Disclaimer: I do not own Heartland, nor any of the characters, give credit to those who deserve it.

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I just want to say thank-you for all the lovely reviews, they mean a lot to me. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

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Chapter Five

"Tell me Lou, what did mom do? I already know what you did."

Lou felt like she had been thrown off a horse, it wasn't the question that had Lou feeling that way but the statement. Amy felt as if she already knew the truth but she didn't, she only knew the lies that Marion had told, the secrets she had buried. "I..." Lou's hands shook with nerves, her bottom quivered slightly. Every sentence she had ever formulated in her mind to answer this question suddenly vanished and she seemed to be reaching into the darkness for something intelligent to say. "I..."

Amy dismounted from the horse, staring over the fence at her supposed sister, the stranger. All she felt was anger that Lou dared blamed her mother, her mother was kind person who put others and horses before her own wellbeing. "What did mom do, Lou?!" She demanded an answer. "Answer me. Mom was a kind person, she never did wrong to those she loved." Amy saw Lou's face pale, but she continued to push harder, wondering when Lou would just tell her. "What are you and Grampa hiding from me?! Tell me the truth." Amy knew that her grandfather wanted to keep the truth to himself because that was what her mother wanted but Lou was under no obligation, she could simply tell her, so why wouldn't she?! Why come all this way, back to this place just to live a life of lies and secrecy.

Lou could see the hatred in the teenagers eyes, yet also the little hint of curiosity. God, she wanted so badly to blurt it all out, to tell Amy everything but the more she stared at her, the more she could see the vulnerability. If she told her the whole truth then she could only imagine how Amy's world would shatter. The last thing she wanted was for the teenager to be lost and hurt, to have everything ripped away from her. It had happened to her, and she remembered all the years of anger and resentment. She couldn't do that to Amy, even if she wanted to. "Amy..."

"Why did she hate you?! Geez, why can't you just answer a damn question with honesty!" Amy shouted in frustration, was everyone the same in this family, incapable of just saying the truth. The mother she knew could never have hated her child. All Amy had ever felt growing up was loved and safe. "I deserve to know."

Lou blinked, trying to force all those tears back. "I know, Amy, I know you do but your not ready."

"I am! Goddamit!"

Lou swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat, forcing the tears away. "No, your not. I won't...I can't tarnish your memory of her, not when her death is still so recent." Lou spoke the words as if she cared about her mothers memory, she didn't. She just didn't want to ruin all the good memories Amy had with her. The vision of who Amy thought she was.

"Tarnish?! Lou, she was a great person, nothing you can say would change that!"

"Momma."

"I'm okay, Georgie." Lou took a step back, she knew she had to leave before she said something she would regret later. "Momma just needs a moment."

Amy placed her hands on the fence, shaking it out of frustration. "Don't you dare walk away! Or are you just like him...our father? I remember him walking out the door..."

Lou fled back inside the house, slamming the door shut behind her. She slid down the back of the door, the tears releasing and the sobs taking over. Her arms wrapped around herself and fingers clawed at her body, her breathing becoming harsh as she struggled to breathe between the sobs.
She wanted to tell her, but how could she? How could she tear that child's life apart?

"DON'T RUN AWAY FROM THIS LOU!"

"Lou," Jack walked into the room, crouching down beside his granddaughter.

Lou flinched, shuffling away from her grandfathers hand. "Don't. Touch. Me."

Jack held up his hands in a surrendering motion. "Okay." He spoke softly, noticing that she looked rather distressed. "What's happened?" He had heard Amy's shout from outside the house, but when he stood up to look out the window, her horse was gone and so was she. "What did you tell her?"

Lou let out a bitter laugh, of course he thought she would break the silence. Did he not know that she would do whatever it took to protect Amy? "Nothing! I told her nothing!"

"Lou,"

"No!" Lou looked up from her knees, mascara ran down her cheeks along with her tears. "I would never shatter her life like that. I love her and I will protect her. But don't you care about how this has shattered my life, how no one was there to protect me?!"

Jack frowned, taking a step back from his granddaughter. "Of course I..."

