Background on Smackle and Farkle: When I started Laws of Motion, it was before season three started airing and when I started this story it was as the season started, which means that it doesn't entirely line up to what we saw in cannon. In Heat Stroke, I mentioned in the graduation chapter that Smackle and Farkle had gone through a nuclear breakup during their Sophomore year of high school and, though their anger had cooled off by graduation, they still considered each other rivals. Smackle beat out Farkle for Valedictorian and, then, they both went on to attend rival Ivy League colleges and eventually went into similar areas of law. (Farkle's specialty is International Family Law, while Smackle's is traditional Family Law.) My original image for the two of them when I started this series was that they had occasionally face-offed in the courtroom and continued to maintain a rivalry with mutual respect. Before this story, the last time they had seen each other was when they were dealing with Maya and Josh's custody case in LOM.

Sunlight was barely beginning to filter through the curtains of The Bay Window when Riley's eyes fluttered open. She could hear Lucas's breathing coming from beside her; not quite slow enough for him to still be sleeping.

"Did you get any rest?" she questioned, shifting just enough to her side that she could see his profile.

"A little," he rolled over, his arm moving over to rest on her covered hip, "I've never slept well with your father a couple of walls away."

"If it's any conciliation," Riley offered, her hand reaching, until it had settled on the top of his, "I doubt he slept well with you here, either."

Lucas let out a chuckle and she smiled as she felt his breath against the skin of her neck.

She and Lucas had very rarely woken up to quiet morning together. Mornings were a rushed affair that usually started with the sound of a baby crying and ended with one or both of them rushing out the door in an effort not to be late.

"You know what this reminds me of?" She questioned.

"That night we stayed up talking and your parents found us in the morning?" He suggested and she closed her eyes, picturing the memory.

It had been their Sophomore year and they had fallen asleep sometime in the early hours. She'd been grounded for close to a month, but it had still been worth it. It was the first time she had woken up and he'd been the first thing she had seen.

"That was a good year."

"Speak for yourself, I never thought your parents were ever going to trust me again," Lucas snorted, his thumb brushing against the back of her hand.

"They knew you were a good one," Riley assured him, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence.

She was on the brink of drifting off again, when he spoke, "We should talk about last night."

"What about last night?" She stalled, feeling all of the anxiety she had forgotten rush to the surface of her chest.

Her phone started buzzing against the bedside table and she cast him a guilty glance before retrieving it.

"Matthews," She groaned, holding the phone to her ear.

"I was scheduled to start surgery an hour ago," Thor began, as though they were already in the middle of a conversation, "But they're not letting me into an OR, until they can figure out what happened with Kelly Smith. Is there any way that you can come in, now?"

"Me telling the truth doesn't really look good for you, does it?" Riley sighed, sliding to the edge of the bed and sitting up.

"It's an Inquiry, with the Chief of Surgery, which means that it's not a legal action, technically."

"The last thing that I heard was that the hospital was looking for a scapegoat and I'm the one who's not on their payroll. I don't want my words on any kind of official record, until I've gotten a chance to talk to a lawyer," Riley brushed her hair out of her face, faintly registering the feeling of Lucas's hand on her back.

"Then wake up a lawyer and get in here because I have to operate today or I'm going to have to start sending my patient's somewhere else and that doesn't work for me or for you," He pointed out before the line went dead.

"What was that?" Lucas questioned, as she let the phone drop into her lap and sunk her head into her hands.

"They're not letting him operate until he goes through a formal inquiry and I was the one who was there when the patient died," Riley rose from the bed, feeling Lucas's hand drop.

"I thought that he was going to handle it," Lucas offered, as Riley started riffling through her suitcase for a set of clean clothes.

"I was going to have to talk to someone from the hospital at some point. Even if it was just to be there for the Code Debrief. An Inquiry doesn't mean that the hospital is going to take legal action. In fact, it's probably a good sign that means the family hasn't done anything yet, either."

"And what happens if you just don't show up? We could get in the car and head home right now," Lucas suggested, and she glanced back to look at him.

