A/N: After more than two years, this story has been revived yet again, because of the persistence of you readers and reviewers. These past two years have been mainly taken up by college and work, leaving little time for me to write for fun. However, this past summer, around ten of you left reviews begging for more. That amazed me, that enough of you readers would enjoy this abandoned story, probably buried under mountains of other Despicable Me stories, enough to read and review. And so, I have committed to resurrect this story, and to try to give you readers what you asked for. Let's finish this journey together, shall we?

CHAPTER 7

Gru screeched to a halt in the hospital lobby and scanned the signs like a hawk hunting its dinner. He spied the children's ward and scrambled towards it.

"Room 238, Room 238…" he muttered. He spotted the nameplate and fumbled with the handle. He swung the door open and three startled faces looked up at him.

Lucy's expression changed to a gentle smile when she realized it was her overeager husband.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Stevenson. This is my husband, Gru." Lucy explained.

"Oh, I see. We're almost finished here; another minute or two and I'll be done with your daughter," said Dr. Stevenson, a kindly lady with streaks of grey in her hair.

Lucy got up and guided Gru out the door.

"Hey, come on," Gru protested. "I gotta see if Margo's okay!"

"She's fine for the moment. I wasn't expecting you for another fifteen minutes. How'd you get here so fast?"

"I took the jet." Gru kept looking over Lucy's shoulder at Margo, lying in the hospital bed. Lucy was physically holding him off from going into protective mode and hovering over Margo.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! The jet? Aren't there city aviation laws?" Lucy asked.

"It's better than breaking every single traffic law on the way here!" Gru reasoned.

Lucy chuckled and shook her head. Then a thought hit her. "Wait, if you took the jet, and you're here, then who's minding the jet?"

"Kevin's got it under control. Now let me see Margo!" Gru was rapidly losing his patience.

At this very moment, Kevin was performing barrel rolls and loop-the-loops to his heart's content, while Bob was holding on for dear life and screaming his head off. Gru, of course, was completely oblivious to anyone but his daughter in distress.

Thankfully, Dr. Stevenson stepped out of the room at that moment. She smiled and shook hands with Gru. "Mr. Gru, your daughter will be fine. She suffered a mild concussion and a sprain to her ankle. You may see her now, but I want her kept quiet. We're going to keep her overnight just as a precaution, and I'll run a final checkup in the morning."

"Thank you, doctor. We really appreciate you caring for Margo." Lucy smiled warmly.

Dr. Stevenson smiled in return. "If you need anything, the call button will bring a nurse within ten minutes." She strode off down the corridor, white coat swinging, scribbling another note on her clipboard.

"Now will you let me in there?" Gru asked with a touch of impatience. Lucy chuckled and rubbed his shoulder affectionately as they walked into Margo's room.

"Dad!" Margo exclaimed. Her voice was excited, yet tinged with weariness. She reached up for a hug, wrapping her arms around his neck. Gru returned the hug, hesitating only when Margo winced in pain.

"Are you okay?" Gru asked in concern.

"Yeah, it's just my ankle. I'll be okay. I'm just glad you're here." Margo replied, unsuccessfully trying to mask a grimace of pain.

"We should get the nurse." Gru suggested, increasingly frantic.

"Dad, it's fine," Margo insisted. "It might just need a bit of ice."

"On it!" Gru grabbed for his freeze ray, but fumbled and dropped it. A beam of ice shot out and encased the potted plant on the windowsill in a solid block of ice.

"Heh heh… Oops." Gru's shoulders drooped slightly.

"Honey, here." Lucy picked up the freeze ray and dialed the intensity back to the lowest setting. Walking into the bathroom, Lucy dampened a hand towel, and had Gru lightly frost the surface. She wrapped it around Margo's ankle, and Margo sighed in relief.

"There we go." Lucy smiled at Gru, who smiled back tiredly. Margo's eyelids drooped and she yawned. The sleep medication was kicking in. Gru and Lucy walked to opposite sides of Margo's bed, bent over and kissed Margo lightly on her temples. Lucy turned the lights down, and the two adults quietly walked out into the hallway.

"Okay, big guy. What's going on?"

"What do you mean? Everything is under control." Gru tried to turn away and wriggle out of the conversation, but Lucy swung him around with a firm hand on his shoulder and placed a hand on her hip.

"You're not fooling anyone, big guy. Anna and I had a couple of words. Things are heating up for you; I know that much."

Gru sighed. "Yeah, you could say that."

"Juggling being an agent and being a father must be hard. Margo was just telling me today how glad she was that you promised to be at her awards ceremony, even though you're on assignment. Her friend, Lilly, isn't going to have either parent there because of work commitments."

Gru visibly sagged and his stoic face cracked a little. Lucy surveyed him more intently and straightened up.

"Actually, there's something I need to tell you about Margo."

"Gru, what's going on? Are you assigned somewhere else on that day?"

"No, no. That's not it –" Gru attempted to explain.

"Gru, you know how much this means to her!"

"Lucy, you need to listen to me! I promised the girls; I am going to be there for Margo!" Gru spoke those words from the bottom of his soul. "I am going to be there for the girls. I promised them," he repeated, his voice cracking.

