Maggie walks into the living room where Beca is sitting on the couch working on her laptop.

"Mama?"

"Hm?" Beca hums, without looking up from her computer.

She can see Maggie hanging around through the corner of her eye so she closes her laptop and turns her full attention to her daughter.

"What's up?"

"When's mommy coming home?"

"She should be home soon. What's wrong?"

Maggie shrugs and leans against the back of one of the chairs.

"Mags?"

Beca watches as all of the features on Maggie's face crumble one by one until she's in a fit of sobs. She doesn't waste any time moving to her and wrapping her up in her arms.

"Hey, hey, you're okay. Come here."

She leads them over to the couch keeping Maggie as close to her as she can. Maggie grips the fabric of Beca's shirt and presses her face into her chest. Beca's thankful the older girls aren't home because she knows Maggie would be embarrassed. She holds her until they hear the front door open.

Chloe's heels click on the hardwood down the hall until she appears in the doorway. One look at Maggie, curled into her wife, and she tilts her head. Beca shakes her own, still completely dumbfounded. Chloe slips off her shoes and walks over to kneel down in front of them. One of her hands rests on Beca's thigh and the other on Maggie's hip.

"Hi angel."

Maggie looks up and reaches out to hug her, nearly knocking her over.

"What's wrong, huh?" Chloe sits them on the floor and rubs Maggie's back.

Beca watches them. She's always in awe of the patience Chloe has with their girls. How she's able to get the truth out of them without a single word; just by waiting for it. She rarely raises her voice or gets angry. She's calm and cool under pressure. Long gone are the days where she would stress about unimportant things. So she sits and waits along with Chloe.

Maggie rests her forehead against Chloe's shoulder and works on regulating her breathing; something Beca taught her a few years ago when she started getting more anxious about things. She counts her breaths and focuses on calming down. Her brain is moving too fast and her body feels too slow. She wraps her arms around Chloe's waist and squeezes until she feels Chloe squeeze and loosen her grip in a pattern that she's come to learn means, take your time. It's okay.

"I'm sorry." Her voice is muffled into Chloe's shirt.

"No sorry's, Mags." Beca says, moving down to join them on the floor.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Chloe asks, into Maggie's ear.

Maggie sits up straighter and wipes under her eyes. She looks down at her hands, in her lap, and picks at a hangnail on her thumb.

"I don't want to."

"I don't think that's true or else you wouldn't have come down here." Beca says.

Maggie looks up at both of them before looking down again, keeping her eyes trained on the heel of her sneaker this time.

"Why am I so stupid?"

That word hits like a ton of bricks. Beca can feel all of Chloe's muscles tense next to her. This isn't necessarily a new conversation, but they've never seen her quite this upset before.

"You are not stupid." Beca says, her tone turning defensive.

"Well I'm not smart."

"I don't appreciate you talking about yourself that way."

"Beca." Chloe says, it's a gentle warning.

She knows the way Maggie views herself hurts Beca. It hurts her too. But they need to be calm. They've always needed to approach Maggie with a gentler, more adept, hand than they do their other two. Chloe rests her hand on Maggie's cheek and looks right into her eyes; the crystal blue ones that match hers so perfectly.

"What happened today?"

Maggie takes a deep breath, she holds it in her chest for a few seconds before letting it back out with a huff.

"We got assigned a new group project for Language Arts, and everyone picked their groups, but no one picked me."

Chloe watches Beca's whole body tense and puts her free hand, the one not holding Maggie's, on her knee. She gives it a squeeze; another reminder to keep calm.

"Mrs. Fenton had to put me in a group. I heard them talking after school about how unfair it was that I needed to be in their group because everyone knows I'm the dumbest kid in the class."

Beca stands up, quickly, and starts to pace back and forth. She wants to find each one of those kids and shake them. She wants to find their parents and tell them what they've been saying, and ask what they're teaching them at home. She puts both of her hands in her back pockets. To keep them from fidgeting, she sits back on the couch behind Maggie so she can't see the anger on her face. Chloe stays put, waiting for Maggie to say more. She doesn't.

"Listen to me, what those kids said is not true. At all. You are not dumb and they should feel lucky to have you in their group."

