By the time pizza had been eaten, dishes had been washed, and kids had been sent to bed, Melinda May was beat. That was one of the things about being a new parent that she was still getting used to. She had known, of course, when she and Phil first reached out to Victoria about fostering that her life would become much busier and require a lot more of her, but she had underestimated just how tired she was going to feel. Deciding it wasn't worth it to try and get any more work done that night, May began the process of getting ready for bed. She had just started to brush her teeth when Phil slipped into the bathroom behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and giving her a quick squeeze.

"Finally got Skye to settle down and say goodnight," he said, grabbing his own toothbrush. May watched his face in the mirror as she finished. She studied the lines and creases that traced along his forehead and around his eyes, signs of love and laughter that made her heart still flutter like it had when she was a teenager.

"She was quite the chatterbox tonight," he mumbled around a mouthful of toothpaste. May just smiled.

"Don't act like you aren't thrilled," she teased. "I know you well enough to know that you're over the moon every time one of those kids wants to talk with you."

"Can you blame me?" Phil asked. He rinsed his toothbrush and replaced it to its spot right next to his wife's. Turning to face her, he beamed his thousand-watt smile that made May feel as though she were in the glow of a heat lamp. "We have some pretty great kids."

"Yes we do," she agreed, returning his smile. "I still can't believe their all ours, even if it might be temporary. Did you ever imagine a month ago that you'd have three teenage daughters right now?"

"Technically Jemma's not a teenager yet," he chuckled. "But no, never in my wildest dreams. I like to think I'm taking to the task of being a girl dad pretty well, though, if I do say so myself."

"Like a duck to water."

"I mean, can you imagine how terrible I would do with a teenage son? Based on experience alone, what would I do with him? Force him to play football and scar him for life probably."

"Oh stop." May gave him a playful swat. "I know for a fact your father did more than that for you. Besides, you told me your dad let you quit football after your freshman year."

"I'm only joking," Phil assured her. "Still, I'm glad we have our girls."

"You know, your dad would be so proud of you, Phil," May said quietly. "Your mom, too."

"I like to think so." A sadder smile danced across his lips this time. He was silent for a while, and May let him sit with his memories. For all his smiling and joking, there were times when she knew it was important to let him be still.

After a minute or two, Phil cocked his head to one side and a mischievous look slid onto his face. "What about your parents, Mel? We haven't even told them yet!"

"Oh God, don't you dare, Phil. I can already picture the both of them. I'll get around to it eventually, I promise. Once things have settled down… feel more permanent."

"Your mom is going to be a hoot," Phil teased. May gave him another swat and Phil scampered back into the bedroom, out of her reach.

"You're as bad as the teenagers," reprimanded May. "And yet I can't help but love you." The two climbed into bed then, and May felt the relief of a soft bed after a long day wash over her.

"Have I told you how much I love you today?" Phil asked. His voice was soft and thick with impending sleep. May nestled in closer to him.

"You might have mentioned something."

"Well, just in case, I love you bucketloads," he told her. "I love how brave you are for taking three kids in. I love how great of a mom you are to them."

"Says the man who was born to be a dad."

"That's why we make such a good team," Phil said.

"I'm a little worried about them," May admitted, faltering slightly. Phil sat up and turned to look at her.

"You are? Why?"

"I just… I worry that we're… that I'm not going to be able to give them everything they need. Or that we're taking things too fast. I mean, Skye and Jemma were barely with us for a week before we brought Bobbi into the house."

"It was the right thing to do. And they seem to be handling it okay," Phil said.

"It's just so soon to tell. Bobbi's hardly said a word all day, and I'm sure you noticed Jemma's clammed up again. Skye's…"

"I really think they're all going to be fine," soothed Phil. "It's just a lot of new that's going to take some getting used to. You remember how quiet Jemma was when we first met her. We've just gotten used to her being a little more relaxed, but now she's adjusting again. Skye's like a rubber band, honestly, she'll bounce back in a blink. And Bobbi… well, it's her first day. And she's been through hell to get here." Phil trailed off and May shook her head in disgust.

"It drove me crazy to read those medical notes Vic gave us. The doctors had to operate on her lung after what that monster did to her. And the number of healed fractures they found when they x-rayed her other injuries? He'd been torturing her for years."

"I forget sometimes just how evil the world can be," said Phil, his voice barely above a murmur.

"That's why it needs people like you," May told him, leaning into his chest. "To balance the scales for kids like them." Her eyes began to grow heavy then, and she motioned for Phil to get the light. Her husband, her wonderful, big-hearted, sure and steady husband, reached over and flicked the lamp by their bed off, plunging the room into a gentle darkness.

