Chapter Two-Hundred and Twenty-Three

Phoebe's eyes widened as she looked up at the man before her, able to see bits of herself in him. "Hi…" She gave a small wave, giving Chance a pat on the head. "Are you Mr. Standish's son?"

He nodded, easing himself to sit beside her on the fountain wall. "Yeah. I'm his foster son."

"What happened to your leg?" She asked, taking in the cast that was scribbled on that the white plaster was barely showing.

He tapped his knuckles on the cast, chuckling to hide the pain of the memory. "My old man busted it a few years ago, and in that fire at the Event Stadium a couple weeks ago, I must've caught it on something and it fractured again." He whistled for Chance to sit down beside him, unzipping a pocket on her service animal vest and pulling something out of it. "Thomas told me you like my band?"

She smiled, taking the signed tape from him and running her fingers over it. "Whoa!"

He met the social worker's gaze, jumping when Phoebe wrapped him in a hug. "Glad you like it." He laughed, closing his eyes as he hugged her back, tucking his nose into her shoulder to hide his tears. His heart ached with the first ever contact with his baby sister. "Fuck…" He whispered, his emotions somehow escaping the bottle he tried so hard to push them into.

Phoebe rubbed his back, a strange feeling of home settling on her as this young man started to crack before her. "What's wrong?" She asked, letting him pull back to look at her. "Did I hurt your leg?"

He cracked a smile, cupping her cheek in his palm. "No. The cast keeps anything from getting to it." He brushed her hair back, noticing that she had Beverly's hair, darker than his own and so full of curl that she could almost pass for a lion if it wasn't braided back. "It's just… I never thought I would see you again…"

She pulled back from him, looking at her social worker to find out what he meant. "Lily?" She asked, knowing that she would know more about him than she did.

Lily smiled, looking between her and John. "You remember that you were adopted by the Wrights, correct?" She waited for Phoebe to nod, before she motioned to John. "Well, this… is your biological brother… Johnathan Kurtis Bender. He's Jacob and Beverly Bender's biological son."

Claire rushed to John's side as he limped through the front door of the house, able to see that he was starting to fall into a flashback. "John?" She touched his shoulder, gasping when he dropped his crutches to embrace her. She wove her fingers into his hair, letting him seek the shelter he craved that only she was able to give. "Hey… what's wrong?"

His good knee gave out, leaving all of his weight on Claire as she struggled to get him over to the living room to sit.

His mind swarmed with fuzzy memories, the time that had passed between finding the pregnancy test in the garbage and when his mother returned to the home ironing out from a wrinkled few minutes to a full nine months. He remembered her returning to the house after he'd turned seven, how she'd taken his hand and led him away from Jacob and how they'd walked for miles until they reached the run-down apartment building where a tiny baby was sleeping in a small crib.

"Phoebe… she, she's my… sister." He whispered, looking into his fiancée's eyes as he forced himself to sit up. "Beverly lied to us…"