Polly head was still in her hands when she muttered. "It was horrible."

"What was horrible?" Kim may have been moved by her daughter's distress, Adam could see her welling up too but he was yet to be swayed.

Polly tried to hold it in or at the very least figure out how to say what she needed to say but nothing came out and Kim could see the anguished look on her face. Adam was quickly losing what little patience he had. "I'm waiting." Kim shot him a withering look but he was having none of it. If she wanted to dig herself out of this massive hole she was in she had to give him something more than 'it was horrible.'

Suddenly Polly exploded and a torrent of words came spilling out. "Abbey and I had a fight. She hates me because Sam likes me and not her so she went and flirted with some other guys, they were just there, I don't know who they were. It was the same at the party last night; she doesn't like Sam talking to me and then gets all weird and nasty. He left last night because of Abbey but he came back today and she started again. She stormed off and I went looking for her when we had to leave because Isaac knew I had to be home by four and I knew you'd be angry. And I was, I was going to be home but then I found Abbey and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't leave. I couldn't leave until I found Abbey." Very little of what she said made any sense to them and they were both struggling to keep up with her ramblings. They knew Abbey obviously and Isaac but had no idea who Sam was, but that was hardly the point at the moment.

Of all the years Adam had been with Kim when she started ranting and rambling he just had to let her go and eventually the point of it all would become clear. Polly had obviously inherited her mother's ability to say something with a thousand words instead of the fifty it probably required. Adam would often smirk at Kim while she was doing it, which never helped the situation because nine times out of ten she was ranting at him about something he had done that had annoyed her so his smug look usually made it worse but tonight neither of them were enjoying this or where it was going. Not that they knew exactly what to expect other than they knew it wasn't going to be good.

"Where was Abbey?" Kim had leapt up from her chair mid way through and was now sitting beside Polly. Her distress had gotten too much for her to leave her daughter sitting all alone on the sofa but nothing she had said had swayed Adam yet. Although he was assuming this Sam was a boy and wanted to know if he needed to hate him yet. He was smart enough to realise that now was probably not the time to ask. While Polly was quiet for now he knew she was just drawing breath for the second wave and he braced himself for the inevitable.

"She was in a restroom." She gasped for air and Kim felt her heart sink. "Oh god."

Kim looked up at Adam who was looking a little stunned and at least he'd stopped pacing and was staring at them. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the rest. "Polly, what was Abbey doing?" He asked with more than a little trepidation.

"This guy, she only just met him. I don't know who he was; there was a group of them. We didn't talk to them but Abbey did, I had never seen them before. Sam wasn't with them; he doesn't know them either. Honestly I don't even know their names, I didn't talk to them until I asked them where Abbey was, I swear I didn't talk to them."

"Okay Polly." Adam interrupted her when she just seemed to want them to know she wasn't involved with them, and Sam, that damn name again. It kept coming up. "We believe you." He wanted to move on and get to the bottom of what was going on despite knowing he wasn't going to like it. "What was Abbey doing with them?"

"They were having sex." Polly shrieked. "I walked in and saw it. I saw them and I didn't know what to do so I ran."

"Oh sweetheart." Kim was coping with this far better than Adam appeared to be. Every single emotion you could think of flash across his face, except amusement but nothing about any of this was even remotely amusing.

"What?" he sounded hysterical as he gasped. Polly's head snapped up suddenly.

"I didn't know what to do Dad. When she came out she pretended like it was nothing and then she told me that all guys are the same, they all want sex." Her sobbing was starting to subside a little. "She called me Little Miss Innocent and that my life was a fairy tale and fairy tales don't come true."

"Was it consensual?" Adam had somehow managed to flip the switch and clip on his badge and suddenly become a cop in the blink of an eye while Kim remained with both feet firmly in the mother camp.

"What?" Polly looked at her Dad and he realised that she was confused. They had certainly talked to her about consensual sex before but because she was currently so traumatised he realised he had to keep it simple.

"Did Abbey agree to have sex with this boy?"

"She said she did. It was horrible, the look in her eyes, they looked dead but she was smiling and she just told me to get out and I ran. I couldn't leave until I found Abbey. I didn't know what else to do."

"Where did she go?"

"When she came back out and we fought again and I told her that I hated what she was doing and I wasn't going to stand around and watch it and she walked off with those boys, I don't know who they were and we found her a while later." Polly was staring at her Dad; her eyes were wide with fear. "They wanted to take her home and he wanted watch her have sex with his friends. She cried all the way home. I couldn't leave her Dad, I'm sorry."

Polly fell against her mother and she wrapped her tightly in her arms while she watched Adam try and process all this. This was not what they expected. "Okay. Okay." He pinched the bridge of his nose trying to get this straight in his head. He was always prone to going off the deep end when it came to talking to the kids about sex and that was just when he was talking to Kim about it and how they were going to handle it, this had smacked him hard in the face and she had no idea what was about to come out of his mouth next.

Adam didn't say anything and eventually Polly asked her mother. "I don't understand. What's wrong with Abbey? Why would she do this? It's not right."

"I don't know Baby." Kim was rubbing her back softly. "How long has this been going on?"

"A few weeks maybe, like it's only recently been this bad but maybe a few months ago she started acting a little weird sometimes. At parties she was starting to drink a little more, on Saturday night it was really bad. I think it was when Sam came that she started freaking out and I know she didn't like Sam talking to me.." suddenly Polly slapped her legs in frustration. "…and she was trying to get his attention and he didn't like it and she went all nuts. He left because of Abbey."

Adam was still pacing back and forth. You'd think years of being a cop would make difficult conversations easier to deal with but nothing prepared you for having them with your own child. This was his baby girl, how had they suddenly got here? "Polly, this is not okay."