"But they're not wrong. I am the dumbest one in class. I never know what's going on and Mrs. Fenton knows it too because she doesn't make me read out loud anymore, and she gives me extra time on the tests. Everyone knows it."

Maggie starts to cry again. This time they are silent tears, rolling down her cheeks and she doesn't bother to wipe them away. Neither Beca or Chloe know what to say. They've been trying to convince Maggie that she isn't dumb for years. Since her dyslexia diagnosis she's had such low self-esteem and they aren't sure how to show her what they see in her.

"Can't you just home school me?"

When she looks up at Chloe with her big blue puppy dog eyes, she wants to buckle immediately. She wants more than anything to say yes. It was something they had talked about in the beginning, but they decided they can't shield her from the real world; they want her to make friends and experience school like her sisters. Although now they realize that's not possible; for her, it will never be like it is for her sisters.

Chloe pushes a piece of hair that has fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear and tries to think of something to say. Before she does, the front door opens again and they hear Lennon's voice, slightly frantic.

"Mama, come quick!"

Beca jumps off the couch and rushes down the front hall. Lennon is standing there, taking Charlie's backpack off her shoulders and tossing it aside. Charlie's groaning, holding her left hand. She's covered in mud and it takes a second for Beca to realize it, but she has blood on her too.

"What happened?"

She leads them into the kitchen and starts digging through the first aid kit for stuff to clean her up. Chloe and Maggie walk into the room a second later.

"Oh my God, what happened?" Chloe asks, taking Charlie's hand in hers to examine it.

"Charlie punched someone."

"What?" Beca and Chloe both say at the same time.

They both take a momentary pause to look at Charlie, who should probably look guiltier than she does. She simply replies,

"She punched me first."

"That's your argument here?"

"It's true. I was trying to have a conversation with her and she came after me."

"Stop moving." Chloe says, trying to clean her hand.

"So I punched her back. What was I supposed to do?"

"Nothing. You do nothing." Beca says.

Charlie's mouth falls open slightly.

"And let her punch me in the face?"

She winces when Chloe touches a particularly sore spot and pulls her hand away.

"Why did this happen in the first place? What did you say to her?"

This is when Charlie freezes. Beca watches her eyes go from her face over to Maggie and back. Chloe stops what she's doing.

"Maggie," Beca starts, "can you do me a favor?"

Maggie nods.

"Can you call Aunty B and ask if she can come take a look at Charlie's hand later? Tell her we'll feed her."

Maggie nods once more and walks out of the room. Beca doesn't really need Hanna to come look but she knows that the story of whatever actually happened isn't going to come out if Maggie stays in the room. Chloe continues her work on Charlie's hand and face, because now that they've gotten a good look, it's clear that this girl got a few good ones to her eye too.

"Charlotte, what happened?"

"I heard a couple of kids in Maggie's class complaining about her being in their group for a project. One of those kids has a big sister in my class, Sasha Barrett. She had joined in too. I didn't like what they were saying about her so I wanted to let them know."

Chloe looks up at Beca and sees the exasperation on her face.

"Honey, I know you want to protect your sister but this isn't the way you do it." Chloe says.

"I didn't throw the first punch." Charlotte defends herself.

"What were they saying?" Beca asks.

She has her arms crossed over her chest and leans against the counter. She isn't sure she wants to know because she can't be sure she'll be able to keep herself from finding those kids herself.

"Charlie, time to speak up, kid."

She pulls her hand away again and puts it in her lap.

"They called her stupid. They said that she should go back to kindergarten and learn her ABC's and that they didn't know you could get into fourth grade if you're dumber than a dog. That's when I jumped in."

Beca sighs and Chloe looks at her; ready to take her lead.

"Len, can you go keep Maggie busy please?" Beca asks.

Lennon nods and starts out of the room with one more look at Charlie.

"Charlotte, listen to me," Beca starts, "I know you think you're responsible for your sisters."

"I am. And they are responsible for me."

"And nothing makes me happier than knowing that you all look out for each other. But there's a time and a place for that. There are lines that you don't cross."

"No one else was going to do anything about it. No one else was there."

Chloe puts a hand on her shoulder to keep her calm. She has the same hot-headed nature that Beca can sometimes have; without the years of practice in containing it.

