hey all! oh look, I updated within a week! no way! actually, I am on vacay. went to niagara falls for two days, toronto for two days... going back home via long car ride tomorrow.

Twenty minutes later, the buzzer for the main door rang. Joe was still out like a light, sleeping off his countless drinks, so he didn't even stir. Lizzie quietly made her way down to the door to open it herself. She was quite curious as to what he wanted.

"Hey." She greeted once he was standing in the hallway of their building.

"Hey." He responded. "I, uh, know this is kind of random, but, I, uh, need, math help?" The last part sounded more like a question than a statement. Lizzie tilted her head in confusion while raising her eyebrow in suspicion. She wasn't getting it.

"Do you really have no friends other than me that you would come to the girl who missed like a month of school for math help? I am still three weeks behind!"

"No you're not! You are still learning with us in class! I know you catch on to this stuff faster than I do!"

Lizzie gritted her teeth. There was obviously some other reason as to why he was here, her inner cop told her. She would interrogate, er, ask him about it later. He couldn't be one of the bad guys, could he? Lizzie had known Ryan since grade school. Unless, someone had talked to him, persuaded him. Lizzie moved her leg around, assured that the gun was still where she had put it this morning. Call her overcautious, but she was not taking any more chances with her family's life.

As the two of them made their way up the stairs towards their apartment, Lizzie suddenly remembered that her uncle was still snoring loudly on the couch, stinking up the whole apartment with his booze breath. What would she tell Ryan? What would he do?

Once they were standing outside the apartment, Lizzie made the decision to scope it out first. "Wait here." She commanded, opening the door and closing it behind her. Her uncle was still passed out on the couch, not moving in the slightest at her entering the apartment. She sighed. Should she try to help him into the bed?

Time must have slipped her by, or Ryan got bored, because he soon began opening the door. Lizzie was so spaced out she forgot time and place and lifted the gun into the small of her back, resting it there with her hand on the trigger. Once he came in, she pulled it out and pointed it at him.

"Woah! Woah!" was his reaction. "Are you crazy? Put the gun down!" She was frozen. She couldn't move. What had she done? What was happening to her?

Lizzie dropped the gun, and with it, she dropped herself to the ground. Hot tears began making their way down her face. At some point down the line, she had become a psychopath. She didn't feel safe with anyone anywhere. Everyone was going to try to hurt them and she had to be the strong one, she had to protect all of them.

Ryan's footsteps came closer and closer to her. He bent down next to her, studying her curled up position. She didn't seem to be in medical distress. "Are you okay? Do I need to call someone?"

She didn't answer and just continued sobbing.

"Alright. I am going to hug you now because hugs make everyone better. Maybe, if I hug you tight enough, all of your broken pieces will just glue themselves together again. Otherwise, you have to feel the sharp edges poking at your insides all the time, begging you to cry and feel their pain. Obviously you want to not cry in front of everyone, but crying just shows that you're strong enough to deal with the broken pieces." He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her shaking frame into him. She didn't flinch, but rather slowly melted into the contact.

Ryan noticed that the dude on the couch hadn't even moved an inch. Was he supposed to be Lizzie's caretaker? Was he too drunk all the time to do it? He needed answers.

"Who is that guy, Liz? Does he-"

"No! He's my uncle. He's- he's- drunk. He-e-e found out-t-t he has a kid with his girlfriend today." She made out between sobs. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't stop huffing and crying. Ryan probably thought she was a crazy overdramatic teenager. Instead, he just hugged her tighter.

"That must be hard on him. And on you."

"He's been staying with me since this whole thing happened. He's family." She sobbed. "I just want everything to get back to normal, but my life is far from normal and will never get back to normal. My adopted parents are dead, my birth father is dead, my birth mom..."

She had made it this far. Pushing away all of her thoughts about Erin and how she was doing, how she was feeling. She was suffering and living and breathing and crying all at once. Much like Lizzie at that exact moment. Lizzie had left her. What was she thinking?

"What about your mom?"

Lizzie shook her head. She slowly released herself from his hold and stood up, wiping the tears away from her face. "She's fine. She's just been through a lot."

Ryan was not going to let the subject drop. "But you've been through a lot too, haven't you?" She just stared at him. "You're hurting, Liz. Don't hold it in."

Lizzie took a deep breath. He had already seen her cry, and he already knew about Jackie's kid and Joe's alcohol, might as well tell him her whole life story, right?

"I was conceived as a result of a rape on my mother. There was a group of guys after my Grandpa because he is the Commissioner. They used me to get to her to get to him. My adoptive parents got killed somewhere in that mess. My mother became a rape doll. They raped her nonstop. And there was nothing I could do about it. I killed my birth father with a gun. I shot my uncle, not him, another one. And I lied to them and left multiple times and I left them to come here because I wanted my life back. I wanted to forget that my mother was living in fear, and that my sister hates my guts."

Ryan just raised his eyebrows in shock. Maybe her story was so outrageous that he would tell everyone that she had lost her mind and belonged in a straight jacket. Instead he just walked up to her and wiped the final stray tear off her face.

"You're brave. Your mother is brave. Your whole family."

