A/N: Thanks for your nice reviews. That keeps me writing . I know that we don't know if Lilly was really abused, but I'm one of those people who think that she was, that's why I wrote this. I hope you can live with that. Enjoy the next chapter!

Chapter Two: Streets of Philadelphia

I was bruised and battered I couldn't tell
what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
(Bruce Springsteen)

When Lilly reached the department, Scotty was already waiting for her. At the moment she went in the office he nearly ran into her.

"Where have you been?" he asked with a bit anger.

She was two hours too late and he has waited for her all this time. They had to do paperwork those weeks for having no cold one at the moment and he couldn't stand to do it all alone because it was extremely boring. Okay, he had to confess that he was rather egoistic, but why couldn't she be a crumb more on time.

Scotty was too thoughtful to see how exhausted his partner looked at first time, therefore he spoke louder than usual and this wasn't really helpful for Lil's headache.

"God Scotty, I think you're old enough that you can handle two hours without a babysitter." she said with rage.
"Calm down, Lil. I haven't meant it like that. I'm not the cause for some PMS problems of a special girl."
"Shut up. You have no idea what is going on."
"Shut up yourself."

For the reason that they were really loud they didn't noticed that Stillman stood behind them.

"Valens, Rush! Where do you think you are?" he was yelling at them.
"When you stop acting like two year-old kids you can visit my office. You have a job to do."

Both of them stopped talking immediately and looked embarrassed. Lilly was the first who got her voice back.

"Sorry Boss. Do you mean we got a case?"
He nodded seriously. "If you two are peaceful and act like adults again."

The three of them headed to Stillman's office, in which a young girl of twelve and her mother, Lilly thought she was in her mid-forties, waited for them. Stillman introduced their visitors as Alice Collins and her granddaughter Gwen. The blonde detective gave the elder woman her hand and introduced herself smiling.

"I'm Detective Rush and this is Detective Valens. Can I help you?"
"Hmm, I think so. I want you to open my daughter Hope's case. She was killed in 1993." said Mrs Collins.
"If you don't mind, can you tell us what happened to your daughter?" asked Lilly carefully.
"Hope was 13 when she was killed. Gwen lost her mother at the age of one. Can you imagine this? She was an orphan at the age of one.
"I have sent her to the supermarket. She had to buy some milk and bread at the supermarket. Oh, I'm such a bad mother. They found Hope in the woods. She was, you know, abused and strangled to death after that."

Lil shuddered as she heard the woman's words: the woods. She was nearly killed in there, either. The memories of the last night came back to her mind. George would never leave her, wouldn't he? The man who abused her when she was twelve never left her, neither. She was a wrack. She felt that this case would be very intimate to her own past.
Suddenly she felt a hand at her back.

Scotty was really shocked when he had seen how pale Lil looked this morning. She was pale all the time, but not that pale and when this woman had mentioned the woods… he knew that Lil still had to suffer because of the events some time ago, but she neither wanted to talk about it nor wanted to show emotions. He knew that she didn't want to seem weak.

Lilly normally didn't like this kind of help because it showed that she was weak and also because it was kind of close, but this time she was really glad that Scotty comforted her with his wonderful warm and loving hand. She had nearly lost her balance and it felt a lot easier this way. Because of that she smiled thankfully at her partner and whispered a slight "Thanks". Scotty nodded unobtrusively and ended their interview.

"We try to solve your daughter's case, but I've got one question left: Why do you want us to solve your daughter's case now?"
"Because Gwen becomes 13 this year, Hope's age when she died and I wanna know if Gwen is in danger as well."

Lil was abnormally quiet when they read Hope Collins' cold one. Scotty was bothering himself as a result of her behaviour. Why couldn't he talk to her? He knew that she suffered, that she suffered. This case was really the wrong at the moment. Why hasn't this woman come a year earlier? That would have made the whole object easier. A gasp of Lil interrupted Scotty's thinking.

"What's wrong, Lil?" asked he.
"Hope had a solved 49 report. Why hasn't her mother told us?" answered his partner.

Now, Scotty knew why Lil has caught her breath. He hasn't forgotten the first time they had met George and what he had said: Lil also had a 49 report, an unsolved 49 report. He had never talked to her about it because he was familiar with her as well to know that she didn't want to talk about it if she didn't start to talk about this subject, even if he can't stand to see her in pain, even if he can't stand not knowing what was going on with her.

"I think it has something to do with Gwen. I thought from the beginning that something was wrong with that girl. I mean which girl becomes mother when she is twelve…"
"…except one which was abused…"
"And that means that she was abused twice."