"If I don't cooperate with the hospital, then I can guarantee you that they will hang me out to dry and we're not in a place right now where we can afford to have me lose my license. I am three-hundred-thousand dollars in debt for medical school, I bought into the practice for another fifty-thousand, the house was over two-hundred-thousand and you have conveniently managed to keep from knowing the exact number of your student loans, but I would guess that they're somewhere in the ballpark of what mine are. If we go under, Lucas, we're not going to get back up again. And it's not just the two of us, anymore."

"Riley," Lucas reached out to grab her hand, bringing her back to the present and out of her own head, "We will get through this. I promise."

"Lydia Breeland is my mentor. She was the one who got me through my miscarriage, who kept me from dropping out of med school altogether. She got me the job in Sunbreak, and she's supported me through everything. And, maybe, he's right, maybe I would have helped him if he'd told me the whole story. I owe her so much."

"You can't think like that. You go in and you tell the truth. Whatever the fallout is, we'll deal with it," Lucas promised.

Isadora Smackle entered the main doors to the law firm with a coffee in one hand and a pair of heels dangling from the other. She was used to working long days and even longer nights, all a part of the process of working to become partner.

However, despite her almost inhuman drive when it came to her work. She did have days where it all caught up to her and she fell short.

She had woken up that morning to discover that she had overslept by almost forty-five minutes, which had thrown off her entire morning routine. She'd skipped a shower, thrown on her clothes, and thrown yesterday's coffee into the microwave in an attempt to pretend that it was fresh.

"What happened? Did you get yourself caught up in a Black Friday sale? You just had to have those shoes," Nicholas Mitchell, the head of Family Law for the practice, questioned, as she attempted to make her way unnoticed to her office.

"Very funny," she returned, brushing passed him and into the next hallway.

"Mitchell wants your strategy for the Keirsey case," Her secretary, Julia, informed her, as she made her way into her office, "And Luke wants to know where you're at negotiating the settlement in the Pierson divorce."

"I will take care of it," Smackle promised, setting her coffee on the corner of her desk and slipping out of the flats she had worn for the walk to work, "Anything else?"

"You got a call from a Riley Matthews who said she was an old friend and in the middle of a legal crisis."

"Alright, I am going to need five minutes to call her back and a fresh cup of coffee," Smackle decided, sitting down on the edge of her desk.

"On it," Julia agreed, leaving and letting the door close behind her.

Smackle rounded her desk and sunk down into her chair, pulling her cell phone out of her purse. She had missed Riley's call the day before and had meant to call her back, but time seemed to slip away from her the older she got, like, somehow, her life had been put on fast-forward.

She hit the call button and leaned back in her chair, waiting patiently for the call to connect.

"Smackle, I'm so glad you called," There was an edge to the usually cheerful voice and Smackle grabbed a legal pad and a pen.

"I need you to tell me exactly what kind of legal trouble you're in and I need it condensed into the next eight minutes," Smackle informed her, looking at the open cases that were scattered across her desk and that she would actually get to bill for.

When Riley finished Smackle was already leaning forward with her free hand pinching the bridge of her nose. There was lucrative money in Torts law, but Smackle had never been tempted by the field. Everyone was looking to sue someone these days and there was no forgiveness when it came to a medical provider's mistakes.

Too often, she had watched doctors settle, giving up lucrative amounts of money in an effort just to preserve their reputation, despite the fact that there was no real case against them.

It was an area of law that she had never managed to stomach. Divorces were messy, but at least the couple was on somewhat equal footing.

"I will send a colleague to meet you at the hospital," Smackle decided, thinking of the favors that she had yet to cash in on. The lawyers had a high divorce rate in her office and quite a few of them owed her for the discounts she had offered in their time of need.

"I was hoping that you would represent me," Riley admitted, a catch in her voice, "We worked together before with the custody agreement and I trust you."

"It is not my area of law. You will be better served by someone who understands the legalities and knows what they are doing," Smackle pressed on, not letting herself be swayed by emotion. She felt as though Farkle had torn through her office last night with a leaf blower that had stirred up a decade's worth of baggage that she had been trying incredibly hard to pretend was not there.

