Disclaimer: I do not own Treasure Planet

Broken

For awsmninja

Tears rolled down her cheeks she she watched him walk away. That was all she could do. All she could do was just watch him walk away from her without a word to say about it. And what could she do? What could she say to have made him stay. He had made his mind up. This is the only way...We've been over this Sarah...I have my own dreams too and if I don't go after them now when will I? She then would implore him to stay. To think of his own son. Then he would tell her that she was always a better parent than he would ever be. He would always be better off without him. Or he would try and convince her that he would come back one day. When Sarah looks back on it she wonders what she was thinking. Girls never listened to their fathers and her father knew that Leland Hawkins was never going to be the type to stick around. She should have listened to her father. She should have done what she was told but there was no going back on that now was there? This was all she was ever going to have.

She wanted to hope in having something more than that but as she watched her husband walk away from the house she knew it was time for her to face the facts. He was gone now. Even though he wasn't out of sight yet but she knew that he was gone for good. There was no way he was going to be returning to this place and she had to do everything she could to hold herself together. She had to keep this place afloat and she had to raise her son. She knew there were many women out there facing the same situation as her why couldn't she? She was able to put up with her husband for as long as she did. Although saying all of that, it didn't mean that it didn't hurt her a little. It still didn't stop her from wondering how she got here in the first place. She doesn't know how it got to this point. Meeting a bad boy. Getting knocked up by a bad boy. Marrying a bad boy more hastily if she hadn't been pregnant. Everything then going alright after Jim was born. Then seeing the true colours of the bad boy. Then the arguments came. He was coming and going for months on end. Crying at the window and she watched her husband walk out into the distance. Going on his own little adventure he always dreamed of having. Never really keeping his word. She guessed none of them ever kept their word.

She was always being told that she shouldn't have been listened in to those little promises he was making to her. That not a word of truth could pass his lips. That she should never trust a boy like him. Her father was telling her that she was going to inherit this place and that was that. She could wait until she was older and wiser until she should marry. She should have waited until she knew herself better than to give it away so freely to someone else she hardly knew. That was what her father was always telling her. She wasn't listening though. She just laughed as if there was nothing wrong and that they were all mad. She should have listened though but now there was no point in regrets because that was never going to change anything. She remembered those late nights that were so long they went on until the dawn came and he would tell her everything about these dreams that he would have and these adventures that he would take her on. She reall did believe him at the time but now she knew that when someone said that to you sometimes they weren't telling you the truth.

Now it seemed that her own dreams had been shattered for the sake of his own. She always thought dreams were supposed to be shared and never broken. Or that was what he made her think anyway. He would never believe this but she did have her own dreams. She had something which she thought about late into the night. She had a little secret which she had kept to herself all these years when he thought she was asleep. There were things which made her stare into the darkness with that little bit of hope for it to suddenly materialize before her. There were things that she wanted to do with her life. Even though it didn't seem like much but she did dream of making her fathers inn a thousand times more than it ever was. She never told him this though. She would never tell him because she was afraid of what he was going to do with it. His were more grand than her's. He wanted to go out into the universe and go to the furtherest reaches of the galaxy whereas she wanted to remain where she was. She wanted to stay put. He was the wind and she was the earth. She should have seen if coming when she knew his dream and she knew her own. She was foolish enough to believe that it would work out when really it should have been clear that it would never work between them. It even made her wonder whether he even intended to take her on these adventures to begin with...

~ (***) ~

She remembered thinking about how handsome he was. That was how every story like this started wasn't it? No story of true love really started with whether the other person was handsome or not. If they did it wasn't really about love. It was a fairy-tale with was pretending to be about love which was possible. He just came in for a drink after he had finished his days work. She was seventeen at the time and she had never really had any other boyfriends. In fact, she never really got that much attention. It was her slightly younger sister, Anne who got all the attention. It was only because she layered herself with all that make-up in the hope that some dashing Prince may take notice of her. Sarah would always roll her eyes and shake her head. She had little experience with men but the chances of someone remotely rich walking into the Benbow inn was very slim. When he walked in with his little swagger and the glint in his eyes it felt like she had been caught in a spiders web. She tried to pretend that she hadn't noticed him but it was too late. He knew when he caught someone's attention and slid over to her.

