I am so close to finishing this! It's absolutely incredible to see some old faces popping up in the reviews, thank you so much for taking the time to write. I realise it has been many years since I started this so it's amazing that you're still reading and interested to find out how it ends.

I'm really sorry that this hasn't gone the way some of you wanted it to. I can see how strongly you feel from the reviews you leave, especially on the Eve/Calvin split and the portion of time attributed to certain characters. I hope that you have enjoyed the story to a point, and again it makes me sad you aren't enjoying it anymore and I'm sorry. On balance I just feel that I need to write this out to the ending I feel in my gut and accept that it won't be to everyone's taste.

Thank you so much again for taking the time to leave me some thoughts and words. I am so excited that I have a big hit of inspiration and motivation to finish this. There are only a small handful of chapters left to write this to a close and I hope to get them up in fairly swift successful over the next week or two.

"What is going on with you, mija?"

"Nothing."

"Really? Did you tell your face that? Because the way you've been walking around here like a bear with a sore butt this past few days …."

"That's not the saying, Mama."

"Don't you be smart with me."

"A bear with a sore ass, are you kidding me?" scoffed Leni, tossing her curly black hair over her shoulder and unnecessarily busying herself pouring some of the twin's cereal into her bowl.

"Chica did I do something to make you mad?" asked Texas, baffled. Shaking her head and puzzling at Elena's crumpled expression she tried again. "Did I do something wrong, Elena?"

"I don't know…." came the slow swallow from Elena as she deliberately avoided her mother's eyes, "… did you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Texas, watching her daughter's black eyes expand.

With her thick cow like lashes, delicate nose and flawless skin there was no denying that Elena was beautiful. She was academically strong, which she got from her biological father. Her looks, her wit and her wiles were all her mother. Her stubbornness and grit she had learned from being raised part Arliss. It was the perfect trifecta to see all her dreams come true. It was also the exact combination that could set the world on fire and then burn it to ash around her ears, a fact Texas was acutely aware of.

"Nothing, nothing just forget it…."

"Leni? Leni get back here!"

"Everything okay here ladies?" asked Calvin, wandering into the kitchen as Leni flew out.

"I don't know what's gotten into her Cal. I can't talk to her, she won't talk to me…." hands on her hips Texas hiccoughed her frustration, "… and I can always talk to her."

"Hey, hey come here…." said Calvin gently, sliding his hands through the gaps made by her braced arms and encircling her waist. Hugging her close he pressed a kiss against her neck and inhaled slowly, "She's a teenager now, babe. All bets are off. Previous rules of engagement no longer apply. Don't get yourself all fired up. We'll figure it out."

"Becoming a teenager doesn't mean you lose the power of speech, mi amor…" protested Texas, unwilling to relent. Head bowed she allowed her frustration to become threatening tears and he watched her chewing on her lip as she fought it back.

"Can we just take a moment, just a minute, to throw a little perspective on the situation? Tex do you remember what sixteen looked like for you and me?"

"No…." she said with a quiet denial.

It was a lie that wasn't really a lie because the second he caught her eye they both knew they were right back there. Those same sparks flew even now, never having been lessened by the passage of time or the water under bridges burned. A lost, lonely boy betrayed by the world and everyone in it. Fighting to keep his mother alive, desperate to find his place in the world, longing to belong somewhere other than what he had been born into.

"Cos I remember it being confusing a fuck. I remember being pretty angry, pretty unpredictable, pretty messed up emotionally. It's a lot to figure out and sometimes it's not easy to put that into words for your mom."

That boy, and the girl who loved him. Nostalgia would write about a wildflower growing against the odds, beautiful and resilient in a barren wasteland of futility and desperation. In that moment Texas did not recall a spring awakening, the coming of age that most teenagers experience that she knew Calvin was referring to with Leni. Sixteen for her had been wide awake and screaming. Too much sex, too much alcohol, too many drugs and a crippling loneliness and self-loathing that would take decades to heal.

"She has nothing to be angry or messed up about Calvin…." she flashed, hot and defensive. Sitting wilfully down on the memories and squashing them back down where they belonged.

"Tex just because she's not going through the hell we were at sixteen doesn't mean she doesn't have the right to…."

"I know that, I know that. I'm sorry. I misspoke, that isn't fair."

"Yeah, yeah you did….." he replied firmly, and her eyes flew up to his with concern. "Because you know I actually personally remember sixteen feeling pretty damn good at times."

"Sí, claro que sí. Your mother was a heroin addict and we were starving and stealing shit to survive. Yeah, yeah that was a doozy of a year, you're right!"

