On Monday morning, Emma was already in a foul mood. She knew Lin would be going into school with her to talk to the principal. He was still pissed about the whole situation, she could tell. It really bugged her that they thought what she had been doing was so bad. It wasn't like she was addicted to some horrible illegal street drug. It was Adderall.

Lin, Emma and Lexi all left the house together to catch the subway to school. Lexi chatted away to Lin, telling him all about the new skateboarding tricks she was practicing. Lin listened intently, trying to learn some of the terms. It was important to him that his kids knew he was interested in what they were doing, because he was. Lin thought it was pretty cool that Lexi was into skateboarding.

They arrived at Hunter College High School and Lexi gave Lin a hug before disappeared down the hall to her locker. Emma sighed as Lin steered her towards the main office. The secretary greeted them.

"Hi, I'd like to meet with Dr. Fisher this morning about something pretty important," he told her.

"Okay," she said, pulling up something on her computer. "He should just be finishing up a faculty meeting. If you'd like to wait here, he should be around in just a minute."

"Thank you," Lin told her, and they both went to sit down in the chairs. Lin passed the time by catching up on some emails on his phone and Emma scrolled through her social media feeds. About ten minutes later, Dr. Fisher arrived in the office. The secretary stopped him and said that Lin was there to speak with him.

"Mr. Miranda," he walked over and held out his hand. Lin stood and shook it. "How are you this morning?"

"I'm well, thank you," he said. "I was hoping to talk to you about an issue that's come up with Emma."

"Of course," he said, gesturing towards his office. "Come on in."

Lin and Emma walked in and took a seat as Dr. Fisher closed the door behind him. He took a seat at his desk, clearing away a couple piles of papers and notebooks. "What can I do for you?"

"On Friday, we discovered that Emma's been taking Adderall daily, which she doesn't have a prescription for," Lin began. "She's been using it as an upper to help her have more time and energy for school and ballet and her job. When my wife and I were questioning her, it came up that she was getting her supply from another student at Hunter."

Dr. Fisher looked concerned and folded his hands on top of the desk. "Well I'm very sorry to hear that," he said to Lin, then looked at Emma. "And Emma, I'm surprised at you. As a member of the student government, I've always counted on you to do the right thing."

Emma just sighed and looked at her feet. She really didn't want to have to listen to another adult tell her what she was doing was wrong.

"You said another student was supplying the Adderall," he said, getting out a notebook and pen. "Emma, who is this student?"

"Sam Thompson," she said quietly, hating that she was going to get him in trouble. Not that this was the first time he'd done this or that she was his only customer.

"Sam Thompson," he repeated, scribbling the name in his notebook. A name he already knew quite well. "And when were you getting the drugs from him?"

Emma hated that they kept calling the Adderall drugs like they were some horrible thing. "Mostly after school, by the bus stop."

The principal nodded and kept scribbling down notes. "At the moment, we don't have as much teacher supervision out front as we'd like to," he admitted. "I'll ask a couple more teachers to have a post around that area. And I will be calling Sam and his parents in to discuss this. Now Emma, you may not know, since you've never been in trouble, but buying or selling drugs on school campus is usually an automatic five-day suspension. That's one of our most serious offenses."

Emma hadn't really thought of that, since she didn't think the Adderall was all that bad. She bit her lip and glanced over at Lin. "Since you've come forward, we'll let it slide for this time. However, if I hear about you buying more Adderall here in the future, that will be your consequence. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," she mumbled politely.

"Alright," the principal said. "Mr. Miranda, is there any way I can be of more help in this matter?"

"Yes," he said. "I'd also like to pull Emma out of student government."

"Lin!!" Emma instantly protested. Lin shot his daughter a warning look and she buried her head in her hands.

The principal wrote in his notebook again. "That can certainly be arranged."

"Lin, they're counting on me!" She told him with urgency in her voice. "We've got projects going on."

"I'm sure they can handle it without you," Lin said, his mind already made up. Emma knew by this point that once Lin decided something, there wasn't any backing down. Still, she had to try.