She needed time to let things settle and, more than that, she could not handle it if she was the reason that Riley had a bad outcome.

"I will send you someone who will do a good job, I promise," Smackle assured her, leaning back in her seat.

"Thank you. I really appreciate your help," Riley returned and Smackle hung up the phone without a goodbye.

Smackle set her cell phone aside and went through her office directory, searching for the extension that she needed. Very rarely did she ever have to have direct interaction with Medical Malpractice, and she dialed the unfamiliar extension with a certain amount of trepidation.

"Isadora, to what do I owe the pleasure?" the familiar voice hesitated just a second too long on her, "S's," giving off the image of a coiled snake getting ready to strike.

"I'm cashing in on a favor," Smackle informed her, twisting the phone cord around her index finger as she spoke, "I'll fax over my notes and you can meet my friend over at Mount Sinai for an Inquiry."

Riley picked her way through her luggage, looking for appropriate clothing for being interrogated for medical malpractice. She had brought plenty of clothes that were professional; planning more for a business trip then any kind of pleasure. But, she had, also, expected the trip to be a quick in-and-out and this had the threat of dragging on.

"What did Smackle say?" Lucas questioned, appearing in the doorway with his hair wet from the shower that he had taken.

He was wearing a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt that she doubted was a part of his wardrobe even a year ago and she could see the beads of water that were gathering at the collar.

"She's going to send a friend who deals in medical malpractice," Riley replied, her gaze focused entirely on the contents of her suitcase.

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Lucas's voice was hesitant and she closed her eyes, tightly, "Riley?"

She felt his hands wrap around her from behind and she tensed as she felt his hands brush against her stomach.

"I'm never going to be the same," she informed him, pulling away and twisting to face him, "Doesn't that bother you?"

"I don't know what you mean," Lucas sighed, running a hand through the hair at the back of his neck, as his eyes became weary.

"You've known me since I was thirteen years old. I've always been tall and the rest of me had to catch up to my limbs, but I, eventually, settled into someone who maybe wasn't confidant in my body, but I could accept it. And, I know that I've changed; that I've grown older and I have wrinkles where I didn't before and that my skin isn't as tight as it used to be, but my body still felt like mine. And, now, there's this ugly scar, stretch marks, and pockets of skin where I used to be flat, and that's not even taking into account the weight that I can't get rid of. I am never going to look the way that I did before I had the twins, I'm never going to have the body that you fell in love with again."

The silence stretched between them for a beat and Riley felt the mortification of what she had just revealed start to settle in. Lucas had always known that she was insecure, but she'd never been one to flaunt all of her body insecurities. She'd hardly wanted to give him a list of all the faults she found in herself and risk him becoming aware of something he hadn't already noticed.

"I didn't fall in love with your body," Lucas, finally, spoke, his voice hard, "I've always thought your were beautiful, but only a minuscule percent of that was because of the way you looked. The very first thing that I noticed about you was your smile; the way that it lit up your entire face and I knew that you were genuine. And all I could think was that I never wanted to see that smile slip from your face. I never wanted that glow to leave your eyes. It's not about how you look, Riley; I don't care what size you wear, or that you have stretch marks, or that you're not exactly the same as you were when I fell in love with you. Because love is about change; it's about going through the very best and the very worst with someone and choosing to stand by their side. Neither of us are going to be young forever and life is going to change us; mark us in ways that we didn't plan and probably didn't want, but it doesn't really matter as long as I can still make you smile the same way you did that first day that we met."

"I keep waiting to feel like myself again. I keep waiting for my body to feel like mine and I know that I carried our children and that I can't expect everything to go back to the way that it was before. I've told hundreds of women how brave they were and that their marks are battle wounds and that they should be proud of what their body accomplished. But, I can't make myself believe it, Lucas. I can't make myself accept that this is how I am, now."

"I wish that I could do it for you," Lucas sighed, "I know that your body has changed and I know that it may never be exactly the way that it was before you had our children, but I don't care, Riley. It doesn't bother me. I look at you and what you've given me and I love you more then I ever thought it was possible to love someone."

