Lizzie had been forming a face out of the food on her plate when her cousin spoke. The elephant in the room still remained, stomping its feet to alert them all of its presence. "Why are bad guys bad?" Jack asked out of the blue. Everyone shared concerned looks at this.

"What do you mean, son?" Danny asked, looked up from his beautiful steak and potatoes. Trauma did not shrink his appetite. If anything, stress eating had become his new favorite hobby. He couldn't wait to finish that carton of moose tracks ice cream in the freezer later.

"Why are bad guys bad and not good?" He asked, like Danny would give him one clear cut answer that was the only solution. Like a math problem. That was the way children were, after all. You could not give them a vague answer. They needed one simple straight forward answer.

Jamie jumped in here, reminded of a cartoon he had seen a couple times with Nicky. "Well, its like in that cartoon. The guy has an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. The two of them argue. But eventually, either the angel or the devil is going to win."

"Well shouldn't the angel always win? The angel is nice, and angels do good things for people. Devils are mean."

"Everyone has both. Its their choice which one comes out. The angels and devils don't pick, the person does." Jamie continued.

"So why would a person chose to be bad when they could be good?" Sean jumped in, trying to get into the conversation.

Lizzie budded in here. "Because maybe they got someone else's bad given to them. It might be all they know. But it isn't an excuse. If you're bad, you should probably be in jail. You know, jail is basically a really long time out. Sometimes adults need time outs too."

And with that, they all continued picking at their food.

Lizzie helped wash the dishes, clear the table, played with her cousins, and was now in her mother's old bedroom again, staring at the family pictures. She had a backpack of all of her things open on the bed. It wasn't like she had that many items anyways. She had bounced around a lot, never actually getting the opportunity to stick around.

She knew it. She knew it in her gut that she had to leave. Her mother looked so pained. She couldn't bear it. Of course she knew that was an incredibly lousy excuse to leave, but she needed space. She needed to breathe. All throughout dinner she could feel them breathing down her neck. They all were breathing down her neck as well as Erin's. It all added up.

This whole family was Erin's support system. They were all she had ever known. Every time something had the potential of going wrong, her brothers and father always had her back.

It wasn't the same for Lizzie. Not anymore anyways. She felt more comfortable standing on her own two feet than she did surrounded by overbearing family members. She knew she could stand alone. And that was exactly was she was going to do.

And for the record, it was not to satisfy her whiny little sister's demands that she leave. The thought had already been circling around in her mind prior to that moment. She just wanted everyone to be okay. In order for her own person to be okay, she needed to go back to her home in Chicago.

She knew they would send for her. They all saw her as a little kid that needed to be watched day in and day out. She was not that at all. She could take care of herself. She would take care of herself.

Lizzie was ripped out of her thoughts when she noticed her mother walk into the room. Her emotionally drained and baggy eyed mother walked in slowly, pausing in the middle of the room. Her daughter, sitting on the edge of the bed, patted the spot next to her. Erin slowly plopped down, taking the time to study her daughter's calm features.

"How do you feel?" She asked simply.

Lizzie was not going to take this. "Mom, I'm fine. You don't have to be worrying about me. You should be worrying about yourself. You went through some pretty traumatic things, and it might take you a while to get back on your feet. So I ask you: how do you feel?"

"Honey, it's supposed to be the other way around. I am supposed to be caring for you."

"I know, but you need me more than I need you. And that is totally okay. And you might think it's scary to talk about your feelings, but it is not." Lizzie put her own hand on top of her mother's cold one. "I need you to be able to talk to someone. It doesn't have to be me, or anyone in this family. As long as you talk to someone."

Her mother leaned her head against her daughter's shoulder. "I got lucky to have a daughter that was raised to be strong. She's stronger than I could have ever been."

"Mom, you are so strong. I want to be just like you. Strong, I mean."

Her mother laughed slightly at this. "I love you."

"I love you too, Mom."

Her mother ended up falling asleep with her arm wrapped around Lizzie. Lizzie didn't mind, for she had had the feeling her mother hadn't been sleeping much these days. If her mother was on the healthy track, she was not going to complain.

Sometime around two in the morning, Lizzie made the slow movement to untangle herself from her mother. Her mother had been sleeping so deeply that she didn't even stir. Lizzie pulled up the blanket over her mother before walking down the stairs.

She had made her way to the door and was in the process of unlocking it when she jumped at hearing a voice coming from the opposite direction.

"Where are you going, Lizzie?"

"Um..." Lizzie turned back around to see not one, but all three of her uncles standing behind her, all with their arms crossed. They stood in a line of oldest to youngest, which also meant shortest to tallest. Danny had to lean on Joe, who didn't look like he appreciated being a walker for his 'old man' of a brother.

"You're leaving again, aren't you?" The words left Jamie's mouth in a sort of pain. Lizzie felt bad, she had always neglected Jamie. He seemed to be the one that was always left out. It was because he was the youngest. There seemed to be some unspoken agreement that he was the last innocent Reagan, and he needed to be protected at all costs. Danny has his time in the Marines, Erin, well... have you read the last twenty something chapters of this book? Joe had to fake his death and hide for years. Jamie didn't have anything like that under his belt. Lizzie had more under her belt. Are we sure he isn't Nicky's brother and Lizzie wasn't a Reagan sibling instead?

Lizzie sighed. "Yes. I am a legal adult. You can't keep me here."

"It's because of your mother, isn't it?" This time it was Danny, looking at her with sad eyes.

"Every time I look into my mother's eyes, I see pain. So much pain. And it gets a thousand times worse when her eyes meet mine. I make her feel worse! I make her feel guilty! She feels guilty that I had to see her go through those things! Why would I do that? Why would I put my mother into more pain than she is already in?"