"But-"

"Unless you'd like to give up ballet instead," he suggested, looking over at her, knowing that would never happen. He'd already threatened to take it away if she couldn't get herself together. Emma felt her world would implode if she didn't have ballet.

Emma gave up her argument, mumbling under her breath in frustration. The bell rang and students began to clog the hallways. "Alright, Emma. I'll let you get to your first class. Have a good day," Dr. Fisher told her. Emma stood up angrily and flung the door open, storming out of the office. Lin sighed and stood up with Dr. Fisher. They shook hands and Lin went about his day.

___

Emma gave Lin the cold shoulder the rest of the week. She glared at him whenever they were in the same room and barely spoke a word to him. Lin didn't let it get to him. She could be as angry with him as she wanted to be. He was her father, and it was his job to protect her from herself when she was making dangerous choices. All that week, he continued to search her bedroom each night. He wasn't expecting to find anything, but she needed to know he would be up in her business for a long time. This was a major betrayal of trust and she would have to earn it back.

On Thursday, Emma discreetly slipped herself into her younger sister's bedroom. Lexi was on her bed, playing on the family iPad. She paused her game and sat up when her sister came in. Emma glanced over her shoulder suspiciously, one fist curled up tight.

"Here," she said in a low voice, passing a small plastic bag to her sister. "Can you hide this somewhere?"

Lexi took the baggie from her sister and then walked to her closet. She shoved the bag inside one of her winter boots. Emma collapsed on her bed onto her back, letting her arms fall to the side.

"How are you going to buy the pills if you don't have a job anymore? Didn't Lin make you quit?" Lexi asked her big sister.

Emma breathed out. "I'm taking a little bit out of my savings account," she admitted. "I'm not proud of it, but I have to right now. I'm doing 1 ½ pills a day now instead of two. I'll try to wean myself down half a pill each week."

Lexi wanted badly to believe her and was glad that she was trusting her with such a big secret. Still, she knew this was all wrong. Her conscience was telling her to tell Lin and Vanessa, but her heart wanted to help her sister. Her only real family left.

"Sorry I'm putting you in a rough place," Emma told her sister honestly. "It won't be much longer."

"It's okay," Lexi said softly, laying down next to Emma on the bed. The two sisters laid there for a while longer chatting about random things, giggling. For Emma, Lexi was her lifeline right now and she was clinging on. She knew she was manipulating her as well, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

As a thank you, Emma bought Lexi the shirt she'd asked for home as well as an extra one. Lexi excitedly accepted them. Was this a bribe?

___

As the weeks passed, Lin and Vanessa slowly started to trust Emma more little by little. Each night, Lin's search of her room turned up nothing. Though she'd been disappointed at first, she felt much less stressed now that she didn't have to work or do student government. The work load was still plenty sufficient, but some of the pressure had been lifted.

Lexi was growing more concerned, though. It had been almost a month since her sister started hiding pills in her bedroom, and they still seemed to be coming in steadily. Shouldn't she have stopped by now? Lexi was debating more and more if she should tell their parents. She was worried about her sister's health.

On a Friday night, Emma excitedly showered and got herself ready for a night out. She had finally been released from her indefinite grounding, so she was ready to be out with her friends. Her curfew was 11:00, and Emma knew she'd better be back on the dot. She told Lin and Vanessa goodbye and caught the subway to Times Square.

In contrast, Vanessa was starting to feel worse and worse in her pregnancy. Her feet were swelling like crazy and she got Braxton Hicks contractions every once in a while. She was miserable, and Lin felt so bad for her. She was into her second trimester now and ready for the pregnancy to be over. She laid sprawled out on the couch with her feet in Lin's lap as he massaged them.

Vanessa was letting out satisfied moans as he worked at the soles of her feet.

"If I had known it was this easy to make you moan, I would have tried this a long time ago," he teased her. Vanessa gave him a playful kick with her free foot. Her husband had been a trooper – going on late night ice cream runs and whipping up favorite food for her when she got a craving. He was ending up having to be rather firm with her – he had to force her to take it easy. Most nights now, he got the boys to bed by himself, sometimes with Emma's help. Lin didn't mind, though. He knew his wife was doing the hard work.

