Lucy had never functioned well in a confined space. She vastly preferred being outside to being indoors, and found it difficult to breathe in closed areas that lacked windows. Locking the the only exit to a windowless room only increased her anxiety and flashbacks to her traumatic childhood.

Patrica knew this, though unfortunately had forgotten to take it into account when the impure girl escaped. She had shut the door behind her without thinking and it didn't occur to her until after locking that little brat in a separate room the situation she had left her friend in.

She returned to the original holding cell to find Lucy slouched in uncomfortable-looking position on the concrete floor in front of the cots that had been laid out for the girls. All three of the room's occupants were asleep.

Patrica could feel Dennis' protectiveness before he even reached for the light, grumbling to himself about the dirty floor, but bending down to scoop up Lucy anyway. She shifted in his arms as he balanced her bridal-style, her face screwing up slightly as though she was having an unpleasant dream.

"Shh, shh. It's okay." He whispered, his voice uniquely free of its usual tension. "I'm not gonna let anything hurt you."

Apart from Kevin, Dennis had taken Lucy's departure in their lives the hardest. Hedwig and Patrica were both attached to the girl, but to Dennis Lucy Collins had hung the moon. As the first of Kevin's personalities and his designated protector, it would be quite the understatement to say that Dennis carried a lot of pressure on his shoulders, as well as a lot of trauma the others could never comprehend.

Lucy somehow managed to make all that evaporate when he was in her presence. When it came to her, he didn't need the walls he had spent a lifetime building. He didn't need to be the protector.

Well no. That was a lie...

"Dennis! Dennis don't let her take me! Dennis please!"

Dennis shook the haunting memories from his head. Even all these years later, nightmares of her still plagued him. Reaching for him. Pleading with him to save her.

Easy now, Dennis. Patrica said to him as he laid Lucy back in her own bed where she belonged. No need to relive the past any further. She's here now. Fate has finally smiled upon us, and brought to a sign of good faith for our day of reckoning.

"You really think the Beast will accept her?"

Of course he will. She is of the broken and therefore the pure. What better example of the ones he seeks to avenge and protect?

"You really think she'll accept him?"

That made her pause. Patrica was the alter of faith, but she was anything but naive. ...Lucy is innocent. She finally said. It's likely she won't see that this is what must be done. In the end however, she wants to protect Kevin just as much as we do.

Patrica sighed and leaned forward to brush the blond strands out of Lucy's face. The girl was a variable her original plan hadn't accounted for, but one she was more than willing to make adjustments on behalf of.

"She'll come around."

For the second time in however many days it had been, Lucy was thrown off upon awakening. Her brain took a second to catch up with her as it had yet to properly process the recent happenings and was still half expecting the routine of her alarm going off and Bruce jumping on her, demanding to go out.

Okay, have to look at this logically. She told herself, channeling her inner Olivia Benson as she struggled to remember and sort out all the tips the SVU veterans had given her. Freaking out will only make this worse. These are your friends. They won't hurt you. They may have gone off the deep end, but they won't hurt you.

Unless provoked.

Shut up Wong.

Great, now she was talking to herself. Or, more accurately, to her voice of reason that had always sounded annoyingly like George Wong. Such a thing had used to be a comfort, but now it seemed her inner Wong was pulling his 'confronting unhealthy behaviors' shtick. She hated when the actual man did that, and she hated even more that he was good enough at his job that he had embedded it into her.

Because the fact was that he was probably right. Dennis, Patrica, and Hedwig did not seem entirely sane, not that they ever had been as they existed because of Kevin's trauma, but that wasn't the point. Oh god, Kevin. He was the last of the four she hadn't seen. She knew bad things tended to happen when he was out of the light for too long; the less of the world he allowed himself to take, the less he could handle. It had been years; Dennis had said there were nearly two dozen of them now.

Just how far gone was he?

Lucy's thoughts were interrupted when the door opened, Patrica coming in with a tray of food complete with a vase that had a fresh orange rose in it. "Ah, good you're awake." She smiled as she set the tray down on the nightstand. "Wouldn't want you to miss breakfast." It did not escape Lucy's notice that she had shut the door behind her and was now standing in front of it.

"Thank you Trisha..." she said, turning to the tray to see freshly made pancakes and orange juice waiting for her. There was a whipped cream smile on top that made her crack a smile in spite of herself.

"And — Lucy I-I had wanted to apologize as well. I didn't mean to lock you in with the other girls like I did. I know how you get in small spaces, I wasn't thinking."

Lucy blinked at her. There had been so much going on, she hadn't actually noticed the confinement that would usually suffocate her. Instead of addressing the apology, she chose another topic. "Can I talk to Kevin?"

Patrica was startled by the request, and stuttered over her answer. "Um, I-I'm sorry dear, I'm afraid Kevin is a bit...indisposed at the moment..."

"Why?" Lucy asked in a tone that said she was playing along, but didn't buy the excuse.

"Well..." Patrica sighed. "You have to understand darling, loosing you took a toll on him. And then surviving without you..." she shook her head. "I won't insult your intelligence, you understood how fragile he was, even when you were young. I'm afraid it's just gotten worse."

"I need to talk to him. There's something I need to tell him."

"Well tell me, and I'll make sure he gets the message."

"Okay." Lucy looked down a moment, wondering if this was the right line of conversation. Surely there were more pressing things to discuss. But now that she knew Kevin was alive after spending years thinking him dead, he had the right to know. So did the others. "Kevin's mother, she's in jail."

"...I, beg your pardon?"

"I put her there." Lucy informed, her confidence slowly returning at the thought. "When I finally made it back to Colorado, you were already gone, but she was still there. The police officer that helped me get back, she helped make a case with the local department. They put her away for the rest of her life. She can't hurt Kevin anymore. She can't hurt any of you ever again."

Patrica opened and closed her mouth several times, not having the words to respond. For a second, the woman before her didn't seem so different from the one that Lucy had tried on dresses with at the Goodwill when they were children.

Lucy could see a twitch of a shoulder and then someone new was behind those bluer than blue eyes.

"You really did that?" Dennis' Boston accent held a mixture of disbelief, desperation, and something else she couldn't name.

Lucy nodded. "I always said I wanted it to stop. When I saw..." a lump caught in her throat and she shook away the image of the large blood stain that had marred Mrs. Crumb's perfect carpet. "I thought she killed you. I wanted her to suffer." Lucy admitted. She could faintly hear the sound of Olivia's screaming mixed with her own as the older woman fought to pull her off of that monster.

"Lucy stop it!"

"She killed them, Liv! You were supposed to take are of them, you're his mother!"

"Lucy, calm down!"

"You killed them, you stole them from me!"

"...People don't understand what we've been through." Dennis finally said. "It isn't right, how unbalanced the world is."

"Is that why the girls from my art class are here?"

Dennis sighed, reaching to fidget with his glasses like he always when he was uncomfortable, only to remember they weren't there. "...He's gonna do more than balance things Luce. He's gonna show them that we're stronger. Better than they are."

"Who is?"

"The Beast."