Rather unfortunately, I can lay no claim to DPS.
To live with regret is better than not to live at all. If anything, this is what I have learnt in my life. My regrets are plenty, they always have been, and they are regrets that I will be forced to hold close to my chest until the day I die, but that death will be because it was my time to go, and not because I was so determined to live perfectly that any threat against my idea of perfection was too much to take. Not like others that I have known. Not like Neil. And not like the rest of them, so caught up in one man's words that they shot too high for what they were capable of, and then fell so heavily they were never quite the same. A man, who, incidentally, was one that had never shot all too high himself, becoming first, a high school teacher with a love for poetry, and then a man, broken and beaten by the death of one of his students, the knowledge that he was at least partly responsible for his death a regret that really was too big to live with. He managed though, and for that he has gained my at least grudging respect.
I think though, for all of us that were involved, our regrets centre around the same time, and the same things, although our regrets are very, very different. Mine, the rest of them would pity, even though I am simply the norm. And as much as they love to belittle and berate me – as much as they loved to do so even then, they cannot deny that I was a part of it. I think they would like to though – in many of my moments I think that I would like to, but my past is what made me who I am today, and my past, riddled with regrets as it is, is something that I cannot change, so what use is there in dwelling on what I could have done instead. That lesson I at least learnt well. Instead, I have focused on my future, perhaps somewhat blindly for what became my present. And really, is that not the source of one of my biggest regrets?
Part of me, most of me really, wishes that I could blame what I did back then on the fact that I was young. On that I was overpowered by the intimidating power of my father. On a million other things, none even close to the truth. The truth that I was too scared to let the walls of my personality come crumbling down, because I'd always been taught that they should remain there for a reason, that showing yourself for your vulnerabilities was a weakness and that should I make myself weak to anyone that I would live to regret it. In the end, I made myself weak to myself, and to the authorities, all too willing and all too able to take advantage of someone only concerned with doing what they'd always been taught was right. And even though my feelings, my instincts, had told me that it was wrong, I'd been taught never to listen to them, because they were fickle, and the Camerons had never gotten anywhere by listening to instinct (well, Uncle Peter had, but we never spoke about him).
I like to say that it was this fear, and this responsibility to do what was right that lead me to do what I did all those years ago; to turn my friends, even though I sometimes doubt that they were really ever that at all, into the authorities. Or, more specifically, turn Charlie into the authorities. Which is the very thought that reminds me that my fear had very little to what I did, and that I was mostly spurred on by some need for revenge. I regret nothing of that though – even today, I still believe that Charlie deserved punishment for what he'd done, for he'd taken things too far, time and time again, and had been met with nothing but praise for it, even though what he'd done had the potential to hurt others. Did, in the end, hurt others. No, if anything, I regretted the fact that I hadn't attempted to put a stop to it earlier, before life had derailed as effectively as it had. I like to think sometimes that had I refused to attend that first meeting, then it wouldn't have gone ahead at all, but not even I am that conceited, and believe me, the word has been attached to me enough for it to mean something by saying that, but being honest I know it wouldn't have. Instead, I should have told in the beginning. Perhaps then, Neil would still be with us, and Charlie would never have been so stupid to go as far as he had. Not much would have changed for me though, save that I would have been exiled sooner, rather than later.
But would I regret even that? Part of me would, I know. The part of me insistent on making connections would lament over this for the rest of my life, for even now I am unable to request Knox's legal services on behalf of the firm, services that are required surprisingly often, something that I'd have never suspected entering into a stationary business of all things. Apparently though, people liked to take me to court over reams of paper. Similarly, Gerald Pitts will never be my bank manager, and I will never have an account at his bank, no matter how good the inflation rates are. I regret, perhaps, these things, the friends I'd lost through technicality – the people that, without Charlie would have seen no reason to hate me. Although, they were the same people that, without Charlie would perhaps have seen no reason to like me.
It is for reasons like those that I see no point in dwelling on what I'd done wrong, and what I could have done instead, because my life, and my past is like the idea of ecosystems as we were taught – remove one thing and the rest fall down. Instead, I do my best to force my successes to mind; my son for one – Robert Richard Cameron the Second, and the child currently swelling the stomach of my wife. Neither Charlie, nor Neil have ever experienced parenthood as I now do, and have never come to realise why our fathers raised us the way they did. Not like I do now, because Neil will never experience such a thing, and Charlie almost as certainly, as wrapped up in a lifestyle of deviance as he is. I understand though, and it is only as I stand over the bassinet of my son, freckled fingers hovering over his chubby cheeks and bow-slung mouth that I promise to myself that he will never need regret like I have.
I will teach him better than that.
Suddenly, after at least a year, and probably longer of being away from writing fanfiction, from reading fanfiction even, the first paragraph of this story crept into my head, and I found that Richard Cameron had something rather important to say. And so it is to him that I owe this story, and to him I owe my re-emergence into this world. Let me know how I'm going with it, and whether or not its worth continuing, or if it should just stand as it is.