Thank you to my reviewers. Much love guys!

And, as promised, the naked pictures of Garrett Hedlund can be found . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . Probably in a photo album somewhere in his mom's house cause Gods knows our parents can't let our baby years slip by without taking at least one picture of us naked in a bathtub.

Enjoy the new chapter!

Bobby was scared. And being scared was not something he handled very well. He stood outside the hospital smoking his way through a second pack of cigarettes as he waited for Jerry to come get him when they were ready to go.

Looking down at the cigarette, Bobby laughed quietly to himself. Only Jack had smoked. None of the rest of them had gotten into drugs or tobacco like he had. Jerry had sold drugs before he'd wound up with Evelyn, but he'd never done them. Bobby had never done any of that shit because he liked to fight and fighting was seriously fucking hard when you were high. They'd all drank, Bobby and Jack more than the others of course.

Oh little brother, Bobby thought, gazing up at the cloudy sky wistfully. What the fuck am I suppose to do now?

Evy scared him. She was helpless at the moment, too weak to go anywhere, but Bobby knew nothing about her besides that. What if she was a total druggie? What if she was a whore or something? If they took her in, would they just make more problems for themselves?

"Fuck," he muttered, throwing his cigarette into the snow as the door opened behind him.

"We're ready," Jerry said. "Just need you to sign and we can go."

Bobby nodded and followed his brother inside. Evy was standing next to Angel staring blankly off at nothing. He was worried about her, wondering if this numb attitude was a warning about withdrawal to come. There was no denying that she looked like hell. Her hair hung limp around her pale face. The tattered clothes she wore only made her look sicker. Baggy jeans and a ragged sweatshirt made her look shrunken and ill. Sighing, Bobby signed the papers and picked the girl up.

She struggled a bit against his arms, but when she realized that it was just her uncle, she leaned against his shoulder and relaxed. By the time they reached Angel's car, she was fast asleep.

- - - - - -

After they got back home, Bobby put Evy in his room. As soon as he laid her on the bed and pulled the blankets up over her, she sighed and hugged a pillow to her chest. Bobby's heart caught again. Jack had slept just like that . . .

He hurried out of the room and downstairs. It was insane how alike she and her father were. As he walked into the kitchen where his brothers sat at the table with Jake and Sofi, he tried to let happy memories of Jack wash over him, but all he could hear was his little brother desperately begging for help.

Bobby paused in the doorway, watching Jake and Angel joke around. Angel's son was so much like him, they both had that quiet self-confidence that none of the other brothers had ever picked up. Watching them, Bobby wondered if maybe Evy wasn't as like Jack as they thought. Maybe they just missed their little brother so much that they found him in everything she did.

That'll make having her around really hard, Bobby thought, frowning. They had never tried to forget their brother, but Bobby and the others never talked about Jack. Bobby figured that they thought about Jack just as much as he did, but it still hurt too much, even after all these years, to dwell on him and let him live on in their memories.

"Come and eat Bobby," Sofi said, putting a plate of eggs and bacon on the table.

Bobby smiled, but made a face at her back when she turned to the stove. Jake giggled, but quickly went back to his cereal when Sofi whipped around. After a few minutes, the little boy cleared his throat.

"I'm glad you're all here," he said, his face guilty. "This way you can get all the yelling out at one time."

"What are you talking about?" Sofi asked, ruffling her son's hair. "Why would we yell at you?"

"Cause I didn't tell you something," Jake said.

"What?" Angel asked.

Jake took a deep breath before he looked up at his father. "The day before my hockey game, someone called. He asked for any of the Mercer brothers," he paused and blushed slightly. "He said something mean about Uncle Jack."

Bobby frowned. "What'd he say?" he asked his nephew.

Jake shot his mother a glance. "I can't tell you," he said. "Mom slaps me when I swear."

Angel laughed. "Don't worry Jay. Your mama slaps me when you swear too."

Sofi ignored her husband. "Go ahead honey," she said. "It doesn't count right now."

Jake looked at the table and mumbled, "He said 'Even that fucking fairy Jack will do.'"

Bobby bit back the anger that rose in his throat. "What did he want?" he asked, trying hard to keep his voice even.

"He said that a girl might be coming to find you," Jake continued, still focusing on the table. "He said that she was his and you had better send her back to him. He said 'She's mine and I want her back.'"

Bobby, Jerry, and Angel stared at each other. "What do you think?" Jerry asked. "Boyfriend? Pimp? Dealer?"

"Time for school, Jake," Sofi said firmly, glaring at the brothers. As the boy walked out of the kitchen, glaring over his shoulder at the adults, Sofi snapped, "Watch what you say around him. I don't want Jake to pick up any bad habits." With a scalding look, she swept out of the room.

