The songs mentioned within this chapter are Get Low by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz; Hot In Herre by Nelly

Chapter content warnings: underage drinking; swearing

Don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now and that my ao3 account is wearealloflegendnow (even though I haven't posted there yet)!

~TLL~

"Skeet, skeet!" Jake shouted at the basement ceiling, his voice getting lost in the thumping music.

"Motherfucker!" Trixie and Rose yelled at each other.

"Goddamn," Spud finished, his voice cracking and sending Jake into a laughing fit.

"Ooh, my jam!" Trixie cried as the song switched over to Nelly's 'Hot In Herre'.

Jake knew what that meant and he didn't wait to be pulled back onto the dance floor proper. His friends grouped back together and they danced. They kept pointing and laughing at each other, mimicking each other's stupid dance moves, and Jake couldn't remember the last time that he'd had this much fun, surrounded by other people who were just having fun. He didn't have to worry about looking stupid or what anyone else was thinking of him because he was being stupid on person. And it was ridiculously freeing to belt song lyrics and just laugh.

Until he saw the last of the tequila go down Stacey's throat. The lovestruck Spud hadn't even thought twice about handing her their bottle to be shared with Lacey and Tracey. Stacey leant onto her toes to whisper in Spud's ear, shaking the tequila bottle. Spud nodded, reaching for Stacey's hand, which she recoiled from.

"Where are they going?" Trixie demanded.

"To get more tequila," Jake said.

"Spud better bring back two bottles because you know Miss Thang won't share with us." Trixie crossed her arms over her chest.

"She'll have to," Rose said. "There's only one bottle left."

"If Stacey won't share, then we'll have to make sure we get it!"

Lacey and Tracey were suddenly there as soon as Jake turned to get off the dance floor.

"We are not going to allow you to get the tequila," they said in near unison.

And that was how Jake found himself hot on Rose's heels, fleeing through Marcia's house and dodging other party-goers. Trixie had been left behind at the dance floor, valiantly trying to stave off Lacey and Tracey. Jake saw the drink table, located the half-full bottle of tequila, and then saw Spud's hand about to close around the neck. Rose was faster and wilier than Jake gave her credit for, hitting the floor on her knees only to slide neatly under the table. All so she could pull the bottle down from the bottom before Spud's grip could tighten. Spud stared at the empty spacy, dumfounded.

Rose emerged from under the table, hoisting the bottle victoriously. Jake stepped forward to high five her, pretending that he'd been helpful.

"Hey!" Stacey cried. "That was a dirty trick! He had his hand on it, fair and square."

Stacey leant forward, her arm outstretched and Rose leapt back into Jake's arm. Stacey inched forward and Jake said the only thing that came to his mind, "Run!"

Rose seized Jake's hand and they were off again. They rushed upstairs and Rose stopped in front of a door. She reached under the edge of the door and pulled out a key. Quickly, she unlocked the door and yanked Jake inside, locking it behind her.

"They'll never find us here," Rose said, flicking on the lights. "Marcia's parents room is supposed to be off limits."

Rose flopped onto the futon at the end of the bed. Jake sat next to her, reaching over her to unscrew the tequila bottle.

"Trixie's gonna be so pissed we left her behind."

Rose shrugged. "We'll take a shot in her honour. All's fair in liquor and high school."

"I don't think she'll be that touched about it."

"Then we don't have to do a shot in her honour."

Rose drank from the bottle before passing it over to Jake. He took a shot for courage before speaking again.

"Don't take this the wrong way but you seem a lot, er, friendlier today."

Rose fixed him with a level stare. "So, let me get this straight. In one day I find out I'm kidnapped, not adopted, and my father is being accused of that very serious crime; I'm yanked away from my father and my brothers; I'm placed with my birth family, who I never cared about knowing; I'm left trying to figure out how I'm going to live my life now; and you're asking me why I wasn't my best self yesterday?"

Jake had to laugh at himself as he conceded to her point. "Yeah, I'd probably be a little grumpy too."

Rose adjusted her legs so that she was sitting cross-legged, facing him. Jake mimicked her posture, their knees touching.

"So, my turn to ask a question."

"Seems only fair," Jake agreed.

"You and Lily … You don't seem to make much sense."

"Uh-uh. We're not going there."

"Why not?"

"One because that wasn't a question. Two," Jake ticked off on his fingers, "you don't know enough about me or lily to be asking those kinds of questions. Three, you don't even like Lily and just yesterday I called you a bitch. Which leads me to four and that is that you're probably up to something even though I can't even start to guess what that might mean."

It was Rose's turn to laugh. She reached for his hands, putting his fingers back down one by one as she responded, "One, I can rephrase. Two, how am I going to know more if you don't answer questions? Three, I'm still making up my mind about her but that doesn't mean I'm never going to like her – and as for you, well, I'll admit I liked it when you told me how it was. Four, you over estimate me. I can scheme but only with my brothers and just to get around my dad. Marcia's the one who likes to play with other people's feelings; that's how she has fun. Sometimes, I'm just oblivious to what impact I'm having."