It took only a few minutes before May had just nearly fallen asleep, the line between dream and reality growing hazy. She was jolted out of the fuzzy stupor suddenly, however, as a monumental crash shook the house and a cry of pain rang out. Like a flash, May sprang out of bed and yanked the bedroom door open. It took only seconds for her eyes to scan the hallway and take in the scene around her.

Sprawled near the bottom of the stairs was Bobbi, crutches askew and limbs akimbo. She was trembling, but otherwise unmoving, and May could hear a faint whimper crawling its way up the stairs to her ear. She descended the stairs with the kind of sharp efficiency she often reserved for her work and knelt beside Bobbi. Behind her, she could feel Phil following step for step.

"Bobbi, are you hurt? Can you sit up?" She tried to keep her voice low and level, swallowing down the panic that had clawed its way up her throat. Some parent she was, letting a girl on crutches try to navigate stairs on her first night in a new house. Stupid, rookie mistake, she thought. Bobbi didn't say anything or make any attempts to get up. May saw Phil kneel down beside her and reach out a hand to Bobbi's shoulder.

"Bobbi, are you all right?" he asked. The minute his hand touched her arm, Bobbi jerked away, folding in on herself. Phil pulled his hand back instantly and put several feet of distance between them.

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have done that," he said quickly. Bobbi began to shake, and her hands found their way to her ears.

"Phil," May murmured, "maybe you should go upstairs and check on Jemma and Skye." She glanced up to the top of the stairs and spotted, as she had suspected she would, two small, pale faces peering down at the three of them. Skye looked concerned, and Jemma's was positively pinched with worry.

"Good idea," he said, making his way slowly back up the stairs. May watched as he herded Skye and Jemma back into their room and shut the door quietly behind them, then turned her attention back to Bobbi.

"Bobbi, love, it's just you and me. Can you let me know if you're okay?"

Okay. Okay. Okay. Bobbi's whole body felt like it was on fire, like it had when she had first woken up in the hospital so many days ago. She had put off going up to the bathroom practically all day, mostly because she didn't want to try and navigate the stairs on her crutches when other people were around to watch, but now she was regretting the decision immensely. She hadn't realized how much harder using the crutches would be on the stairs, and she definitely hadn't realized how much harder it would be in the dark. She had only made it up a few stairs when she had missed the next step with the crutch, sending her off balance and toppling down like sandbag. It was taking every ounce of her strength to stay still and quiet, one of her best defense strategies. He didn't like it when she cried, when she was weak.

Her head pounded, and it felt like she was sliding back and forth between two worlds. The rational part of her brain knew that she was in the new house, with her new foster parents. People who had given her a bed and who didn't make her cook dinner that night and who the kids had said were nice. But there was another part, a part she couldn't make shut up, that was screaming for her to get away. Alarm bells ringing as loud as they could to signal that he was almost there, that she was in danger. When the foster dad, Phil, had spoken, it wasn't his voice that she heard. It was her father's. And he wasn't apologizing.

"Bobbi? Can you hear me?" He was shouting. He hated it when she didn't listen to him. "Listen to the sound of my voice." No, it wasn't him. It was a woman's voice. Listen. Listen. She screwed up her face and tried to concentrate.

"Bobbi, take a deep breath. It's going to be okay." It was her. May. The woman who was the friend of the social worker. Her foster mother. It's going to be okay. Okay. Okay. Bobbi wrenched her mouth open and took a shuddery breath. It made her chest ache, but it was suddenly much easier to focus. She could see the shadowy outlines of the furniture around her, feel the metal of a crutch wedged underneath her hip, hear the soft, slow voice of a person trying to help. Slowly, she began to uncurl herself, but she left her hands pressed against her ears. She had to keep shutting out his voice.

"That's good, nice and slow," May said. "Do you think you can sit up at all?" After a beat, Bobbi gave it a try. She rolled onto one side and propped herself up on an elbow, then eased upwards until she was sitting upright, her back against the wall. She wanted to pull her legs into her chest, but the brace on her knee wouldn't allow it, so she settled for one. Her knee felt like it had been jammed with a thousand syringes full of lightning. Her next breath in got lodged in her throat and she had to choke back a sob.

"It's okay to cry," May assured her. "That was a nasty fall. I'm sure you're in a lot of pain." Pain. So much pain. But she couldn't cry. Crying made it worse, made him angry. Bobbi shook her head and swallowed the tears that had been trying to sneak out.

"Can you tell me what happened?" asked May.

"I… slipped," Bobbi said, after a long pause. Her voice came out flat, and she cringed in spite of herself. Her dad hated when she talked like a "robot." She couldn't help it sometimes. "I was trying to go up and I slipped because I can't work these stupid crutches."

