a.n. Hello again! Okay, it's been a little while, I know. I decided not to continue 3am, honestly because I really liked it as a stand-alone and didn't want to ruin it by adding anything else. But thank you so much to everyone that reviewed that fic! I love you guys… And here's my next venture. It's very different, and it WILL be C&M, but not for a few chapters. So bear with me! Basically you need to know that Chandler and Joey don't know the rest of the group, and that Chandler has a (half)sister named Alyse who is 13 years old and has been living with him since their mom and her father died in a plane crash when she was 4. Okay, here we go… this is different so I hope you like it! REVIEW please!
~Maddy
disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters (except for Alyse).
"Alyse, it's seven thirty," Chandler shouted towards the door of his 13 year old sister's bedroom. He tied his tie and popped the slightly burnt toast. He shoved various folders into his briefcase, and placed Alyse's brown bag lunch on top of her orange back pack. Still no response.
"Alyse!"
"Coming!" came her grumpy morning voice, accompanied with an exasperated sigh, which had recently been making a frequent appearance alongside the grumpy morning voice pretty much since the day she started 8th grade.
"I think I'm really going to enjoy these precious adolescent years," Chandler muttered to himself. Alyse finally emerged, wearing new jeans that still hung a little loose around her tiny frame and a beige cable-knit sweater. Her brown hair was a shade darker than usual because it was still dripping wet, and she struggled to tie it back while tripping over the untied laces of her sneakers.
"This took you forty five minutes?" Chandler asked, unimpressed. "Your hair's not even dry."
"Shut up. You're wearing a green tie with a navy blue suit," she shot back, taking a huge bite of toast and zipping her backpack.
"This is a black suit," he corrected her, inspecting his jacket.
"Blue."
"What? It's so clearly black," he argued. She checked the microwave clock behind him and took a gulp of orange juice.
"I have to go, I'll miss my bus," she said, kissing him on the cheek and grabbing her stuff.
"Okay. Don't forget to go to Joey's after school, I have that meeting."
"Okay," she said as she hurried out the door. "Oh, Chandler… seriously, change your tie. I swear it's navy blue," she called over her shoulder. He shook his head disbelievingly. "It's so black," he said to himself, before taking a last sip of coffee and heading to his room to change.
Chandler passed a bus stop on his way to work that looked like it could have been Alyse's. Lots of kids, ages eleven to around fourteen, standing around, talking to eachother, each with a parent a respectable distance away, simultaneously checking their watches and keeping an eye on their kid. A lot of times, when he saw those parents, he wondered if he was too loose with Alyse. Most thirteen year old kids didn't catch buses by themselves and walk in the city alone. Most thirteen year old kids didn't spend their afternoons at their brother's best friend's bachelor pad three days a week doing homework and throwing water balloons off the roof until she got picked up at five. And although she never complained, never asked for anything to change, he felt guilty sometimes.
The truth was, neither he nor Alyse was living a life that was normal for a person their age. And while she should be getting dropped off at the bus at 7:30 and picked up promptly at 3, he should be logging even more hours at work and going for a drink afterwards. While she should be going shopping and picking out new shoes and getting her ears pierced with her mother, he should be meeting girls in bars and going home with them once in a while. She didn't have a mom to do those things with. Their mother and her father, his stepfather, had died in a plane crash almost nine years ago. So, since she was four and he was twenty two, they'd been taking care of eachother. He wasn't presumtuous enough to think that he was giving her everything she needed, but he was giving her everything he had, and that seemed to be good enough. And yeah, some mornings when he was late for a meeting because she missed her bus, or some nights when his friends were out at clubs and he was home playing Monopoly, he might have a momentary wish that things had turned out differently. But then she'd give him a hug and thank him for the ride, or laugh that infectuous laugh after buying all his hotels, and he'd remember all the things that made his life different were the very things that made it so amazing.
Because whether he wanted to admit it or not, it was nice having someone who depended on him.
Okay that was sort of short because it was just an introductory type chapter, and I have more written but I want to see what you guys think and if you like the concept before I continue. Monica will feature in the next part (although maybe not like you'd think!) Review!!! Xoxooxo!
