AN: I am sorry I haven't updated in forever! Being mature and having a job during the summer is no fun! Nonetheless, here you go! I got a new computer, and I had a burst on inspiration to finally finish this chapter. It also motivated me to start the next one.

Let's hope the spacing fixed itself. It looked a little weird.

Disclaimer: I don't own Blue Bloods. If I did, I would be wearing an NYPD shirt right now.

"People... people who need people..."

Lizzie felt twice as content as the first time she had sang it. Guess what? No one was missing or dying (as far as she knew). Her Uncle Danny had called her to tell her that everyone was fine, Nicky was still being a brat, and that her mother was getting better with each day that was passing.

He, of course, felt the need to mention that her mother's therapist had suggested that she go to a meeting with the two of them because it was a necessity for her mother's recovery because part of her trauma came from knowing that her daughter was not near her on purpose. Her mother knew she was fine and knew it was for her, but she still couldn't control her feelings. She was recovering from post traumatic stress. Lizzie felt for her, she did, but she was trying to finish what she had in front of her.

"Alright Johnson take a break. We need to make sure your pipes stay good with all of the extra pressure being put on them."

It was true. Before school, she had one on one vocal practice, during lunch she worked to memorize, and after school she went to practice with everyone else to block out the scenes and learn choreography. When she got home, she did a week's worth of homework before collapsing onto the couch. Her uncle Joe was concerned. She didn't eat much, she didn't sleep much, and she didn't seem to have much of a social life.

Lizzie was exhausted, she was, but the performance was in two weeks time. She just had to get to then and then she would have a lot more time to focus on her schoolwork to get her gpa up. Her cumulative was ridiculously high, and her state scores were high, she just wanted to keep everything as high as she could to open her doors.

She knew she wanted to go to art school. She wanted to sing and dance and perform for the rest of her life. She also wanted to go to New York (duh!), but she hadn't told any of the family yet. She had more pressing issues to worry about.

"Hey Lizzie,"

Lizzie looked up from her bottle of water. It was Ryan, the Ralph to her Leisel. And now, he was the Nicky Arnstein to her Fanny Brice... even though the ending of that story was not so romantic considering he leaves and gets incarcerated.

She had had a crush on him back in the day. It was crazy to think that her only problem at that point was getting Ryan to see her for more than the theatre geek with the braces and big voice.

Had he just noticed her now because she had disappeared and left him to sing with the annoying one?

"Hey." she responded, taking a swig of her water to keep herself from freaking out.

"I am glad to see you're okay. No one knew what happened to you. I was afraid I was never going to get to hear you sing again. It's one of my favorite things about being in these productions with you and getting to sing alongside you." He took a deep breath, finding a stool to sit on. "So, how are you? The stories going around about where you've been are a bit out there, so..."

"I'm adopted." She cut him off. "I met my birth family and decided that I am going to go live with them once this year is over. The rest of what happened is really none of anyone in this school's business."

"Respectfully, I agree with you. I don't care. You could have been pole dancing for all I care!" His smile dissipated. "You weren't pole dancing or anything like that, were you?"

Lizzie just laughed cynically. If only he knew. "No..."

"Johnson! Adams! Get your butts back out here!" Murray screamed from the stage. Ryan stood up from his stool. He held his hand out to Lizzie, who after hesitating, took it with a small smile.

"Let's go, Fanny. Time to make you a star." He said, the smile on his face enough to make Lizzie's face go hot. She just smiled at him and let him lead her to her place, the stage.

"What exactly do we need to do Jack?" Joe asked Jackie, who was leaning in the doorway of the kitchen of Joe's apartment. The two of them had been trying to work this thing out for the sake of their baby who was in a foster home with four other kids.

"Your mother told me that she was gonna be adopted by the Johnsons, but they died before that could happen so they placed her into foster care. I don't know. We don't have jobs here, we would have to do supervised visits and house checks and honestly, we're going back to New York. We're not married, if we even get her back, who's going to have custody? This is going to be ugly."

Joe took a deep breath, swigging his beer. He needed to calm his nerves. The stress of finding out that he had a daughter in the first place was enough for him to reach for the drink. "We are going to share custody. I am not getting into a nasty fight with you. This kid is going to be a Reagan and get the childhood with us that Lizzie never got. I don't care how long it takes. DCFS can bite my ass."

"How much have you drank?"

"Two bottles." Joe lied.

"Are you drinking again?" Jackie felt anger building up inside of her. "This is the reason we lost her in the first place! Because I didn't want my child being raised by an alcoholic father... you were drunk the night she was conceived! I don't want to share her with you knowing you could very well be drinking. We're done." She said, slamming the door on her way out.

"Hey." Lizzie greeted, walking up to the door with her backpack slung over one shoulder. "Is everything okay with you two?"

Lizzie didn't know. Lizzie didn't know that she had a cousin that had gone through the same thing that she had. She had been separated from the Reagans, her family, to protect her. But by doing that, she had been deprived the childhood she deserved and the family that would love her unconditionally.

"Your uncle is a bit drunk." Jackie concluded. "He doesn't get violent or anything like that, but you might want to let him sleep it off."

"Wait,' Lizzie paused. "Has he gotten drunk before? Is this a frequent thing?"

"It hasn't been in a while. But it looks like it is again." Jackie said seriously. "If you need anything, call me. If you want to come stay with me, call me."

Lizzie hesitated. She was not going to let her uncle do anything stupid. She had to be the adult.

"I need to make sure that he is okay, but thanks for the offer."

Jackie nodded. "See you soon, sweet girl."