"I doubt that it's a pimp," Bobby said. "Any pimp would keep his girls better than that."

"Boyfriend could be it though," Angel said. "Maybe he's the one who beat her."

"Maybe a stepfather or foster father?" Jerry suggested. "It'd have to be someone who could figure out where we were and that would take more than just knowing Jack Mercer from Detroit."

Bobby ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "If she's going to bring problems with her then we have a decision to make," he said. "We got lives, you two have kids. If we take her in, we'll be putting all that at risk."

"Yeah, but can we just turn her away?" Jerry asked. "My God Bobby, she's Jack's daughter!"

"And what about Camille, Jerry?" Bobby snapped. "What about Daniela and Amelia? What about Sofi and Jake? Can we put all them at risk just because she's Jack's kid?"

"We can't make her leave," Angel said quietly. "If not for us, her whole life would be different. Better."

"How the hell do you figure that?" Bobby demanded.

"Because," Angel replied, standing up at staring out the kitchen window. "We got her father killed. Jackie would've protected her if we hadn't gotten him killed."

The brothers sat in silence for the next hour, each lost in his own guilt. Angel was right of course, but so was Bobby. When it came right down to it, could they risk everything for one person?

After a while, Jerry broke the silence. "We know she's going to be here for a little while," he said. "So we need to make sure that she's not going to get our kids involved in anything stupid." Bobby looked up, confused. "Drugs, Bobby," Jerry explained. "The doctor said that she had drugs in her system. I'll be damned if I'm going to let her get my girls high."

"I'll get her bag," Angel said.

They went through the duffle bag in a matter of minutes. There wasn't much in it, but what they did find made it clear that Evy had been living a hard life. The two pairs of jeans were ripped and stained, the three t-shirts worn out and bloodstained. There was no jacket, only another sweatshirt, one that they recognized. It had been Jack's favorite once, black with white paint splatters. The thumbs holes he cut in the cuffs were bigger now and so was the tear along the seam in the hood, but there was no denying that it was the same sweater.

They didn't find any drugs, but they found ten spiral notebooks filled with poetry and doodling as well as a black leather-bound journal and a manila folder that had a medical file in it. Jerry sat down to read through the file while Bobby and Angel dug around to make sure they hadn't missed anything.

"Jesus," Jerry said. "Looks like she spends more time in hospitals than she does outside them. Broken bones, suicide attempts, drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning, beatings. Evidence of rape twice."

"Holy shit," Bobby said handing the duffle to Angel and starting to gather up her stuff. "Show anything else?"

"Yeah, list of different guardians she's had. Jesus, beat your record Bobby. Twelve foster homes in three years, four years in juvy for attempted murder. Most recent family showed up six months ago." Jerry sucked in his breath quickly. "That's when most of these things started happening."

"Hey, there's a hidden pocket in here," Angel said suddenly, trying to distract his brothers from the anger he knew they were feeling.

The other two came over to stand with him as he peeled away part of the lining. There was almost a hundred dollars in cash and about twenty razor blades. Some of them were broken, others had blood encrusted on them, but most of them were shiny and clean as if Evy was keeping them ready for something special.

"Self-inflicted," Bobby said quietly, fingering the shiny blades.

"Jack used to cut," Jerry said quietly. "Remember that time Angel found him in the bathroom, blood all over the shower?"

Angel nodded. "He'd cut too deep. We thought he was gonna die."

"He was afraid Mom would send him packing," Bobby said. "But a few weeks later she talked to him about adoption."

"He was so surprised," Jerry whispered.

They stood there for a few minutes, thinking about their brother and about his daughter and what they were supposed to do now.

"Well, we know she hasn't got any drugs," Bobby said as he started to put her stuff back into the duffle. "Let's keep her here for a while, let her get her strength back and go from there. Agreed?"

Jerry and Angel nodded. Jerry looked at his watch and swore. "Shit. I gotta get Amelia. She has a doctor appointment." He handed Bobby Evy's medical record. "Call me later. If Evy's feeling better, maybe I'll bring the family over and she can meet everyone."

"Yeah," Bobby said, smiling a little. "I think she'd like that."

After Jerry left and Angel went upstairs to get some sleep, Bobby tried to watch TV, but he couldn't concentrate. As much as he loved hockey, Evy kept intruding onto his thoughts. Finally he gave in and turned off the television. He got into her bag and pulled out the folder. Taking a deep breath, Bobby sat down and started to figure out what had brought Jack's daughter to them.

Yes, more of a transition chapter than anything, but I wasn't really sure how to get this into an interesting chapter, so you get a boring one. I promise the next one will be better.

Please review. I'll love you forever and give you a cookie :P