"That's when you call us." Beca says.

"You just would have done what you always do." Charlie says, her voice raising to a near yell.

"And what is that?" Chloe asks, trying to keep her own tone in check.

"You guys always say that you'll deal with it. You say that it's your job to worry about us but there are some things you can't fix."

"What does that mean?" Chloe asks, genuinely wanted to know.

"You don't know what it's like for her at that school. Every day it's someone new, making fun of her and making up lies to make her look dumb. But she doesn't say anything to you because she thinks that she'll disappoint you or make you sad."

"She's said that to you?"

Charlie nods, "But even if she didn't, she wouldn't have to. I go to that school too, remember? So punching that girl wasn't a snap decision. I've tried talking to them, for a long time now, but they just don't want to listen. And I can't see Maggie sad anymore."

Charlie gets down from the stool and walks, like she's already sore, toward the stairs. They hear a bedroom door click, somewhere upstairs, and stew in the silence. Beca shakes her head and Chloe looks like she's about to cry.

"How did we not know this?" Chloe asks.

"Because she didn't want us to. You heard Charlie, she didn't want us to be sad."

"And yet, I'm still heartbroken."

Beca pulls her into her arms and kisses her head.

An hour and a half later, Hanna walks through the front door. She steps into the kitchen and leans against the island. Beca and Chloe are preparing dinner, it's silent, and slow; the opposite of everything this house usually is.

"What is going on?" Hanna asks, her voice is the way it always is but right now, it feels much too loud.

"Hey Han." Beca greets her.

"Hi. I came as soon as I could. Maggie said Charlie got into a fight?"

"Uh, yeah, after school. Would you mind checking her hand, I think it's fine, just bruised."

"Sure, she's upstairs?"

Beca nods and gestures toward the staircase. Hanna grabs her bag and takes the stairs, slowly. She can't figure out if the quiet is due to anger, or if there is something more to the story. All of the bedroom doors are closed when she makes it to the top of the stairs. She knocks on Charlotte's door; the one at the end of the hallway. She waits until she hears a quiet, "Come in".

"Hey Charleston."

Charlie looks up from her biology textbook. She looks so much like Beca, the older she gets, sometimes it almost takes Hanna's breath away. She takes her reading glasses off and pushes the stray pieces of hair away from her eyes. Hanna notices the redness on her knuckles right away, and the beginnings of a pretty harsh black eye.

"Your moms want me to check you out."

Charlie nods and moves wordlessly to the edge of the bed, allowing Hanna to take the rolling chair. She takes her hand in her own, gently. She presses down in a few spots to check for fractures, when she's satisfied there are none she puts her hand back down in her lap and checks her eye.

"So I take it you're the cause of the weird tension downstairs, right now?"

Charlie shrugs, "I was just doing what I thought was right. No one else really seems to see it that way though."

Hanna nods, always one to side with Charlotte; she has a soft spot for the kid, probably because she reminds her so much of Beca. She thinks, and feels, the hardest but never seems to know how to express it. Her sisters feel deeply, just like their Mom, but they don't have any trouble sharing it; Charlie struggles and it pulls as Hanna's heart.

"I know you and Mama didn't grow up together, but if you had, and you heard someone talking bad about her, you would have punched them, right?"

"Is that what happened? Someone said something about one of your sisters?"

"You didn't answer the question."

Hanna lets out a little chuckle before sobering once more and placing a hand on Charlie's knee.

"I think I may have, yeah. And I think that if it were reversed, and someone said something bad about me, your Mama definitely would have punched their lights out; actually she has done that for me before."

Charlie's eyes widen and her eyebrows lift.

"Don't tell her I told you that."

"What happened?"

"A story for another time. But you are so much like your Mama that I think sometimes it scares her."

Charlotte's expression falls and she looks just past Hanna's face, over her shoulder.

"She doesn't want me to be like her?"

"That's not what I'm saying. What I mean is, she knows all of the mistakes she's made and she knows the pain she's felt, and the troubles she's had, and she would never, ever, want any of that for you. You being like her is an amazing gift, but you are also one hundred percent your own person."

