Disclaimer: I don't own TKaM or any of the characters, and the title and the quote in the summary are both from The Stable Song by Gregory Alan Isakov.

A/N: Hi, I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Becca… (haha, joking). Firstly, I think I should warn you that what Jean Louise does in this is kind of disgusting, so be a little cautious. I've experienced numerous changes in the past few months that had taken my attention away from writing for a while. While my current semester is ending just this week, I'm still not quite so sure how consistent I'll be for the near future. However, I want to be more active than I have been because I found that writing these stories is a great way to be creative, especially when much of my life surrounds researching various laws and legislations. I also wanted to quickly say that I am halfway through the next chapter of And Some of Us Are Damned (though it's actually terrible… I started it in October and I have no clue what I'm currently doing with it) and I'm hoping to get that ball rolling again. Sorry for all of this rambling, and I hope you enjoy my first update in what seems to be forever!

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Unlike the previous, dry, spring, Maycomb County was facing its fifth consecutive day of rain. This wasn't just the usual annoying drizzle that frequently visited the usually barren land, either. No, this spring the rain poured down in a steady and relentless stream. People were soaked through their clothes even when using an umbrella, the multiple potholes in the streets were flooded, and the harsh sound of rain pattering on the roof was enough to drive Jean Louise Finch insane.

So that is why she left the prison that had become her bedroom, and ventured outside while her Aunty wasn't looking. It had just been the two of them, with Atticus still at work for the afternoon, Calpurnia long gone from the family and Jeremy still away at war. From the moment her Aunt Alexandra moved into their home in Maycomb many years ago, Jean Louise's main goal was to become so quiet her aunt never knew when she left the home. Luckily, it didn't take long for her to succeed at that.

Technically, she was under house arrest (though both Atticus and Aunty merely called it her punishment) for what she did during the dark day. For as long as she wasn't allowed on the school's grounds, which was for another five days, she was banned to her room. Since she'd be missing her classes, the only books she was allowed to read were her school books, and she was banned from listening to radio programs and doing anything that might constitute as being pleasurable. She was permitted out of her room to eat with her Aunt and father, and the only entertainment she had was writing numerous letters to Jem that she probably wouldn't send and reading the newspaper, which was filled about reports of soldiers dying and factories needing workers and many other depressing stories. Jean Louise was quite certain that no one would blame her for needing some time away, just so she didn't strangle herself out of misery.

She wasn't quite sure what led her to the graveyard, though. Soggily, she trudged through the slops of mud, listening to the squishing sound her soaked-through tennis shoes made every time she made a step. She looked at the different headstones and the remnants of flowers and other tokens of love left for the deceased, and wondered why people bothered to leave such things anyway. It wasn't like the dead could actually accept these gifts.

She found herself preoccupied by death ever since she was a child. She found it intriguing, the notion that one day your entire world can stop but everyone else goes on around you. Even as young as five, she found herself wondering what happened after you died. Were ghosts real? Did people actually have souls? Did everything you worked for while you were alive just mean nothing once you died? What happened to bodies after being underground for so long? Why did people bother with formal burials anyway?

She thought of Jem, and how he always loved Ancient Egypt. He'd tell her about the pyramids and the catacombs and the elaborate tombs for the Pharaohs that housed all of their wealth and even their stupid cats. He didn't think she was weird when she questioned him about death and told him random facts like people's last words and how famous authors died. While others told her that it was utterly strange for a sixteen-year-old lady to be so obsessed with something so morose, Jem fed into it. Whenever a new Addams family comic came out, Jem would go to the drug store and buy it for her, and would call her Wednesday as a joke. Whenever he read something in a textbook or in the paper about death, he'd think of her and tell her about it and they'd question things together.

Yet, it wasn't like her to hang around the cemetery by herself, though. While deep inside her she knew what was drawing her there, she couldn't help but to feel strange. She never before had the desire to visit here alone before, and she wasn't sure why now she felt as though she was being called there. But, when she saw the name Jean Finch, beloved wife and mother carved into one of the headstones, she sat herself on the muddy patch of land that spread out before it, leaning her back against the cold stone.

She had never truly known her mother for the woman died when Jean Louise was only two. Yet, it seemed as though everyone in town remembered her vividly. She was a perfect lady, Jean Louise often heard (and after a while it made her cringe because she couldn't help but to think that if her mother was alive she'd most certainly hate her daughter), and that was usually followed by someone telling Jean Louise to behave herself in order to honor the poor woman's memory.

But Jean Louise didn't want to behave, it simply wasn't in her nature. While girls her age giggled after boys, wore skirts that flared out and rogued their faces, Jean Louise scowled at them. Instead, she read the adventure books she clung to as a child, spent extra time in her biology classroom looking at the different taxidermy animals her teacher had, and continued to wear pants even when it wasn't the norm.

Well, there was also what she did on the dark day.

"I don't know why I'm here," Jean Louise said firmly, breaking the thick silence that had engulfed her since she left her house what seemed to be hours ago. "I rarely come to see you. Hell, I don't even know if you can hear me."

