Daisy was in Melinda's room sitting on the bed. It was already Friday night. The week had come and gone quickly with everyone following a fairly simple routine, which she was getting more and more used to. Melinda would drive her to school, she would stop in to see Phil, go to classes, eat lunch with her new friends, and go to more classes. On Monday and Tuesday Phil took her to Melinda's and the other days Melinda picked her up because Phil had basketball practice. Phil had cooked dinner on Monday and Tuesday, while Melinda had ordered take out Wednesday and Thursday. Tonight, they had settled on leftovers and Phil had gone furniture shopping after practice. So, she hadn't seen him for a few days other than to poke her head in his classroom to say hi.

What was weird right now was that Daisy missed him. She missed his and Melinda's banter, and his stories about history and his little quirks. She gazed at the photo in her hand. He'd given the two photos to her on Monday when he came over. She'd stared at them for a very long time that night, trying to elicit more memories of her parents but came up short. But the photos were amazing. She really was dressed like her mom. And the boots were exactly as she remembered them. She wanted to remember Phil too and she couldn't, which made her sad. He was dressed in a dapper suit and Melinda had told her that yes, that really was his uniform he wore when he went on missions.

Melinda came into the room. She had taken a shower and changed into her pajamas. Daisy was already in her pajamas. She stopped when she saw Daisy was looking at the photos again. Melinda walked over and sat down on the bed.

"I had forgotten that we had taken those pictures. Maria had insisted. Now I'm so glad that she did. I'm so glad Phil had a copy."

"I was like fifteen months old here huh?"

"Yes."

"I was pretty little. I mean even for a fifteen-month old."

"You were only six pounds and seven ounces when you were born. Eighteen inches. You were a little below the averages. But perfectly healthy. And I'm not exactly a big person."

"I always wondered about that. Cal was like a couple inches over six feet and Jiaying was nearly as tall as Phil. I wondered why I was such a shrimp. Makes sense now."

"Are you calling me a shrimp?"

Daisy laughed. "Never. Although you do like those heeled boots, yeah?"

Melinda laughed. "No short jokes allowed." She stretched and yawned. "Wow, I'm tired. It's been a busy couple of weeks."

"Yeah, sure has. Between painting, shopping, all my schoolwork, counseling sessions and using muscles I forgot I had during your workouts – yeah." She walked over to the dresser and set down the two photos.

"Oh you think I'm being too hard on your poor muscles huh?"

Daisy grinned. "So Tai Chi at ten tomorrow?"

"You want to sleep in."

"Please. Unless you need to be somewhere."

"Nope. Plan to pack up some stuff this weekend. Go check on the progress of the house. And look at a few Martial Arts studios."

"Seriously? Can I come with?"

"Well since the lessons would be for you, yes. You can call Carol tomorrow and see if she's free at around two. She can come along. She was asking about dojo recommendations."

"Okay."

Melinda waited till Daisy picked out what she was going to do tonight. After sleeping in Melinda's bed on Saturday, Daisy had slept on the trundle mattress the rest of the week until Thursday, the night of their family session. The she'd simply crawled into Melinda's bed without a word. Last night she'd gone back to the trundle. Daisy walked to the side the trundle bed was on and looked down but then turned to Melinda.

"Do you mind if I share again tonight? My thoughts have been a little dark, and I'm afraid I might have a nightmare."

"No. I don't mind at all."

"Cool." She jumped onto the bed and got under the covers. Melinda followed suit and almost immediately Daisy rolled over to her and cuddled into her side. Melinda smiled.

"Good night Daisy. Sweet dreams."

"Good night."

Light was streaming into the room which meant it was fairly late in the morning. Melinda felt Daisy staring at her without opening her eyes. She pretended to be asleep for a little longer but when Daisy didn't stop staring, she opened her eyes and stared back at Daisy.

"What?"

"Do you think I look like you?"

The quiet question made Melinda smile. "Yes."

"How. I mean what parts?"

