Lucy sat in the corner, her nose against the cold white tile as warm tears rolled down her face. It wasn't her fault and Miss Becky wouldn't listen. Now she had a note in her backpack from the teacher and while Darcy got to pass the cookies out.

She didn't get recess for two days and she didn't get to sit with the class during story time either.

But she didn't spill the paint. She didn't lie.

More tears ran down Lucy's cheeks in frustration. Darcy and Luke pushed the pour the paint on her and then pushed her down. It wasn't her fault she got it on the rug and on the table.

Miss Becky walked over to Lucy and crossed her arms. "Lucy is Miss Gillian picking you up today?"

"My mommy is," Lucy replied with a nod.

"Your mommy or Miss Gillian?" Miss Becky questioned.

Lucy huffed and stomped her foot. "My mommy is Miss Gillian!"

She honestly didn't mean to shout, and it only caused more tears to pour down her face. "I wanna go home," she cried, resting her forehead against the wall and pulling her hands to her face. "I wanna go home!"

Miss Becky sighed as the final bell rang.

She seized Lucy's hand with a bit more force than necessary and marched her toward the courtyard.

Gillian saw them immediately. It didn't take her long to realize Lucy was sobbing and the teacher looked seriously annoyed.

Lucy jerked out of the woman's grip and went running to Gillian, her sobbing only getting harder. "What happened?" Gillian asked the little girl before glancing at the woman in front of her.

"There is a detailed note in her backpack but Lucy seems to have a problem with listening and lying. Plus she's beginning to develop a real attitude," Miss Maggie told Gillian as Lucy cried and shook her head.

"No, Momma!"

Miss Becky rolled her eyes and exhaled. "If you have any questions, feel free to call me tomorrow."

Gillian had about a hundred questions, but before she could even say goodbye, the woman was marching back toward the door. She would have preferred the woman stand there and explain why her daughter was covered in dry paint and next to hysterical.

Her attention immediately went to her sobbing daughter. "Baby, what happened?"

She was crying too hard to clearly explain, but she tried. "Darcy and-and-and Luke! They poured paint on me!" Lucy cried holding up a plastic baggy that apparently held the ruined clothing. "Then they-they pushed me down and I got paint on the table and ABC carpet. Miss Becky was so mad and I tried to tell her it wasn't me, but she put me in the corner for-forever!"

Lucy wrapped her arms around Gillian's waist again and cried into her stomach. "She said she didn't like liars and I steal food so I'm a liar and I can't go to recess or get snack time!"

Gillian tried to calm Lucy, but she could feel her own blood start to boil. She tried to remain logical, knowing that there could easily be a misunderstanding somewhere that could be smoothed out. At least that's what she tried to tell herself.

Lucy hung to her neck as she carried her to the car. "I- I don't ever wanna go back, Mommy."

Part of the maternal instinct Gillian had pumping through her wanted to tell her little girl that she was never going back, another part wanted to demand the teacher explain to her why she called her daughter a liar, but the logical Gillian reminded the mother bear crawling up her throat that Lucy did have to go back to school and approaching a teacher while she was highly emotional was not a good idea.

As she walked into the office, Lucy was still holding onto her neck, but had managed to cry herself to sleep. The entire car ride was filled with sobs and half explanations that were too difficult to comprehend until the sobs died down and her eyes drooped shut.

Cal came sauntering up and fell into step beside Gillian, looking at the little girl's flushed cheeks and face still sticky with tears. "What-"

"Her teacher half dragged her out of the classroom to me. She was already crying, so upset that she could barely tell me why and her teacher didn't even bother to stick around to explain it to me either. Instead she said there's a note in her backpack and walked away." Gillian huffed as she reached for the door knob her office, but Cal beat her to it, holding it for her as she entered. Instead of setting Lucy down, Gillian took her seat behind her desk, unwilling to remove herself from the little girl's grasp.

"Did you read the note?" Cal asked earning a surprisingly dirty look from Gillian.

"Oh yes, while I was driving here." He held his hands up in surrender taking into consideration just how furious Gillian was at the moment. She was even more irritated that he wasn't furious right along with her. "You would be marching down there, tearing everyone's head off if it was Emily, Cal, so don't give me that look."

He smirked, even though he knew it was only going to infuriate her more. "Which is why you are the sensible one and I'm the one that you spend most of your free time bailing out of trouble. I like seeing you like this."

Damn him. She could feel herself resisting a smile as he came closer to her, pinning her in my placing both hand on either side of her office chair, allowing it to tip her back just a little so he could more easily lean past Lucy on her chest.

"If you tip us," she warned, but was already closing her eyes and smiling in anticipation.

"You'll what?" he teased, running his hand up her arm and making her smile even more. He paused for effect but didn't wait for her to answer before capturing her lips.