Throughout the years, Jean Louise made sporadic trips to her mother's grave with her father and brother. They never really talked to the woman like Jean Louise was now, but they always looked so solemn as they left her flowers and looked sadly at their surroundings. Jean Louise wanted to know what it felt like to miss her. Hell, she wanted to know what it felt like to love her.

"I did somethin' awful," Jean Louise continued, rubbing her knuckles against each other as the rain continued to pour down on her. "But I was provoked, so that don't mean it's that bad, right? I mean, what they did to me was pretty awful, too."

She sighed, her chest feeling heavy with the weight of everything that had happened in the past week. While she had always been intrigued by death, she never actually wanted to die. Well, that was until last Saturday when she was left so humiliated that she just wanted to grab the closest sharp object and stab herself with it until she bled out or something dramatic like that.

"I don't know if I wish you were here," she said. "I don't know if you'd like me very much, honestly. Especially after what I did. I think even Atticus was embarrassed by me, and he never is."

He should've been, Jean Louise reckoned. She had been notorious for causing trouble and fights all throughout her youth, but what she did on Tuesday was not only enough to tarnish her own reputation, but that of the fine Finch name (as her Aunty would say). When she did it, she knew it would be bad, but she didn't expect it to be that bad. She thought Atticus would be annoyed by how immature she was, but he looked downright ashamed.

But he had to understand, she had to do what she did. She couldn't let Charlotte Greengrass, Georgia Howell or stupid Freddie Smith get away with what they did. They made her the laughing stock of the entire school! They made her lose track of herself and become one of those stupid, bumbling and giggling girls, all for nothing but humiliation. She had to give them credit, it must've taken them months to plan this. But little did they know that Jean Louise Finch did her best revenge under short time constraints.

Just thinking about what happened, Jean Louise couldn't help but to feel down right foolish for allowing herself to actually believe them when they told her that Freddie, one of the boys on the football team, was actually interested in her. He was fine looking, she supposed, and dumb as a doornail, but the fact that he (supposedly) didn't think she was strange is what appealed to her.

He led her on for weeks, telling her she was pretty and kissing her in corridors of the hallway where no one could see them, and for once she actually felt wanted by a member of the opposite sex who wasn't in her family. It made her happy, or so she thought.

So, when Freddie told her that naturally the next step of their secret relationship was to consummate things sexually, Jean Louise showed little hesitation. She was ready for this, she thought. He seemingly enjoyed her company, and she was so absorbed by feeling wanted that she didn't even suspect that this all could be some plot to further torture her at school.

On the dark day, he had planned a picnic for them in some clearing by the Eddy, and he told her it was an entirely appropriate place for them to do this. She believed him, because in everyone else's eyes he was normal and she was the strange one, so it was obvious to her that he knew what he was doing. She went, in a pretty dress that she begged Aunty to hem for her, and a cute little cardigan that she actually bought herself in town. Flushed and nervous about what was to come, she had no clue what she had in store for her.

Unfortunately for Jean Louise, the incident ended with Freddie laughing at her while Charlotte and Georgia took snapshots of her in her undergarments and calling her awful names as they teased her.

What made it worse was that one of them stole her cardigan, too.

She remembered coming home, one of the straps of her dress falling down as her hair frizzed around her head in an uncontrollable clump, her face red and tear-stained with frustration. Before Atticus and Aunty could even see her, she stormed into her room and locked the door behind her. Nervously, the inquired about what had happened to make her so agitated, but she knew she couldn't tell them.

Instead she began to plan revenge.

For the rest of the weekend, she acted sweeter and more pleasant than ever, knowing that those awful people were going to have theirs coming soon, she just wasn't sure what it was going to be. But she knew that whatever it was, it was going to be good.

However, she almost died right then and there in the hallway Monday morning when she came to school to discover that over the weekend they had told everyone about what a trollop Jean Louise Finch was. So, it wasn't just the three perpetrators who were laughing at her, but it was the entire school as well. What made it worse was that Charlotte "kindly" returned Jean Louise's cardigan to her, and she was shocked to see that the horrid thing sewed a large red A on the front of it. Disgusted, Jean Louise crumpled the stupid thing up and threw it in a rubbish bin. However, that didn't stop students from taping pieces of paper with large red A's onto her back when she didn't notice it. During lunch, when she sat in the bathroom stall crying rather than daring to face her fellow students, she imagined her brother coming home and punching each of them square in the jaw. But what made her really feel better was the prospect of revenge.

And it came in the form of her menstrual cycle.

She was so preoccupied by the fact that she was utterly humiliated that she failed to keep track of when she'd be getting her time of the month. When she came home and realized that Mother Nature had come, she was struck with an ingenious idea.

Rather than properly disposing of her sanitary napkins, she hid them in a shopping bag in her room. The mere thought of what she was going to do with them brought her so much joy that she could hardly think of what the actual consequences would be. The next day, when she came into school with the napkins tucked safely in her knapsack, she could hardly pay attention to the ridicule she continued to receive. When the perfect moment came, she would strike, and those fools would regret messing with Jean Louise Finch.