"Eyes. Nose. Some of your expressions. Certain ways like when you raised your eyebrows. Your laugh reminds me of younger me."

"Wow. So you've thought about this too?'

"Practically every day. I see Phil in you too."

"Really?"

"Your smile. Your chin."

Daisy touched her chin. "Really. You think so?"

"I do. You're beautiful Daisy. The best of the both of us."

"It's weird though. To see yourself through that lens."

Melinda sat up. "It is. But if you want to continue this deep conversation, I first have to pee."

Daisy grinned. "Me too. But I'll defer to you first cause you're older."

Melinda glared at her while she got up. "You watch that young lady."

Daisy burst into laughter. "Young lady? God it's like you're proving my point. Next you'll be using phrases like 'back in my day' or 'kids these days'. "

Melinda grinned. Daisy was teasing her. She was comfortable enough to tease her and that was wonderful. "Well keep it up Missy, and you'll be sorry."

Daisy laughed knowing Melinda was playing along. She followed Melinda to the bathroom, standing outside the door, and continued to tease Melinda about being old.

Daisy, Melinda and Carol were sitting at a dojo and watching a class. This was the third one they'd stopped in to visit. Melinda was not impressed with the first one, which was more of a chain type gym than a real dojo, that focused on large classes that were rather expensive. The second one she liked until she met the two owners who seemed to think a woman's place was in the kitchen. This one offered a variety of martial arts, and they were told had a lot of kid and teen classes. They also limited their class sizes.

The class currently being taught was a beginning taekwondo class, and Melinda was happy to see it offered. The other two places had focused on aikido, which was far more a defensive discipline, and she considered it inferior to hapkido and taekwondo. She wanted Daisy to start with taekwondo. She also recommended that Carol start with taekwondo as well. She glanced at the paper the woman at the desk had handed her. They offered a six-week introductory beginner class for teens aged fourteen – to seventeen. They would meet twice a week on Tuesday's and Friday's at five to six in the evening. After that if they wanted to continue in a beginner class, they could join a twelve-week beginner class also meeting twice a week, that one on Mondays and Thursdays at seven o'clock for forty-five minutes. Cost was reasonable for the six-week beginner class at $175 including a Taekwondo uniform called a dobok or gi. This dojo offered twelve week increments of classes as students advanced, with the instructor deciding when a student should test for belt ranks. The cost went up substantially after the six-intro course. A twelve- week session cost $425. Which wasn't really a bad price for twenty-four lessons, but obviously the intro course was markedly lower to entice people.

The class finished and the instructor, seeing an audience, walked over to them.

"Good afternoon," the woman offered. "I'm Colleen Wing, one of the owners of this place. "How are you."

Melinda answered. "We're good. So KnightWing Martial Arts Studio? I assume the other owner's last name is Knight?"

"You would be correct. Misty Knight is my business partner and good friend. So are you here for the girls or yourself?

Daisy spoke up. "Melinda has five black belts."

Colleen looked impressed. "In which disciplines, if you don't mind my asking?"

Melinda smiled. "Hapkido, Karate. Jiu-jitsu. Krav Maga, and Taekwondo."

"So the girls then?" Colleen's eyes sparkled. "What levels?"

"Both would be beginner. Daisy knows a little self-defense that I've been teaching her and she's getting very good at Tai Chi, which we do most mornings. Carol has no real experience, right?"

Carol nodded. "I didn't know your mom was teaching you Tai Chi and self-defense. You don't really need classes here then do you?"

"She thinks it will be good to train with others and to also have sparing partners. Right, Melinda?"

"Right. Plus a disciplined class will be able to teach what I can't."

"But you are going to continue to teach her as well?"

"Yes. Is that a problem?"

"Not at all. But she will probably advance quicker."

"I plan to focus more on hapkido with her when I teach once she gets some of the basics down well."

"Still, she will advance quicker. Especially if she is doing Tai Chi daily."

