Oscar’s life was a tragedy.

It started out well. He always had a bright smile on his face, always made the best grades, always applied himself. He was in all sorts of clubs and sports, and he was quite popular with the ladies. Actually, one lady in particular stole his heart—Isabelle. They were soulmates, marrying soon after highschool.

Oscar hadn’t always wanted to be a police officer. That came only two years into his marriage, when they had their first child, a young girl named Lorelai. He wanted her to look up to him—to know that he would always be there for her, no matter what, and that the world was safer because her father was going to make it that way.

Then, disaster struck.

Oscar was called to the scene of a horrific wreck, only to find his family’s car completely totaled. Overwhelmed, he’d run forward and tore the wreckage apart, searching for his family. But the only thing he found in tact was his daughter’s stuffed toy.

No one survived. His life was destroyed.

He became a husk of the man he was growing into. He couldn’t bring himself to smile—couldn’t bring himself to make small talk, or laugh, or joke. He didn’t know how he was expected to keep going on when he’d lost the only two things that truly mattered to him.

He fell into substance abuse. His job was on the line. His life was over.

It took barely surviving an overdose to wake him up from his sorry state and recognize his serious problem.

He needed to get better. He needed to keep protecting the world—it’s what he’d promised for his daughter.

That’d been eight years ago by now, but the sting had been dulled and buried deep. Still, he figured that incident was what influenced his spontaneous decision.

Today, Oscar had been called out to investigate a case of child abuse and neglect. When Oscar reached the house, the door opening to reveal your parents, and you trembling, beaten, and bruised—he knew he had to do something about it. You were so young, and he could not help but see his daughter’s eyes in yours.

He couldn’t fathom how a parent could treat their child like this. He was filled with an insatiable rage that brewed in his chest, manifesting itself in the way he roughly placed your parents in handcuffs and shoved them into his partner’s cruiser.

With no immediate family to give you to, Oscar decided he would take you to his place for the night.

You’d fallen asleep on the way there. He carefully placed you in his bed and tucked you in—a habit born from the distant life in which his daughter was still alive—before going about his own nightly routine and taking a seat on the recliner in his room to keep watch.

Somehow, he managed to doze off, and he’d woken up to the feeling of being poked in the arm. He saw you, standing over him like a scared and confused animal. Your silhouette startled him at first, but as his eyes adjusted, his expression became more neutral, if not slightly concerned.

“Hey, uh… kid,” he murmured awkwardly, his voice deep and groggy from sleep. Frankly, he wasn’t sure how to deal with you. Oscar wasn’t a people-person, and in all of his years in the force, he hadn’t had to deal with a child as traumatized as you.

“Are you okay?” He sat up straighter, completely attentive to you and your needs. “Do you need something? It’s real late…”