"Hey there."

She smiled shyly. "Hello...Would you like a drink?"

He smirked. "If you don't mind. I haven't seen you working in here."

"I've graduated from school now and since I'm going to inherit this place I might as well start getting some experience in working here..."

He nodded. "Absolutely. By the way I'm Leland Hawkins."

"Sarah."

"Sarah." He repeated. "That's a very pretty name."

"Usually Anne is the one the men like." She murmured.

She must have murmured it louder than she thought since he heard it well and clear and glanced over to the sixteen-year-old girl flirting to some men she had just gone over to take their drinks to.

He tilted his head. "I can't see why..."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

He stared back at her intently and shook his head. "No."

She smiled and looked back down to the ground. Looking back she knew the reason why she made it so easy for him to get her. It wasn't because he was handsome. It was because he was the only person who really noticed her.

~ (***) ~

She heard a voice at the door. She wasn't who or what it was at first. She did know what they said though...Daddy...Maybe it was her hearing things...She thought for a moment that she had said it and she was calling out to someone. She thought that maybe she was calling out to her own deceased father. She thought that she had heard the ghost of herself at the door calling out to him because she didn't know what to do. But then she looked up and saw her son running out the window down the steps. She was going to get up but for some reason she stayed a moment to watch him chase after his father. As she watched she covered her mouth to muffle her cries. Even though he was far away and couldn't hear she still wanted to silence them. It saddened her more than anything that she had let this happen to herself. She hated it more than anything to see herself like this. But it broke her heart to see her son's heart break into a thousand pieces. There was nothing worse for a son to watch his father fly away and to know deep down that he was never coming back...

~ (***) ~

Sarah stared intently into the mirror to see if her lipstick had gone off her lip line. Or whatever it was called. She had to look perfect and she had no idea what she was doing. This was how ill-experienced she was with dating and with putting on her make-up. She didn't want to ask for her sister's help because she didn't want to look like a slut and she knew it would back-fire on her.

"I can't believe you're doing this." Her sister said scornfully.

Sarah glanced over her shoulder as she finished doing her hair. Her sister was lying on the bed sulking again. She had been dating Leland Hawkins for a number of weeks now. Since he had been coming in almost every day he called out for his 'favourite girl'. Sarah and Anne's father was beginning to become concerned but when she assured him that he was just a customer this seemed to put him at ease.

That is until Leland asked her out. Apparently that was the only reason he was coming in so often. She was flattered if anything. There was something which made her glow but there was something else screaming inside her head. Something she couldn't place her finger on...

"What do you mean? Because its so out of character for me to sneak out with a boy? Well, I'm sorry I got myself a boyfriend." She retorted.

She had to admit she liked the fact that her sister was jealous. She had watched Anne being able to attract men to her like bees to honey for years. Ever since she was thirteen she had blossoms when Sarah felt plain and gawky next to her. Now she had someone that her sister wanted. She knew when she began to notice the handsome young man take a notice in her sister she wanted him too.

Anne narrowed her eyes at Sarah. "It's not just that...There's something about him, Sarah. I heard he gets in all sorts of trouble. Hardly the type of boyfriend our Daddy would want for his golden girl."

Sarah stopped brushing her hair and turned back to her sister. She couldn't believe this. It sounded like someone's jealous and that someone didn't have the backbone to be upfront about it and they had to pretend that they were concerned about her welfare in order to get away with it...

She nodded with an unconvinced look on her face. "Okay, Anne."

She turned back to her window and beamed when she saw Leland waiting for her outside the window on his solar surfer. She carefully slipped her legs out the window dangling them over mid air and gripped onto the drain pipe and climbed down. Leland had his arms wide open as she reached the ground welcoming her into his arms.

"Hey beautiful. Looks like Rapunzel didn't need any help to get out of the tower after all."

She rolled her eyes. "First off, Rapunzel has long hair. I don't. Second, I thought we agreed no clichés."

He grinned. "Yes, Ma'am." He replied before sealing the deal with a kiss.