Lucy took a breath and realized how beaten Gru looked and sounded. "I'm sorry, honey. You sounded like you had something to say you were hesitant about, and I jumped to conclusions." She guided him to a bench. "What's on your mind?"

"The girls… I found some information about them." Gru looked back at Margo's room door. "At least, I think I found something about Margo."

"Margo?" Lucy's eyebrows furrowed.

"I – she – I don't know anything for sure…" Gru started sounding unsure of himself.

"Gru?"

Gru lowered his voice. "I – I interrogated a suspect. He thought Margo was… kidnapped."

Lucy started upright. Her mouth hung slightly open.

Gru raised both hands, palms up, trying to calm the situation. "I don't know anything for certain yet. The analysts are working on all the leads on potentially kidnapped children."

Lucy began pacing in distress. "This is – Gru – I – what?"

"I'm telling you, because you have AVL agent clearance and you need to know, but the girls cannot know about this."

"Whoa, whoa, Gru. With something this big involving the girls themselves, they have a right to know."

"It could turn out to be nothing," Gru tried to argue. "All we have right now is the word of one suspect." His eyes flickered away.

"One suspect?" Lucy pushed.

"One suspect… who has a 80% accurate identification rate for kidnapped kids leads thus far…" Gru muttered.

Lucy's gaze bored into Gru's eyes. "The girls are more mature than you think. You've always encouraged them to find out who they are."

Gru turned away so Lucy wouldn't be able to see the pain in his eyes. "Lucy, you don't understand."

"What don't I understand?"

"The girls are my family!" Gru growled with clenched teeth.

"And?"

Gru clawed at his head, pulling at imaginary hair. He struggled to contain his emotions. "If I tell Margo she had a family, one that might still be alive, she's going to want to meet them. They would want her back."

Lucy paused, trying to choose her words carefully.

"I love my girls, and I can't lose them. I lost them before." Gru added, tears edging his voice. "I told Margo I'll never let her go again. I'm keeping that promise."

Lucy spoke slowly. "They love you as much as you love them. If you love them, you need to be honest with them, and trust that they love you enough to stay."

She waited for Gru's response, but he stayed silent.

"I can't keep going with this investigation if I tell the girls, and then get more information that confirms a biological family. I can't." Gru sighed, looking up at his wife.

"Then why did you tell me?"

Gru threw his hands up in frustration. "I thought you might be able to fix it, or at least understand."

Lucy smiled sadly. "I can't fix things, though I can try to understand." She pulled Gru into a long hug.

After a minute or so, Lucy pulled back and snapped her fingers. "What if you told them, but waited until the assignment is over? That way, if it turns out to be nothing, you don't even have to explain anything, and you can keep going with the investigation without worrying about the girls leaving."

Gru silently nodded. Lucy smiled at her husband, and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Go get some rest."

"No, I… I need to stay for Margo."

"Honey, I've got this." Lucy reassured Gru. A flash of silver in the sky caught her eye through the nearby window. "Or at least, get your jet under control before the minions break something.

Gru whipped around and pressed his face to the window. Kevin was skywriting with Gru's jet, currently working on the second "N" in "banan-". Gru gasped.

Lucy chuckled and stepped back into Margo's room. "See you, honey!"

Gru facepalmed before hustling his way down the stairs. Screeching to a halt on the pavement, he weighed his options: catching the jet with a grappling hook, forcibly ejecting Kevin from the pilot's chair, or…

Gru grinned an evil grin. It was time to test out his new weapon: the pocket tractor beam. Pulling out what looked like an oversized laser pointer, he aimed and fired. A yellow beam flashed into the sky, barely missing the jet and pulling down a flock of pigeons instead. Gru squawked as he tried to shoo away the aggravated pigeons, who left his sweater stained with bird poo. He tried again, this time accurately hitting the jet.

"Ha-hah!" he crowed in triumph. Inside the cockpit, Kevin and Bob were trying to get the jet to fly normally.

"Tu boka ti! (You broke it!)" Bob accused Kevin.

"No mi falafal! (Not my fault!)" Kevin whined.

Bob grabbed the walkie-talkie and tossed it to Kevin. "Tu tepa Gru. (You tell Gru)"

"No, tu. (No, you.)"

"Tu!"

"Tu!"

"Tu!"

"Minions!" Gru yelled through the walkie-talkie. Kevin and Bob screamed and wrapped their arms around each other, startled. "It's my tractor beam. Get back down here, now."

"Oh, okey…" Kevin cut the engines, expecting Gru to reel the jet in. Unfortunately, Gru had just released the tractor beam, expecting Kevin to land the jet. This resulted in a jet rapidly losing altitude… right on top of the unfortunate Gru.

Gru looked down at the pavement, tapping his foot in impatience. A large growing shadow around him piqued his attention, and he looked up… just in time to register the falling jet.

"Oh, poop."

A/N: Hope you enjoyed re-entering this world as much as I did! As usual, leave reviews so I know what you liked, and what I should improve on. I'll be posting a chapter at least once every two weeks, which should go up Sunday evening/Monday morning. See you soon!