Defending supernaturals in court is a nightmare. It's a nightmare because you lose more than you win and the terrified, disappointed faces of your clients haunt your dreams.

It was a thankless job, it really was. A tiring, exhausting, thankless job that they so rarely succeeded at. Perhaps the most stressful job in their line of work.

To make things easier to understand; Bell Zircon and her wife Yana were lawyers. Specifically, they were lawyers who took on cases involving supernatural citizens. In their defense, of course! Even though the both of them were human, Yana and Bell prided themselves on viewing the supernaturals as valid people and believed wholeheartedly that they deserved the same rights humans got. Even though they were both different kinds of lawyers (Bell a defense attorney and Yana a prosecutor) they both did what they could to protect them in the world of law.

Bell would take on supernatural clients and defend them to the best of her ability, trying to prove them innocent to crimes thrown at them, crimes that were more often than not just false charges and claims made by people who wanted them gone. Yana was a prosecutor for cases of human violence against supernaturals, trying to ensure that the human who killed a supernatural or caused them severe injuries would get their just punishment.

However, in this biased world of theirs, the two didn't win nearly as many cases as they would have liked. The jury was almost always comprised of all humans, neither of them had come across a non-human judge yet, either. The odds were always stacked against the supernatural they tried to defend and protect.

Yana had installed a cabinet of hard liquor in their small house to help them deal with the guilt of not being able to win and keep their innocent client from prison or to get the killer behind bars. Every time they failed to win their case, they would never be able to forget the look on the face of the one they let down. Even if they had all the evidence, all the proof and a solid case, that it was undeniable that Bells client was innocent or the defendant Yana was prosecuting was guilting, the jury and judge would decide against them. For the sole reason being their discrimination against supernaturals.

Both of them wished they could do more.

They wished that they had more power to make a bigger impact, to actually be able to help these people. But as for now it was all they could do to give them their best in court and hope the judge wasn't already biased.

Bell sighed as she sat on the couch late that night, cradling a cup of coffee as she read over the papers for a case she would be presenting to court soon. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, feeling weariness dragging on her and adding ten years to her appearance as she tried to figure out how she could even win this case with the evidence found.

She was brought out of her thoughts as a warm body came to sit next to her, an arm wrapped around her shoulder and papers placed on the coffee table. Opening her eyes, she looked over at Yana who was looking over one of the papers she had brought over as she drew Bell to rest against her.

"What are you still doing up?" Bell asked through a yawn as she looked at the clock, "It's… three in the morning," she had to squint just to read the numbers, though they were still a little bleary, "you should be sleeping."

"So should you," was the response as her wife took a sip of Bells coffee and then handed her over the case she had been reading, "I have a favor for you, could you take this case for me?" she asked.

Bell raised a brow before she took the paper and read over the file. A few times she'd glance over at Yana between lines and after a couple of minutes she put the paper on her lap to look at her wife, "This isn't the kind of case I generally take on, you know I stick with criminal cases," she said slowly as she looked back to the file. Werewolf. One parent and one sibling, still in school and no criminal record or any sort of altercation with the law. "What brought this on?"

The blonde shrugged as she picked up another paper from the file, "You remember Ruby? My old roommate in college before you?" she waited until Bell nodded to continue, "Her wife called me a earlier today, asked if we could do something about this. So I went ahead and spent the day building up a case file, I just need a good lawyer for it and thought this was right up your alley."

"What are we even going to do if we win this case? She's...what's it say? Fourteen? She's already passed the 'adoptable' age families are looking for, and we can't promise she'll have a better life in a foster home- she'd likely have to deal with more bullying and neglect from everyone in the home," Bell pointed out as she read the paper. She hated it, but, sometimes putting a supernatural kid in with a new home and family only made things so much worse. There'd even been a recent study on how the suicide rate was higher for supernaturals in foster homes than with their biological families.

Still, it was horrible reading how parents would treat their own children so horribly just for something the child couldn't help. And Bell really wanted to help this girl, but, she could very well just make life worse for this one.

"Well… it doesn't necessarily need to be a foster home she goes to," Yana said slowly, "I know you've wanted to have a child, but with our jobs we'd never have the time to raise a baby…"

"Yana, what are you, no, Yana, no," Bell sat up straighter and turned her entire body to face her wife. "I know what you're thinking and no."

"We don't have to adopt her, but we can give her a safe environment and home- it's something I'd even been thinking about too. Offering a safe place for supernatural kids with abusive families to live at," Yana pressed as she reached out to Bell, "We may not always be able to help them in court, but, at least this way we can make a difference for some of them, protect some of them."

Bell frowned and looked at the file and mulled it over in her head. After a moment she heaved a sigh and shook her head, "It's a sound idea, and, well, I do want to be a mother," she worried her lip between her teeth as she weighed the pros and cons. But, her mind was made up quickly and she gave a solid nod, "First we'll have to take this to court for neglect and abuse, we'll need to talk to this girl too, anyway you can have Ruby and her wife set up a meeting for us?"

"I'll call them in the morning," Yana smiled as she wrapped her arms around Bells form, "We've got this, this case is as good as won. But, let's get you to bed now so you're rested for tomorrow's legal nightmares."