"What do you mean the guy who fathered Christine is fighting for custody?" Selina angrily asked a distraught Christine, who'd come running to her crying after The meeting with Astrid and Malachai about Sarah.

"Well, he's not fighting for custody, really," Christine clarified with a sniff as she wiped some tears out of her eyes and took a deep breath. "Or maybe he is, I don't know. But he told Astrid that Matthew is unstable because of the shooting and that's why he is convinced he should be allowed to visit: so Sarah can have a sane fatherly influence."

"My father is perfectly sane," Selina replied. "He just had an off moment. Everyone has those. Plus if he thinks that that's abnormal and dangerous behavior, he's obviously never met a proud and wealthy nineteenth century Southern man before. Dueling happened. I mean, sure it doesn't happen anymore, really. But it was a thing."

"Can you and Dad help me fight back against this?" Christine asked.

"Of course," Selina assured her and gave her a hug. "No problem." She paused. "Actually, we might not even need to bring Elijah into this. I know someone on my own who could help, and he's in good with Astrid too. Surely, he could help her see reason."

"Oh?" Christine asked. "Who is it? Wait, didn't you say your uncle Andrew is a lawyer?"

"Exactly!" Selina nodded. "He knows stuff. We can go see him!"

They were about to leave when Elijah came upon them. "Where are you going?" He asked. "Christine, I heard from Alistair about your troubles. Are you all right?"

"Things are pretty much touch and go right now," Christine told him. "Malachai is taking us to court about Sarah since we won't just acquiesce to his desire to see her."

"Well, don't you worry," Elijah assured her. "I have some friends who would be more than happy to help you out."

"Thanks, but Selina and I already have it taken care of," Christine told him. "She's taking me to go see her uncle and ask him to help us."

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Elijah told Selina, putting a hand on her arm.

"Why not?" She asked. "Uncle Andrew's been a lawyer for a long time. He knows what he's doing."

"Yes, I know," Elijah agreed. "But since his brother is one of the defendants in this case, it would be a conflict of interest for him to be representing you, wouldn't it? I'm sure that if you brought him in to the court room, it's one of the first things Malachai's cadre of lawyers would point out, which would cause the case to crumble and I don't want that to happen to Christine."

"Well, what if they don't know that Uncle Andrew is Daddy's brother?" Selina asked. "What they don't know won't hurt them."

"I wouldn't take the risk," Elijah told her. "I mean, you can go to Andrew to help you prepare for the case, sure, but ask him if one of the other lawyers in the firm will be your counsel. It's just safer that way. Not to mention more on the level."

"Oh, all right," Selina huffed. "We'll do that. I still don't like it, though."

"Okay, we need help," Selina said, storming into Andrew and Amelia's house with Christine walking behind her and clutching Sarah tightly. "Competent legal help."

"I'm competent legal help," Andrew replied, grateful for any excuse at all to stop thinking about the son he never knew. "What's going on?" Then he noticed Christine. "What's the matter? Are you and my brother having problems?"

"Not with each other, but in general, yes," Christine told him and sat down. "See, because your brother can't father children, we did artificial insemination to get Sarah, and now the guy who actually fathered her wants to be in her life because he's a warlock and neither Matthew nor I are, and because Matthew won't just let him be with her, the man talked to the witch government and told them that Matthew was unstable because of the shooting and that's why the man, whose name is Malachai, should be brought into our lives. He makes it sound simple enough, but I'm scared as hell he's gonna take Sarah away. Can't you come up with something to discredit him?"

"Of course!" Andrew assured her. "That guy will be ruing the day Astrid let me take a job at that witch law firm!"

"Don't get too excited," Selina told him. "As Elijah pointed out, it would be a conflict of interest for you to actually be Christine and Daddy's lawyer since your brother is the one who is the defendant."

"Damn, you're right," Andrew sighed. "I'll talk to my boss or some of the other lawyers at my firm and see if they'll help us out. I'm sure they will, though. No need to worry."