"No you don't! All I ever wanted was to be loved by her, but she blamed me and hated me for something I had no control over. It was never my fault, I was an innocent baby...if she had just listened to the midwives..." Lou pushed herself up from the floor slowly. "And then...you can tell me she cared but she didn't, she was jealous and she took everything from me." Lou's words were becoming rapid as she tried to push through everything. "She was spiteful and angry. Mom believed I took her chance of happiness away, so out of pity revenge she tore everything away from me!"

Jack shook his head, he wanted to tell her that none of it was true. Her mother had loved her, he had seen it in her eyes when she announced the pregnancy. "She just wanted to protect you, she wanted you to keep you innocent. You were her baby, Lou."

"No! I was her baby until I was born then I was the reason for all her pain." Lou jabbed a finger at him. "But don't you understand Grampa, I lost any innocence I had when she invited him into our home. He robbed me of that and she knew it, she stood by and took his side...and so did you. Why did you choose him?" She just wanted an answer, just like Amy wanted her answers.

Jack felt as if the blood was draining from his face at each of her words, his heart felt as if it dropped to the pit of his stomach. "What are you...Lou you were just a teenager, he was just a teenager..."

"He was 18! I was a child!"

"Your mother told me that you..."

Lou shook her head, the tears still freefalling down her cheeks. Her heart pounding in her chest as she finally let everything flow, everything she had been waiting years to say. "Whatever that woman told you was a lie! I was raped, Grampa. I was raped, and you ignored it."

"No!" Jack stumbled back slightly as if the words hit him with a physical force. It couldn't be, no Marion wouldn't have...surely she... "Lou, no. It can't..."

"Be true?!" Lou wiped her tears, trying furiously to dry her eyes. "Well it is. What did you think happened? I was 14!" She shook her head at him. "I thought you loved me, that you knew me better. I would never have..." She turned around not giving him another moment to speak, she fled back out the door, gasping for fresh air as she stopped still on the porch as if remembering. "Oh no...Georgie." Her eyes frantically fell to where she had left her daughter playing but she was gone. "Georgie!"

"She's right here, Lou."

Lou spun, her heart practically leaping out of her chest when she saw Georgie sitting on Amy's friends lap with her hands covering her ears, Amy's friends hands also pressed over the little girls ears as extra muffling. "Oh my." She quickly leapt forward and snatched her daughter into her arms, hugging her with such force. "How much did she hear?"

"She didn't hear anything, not after Amy left." Soraya promised, though her eyes portrayed that she had heard it all. "I'm so..."

Lou shook her head. "You don't need to apologise for anything, what happened was not your fault." She reached for the girls hand. "Just please, please don't tell anyone, especially Amy. It's my business and I..."

"I won't." Soraya immediately promised.

"Thank-you." She looked down at Georgie who was staring at her with concerned eyes, as if searching for the reason for her tears. "I love you, bug."

"I love you too, momma." She wrapped her arms around her moms neck and held her tightly, but she could sense it, something was really wrong.

...

Soraya walked through the diner and straight around the counter into her mothers unsuspecting arms.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd sort out a hug from her mother but she really needed the comfort that only she could provide.

"What happened?"

She knew the question was valid but she didn't know how to answer her mother. She'd promised Lou she wouldn't say anything and while it was an incredibly tough thing to keep to herself, especially at just 15 years old but she also knew that Lou didn't deserve to be the towns gossip. Not in that context. "Nothing." Soraya whispered. "I just needed a hug."

"I won't say no to that."

Her mothers hug tightened as if she was sensing her daughters need for comfort and Soraya found herself asking why Marion hadn't comforted Lou. From what she understood through the door, Marion simply blamed her daughter for things beyond her control.
She internally cringed, realising that Amy was now also blaming her for taking her father away. Soraya no longer believed that was the reason Tim left, he was probably trying to help Lou recover from a traumatic experience.
She could only imagine how Amy would feel if she knew that the truth.

"Soraya, are you sure..."

"Mom, what do you do if someone asks you to keep a secret, a life changing secret?"

"Is this secret causing anyone physical harm, does it involve something illegal?"

"No."

Maggie pulled back, so that she could look into her daughters eyes. "Then you guard it. Someone has trusted you and you should never break that trust honey." She paused. "Unless it is placing you under incredible strain."

Soraya sighed. That did not help her at all.

...

