Strolling through the garden, Jody sighed as she watched the other residents enjoy themselves in the sun, envying their ability to frolic about without a care in the world. She wasn't self-centred enough to believe that she was the only care kid with issues but she doubted any of the others had ever gone through what she'd been going through as of late: knowing that her father had left her but was now searching for her, having to compete with her brother's girlfriend for said brother's attention, and dealing with the ever-growing chasm between her and her best friend. Since she was still adamant that she wouldn't see Luke again without him informing his girlfriend about her existence first, something she knew he hadn't done yet because Simon hadn't contacted her about him wanting to see her again, she'd been reduced to waiting around like some damsel in distress for him to man up, a feat that felt like it was going to take forever.

Her father, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. Egging his house with Tyler had perhaps been more trouble than it was worth. To her surprise, the thrill and satisfaction at avenging herself and the other Jacksons had been short-lived; she'd rapidly sobered up upon seeing grainy CCTV images of herself and Tyler vandalising Gray's small terrace house in the local news. Tyler had insisted that it didn't matter because they'd been wearing conspicuous enough clothing and, of course, their faces had been covered, but that wasn't even the point; she had committed a crime, or at the very least something resembling a crime, and was therefore no better than the Jacksons. While this wasn't her first crime, she had acted with the intent to hurt her victim(s) this time around, exactly like the Jacksons had when they'd assaulted their then neighbours. The realisation made her feel dirty and dishonest. A few months ago, she'd told Mike that she was reverting to her birth name to avoid prison but if someone caught wind of what she'd done, both she and Tyler would probably end up in juvie just as Luke had. It was sort of ironic, actually, how she'd ended up acting against the man whose name she carried for (in part) the family whose name she'd dropped. No matter how much Tyler tried to convince her otherwise, the bad Jackson blood in her veins still had a firm grip on her.

Speaking of Tyler, their friendship was currently at an all-time low. Where he'd already had little time for her between his job and other responsibilities, he now had even less because he used up nearly all of his spare time hanging out with other people, either the other residents or his school friends. Anyone who wasn't her, basically. The situation was so dire that she didn't even know if he'd still be up for continuing their movie marathon this weekend. She supposed some of what was happening between them was her fault; she'd shut him out more than once and while she'd given him the personal card she'd made with her own two hands, she hadn't verbally acknowledged his birthday despite him spending the said day on a revenge mission with her. Sure, she hadn't asked him to come along—she'd actually tried to dissuade him—but that didn't change the fact that he'd still been devoted enough to risk going to juvie for her. She shook her head in self-disappointment; she made his accompanying her sound so romantic in her head when, in reality, he'd merely been being a good friend to her. Nearly three weeks of being someone else's girlfriend and she was still an idiot who fancied her best friend. How much more time would she have to give it before she was able to look upon Tyler in a purely platonic or even familial light?

"Jody!"

She stopped mid-stroll, spinning around to see Alex, Finn and Ryan waving her over. "What?!" she called back, staying rooted to her spot and warily eying the latter; she wasn't up for more torment at his hands. They were all already under house arrest because some idiot had tampered with something in the office but no one had owned up and, given his history, she was sure as hell that it'd been him.

Finn smiled at her, obviously unaware of her discomfort. "Come play with us! We need four players!"

She looked around the garden to see that Tyler wasn't around. It wasn't like she never played football without him—she was far more into it than he was and had more time on her hands than he had—but the fact that he was holed up in his room rather than being out here like nearly everyone else just proved to her that he wasn't interested in spending time with her or even being around her. With that in mind, she ran up to the boys and tackled the ball off Ryan. As disheartening as it was, she had to accept that she and Tyler were inevitably drifting apart.

.:. QK .:.

Saturday rolled around quicker than expected and, to Jody's relief, relations between her and Tyler hadn't deteriorated enough for him to make an excuse to back out of their marathon. Maybe it was because there had been only four films left and so it would've been a shame to abandon it at such a point but she appreciated him sticking to it all the same. That had been her initial feeling, anyway; as the film progressed, she'd quickly found that there was a marked distance between the pair of them that hadn't been there before, even when she'd first started seeing Brandon (which was when they'd started the marathon). It wasn't quite as bad as the time they'd nearly stopped talking altogether right before the pregnancy scandal had broken out but that painful awkwardness and deafening silence were there all the same. Throughout the film, they'd said very little to each other, hadn't laughed as hard together during the funny bits, and, most importantly, he'd got himself his own bowl of popcorn. His own bowl. They hadn't not shared a bowl since that time they'd fallen out over Sophie from the skate park. He'd even left a gap between the two of them on the sofa, one big enough for Taz to fit in, and as soon as the film had finished, he'd made his excuses and left.

Thirty minutes later, she was still sitting there like a complete melon, like she had nothing better to do. Admittedly, she didn't. She'd already been to the gym earlier in the day and had done some of her homework right before the film but didn't feel up to finishing it. Oh well, there was always tomorrow. She lazed about on the sofa, her thoughts involuntarily turning to Gray and Luke when she heard the door to the hallway leading to Chloe and Candi-Rose's room open. Turning her head and peering over the back of the sofa, she saw Candi-Rose sauntering in, a wide smile plastered on her face.