"I'm so sorry," May told her. Bobbi scrunched her eyebrows together.

"Why? It's not your fault, I'm the one who fell."

"I should have made sure you were able to use the stairs earlier, should have left a light on for you. I didn't think about your safety as much as I should have."

"Oh." Bobbi didn't know how to respond. No one had ever apologized for not thinking of her safety before. "It's okay. I mean, it's really not your fault."

"Are you hurt?"

Bobbi paused. She didn't want to lie, but she also didn't want to make things worse for herself. She really just wanted to go to the bathroom and then go back to bed. She looked up and realized that May was still waiting on an answer. She had noticed before how both she and Phil had seemed patient when the other kids were talking, but was still surprised to receive the same treatment.

"I'm… okay. I don't think anything's messed up any more than it already was." That was true. Aside from her knee, which still throbbed, the rest of her pain had subsided to a dull ache. A pang of worry sliced into her heart when she considered the possibility that she might have wrecked her knee even further, and before she knew what she was saying, the confession spilled out of her. "My knee hurts."

"I'm not surprised. It's been long enough since your last dose of pain medicine, if you'd like to take some more." Bobbi nodded, and May got to her feet. She disappeared momentarily, then emerged from the kitchen with a single white pill in her hand.

"Can I help you stand up?" May asked. Bobbi nodded again, and May reached out, placing Bobbi's arm around her shoulder and using her other arm to guide Bobbi back to her feet.

"Watch out that you don't put any weight on that knee," May reminded her. Steadying herself against the wall, Bobbi teetered in place until May had replaced the crutches in her hands. Once she was stable and standing, May handed her the pill.

"Water?" May was already halfway to the kitchen when she asked the question, and was halfway back with a glass in hand by the time Bobbi had said "yes, please." Bobbi was learning quickly that May wasn't one to dawdle.

Once Bobbi had swallowed the medicine and the glass had been deposited in the sink, May turned her attention to the stairs.

"Ready to give these a try?" Bobbi chewed on her bottom lip. On the one hand, she knew she needed to make it up there sooner rather than later, but on the other… the stairs suddenly seemed much more insurmountable than they had in the dark. She shifted her weight back and forth and drummed nervously on the grip of her crutch, then offered a noncommittal shrug. May pursed her lips.

"I won't make you go up them if you really don't want to, but I think it's a good idea to tackle them sooner rather than later. If you wait, they might build up."

"They aren't going to get taller…" Bobbi said uncertainly.

"No, I meant metaphorically. If you wait, the mental block against climbing them will get harder to overcome. They'll get scarier if you put it off."

"Oh." It was unsettling how May seemed to know exactly what was zipping through Bobbi's mind. Bobbi rocked again, weighing her options.

"I can help you," May offered. "You don't have to do it alone." Making up her mind, Bobbi set her jaw and steeled her gaze. She locked her eyes on the stairs.

"Okay."

The journey upstairs didn't take as long as Bobbi had thought, but it was certainly arduous. Her arms were still sore from the fall, and her muscles grew tired about halfway up. She was frustrated with her knee, which dragged behind her like useless, dead weight. May was patient, and waited on every step with her, a delicate hand resting with a feather touch on her upper arm. She was there only to steady Bobbi if she needed it, but Bobbi was determined to make it to the top of her own volition. Still, the comfort of a nearby hand helped to ease any trepidation and fuel her drive upwards.

When she finally reached the second floor, she slumped slightly against the wall, fully worn out but triumphant, nevertheless. May was smiling, a proud smile that Bobbi had seen only a few times before, usually from soccer coaches or the occasional teacher. Never before had that pride felt quite so personal. She blinked back tears and ducked into the bathroom before May could see how choked up she felt.

May was still waiting in the hallway when Bobbi reemerged a few minutes later.

"I thought it might be good to help with the return trip, too," she said. Bobbi gave her a nod, and they set to work scaling back down the stairs. While it was logistically a little more complicated, it wasn't as much work as going up, and before long Bobbi was back where she had started.

"Nicely done," May said. She seemed genuinely congratulatory, and Bobbi couldn't help but stand up a little straighter. "I think I'm going to head to bed, unless there's anything else you need tonight?"

Bobbi shook her head and began to thump her way back to the den. She paused briefly, and turned back to May, stopping her before she vanished back upstairs.

"Um, thanks. For helping me, I mean."

May smiled. "Anytime, Bobbi. I meant it when I said you don't have to do it alone. You never have to do anything alone, unless you want to. Not in this house, at least. I hope you know that." And with that, they parted ways and drifted off to bed.