A/N: I miss Lin. He's been off Twitter for 3 weeks.

Elliott was at his father's for the weekend, which was fine with me.  Our regular custody agreement was weekends and every other Wednesday with his father.  Otherwise, he was with me.  However, now that he was a teenager, we were more relaxed.  We followed the arrangement generally, but if Elliott wanted to be somewhere else, that was fine.

This little spat between Elliott and Josephine had obviously gone too far.  They were at the center of it.  The teenagers seemed to have a person vendetta against each other.  They'd known each other for several years now and had never liked each other.

I was up early again with Jack the next morning.  He was really a good baby, but babies were still a lot of work.  Thank goodness he didn't have colic.  With everything that had been going on, I didn't feel like I'd ever had a chance to grieve over their parents' deaths.  My life was a constant go-go-go right now, and I wasn't sure when it would stop.

Luckily, Lin was being super helpful and supportive.  Josephine adored her father, and it was easy to see why.  When he was with Alex, she was the center of his attention.  He got down on the floor with her, even on his belly, and played with her.  Nothing was below him.  Alex was practically an extra appendage now.

"Again!" she laughed later that morning from the living room.  Lin laughed and threw her up in the air again, then gently body-slammed her onto the couch.  She laughed and laughed as he tickled her.

"Alright, why don't you try to go potty?" he requested.  "You haven't been all morning."

"No!" she said.  "Again!"

"After we try going to the potty," he told her, taking her little hand.  She followed him to the bathroom, where I now had a little step stool for her.  She wore Pull-Ups and was about 75% potty trained.  She needed to be reminded a lot of the time.

"Good girl!" I heard him praise Alex from the bathroom.  "Now wash your hands."

They came out a minute later and she ran to the candy drawer, which she wasn't tall enough to reach yet.  Lin told her to watch her fingers as he opened it.  He unwrapped a Hershey Kiss and handed it to her as a reward.  She shoved it in her mouth and asked for another.  Lin gently told her no and asked if she wanted to go color.  She did.

Lin and I seemed to be easing into a bit of a routine with the kids.  He'd come over mid-morning and it was divide and conquer.  Most of the time, Alex wanted Lin so I tended to Jack.  Since Joey was at her mother's for the week, Lin could easily lend more time to being at my place.

Elliott spent the night at his father's and came home Sunday afternoon.  His hand and wrist, about halfway up his forearm, was in a cast.  Luckily, it wasn't the hand he wrote with, but I could already tell he was depressed about missing out on the football season.  He spent most of his time in his room and moped around.  I'd also grounded him, so that didn't help his mood either.  Which was why I was surprised to find pictures of him at a party Saturday night posted on a friend's Twitter page.

I knocked on my son's door and when I entered, was met with the unmistakable stink of teenage boy.  I made a mental note to come back through with some Febreeze later.  He was laying on his bed doing homework.  I held up my phone, showing the picture of him.

"What's this?" I asked him.

"Looks like me having a good time," he commented smartly.

"When you were supposed to be grounded," I added.  "Why were you out?"

"Dad let me," he informed me.  Immediately, I was pissed.  Steven was terrible at enforcing things.  I was definitely the heavy when it came to discipline.  This wasn't the first time I'd grounded Elliott only to find out Steven let him do things.

"Perfect," I muttered under my breath.  "You know better than to play us off each other.  If I tell you you're grounded, you know that means at your dad's as well.  Now you have an extra week."

He rolled his eyes but I ignored it.  I stormed out and went to my room to call Steven.  When he answered I lit into him.

"We've talked about this, Steven," I said tersely.  "I need you to back me up.  Elliott got into a fight.  He broke his hand.  I grounded him for a month and you just let him go out?!"

I heard him sigh.  "Pip, he was despondent.  He needed to get out."

"Of course he's despondent!" I yelled.  "He was on punishment!  So quit trying to be his best friend and back me up, would you?"

"Fine," he grumbled.

I hung up, not feeling any better about things.  Elliott was at a delicate stage in his life.  He needed a male role model now more than possibly any other time.  It was simple to take the easy way out and compromise your values.  I wanted Elliott to be responsible, honest, and kind.  Right now, it seemed like he was none of those.

After I'd had a couple minutes, I went out to the kitchen and poured myself some wine.  Lin looked over from the couch where he was feeding Jack a bottle.  Alex was playing quietly nearby.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"No," I told him, pouring myself a full glass.  "Elliott was supposed to be grounded but he was out last night partying.  Steven is terrible about enforcing things.  He never punishes Elliott.  I'm so tired of being the only adult."

He nodded sympathetically.  "I'm lucky with my ex.  She and I back each other up, even if we don't agree."

"Lucky you," I quipped, taking a full gulp.  I walked over and sat on the couch.  Alex brought me a little plastic cupcake and told me she'd baked it for me.  I smiled and thanked her, then pretended to eat it.  That made her happy.

When dinner was ready that evening, I called Elliott out and he reluctantly joined us.  Alex and Jack were so happy go lucky but Elliott was like a storm cloud.  He didn't join in the conversation as we ate our chicken and rice dinner.

"Elliott, how's your hand feeling?" Lin asked him.

He mumbled under his breath, his hoodie up over his head.  I could tell Lin hadn't heard.

"Lin asked you a question," I told my son.  One thing I absolutely didn't tolerate was disrespect to adults.

"I answered!" he snapped at me.

"Don't talk to me that way!" I told him firmly.

"Then lay off me!" he argued back.

"Go to your room," I told him.  "I'm done."

He scooted his chair out loudly and let his fork and knife clatter to his plate loudly.  He slammed the door behind him.  Alex put her hands to her ears, her peas dropping to the floor.  Jack started crying and I sighed.  Lin picked him up and I rubbed Alex's arm gently.

"It's okay, sweetheart," I assured her.  "Elliott had a rough day."

"I don't wike yewwing," she told me, taking her hands down.

"I know," I said.  "Me neither."

Lin walked around the kitchen island with Jack in his arms, gently bouncing him.  I watched him, observing how he gently shooshed him while he cradled him to his chest.  Parenthood looked good on Lin.  Seeing him with the kids was reminding me that he was a decent guy.  I still wasn't a big fan, but at least I had a good partner in bringing up these kids.

Lin turned and caught me staring at him.  I quickly averted my eyes and looked back at Alex.

"Two more bites of peas, then you can have some ice cream," I told her.  She let out a little gasp of hope and dug in her fork.  A minute or so later, she was done and I cleared away some of the dishes.  Jack was calming down now.  I set a bowl with one scoop of vanilla ice cream in front of Alex, then poured on some chocolate syrup.

"More, pwease!" she requested.  I added another little squirt, then put it away.  I dished out a scoop for myself and gave it some extra chocolate syrup.  This mom of a teenager needed it.

Lin and I tag-teamed bedtime and once we were done, he found his jacket.

"I'm gonna head on out," he told me, putting his jacket on.

"Thanks for helping with the kids," I told him.

"Of course," he said.  "Listen, do you think we should try having them sleep at my place some time this week?"

"We could try," I told him.

"Perfect," he said.  "How about Wednesday?"

I agreed and he walked over and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek.  It surprised me.  He'd done it dozens of times before, when we were on good terms.  Were we in that good of a place now that he felt comfortable doing that again?  Apparently so.  I didn't say anything as he told me goodbye and slipped out.

I knew if I went to talk to Elliott we'd both end up getting upset again, so I just went to my room with a glass of wine and a trashy romance novel.  It wasn't long before I fell asleep.