He brought her on the surfer and wrapped her arms around his waist. He told her to hold on tight but even that wasn't enough for the surprise she was in for. She screamed when the moment the engines started. The feeling of the wind rushing through her hair was more exhilarating than anything she had ever felt before.

"You know my sister warned me about you."

"Oh? Am I in trouble?"

She giggled. "No. You know hearing that from my sister is like being told by a dog that it doesn't bark."

"True."

Sarah looked at him for a moment and remembered that her father did say something to her a few days ago about Leland. He said he had heard some things about him too. That he got in too much trouble with the law. Then again that could just be talk...

~ (***) ~

Sarah eventually walked out the door after Jim. She could hear him sniffling at the dock. She walked down slowly which probably made it all the more painful for her to even watch.

"Jim?"

There was no answer. She bit her lip as she stared at the back of his head knowing that it would probably be worse if he turned around. She dried her own face by roughly brushing her sleeve across her face.

"Honey?"

In a split second Jim had turned around and rushed towards his mother and buried his twelve-year-old face in her stomach. She stared down at him tearfully as she stroked his head. She was shaking all over. She was shaking because she was scared and angry at the same time. Scared because now she was all alone and angry because of the man who caused this overwhelming sense of fear to almost take over her.

"Mommy...Dad's not coming back is he?"

She didn't reply. She couldn't bare to answer this question because she knew it would break his heart. She didn't want him to feel like the walls of his life had crashed down on him. She wanted him to know that she was always going to be here even if his father wasn't going to be...

~ (***) ~

After a few months of dating Leland everything was going great. People still kept talking but who didn't when someone like her was dating someone like Leland. She knew there was nothing to worry about. She then started going through a spell of being more tired than usual but then again she must have been tired from all her late nights with Leland. She started to have more arguments with her sister but that was only because she wouldn't stop annoying her about her boyfriend. Then there was that morning when she was vomiting for no reason. The following week she started to get headaches. Yet again, she thought that it was because of the late nights. She thought that she must have caught something. Then she realised that she hadn't had her course in a while. That was when she began to panic. She had a few savings and went to the doctor. An agonising week later she discovered the worst she was pregnant. She wasn't going to tell her father or her sister...Not yet anyway. She went straight to where she knew Leland was working and told him everything. His eyes widened in a way that didn't assure her in anyway. Now, he looked like the fly that had been caught in the spiders web.

~ (***) ~

It had been weeks since he had left. She couldn't believe it had been that long now. She had just the days pass her by as if he had never been there to begin with, as if it had only ever been her and Jim. No one had asked any questions yet. But they were giving her looks. She knew what this meant. She knew this pity looks meant that they knew. They all knew that he was back by now and that this could only mean one thing. They must have suspected that the smile that she was putting on only meant that she was still in denial about it. Did they prefer her to be sad? To be crying at every waking moment? Did they really think that was the only way for her to respond to this situation. As for her son...He kept asking her when his father was getting back when he well knew that he was never coming back. He just wanted to hear her say it. He wanted to know whether she believed it. It was almost like he was test her loyalty to him. They all thought that she believed that he was coming back. She looked like the Penelope who was willing to wait for her King to return from his war and adventures while she had to fight off the suitors. She wasn't Penelope though. And she never would be...

~ (***) ~

He didn't ask her to get rid of the baby. Looking back she knew it was because he didn't have the spine. He even hurriedly married her so that it wouldn't make him look half as bad as he had actually behaved. Her father wasn't happy with the choice of husband for his oldest daughter but at least she wouldn't be a single mother who everyone would look down upon every time she walked into the room. She was now going to be the young mother who got a shotgun wedding. When Jim was born for a moment she thought that he was glad that he had let her have their baby. The moment he opened those bright blue eyes of his and looked around the room with curiosity and uncertainty she knew there would be nothing that she would ever love more than her son. Maybe he thought that too. It must have been the whole thing about having a son and all that which had excited him at first. But then reality kicked in. He could no longer go out as much as he used to. He actually had to start being a Dad which was something which was much too daunting to Leland Hawkins...

