It started small, as most things do.

Elizabeth had come across a teenage boy in the gutter outside the office where she worked, and without a second thought she'd knelt beside him and offered him her lunch - it was her second nature to help people, and she had a soft spot for children. He talked to her - he told her of his little sister, his abusive mother, his father who'd given up everything to help him and his little sister find a new home. His sister had been snatched up right away, adopted into a beautiful family with a picket fence and a golden retriever, but the boy was a teenager, and in the eyes of the law he could fend for himself. He was old enough to work, old enough to live on his own, make his own decisions - and that meant he was immediately ready to step out into the world in the eyes of the people who were supposed to care for him.

She'd been outraged. He'd sat there listening to her rant and rave about it for ten minutes, and by that time, when he'd calmed her down and eaten her chicken and lettuce sandwiches with all the elegance of a teenage boy who hadn't had a proper meal in three months, she'd already realised she was late for work. She didn't care, and instead offered to let him use her shower and spend the night in her spare room, because it was no trouble, and she had plenty of room.

The boy, Jack, agreed after a little persuading. He was worried about him being a bother, but she'd finally hooked him in with a comment of how bothered she would be if she was constantly worried about him. He'd gone with her for the purpose of keeping her sleep sound, and that was something special.

Jack stayed with her for a number of weeks, which turned into a number of months, which turned into a year and a half, and she helped him finish school and find a wonderful job he liked and paid well enough to support himself.

She cried for hours when he finally moved out, and he still came back every week for Sunday dinner, and she visited him on holidays. When Jack found a girl, he introduced her as his mother, and that made her feel so much better about herself.

After that, she picked up strays here and there. She helped them get back on her feet, and she came to a point when she'd have nine at a time living in her house, sleeping in blanket forts in the living room and in the spare bedroom, and when she'd admitted to her grandmother that she was having trouble finding the room for all of the people, she'd felt much better about it afterwards.

" - why don't you just stop?" asked her grandmother, Margaret, primly pouring her another warm mug of hot tea. "Help the kids you have living with you now, and then find a man who can provide for you! You don't have to work yourself to death over children."

"I'm not going to stop, Grandma," Elizabeth rolled her eyes, sipping her tea. "Those kids need me, and I'm not leaving them behind in the streets. If you saw some of the things I do from those kids - the places they 'live', the people they call family, the way that they come to me. The only thing I need from anyone, let alone a man, is a place to help them, because obviously my flat isn't big enough - "

"You know, Eliza, my husband is close to passing," her grandmother cut her off.

She watched her grandmother carefully. Of course she knew this. Her grandfather was a very ill man, and she'd grown up watching her grandmother and her parents tirelessly care for him, take him to the hospital, feed him, bathe him, clothe him, care for him every day she'd been growing. It was something as familiar to her as breathing, and she witnessed every moment of his struggle. She knew that he didn't have long left, he'd fought for more than ninety years, and that was something now, considering that most died before they were sixty with the illness he was suffering.

But she didn't know what that had to do with her housing problem.

"I'm not going to be far behind," Margaret continued. Eliza opened her mouth to protest, knowing her grandmother was a fighter, and she'd always thought she was invincible when she was growing up. "Oh be quiet, I'm trying to say something sweet and you won't let me."

Eliza clamped her mouth shut, biting back her indignant protests.

"My father left me his manor when he died," said her grandmother loftily. "I'd hate to see it go empty. I'm not going to live there alone, in fact I'm aware that your mother has plans to move me in with her and your father. Elizabeth, you are my only grandchild, and if you're this passionate about helping those children, I'm going to help you. When your grandfather... leaves us, I want you to take those kids and move into the manor."

Her mouth formed an 'o', and tears sprung to her eyes. "Oh, Grandma, you are a saint," she breathed, moving closer and wrapping her arms around the elderly woman.

"Get a hold of yourself," Margaret said sharply, though her eyes glittered with amusement. "Pull yourself together, woman."

It wasn't long after that very conversation that her mother called her in the middle of the night.

Elizabeth had been sleeping when a small girl, only about five, wide-eyed and dark-haired, ran into the bedroom, the phone in her hands and a stuffed dog tucked underneath her arm.

"What is it, baby?" she'd asked sleepily, holding out one arm for the little girl. "Did you have a nightmare, sweetheart?"

"No, Lizzie," the little girl, Ariane, replied in a sing-song voice. "There's somebody on the phone. She says she's your Mama, and that is very ur-gent."

Sitting up and pulling Ariane into her lap, Elizabeth held the phone to her ear.

When it slipped from her fingers, without a word Ariane buried her face in Eliza's shoulder, clinging to her tightly, offering what semblance of comfort a little girl could offer. Eliza pulled her closer, hanging up the phone, and before she could fight them back for the sake of preserving the little girl's innocence, her tears fell, quick and unheeded. It was five minutes later when Ariane pulled back slightly, reached up with her stubby, short fingers and wiped the tears away, holding up her stuffed dog with her other hand, smiling toothily in only the way a small child can.

"Thanks, Ari," Eliza whispered, pulling the girl close. "Thank you, love."

It was only a few months later when the manor was finished being decorated. A nursery had been added, as well as a playroom filled with toys, and many of the more extravagant rooms had been transformed from their former glory (which probably would have fitted better in an episode of Downton Abbey better than it did in a makeshift orphanage) into several guest rooms. When the manor was finished, it retained its beauty on the outside, but on the inside, it was something that Elizabeth and the children in her care were proud to call their home.

The manor housed nine bathrooms, fifteen bedrooms, a large kitchen, an even bigger living room, a dining room that was long enough and wide enough to seat every person who'd ever lived in the house, a playroom, a nursery for the toddlers who were brought into her care, a small theatre room for movie nights with seating enough for all of them, and a number of corridors that served as a maze for the children to explore, lined with paintings and pictures by and of the number of kids who'd been in and out of her care.

Outside, there was a large football pitch, a running track, a swimming pool, a large patio, a wraparound porch, a lake and a small boat shack. The children were shocked to learn that Margaret, who lived in a small flat and barely had enough room to breathe with nine kids in the house (though almost no one did), came from a well off family, and only didn't already live in the manor because she wanted to fend for herself.

But she didn't want to fend for herself anymore. She wanted to fend for other people, and now she had the means to do it.