Hello Minna-san! Sorry for the long time in updating, but I had a major writers block and the space bar on my key board isn't working to well, so it takes even longer to write. Enjoy! And thank you to those who have kept reading!

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"Jen, we think she may be alive."

There was about three minutes of silence from everyone, even the kids to young to really understand what was going on were able to pick up that now wasn't the time for noise. At a glance from Trowa, the older children ushered the younger ones into the house, so that it was only, Jen, Ashley, and the Adults outside. Max stayed as well, standing next to his sister in case she needed support. And when it looked like Jen and Ashley weren't going to snap out of their trance anytime soon, Wufei stepped forward, showing his Preventer badge.

"Please explain." He said. Both detectives nodded.

"At first glance it looked exactly like what we had described to Jennifer on the phone; that she had drunk poison and set the apartment on fire. But our forensic evidence didn't match with that, and it raised questions. A closer look told us that it was possible that it could have been set by someone else and simply made to look like she set it. And then there's the matter of the body." Carter said.

"It wasn't burned?" Duo asked.

"It was burned all right, so to get a positive ID we went for the dental records. Only the body didn't have any teeth." Everyone looked at him, disbelief on all their faces.

"No teeth?" Quatre asked. O'Neil nodded.

"They had all been pulled prior to burning, and we weren't able to do anything with what was left. Our forensics team is hoping to pull a DNA sample from what was left of the skin, but it doesn't look good."

"And all this led you to believe that that body wasn't Hilde?" Duo asked.

"I have seen suicides of all kinds; I've seen homicides made to look like suicides; once we even had someone who'd been killed by the mafia who made it look like suicide. Did a damn good job of it to; only thing that led us to believe otherwise was that the victim had shown no signs of wanting to kill her self prior to the incident. That led us to ask the right questions and find out the truth. We knew Hilde from the many times she had to come pick up her daughter from the police station for pulling one prank or another. A friend of mine on the force dated her for a few months. We knew that there was no way she would kill herself. So we looked deeper." They all nodded.

"Do you have any leads so far?" Wufei asked. Both shook their heads.

"Just the guy she had been dating right before this, and he's disappeared." Wufei nodded.

"This is now a Preventer Investigation, I'll contact your department within a day for the specifics. Just get together all the evidence you have." He said. The detectives sighed.

"You know, I had a feeling that you were going to say that, and this is one case that I don't mind handing off. We've got enough cases on the board as it is, and I can already tell that we won't be able to go far with this one." They all shook hands, and the detectives gave Jen an extra squeeze before getting in their car and driving off. They all stood there, not really sure what to do.

"Can the little ones hear me if I start yelling out here?" Jen asked, her voice unusually calm.

"No, they shouldn't be able to." Quatre said warily.

"Good." She then began to scream, letting out all of her frustration and fear that had been bottled up for the last few days, and when the senseless yelling was done she started in on the cursing, in four languages. She stopped after about five minutes and stood there fuming.

"Feel better?" Ashley asked, unperturbed by this outburst while the others were all staring in shock.

"Not really. I think the Fates are conspiring against me. Or, at the very least, having a good laugh at my expense."

"They always have a good laugh at your expense."

"Yeah, well, usually that's because I planned something. This time they took matters into their own hands." Both girls were quiet, and then started to giggle, and everyone else began giggling as well.

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That night Jen sat on the roof top and stared at the night sky, not really thinking of anything. Sally and Wufei had left to go back to their home so that Wufei could get the Preventers started on investigating this new threat, and they had taken their kids with them. Quatre had gotten a call from the office not long after Officers O'Neil and Carter had left, and Manuel had gone with him. Trowa and Anna were going to leave tomorrow, so that left Jen and her newly found family. Family. What a concept. Especially for her. Up until now her family had consisted of her mom, Ashley, and Jack. A few friends were in there of course, but those were the three that she had always considered family. And now she had 6...7…no, 9 new family members. And only two of them were blood related. Jen sighed and blew a wisp of hair out of her eyes. All of this was a shit load of stuff to take in, and it was going to take a while.

She turned her head when she heard some creaking, and saw Duo's…no, her fathers…head poking out of the attic window that she had climbed through. He looked a little unsure of himself, and Jen couldn't help but feel the same.

"Is it all right if I come out there? Ashley told me you were up here." He said hesitantly.

"Yeah sure. It's your house after all." Duo climbed out and sat next to her, close, but not to close. He shifted nervously, wiping his hands on his pants.

