The group ordered a big table and all put their jackets down. Lizzie noticed her sister giving her looks from out of the corner of her eye. She really thought they would have gotten over this by now. Lizzie did not tell them to come see her show nor did she invite them. She had subconsciously asked them to come, but she did not ask them. Her sister needed to grow up.

She could see Ryan chatting it away with Jamie, hopefully about some guy thing that would get Ryan under high regards in their high standards family. Erin was smiling at Danny. Everyone seemed happy. Everything seemed normal. Linda was in NYC with the kiddos because she couldn't get the time off, and her uncle Joe...

Lizzie pulled out her phone, hoping that she had missed ten calls from her uncle and Jackie combined. What was going on with them, besides the obvious? She decided on calling her uncle.

"Leezl." He greeted. He didn't sound drunk that time, which was good.

"Where are you?" Lizzie asked. "I was wondering why you weren't at my show."

She could hear noise in the background. Wherever he was, there were lots of people and lots of machines. "Jackie took our kid to the hospital. Turns out she was being abused in a foster home. What a surprise."

Lizzie's mouth dropped. "Is she okay?"

"The doctor is checking her out now. How was the show? I am so sorry I forgot, I was-"

"It was like no other show I have ever done. I felt something out there tonight. I can't describe it, but it was something magical. A Julliard rep spoke to me." Lizzie said, knowing that it wasn't really that important to him when his kid was at the hospital.

Lizzie could feel the smile on her uncle's face from the other side of the phone. "Lizzie! That's amazing! You're going to go to one of the best schools in the world!" She couldn't help but smile too.

"So... I am at dinner with the whole Reagan family..."

"Oh goodness. All of them?"

"Linda and the boys stayed home. Nicky is back to hating me, and Danny is giving my boyfriend a run for his money."

"Boyfriend?" Her uncle shrieked through the phone. Shoot. Had she said that out loud? Had she simply made an assumption when she knew that she had kissed him, and that meant absolutely nothing? That seemed about right. And now, all three of her uncles were going to go after him.

That was not good.

"Tell Jack I love her. I'll talk to you later." Lizzie mumbled, pulling the phone away from her ear. She really wanted to know what was going on with the kid, but she didn't know how to tell them. She didn't know how to tell them that she knew Jovanna. Jovanna was going to come live with her and her parents back before all of this happened. She was living with them until that last day. She had been at a play date. She never made it back, and Lizzie knew she couldn't take care of the child herself. Lizzie had assumed some other nice family had taken her in, but never in a million years had she thought that this would happen.

She wondered if Jovanna would recognize her. She didn't know how she could tell them that she had known all along about who she was, from the minute she had met Jackie. She hadn't known which one of her uncles was the sperm donor, but she knew. She had put the pieces together.

"Liz?" She turned around at the sound of her own name. Her own mother was standing there with her arms crossed. She looked concerned. "Is everything okay with you?"

How could she respond? How could she lie to her mother? She felt happy in that moment, yes, happier than she had felt in a very long time, but something was wrong. Something was going to go wrong. She could feel it. "Just thinking about the future and stuff."

Erin let out a deep breath, walking towards her daughter. She slowly took her daughter's hand into her own and walked her to the quieter side of the restaurant and sat her down on a bench. Erin looked at her daughter again, more sternly this time. "What's going through your mind?"

Lizzie took a deep breath. "Julliard had been my dream for as long as I can remember. And I would be in New York with you guys pretty close. But something about it feels wrong. I don't what, but..."

"A lot has happened. Maybe you feel weird with worrying about normal teenager problems. When I was your age..."

Lizzie cut her off. "When you were my age you had a lot more on your shoulders. I know that being pregnant with me took a lot out of you. It ruined you."

Erin grew slightly irritated. "At the time, yes, I was frustrated. But I wasn't frustrated because I was pregnant. I was frustrated because I couldn't keep you. I had to protect you. Had I gotten pregnant just by having sex, I would have kept you. I would have raised you. I would have given up my career. I didn't need to be a lawyer. I wanted to be your mom. But I couldn't be your mom. Sex and making babies is human nature. But forced sex... rape... it changes a person. I didn't think about you, I thought about him getting you. I couldn't get the image out of my head." She shook her head. "I want you to be happy. If that means going to acting school, then go, if it means living with me and being a hermit crab, then do that. If it means running off and forgetting this family because God knows it threw you in the ringer, then so be it. Liz, I love you with every fiber in my being. I will always be proud of you no matter what decision you make. I just hope to be around to see it."

Lizzie looked at her mom. "I never said..."

"I know what you meant."

Lizzie threw her back against the bench. She felt guilty. "Things were bad for you, and I got out easy... that's not fair."

"You're not me. You're you. You have your own story. This is your story, Lizzie. We are all characters in our own stories. The difference is, we control the ending. We control where we end up. It also depends on where you chose to end the story. This moment, right now, might be your happy ending. It might not be. You get to choose your own ending. You get to choose where you end, with whom you end up. You wrote this story. You get to write the ending."

Lizzie sat up. "I know what I need to do." She said. She looked back at Erin. "Mom, I'm just... you're my hero. You're my hero and I love you and I will be with you. I will come back to New York and we will get to know each other the right way. This is not how the story ends. It doesn't end with me walking away from you, it ends with me coming back to you, when I'm ready."

Lizzie walked away from her mom, leaving her sitting there, alone.

...