He was hesitant this time, as he closed the distance between them and enveloped her in his arms. She felt the palms of his hands warm against her back and his breath brushing against her hair and, for the first time since she'd had the twins, she felt like she could take a full breath; like she was finally getting air back into her lungs.

"Did you mean what you said last night about getting married?" Lucas questioned, not offering her any space to pull back and see his face.

"I meant it," Riley felt her heart skip a beat and she wondered if he could feel it, as closely as they were pressed together.

Maya restlessly picked at the material of the hospital bedspread as she waited for the doctors to complete their morning rounds. They had drawn labs earlier that morning and waiting for the results, along with talking with the doctor, were the only two factors that were keeping her from discharging.

"You're going to put a hole in it," Josh sighed, reaching out to grab her hand, "And then we're going to get charged extra."

"These do look like incredibly expensive sheets," Maya let the sarcasm drip heavily from her voice and a smile pulled at the corners of Josh's mouth.

"I don't want to be here," Maya admitted, leaning back against the pile of pillows at the head of the bed, "I've spent far too much of my life in hospitals."

"Not by any fault of your own," Josh pointed out and she shot him a glare that didn't contain any real malice.

They both knew that he was right.

"When I was five, I fell off of a set of Monkey Bars and broke my arm. I was in a cast for what felt like forever and my mother made me spend the summer sitting in a back booth practicing my letters because she couldn't trust me not to sustain any more injuries. It was awful," Maya informed him, thinking of the bright purple cast that had been decorated by all of the waitresses and cooks at the restaurant where her mother worked, "I think Mom picked up a bunch of extra shifts to try and pay off the medical bills, but she's never admitted to it."

"Why does that kind of reckless behavior not surprise me?" he snorted, but she could tell his heart wasn't really in it.

He was thinking about what was going to come back in the test results and, if she was being honest, her nervous energy probably came somewhat from her fear of what those would be, too.

"Maya Hart," an older man with graying hair entered her room, a group of eager and much younger White Coat's following along behind him, "I'm Doctor Hansen. I'm the Attending that was assigned to your case."

"It's nice to meet you," Maya offered a smile that felt tight across her face.

"Your lab results from this morning show that the IV fluids did exactly what we hoped they would. Your vitals have stabilized over the night and you're in much better shape then when you got here," he assured her, and Josh's hand tightened around her own.

"What about her kidney function?" Josh questioned and Maya felt the blood drain from her face, as she saw the slight hesitation in the doctor's face.

"Her Creatinine levels are still high, but that is to be expected with someone who is on dialysis. I wouldn't say that her condition has become any worse then what it has been. In fact, I'm going to put in discharge orders this morning and we'll try to get the two of you out of here within the next few hours."

"Thank you," Maya cut in before Josh could press for anything more details.

The door closed behind the group of doctors and Josh released her hand, abruptly getting up and moving to look out the window.

"He said that I'm not any worse then what I have been, that's a good thing," she informed his back, wishing that there was a way she could take his pain away, "We knew there wasn't going to be some kind of miracle, especially during this particular visit to the hospital."

"But I keep hoping for one because the alternative is that I'm going to lose you," he continued on before she had a chance to cut him off, "Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or maybe not in the next year, but this isn't getting any better. I don't think that I'm so wrong to want you with me; to want you to be there when our son is growing up."

"I didn't think that we would ever be together," she informed him, "You left for Europe and, then, you came back and got married and I felt so betrayed because I had believed so strongly that it was going to be you and me in the end. And, then, we fell together again, and you started to talk about leaving her-."

"Maya," he cut her off, his voice containing a tone of warning.

They'd had one rule, since they'd started co-parenting Noah and gradually found their way into a relationship, and that was that they didn't bring up the past, they left it where it was supposed to be.

"I'm not a good person. My mother still has nightmares about the morning that she couldn't wake me up and there have been times when I haven't cared about anyone or anything, but the next high. You gave me your kidney and I knew that there was a good chance that I would ruin it the third time that I relapsed and there was a part of me that wanted that; that wanted to destroy the pieces of you that I couldn't get out of myself, not matter how badly that I tried. I did this to myself, Josh. And I know that I'm hurting you, Noah, my family, but I can't stop myself because I don't deserve another chance."