Jake's gaze dipped, realizing that Rose was still holding his hand. He wiggled his fingers and she let go, looking as surprised as he was at the contact.

"Okay, so I get another question." Rose sipped at the bottle, pondering. Jake took it from her, thinking that Rose was very bad at sharing. "Will you tell me something about you that no one else knows?"

A battery of images flashed through Jake's mind, from the stuffed animal still on his bed to his dragon family to cheating on his bio test last year.

"That no one knows?" Jake clarified.

"Not a single soul," Rose insisted.

Well, that narrowed it down by a lot but Jake wasn't sure that he wanted to tell Rose. Once he told her there was no taking it back and there was a reason no one else knew. Jake didn't even know Rose. And, yet, she'd been strangely open with him. Jake gripped the tequila bottle for courage. It was more than time to just let it all out and it was way to share with a stranger.

"I've always been a music kid and I've always played instruments and dabbled around but late last year, I started writing my own music."

"Shit, really?"

Jake winced, flushing with embarrassment. He didn't want to be one of those cringy guys running around with a guitar and he already knew what jokes Trixie and Spud would make when they found out. Jake didn't want this part of him to be a joke. He felt when he was writing and it was one of the few times that he could actually make some sense out of the world.

Jake hadn't realized the tequila was making him say all that aloud until Rose grabbed his thigh and shook him.

"You don't need to explain all that to me."

"I don't?"

"No, I already think it's cool as hell."

"You do?"

"And I can't wait to hear you sing something!"

"Yeah!" Wait. "No. Absolutely not."

Rose scoffed. "You really think you can confess all of that and then not serenade me?"

Jake blustered. "There will be no serenading."

"Come to this karaoke bar Brad and I like with us on Friday," Rose instructed.

"There's no way Brad likes karaoke."

"Bring Lily if you like," Rose said with a great sigh. "It might make you feel better about the serenading."

"There will be no –"

Rose squeezed his thigh again. "Just say you'll come, Jake."

Her blue eyes were so disarming. Jake knew that Rose, at least on the surface, should be familiar, but Jake just didn't feel that. Even knowing Lily as well as he did, Jake barely saw any of her in Rose when Rose was fluttering her eyelashes comically and making him forget about everything else because he was laughing so hard that his stomach hurt and then he fell off the futon, landing heavily on the floor.

Rose lurched forward, gasping, "Did you spill the tequila?"

"Thanks for the concern."

Rose snorted at him. "You're fine."

Jake hoisted the bottle. "It's fine."

"Yes!" Rose reached for it but Jake was faster, grabbing her arm and pulling her down on the floor with him. "Hey!"

"Hey yourself," Jake said. "Not so funny when you're down here too is it?"

"I'll forgive you but only if you say you'll come to karaoke."

Rose wasn't trying to be funny anymore and it made Jake realize just how drunk he was and how close her face was and how drunk she looked. The world tilted but not in a tipsy way and he felt his throat start to close up as he looked at her eyes and then down to her lips and then down to her chest, feeling the heat as he remembered how she had teased him the night before. Had it really only been the night before? Jake's head swam and he was starting to feel like all of the tequila and all of the Rose and the locked door between them and the rest of the world might be a bad idea.

"I'll come to karaoke," Jake said, "but I'm bringing Lily."

Lily. His girlfriend. Jake didn't want Rose to know what he was thinking because he knew it wasn't him thinking it. Tequila was thinking it. And if he got up and tried to run away, it would make everything awkward and he needed them all to be friends because it was what Lily needed. Lily, his girlfriend.

"All right, deal." Rose said casually. She took the bottle of tequila from Jake's hand and Jake was acutely aware of the smell of flowers on her and the way the edge of her pinky touched his hand.

"We should probably head back out to the party, speaking of," Jake said, hoping that he sounded as casual as he thought he did.

"Not until the tequila's gone or we'll have to hear about it from Stacey." Rose shook the bottle. "There's not that much left."

Rose then stretched out across the floor, looking so casual that it made Jake relax. He was just in his head. There was nothing weird here. He was just making it weird for no reason. So, he laid down so that their heads were side by side, their feet pointing in the opposite direction, the tequila bottle between them.

"What are you thinking about?" Jake asked.

"That parties two nights in a row suck," Rose said, "I just didn't want to stay at Carl's and Melinda's because I don't know how I feel yet."

"What would you rather be doing instead?"

"Movie night with Kyle and Nicholas. We love shitty old action movies and picking apart the fight scenes and the special effects. It's one of my favourite things. And now it's all, are we ever going to get to do that again? Will it be the same, even if we do?" Rose sighed. "Sorry, I'm rambling. You don't want to hear that."

"Would it surprise you if I said I did?"

"Maybe." Rose turned her head so that they were looking at each other. "Does that mean we're friends now?"

Jake knew that the alarm bells should start going in his head but they didn't. So, he smiled at her and said, "Yeah, I think we can be friends."