Danny and Jamie turned around, looking at the two teenagers in the back seat. They were pulled up in front of Joe's apartment building. They were not happy about dropping the two of them off there.

"Why is he coming up with you, again?" The two uncles looked back in disgust at him. Okay, they actually really liked the kid, but they didn't want him getting any ideas. They knew that Lizzie could protect herself, and they also knew they couldn't do much to stop her.

"I need his help with something."

"Yes, we know what that something is." Danny mumbled in disgust.

Lizzie growled. "He's helping me write music!"

"Sure. Just make sure you're wearing clothes when you do it though. You know, our whole family is cops. We can make sure you don't get out from behind bars ever again." Danny chirped happily. "I carry around a gun, and so does Jamie, and Joe."

Lizzie rolled her eyes. "You guys are ridiculous. See you in the morning." She dragged Ryan out of the car with her arm. He looked at her uncomfortably.

"Twenty minutes ago they were laughing with me about sports, now they're threatening with guns!" He squealed, almost like a little boy. "I am a bit concerned."

"They're just trying to scare you, and it looks like it worked." Lizzie pulled out her key to the apartment and opened it, walking in.

Ryan followed, not paying much attention to where he was going. "Yes it did! Your whole family is cops!"

Lizzie pushed the door to the apartment open. "I do need your help with a song. That wasn't a lie." She dropped her purse on the chair and walked into the other room to grab the guitar. She found it, sitting in the corner where she had left it. She was about to grab it, when she saw herself in the mirror. Today had been one of the greatest days of her life. She had gotten her family back, she had gotten talked to about the school of her dreams, and the guy she had had a crush on since the sixth grade was with her. There was only one more thing that could make this truly the best day. She smirked. She turned around and walked back into the living room.

"Ryan..." Lizzie started. She pulled off her shirt, standing in front of him in only a bra. Ryan looked at her with an eyebrow raised.

"Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe you're not ready." Ryan started, looking at her uncertainly. She just stared back at him.

"What makes you say that? Just because it's my first time? Because I am only here because of a rape? Because my mother was raped so many times she doesn't even know? I have been thinking about all of those things for such a long time that it doesn't even phase me anymore. I am not doing this with you to prove that I can. I'm doing it because I want to. Because I love you. Today was one of the greatest days of my life. There is only one thing missing to make it the greatest." She stared at him pleadingly.

Ryan just stared at her some more. He really did not want to do this if it was going to hurt her. She just stood there, thinking about how she was going to shoot him if he said no.

"Okay. But we will stop if..."

Ryan was cut off by Lizzie running at him. And jumping into his arms. He caught her, kissing her back passionately on the lips. He ran his hands up and down her back. He walked them into the bedroom. She helped him pull his shirt off. He fell backwards onto the bed, letting her fall on top of him. They made out for a while, until Lizzie stopped. She began ripping his pants down. She pulled her pants down, and let her panties fall with them. She plucked the bra off, adding it to the pile of clothes as an afterthought.

"Are you sure-"

"Would I be kissing you if I wasn't?"

...

Jackie had been sitting with her child in the emergency room for the last six hours. They had done a police statement, cleaned all of the burns, and done a rape kit. They were still waiting on the results. Joe had been sitting in the waiting area for that same amount of time. Neither of them knew what they were going to do with the situation that had been thrown at them. They both wanted this child more than anything in the world, yet neither of them knew how to raise a child, let alone one that had already been traumatized at such a young age.

Jovanna had been quiet. Remarkably quiet. Jackie might not have known she was there, had she not been looking at her for the past six hours. She looked like her mother, undoubtedly, but those eyes were all Joe. She knew that every time she looked at them, she would be reminded of him.

And what would she do with him? What would she say to him when he eventually came through that door? She loved him. She loved him more than words could describe. She knew that if she loved him, though, things would get messy. They always did. They could never stay clean in this world.

"Detective Curatola." The nurse who had performed the kit earlier walked over to them, pulling the curtain to give them some privacy. "These lab results show that Jovanna has indeed been..."

Jackie blurred her out. She could not hear those words. She could not hear those words come out of that nurse's mouth. Was this some kind of sick joke from God? What god would allow this to happen to a child? "We can perform the DNA test now if you would like." She snapped back to the present.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"You believe that this is your child. We can perform the DNA test now. That should help you be granted temporary custody for now and permanent custody later."

Jackie nodded. "We'll do it."

The nurse motioned to Joe, sitting in a chair on the other side of the ER, bobbing his leg nervously and staring in the other direction. "He keeps asking about you, so I can only assume that..."

"We're pretty sure he's the father."

Jovanna, on the other hand, was completely spaced out. She had been since they had gotten there. She hated hospitals. She hated needles. She hated people touching her. She didn't know much about the detective who had brought her here, but she kept holding her hand and not yelling. She hadn't said much, she didn't know what to say. Although the detective was now talking about a father. If it was her father, she wanted him to come get here right about now.

The nurse walked away with a sample from Jackie and tromped over to Joe. She chatted with Joe for a while before he stood up and walked back over to them with her.

"Hi," he greeted cheekily, looking first at Jackie, and then at the little girl. This was the first time he had gotten the opportunity to see her up close. She was a mini Jackie, but with his eyes. She looked at him solemnly. Her face didn't change. He felt like the world had already trampled her. They had taken every shred of innocence left and stomped all over it.

"So... DNA samples?"

"Yes." Jackie responded. "We're going to get custody and take her home tonight."

"And me?"

"You're coming with me, aren't you?"