Thank you so much for all of the review! I'm so glad you all like this story. I didn't know how everyone would feel about me writting about such a difficult, not to mention depressing, topic, so I'm glad that you all do like it. And I'm sorry it's been awhile since I've updated, but I'm in the writing mood, so hopefully my next update will be as soon as tomorrow. And plus, I've gotten whole new ideas for what to put in this story, so I'm excited to get to work on the next chapters. Oh, and the part that's in italics in this chapter is the flashback, the story that Lucy's telling.

Disclaimer: The only things that are mine are the things that you don't recognize from the show.

As he stood staring inside the interrogation room at his daughter, Danny couldn't keep the image of what he saw not even an hour before out of his mind. His little girl, covered in blood, sitting on the floor while she hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth. She had looked lost, scared, broken. And even when he had entered the room with Flack, she hadn't been able to take her eyes off the body of the boy that was laying next to her. When she had finally looked up, Danny saw nothing but fear in her eyes.

"He was going to kill me."

That was all she said before she broke down, but it was enough for Danny and Flack to understand. The body of that boy was the shooter, the one who had caused so much terror on that school. Danny didn't know what all had happened yet, but just knowing how close his daughter had come to being shot made him sick. Since the day she had been born, Danny had done everything to protect her from the stuff that he saw everyday from just doing his job. And then this happens, at the one place everyone had least expected it to. It just pissed him off so much that this could happen.

Danny was so deep in thought that he jumped when he heard footsteps come up from behind. He turned and saw Flack standing there.

"Are you ready to find out what happened?" Flack asked, nodding his head to the room where Lucy sat waiting with Lindsay. Danny took a deep breath and nodded.

"Yeah, I think. I just, I don't know how much of this I really want to hear," Danny said, turning his attention back to the room. He watched as Lindsay tried to comfort their daughter, but Lucy didn't seem to respond. She just sat there, staring at the wall. Danny felt his heart break for her. He could only imagine what she was going through right now. He looked at Flack again and nodded his head, signaling that they should go in.

"Hey Luce," Flack said as he entered the room, trying to make the atmosphere as comfortable as he possibley could. He took a seat across from her while Danny sat in the empty chair next to her, taking her hand. "So, I'm going to need you to tell us what happened."

Lucy looked at Lindsay, then at Danny.

"It's alright, sweetie," Danny said, squeezing her hand, "Just tell us everything you can. If you want to stop, tell us. We aren't going to push you."

Lucy nodded, then took a deep breath before telling her story.

"Class started off perfectly normal, just like it did any other day..."

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"We've got five minutes until class actually starts. Why are we always in here so early?" Lucy asked Elizabeth as she sat in her desk and got out her textbook. Elizabeth, who was sitting on top of the desk in front of Lucy's, shrugged.


"Maybe it's because we're such good students. We just can't get enough of the classroom!" Elizabeth suggested, laughing at the face that Lucy had just made.

"Great, so you're pretty much saying we're geeks," Lucy said, joining in on the laugher. She then opened up her book and pulled out a piece of folded up paper. She unfolded and stared at the sheet. "I'm so going to ace this vocabulary quiz today. How about you?"

"We won't have it today. We have a substitute," Elizabeth said, grinning. Lucy let out a sigh of relief.


"Oh, thank God, because I was totally kidding. I was really going to fail," she said, shoving the paper back into her book. Then she put her book back into her backpack. A class with a substitute meant a slacker class. She wouldn't do anything all class period except talk to Elizabeth. That was the perfect way to start off her day.

For the next few minutes, Lucy and Elizabeth chatted until pretty soon, the other nine students in their class showed up. When the bell rang, Elizabeth went back to her desk. Lucy watched as the substitute, a kind looking older woman, walked inside the class and shut the door. She smiled at the students, probably wondering if she'd get a reaction. Lucy smiled back, and she swore it must have made the woman's day. Pretty soon the announcements were on. Lucy zoned out during this time. After all, they said the same thing everyday. Buy your tickets to the Winter Dance, basketball practice after school, seniors have to turn in money for the Senior Trip, etc. Nothing ever changed, so Lucy figured she didn't feel the need to pay attention.

After the announcements were done with, the sub took role. Lucy could pretty much not pay attention during this, also. She had gotten pretty good at only hearing what she had to hear and ignoring everything else. So she could ignore the other names the sub called and only hear when she said Messer.

Normally Lucy didn't zone out this much, but she couldn't help it in this class. Not with Liam in the class. She could look at him, then suddenly her thoughts would be about Liam, Liam, Liam. She knew she had to end this crush, but she honestly couldn't help it. He was such a sweet, funny, and caring guy. And Lucy still couldn't see what he saw in Mary, who was a cold-hearted bitch.

