gear when I realized that she was looking in my direction, but not at me. (Is she blind?) I found it very intriguing, but was distracted from thinking about it any further when the baby gave me a hard kick, reminding me that I needed to be sitting on the couch and not kneeling on the floor in front of my daughter and talking to her, like Javier was.

Obeying the baby's request and sat down on the couch, soothing the baby as she moved around restlessly. (Like Kate and Castle, we had also chosen not to find out the gender of the baby beforehand, but I had a feeling that I was carrying a girl) My attention was diverted from the baby when my daughter turned to me. (My heart sank when I saw that she was also looking in my direction, but not directly at me) As I took in her appearance, one of the things I noticed right away was that she had a swirling design tattooed on the right side of her face. It started out at the edge of her eye and then blossomed out in pattern similar to the idea of a tree branch. It ran the entire length of the right side of her face, starting from the top of her forehead to the bottom of her jaw, and extending out to the middle of her cheek. It looked very pretty.

Not caring too much about that, I pulled my daughter in close for a hug, overjoyed just to have her in my arms again.

"Jessica Rose," I whispered to her when we pulled her apart. "I want you to know that your father and I have always loved you and wanted you. Giving you up was the hardest thing we've ever had to do."

She smiled briefly, making my heart turn to butter when I saw she had her father's smile, but that all went away when the smile faltered when and she furrowed an eyebrow, suddenly resembling a younger, more ticked of version of me.

"Yeah, well, if you two loved me so much and you wanted me," it didn't escape me that my daughter's voice was full of scorn. "Then why didn't you come save me? I grew up in hell."

My heart shattered into a million tiny pieces and I couldn't speak again, once more feeling the weight of past decisions (and regrets) coming back to haunt me. All I could do was rub my belly in a mechanical way as the baby kept moving.

Javier answered the question for me, directing her attention to him. "We were just kids when you were born, and we thought that it was the best thing for you. Please forgive us, niña."

Jessica Rose made a pouty face like a little kid trying not to cry as she rubbed her eyes. "As mad as I am for having grown up the way I did, I forgive you, papa." Javier gave me a surprised look in reaction to Jessica's words as she reached for my hand and looked at me. "I forgive you, too, mama."

My voice was too thick with emotion to form a complete sentence, but I managed a single word. "Why?"

"After all of the things I've experienced in my life, I've learned that it's not a good idea to run around carrying a grudge all the time, because you never know when there would be a chance to make amends and get back what was once lost. If you're too angry, you'd miss the chance, even if it was right in front of you." Jessica answered sagely. "I decided a long time ago that if someone has done me wrong and they deserve a second chance, I'll give it to them," She wiped the tears falling down her face away with the back of her hand. "And you two are my parents, so there isn't even a question about forgiveness and second chances there."

Javier breathed a huge sigh of relief and I kissed Jessica's hand. "Thank you, Jess."

Silence fell as I held Jessica Rose for another cuddle, and I shifted uncomfortably as the baby gave me a jab with one of her elbows. The sudden movement caused Jessica to drop her hand against my belly, and it landed near the spot where the baby was moving. Curious, Jessica moved her hand (and attention) to the spot and began feeling around, as if she couldn't quite locate the spot. Looking over Jessica's head, I glanced at Javier and knew that he was thinking the same thing that I was: our daughter can't see properly. Neither one of us said a word, but we both placed Jessica's wandering hand on the spot where the baby was kicking up a storm.

A childlike smile appeared on her face, shining through the weariness and battle scars.

"You're having a baby?" My heart turned over happily at the unadulterated joy in her voice. After being gone for twenty years, I couldn't believe that Jessica was taking the news about the baby so well. Sometimes you get lucky, I suppose. "I'm going to be a big sister?"

"Yes, mija," I cooed, guiding her hand over the entire length of my enormous belly. "And it's due literally any day."

"We don't know the gender yet," Javier added. "But we do know that he or she is overdue and that your mama is getting crankier by the day about it."

Javier dodged a swat from me as Jessica chuckled at her father's words. "I've been there when I was pregnant with Gabriella. I was ten days overdue with her."