"That's fine." Melinda turned to Daisy. She's trying to say you could get ahead of Carol and not be in the same class eventually. Is that a problem?"

Daisy shook her head. "Nope."

"Yeah that's fine. I need to have a martial art on my resume. I want to go to the Air Force Academy. That's why I'm here. Melinda said it would help on my application. She said it helped her a lot."

"You were in the Air Force."

"Yes. A while back."

"She's in the FBI now." Daisy offered obviously proud of her mother's accomplishments.

Colleen looked impressed. "Well anyway, back to business. As you can see, we offer a six-week intro beginner course. I'll be starting the newest one that's on the schedule the week after Thanksgiving. Starts on December third and ends January sixteenth with the week of Christmas off. We close down that week. Then I will be starting a new twelve-week session for those who want to continue from that class and another class that Misty will be finishing at about the same time. We only take twelve for the intro classes, and only up to sixteen for the first beginner one after."

"My dad said I could try it. He said if I stuck to it, he'd consider paying for more classes. But I'm supposed to text him first with the information."

"Okay. How about you stay here with Ms. Wing and she helps you with that text and Daisy and I go discuss this?"

Colleen nodded at Melinda. Melinda and Daisy moved over to where another class was starting.

"What do you think Daisy?"

She shrugged. "You're the expert here. What do you think?"

"I think it's a good place. Ms. Wing was doing a good job with the class she was instructing, there are no hidden costs and it's fairly close to the house. The cost is not outrageous, the class size seems reasonable."

"So sign me up. At least for the intro class."

"You sure. It's two nights a week. You're already doing one night of counseling with Jemma. And every other week, we do family counseling. Plus you are still catching up on school work."

"Yeah I'm sure. Besides, I am caught up with English class, my computer classes are easy breezy, I'm nearly up to speed on history with Phil helping so much, and I actually don't suck at Spanish thanks to you. Plus, I like it, the training and Tai Chi. At least what I've done with you so far."

"Okay. Let's do it then." They walked back over to Colleen and both girls signed up for the class.

Melinda and Daisy dropped Carol at her house, and then went back to the apartment. Daisy did her schoolwork for a couple hours while Melinda started packing some of her clothing in suitcases and boxes. Phil came over at six o'clock and he brought some take-out Mexican food for them. He'd spent the day at the furniture store, purchasing the rest of what they needed for the house, as well as packing some of his things and taking them to the house.

"So I figured to take more clothing and a few more things over to the house tomorrow. I took some clothing and a couple boxes of kitchen stuff today."

"I packed some of my clothing today. We can pack more tomorrow and do a run or two, right Daisy?"

"Yeah sure." They had all finished eating and were sitting in the living room just talking.

"Do you have a lot of schoolwork left to do Daisy?"

"Just a few things. I did most of it today. I still need to do some catch up science and algebra yet, but I'm all caught up in all my other classes." She paused and then added, "Melinda signed me up for Taekwondo class. It starts the week after Thanksgiving."

"Oh good. You found a good place then I take it."

"Yeah. Melinda likes it. She's the expert."

"Yes she is." He turned to her. "Met your approval?"

"It did. Tuesday and Friday nights at five for an hour for six weeks to start."

"Where is it?"

"Not that far actually. Only about fifteen minutes from the house. It's on Madison Street, near Hamilton Blvd."

"That's good. How about we watch a movie?"

"Star Wars?" Daisy pipped up.

"Sure. Which one."

"The Phantom Menace?"

"Sounds good to me. Anyone want popcorn?" Melinda nodded.

"Ugh. I'll pass. I'm stuffed." Daisy groaned.

"Okay. Maybe I'll make some later."

Daisy fell asleep halfway through the movie. Melinda half dragged and half carried her to the bedroom, where Daisy grumpily fell on the trundle mattress and went back to sleep. Melinda covered her and then turned off the light and headed back to the living room. Phil had switched off the movie and was sitting at the counter with two glasses of Haig.