She sighed, wishing that he could just wake up and realize that he belongs with her and not Mary. She didn't care if she sounded like a stupid Taylor Swift song or some cheesy movie. She just wanted Liam.

Lucy felt something hit her in the head, knocking her out of her trance. She looked down on her desk and saw a crumbled up piece of paper. She opened it up and saw Elizabeth's handwriting, telling her to quit daydreaming about marrying Liam. Lucy turned around and gave her a smirk. It was at that moment that she heard a strange noise.

The noise was far away, but it was still loud enough for everyone in the class to hear.

"Oh God, Ms. Miller must have finally caused an explosion in her classroom," a boy said, causing everyone to laugh. Ms. Miller was a crazy chemistry teacher, so nobody doubted that the boy was wrong. Only the noise happened again, and again.

Everyone in the class was looking at each other, wondering what was going on. When Lucy paid closer attention to the noises, she felt her stomach drop.

Bang, bang.

She knew those noises. She'd heard them plenty of times in her life.

"Someone's got a gun!"

She thought that she had kept the thought in her head, but when she saw that the class was now staring at her, silent, she realized that she had shouted it.

"Lucy, are you--" someone began, but when they heard the noise grow closer, the person stopped. There was no questioning Lucy about her sanity. Those noises were unmistakeable. And that's when the panic broke out.

"Oh God, how are we going to get out?"

"Who the hell's shooting?!"

"Do you think anyone's gotten shot? Do you think anyone's hurt?"

"No, this can't be happening, it can't!"

Lucy couldn't speak. Everyone in the room was yelling, but she sat in her desk, frozen. All she could think about was what the hell she was going to do. Escaping out the window wasn't an option, but the entire class couldn't just shuffle out into the hallway while there was a crazy person with a gun out there. They had to block the door to the class. It was the only way.

Only it was too late. Just as Lucy was about to get up, the door to the classroom opened, and suddenly Lucy found herself in a situation she hoped would never happen to her. Automatically, she got to the ground. As soon as she did, she heard the gunfire, and her heart stopped when the first person she saw drop was her best friend.

"Lizzie!" she shouted. When Lizzie didn't respond, she felt a tear fall out of her eye. No, this couldn't be happening. It had to be a nightmare.

She heard more gunfire and more screaming, and as quickly as it had started, it had stopped. She knew not everyone was shot. She'd seen some run out of the class. Only Lucy hadn't. She was scared to even try to run past the boy. And now she was terrified he would come back.

Slowly, she stood up and looked around the classroom. Three bodies. One was the kind substitute. The other was the boy who had made the comment about Ms. Miller's class. And the other...

"No, Lizzie," she said, walking over to her best friend. She knelt down and felt for a heartbeat. There wasn't one.

Lucy wanted to sit there and cry, but at the moment, she felt more fear than she did sadness. She didn't want to go out in the hallway. She still heard gunfire. He was still out there. But then there was the fear of if he came back. She looked around the classroom, and decided her best chances of survival was under the teacher's desk. There she could wait until help arrived.

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"...and then he pointed the gun at me. I wasn't about to die, so I fought with him for it. We fell to the ground, and I had my hand on the gun, and then there was a shot. I felt the blood, and for a second, I thought I was shot. Then I pushed him off of me, and I realized, he was dead. I know I pulled the trigger. I killed him."

When she finished talking, the only sounds in the small room were those made by her and Lindsay crying. After hearing the story, Danny wanted to cry too, but he knew he couldn't. He had to stay strong for his daughter.

"What's going to happen to me?" Lucy asked, looking at Flack, "I killed someone, and I can't say it was an accident, because I meant to pull that trigger."

"Nothing's going to happen. It was obviously self defense. He would have killed you," Flack answered, having a hard time saying the last part of his sentence. He couldn't even imagine what would have happened if she hadn't killed the boy. He didn't even want to think about it.

"What about Emily? Is she...she didn't..is she alright?" Lucy asked, praying to God she was.

"Yeah," Danny said, nodding, "I talked to her outside of the school. She's freaked out, but she's fine."

Lucy nodded, trying to get her mind to not go back to the image of her other best friend laying in a pool of blood. And then there was the image she got of Liam. He had made it out of their classroom and down the hall, but he'd still gotten shot. When her and Danny had walked past him, she thought he was dead. Lucy had told Danny to check his pulse, and he had. There was a faint pulse, so Lucy knew that he'd been taken to the hospital. She didn't know his condition right now, but she prayed he was going to be alright. She prayed that everyone who had gotten hurt would be alright.

And Lucy prayed that eventually the images would escape her head and that she, too, would be alright.