Lexi Sanders was five feet, eight inches tall, blonde haired and brown eyed and almost the spitting image of Kennedy. Their daughter was still oblivious to the sudden silence that had fallen over the group and continued to make paper airplanes out of the hat's that had been scattered around the table. Only Tuck and Ellen were unaware of who this new stranger was, but unanimously they could work out that she wasn't someone who was particularly liked. There seemed to be two extremes emotion wise across the table. Matt had gone so white he looked like he was about to collapse right there and then then, whereas Brian, Zacky and Jimmy all had their jaws and fists clenched and all shared teh same feeling of pure anger and hostility towards her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here?" Jimmy finally broke the uncomfortable silence with a short growl in her direction. Lexi looked nervously down at her feet and then glanced straight at Matt, ignoring the angered glares that the others were giving her.
"I came here to see my family on Thanksgiving. Is that such a terrible thing?" she replied and Matt fought against his own strength not to punch the wall until the plaster on the wall shattered and crumbled around his fists.
"Well yes, when it's the first time you've bothered to show your face since Kennedy was born" Brian retorted, flashing her an almost black glare as he spoke. At the sound of her name, Kennedy looked up and took a good long stare at the new stranger in the room.

Leaving her crayon's abandoned on the table, she tugged on Matt's prison shirt and pointed up at Lexi.
"Daddy, who's that?" she asked and before anyone could answer for him as they had been doing before now, Matt held his daughter a little tighter and replied,
"She's no one, Princess. Just someone we used to know"
"You're not even going to tell her who I am?!" Lexi cried in protest, and walked over to Kennedy, kneeling down in front of her. "I'm your Mommy, Kennedy"

For a moment, Matt felt like all hope was lost- when suddenly, Kennedy started to laugh.
"You're not my mommy!" she giggled, carefully climbing out of Matt's lap and jumping onto Brian's, who looked just as confused as everyone else did.
"Uncle Brian's my mommy! He said so on my birthday last year!"
Brian tended to get spectactularly drunk on night's like that and he'd told Kennedy to give 'mommy a kiss goodnight' before Jimmy put her to bed. He and Zacky then proceeded to have loud and drunken sex in the kitchen and Jimmy had made Kennedy wear earmuffs to bed so she didn't have to hear the two of them fucking like rabbits.

"I always knew you were the woman of the relationship. It's all the hair products" Zacky whispered to his fiance, who smacked him in the arm, but smirking at the same time. Before anyone could say anything to make the entire situation worse, Matt stood up and grabbed Lexi's arm, dragging her out of the cafeteria and into the deserted corridor. For a moment, he didn't say or do anything, just took her image in. Then he grabbed her by the waist and crashed their lips together in a passionate kiss, one that left his head spinning and his heart extremely confused. He should hate her, but at the same time he was still madly in love with her. It didn't add up- and it barely made any sense to him.

"I should hate you" he began breathlessly as he pulled away from their embrace. "You're the reason I can't see my daughter everyday, why I can't ask her how her day was. You're the reason I have to talk to my friends and family through bulletproof glass and why I'm stuck in here when I should be out there looking after our child. I'm in a place I hate because of something I did for you, Lexi. But at the same time, due to some unexplainable reason, I still love you. I miss you more and more every single day and I would always tell myself you'd walk in with all the other wives with Kennedy tow. I dreamed we'd have a proper family. And today you did exactly what I'd been praying for you to do. But now I don't know whether to be upset- or to be happy you came home"

She was crying.
Big tears that trickled across her pale face as she took a deep breath and put her hands on his sturdy shoulders, steadying herself.
"You have every right to hate me, Matt, I've been a terrible person, and an even worse wife. But...this morning I woke up and for the first time in six years, I thought of you and Kennedy. Neither of us were ready to be parents, yet I was the coward. I ran away. I've been through a lot of therapies and classes. Matt, I know you'll never forgive me for what I did but...I want to try again- if you'll let me" Lexi said softly, brushing away the tears with her wrist. His friends were waiting for him, their daughter was waiting for him.

But he didn't want to leave her either.

"Visiting hours are 10 till 2. Kennedy needs her mother and I need the woman I married. Whether she'll turn up tomorrow I don't know" Matt said, leaning down to press a final kiss against her lipstick painted lips. Needing not to be told twice, Lexi hugged her husband tightly and began to walk away, all the while noting that he still wore the gold wedding band around his finger. Closing his eyes as she disappeared around the corner, Matt sunk down to the floor, running his hands through the short hairs on his head.
"Daddy?" Kennedy's voice echoed through the corridor and he looked up to see her little head poking around the large iron door. In one hand, she held a bread roll with a paper hat on, and as she clambered into his lap, he smiled. One day he'd be able to have Thanksgiving at his own house- rather than in a state prison.

"I thought you and mommy might be hungry so I got you some bread. Where did Mommy go?"
"Mommy went home, Baby"
"Is she coming back or is she staying away again?"

He didn't reply for a moment. He'd sent Lexi on her way in the knowledge that he loved her still and that he wanted her to come back into their lives. With Lexi around, Kennedy could have one place to call home rather than being shuttled around between houses and apartment. Managing a small smile, he picked her up as he stood, balancing her on his hip and kissed her, letting her balance the strange paper hat on top of his head.
If he had anything to be thankful for, it was that his daughter was still with him and he loved her.

"She's coming back, Baby. But forever this time"