She was buzzing around the kitchen like a bee on honey the way she always did when emotions were building and it drove him crazy. He grabbed her arm, dragged her close again, and forced her to stand still.

"You're being a little dramatic…." he said, but they both knew she wasn't. For a moment they just stood together, his arms around her waist and her hands on his shoulders, her fingers worrying at the collar of his t-shirt. "I try to forget about all that. But do you know what I do let myself remember about being Leni's age?"

"What's that?" she asked, but they both knew she needn't. His eyes sparkled with mischief and his mouth drew to a playful smile. "Huh, is that right?" rolling her eyes as he kissed at her neck Texas tipped her head back and let out the bar room cackle that set his heart ablaze.

"Oh I'm not being romantic. I'm not rose tinting this because I'm right. Sixteen year old Calvin was not the sensitive, evolved, gentleman you see before you today."

"¡Estás loco!"

"He was confused and angry and unpredictable and pretty messed up emotionally but he was not confused about wanting to bang his best friend."

"!Ay! Calvin!" she shrieked, smacking the side of his hand with a startlingly quick hand and a little more force than intended.

"He was actually pretty predictable in that regard…" he continued, grinning now and deliberately squeezing her hips against him tight.

"Shut up…." she half spoke half exhaled, flushing hot.

She wanted him, and he wanted her, and as they swayed gently back and forth in their kitchen she wished she could have gone back in time and told that hopeless girl that decades later this was how her life would turn out. She'd still be in his arms; joined at the hip.

"Tex I was an asshole back then. To the whole world including the person I loved most in it….." leaning down and stealing a kiss he smiled, "… that was you by the way."

"I guess it wasn't all terrible…." she confessed, flashed memories of their past passions causing the hairs at the back of her neck to tingle, "… there were moments."

"Yes, yes there were Boots."

"You won't ever let me forget that will you?" she moaned softly at how that nickname had withstood the test of time.

"What? You walking around my mom's house wearing only your boots? No m'am that will not be something I forget. Not ever."

"You couldn't trust her floors if I knew I hadn't cleaned them! There could've been anything, needles, it was a safety precaution!"

"My point is that whatever Leni is going through she'll figure it out. Give her some space. Let the reigns loose a little and let her breathe through it. "

"Not too loose, okay? You made me remember us at sixteen and it wasn't reassuring. I'm scared to death, guapo."

"Yeah, yeah okay but don't be. I think between you, me and Gil we can't probably find a balance between a convent and Viv Arliss' particular brand of parenting."

"She wasn't so bad…" winced Texas, lying through her teeth and praying she was in any way convincing.

"Tex we both loved her but we also both know she was a fucking terrible parent…." he laughed grimly, but retaining that tender affection he had never and would never lose for Vivian. "Right, you stay here, I'm gonna go deliver this pep talk to Legs now."

"Okay but you should probably skip the little trip down memory lane when you…."

"Really, Boots? You think?" he groaned, already walking away.

"What's going on, kid?"

"I'm not a kid anymore."

"No, no apparently you've become you're mother…." sighed Calvin, realising that he was now responsible for the defusal of two beautiful bombs.

"I'm not like her…." came the response that took him aback.

Gesturing to the end of Elena's bed and waiting for her to nod permission before he took a seat Calvin sighed heavily. Perhaps Texas was right, and he had underestimated the weight of whatever was bothering Leni.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, after several long moments of comfortable silence had passed between them.

"No reason."

"Sure, sure okay…." he said quietly, turning his hands over on each other and nodding steadily.

He wouldn't push her. Their bond was strong, absolutely water tight and always had been. Gil had always and would always be her father but Calvin was something to her that she couldn't even begin to put into words. He was her other Dad, of course he was. He was also one of her closest confidants and the person she could always run to, talk to, lean on and fall into. He person who could always, no matter the situation or how bleak or bad it seemed, make her smile.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Affirmative."

"No I'm serious, will you tell me the truth?" she asked, legs folded and eyes starting unblinking over at him.

"Always, Legs, you know that."

"Was my mom in jail?"

"I…."

"Because Dylan Morris' father is a corrections officer at a women's prison upstate and he used to work in the city and he told Dylan that…."

"Okay well for starters I am not warming to this Dylan punk so….."

"Is it true?" she asked again, her thick black brows knotted intently.

"Leni I love you but I'm in an impossible situation right now….." choosing his words carefully, knowing that in not flatly denying it he was answering in part against his will. Dropping his head into his hands Calvin sank his fingers into his hair and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Oh my God…."