Jack felt the tears running down his cheeks, the overwhelming sense of regret tumbling through his body as he dug through his nightstand pulling out the photo he had buried in there long ago. It was of him and Lou when she was just 9 years old, he cradled it in his hands, studying that beautiful innocent smile on her face. "I'm sorry, so sorry." He whispered into the silence of his bedroom, the sobs racking his body as brought his hands up to cover his face.
He didn't usually cry, it took a lot to for him to release emotion this way but all he could see sprawled in his mind was the word...raped, and Lou's tear strained face and heartbroken stare.

Every fibre of his being didn't want to be believe it, but the more he rehashed the past within himself, the more he came to realise the holes in Marion's stories, ones he hadn't realised were there before.
He had always believed 14 was to young but Lou had always been a little rebellious, stubborn even. He hadn't been here when it happened, when he returned from his trip he only had Marion's versions of events to go by and Lou's anger.
Jack breathed deeply trying to regain his emotions. He should have just sat down and got her side of events, he could have avoided everything...but Marion had insisted that she handle everything.

"I'm a fool." Jack glanced over at his dresser, knowing it held the last picture of him and his late wife. "You'd be ashamed of me, my love. I'm ashamed of myself." He felt the tears still rolling.
Perhaps he had some inking, surely, he should have known or at least suspected. Was he in denial, is that why...

"You're just a coward, Jack. You should have protected your granddaughter." Jack muttered to himself, unable to stood the anger that followed through him not only for himself but for his daughter. Marion. "What made you this way? Why would you turn your back on your child? Why Marion?!"

Everything he had ever thought about his daughter was spiralling, she wasn't who he had raised her to be.

...

Amy crept back into the house, it was dark and only illuminated by a single lamp. She half expected her grandfather to be sitting there ready to scold her for disappearing but he wasn't to be seen.
The silence bothered her as her footsteps seemed like thunder clapping against the floor as she made her way to the bathroom.
Her ride had allowed the anger in her body to cease slightly. It was the feeling of being on horseback with the wind in her hair, it calmed her in a way that nothing else could.

How she had acted before was unusually out of character, she couldn't remember a time that she'd acted purely out of rage before. She wondered if Lou truly deserve it, perhaps she did, perhaps she didn't. Amy wasn't sure of anything. There were so many secrets being guarded in the family and all she wanted was to be trusted and not treated like a child.

She noticed Lou's bedroom door was open just a crack, and a dim light was coming from there, but she when peaked into the room she was immediately met with the frightening glare of a 7 year old. It was slightly unnerving that this kid could hold such resentment for someone she had never met, especially since Georgie didn't actually no anything regarding the past.

"Go away!"

Amy blinked, her eyes taking in the scene. To most it would have been heart melting. Georgie was sitting under the covers, her ipad in one hand while with the other she rubbed her fingers through her mothers hair. Lou was asleep with red cheeks filled with tear strains but what really caught her attention and made her eyes practically tumble out of her head was the scar.
She never would have known, nor seen it expect Lou's shirt had ridden up just a little and her shorts hung lower on her hips. It wasn't fully exposed because Lou's right hand was resting over it half concealing it but Amy knew what it was, her mother had one from Lou's birth. "She had a baby..." Amy whispered quietly to herself. "When..."

"Go away!" Georgie hissed again. "Leave momma alone!"

Amy ignored her, turning around she no longer attempted to keep quiet, instead she barged down the hall flinging her Grampa's bedroom door open. If she had been in the right frame of mind she would have noticed that he had been crying, that his face read the utter motion of despair. "Why didn't you tell me Lou had a baby?!" Amy demanded to know, this explain a lot.

Jack looked away from the window, to see Amy standing with an accusing glare but it was her words that shook him to the core. "Amy..."

"I have a niece or nephew out there..." Amy paused. "Oh no, did...did the baby die? Oh Grampa, if you just told me...I've been a brat to her. Some of it she deserved but if I just knew." Amy shook her head, looking straight at her grandfather but missing all he emotion in his eyes. "You should have told me. Trusted me. Is this why Lou left Heartland? Because she lost a child?"

Jack closed his eyes, nodding his head slowly. "Yes." He felt the relief to admit it, to finally have part of a secret out. No longer feeling an obligation to Marion but an obligation to Lou. "Yes, she lost a baby."

Thoughts?
So this chapter took me on a bit of a turn with Jack, I originally had him scripted one way but this kind of changed it.

Much Love. x