Javier and I made sympathetic noises as our granddaughter chose that moment to wander over. In the process of walking over to us from where she had been sitting on the floor about six of seven feet away from us, she tripped over her feet twice, but got up and dusted herself off like it was nothing. (That's totally not normal…) I couldn't wander off onto a rabbit trail because Gabriella regarded her mother in a curious way.

"Mama, you say my name." she stated clearly. "I here."

"I was just telling my mama and papa that you took a long time coming out of my tummy." Jessica told her.

"I taked ten days." Gabriella chirped in amusement. "Ten days!"

"That's right." Jessica praised. "Muy bueno, Gabs!"

Gabriella smiled a smile that I recognized as my own, but it faltered as fast as her mother's had earlier because I saw the wheels turning in her head as a new thought occurred to her. Touching Javier's knee, she spoke to him, eyes becoming even more magnified by her glasses as they widened.

"Mama say that you her papa? You my abuelo?"

Well, damn. This little one didn't miss a thing, and I wouldn't put her past four years old.

"Si." Javier responded, also surprised by Gabriella's cleverness.

Gabriella turned to me. "Abuela?"

"That's right." I nodded. "I am your abuela."

…I find it amusing that after all these years, it took something as big as being reunited with my long-lost daughter to make me start weaving Spanish words into my vocabulary like I did when I was a kid…

Gabriella smiled again before turning in her mother's direction. "What doing, mama? Why touchin' abuela's tummy?"

"There's a baby in there." Jessica informed her daughter. "Do you want to feel?"

"Si, por favor." The little girl nodded, making her cowrie shells clack together. "I want to feel."

Javier and I watched in fascination as our granddaughter moved closer to her mother and felt around the surface of my belly before locating her target and gently sliding her tiny hand Jessica's adult sized one. She obviously knew that her mother literally couldn't see things the right way.

Gabriella glanced up at me, hand still plastered to my belly as she tracked the baby's movements. "'Buela, is baby boy or girl?"

"I don't know yet, sweetie."

She leaned forward and gave my belly a gentle kiss, reminding me vividly of LJ. "Defin'tly a girl." My heart beat a little faster as she rubbed the bulge, and she giggled hysterically as the baby moved in response to Gabriella touching my belly. "This is baby Grace. That name perfec'…"

"I like that name." Javier told Gabriella as he gave my hand a gentle squeeze. "It really is perfect."

"Oh, yes." I nodded in agreement. "If the baby is a girl, we'll be sure to name her Grace."

Gabriella beamed and turned to her mother. "My 'Buela gots a baby in her tummy like you used to!"

Jessica Rose's whole demeanor changed in a heartbeat at those words. She immediately dropped Gabriella's hand and started rubbing her belly with a gloved hand, longing for something that she once had, but obviously didn't anymore. Tears of grief fell down my daughter's face as her own daughter apologized over and over before scowling at us all and going to retreat to a spot near the door, just in case she wanted to flee.

Javier and I moved closer to Jessica and wrapped our arms around her when she didn't object. It was a few minutes before she could speak.

"I had a bad miscarriage in the hospital two months ago," my heart broke yet again at her words. "And not only that, but they also tried to take Gabriella away from me because one of the nurses was old fashioned and believed that someone like me isn't fit to be a mother to someone like Gabriella because I'm so young, and because she and I are both disabled."

Javier could only offer words of sympathy. "I'm sorry all of that happened to you, Jessica Rose. I just wish that I could take your pain away."

I rubbed my daughter's shoulder, trying not to shudder as memories from my past came rushing back to me. "Jessica?"

She turned to me. "Yes, mama?"

"I understand the pain of going through miscarriage."

Jessica's eyes grew wide in shock. "How could you know? How could you possibly know?"

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out before answering her. "Because, mija," I traced the outlines of her beautiful face, trying not to let my heart hurt too much as I kept finding new scars on her skin. "We wanted to have a baby last year, and we tried, but I miscarried three times before giving up." I sighed heavily. "Nobody knows about it. Not even my best friends…"

Jessica couldn't find the words to sympathize with me, and she didn't have to for me to know that she was sorry without saying it directly.

She leaned against me and gave my belly a rub. "What about this one? After all the grief that life has put you and papa through, this one is very much alive, and very active." The baby rolled her knees under Jessica's hand, drawing smiles from both of us. "I think that God decided to smile down and give you a miracle. There's nothing better than an overwhelming dose of happiness after a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders."