"I don't believe that," Josh disagreed, the muscles in his neck clearly tense.

"I deserve to face the consequences of my actions and this is my reckoning."

Riley sat on the front steps of the hospital, her back bowed and her head in her hands. When she was in Med school, she had thought a lot about what it would feel like to hold lives in her hands. She'd thought about the pressure, the disappointment, and what it would feel like to fail when the stakes were this high.

But she'd always felt like medicine was this noble, higher calling.

She hadn't been prepared for all of the ethically grey areas that she would encounter. Every decision, sometimes, felt like it was controversial and the fear of losing her license was something tangible that always seemed to be hanging over her head.

It only took one lawsuit, to ruin your reputation. She could remember them talking about it in school; explaining that sometimes the best thing to do was to settle before the press had a chance to blow things out of proportion.

"Riley Matthews," the voice sounded familiar and Riley's head snapped up from where she had been studying the knees of her dress pants, "Look at you all grown up."

"Missy Bradford?"

Jen's eyes hadn't left the clock since the time of her surgery had come and gone. The nurses were being surprisingly tight-lipped offering complex explanations about how routine surgeries were bumped for emergencies and how they were still planning to take her in today, but something felt horribly wrong.

"Is my mother still in the waiting room?" Jen questioned the nurse that entered to take her vital signs.

"She hasn't left," the nurse promised, pausing to turn on the computer and grab the blood pressure cuff from a hook that dangled from the machine, "Your sister is still there, too."

"I want to talk to Doctor Rector. I've been waiting, I haven't eaten anything in over twenty-four hours, and this wasn't the plan that we discussed. If my surgery is being delayed, I deserve to hear an explanation from him," Jen argued, trying not to think of how accessible Riley had always been.

She was the most approachable doctor that Jen had ever met and that was, probably, why it had been so easy to share her secrets.

"I'll give him a call, but he's had a very busy morning," the nurse informed her, retrieving the cuff and leaving the room.

Jen placed a hand over her stomach, tracing the curves that had taken over what had once been flat flesh. Her body didn't feel like her own; even her face appeared rounder and almost swollen whenever she happened to glance in the mirror.

It was a wonder she had managed to hide her pregnancy for so long.

The door opened, but she couldn't bring herself to look up, too entranced by all of the change and the choices that felt like they were swallowing her whole.

"Jen," for a second, she thought the voice was Doctor Rector's, mistaking the familiarity of it because of the context.

"Liam," she breathed, a hand automatically reaching out for him.

"I have to admit, I was surprised when I realized who Isadora was asking me to help out," Missy informed her, looking more like she should be modeling business wear then like a working business professional.

Her hair was pulled back into a bun with several strands of hair framing her face and her clothes were tailored to accentuate her slim waist and long legs. Two diamond studs were pressed to each ear and a ruby glittered at her neck; the chain just short enough that it wouldn't get lost in the wine-colored blouse that looked like genuine silk.

Riley was surprised to find that when she rose to her feet, she still hovered several inches above the other girl, despite feeling like Missy towered over her.

"She didn't mention who she was sending," Riley admitted, with all of the feeling of someone who had expected to step and find solid ground but was instead left plummeting into an abyss.

"She probably didn't realize that we knew each other, but New York can be such a small town in certain circles," Missy offered, "And, of course, I should have realized that if she knew Farkle, she must know you, too. You always came as a matched set."

"You're going to help me?" Riley questioned, half expecting the other girl to dismiss her entirely and leave her on her own.

"Of course, I am," Missy assured her, "I have a reputation for always repaying my debts and I owe Isadora a significant one."

Riley's phone started buzzing and she glanced down to see that Thor was calling her, yet again.

"Shall we proceed," Missy suggested, gesturing towards the front doors.

Thanks for reading! I greatly appreciate everyone that has stuck with me through this story. We're pretty quickly approaching the climax and it should just be a couple of chapters after that to tie up any loose ends.