When he pulled away he noticed Gillian looked much less hostile. "Now, are you going to read the letter, or do I get to play the sensible one all day? If so, I need to go change into my boring pants."

Gillian rolled her eyes and smirk at him. "Well, if you keep this up, you may want to wear comfortable pants because I won't be helping you out of them tonight."

He feigned offense before looking around. "So where's this letter?"

She pointed to her purse and he grabbed the envelope that was thrown on top of everything inside. Cal had no grace about ripping the letter open. He sat on the corner of her desk, the paper between his fingers, reading it silently.

When he finished, he flipped the back of the paper over to make sure he wasn't missing anything else, then pursed his lips. "Hmm. Long story short?" Gill nodded. "Lucy got into paint, got it on a ceremonial rug, and a table, talked back-which I may have never heard Lucy do, ever. Most the time it's a challenge to get her to talk."

"Lucy said that two kids got paint on her and pushed her down which is how the carpet and table got dirty," Gillian recalled. Still, she was angry. "Lucy is not a liar. Even when she was stealing food, she was still very honest that she took it. She's a little girl who deserves the benefit of the doubt."

"Then talk to the teacher in the morning," Cal told her easily.

She glared at him. "I really hate that you're calm about this."

Cal just smirked at her. With Emily, he'd come off the handle bars so fast that Gill rarely had a chance to reel him back in before he caused real damage. Watching Gillian turn into a hot head when it came to Lucy made him love her a little bit more. He wasn't pleased either with the way their little girl was treated but Cal knew that one of them had to be the sensible one.

"You never hurt more than when your kid hurts," Gillian muttered the very words her mother used when she was going through her divorce. It was true. Seeing Lucy run out to her, tears rolling down her cheeks, it killed Gillian.

"Can we just go home?" The voice was not Cal's but Lucy's. Her little hands were in fists, holding onto the back of Gillian's silk blouse and Cal had half a mind to joke that real love was not caring that Lucy was wrinkling it.

Gillian hugged the girl to her tighter before looking up at Cal. "Can we go home?" she asked him, knowing after all that they were at work.

He smiled and dramatically motioned to the door. "After you."

Lucy didn't say much when they got home, just found her colors in the same place she had left them. But this time she didn't draw at the desk or at the kitchen table, she crawled underneath her bed and hid there.

Cal could barely stand to watch as Gillian found a comfortable spot against the wall by the bed. There was a pillow against her pack as a poor attempt to keep away a kink that was definitely going to happen later, but she didn't care as long as her little girl felt safe.

"How come you don't want to color out here?" Gillian asked the little girl, completely hidden by the comforter that hung down almost to the floor.

"I don't wanna ever go to school again, Mommy," the little girl replied. "They make my feeling hurt... They call me names and Miss Becky doesn't like me."

"What if I talk to them?" Gillian offered, even though she already planned on doing just that.

"The kids will still won't like me," she replied softly.

"But I love you," Gillian offered with smile trying to pretend that her heart wasn't breaking.

There was the sound of paper rustling as a little head poked out from beneath the bed. "I love you too, Mommy..." Slowly the girl crawled out from her hiding place and into the sanctuary of her mother's arms.

"I know that you can't fix everything, but I really like it that you want to," Lucy told her, head in the crook of Gillian's neck.

The fact that such a young child knew that her mother couldn't move the world, made her heard break into a million pieces.

"I will do everything in my power to fix it."

Late that night, after Lucy was in bed, Cal pulled Gillian into his arms as they sat on his bed. Though Cal had offered his home their home, Lucy had a bedroom that was set up just for her, Gillian still call it their bed. In fact, they still stayed nights at her home, but they just didn't do it without Cal there.

Normally Gillian was always willing to cuddle up to Cal and inhale the scent of his cologne, but right then she was stuck on what Lucy had said.

"Remember, Gill, prison orange is not your color."

She smirked as she turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "You're saying that if I was wearing an orange jumpsuit-"

"I'd bloody rip it off ya," Cal quipped. "But I don't do well with scheduled sexual encounters. 'Conjugal visit' just doesn't hold all that much romance."

Gillian giggled as she turned to him and pressed her lips against his. "You have an odd way of cheering me up."

"Don't think this is for you," he teased. She knew that most of the things he did was for her.

The next morning, Cal watched as Gillian buzzed around her kitchen easily. Lucy was on her hip as Gillian's hair was curled and she was wearing her shoes that cost more than a car payment and her favorite charcoal grey dress. She was dressed to concur the world, but all she was really going to do was tear a kindergarten teacher apart.