Alexis had her two Hunter friends over for a sleepover. She, Savi, and Emily were in her bedroom giggling away. They'd been working hard on their Moana production, but had been ordered to keep it down so they wouldn't wake Sebastian and Francisco.

"So I have my weekly appointment on Thursday this week," Vanessa told her husband, which was different from her normal day. "We can find out the sex of the baby if we want."

Lin continued to work at his wife's feet and looked at her. They'd had two boys already, so it would be nice to have a little girl. Of course, they'd love the kid no matter what it was. Lin knew she was a little nervous about knowing. She'd always wanted a little girl.

"It's up to you," Lin told her. "I know the suspense is probably killing you."

Vanessa smiled. Her husband knew her well. "Alright. We're finding out," she decided. "Then we can start narrowing down the names. Did your mom send more names today?"

"Yep," Lin said, scrolling through his phone. "Another three for each sex."

"Are we going to let the girls have a say in naming him or her?" Vanessa asked.

"I don't know," he said. "Certainly not Sebastian. He'd probably name it Super-Man."

____

On Thursday, Vanessa and Lin sat nervously in the doctor's waiting room. They had an early morning appointment, so they'd had to get going very early. Lin was nursing a cup of coffee from Starbucks, but Vanessa was too nervous for caffeine. The receptionist called them back a few minutes later and they were escorted back to an exam room.

The ultrasound tech had Vanessa pull up her top and then applied gel to her growing stomach.

"So, we're finding out the sex of the baby today?" She confirmed with the parents. They both nodded. Lin stood near his wife's head, holding her hand as the tech picked up the ultrasound wand.

"Alright, here we go," she said, and placed the wand on Vanessa's stomach. All three pairs of eyes were on the monitor as the black, white and gray images began to move on the screen. She was having a hard time locating the baby's head.

"Well, Vanessa, it would seem your baby has flipped around in there a bit," she commented as she found a foot where the head should be. "He or she is now breach."

They both sighed, knowing this complicated things. "We'll talk more about that in a minute," she said. "First, let me see if I can take a peek between the legs."

Lin and Vanessa continued to watch the screen, their hearts beating hard. They couldn't really tell one thing from another on the screen, so they weren't sure what they were looking at.

"Alright, I've been able to locate the genitalia," the tech said, pausing the wand. "And looks like you have a baby girl."

Vanessa grinned from ear to ear in excitement. Lin looked at her, knowing she was thrilled, and pressed a kiss to her lips. The tech continued to look around to make sure everything was developing as it should. The baby got a clean bill of health, except for being breach.

"I'll let the doctor come in to talk to you about what the breach position means," she said, taking off her gloves. She left Vanessa a towel to wipe herself off and left the room. Lin gently began to wipe away the gel from Vanessa's belly as she began to chatter excitedly.

"We're having a girl, Lin!" She smiled, her eyes lit up. "I can't believe it."

"She'll have two big brothers to protect her," Lin said as he finished off and tossed the towel aside. Vanessa pulled her shirt down and Lin helped her sit up.

"I can't wait to start decorating," she said. "We're going to have to work out room arrangements. We don't have another spare bedroom."

Lin thought for a moment. "Well, Emma will be heading to college in a year and a half. We could put bunk beds in Lexi's room for when she's home."

"Yeah, maybe," she commented. "Or we could put the boys together. They're both so young they don't really need their own space."

They continued to chat about plans when they heard a knock at the door. The doctor came in and shook both their hands.

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Miranda," he said, sitting down. "I hear we have a baby girl. And little Miss Miranda has decided to do a flip."

"Yes, what does that mean for the pregnancy and the birth?" Vanessa asked.

"Well, there's no complications while she's in the womb," the doctor said. "What we'll try first is to try to manually turn the baby."

Vanessa contorted her face, thinking that did not sound fun. "It's a bit uncomfortable," the doctor admitted. "But that's the best course of action. If the baby doesn't respond, we'll have to do a C-Section."