Melinda smiled and sat down next to him. "I'm nearly as tired as she is. It's been a long couple of weeks." She picked up her glass and raised it. "Here's to a new life together."

He tapped her glass with his and smiled. They sat in amicable quiet sipping their drinks until Phil broke the silence. "I bought all the furniture. The store will deliver everything next Friday and Saturday. So, we should be able to stay by Saturday night."

"Good. Daisy and I are going to take most of our clothes over tomorrow, my books, DVD's and a few other things we don't need for the week. We'll pack up the rest and we can move some Friday night."

"Good. I plan to move some stuff over tomorrow as well. Bobbi and Hunter will help. Do you want us to stop by and help here too?"

"Nah. We can handle the small amount we're bringing tomorrow. A couple boxes and a few suitcases. Like I said, I'm leaving all the furniture here for my parents to use. As well as my most of my dishes and stuff."

"I bought a flat screen TV for the living room. And one for Daisy's room. I'm going to use my TV down in the basement in the living area."

"Okay. I'm leaving mine here. I don't need one in my room. Daisy might think it's too much you know?"

"I know. That's why I'm saving it for Christmas. We can give it to her then."

Melinda smiled. "Good plan. How many things you think we'll buy her for Christmas?"

"Oh we are going to spoil her good." He grinned at her.

"Yes we are. She will just have to suck it up and accept it."

"But we need to do more than that Mel. We need to give her memories. Good ones."

"We will. Skating. Getting a tree. Snowball fights."

"Nuhhuh. I'm not battling you ever again in one of those. You are way too competitive."

"Chicken."

"You take it too seriously. Good grief last time you had spies for cripes sake."

"If you want to play the game you play it well. Or we could forget the snowballs altogether. I imagine there is a nice place we could find around here to do a snow paint ball event."

He looked at her. "You're serious?"

"Well there's your sister. A cop. Her husband. A cop. My friends are FBI mostly. Then there are Bobbi's friends, Mack and Elena, Izzy. Some of Daisy's friends seem like they'd be up for it. Could be fun. Like the old days."

"I want to be on your team. That's the only way I play."

"Of course Phil. Me, you, Daisy, her friends and Fitz and Jemma and Piper on my team. Your sister can form her own team. It'll be fun."

"I just hope she talks to me after your team whoops her butt. Oh and who's Piper?"

"FBI. She's a good agent. We are friendly."

"And Jemma. She's a psychiatrist."

"She is. She'll have valuable insight into strategy."

"Jeez Mel, you are devious at times."

"Yeah I am. I think Daisy will love it."

"Oh yeah. When do you want to have this war, and you have been thinking about this for a while, haven't you?"

"Ever since Bobbi and Hunter went to do paintball that one day. We'll have to wait till there's a couple good snowfalls. There are a couple places that do it outside."

"Well it is Chicago. So waiting for snow won't be a problem. I am surprised we haven't gotten anything except a few flurries so far. Usually by now we have at least one good storm."

"Let's just hope the first one is not next weekend."

"Indeed. Cause that would suck. By the way, did you want to invite anyone else for Thanksgiving? Besides Bobbi and Hunter and your parents?"

"Not really. I thought we could just do a family day."

"That sounds great. Plus that shouldn't overwhelm Daisy."

"Exactly. You better make your mac n cheese. Oh and a strawberry pie would be nice."

"Anything else?"

"Well my mom will probably make her Peking duck. And dumplings. And rice cakes. Were you planning on traditional turkey or something else?"

"Traditional turkey. Maybe a beef roast as well."

"Phil. There will only be seven of us."

"Yeah but Bobbi will need to take leftovers home. So will your parents. I'm not sure if you noticed it or not but our kid can eat a lot. Plus I know how you like leftover cold turkey sandwiches. I thought maybe beef cause of the two poultries, and it'd be something different. Maybe do beef wellington? You like that too, and Daisy has probably never tried it."