Lucy was back to her smiling self, looking at her mother like she was the most amazing thing she had ever seen. Her big blue eyes, staring at her mother's face, holding onto every word her mother had to say. The whole world had stopped for them, Cal decided. The way Gillian looked at that girl... he could watch her watch that little girl all day. He honestly couldn't remember if he felt the same when Zoe looked at Emily.

"Well, we better go so we can have time to take care of things," Gillian said rubbing her nose against Lucy's then turning to Cal to peck his lips. "I'll see you in a couple hours."

"Bail money in hand," he quipped catching her lips again.

Oh how much she loved that man...

Lucy held firm to her mother's hand as they walked through the doors of the elementary school straight to the second kindergarten room. The familiar teacher sat at her desk and Gillian knocked on the door frame.

Mrs. Becky looked up at her and gave her a knowing look. "Ah, Ms. Foster. I assume you're here to talk about yesterday."

"You assumed correctly," Gillian replied coldly, still holding onto Lucy's hand as she walked into the room. "I think yesterday was a misunderstanding and Lucy would happily explain what happened."

Big blue eyes looked at her mother first then her teacher. "Can I please tell you, Miss Becky?" the little girl asked in a very tiny voice. The little girl's palm was sweaty and trembling in her mother's hand.

Miss Becky didn't look impressed but she nodded.

"I didn't spill the paint on purpose... Darcy and Luke pushed me and I fell and... It was an accident...That's what I tried to tell you yesterday."

Miss Becky gave a tight smile that Gillian read straight through. She had absolutely no intention of making things better.

"But you see, Lucy, when little girls lie, it makes it hard to believe them. Remember when you stole the food?" Miss Becky's voice was far too close to menacing for Gillian's temper, but she continued to hold her tongue.

"But I didn't lie. When you asked me if I took it I said yes!" Lucy insisted, now holding onto her mother with both hands and looking at the teacher like she was the monster in a nightmare.

"It still makes it very difficult for me to believe what you tell me," Miss Becky insisted.

Gillian looked down at the little girl who was completely terrified then back at the teacher standing in front of her. If Gillian was a violent person, she would have taken a note from Cal's book and gave her a fairly square punch in the jaw, but this was Gillian. Gillian used her words.

"Miss Becky," she began fighting her teeth to come apart from their gritted position, "Lucy already has problems at school. She has been bullied since the day she got here by her students and imagine my surprise when I find out she's also being bullied by you." Her blood was completely boiling and her blood pressure was raising. She could literally feel her neck turning red. "I explained to you, very clearly, that Lucy may struggle, but you insisted that you would be up to the challenge. Yet .are."

The young woman was beginning to squirm under Gillian's heated gaze as Lucy watched her mother with extreme interest, curious as to what was going to happen.

"Blatantly calling a five year old a liar is never a smart idea, especially not in front of her mother. And I am her mother. Even if it isn't completely legal yet, not a person in this world has a right to correct her when she refers to me as Mommy. Do you understand me?" Gillian snapped her lips pursed together.

Miss Becky straightened up and took a deep breath, obviously thinking she could reason with the angry-no-thoroughly pissed off mother standing in front of her. "Ms. Foster-"

Gillian held up her hand. "You can apologize to my daughter, but I will be writing the school board and be making a personal phone call to a good friend of mine, David Gentry, the head of school board and the superintendent's brother."

There was a smug feeling of success that made Gillian smile as fear registered in the woman's eyes.

"Ms. Foster, Gillian, I'm sure we can work this out," Miss Becky insisted.

"I'm sure you can with the school board, but I think this conversation is over," Gillian replied pulling Lucy into her arms and heading toward the door, stopping for only a moment. "And Miss Becky, it's Doctor Foster to you."

Gillian held her head high, flaunting her pride as she had just shoved that despicable woman back where she belonged as her daughter pumped a fist in the air. "High five, Mommy! That was great!"

There was no containing her laughter as she met the girls open hand with her own. "What do you say we go talk to the principal about putting you in another class? A new teacher."

As Gillian walked into the office, Cal noticed she was completely incapable of hiding her smile. She tried, but let's face it. When Gillian Foster had something to smile about, nothing was going to stop her.

"Oi!" he called to her as she passed his office, barely having time to hook her arm on the door frame and swing herself in. "What's up with the grin, Cheshire?"

She just raised her eyebrows and continued grinning before bolting from the doorway straight into his arms. "Today, I became a mother bear and completely bumbled the woman that made my cub cry."

Cal smiled back at her as she slid her arms around his neck and continued her beaming smile. "And?"

"And I didn't end up in an orange jumpsuit."

So... I really hope you enjoyed this chapter. I've had some serious writers block going on with a whole lot of stuff and I'm doing my absolute best to work through it. You know what really helped? You're encouraging reviews! If you guys want to leave me ideas, I'll happily consider them! Even if you don't have any ideas, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter!