I wanna hold her in my arms, But she feeling low she feeling sad

Jack had not seen Riley since Christmas, and that had hardly been a visit considering just how little he spoke or engaged with the family. She tried her fair share of reaching out, but he had made it pretty clear that he wasn't ready to forgive her for abandoning him for her magical world. Skye did her bet to keep in contact - she had made it pretty clear that she loved her daughter but was just not equipped to deal with raising a child. Their arrangement was strange, but it was the only way Jack knew now.

So now that it was gone...

He had come almost as soon as she had walked in the door. She had gotten off work an hour early and had seen Goose off on his field trip, where he would be going to the planetarium. Charlie was out and about, doing her own thing, so Jack was assisting Sunny in reorganizing all of the bookshelves in their cramped home. Sunny had been watching a lot of home and garden on the telly and had fancied she could make it so they had significantly more space if Jack would simply trust her and follow her every command.

It beat paperwork.

They had just dragged all of the bookshelves into the living room when the doorbell rang. Jack hurried to get it, commanding Sunny not move anything. A loud crash and a "We're okay!" from the living room proved that the order had not been followed. Jack was halfway through an eye roll when she opened the door and came face to face with-

"Riley."

Her brother nodded. "Yes. Hi. I'm here for Sunny."

Jack cocked her head. "Oh, I didn't know we had scheduled a visit or anything. We're just in the middle of - that's fine. Sunny!" she called behind her. "Where are you guys going?"

Riley blinked. "Home. She's coming home with me."

"For how long? Will she miss dinner?"

"Jack, I'm taking my daughter home. It's time she came home. She can leave her stuff - we'll pick it up later." Sunny appeared behind Jack. "Come here, Sunny, let's go."

Jack stared at her brother, in complete shock. "What the f*ck, Riley? When did we discuss this?"

He glanced back at her, setting his jaw. "I'm her father, I have nothing to discuss with you. I think it wiser to raise her in a normal home. Come on, Sunny."

Sunny looked at Jack in confusion and then back at her father. "What?"

"We're going out for ice cream," he said, smiling at her. "Get in the car. You can talk to Aunt Jack later." Sunny squinted at him suspiciously, but he nodded his head. "You can sit in the front seat. Come on."

He reached out and pulled her towards him, spinning her towards the car. Skye was sitting in the passenger seat, eyes shining with tears. A sob escaped her throat as Sunny spotted her and took off to hug her mother. Riley followed after them, and Jack watched for a moment. She was watching the beginnings of her family leave.

"No."

She hurried after Riley, who had opened the door for Sunny. Skye croaked out, "Riley, please-" but he slammed the door once Sunny had crawled into her mother's lap, asking what was the matter. Jack barked, "Riley! Tell me what's going on."

"None of your business," he growled, heading towards the driver door.

"I think it is," Jack said. "I think I know a bit about what might be best for Sunny."

And suddenly, her brother was in her face. His face was red with fury, a vein in his neck popping out. Never, never had someone (besides Vito perhaps) presumed they could get away with treating Jack Dyllan as such and get away with it. But Riley didn't know the woman she had become. He knew very little. And it was evident how little he knew about her when the following words spilled out of his mouth.

"NO, YOU DON'T. YOUR NOT HER MOTHER, JACK. SO GO BACK INSIDE AND LEAVE US ALONE."

And in a few swift motions, he jumped into the car and sped down the street at a breakneck speed.

Jack could not move. After a long few moments staring after the car lights, she found herself stumbling to sit upon the porch. The pale hues of the sky darkened and turned to night, as the front year became a garden of shadows. Light spilled out from the open door and Jack stared off into the darkness, her Sunshine stolen from her.

Max was doing okay. Charlie was okay. Jack was okay. Despite the best efforts of the universe everything about Layabout Lane was.. okay. 

There had been hugs and careful tending of wounds and lots of cups of tea but eventually Max had stopped feeling quite so guilty and began to feel grateful instead. He had a family who stood by him through thick and thin. A hug from Jack, an understanding pat on the shoulder from Charlie, a kiss on the cheek from Sunny. The Dyllan girls were willing to protect him from everything - even himself. 

Max's day at the Ministry had been tiring but rewarding. His primary missions around the office were currently World Cup based as the department made final preparations for muggle-proofing the site. The stress of the event was giving way to excitement around the office as the games approached and Max was feeling the thrill of the sport on both the professional and home fronts. 

In addition to the rest of her responsibilities, Jack seemed to be preparing for the Cup day and night. Instead of the normal movie selection, the Dyllan-Morrison clan had been subjected to recordings of various national leagues playing. Even Max, the only other member of the family who had any real understanding of the sport, could only take so many hours of her pause-rewind-play method of watching the matches before giving up to go read. Max had woken late one night to the crashing sound of a rogue bludger hitting the side of the house during a solo practice session. 

Max could see the dent from where he now stood at the end of the path. Coat draped over his arm, tie loosened around his neck, Max was incredibly relieved to be home. 

After only a few steps into the yard, Max spotted Jack sitting on the porch. For a moment he assumed she was having an afternoon beer or polishing her broomstick (again). Then he saw her face and froze. 

"What's wrong?" 

Max approached, but she really didn't notice until he spoke, having already noticed that there was something off about her. That was the thing about people who lived together, who shared a life and a home. No matter how hard you tried to act casual and distant, you learned so much about that other person. Their nuances became routine to you, their tone became the soundtrack of your life. Their expressions and their posture became your backdrop, and you somehow found yourself worrying about problems that had never worried you before, because everything became shared - your bed, your problems, dinners and small talk.

So of course Max knew she was distressed. After all, it was about to be his problem too.

She lifted her eyes, and found shame beginning to settle into her bones. How could she tell Max she had lost Sunny? Sure, they lost Sunny on an almost weekly basis, seeing as the little redheaded girl had a particular knack for disappearing. But this was different. Sunny had been stolen from their home and, without her, what would happen? She was quite obviously the glue for the Layabout Lane household, and Jack was terrified that losing the little girl meant losing the entire family. But she was also terrified to see the look of disappointment and shock on Max's face when he realized just how poorly she had protected their family.

"I..." Jack shook her head. How did she even put this into words? "Riley came. He was mad. He took Sunny. She's gone."

Her words were broken and fragmented, short and jagged. How horrible those words sounded. They didn't seem real. She had to say it again, to believe it. "Sunny's gone, Max."

This couldn't be real.

What? 

Max blinked. Once. Twice. 

Her words weren't computing. 

Riley came... Sunny's gone... 

Despite the fact that Max was a virgin, that he had never seriously considered having children, that he had not come into Sunny's life until she was well into childhood, Max had always had a bit of a problem remembering that Sunny was not, no matter how you spun it, his daughter. But this was how parents felt, wasn't it? The desire to protect and provide for more powerful than any of your own needs, the unconditional love (even when they tried to buy a flamingo with your credit card)? Max hadn't signed up for parenthood but he had been unwittingly thrown into it. 

Now the girl that he loved as much, if not more than, his own flesh and blood was just.. gone. Taken from him. 

This couldn't be real. 

But it was. 

Max was leaning back, looking down the street as if he would see a getaway car with tires spinning up dust. Instead he found the world just as quiet and still as before. The artificial glow coming from the streetlights illuminated pockets of space, eerily throwing shadows across the ground. Gone. 

There was a need to say something. 

"W-When?" 

It was all he could manage, his throat already closing in a familiar fashion, his skin and bones turning numb in a refusal to confront what stood before him. Jack looked like she had already crumbled. Max wanted to fall, to curl up on the ground, but he stood like a robot, motionless as his insides crumbled for him. He walked stiffly towards the porch, sitting down with only the slightest tremor in his muscles. Max stared blankly out at one of the flickering streetlights. In that moment he could have clasped into Jack, wanted to, perhaps needed to. But sitting next to her was enough. 

Jack would fix this. If she could put her mind to it, the small woman next to him could move the moon. He was trying to convince himself not to panic. This was not the end of the world. Jack had a gameplan. 

Voice shaky, Max spoke again. "So what are we going to do?" 