Vanessa breathed out, hoping it wouldn't come to that. She'd been proud that she'd been able to give birth to her two sons naturally. It was hard, but the recovery time was very short. Having a C-Section would be a major surgery. With two young boys and a newborn, she didn't want to have to worry about post surgery.

They talked for ten more minutes or so about how the pregnancy was going. Vanessa was having a rough pregnancy with her pre-eclampsia and foot swelling. However, things were moving along well and the baby was healthy.

When they got home later that night, they decided to tell all the kids at dinner about the sex of the baby.

"We found out the sex of the baby today," Vanessa announced as they all sat around the table. Emma and Lexi looked excited, but Sebastian and Francisco didn't really seem to understand. The idea of a baby growing inside their mother was a bit of an odd concept for them.

"And...we're having a girl!" She announced.

"Yes!!" Lexi celebrated. She had been hoping it would be a girl so she could have a little sister.

"Have you decided on a name?" Emma asked.

"Not yet," Lin said. "Your grandmother keeps sending us ideas. So far, we have a few favorites. Isabel, Ivelisse, Camila, and Emilia."

"Those are all pretty," Lexi commented. "Are those Puerto Rican names?"

Lin nodded. "So are Francisco and Sebastian."

"Is everything else going okay?" Emma asked.

"Well, we found out the baby is breach, which complicates things," Vanessa informed them.

"What's breach?" Lexi asked.

"It's when the baby's upside down," Emma told her sister. "Her feet are at the bottom instead of her head. It makes having the baby really hard."

"They're going to try to get the baby to turn, but if that doesn't work, I'll have to have a C-Section," Vanessa explained.

"How do they get the baby to turn?" Lexi asked curiously.

"Well, they'd basically have to push down on my stomach, grab hold of her, and try to turn her."

Lexi winced. "That sounds uncomfortable."

"Yes, it would be," Vanessa agreed. "But the baby's health is the most important thing. I'd rather do that than have a C-Section."

"Where the baby going to sleep?" Lexi asked, thinking about all the changes coming.

"We haven't decided yet," Lin said. "But we might end up putting the boys together in one room."

"Or just make Lexi sleep on the balcony," Emma quipped, earning her a playful dirty look from her sister.

"Or that," Lin agreed. "We've still got a couple months to figure it out, though."

___

A couple days later, Vanessa was working from home for the day because she wasn't feeling well. She didn't have any big meetings for the day, so it all worked out okay. Sebastian and Francisco still went to daycare and preschool, so she had the house to herself to concentrate and get things done.

In the afternoon, the doorbell rang. When she answered, no one was there, but there were several boxes waiting. She managed to pull them inside. She hadn't ordered anything, but she began to open them up. She should have known. They were from Luz – it was all baby girl stuff. Luz had already ordered several outfits, girly blankets and pillows, and other things. Vanessa smiled as she looked through the items. Luz was so happy she was finally getting a granddaughter.

Vanessa got out her phone and texted her mother-in-law a thank you. She took pictures and sent them to Lin. They both knew they'd be getting a lot of stuff from Luz. Baby girls were so much fun to buy for.

That night, Emma knocked on Lexi's bedroom door and discreetly slipped inside. It had become somewhat of a routine. Emma opened her sister's closet door and tucked her new plastic bag into her sister's boot, then sat down to chat.

"Emma..." Lexi began nervously. "I thought you said you were weaning yourself off half a pill a week."

Emma sighed and pressed the heels of her hands onto her eyes. "I know, but school got crazy again, and ballet's been really intense. We've got a production coming up."

"I don't like lying to Lin and Vanessa," Lexi admitted. Her sister had promised her this would only been for a little while but it had been months now.

"I know," Emma said. "And I'm sorry. Just a little while longer, though, okay?"

Lexi nodded, but didn't believe her sister. She was starting to think Emma would never quit. Her heart ached, wondering if she should tell their parents, or if she should keep Emma's trust instead.