Title: Forever
Author: Brimi
Summary: After the untimely and tragic death of a beloved family member everything starts to fall apart and crumble around every member of the once proud, happy, close knit and tight Tanner family. Things were always so quickly resolved but nothing has been solved for a decade.
Rating: T
Prologue
It's been ten years since Jesse Katstopolis passed away in motorcycle accident, ten years and two weeks after Joey and Danny got in a huge fight a mix between grief over Jesse's passing and what to do next about the house and bills and who should pay for what and when.
It's been ten years and four months to the day when Danny showed up piss ass drunk to a live taping of Wake Up, San Francisco and was subsequently fired for misconduct, nine years exactly since Rebecca Donaldson was let go from Wake Up, San Francisco a later year on the day her husband died in a because the network 'wanted to go into another direction' which was code for hire a younger person to fill in the time slot. Since then Becky's been working odd jobs from public television to plumbing to convenience stores waiting tables to Wal Mart currently she's a clerk at a local Law Firm trying hard to make ends meet but never compromising herself or her pride. She stuck around as much as she could even if she is living in the house she isn't around much. She moved out of the Tanner's house once or twice for a few months but ended up moving back she's hardly home and when money is tight she's often working. She doesn't ask for help even when she needs the help DJ sits for her kids and has essentially raised them since Jesse's death. It was hard taking care of two toddlers on one paycheck. She's been able to balance work and her kids in recent years no matter how out of control they have become.
Danny was hit the hardest by Jesse's death contrary to how the rest were able to carry on and he didn't understand. He went from seeing Jess daily to having to come to terms with him being gone. Joey felt horrible as well but he felt like Jesse wouldn't want to be remembered like this or for the people in the house to be unhappy. Danny and Joey had a huge fight which subsequently caused him to move out not long at all since the death of Jesse.
DJ was out on her own living in a one bedroom apartment around the time Danny's drinking started getting out of control. She didn't feel comfortable living there all the time. However, she shifted her time between home and her fathers house for her sisters and younger cousins sake. It's been eight years since DJ went to Vegas and married Steve and moved out of the family house for good aside from occasional visits which hasn't felt like home since Joey left and Jesse died not to mention Danny's condition and his refusal to get help or change. Ashamed of her father she got married in a private ceremony including her sister Stephanie and best friend Kimmie. Stephanie caught the bouquet. She has yet to marry. Kimmie is currently married to Dwayne, he actually said I do it was a shocker for many witnesses. Finally DJ and Steve started their life together in their very own house not far from the family house around the same time Stephanie finished her senior year living with Gia on their own in an apartment to get away. A lot of things effected Stephanie but she mostly was quiet about it. High school wasn't a fun time for her bullied and humiliated by her father she was mostly singled out and had few friends. She dated plenty and kept quiet about a host of tragedies. Stephanie finally graduated from high school and started college on the East Coast she looked at it optimistically.
In contrast, Joey became quite famous, he has his own Late Night type show on Comedy Central called The Gladstones which is ironically about a widower with three daughters whose brother-in-law and one friend live with him and it's worked out. He plays the part of the widower. It's a big hit all over the world and is in current syndication. It's a little tongue and cheek, comedic and there's nothing on tv like it.
It's been four since anyone has seen or heard from Michelle. She ran away from home when she was thirteen. She was in a major fall out with Stephanie for moving away and had held resentment for Stephanie for leaving her with dad. Stephanie walked in on her sister and her then-college boyfriend while she was home on Christmas Break. At the time Michelle had been hanging out with a rough pack of girls at that point smoking and drinking and partying was all that was on Michelle's agenda at the time and it was the last they know and they haven't heard much of anything if not anything. Michelle was a lost cause even then. The loss she witnessed at a young age destructed any type of her growing up normally.
Not too long ago Stephanie moved back home with Becky, Nicky and Alex to help take care of Danny who is sick. It's been six years since DJ graduated from college and is now a teacher at Van Atta Junior High. It's been three months since Nicholas and Alexander Katstopolis have started attending there as students and already they're at a risk of being expelled. DJ's hands are practically tied on the matter if they get in trouble one more time. What do you ask they do? Well they're a bunch trouble makers they have been in the principals office so many times they think it's a funny little game and now that their Aunt DJ is a teacher they think they could get off scott free with any of their little antics.
How did everything get so crazy? How did the house get so empty? How did Danny wind up so lonely? I guess Jesse's death hit him harder than anyone else except for maybe Becky and his boys. How did they loose control of all the order they once had in the home? We'd have to take time back to 1995.
So the story goes on May 16th 1995 at approximately 3:15 PM Jesse was grocery shopping and rushing home to make it in on time so his wife can start dinner and he was in charge of the groceries. At 3:20 PM a crowded carpool of children and parents from the dance school across the street passed him, a sixty –three year old man named Bartholomew Wallace struck Kastopolis going thirty miles over the speed limit causing Jesse to fall from his bike and his groceries to go everywhere. The skids on the road suggest Jesse tried to slow down but he wasn't fast enough.
Based on Jesse's totaled bike his badly mangled body the dispersed groceries and cracked helmet was helmet or no helmet he was a goner and that was no disproving this theory. At the scene there was a bag of groceries and it's contents scattered across the street before the Tanner's house. Stephanie was the first to see the damage she was walking home with Gia because it was a nice day after school where she saw her uncle barely recognizable and a badly dented but more or less unscathed man talking to a cop as they were trying to make sense of this tragedy. Afterwards Stephanie's grades started slipping, things at home started getting hectic and she started seeing a shrink to deal with her uncle's untimely death. She wasn't the only one who took Jesse's death hard Danny took it especially hard and started drinking to cope. At that time it was just Stephanie and Michelle living in the house Becky had lived with the boys on their own for a while in a small two bedroom on the other side of town. It was cramped and it was nothing compared to what the boys were used to and when it boiled down to it they never felt home in their house like they did in the Tanner house so they moved back within a few months. Danny started drinking first going out after work for drinks; going to dinner parties he started to soon become kind of popular. He got a lot more hosting gigs for other network things such as news anchor positions, commercial spots and more along side Wake Up.The downer was he was spending less and less time with his daughters. For awhile things were up even if inside Danny was miserable beating himself up for the fight he had with Jesse prior to him going out and getting groceries and he never got to apologize him or even thank him for all he has done for him and his daughters over the years. Now he can only do that when he visits his grave and only the air can hear that but for a while everything was settling down and things were going back to normal. It was temporary it all changed when Michelle entered the seventh grade she was graced with instant popularity. She began to rebel. It's been all downhill from Jesse's death and it doesn't seem likely to become or get any better.