I was about to say something in response to that, but the sudden noise of a chair scraping across the floor. We all looked over to see that Gabriella was back on her feet and moving around the room, touching everything she came into contact with.

No longer able to contain my curiosity, I asked the question that I'd been thinking about since first seeing my granddaughter. "Why is Gabriella touching everything in sight?"

"She's memorizing the layout of the room." Jessica explained. "She's getting comfortable, and that's a good sign."

Javier asked his question at point blank. "Is Gabriella blind, Jess? It seems like it."

"Yes, she is." Jessica answered with a nod. "She's been legally blind since birth, and she can see, not well. I'm blind, too, but I wasn't always. I just don't know how blind I am because I've never been to the doctor for it." She scrunched up her nose comically as she tried to remember something. "I think the last time I was even in a doctor's office was when I was pregnant…"

Before the air became too heavy, Javier changed the subject as he traced the tattoo on her face.

"How did you get this tattoo, mija?"

Jessica's expression turned dark again. "Sir had one of his people tattoo me to show that I belong to him."

"Who is 'Sir'?"

"Nobody you can touch. He is untouchable." Jessica's voice was dripping with venom. "I have heard the voice of evil, and I don't want to hear it ever again. It haunts my nightmares all the time."

"Fair enough." Javier agreed. "We won't talk about it."

Jessica reached up and touched the side of her face with the tattoo. "Sir said that nobody is going to want to marry a girl who is 'marked up' like me because I'm ugly that way." She made a scoffing noise. "I don't even know what to make of that because I haven't been able to see my reflection at all since I was a kid, and I forgot a long time ago what I even look like." Jessica rubbed her eyes again, still trying not to cry, but I still heard the tears in her voice. "I have no understanding of the concepts of beauty or ugliness because all I can see are shapes and the outlines of people, and everything else is nothing but a blur. Gabriella says I'm beautiful, and her vision is almost as bad as mine, but she tells me I'm beautiful because she's my daughter and she loves me unconditionally. I'm not sure if she understands beauty or ugliness, either…"

Looking my daughter over, I decided that she was beautiful. True, she was dressed in mostly gothic punk attire with a black t-shirt decorated with a pirate skull, a purple plaid mini skirt, fishnet stockings and had black platform boots (complete with skull buckles) on her feet and leather gloves on her hands, and she had dreadlocks running down to the middle of her back, I realized that she was very beautiful—glamorous, in fact. With her chocolate brown hair, brown eyes and her mocha colored skin, and square jaw line and curly black hair, she looked like a good mixture of Javier and me. Any guy would be lucky to have her…

Not wanting to freak Jessica out by trying to comfort her about her appearance, I decided to ask her about the gloves on her hands and the gauze her arms were wrapped in.

"What's under the gauze, Jess?" I asked curiously. "Why are your arms wrapped up?"

"It's the reason we couldn't leave sooner." She responded darkly. "I got the tattoo on my face about a week ago, but there are tattoos on my arms that took seventy-two straight hours to complete."

"That's three days!" I blurted.

"I know." Jessica replied bluntly. "I didn't want to get any of my tattoos, but I didn't really have a choice in the matter. Tattoos are Sir's way of showing that you're his property. It's like being branded, but without the cattle prod." She sighed shakily and I realized that her defensive walls that she had probably spent a whole lifetime building were slowly crumbling to the ground. "I didn't have a choice in getting the tattoos, unless I wanted Gabriella to get hurt, but I did have a choice in the pictures. It's a shame that I can't even see what they look like."

"What did you get?"
Jessica held an arm towards me. "Why don't you find out?"

I carefully undid the bindings on her arm and the glove on her hand. When I saw what was underneath, I gasped. All up and down her arm was the most intricately detailed tattoo sleeve I had ever seen. The top of Jessica's shoulder a Chinese symbol at the top, and directly beneath that, stretching from that point to her elbow was a beautiful depiction of an African lion. Underneath the lion, on Jessica's forearm was a pattern of different shapes and colors that went all the way down to the bases of her fingernails. In the middle of that design sat a banner with the word 'imagine' tattooed in cursive.