"Phil she's most likely never heard of it. But if you are going to go all out, you could make some pumpkin cheesecake crepes for breakfast. Since we will be eating later in the afternoon. You know they're one of my favorites."

"I remember. I can do that. Any other requests?"

"Nope. I'm good."

"Okay so I'll make a small turkey, beef wellington. Mac n cheese, stuffing, green bean casserole, cheese bread, a strawberry pie, and an apple pie. You sure you don't want peach crisp? I know it's also one of your favorites."

"You can. If it's not too much bother." She smiled at him.

"Okay then. Menu is all set. Your mom will make Peking duck, dumplings, and rice cakes. She'll probably make more than that, but we can count on that. Bobbi is bringing the wine and beer."

"Then we're all set. Let's just hope we have furniture."

Phil looked at her in horror. "Yeah, we are cutting it rather close, aren't we?"

"We always did live close to the edge. It's more entertaining at least."

"You have a strange way of being entertained Mel."

"That's one reason why you married me isn't it? My sense of adventure."

"I don't think I'd use the word sense in there."

She gave him a playful glare. "Hey at least I don't drive my convertible on a date during a snowstorm."

"To be fair Mel it wasn't snowing when I left. And the temperature dropped really fast. That's why the top stuck. It froze up."

"Sure Phil. Whatever you say. All I know is that shoveling snow out of your car on our third date was not what I had in mind when you said we'd enjoy the outdoors."

"We didn't shovel the snow, we swept it out. Poor Lola. I was truly surprised when you actually went out with me again."

"I was surprised too." She burst into laughter at his facial expression. "To be honest, after that date I knew you were as quirky as me. And funny as hell. You could always make me laugh Phil. That's a gift."

"So glad my misfortune could entertain you."

"Me too. Life was so simple back then, wasn't it?"

"We were madly in love. All I knew is I wanted to spend every moment with you. When we were together, everything was brighter, and everything was better." He paused and then gave her a sad smile. "But we never counted on going through the absolute worst time in our lives. We couldn't do that together."

"Don't Phil. Please."

"Why not Mel? What happened to us that we failed to face the nightmare together? We were both trained to survive, trained to face the worst of people, trained to get through trauma. Yet we couldn't face the pain of losing Skye together."

Melinda stayed still for a moment and then looked at him with tears in her eyes. "Because we couldn't face seeing the same pain in each other's eyes that we both felt. Because we couldn't stand seeing the guilt on each other's faces that we felt ourselves." She took a deep breath and wiped at her eyes. "Because every time I looked at you, I thought of her. I couldn't bear it, Phil."

He stood up and moved to her, wrapping his arms around her and letting her cry into his shoulder. It was something she wouldn't let him do all those years ago. He held onto her tighter as his tears also fell. They stayed like that until they heard a noise.

"Oh hey Melinda, aren't you coming to bed soon? It's kind of late and..." Her voice trailed off as she watched Melinda and Phil peel away from each other. She blinked at them in confusion, totally losing her train of thought. "Oh, um, sorry. I – uh- I – what's going on?"

Phil cleared his throat and Melinda tried to subtly wipe at her eyes.

"Nothing. Just some reminiscing. Feelings. You know." Phil finally spoke up.

"Yeah it is late Phil. You better get going. I'll be in shortly Daisy."

Daisy looked from Melinda to Phil and noticed he had turned a little red and Melinda was not meeting his eyes. Nor would she look directly at Daisy. She moved to the fridge and got out a bottle of water, while Phil walked over to the door to slip his shoes on.

He smiled at both, as he pulled his jacket on. "Goodnight Melinda. Good night Daisy. I'll see you both tomorrow." He exited through the door quickly.

Melinda offered a water bottle to Daisy, who took it and then followed Melinda back to the bedroom.

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"You two looked rather cozy."

"I need to use the bathroom." Melinda grabbed her pajamas and headed out the door calling after, "you might want to put pajamas on yourself since you're awake now."