"Because she has already lost you twice." Jamie pointed out.

"It comes in sets of threes." Lizzie spit out, since that was the first thing on her mind. She took another breath. "I think she would be better off without me. She needs to focus on herself and her own recovery. Don't you agree? She looks awful. You know she looks awful."

"She looks awful because she went through something traumatic! She needs you here to see her through this recovery! You're her daughter! She needs to see your recover before she can recover!" Danny argued back.

Lizzie shot a look at Joe. Shouldn't he be helping her out with this one? He was there with her. He understood her and this situation more than anyone else. She needed to go back there.

"Joe, if you let her walk out that door alone..." Danny threatened, shooting a glare at Jamie, as if to tell him to pounce her.

"I'm not. I'll go with her."

Joe ran up the steps, shoved her out the door, and slammed the door behind them.

"Seriously? I want to go alone." She whined, droning on as she clumped down the stairs with the car keys in her hands. "I'm not a kid!" The two shuffled to Joe's car, and Lizzie shoved her minuscule bag in the back seat. They came down the driveway, seeing Danny and Jamie standing in the doorway with pissed expressions.

"Did you all really have to make a show out of this? Really! That's coming from me, the theater kid... should we write songs to go with it? I'll hit the high notes for you! Ahhhh!"

Joey turned to look at her from the road and glared in her direction. "Did you really think I was going to let you go alone? Come on, I knew the idea of leaving was floating through your head even before Nicky started bitching about it. Yes, I pay more attention than you think!"

"I thought I had already proved to you that I am not a child! Did any of the stuff I did even lead to credit in that department?" Lizzie rolled her eyes in true teenager fashion and crossed her arms.

"I didn't say that it didn't Liz. But you are going to back to Chicago. There are still shady cops running around. It's like the saying. You cut one head off, three grow in its place!" Joe made motions with his elbow as if to demonstrate his point since he refused to take his hands off the steering wheel.

"So... how is this going to work? Aren't they all going to go nuts calling you and all of that stuff? The Commissioner is your father! He will find us... and make us come home! You know that!"

"The Commissioner does not know where my apartment is. It's under a false name. And, I'll call him. He will be the voice of reason, realizing that both you and her need it, and your mother will listen to him." Joe said calmly.

"Are you sure?" Lizzie retorted.

"Of course he will. He's human too."

"I love how everyone keeps telling me that. I know he's human. He's just been through so much, and seen so much, that sometimes I wonder. Maybe it just hits him like blocks hitting a metal wall. The only thing it can do at this point is make a dent."

"If you throw enough bricks, eventually the wall will break." Joe responded, without turning his head.

"You're telling me that some lousy bricks will break a powerful wall? You must have a shot put arm!"

"Probably not, but I was trying to use the metaphor! It was your metaphor!" Joe let off a small smile. "And I was not a track star in high school, for the record."

She laughed slightly. "I know you were. He's such a great man."

"He is," Joe agreed. "The best commissioner there ever was. And more importantly, the best father and grandfather we could all ever have."

"Someday I hope to make as big a difference as he has. It's going to sound really cheesy, but he's my hero. And my mother. And my uncle. And you. You're all superheroes! Whoosh! It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's the Reagan family! We could form our own superhero cult!"

"Jamie made you watch the Avengers, didn't he?"

She shrugged. "It was a good movie! I had little exposure to anything other than chick flicks growing up! Speaking of which..." she cleared her throat, turning to her uncle, who was now looking at her in concern.

"Did I ever tell you're my hero? You're everything I wish I could be!" She smiled at him, singing in key. His ears did not bleed, thank goodness.

"That was my mother's favorite movie!" He smiled. "She cried. Erin cried. Linda cried. It was the last movie she saw." He choked up a little. "In the hospital. The guys and I hid in the cafeteria because if we started crying about that, it would turn into tears for something else."

Lizzie stopped. With all that had been going on, she had forgotten about her superhero grandmother. "With all that has been going on, I kind of forgot about her. It's amazing how we forgot about things that don't affect us at the current moment even if they affect us in the long run. She's the reason I'm here. She's the reason I'm still alive. Look at what she did for me. She gave me a family. She gave me a voice. And she brought me back to you."

"She did. She is the real superhero."

The both of them sighed. Lizzie decided it was time to change the subject, and she was dying to know the new gossip.

"So did you talk to Jackie?"

Joe sighed. "No, I didn't. I went over to her apartment, but she wasn't home."

"Is she okay? Did-" Lizzie stopped herself cold in her tracks. She was being really irrational. All of the bad guys were gone... right?

"I don't know. Wait a minute, did you think that..? That's not possible. It can't be possible, right?" The two of them stared at each other for what seemed like the longest ten seconds of Lizzie's life. Lizzie pulled out her phone and scrolled until she reached Jackie's contact, putting the phone up to her ear.

"You've reached Detective Jackie Curatola. I can't come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message, I will call you back as soon as I can. Thank you!"

Lizzie took a deep breath. "Jackie, it's me, Lizzie. I need you to call me back as soon as possible." She turned her head to look at her uncle again. "It's important. Please call me back." Lizzie lowered the phone from her ear and sighed.

Joe made the decision right then and there to swerve and turn the car back around. He needed to see her. He needed to love her. He needed her.

AN: So I watched Beaches for the first time and I have made the decision that Bette Mitler is great, and it was necessary that I reference it. No regrets.

Should something actually happen to Jackie? I was debating this, and I really don't know if I want to complicate the plot further because this story only has about eight more chapters. Or that could be the ending of the story with them finding her. Or, she could have disappeared on her own choice...