"Hi!" she greeted cheerfully, skipping over to the sofa. Jody smiled weakly in response, her mind still swirling with thoughts of her family and her crime. "How are you? I haven't seen you all day."

"I went down to the gym after breakfast"—Candi-Rose's eyes literally lit up—"and was busy doing my homework when I got back," she answered, tipping her head to the side. "Well, half of it... How are you?"

"Good," Candi-Rose replied, sitting down next to her. Jody shifted in her seat, knowing what was coming next. "How are things going with Brandon? Going on another date anytime soon?"

"Good," Jody copied, pressing her lips together. She and Brandon hadn't actually been on a date in two weeks. Was that out of the ordinary? Her friends from school, Chris and April, didn't go on dates too often but, then again, they saw each other at school every single weekday. Jody herself saw Brandon about four times a week. It seemed like enough. What was the need for dates? "He hasn't asked me out on another one yet."

Candi-Rose's eyes widened. "You're waiting for him to make another move?!" she shrieked, making Jody inch away from her a little. "Oh, Jody...!"

"What?" Jody asked, flustered. Candi-Rose looked stricken as if some sort of calamity had befallen her. She didn't understand what was wrong.

"He's asked you out four times, right?" Candi-Rose questioned, fixing Jody with the most serious look she'd ever received from the girl. She merely nodded, totally out of her depth. "And you let him know that you had a good time?" She slowly nodded again. "He's waiting for you to make a move now."

"He is...?" she asked unsurely. "He doesn't really give off that vibe."

"Trust me, he is," Candi-Rose responded confidently. "You've got to ask him on a date."

Jody squinted at the younger girl, confused. Frankly, she was happy just hanging out with Brandon at the gym. Dates were nice and everything but she couldn't be bothered to dress up and look pretty all the time. She just liked being able to call someone her boyfriend, and that was something she could do that within the four walls of the gym. "But why? We're already boyfriend and girlfriend."

Candi-Rose looked at her as if she was a lost cause. "Because even though you're his girlfriend, you've got to let him know that you're still into him. Otherwise, the two of you will break up before you know it." Break up? She'd only been Brandon's girlfriend for three weeks! They couldn't break up! "Relationships need work."

Work. She nearly groaned. She'd never been good at working on anything, almost always abandoning things halfway through and procrastinating until the very last minute on tasks she absolutely had to complete such as chores and homework. Still, she'd brought this upon herself; she'd decided to continue dating Brandon because it made her feel grown-up and now she'd have to pay the price by working at her relationship like an actual grown-up.

"Yeah, alright," she relented, figuring that a boyfriend was worth the work. "I'll ask him out."

"Yay!" Candi-Rose squealed in a way that only she could, pulling Jody into an unexpected hug. As Jody tried not to be smothered to death, she wondered where to take Brandon.

.:. QK .:.

In the end, after little thought and a few Google searches, Jody texted Brandon to ask him out to a random cafe. Well, it would've been a random cafe, if not for the fact that it was pretty close to Gray's house and required them to walk past the said house to actually get there. The strong need to see how much lasting damage her egg-throwing had caused had been there since the day she'd done it and now she finally had an excuse to go and do it. Despite the regret she felt at committing a crime, she held no actual remorse towards the victim himself; he'd deserved what he'd got and so much more, though not through further crime by her hand.

After receiving a positive reply from her boyfriend, Jody headed upstairs to turn in for the night. Alex had been on dinner duty this evening and had done a pretty good job but it was Charlie's turn next and everyone knew what to expect. Soon enough the day would come when she, Tyler and Ryan would have to share dinner duty with the others as the next three eldest. Ryan had made a good breakfast for them all that one time, and Tyler had made her some decent stuff throughout her entire ban on using kitchen appliances, but she was totally hopeless in the kitchen. It was why she rarely had an English breakfast; she couldn't fry anything without burning it. She just knew she'd be the next Charlie, but worse.

She walked into her room, berating herself for her negativity. There was a small chance she'd be a halfway decent cook by the time Mike and May-Li added dinner to her list of chores. Misjudging her own strength, she took her phone out of her jeans pocket and chucked it on the floor, narrowly missing her intended target: her bed. She frowned, scurrying over to the side of the bed closest to the wall and picking her phone up. Relieved to see that it hadn't hit the wall or bedside and thus was undamaged, she was about to get up off the floor when she heard slightly muffled voices through the wall.

"It's not going to happen!" shouted Bird, shocking the living daylights out of her. In the four months she'd been next door to him and his brother, she'd never once heard him raise his voice. Not that he ever raised his voice outside his room either; he was a quiet boy who mostly minded his own business, not at all like his insufferable and complacent brother.

"How do you know that?!" Jay yelled in return, his voice louder because his bed was next to the shared wall between their rooms. "They might be at home looking for us right now!"