"And that's a good thing, too?" Charlie asks, moving her eyes back to her aunt's.

"It's an incredible thing. It means that you're free to make your own mistakes and have your own troubles, and pain, because all of that leads to the accomplishments and the happiness, and joy, that you'll have. Sometimes, as grown ups, we can forget that you guys are your own people. But as a kid, your job is to remind us all, by making good choices; whether or not we can see that they're good at the time."

Charlie nods, she's pretty sure she understands what she's saying. She wraps her arms around Hanna's shoulders.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. So what happened exactly?"

Charlie recounts the story before they are all called down for dinner. The meal is tense. Beca is still angry and Chloe is so sad she can't even look at her plate. Maggie plays with her food but no one sees any of it make it to her mouth. Charlie can't seem to stop moving. As for Lennon and Hanna, they're simply caught in the crossfire.

"So, how about them Yankees?" Hanna says.

Charlie scoffs and Maggie lets out a little bit of a smile but as soon as Hanna catches a look from Beca, she lowers her head again and they finish their meal in silence. Charlie and Lennon disappear as soon as possible but Maggie hangs around the kitchen. Hanna reaches her hand out and makes a grabbing motion. Maggie takes her hand and they go out to the back porch.

"What are we going to do?" Beca asks, wrapping one arm around Chloe's waist while they watch the other two through the screen door.

"I have no clue. We could consider home schooling again."

Beca shakes her head, "But you love your job. You would really quit to home school her?"

"I don't know. There has to be a solution that makes everyone happy, right?"

"I really hope so."

Hanna sits on one of the lounge chairs, on the patio that is now decorated for Halloween. Even though it's fall, the air still holds a sticky humidity and the lack of breeze makes if feel much more like summer. Maggie sits on the chair next to her, and she wraps her arms around her.

"Tough day today, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Charlie told me what happened. I'm really sorry that kids can be so mean."

"It's my fault for being dumb."

"Excuse me, you are not dumb."

Maggie turns the best she can from her spot and gives a dubious look.

"And I would know. I'm a doctor."

"For dead people."

"Fair," Beca pauses, "but all doctors need to be really smart right?"

Maggie nods.

"So I know smart when I see it, and you my friend, are very smart."

"But I can't read good and I always get in trouble for not focusing."

"That doesn't mean you're not smart. There are a million ways to be smart. Sure math and reading are good ways to be smart but so is knowing how to be a good friend, and being able to read people's emotions to know when they're happy or sad, you're very good at that. Being good at art or music or dancing."

"That's not smart."

"Of course it is. Your Mama makes music for her job, isn't she smart?"

Maggie nods.

"There are always going to be boxes that people want to put you in. And when you don't fit, they'll call you things like dumb or weird because it makes them scared that you're different. But I promise you, you aren't dumb or weird, you're wonderful."

Maggie smiles and nods her head. She looks up and notices her moms standing in the doorway. Chloe has a single tear dripping down her cheek.

"Mommy don't cry, please."

Chloe opens the door and takes a seat on the other chair, letting Maggie come over and sit in her lap. She rests her cheek on top of her hair.

"I'm not sad anymore."

"No? That's great." Chloe says, "We're going to talk about school more later, okay?"

"Mhm."

She bounces back into the house, leaving the three adults to think about what to do next.

"Thank you for saying all of that." Beca says.

"It was all true."

"She is amazing, isn't she? She's so smart and funny and the sweetest person on the planet. The fact that some people won't be able to see past some stupid label makes me so angry that I can't…" Beca trails off, unsure of where she could possibly go with that sentence.

Chloe reaches over and pulls her to sit next to her.

"Charlie told us today that she's miserable at school." Chloe says, unsure of what Hanna knows about today.

"She told me the same thing." Hanna says, "Then we'll find her another school."

"We will?"

"Yeah, we live in New York City, we have options. There are alternative schools and private schools or hybrid schooling. She'll get what she deserves."

"And what's that?" Chloe asks, a smile already pulling at her lips.

"An amazing education and a life that makes her feel good about herself. She already has the best team behind her." Hanna says, gesturing to Beca and Chloe. "She'll be okay."

"She'll be better than okay," Beca says, sounding confident now, "She'll be brilliant."