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Jess wouldn't speak to Ana or Christian about what had happened earlier in the day, or who the man Marcus was.

Christian wanted to see all the records he could on Jess but Cooper had made it clear that this was illegal, as she was underage. Barney and Welch were also unenthusiastic about the idea of searching the records of a sixteen year old girl.

As Barney had casually told Christian

'I already break enough laws for you, I'm not searching the records of a kid. When you're legally her guardian then I'll do it, if you want to know about her, find it out for yourself'.

If it was anyone else then Christian would have fired them on the spot, but Barney had always been allowed some leeway anyway, and Christian knew that inherently, he was right.

Jess had been hobbling around the apartment in a miserable mood until Alex came the next day. She was literally thriving in the situation where she had some positive reinforcement for probably the first time in her life.

They spent three hours doing math, with Jess working slowly through her work, Alex pointing her in the right direction and taking notes in his head.

Alex leant back on the sofa 'So, you'll have a pretty cool scar after your knee heals up then?'.

Jess laughed for the first time in what felt like months 'probably, you could see the bone through it'.

Alex looked pale 'Ugh, I'm not good with blood and gore. You'd think at 25 I'd get over that'.

Jess smiled 'I'm nearly seventeen and I still throw up at blood, don't worry'. Alex glanced up 'when's your birthday?'.

She sighed, looking back at her work 'today, technically, though I wasn't born until 11.48 pm so not for a few hours if we're being technical'.

Alex blinked in surprise 'your birthday is today?'. She nodded and looked back at her work absently 'so, is this one right?'.

Alex didn't know what to say, looking confused and surprised.

Jess barely listened as Christian spoke to her later, talking about the fostering documents. In fairness to him, Christian didn't have any documents on his new charge, and so didn't have any idea it was her birthday.

Jess however, was in no mood to mention it. Never in her life had she wanted to be back in Gatewood –A suburb outside of the City- so much in her life.

Later in the evening, Jess was sat alone in the bedroom, tears in her eyes as she dialed the number.

Since the attack she hadn't been in contact much and it killed her a little more inside every day they weren't in contact; it had been hard enough leaving in the first place.

'Can I speak to Harry?'. The accent at the other end was lightly English accented 'of course dear, happy birthday by the way'.

Jess glanced around the room, completely alone and no one knew or cared that she was now a year older. Why should they anyway?

Jess swallowed 'thanks...' She heard Harry speak to her down the phone and burst into tears, sitting on the floor in her bedroom, completely alone.

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