Oh. So this was family stuff. None of her business then... but if she could hear them then so could Ryan, and Ryan hearing personal stuff didn't bode well for anyone. Was she obliged to warn the boys? What if they misunderstood her and thought she was the one eavesdropping instead? She didn't even know if Ryan was in his room.

"I really didn't want to say this but you've left me no choice: if they wanted us, don't you think they would've called the social services by now?! That's what you do when you know your child's in care and you want to get back into contact!"

Having heard enough, Jody pushed herself away from the wall—she'd somehow ended up with her right ear pressed up against it—and fell back on her bed, Bird's statement replaying itself in her head over and over. He was right; all a man or woman searching for their child in care had to do was pick up the phone and call social services. She couldn't believe that that simple fact had eluded her all these weeks.

If Gray was genuinely searching for her, why hadn't he picked up the phone yet? He had to know that she was in care... didn't he? Even if he didn't know that she was put in care as an eight-year-old, he'd have to think that she was in care after her mother's death. Then again, maybe he didn't? She doubted that he knew her gran was dead—even she hadn't been told until after the funeral because her bitter mother hadn't invited her to it—and that the brother who should've been capable of taking care of her was in prison. But still... he should've called to eliminate the possibility of her being in care. Since she was a Gray once more, it wasn't even as if he'd have had difficulty tracking her down due to her childhood name change.

Either he was too stupid for the possibility of her being in care to occur to him, a likely prospect given that him calling the social hadn't crossed her mind, or his desire to find her and her brothers had been a fleeting one brought on by... fond (?) memories of her mother? She honestly didn't know which was worse.

.:. QK .:.

The next day, Jody walked past Gray's house on her way to the coffee shop as intended. As she made idle chit-chat with Brandon, she openly stared at the house from the other side of the road, noting the damage to the windscreen of the car parked in front of it. She bit back a smile, hoping that the car belonged to Gray's partner—she could still hear the bitch screeching about how she'd assaulted her precious snotty son. She made a 'hmm' noise in either agreement or response to something Brandon said, spotting the front door of the house open. It took everything in her to keep walking but she did, discreetly peering back over her shoulder to see Gray and a teenage girl step out of the house, laughing together.

All of a sudden, she saw red. Gray had another daughter? She had a half-sister? One he'd stuck around for? When he already had two children living with him, one of each, was it any wonder that he wasn't interested in locating her and her brothers? After all, he already had his perfect family right there. She tore her gaze away from the happy pair, her lips quivering. No. She wouldn't cry. She couldn't mourn the loss of a father she'd never had; he'd never been anything more than a sperm donor to her.

"Jody?"

"Yeah?" she breathed, willing her eyes to remain dry. "Sorry, did you ask me something?"

"Not really," he responded, frowning. "I just noticed you looked a little troubled."

"Nah, I'm fine," she assured him, forcing herself to smile. "Err, the cafe's on the next road over."

He nodded, his hand accidentally brushing hers. At least she hoped it was accidental. Usually, she'd stick her hands into her pockets, a classic way of ensuring he wouldn't try anything, but it'd simply been too warm in the morning to wear a jacket. Instead, she sort of awkwardly clasped her incredibly sweaty hands together, and increased her pace a little. She knew she couldn't avoid hand-holding forever, especially if she was still with Brandon by the time she turned sixteen, but it was too soon yet. She shivered at the thought of kissing and... the deed which would be expected of her once she hit the age of consent. She didn't think she'd ever be ready for that.

A/N: I just realised something: Ryan is meant to be older than Jody and Tyler, and the same age as Charlie and probably Alex. I guess I could go back and fix it but I don't really fancy forking through twenty-eight damn chapters right now. Maybe after I complete the story. All in all, it shouldn't really affect the story either way.

While writing this, I also realised that Jody and Brandon probably weren't boyfriend and girlfriend but were just dating. I got my wires crossed because Jay referred to Brandon as Jody's boyfriend in one episode. If they were already boyfriend and girlfriend then what did Jody and the girls mean by Brandon 'getting serious'? Boyfriend/girlfriend is already serious, no? And surely, if they were in a relationship, she wouldn't have spoken about finishing things with him so easily (or maybe she would've?), and she wouldn't have asked Tyler to kiss her before she even had the chance to finish with Brandon? I mean, that's cheating!

Damn, I've really hit the wall with this one. If they were merely dating, she would've been using him to a lesser extent, but becoming his girlfriend when she still fancies Tyler makes her look so bitchy. Ugh! Breaking up with him just because Tyler finally admits to his feelings is going to be even worse! I don't know, maybe I'm looking at this differently as an adult; maybe teens refer to the people they're casually dating as boyfriend/girlfriend. Either way, I probably can't fix this story without making major changes to some of the chapters, so it's going to have to stay how it is. 🙁

Thanks once again to my faithful reviewer CharlieSMarts12. You've basically interpreted the chapter exactly how I intended it to be interpreted. About the tissue-mask, yeah, it's really silly but I didn't think Jody would have two bandanas on hand because she didn't intend for Tyler to join her. Of course, a tissue isn't big enough to tie around the back of one's head, especially on someone who's got hair as big as Tyler's, so he had to hold it up with one hand at all times 😂