JULIET I

Juliet learns to fight for everything when she's young - and when she's older, she learns she has to fight for her reputation, as well.

Both sides of their family had lived in Florida forever; the original O'Hara had immigrated to New York but almost immediately come down to Florida, and that was that. Frank is the youngest son of the main O'Hara branch, and like most of his family, his family grew up in Miami. Their mother's side had a similar story, although they were somewhat newer to the city by a generation or so.

And so, Juliet grows in the shadow of her family, mostly her brothers. At least it's shady.

Davie is the oldest, and though Carson is taller and Ewan is stronger, Davie is the biggest personality-wise. He's a prankster, a result of the deadly combination of unusual intelligence, fidgeting hands, and incredible boredom. Carson tries to reign him in, and Ewan sides with whichever brother he feels is more in the right. Juliet, given that she's not the victim of said prank, joins in where she can.

They don't make it easy, of course - they remind Juliet that she's smaller than them every day. It's all teasing, but it can get unbearable. Davie held her things above her head where he knew she couldn't reach; Carson, the most well-intended, was often condescending and sometimes helped Davie in his teasing; and Ewan, though the closest to her age, would always try to get her to do things for him for his own convenience.

Being the youngest and the only daughter kind of sucks, but she grows into it. She fights back.

She learns to climb Davie like a tree when he holds her water bottle out of reach, bruising his arms and chest and legs with barely a second thought. She's wrestled with all her brothers at one point or another, often with results in her favor. Though she often feels guilty, she could easily pressure Carson into stepping back and pampering her by looking a little sad (and this often worked on the other two, too). She learns to talk back to her brothers, and when that fails, she discovers they will back off if she gets their mom involved, as Maryanne tends to side with her daughter.

Still, despite it all, Juliet can't fight them at school, especially when it comes to teachers and her brothers' reputation. All the O'Haras are smart and had decent grades, but teachers either hate or love Juliet's brothers with no in-between. Her biology teacher hated Davie after he covered the floor of his room in little paper cups filled with water one April Fools', so he kept Juliet sitting up front with him the entire year to keep an eye on her. Her sophomore English teacher loved Carson with a passion due to his punctual and perfect essays, even though he often would spend class with his nose in a book. Her gym teacher freshman year had held a grudge against Ewan; he found her brother wicked talented, but he held a grudge because Ewan never joined the wrestling team. This cycle seemed to repeat every year, and there were only a handful of teachers Juliet had that her siblings didn't. She was, frankly, tired of being known as someone's sibling, so she took matters into her own hands.

She joined and led clubs; she took theatre and did sports her brothers never touched. Juliet O'Hara left her mark on her school and in their city, and she made it known that she wasn't just 'one of the O'Hara kids'. And though the shadow cast by her brothers came in handy now and then - as they did scare away quite a few undesirable suitors - Juliet was and is happy being her own person. It's liberating.

The permanent decision of her father to leave the city, however, seems to leave all her accomplishments in the dust.

Frank leaves; Maryanne is unsurprised. She has four kids, three of which are in college or working, and she's still got a life. Still, her passive approach to the situation does little to ward off the gloomy cloud hanging over the O'Hara home - it isn't long before their kitchen table is blanketed in homemade casseroles and bouquets ordered from a floral shop popular in the city. Juliet is the only one home when Frank leaves, and she is the only kid to witness her mother actually cry over this.

Once the worst of the sobs are over, Maryanne picks up her head from her daughter's shoulder and offers a wet smile. "I'm glad you're the one home today," she admits. "I don't know how the boys would react."

Driven now, disgusted by the acts if her father and sick of this town that knows her so well, Juliet wants to get out. The perpetual fog tainting the O'Hara name drives her brothers out too: Davie takes a job up north in New York, where his girlfriend can be closer to the theatres in which she hopes to work; Carson heads out to study history in Scotland, the homeland, taking the first job opportunity that sent him out of the country; Ewan, after training at a military academy, joins the Army, to protect the people, and his first assignment is out in Southeast Asia. Juliet, following Ewan's lead, joins the academy and is shortly on the police force, much to her mother's fear.