She didn't want to have to talk about it. She wanted him to just know - better yet, she wanted the problem to not exist. She wanted to be able to look up and see Sunny coming back with her parents, them having taken her out to dinner rather than just... taken her. She did not want to see the light exit Max's eyes as she told him that Sunny, the lifeblood of Layabout Lane, the adhesive that kept the family unit together as a unit, was just gone. He would crumble, she would crumble, and then the home they had all built together would become rubble.

Jack could not even imagine life without the little girl. She knew what her life had looked like before, but it had been Sunny that had made Jack into the woman she was today. If Sunny had not come along, Jack would have continued throwing herself into everything, not allowing any sort of personal fulfillment. There was a good chance she and Max would not be living together, if Sunny had not come along. Because they would have peen paired up somewhere else, wouldn't have risked using the law to make a more stable home life. There was a good chance Jack wouldn't have been alive if Sunny was not around. Because, reckless as she was, she had a reason to keep herself alive in that little girl.

But she was gone.

Max asked how long it had been since Sunny was taken and she shook her head. "I... An hour? Two? I dunno." She really didn't. She knew it had been light before he had taken her, and now it wasn't. The only light was that of the porch light, a beam falling across Jack's face, making her look older in its gaze.

He sat next to her and she almost trembled. Because this was actually terrifying. She had remembered seeing Sunny interact with Felix Barker, and the rage that had filled her body as she snatched her child away from him. That had only been the slightest threat of her being taken from their family. Now she was gone, taken by someone who she could not fight. Because, Sunny was his.

"So what are we going to do?"

The question had come into her own mind. The rousing words of come on, think of a plan had tried to interrupt her spiraling thoughts, but every time any thought of hope or action had filled her mind, it had deflated. Because Riley had a right to his kid. Jack and Max had Sunny legally, but Riley had the biological right. And Riley had, thus far, been the only villain in Jack's life that she didn't have the strength the vanquish.

"Is there anything we can do?"

Her voice was small. Her voice was hopeless. And her voice was tight.

Oh, God. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't. She couldn't.

What was happening? Max could only recall one occasion where he had seen Jack looking this truly small before. They never really talked about that little holiday because neither of them wanted to remember. If Jack's moment of weakness had shaken her it had certainly shaken Max more. That had been the first time he had really began to understand the complexity of his housemate and appreciate her ongoing strength. But he had been forgetting. Jack talked the talk and walked the walk so well that the first signs of fragility continued to stun him. 

Jack would motivate. She always did. He was waiting for her eyes to light with that familiar fire, not quite believing the words that came out of her mouth. 

"Yes! We get her back! She's.." ours. Max faltered over the last word. For however long they had been pretending, Sunny was not theirs. She was Riley's biological daughter and he had every right.. Did it matter that Jack had nursed every cold with chicken noodle soup? Did it matter that Max had helped with her school project on volcanoes, staying up until Mt. Sunuvious had the optimal blast radius? Yes, Riley might have shown up for the birthdays and the Christmases but that didn't outweigh the countless breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that they had prepared, all of the bedtimes they had conned their way through, the broken lamps they had replaced. 

Who had Sunny's artwork on their fridge? Who did Sunny have a secret handshake with? Who knew Sunny's new favorite color? (Newsflash, Riley: It was currently purple.) 

Max stood. 

"She's ours," Max repeated more calmly. "She needs to come home." 

Jack rarely felt anything different from the fire that had been consuming her insides since... well since forever. She had always felt driven to demand more out of her life, better out of the world. She didn't back down from challenges unless there was no chance of success - and even inevitable failure tended not to dissuade her. Wasn't she always trying to form some semblance of non-hatred for Robin Ivanov? That was a mission doomed to fail and yet she persisted. Because that fire pushed her onwards.

So when that fire was extinguished, it was hard for her to know what to do with herself. Without that force pushing her onwards, she did not know how to stir herself to overcome. It was easier to just... collapse. She didn't know any other option without that righteous fire.

"She's ours. She needs to come home."

Ours. Not yours. Not mine. Ours.

This was her home.

And she had been taken.

"I'm not... I don't know how to deal with Riley," Jack admitted, shrugging. "He's my older brother."