"I know Dad but Abbey asked me to promise not tell anyone. I didn't know she was having sex. We talked about it not long ago and she said she had never done it and then today she was talking about Sam wanting to pop my cherry and that this wasn't her first time." Polly had probably said too much but she couldn't stop herself. Not knowing when to stop talking was probably something she learnt from Adam. There were times that he was aware that Kim wished he had kept half the words in his head rather than sharing them with the world.

"Hold up." Adam held up his hand, he knew it wasn't the point and there were far more pressing matters at hand than the startling news that some boy was sniffing around his daughter but he was blindsided by the current path this conversation had taken and his name just kept coming up. "Who the hell is Sam and why are we talking about popping your cherry? Which by the way, I never want to hear again after this night."

"It's what Abbey said. I never said that. Neither did Sam."

"Okay, Do you want to tell me who the hell is Sam?"

"Isaac's friend."

"Umm, Adam. Let's focus shall we?" Kim could sense this was going off the rails, although it would probably be fair to say that it had been a while since this train had jumped the tracks. Both Adam and Polly were going off on a tangent, not a particularly unusual event but right now it wasn't helpful and Polly wasn't helping the situation.

"Dad, I promise. I haven't even kissed Sam."

"Oh God. Polly." He rubbed his hands roughly over his face.

"Dad, Sam's not like that."

"Like what, those other boys?" He waved one arm around wildly.

"Okay both of you. Just stop." Kim was still rubbing her back gently. "We understand why you were late and I am proud of you for looking out for Abbey even though she wasn't particularly nice to you. I am sorry you had to see all that but honey, we can't let Abbey keep behaving like this. Something is going on with her. Do you know what it is?"

"No, I don't I swear. I don't know, Abbey didn't tell me anything. I didn't know she was having sex. Please don't say anything to Abbey or her Mom." She was starting to struggle to breathe and Kim did her best to calm her down.

"Polly I can't do that." Thankfully Adam was letting Kim do the talking, he'd gone back to pacing and was clearly trying to straighten things out in his head, or think of ways to kill off this Sam character before he became a problem. Kim wasn't really sure which way his mind was going and quite frankly didn't care; she would deal with Adam later. Polly was her priority right now. "Firstly I don't like seeing you hurt and upset, and secondly I don't like what is going on with Abbey either."

"I am not sure I want you seeing her right now." Now Adam chose to speak. This was one of those times Kim wished he'd kept his mouth shut. "This is not the type of person I want you hanging around with. This is not okay Polly."

"Dad, please. She needs me. I know she does. I can help her."

"Polly. We'll help her, I promise." Kim reassured her.

Adam swung around as he heard Angus come downstairs. "Gus, Bud what's up?"

"Is Polly okay?" Both of them did love how much Polly and Angus cared about each other, neither of them liked seeing their sibling upset or in trouble even if sometimes it seemed like they could barely stand each other.

"She is, Polly's not in trouble but I think you should stay upstairs for tonight. I'll be up in a minute."

"Okay." he nodded. "Are we going for a run in the morning?" He asked his Dad. Adam and Angus tried to get out a few mornings a week for a run. It was something that Adam had started doing a last season when Angus started taking his Baseball more seriously and they both enjoyed their time together. Adam had coached Gus's team when he was younger but now he was moving up the grades he didn't get involved as much. It was hard with work sometimes to commit to regular trainings but he really tried hard to stay involved any way he could and this was one way he could do that. It was good for both of them.

"Sure. Six?" Angus kissed both his parents goodnight and headed back upstairs. He knew when it was best he stay out of it.

"Okay." Adam had calmed down enough to come and sit by Polly. "Here's what we are going to do. Your Mom is going to talk to Abbey." He shot a brief look at Kim who nodded. She was surprised that Adam was thinking along those lines. She was expecting him to jump in the car right now and be banging down Abbey's door in the middle of the night. "Is Abbey coming to dinner on Tuesday? If she is we will try and talk to her and find out what's going on and see how we can help her."

Abbey was a regular at family dinners on Tuesday nights. Adam wasn't always there but Kim made sure that she was and when things were going to crap at home with her parent's divorce it gave Abbey some stability. She really was a lovely girl and she had been friends with Polly for so long they just never imagined things going bad between them. Even through those early teenage hormone years nothing got too out of control. They really thought they were through the worst of it.

"Thanks Dad."

"Don't thank me just yet. I am still not happy with you Polly and there has to be consequences." Kim knew this was coming. Adam was still seriously annoyed that she didn't at least call and so soon after being told that it was unacceptable the previous night not to let them know she was okay. Polly knew better than to argue with her Dad. "You'll be home after school every night this week helping out with dinner and housework. I understand why you were late but Polly you have a phone for a reason. I think we deserved to at least know you were safe."

She knew she had to keep her mouth shut and just accept it but it didn't stop her though. "But if I called you would have come and made a scene." Not only would it have made things worse with Abbey, it would have embarrassed her in front of Sam and if this day was horrifying enough.

"I would have come and made sure you and your friends were safe." He pushed himself up of the sofa indicating that they were done.

While Kim eventually took Polly up to bed once she had calmed down, Adam went and talked to Angus. He let him know that Polly was fine and that he shouldn't worry. They were going to sort every thing out. He didn't say much and as long as Polly was okay he wasn't too worried about anything else.

Kim sat on her daughter's bed while she had a shower and then tucked her quilt around her shoulders and lay down with her. Polly didn't feel like talking so Kim just held her, told her how proud they were of her and how much they loved her until she fell asleep. She crept quietly out of her room and went to find her husband.

Their night was far from over.