Author's Note: Thank you for all the love you showed the last chapter. It was so kind. I hope you like this one too :)


Looking up from the notepad on his desk for what could quite well have been the tenth time, Matthew turned his attention to Lynette who was perched on a chair near the door and sighed under his breath. Something wasn't right, he could tell. Instead of being her loud, cheeky self and getting up to mischief, she had barely said two words to him since he picked her up from school and he hadn't seen her move from the chair once. Not only that, but she was biting her nails and he knew her well enough to know that was something she only tended to do when she was feeling uncomfortable or upset about a matter.

Jean was going to be out for another hour almost and Lucien was out at the current crime scene with Charlie, so he was going to have to be the one to speak to her about it.

He put down his pen and got up from his chair, reaching for his cane so he could make his way across the room to her, and when she looked up at him he gave her a smile which she only weakly returned. "Lynnie, would you mind coming with me for a minute? I think we need to have a bit of a talk and it would be better for us to do it someplace quiet." He explained, nodding in the direction of the corridor.

"Am I in trouble?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Not in the slightest, I promise," He shook his head. "So, will you come with me?"

"Okay." She replied before getting down from the chair and wandering out into the corridor with him, letting him lead her down to a vacant interview room before he opened the door and they both stepped inside. She headed over to the table and pulled out a chair, climbing up onto it while he shut the door behind him, and when he reached the table he sat down next to her and turned to look at her properly.

"As I said, you aren't in any trouble, so I don't want you thinking anything like that," He said gently. "I do get the feeling there's something you're not telling me though, sweetheart, something that you're keeping to yourself that's making you sad. If you don't want to talk about it and you want me to leave you alone, that is entirely your choice, but if you do want to talk about it and let me help I'm all ears."

"Um…" She played with her skirt for a second. "Some kids at school have been giving me a hard time."

He felt his heart sink. "In what way?"

"In lessons, they kick the back of my chair and I hear them saying mean things about me," She looked at him momentarily before casting her eyes down at her lap again. "At playtime and lunch, they tell me to go away because they don't want me to play with them and sometimes the girls push me over. They used to say it was an accident and I told them it was okay, but I don't think it's an accident anymore. I tried to tell my teacher, Miss Martin, but she said they were only playing and I was stirring up trouble. It makes me sad when other kids are mean to me, Uncle Matthew, I only want them to be my friends."

"Have you told your mummy about this?" He inquired.

For a moment, she was silent before she sighed and shook her head. "Mummy gets sad when I feel sad and I don't want her to be, so I don't really want to tell her about it. I don't want to tell Daddy either because he'll get all mad if he knows the kids are being mean to me and I don't want him to get mad."

"You know he would only get mad because he loves you though, don't you? He would never be mad at you either, Lynnie, only the kids at school," He reached out a hand and brushed a curl back behind her ear, stroking his thumb against her cheek when she looked at him again. "I know how hard it can be. I was bullied badly when your daddy and I were at school and he was truly my only friend at that time."

"You were bullied, Uncle Matthew?" She was surprised. "I thought kids would be scared of you."

He chuckled. "Am I that scary?"

"Sometimes," She gave him a small smile. "You shout very loud when you're mad, Daddy says so."

"Well, I think it was my having such a terrible time as a child that made me the way I am today," He told her. "I was quite shy when I was your age and I was small too, much smaller than I am now, so I think I was seen as an easy target for the other kids. As I got older though, I decided I wasn't going to let people push me around anymore and I learned to stick up for myself which is what you should do."

"I can't though, I'm not brave like you." She replied.

He made a face. "Oh, I think you are and you get it from your mummy."

"I do?" Her eyes lit up.

"Mhm," He nodded. "Your daddy would tell you the exact same thing if you asked him."

"Uncle Matthew, I…I want Mummy and Daddy to know, but I don't want to be the one to tell them."

"Would you like me to speak to them about it for you? I can do the hard part if you need me to."

"I think that would be a good idea," She agreed. "Do you think telling them will make things better?"

"You'll certainly feel better for telling them," He said. "And they can talk to your school about it."

"Good," She breathed a sigh of relief, her shoulders relaxing. "Can we go do some tough work now?"

"You want to play Superintendent until your mummy comes to pick you up?" He smirked.