Javier undid the bindings and gloves on her other side and let Jessica turn to show me after a minute. This arm held the depiction of a bright red phoenix rising from a huge flame against a starry night. The phoenix itself and the yellow stars and black sky went from the top of her shoulder to her mid forearm. The flame took up the rest of the space, coming to an end at the bases of her fingernails again.

"The lion and the Chinese symbol stand for strength, and 'imagine' is on there to remind me that it does gets better, even if you have to imagine it first." Jessica explained. "The phoenix is the international sign of rebirth, and according to ancient mythology, the phoenix can live up to a thousand years. Near the end of its lifecycle, it builds a nest and ignites itself. The nest and the bird will both burn, but in the end, a baby phoenix will rise up from the ashes to live again." Jessica brushed a hand over the phoenix absently. "I always thought of the phoenix as a magnificent creature and I convinced myself that one day, I'd be able to rise above the hell my life was and be born again, as well. That day is finally here…"

Jessica Rose's voice trailed off and she suddenly looked like she had disappeared to a place inside herself.

"What is it?" I asked gently. "Please don't shut us out."

She took a deep breath and slowly released it. "The lady who did all of this work was named Leila. She used to run in some really bad circles with the Irish mob and the drug lords. Leila met me when I was a few hours from having Gabriella, and she had mercy on me and brought me to a hospital herself. She was still associated with those bad people at the time and we were still in hell for four years, but she cleaned herself up for us and kept an eye on us. It was the closest I'd come to having any parent since my foster mom was murdered, and my foster dad took his own life. Both of those things happened in 1999, I think…"

My daughter leaned against me as her body shook with silent sobs. I put an arm around her shoulders and Javier held her hands in his comfortingly.

"It sounds like you and Leila were very close, no matter where her loyalties were." I noted.

Jessica nodded. "You have no idea."

"What happened to Leila?" Javier wanted to know.

"She was murdered today, a few minutes after she put the bandages and gloves on me." Jessica's voice wavered as she spoke. "Sure, Leila was misguided for awhile, but she was still a good person in the end. Leila was the first person who reminded me of what it's like to be loved like a mother. I don't know if she ever had kids, but she loved Gabriella and me like we were her babies." Jessica leaned her head against my shoulder. "I don't know who did it, but I heard the gunshot, and when I turned around, I saw the shape of her body lying on the ground, exactly where she had been standing. Leila didn't deserve to die like that, not after all the right she did by Gabriella and me. I miss her so much already…"

Jessica Rose finally lost all of her composure and broke down into gut wrenching sobs. She let Javier hold her as I leaned over and wrapped an arm around her shoulder and made soothing noises. Gabriella's little heart became undone and filled with pity as she heard her mother's cries of anguish. Abandoning her previous activity, she toddled over and requested to be put into Jessica's lap. Once she was seated, she seemed unsure of what to do, so she just settled for leaning against her mother and resting, content just to be near her.

My family is finally together again (plus one), and I couldn't be more thankful.

Jessica Rose is broken, there's no doubt abut that.

The kind of damage that she sustained over the years makes me wonder how she's still standing.

My daughter is broken, but she's an extraordinary example of strength and determination and courage, some things that I lacked when I was her age.

Jessica is a miracle, all by herself.

My miracle.

(Out in the bullpen)

(Jordan's of View)

First I saw with my own eyes the beautiful bond of love and friendship that Calvin and his friends have with each other, and then I help reunite Detective Esposito and Doctor Parish with their long-lost daughter after she's been gone for twenty years?

What's going on, here?

(And why in the world do I keep flashing back to my terrible childhood now, of all times?)

Why do I have this unshakable feeling that everything I've ever known about love and family and friendship is changing, being taken to a whole new height?

"Jordan?"

"Jordan!"

"JORDAN!"

I practically jumped out of my skin when I saw Avery watching me with concern.

"Are you okay in there?"

"I am, yes." I assured him. "You just stopped me from wandering down a path that I don't want to set foot on right now."

"Well, good." He motioned to a team of our best agents who were waiting for us in the area surrounding Kate's murder board. "It's time to go tell them about our plan. Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." I answered confidentially. "It's time to face the music."

Trying my hardest to keep thinking about the task at hand, we headed over to our team to begin detailing what was probably going to be the most personal rescue mission I've ever run.

AN: Two gold stars apiece to anyone who is still alive to press that little review button down there after my lack of updating. This thing called life happened…