"Legs will you do something for me? Please?" he never asked anything of her, not ever, and never with the look he wore on his face in that moment. Her heart broke to see the pain in his eyes and so she nodded quickly to try to make it go away. "Will you talk to your mom? Will you have this conversation with her?"

"But I'm having it with you…."

"No, no you're not…." he sighed, hauling himself up from the bed and shaking his head. "I'm sorry."

"But…."

"I can't, babe. It's not my place. I promise that whatever you're thinking, wherever your head has gone to because of what that little fucker has said it's not like that. Your mom has a story to tell and she will tell it to you Leni. You're old enough now. It just can't come from me, it can't. That's not how me and her work…." he wasn't going to apologise, but he came close in his eyes as he leant down and pressed a kiss against her hair, "…. you'll just have to trust me on that."

"Not pregnant."

"That's okay, babe. It's okay, it is. There's always next…."

"Beth it's not working. It's been nearly five years and it's not working. I know you don't wanna get tested and I know why. I know why you won't go to a doctor."

"It hasn't been five years Sam, that's ridiculous!" cried Beth, running a hand through a scoop of blonde hair and attempting to make light of the darkening situation.

"We haven't used protection in five years and we're not pregnant. What does that tell you?"

"A lot of things, it tells me a lot of things but none of them are gonna get fixed by you yelling at me."

"I'm not yelling."

"Okay, okay sure."

"It's me, I know it is."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

Defeated Sam shrugged himself further into his chair and allowed his hands to fall limp at his sides. This isn't you, he heard his brother and sister say, you're better than this. He knew it too, in his heart, and yet somehow his head refused to toe the line. There had been dark moments over the years, and eventually he had conceded that talk therapy and a little chemical assistance were needed at times to keep his mind in check. He had long since accepted help for his physical challenges, though with time had found his own detour around most obstacles. Accepting that he may have a lifelong struggle with mentally accepting who he was and all that it meant had taken longer. He had got there, however, or at least he had thought he had. Until Elliot died and it somehow compounded everything else.

"Well, no, no actually you don't. You don't and neither does science. You told me about…." lowering her eyes, daring to go there because in that moment the pain of unearthing ancient history long buried was more bearable than their current purgatory, "…. about Bo. So we know that it's not you."

"We know that it wasn't me. Not then, but what about now? I was just a kid back then, it was a lifetime ago. A million things could've changed since then."

"Are you really that self-absorbed that you can't even entertain the possibility that your body could be perfectly fine and normal and I could be the one…."

"My body perfectly fine and normal?"

"Oh God, Sam don't make this about that!" cried Beth empathically, throwing her hands in the air as though with enough will they might teleport her out of the conversation.

"Because I make everything about that?" snapped Sam, though he didn't mean it. They weren't really having this fight, they weren't even having this conversation, it was just the weapon he reached for when he didn't have the words or the strength to articulate reality.

"Not what I said, don't twist my words, don't put intentions on me that were never there. That could never be there and you know it."

"What if we can't have kids Beth?" he finally managed, the fear in his eyes palpable and grounding to his wife.

"There are a million ways to have kids and a sperm and an egg are just one of them."

"I'm pretty sure that's the only way that kids are made."

"I'm pretty sure you're deliberately being an asshole right now."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you?" she sighed, tired. "You get to have your feelings about this Sammy but I get to have mine too. And right now you are shitting all over them with, with, well with whatever the hell is going on with you right now."

"I think I've just got a lot on my mind and it's all getting a little twisted up somehow."

"I know you have, babe. Your Dad just died for God's sake. I haven't forgotten that. I haven't forgotten what you've all gone through the past couple of years."

"What we've gone through…." he replied, wheeling himself toward her and grabbing for Beth's hand, "… what we've all gone through. I know it was crazy hard on you too."

"That could even be a factor, right? Stress? For either of us, or both of us. We don't know, that's all I'm saying. I'm just saying that I need to be able to talk about this more. I need us to talk about this and maybe even discuss what happens if we can't do this by ourselves. If we can't do this at all."

"Beth…."

"We're not getting any younger Sam. Time isn't on our side and if it's for certain that biology really isn't on our side then I want us to start talking about other options."

"Other options?"

"I didn't mean to clobber you with this so soon after Elliot…."

"Clobber me with what?" asked Sam, still clutching her hand.

"I want us to look into adoption."

"Eve Stabler speaking…."

Drawing her lips to a broad grimace of doubt Eve held her cell phone to her ear with one hand and gestured to the door with the other. She held Paul's eyes for a moment as she disappeared into the other room away from CJ and Livi to talk freely.

"Was that the call?" asked Paul, when Eve came to find him in the kitchen staking the dishwasher.

