A/N: Oy vey, remember this? I am so sorry this took so long, and also sorry this is so short. The muse is sorely lacking on this one. Those who update regularly with word counts in the thousands, teach me your secrets.

June tells them her life's story without words. She has a bent ear (common in her condition).

Her hair and nails are ill maintained, but healthy.

Her weight is acceptable.

The specialist the M.E. sends her results to tells them she was about four years old, born in New York.

At some point, it seems, somebody cared for this child, even if nobody missed her.

She looks so little on that table.

Three days after she is found, Erin finds that somebody has tucked a little stuffed bear beside her, and it looks so foreign in this place filled with death.

She's glad, though.

It makes her look like she's not alone.

The chemicals in her system are traced back to a manufacturer that only shipped to a few laboratories. The manager of the company is so horrified at where his drugs have ended up that he gives them all the names without a court order.

They are on their way.

Soon, little June will be able to rest peacefully.

A collection fund for her burial is already being started.

And Clara, well….

The doctor calls back three days after they leave the clinic, and three hours later, they are on their way to the hospital.

They usher her in with her child in her arms, nearly asleep on Erin's shoulder. They allow her to stay with her child until they can put her under for the procedure, but Erin Lindsay, tough cop, cannot watch them stick a needle into her child's hip.

She sings to Clara in recovery.

Never was able to carry a tune, but singing soothes the child more than anything. Her hands pass through the dark hair, stroke the soft cheeks as she sings.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy, when skies are grey

You never know, dear, how – her voice catches, and Clara stirs.

The blue eyes flutter open, and Erin doesn't need the test results to show her what she already knows.

Just like the first moment her child looked at her and she knew her life now included an extra chromosome.

"Mama." A sleepy smile stretches across the child's face, and her arms sluggishly reach for Erin.

Taking little mind of the IV, but careful of the child's tender hipbone, she slides the girl into her arms.

And, five hours later, she carries her through a threshold.

One she's not honestly sure any of them will come out of in one piece.

A threshold under the double doors marked "Oncology".

You'll never know, dear, how much I love you.

Jay.

He doesn't like to think about the first few weeks of his only child's life.

It sounds odd to say, but it's true.

He was worried about the baby, he was worried about Erin, and though he hates to admit it, he was worried about the Down Syndrome.

He saw what their future could be, so vastly different from what he had imagined. So many tarnished dreams.

Yeah, he had dreams for his daughter.

Doesn't any parent have visions for their child?

Doesn't any parent want their child to be a doctor or a lawyer or president or something like that?

But Clara has taught him more than he's sure he could ever teach her, and he is now able to look back on that Jay Halstead and marvel at how stupid that man was.

Because, as he has learned, the main thing a parent wants for their child, more than a fancy house or a high powered career, is for that child to be healthy and happy.

And if that was exactly what his baby was, wasn't that a successful life already?

Even if she never became a doctor or a lawyer or whatever, if she was happy, what did it really matter?

And as far as having her own house and living on her own? Jay couldn't honestly stomach the thought of his baby leaving him and moving next door, much less moving out of his life.

When Clara was a baby, she finally told him about something she called The Terror, described how it twisted her stomach, paralysed her thoughts and stuck her in a standstill.

He listened, he helped (at least he tried), but he didn't understand.

But when Erin calls, tells him come to the hospital immediately, he feels something stir in his stomach.

When he sees her in the recovery room, he feels it coil.

And when the doctor tells him that one word that will shred all of them, he knows he feels it in his head.

Cancer.

So the statistics, the treatment plan, the counselor, they mean nothing to him.

His arms numbly take his daughter, cuddle her close.

She asked for Flop-Flop Bunny. He forgot to bring it. She cries (at least he thinks she does).

He doesn't know how to comfort her. Doesn't know how to comfort Erin. Is completely lost on how to comfort himself.

His kid has cancer.

Apparently, her chances of contracting it were statistically higher.

He wonders who doles out these things.

And whoever does, doesn't he or she realize who has been stuck with this?

He is hard pressed to comprehend how evil it is that his sweet, innocent daughter will have to deal with this.

So he crosses the threshold with them.

Please don't take my sunshine away.

A/N#2: Just so you guys are aware, children with Down Syndrome ARE at a statistically greater risk of contracting cancer. However, they also have a statistically greater risk of beating it!