All of the students in her class had Physical Education fourth period, meaning that nobody would be using either the boys or girls locker rooms until after lunch. Jean Louise, despite the fact that she was constantly being hounded by her peers, was able to sneak away to the lockers and made three beautiful, scarlet A's on all three of their lockers.

While it was an ingenious plan to her, the consequences weren't quite what she had intended. While it had been an absolute joy for Jean Louise to hear the disgusted screams of all three of those idiots, it was quite easy for them to prove that she did it to them. It was also easy for them to manipulate the principle into believing that they had not tricked Jean Louise that Saturday afternoon, and she was just some woman with loose morals. This resulted in Jean Louise getting suspended from school for nearly two weeks, and her father being called to the school so he could be told of his daughter's promiscuous behavior.

Still, Jean Louise felt good.

Despite the fact she knew she was wrong, she had thought that Atticus would come to her defense. She shouldn't have expected it, though, for her father was a man of rationality and defending your daughter when she's done something this stupid is simply not rational. She couldn't lie, it still hurt her to think that she had done something so absolutely terrible that Atticus couldn't even look at her the same way anymore.

That's how she got under "house arrest", and how she pretty much showed her aunt and father that she was crazy and that they probably shouldn't trust her, and now she was leaning against her mother's tombstone, sobbing as she relayed the entire story like the dead woman could actually hear it.

"I've failed you," she sobbed, despite the fact that she had never once been self-conscious about whether she was doing her dead mother proud or not. "Everyone always tell me what a lady you were and how gentle and behaved you were and you got a demon for a child. What would you say to me?" She sobbed harder, digging her knuckles into her eyes as she cried.

"She'd say: oh Jean Louise, if only you knew of what I'd done when I was younger—you wouldn't think I was a lady, then." Her father's voice said from nowhere. Jumping, and nearly slamming her back against the gravestone, Jean Louise looked at Atticus through her puffy eyes. He was holding a closed umbrella, indicating that he must have given up on trying to stay dry in this weather. He smiled down at his mess of a daughter, making her want to punch him.

Slowly, he walked closer to her. Even more slowly, he sat himself in the mud beside her, making a soft grunt as he came to the ground (he was getting old). "How did you know I was here?" She asked, sniffing as she used her already wet hands to wipe the tears away from her eyes.

"I'm your father," he winked.

"Exactly. You're not a metaphysical being."

He chuckled at her. "I came home as you climbed out your window. I followed you—how d'you suspect you learned to be so quiet, miss?"

Her cheeks flushed hot with embarrassment. "I reckon I'm in more trouble, huh?"

"I reckon you're not."

Jean Louise gave her father a quizzical look. "Now, what you did," he coughed, and she could tell he was quite uncomfortable with what had happened. "Was not… good, what they did wasn't exactly fair either."

"Accordin' to them they didn't do anythin'."

"I've been a lawyer longer than they've been alive, sweet." He smirked. "I know criminals when I see 'em. I also heard people talkin' about it in town later that day."

"Criminals?" She asked, laughing through her tears.

"Nobody messes with my children," he said seriously. "Why, if mama was still alive, she'd have been down at that school every day giving that principle a piece of her mind until those students were expelled."

"For me?"

"No, because she enjoyed picking fights with authority figures." Atticus replied sarcastically. "Yes, for you, sweet. You may not remember it, but mama loved you somethin' fierce."

Jean Louise inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. "Now," Atticus continued. "I may not have gone to that school kickin' and screamin', but I did give the principle enough evidence for him to not only give those three students a stern talkin' to, but they are suspended just as long as you are. Though, we both acknowledged that you still need to be accountable for what you did."

She should've known Atticus would've never let her down, and couldn't help but to feel a wave of happiness. "Atticus?" She asked, squishing the palm of her hand down in the mud next to her, watching the murky substance bubble up around her pruning fingers.

"Yes, baby?"

"What did you mean when you said that if I knew what mama had done when she was younger, I wouldn't think she was a lady?" She asked, making him laugh.

"Honey, I don't know if that's for me to say."

"But if she's not here to tell me, who is?"

Atticus seemed to lighten up. "Well, I don't know where to begin on her list of offenses." He remarked playfully, causing Jean Louise to laugh. "I guess I can start with the fact that the only reason she went to church was to make me happy because she didn't believe in God and made fun of all of those visitin' ministers behind their backs."

"What else?" Jean Louise asked eagerly, wanting nothing more than to hear in what ways she could possibly be like her mother.

"Her family called her the wild child of Montgomery," he chuckled to himself. "She cursed like a sailor, smoked cigarettes and even convinced people she was never getting' married. When we did get married, her family begged me to tame her."

"Did you?" Jean Louise asked, scrunching her nose as she smiled at her father.

"She used to make that exact face," he said, smiling back at his daughter. "Baby, if I had tamed her I would've lost the main reason why I fell in love with her. She just knew when she needed to act like a lady." He added, gently poking his daughter's arm with his index finger.

Jean Louise smiled to herself as an immense pressure was lifted off of her as she found out her mother wasn't the perfect lady she had always imagined her to be.

She couldn't help but to think that her mother would've found what she had done humorous (though still inexcusable, of course).