"It was."

"And?" he asked cautiously, attempting to read her expression.

"I got it."

"All of it?"

"Every cent."

"Holy crap."

"They think I've identified a serious gap in care. They said they've been looking for something in survivor advocacy that bridges the gap between the police and health care providers. They think my ideas on how to draw in pro bono legal services are innovative and have real potential and the education plan for colleges is robust and the sex workers programme is…."

"So what happens now?" he couldn't help but interject, getting swept up and carried away by the life and enthusiasm effervescing from Eve as she recalled the details of her phone call.

"We get started, I guess!" she shrugged, pulling a panicked face and not really knowing herself.

"What? Like, right away?"

"They basically said once I have Craig Hargreaves speak to their legal team then the money is as good as ours so…."

"Evie Stabler, CEO of her own freakin' charity foundation. That's killer, darling. Absolutely mind-blowingly kick ass. Do you even realise?"

"It hasn't even begun to sink in yet."

"I can't want to tell Tex, she had a huge hand in this. Her ideas and her nursing experience and her….." wavering for a moment Eve thought of the hours she had spent making deeper connections with Texas than she had ever imagined possible, "… life experience."

"Your Mom is gonna implode with pride."

"Oh my God…." biting her lip Eve wrinkled her nose and held her breath, "… my Mom."

"You should call her. Actually, wait, no, you should wait till she gets home and then tell her face to face. I don't even know!"

"You're amazing, you know that?" said Eve, shaking her head in awe of the man behind the woman.

Paul Tyler was a fiercely capable man though you wouldn't realise just how on first meeting. Maine raised, Yale educated, an only child from a tiny town no one would ever hear about who had found himself working night and day at a city job he hated but was terrified to leave. A job he would probably still be doing if Evie Stabler hadn't blown into his life one late summer afternoon and changed everything.

"Says the woman trying to save the world."

"You know this will mean even longer hours. Nights away in the city. Probably trips out of state. Are you okay with that? Are we okay with that? You already have the twins basically full time."

"Which I'm totally cool with you know that."

"I know but…."

"A long time ago we made the choice to put your career first. I knew what that would mean. You don't really think that I didn't see this coming? I felt it in my bones. I knew you were meant for bigger things than that job and that only confirmed to me we were making the right choice."

"Okay, okay and if you ever wanna come with me or we need to regroup or just take five I know Cal will take them for extra days or in school holidays. You shouldn't feel bad just picking up the phone."

"I know that, darling. The guy scared the crap out of me the first time I met him but I'm no fool I know I lucked out there."

"It's so funny you were scared of him."

"Are you kidding me? The guy is intimidatingly attractive and built like the The Millennium Falcon."

"Honey no one uses Star Wars references anymore you're so cute."

"He's the ex that new guy on the scene's dreams are made of, darling. I would feel completely comfortable calling him morning or night about the twins in your absence. Texas too. Plus we both know I won't have to. He'll be second in line to do whatever he can to make this happen for you."

"Which we might need because my mom plugs a lot of gaps right now and we don't know how long she's gonna be here so…."

"Evie…." all colour drained from Paul's face and Eve realised in horror what he had thought she was meaning.

"Oh God! No! I meant here, like here, at our house, like in Connecticut!"

"Jeez, darling, don't do that to me…."

"She belongs in the city."

"I know you were heart set on her staying here…."

"I am, but it's selfish. it's not the right fight for her. She has no real friends here, no family apart from us and the twins. She misses being close to Fin, she misses Cal and Texas and Leni. Sam visits all the time but they had so many little things, little routines and stuff they used to together in New York and they barely do them anymore."

"I know the two of you don't like her getting the train on her own."

"She's done it today to go see Fin but she's getting older, right? I'm trying to find the right balance between taking care of her and being super patronising but she won't quit. She won't ever slow down or acknowledge things changing, her being less able to do stuff. I guess I just feel like someone has to be the big bad wolf you know?"

"And that has to be you?"

"Sam's always been good cop and I've always been bad."

"So make Calvin split the difference. I know I'm pretty new to all this and I don't pretend to have a tight grip on the Stabler dynasty backstory but it kinda seems to me like he's her son too, right?"

"Yeah, yeah he is…." sighed Eve with a warm smile. "And she'll listen to him, she will. Actually he can sometimes say stuff to her that even me and Sam can't. He can sometimes get away with saying stuff that she would only ever take from…."

"From your dad?"

"I just want her to be happy Paul."

"I know you do, darling."

"I know she can't ever be completely happy without him. I just want to get her as close as possible."