Lizzie just nodded. "I started writing a song about them." She walked back to the notebook from earlier and picked it up. "I think that their story is one that should be told. Not all the gorey details, but how my grandmother brought me back to them even though she's gone. My sacrifices, their sacrifices... and how we will all be together again soon."

"This is a good start. Have you ever composed?"

"No. I was never big on my piano playing."

"Can you sing it for me so I can hear what you have in mind?"

Lizzie nodded, gripping the lined paper in between her fingers. "Cause there is a storm to weather, right now, and I don't want to feel the pain. but when I'm with you, right here, I know we can weather the storm."

"Can I take this?" He asked, motioning to the paper. She nodded, releasing her grip. "I should probably get going, you know, the math isn't going to do itself." He started making his way towards the door.

With everything that happened in that little span, Lizzie had forgotten to ask. "Hey Ryan, why did you come here? I know it was not because of the math."

He turned around. "I wanted to see how you were doing. I knew something was up. You're not the same person that was walking those halls last year. I will see you tomorrow at play practice." And with that, he walked away, letting the door slam behind him.

Even when she had tucked herself into her bed later that night, his words still rung in her mind. You're not the same person...

Erin made her way to her office just like she would have on any other day pre-life altering event. People said hi to her on her way in, gave her unusual looks, you know, the usual.

Her secretary looked somewhat relieved to see her.

"Ms. Reagan!" She exclaimed once she saw Erin heading down the hall to her office. She gave the lawyer a hug, despite the slight wince Erin gave in response.

"How are you? I've missed you around here!"

Erin wanted to talk to her, she did, but the pitch of excitement in her voice made her want to vomit. So, she motioned to her office weakly and began in that direction.

She made it and sat in her comfortable spinny chair that she had missed dearly with a plop.

She sat there for a moment. Then, she opened her drawer to pull out the pictures.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me you had a daughter! She was my niece. I could've helped you raise her! Linda and I would have taken her in! You didn't have to give her up for adoption!"

"That's not why I did it Danny!" Erin bit back.

"What was your reasoning then?" Danny pushed.

"I needed to protect her!"

"Protect her from what? She was born into a family of cops, one of them the Police Commissioner! What couldn't we protect her from?"

Erin leaned back on her chair. She couldn't protect her. No, her daughter had gotten sucked into a big mess- one that had ruined both of them.

"Our lives are a mess."

She looked up to see her crippled brother standing in the doorway.

"Yes." She agreed. "Come look at these pictures." She laid them out on the desk in front of her, ranging from newborn Lizzie to broadway star Lizzie.

Danny limped over and threw himself in the client chair on the other side of the desk. He rotated newborn Lizzie with his finger and let out a smile.

"She looks like you did when you were born, Er."

"You weren't old enough to remember that! We aren't that many years apart!"

"Yeah well I do remember it cause guess what Er? It was one of the best days of my life! When I saw your little scrawny body I vowed to protect you from all of the bad guys. That still applies today."

Erin sighed. "You did your part. You took a shooting in the leg from your own niece for me!"

"Yeah. But it wasn't enough." He responded, defeat loud and clear in his voice.

"What would be enough? They would've gone to all extents to get what they wanted. It was enough. You might not believe it, but it was enough."

Jackie knew what kind of trouble she could get into if she got caught. She could go to jail. She would most definitely lose her job and her badge. But she couldn't help it. This was her child. She had delivered her, not even getting the chance to hold her... she was going to do everything in her power to reunite them. Even if that meant doing some illegal things in the meantime.

She got out of her car, sunglasses on her face. Holding her police badge in her hand, she began making her way to the door.

What would she say? She didn't even have a legit reason... or a Chicago police badge for that matter. She was on very, very thin ice, and she knew it.

She walked up to the fence that separated the rest of the world from that little playground in which countless little children were running freely without a care in the world. It made her smile, it reminded her that there were still innocent people on this planet that had not yet been exposed to the evils that preyed on them.

One little girl caught her eye, her long, curly dark hair pulled back into a braid. She turned around from her current action and saw Jackie. She smiled at her. That was when Jackie knew.

She stood there watching this kid, her kid, run around and play with the other little stinkers. She looked so happy, so carefree... and to take her away from that would be... selfish.

She didn't even notice that a teacher had walked up to her.

"Hello. Are you here to speak to the kids? I don't remember seeing anything about police visits."

Jackie looked over at the woman. Her curly hair pulled back into a bun; and her glasses were riding the bridge of her nose. She had forgotten she was still holding her police badge in her hand. She froze. Should she go along with it?

Nope. She couldn't. She wasn't going to risk ruining the Reagan name, again.

"No. I didn't mean to intrude or anything. I just needed a reminder that there is innocence in this world. These kids... they don't know pain. They see the world as what it should be, which is a beautiful place where people get what they want and what they need. There is no murder, no pain, no scandals. The only pain they know is a skinned knee. There is still some innocence in this world, and it is mostly held by these kids."

The teacher then looked stressed. "If I believed that one of the kids was being abused, would you be able to do something about it?"

Jackie nodded without thought. Even if she didn't have police power, she would do anything in her power to help.

"It's that one." She said, pointing her finger at one of the kids.

What broke her heart was that the kid she was pointing at...

It was her kid.