"What are we talking about?" Amelia asked. "You haven't been going on about Thomas to these two, have you?"

"No," Andrew assured her. "They gave me a request to keep my mind off that. Apparently, Matthew's foolish shooting has resulted in there being a court battle for the custody of Sarah because for some reason, the man who fathered her thinks Matthew is unstable."

"Well, then they've obviously never really taken the time to get to know him, have they?" Amelia asked. "The reason why my family let me marry him was because he was one of the most calm and stable guys they'd ever met and wouldn't do anything to make me go nuts and become a werewolf."

"That's good," Andrew pointed out. "Since that is the case, it shouldn't be too hard to convince this other man that his fears are for nothing and what he saw was an isolated incident."

"Or that the only reason Daddy gets pissed off is because of him personally and not the world in general," Selina added. "Cause you can't say that isn't true."

"You have a good point," Andrew agreed. He looked at Christine. "Where's Matthew now?"

Christine shrugged. "He took the dogs out shooting when I left, but who knows where he is now?"

"Damn," Andrew ran his fingers through his dark hair. "Now is not the time for him to be giving in to every vice he has. We need to go out and find him." He looked at Selina. "Will you help me with that?"

"Yes," Selina nodded.

"What should I do?" Christine asked.

"You take Sarah home and wait in case he goes there," Andrew told her. "Or is already there." He looked at Amelia. "Is Jake home?"

"Yeah," she said. "I think he is. You want to take Matthew to Jake?"

"Well, I think Jake would do a good job talking some sense into my brother," Andrew said. "I think it's worth a shot, anyway."

"Sounds good to me," Amelia nodded.

So they all went their separate ways and Amelia sat down in the living room and waited to see what crisis would show up next.

Christine was the one who finally managed to see her husband as he came into the house after the hunt, blood on his jeans as the dogs trailed behind him, barking.

"Good hunt?" She asked. "Did it help anything?"

"For now," Matthew said. "What did you do while I was gone?"

"Selina took us to see your brother and ask him about legal help," Christine replied. "He told us he'd have someone at the firm work for you."

"Well, that's good," Matthew nodded and sat down, smiling as Sarah reached for him and he took her in his lap. "Hi," he told her as she cuddled against him. "I missed you. Did you miss me?"

"I think she did," Christine smiled.

With his daughter comfortably resting in his arms, Matthew looked apologetically at his wife. "I'm sorry I lost my temper and now we're having to go through all this. I really should have been more careful."

"Maybe," Christine said and put a hand on his arm. "But it's all done now, and we'll get through this. Of course we will. I'm even debating whether or not I should do something really really wicked to help us out."

"What sort of thing?" Matthew asked. "Don't do something rash like me. One of us has to appear sane."

"I will," Christine nodded. "If I were to actually turn into a werewolf, it would only be on the full moon, right? And since I wouldn't look like me, no one would suspect a thing if I were to, maybe...sneak over to Malachai's house and give him a fright? What do you think?"

"I think I can't stop you after you've gotten these ideas in your head," Matthew told her, his breath picking up a little. "But just who are you planning on killing in order to change? Not him. Cause if you did, they'd just blame me."

"No, not him," Christine assured her husband. "Like I said, I only want to give him a fright. Nothing more."

"Well, good luck," Matthew said, even though he was skeptical.

"Thank you," Christine replied. "And you don't have to worry. Nothing will go wrong, I promise."

"Damon?" Amelia asked as she opened the door to his knock. "What can I do for you? You look distressed. Let me get you a drink."

"All right," Damon nodded. "Thank you." He sat down and Amelia brought him a drink, and then he said, "Do you still have that letter that Mother sent you about her boyfriend? I'd like to read it."

"Of course!" Amelia replied and went to get it, handing it to him. "She really seems happy where she is."

"Yeah, I bet," Damon replied. "But aren't you worried about her living with a strange guy?"