Melinda settled into bed but laid awake thinking. All this introspection and sharing with Daisy and with everyone at their family counseling sessions was paying off. The revelation she just shared with Phil had been gnawing at her for few days now. The first few years, she had often thought about why she and Phil couldn't stay together. It had been hard to go their separate ways, knowing she still loved him, but couldn't stay with him. And until these last weeks, the reason had eluded her. She'd always struck it up to the guilt and anger, but it was far deeper than that. It was the pain of seeing her daughter in his face, of seeing her smile. It was the also the fact that she did blame him at first. Yet she knew he had done nothing wrong. So she had turned that misplaced blame on herself and had purposefully pushed him out of her life.

The time when they had needed each other the most, they had been unable to do so. It was the not knowing that was the most painful. She had been unable to verbalize that pain to him and had instead just started shutting him out. But now, once again she felt that connection. She had never stopped loving Phil. She had just pushed all those emotions away. She knew they had fallen back with ease into their communication and their way of reading each other. It was nice. It was familiar. It was dangerous.

"Hey Melinda."

Brought out of her thoughts by the small whisper she leaned over the bed, with just enough streetlight streaming in the window to see Daisy. "Yeah?"

"You're awake?"

"Yeah. Why are you awake?"

"I slept through the movie. Not that sleepy anymore."

"You only slept for three hours Dais."

"I had a weird dream."

"You want to talk about it?"

Daisy squinted at Melinda in the dark room, just able to make out her concern from the limited light. "Actually, I didn't have a bad dream. I – um – I've just been thinking." She hesitated and then continued. "You and Phil. You guys loved each other. A lot. Anyone looking at your pictures could see that."

"We did."

"Yet you left each other."

Melinda quickly realized where this was going. She figured out what Daisy was thinking. "I'm not going to leave you Daisy. Neither is Phil. Phil and my relationship – it's – it's different. It's just complicated."

"But when things got bad you left."

"We left each other. But yes, I left." She leaned over the bed. "Daisy, it was the absolute worst thing in the world for both of us when you were taken from us. Neither of us knew how to cope. We just thought coping together was too painful." She swung her legs over the bed and knelt down onto the trundle mattress. "Sometimes adults make mistakes. Sometimes we don't have all the answers. But I will never leave you Daisy. No matter what you do, no matter what happens. I promise. You're never going to be able to push me away. As long as I have any say in it, I will always be here for you. And I know without a doubt that goes for Phil too."

Daisy looked at her and gave a slight nod. "It's hard to see that for me. It's – I'll try to believe that."

Melinda stroked her cheek. "That's a step though. And you know what? Even though Phil and I couldn't stay together, I still loved him."

"He still loves you. Anyone can see that."

"It's complicated."

"Yeah. Adults tend to do that. Make things complicated."

"Hey. Go easy on us okay? We don't have all the answers. We're just trying to work life out day by day, just like you young whippersnappers."

Daisy grinned. "God, you're old."

Melinda laughed as Daisy leaned into her and wrapped her arms around her.

The next day, Melinda and Daisy packed up most of their clothes, except what they needed for the upcoming week, as well as Melinda's books and DVD's. They took them to the house. Phil also packed up some smaller items he was bringing and made three trips to the house. The three went out for a late lunch at their new favorite diner close by. After returning to the apartment, Daisy worked on catching up with her science and algebra classes, while Melinda went to the FBI gym to work out. Phil sat with Daisy, working on lesson preparation and grading papers and in case Daisy needed help. Melinda brought back take out Thai food for everyone.

The week passed by quickly and soon it was Friday. Daisy was sitting at lunch, laughing and talking with her friends. Clint had left early to take a make-up quiz in Biology. He'd been out sick for a few days previously. The chair next to Daisy was empty, when a guy she didn't know pulled it out and sat down next to her. She looked up at him, surprised as he leaned into her.

"Hey babe. How about you come sit with me and leave this table of losers." He slung his arm around her shoulders and grinned at her.