Jackie growled. Joe falling off the wagon could mean problems in an application to get their daughter back. She wanted him to be a part of this experience, she did, but she needed him to be completely sober and right now he was dealing with something that through him over the edge. It was probably from finding out about their girl.

She was going to find a lawyer all on her own, and she was going to do this.

She was going to get her child back.

"So how are you today?" Dr. Wells asked Erin. Erin was seriously getting tired of the therapy and was beginning to wonder if she could drop out of it right about now.

It was helping her cope, there was no doubt about that, but it wasn't doing much for the major hole in her heart where her daughter was supposed to be. That hole was not going to go away.

Before she had met her daughter, she had spent eighteen years trying to fill that hole to no avail. Nicky had filled a small portion of it, but there was no doubt about the presence of the hole.

"I'm alright." She gritted. "I feel like I am ready to put this all behind me. I want to go home, and I want to be able to go back to work. I want to be able to start putting criminals behind bars again."

Wells pushed her glasses back onto her nose, readjusting her notepad on her lap. "Are you still living at your father's?"

"Yes. He won't let me out of his sight without attaching one of his cops or one of my brothers onto my side. My daughter is a bit sick of all of the attention. She wants to go back to our apartment. I think I'm ready."

Wells wrote something down. "I think you could try it. See how it works out. Maybe have one of your brothers stay with you the first night."

Erin laughed. "Of course... I am such a victim that I cannot stay in my house with my own daughter for one night with the doors locked and the house secured. I am not capable of anything that I used to be because now I have the label of 'victim'. I don't want to be living behind a label. Especially not that one. I was a badass lawyer. I went from being the badass that put these people away to the wimpy ass who was attacked by them."

"You're only living under the label because you think your family will never see you as anything but that. That is not true. You are going to get back on your feet. It may take time, and you may feel overwhelmed but you are going to get through this time of emotional trauma and return to your normal life. You have a whole family to sort your feelings with. You have me to sort your feelings with. It's going to be fine."

For some reason, this struck a chord in Erin. "I am going to be fine, huh? Tell me, have you ever been kidnapped and or sexually assaulted? Have you ever felt so hopeless you willed yourself to die? I started thinking about what I would have said to each of my brothers, my dad... because I did not think I was going to make through him raping me another time. My body was failing, and I knew I was going to have much longer. I should have died in there."

Erin bit her tongue. Had she really just said that out loud?

Dr. Wells seemed a bit taken aback by this. She quickly recuperated and began writing on her notepad again. "So you're telling me that you feel guilty that you made it out of there alive?"

Erin suddenly seemed very eager to leave. "Oh, would you look at the time? It's best I'd be on my way soon! Nice talking to you!" She jumped up from the chair and darted towards the door.

The therapist said nothing as the lawyer let the door slam behind her. She had been on this job for many years and had seen many things. This was not the first time someone had walked out during a session. It was whether or not they came back and admitted to their feelings that made the difference. And Erin was going to come back. She was going to give it three days.

Lizzie took a breath before walking into the apartment. Jackie had told her that Joe was not an abusive drunk. So why did she find herself nervous all of the sudden? She had faced things that were a lot worse in her time. He was a sad drunk, not a mad one.

"Hey Uncle Joe. How are ya?"

He looked up from the beer bottle in his hands to his niece with a blank expression. His expression softened. He never wanted her to see him like this. He had been sober for... well, since the thing with Jackie... and now all of those feelings had been brought up to the surface once again. He needed to drink away the pain, drink away those feelings he had fought so hard to push away.

He began to sob quietly. Lizzie did the first thing any decent human would do, which was pry the beer bottle from his fingers. She sat down next to him and pulled him close, into her shoulder.

She let him sob loudly for what seemed like a while.

"I love her, I love her and she hates me. I feel off the damn wagon again. She doesn't want to raise our child with a drunk! That's how she got pregnant in the first place! Me and my drinking have ruined her life. They ruined our child's life."

Lizzie only knew bits and pieces of their story, but she did know that Jackie loved him. She desperately wanted them to be able to raise this child together. And, the only way that was going to happen was if Joe sobered up. It had been one slip up. She would make sure he went to AA meetings twice a day, and the two of them would work towards getting their baby girl back.

Eventually, Joe's sobs quieted and he felt into a deep sleep that would end with terrible headaches once he woke up in the morning. She slowly put him down on the coach, putting a blanket over him. She got up, smoothed herself off, and retrieved her homework. She had a lot to do.

She sat down with her Calculus book, her paper, pencil, and calculator. She opened the book up to the first set of assigned problems. She started writing it down but was quickly distracted by her uncle on the couch. She just couldn't shut off her damn brain. There were so many things flying through her head. Her mother, her grandfather, her uncles, even her sister to some extent. How had fate or whatever decided it was going to throw all of this at them? What had they done to deserve it?

There was a story there, and it was one that begged to be written. Words were the key to the soul. How would the stories of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and Othello and Odysseus have been past down through centuries and countless eras had there not been words? There were two types of words: the vocal kind that bore the emotion and meaning of the communication from person to person and the written kind that spread stories of triumph and success and failure and love and hate and life and death.

The Reagans had a story.

Lizzie put down her calculator and pulled her notebook closer. She flipped it to a blank page and picked up the pencil.

This wasn't just their story; it was hers.

She scribbled her ideas down for a while until she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Pulling it out, she saw the current call from Ryan. Lizzie put it to her ear.

"Hi.."

"Hey." He seemed to be taking a deep breath. "Can I come over?"

Lizzie was slightly taken aback by this. "Uhhh... sure?"