"Your mother is one of the strongest people I know," Amelia told him. "Unlike me, she knows a good guy from a bad guy, so if she's taken this guy under her wing, he probably has good qualities. Why? Are you afraid she'll forget all about you?"

"No, this doesn't have anything to do with me," Damon huffed. "I'm worried about her."

"You have nothing to worry about," Amelia replied. "He can't do anything to her. The worst thing he could do is kill her and she's already dead! You can admit that you're afraid of being forgotten. I won't tell anyone."

Damon looked at her and sighed. "I usually tell your daughter things like that, but…I suppose I could tell you. After I've drunk enough, that is."

Amelia looked at him and sighed. "You probably won't want to hear this, but drinking won't make the problems go away. They'll still be there and compounded by a hangover. But I suppose since that's how you've handled trouble for so long, you have no intention of changing now, do you?"

"Nope," Damon shook his head. "Not really." He drank his drink and Amelia got up to go get the letter from Charlotte.

She handed it to him and watched his eyes while he read it. As he slowly lowered the paper down onto the coffee table, she asked him, "Are you okay?"

"No," Damon shook his head. "I mean, I'm glad she's happy and all, but…I won't truly be okay until I see this guy and know what his motives are. And who knows when that'll happen? If it ever does."

"Who says it can't?" Amelia wanted to know. She went and got the envelope and set a pen and a piece of paper down in front of him. "Why don't you write her a letter and tell her how you feel? That could get you what you want, maybe. It doesn't hurt to try."

Damon looked skeptical. "So you want me to write my mother a letter and tell her how much I hate the idea of her living with a man even though he makes her happy? She's not gonna react well to that!"

"Well, I wouldn't phrase it quite that way, but…"

"How else should I phrase it?" Damon asked. "I'm not a tactful person, Miss Amelia!"

"All right," Amelia replied and took up the pen and paper herself. "You tell me what you want to say and I'll write it in a more tactful way. Deal?"

"All right," Damon nodded. "Deal."

"You're not going to believe this," Thomas told Charlotte as he came in after getting the mail. "You know that letter you had me write to your friends? Someone replied to it!"

"Did they?" Charlotte asked, getting up from the chair in front of the TV. "How nice! I was hoping Amelia would want to begin a correspondence. Open it, would you?"

"Sure," Thomas nodded and opened the letter, taking it out of the envelope and reading it.

"Dear Charlotte,

"I know you probably weren't expecting a response to your letter, and even if you were, this most likely isn't what you were expecting. Please don't be mad at me, but I told my granddaughter Lucy about what was in that letter, and of course she told Damon, who expressed some concern to me about you living with a strange man, even though I assured him that, being a ghost, nothing bad could happen to you.

Even so, he says that it would ease his mind a lot if there was some way he could meet the man you're staying with, perhaps because he wants to be sure that he's a good person, even though he promises that he's happy for you. I told him not to expect acquiescence right away, or even a cordial reply to this letter. Now he's back at home sulking and apparently, he's got Stefan all worked up too. I don't see this ending well, but as you are their mother and I'm not, I'll let you handle it as you see fit.

I'm so glad you're happy.

Love,

Amelia"

Thomas folded the letter up. "So…apparently your sons know about you and me and our arrangement."

"But they shouldn't act as if I'm doing anything wrong," Charlotte huffed, her blue eyes dark with indignation. "I swear, they can be as pigheaded as their father sometimes and I thought I was done dealing with that sort of ridiculous behavior when I decided not to go back to him!"

"So…what will you tell them?" Thomas asked.

Charlotte straightened up and looked at him with dignity. "I will tell them that they have no need to worry, but also that they have no say in what I do with my life, and although I will have them meet you, if that's all right with you, it will be on our terms, not theirs."

"All right," Thomas nodded. "I'll get another piece of paper and write that out right now."

"Good," Charlotte told him firmly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Thomas assured her. "It's really no trouble at all."