The police department, thankfully, doesn't know her or her family. Sure, they recognize the O'Hara name due to her father's line of work - con artisanship - but otherwise, she's in the clear. And she thrives. There's nothing to hold her back there, and though she's only a beat cop for a few years, she makes an impression on everyone. It's no surprise when she applies to become a detective, breezing through the DET without a single worry.

Her two oldest brothers are home for a week or so when the offer comes in. The Santa Barbara Police Department all the way over in California is reaching out nationwide to find a new detective to be paired with their head of investigation, and Juliet's squad captain is putting intense on the Miami chief to send her out. Maryanne is justifiably opposed; all her children are gone except Juliet, and she'd be all alone out there in a strange new city. Juliet had been to California during her training (that was there she'd met Scott Seaver), but it was very brief and didn't allow her to really make any connections. They have a brief spat about it - Juliet vaguely remembers spouting off something that sounds childish, like I'm not a kid anymore, Mom or it's my life too!, but she eventually gets dragged from the house by her brothers before it can get too bad.

She's still wiping at her tears when Davie sits her down in the sand of the beachfront near their house. Juliet hates crying in front of them, but they're both looking away, perhaps to be polite. She composes herself, swiping under her eyes to see if her eyeliner has smudged (it has), and they sit there until Carson finally speaks.

"I think you should take it."

"Me too," Davie adds, his voice unusually dull. "It's...a good opportunity, if anything. Housing isn't cheap there, but your salary would be a lot better than it'd be here."

Carson is absently drawing a shape in the sand. "Mom's just upset. You remember how she was at Ewan's graduation."

"All tears and sporadic rage," Davie says, as if to refresh her memory. It's unnecessary; Juliet remembers the day vividly. "I think it finally hit her that we're all old. She'll support you no matter what."

"I think her problem is," Juliet finally croaks out, "that she thinks we won't be supporting her if we leave. She's thinking of retiring soon."

The silence that follows is thick with shock. Carson, who puts a tophat on his sand-drawn frog, breathes a heavy sigh, and Davie appropriately spits out a baffled, "What? So early?"

"She's tired of the city right now, I think." Juliet shrugs, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "Too many bad memories. She's going to pass the café onto someone else." It's somewhat of a shock - they'd all spent countless hours in their mother's little café in the years past, and having it under different management would be a jarring change.

"I'm tired of this damn city and all I did was move away," Davie points out, sounding resigned. "I think we're all tired of it."

"Damn straight," chimes Carson. He reaches over and rubs Juliet's back, getting sand all over her tank top. "Take the job, Jules. You never know what'll happen."

She sighs, blowing a stray strand of hair from her face. "It'd be nice to get away from Dad's shadow," she admits. "Yours, too."

"Carson has always been a better wall than a window," Davie says, his voice serious but his eyes twinkling. "Look how damn tall he is, holy shit."

"You're one to talk," Carson shoots back, glaring over at his brother over Juliet's head. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Your ego alone casts a bigger shadow than all of ours."

Davie cracks a crooked grin. "Well, I'm the most handsome. I'd say I'm justified." He pauses. "I guess you're okay, too, Carson. You've got those eyes. Your hair is nice sometimes."

"I'd say you're not too shabby yourself," Carson says, wrinkling up his freckled nose, "but your personality just kills it for me."

"I think you're all forgetting the most beautiful sibling," Juliet interjects, dramatically tossing back her hair. She feels better already, a smile creeping onto her face.

"Ewan?" Davie answers almost immediately, earning a groan from his brother. Juliet laughs; it isn't long before her brothers are arguing heatedly. She suggests a sandcastle-building contest to settle this debate, and they leap into it wholeheartedly. As Juliet helps Carson sculpt his towers, she starts to miss these times spent with her brothers - but it helps keep away the anxiety that accompanies starting a new life, anyway.

a/n; doing some guesswork when it comes to adult things like housing costs and the structure of police departments, so cut me a little slack.