"Yes!" She beamed. "One day, I'll be Superintendent for real and I'll be the one in charge of all this."

"Oh, I don't doubt that for a minute, little one," He pulled her chair out for her and allowed her to get down before they walked over to the door and walked back into the corridor again. "Not for a minute."


"You really had no idea about any of this?"

"Do you honestly think I would have sat back and allowed it to continue if I knew?"

"No. No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm just annoyed."

It was quite late that evening when Lucien and Jean were sitting together on the settee in the lounge, Matthew having left a short time ago after making them aware of what had been going on with Lynnie. Neither of them had the slightest idea anything had been going on, she'd done such an outstanding job of putting on a brave face around them and acting as though all was as it should be, but that was really one of the things that hurt most. She felt she couldn't go to them about it. School was a nightmare for her at the minute and her mind was fooling her into thinking it would be wrong for her to go to them.

"I feel like going down there and giving that woman a piece of my mind," Lucien growled, pulling Jean from her thoughts and prompting her to look his way. "Saying she's stirring up trouble, how dare she?"

"I agree with you, we need to go and speak with her as soon as possible about this and straighten her out," She nodded while resting a hand on his knee. "I think there's someone a little more important for us to go and speak with before we start thinking about heading down there to sort all this out though."

He hummed in agreement. "Come on then."

In silence, they got up from the settee together and she reached for his hand as they wandered through the lounge and out into the hall. It took them little time to make their way upstairs to their little girl's room and she knocked on the door, only opening it and leading her husband inside when Lynette gave them permission to do so. She was sitting on her bed, the cat curled up in her lap while she slept, and she was running her hand slowly along her back in the way she liked. "Can Daddy and I come in and talk to you for a moment, darling?" She asked. "Only for a moment and then we'll leave you in peace."

Lynette merely nodded her reply and the two of them approached the bed before sitting down together.

"Did Uncle Matthew tell you about school?" She eventually found her voice.

"He did," Jean told her. "But what we'd like to know is why you felt you couldn't tell us about it."

Lynette sighed. "I didn't want to be the one to make you feel sad because that would make me sadder."

"You're meant to tell us about things like this when they happen though, princess, because that's what Mummy and I are here for," Lucien pointed out, reaching out a hand to stroke her face tenderly. "We love you so much and it is always going to make us sad when people are mean to you, but it makes us feel worse to know you felt you couldn't tell us. I know the thought of making other people sad upsets you and that's because you're so loving and we are so proud of you for that, but if you need to talk to us then it doesn't matter if it'll make us sad or not. We want you to come to us about things like this."

Her bottom lip trembled and she looked away from them for a second. "I don't like school anymore."

"We know, but we are going to get all of this straightened out, I promise," Jean comforted. "Tomorrow, we're going to telephone your Headmaster and arrange a meeting with him and Miss Martin. He needs to be made aware of what's happening and she needs to understand that the way she spoke to you was far from acceptable. More than that, if we see the parents of the children picking on you then we'll be speaking with them as well so that they can deal with them at home. It's not right what they're doing."

"I have no friends, Mummy, and it makes me sad," She whimpered. "Why don't they like me?"

Lucien ran a hand up and down his wife's back when he felt her tense up next to him, sighing deeply. "You want to know why they don't like you? It's because they're jealous of you and the fact you can be nice and kind and they don't know how. You are everything they're not, sweetheart, and that makes all of them look bad and they hate that. Now, that's not an excuse for the way they're treating you at all, but you need to know that you are doing nothing wrong. In all honesty, Mummy and I don't want you to have them as your friends anyway because you're worthy of so much more than that, you really are."

"I will have friends one day though, won't I? Nice friends?" She raised an eyebrow at them.

"Of course," Jean whispered, trying and failing to keep her voice from trembling as she nodded slowly. "And when you meet those friends, they're going to be people who see how incredibly special you are."

Lynette thought for a moment. "But…but what do I do until then?"

"You just keep being you," Lucien smiled. "Someone we are and always will be so terribly, terribly proud of…"


Author's Note: Thank you so much for taking the time to read! I wanted to do something sweet for Lynette and Matthew, so this was so fun to write. Reviews welcome and appreciated!