"Your mom never…"

"I know." She interrupted before he could finish his sentence. They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.

"So how did…I mean…What did…Did Hilde tell you anything about me?" Duo finally asked. Jen picked at the rubber on her tennis shoe.

"She told me how you would go all out for the holidays, how you loved to sleep in and she would literally drag you out of bed on most days. How you could talk endlessly about nothing and no matter how down you were you would always try and cheer someone else up. She told me that she left you, that she loved you with all her heart but that you loved someone else." Jen wiped away the tears that threatened to fall and took a deep breath. "She said that she loved you so much that she had to let you go. And now that I think about it, she never said anything about you that would make me hate you. I guess that she did everything that she could so that I wouldn't hate you." They sat in silence again, not really sure what to do.

"So, what do you want to do?" Duo asked. "I mean, from what you said earlier, it looks like you already had plans for the summer. You can stay here if you like, of course, but if you already had plans then I don't want to get in the way." Jen looked at her recently found father, and could tell that he wanted to get to know her, but was doing his very best to let her set the terms of it. And she found that she wanted to get to know him to, and learn more about this person who had captured and held her mothers heart for years, though he'd had no idea. Plus, there were all these siblings, which had always been a secret dream of hers. She liked being around lots of people, and had always dreamed of one day having a large family of her own.

"Actually, I'd…I'd like to stay here. Jack's going to be disappointed, he said that he had rooms set up for Ashley and I and sounded real excited about it, but knowing him he'll probably insist that I get to know you some before school starts. He was always big on the importance of family." Duo's eyes lit up, and he impulsively hugged her, causing them to lose their foot hold and slide down the roof.

8

Ashley sat at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee and appreciating the silence that had settled around the house now that most everyone was asleep. Well, almost silence anyway. Though if one listened close enough they could hear all sorts of things going on. Kyle was stirring restlessly as he slept, murmuring in his sleep. Keily was actually being quiet, having fallen into that deep sleep that toddlers do so well. Daisy and Alyssa had been whispering to each other earlier, determined to stay up as late as possible since it was summer and they had been given permission, but were now sleeping peacefully. There was a minor rustling of sheets from Jaime's room, who had said she was tired and gone to bed early, and the distinct sound of video games coming from Matt's room, where he and Jesse were duking it out. Duo she knew, had gone up on the roof to talk to Jen, Heero was somewhere around, and she was enjoying the coffee. So not really that quiet after all.

Even so, she still jumped and nearly back handed the person who had laid a hand on her shoulder. He simply bent backwards out of the way, and she was noticeably embarrassed.

"Oh geeze, sorry Mr. Yuy, I didn't hear you come in." She said apologetically. He waved his hand dismissively and sat down across from her with his own cup of coffee.

"Call me Heero." He said. Ashley nodded, and they sat in silence. Ashley wasn't sure how, but she could tell that Heero wanted to ask her something, probably about Jen, but didn't know how to go about doing so. So she started.

"She saved my life you know." Heero looked up briefly, and Ashley continued. "Not in the traditional sense, but that is what she did. Because if it wasn't for her and her mom, I'd probably be out on the street whoring myself for food right now, instead of with plans to go to Medical School."

"Please explain."

"Well, Jen and I met when we were in kindergarten, and she immediately tried to be friends with me. I wasn't really receptive at first, but she was just to bubbly and energetic to ignore. We were always together after that, and as we grew older she would sort of watch out for me. When I started to skip school she would hunt me down and make me do my homework, show up extra early in the mornings to pull me out of bed and drag me to school, then make sure that I stayed in school. Hilde always made sure that I had decent food and clothes, and she adopted me when my mother took off. And that's how it continued at each school that we went to. After we met Jack in middle school, he started to help her keep me in line. And keep Jen from pulling any prank that would get us into serious trouble. He's a year older than us, and took on the role of protective older brother."

"Sounds like she's a great person." Ashley nodded enthusiastically.

"She's the best. There isn't a mean bone in her body. Except when you threaten someone that she cares about of course. Then she's the scariest thing on this planet. Probably the universe." Heero nodded, a small smile on his face.

"Duo's the same." It was then that they heard a soft thump from outside the window, and despite the years of peace Heero immediately reacted like a soldier, hand reaching for his absent gun. Ashley reached the window first, and burst out laughing at Jen and Duo, who had fallen off the roof and landed in a tangle of arms and legs.

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