(-.-)

Melinda made herself a cup of tea, hearing the familiar rustle of Carl turning another page of his book. It was so strange to stand here and be the only two in the house. She couldn't remember the last time that Lily had been gone overnight. She stirred a lump of sugar into her tea aggressively, the spoon clinking against the edges. And for the second night in a row, she knew where Rose was. For the first night, they were actually together.

"What are you thinking about?"

"We should call John Martin in the morning."

"Mel, no, we shouldn't."

Melinda turned to face her husband. "I am calling John Martin in the morning."

"You're not going to do that. We agreed that we weren't going to sue for custody of her."

"I don't care. Because if that man is not found guilty then I might lose her again. If he really didn't know that she was a stolen infant and he legally adopted her, he might take her back."

"And as far as we know, he's been a good man to her. And, that's if he's not found guilty. We don't know what's going on with her brothers' cases. If they were stolen children too, there's no way he can explain three kidnapped kids in his custody."

"If, if, if." Melinda wanted to pull out her hair. "I need her to stay here with us. I need her to be part of this family. I can't risk her leaving us or not loving us enough! I need to keep her safe and I can't do that if she's not with me!"

She heard the thud of Carl shutting his book, the scrape of the chair as he stood, the pad of his footsteps as he came to her. Still, Melinda couldn't bring herself to look up from her tea, stirring it over and over, even though the sugar has long since dissolved. Carl touched her shoulder and everything in Melinda threatened to fall apart.

"Please, don't try and be rational," Melinda begged. "I can't be rational. This is my baby. I can't lost her again. I almost didn't survive it the first time."

"Mel, calling our lawyer and throwing around threats before we know what's happening isn't going to help anything." Carl kissed the back of her neck. "If we force her into staying, she's not going to want to. We need to show her how much we love her and she'll want to continue to know us."

"I want that to be true," Melinda whispered. "But, whenever she talks about her other family, she talks with so much love. How can we live up to the mother she lost or the father she's always known or the brothers that she's lost? What if we lost our chance to know her, to love her, to bond with her at all? It haunts me every time."

"We don't need to live up to anyone; we just love them too – if Theron Hunter is proven innocent, that is, but, we can love her brothers and the memory of her mother without hesitation. She can love them and us. You're an amazing woman and an amazing mother; you don't need to try to compete. You're already bonding. All of us, we're already bonding! No matter what happens, she's a part of this family and Rose feels it too. I'm sure of it."

"I'm not in the mood for logic right now." Melinda couldn't help but feel like she was pouting.

"I know. But, I'm in the mood to give you some."

Melinda could feel that she was starting to soften into Carl's hold but she wasn't sure she wanted to. In the long years since she had felt her daughter, she had felt it all: the sorrow, the guilt, and the rage. Every therapist shed ever had told her how cyclical grief really was and how the best thing Melinda could do was feel her feelings. Which wasn't the worst advice – on the surface. Because not a single one of them had ever thought that Carl and Melinda would ever see their daughter alive again. No one had ever thought to prepare Melinda for the fact that, after finding her living daughter who had been raised in a safe and loving home, Melinda could feel anything but grateful. Instead, it made her feel hollow and angry all over again because Rose was here to tell Melinda exactly what she had missed out on.

Rose.

Melinda hadn't even gotten to name her. She and Carl had still been debating on if they wanted to go with cute, matching twin names or stay more traditional and give them family names.

"She's ours," Melinda whimpered, the sense of loss becoming overwhelming again. "We wanted her. I shouldn't have to share her. Her place has always been with us."

"That's all true. But we've already seen enough of her to know she's stubborn like all of us – even Lily who's never met an opinion she wasn't afraid to have." Carl slowly turned Melinda around and leant into kiss her softly. "For now, we get to know her, we love her, and we make her want to be here with us, no matter what happens with Theron Hunter."

Melinda sighed. "I told you. I don't want logic."

"Mel."

"But I won't call John Martin … Yet."

"There's my girl." Carl kissed her properly. "Now, bring your tea. My students have me reading this awful historical fiction that they say gets it all right –"

"But it's all wrong?" Melinda guessed, picking up her tea cup and feeling herself finally start to relax. This was the part of every day that she loved the most: the quiet settling into their routines.

"It's not! Now, I can't expect fiction to be completely accurate –"

Except that he did, Melinda thought as she curled into her armchair, tucking her legs beneath her. But, after all these years, she knew better than to say it because Carl would never admit it.

"The royals were up to all kinds of crazy things at the time! You just shouldn't be bringing modern dilemmas into it. You could simply –" Carl paused as his cell phone began to chime. "Why is the sound on? I hate when the sound is on."

"Hopefully it's not the girls," Melinda said, glancing at the time. She wouldn't call it early but a teenager likely wouldn't be calling it late.

"Oh no."

"It's the girls? The police?" Melinda guessed, her voice and anxiety rising.

"It's John Martin."

"What? The police couldn't have cleared Theron Hunter already … Could they?"

"I don't know, Mel," Carl said, and then he answered the phone. "Hello, John."