~ (***) ~

She had been standing there for goodness knows how long until she decided to move. Everything seemed to go silent. For as long as she would keep staring at him she didn't know what was going to happen. She couldn't believe this happened in the first place. She was shaking all over. She wasn't sure whether she would be able to function after the sight she had just seen walking through the door.

"James! What happened?"

Sarah rushed over her son who was now covered in bruises and his lip was cut and had bled down to his chin leaving a thin almost as if it had been cut open.

"I'm fine." He grumbled irritably.

"No you are not fine. Let me go get something."

Sarah rushed to kitchen and got out a band-aid after cleaning his lip. She was surprised to still see him standing there. He looked like he would have preferred being somewhere else. She knew all sons hated it when their mothers were being overprotective of them but she was all he had. He had to deal with it. Tough love and all...

"Jim...Can you tell me what happened?"

"No." He snapped.

Sarah took in a deep breath and counted to ten. She knew eventually she was going to lose it unless he would start to co-operate. She knew there was something more to this than he was telling her. She wasn't that stupid...

"Jim, please. I would really like it-"

"I GOT IN A FIGHT OKAY?" He screamed.

She jumped back in fright and was shaking like a leaf now. She couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. She knew why this was happening but she couldn't believe that this had happened now. A few months ago she was wondering how she had ended up marrying a man like Jim's father but now she had to face the fact that there was a son who had to deal with his absence as well.

"Jim...I don't understand...How did you get in a-"

"I just did!" He shouted.

She clenched her fists and stared down at him as fiercely as she possibly could. She was worried beyond control but she wanted him to know that he wasn't going to be able to tiptoe around her on things like this.

"Things like that don't just happen, James. Now you tell me the truth or-"

"He was making fun of a kid at school alright. They were all picking on him so I just jumped in to help him. Alright?"

She pressed her lips together tightly. She didn't know whether to believe him on this one. She knew that in the fragile state that he was in if a kid looked at him in a funny way that it would be enough to set him off. But then she didn't want him to think that she didn't trust him either...

"Jim. I know you wanted to help that boy but you do know that's not the way you're supposed to deal with things like that don't you?"

She watched his eyes as this sank in. There was no guilt. There was no realisation. He knew this. He just didn't want to accept this.

"What else was I supposed to do?"

Sarah glanced round and noticed that a few customers were watching this exchange now. She wanted to shout and scream at them. She wanted to tell them that this was none of their business but she knew that wasn't going to help the situation at all. She had to stay calm.

"Get a teacher-"

"Why?"

Sarah blinked. She wasn't sure how to reply to this answer. Why was a good question but it was an answer he knew nonetheless. He just wanted to see if she would answer him.

"Because they're adults and they always know how to deal-"

"Grown ups don't know how to deal with anything!" He shouted and ran up the stairs.

"Jim!" She called but she knew when she heard the slam of the door that she had lost their first battle.

~ (***) ~

After the death of her father it all became too obvious. Anne left too knowing that she wasn't going to be welcome for much longer at the inn and got an apartment in the city. He kept on coming in late at night. Sometimes he was drunk. Then he started going out onto voyages. He would go out for a few days to a neighbouring planet then he would come back. Then it became weeks. Then it became months. He would always tell his son of the stories of his adventures but he wouldn't tell him the reason as to why he was going out on these amazing voyages. It was his way of getting away. This was something which drove Sarah insane. He kept coming back behaving like everything was alright. After this went on for years he began to ignore Jim more and more to the point where he didn't even acknowledge his presence. That evening she exploded at him and demanded to know what was going on. Was he having an affair? Was he gambling? What was the reason for this silence? Then on that day when he left she finally realised that he was never going to stay in the first place. He was just waiting how long he could stand it until he had no other choice but run...

~ (***) ~

It was the first time the police had brought him home. She could remember that day and she was pretty sure that it was a memory she was going to take to her deathbed as well. It was the moment when she realised that there was something which needed to be done about her son.

"Mrs Hawkins."

She stared up at the police and then back at her fourteen-year-old son who seemed to be apprehended by the two men.

"What happened?"

"He was caught vandalising public property, ma'am."

She had actually been asking her son but having to hear it from them was equally as bad as hearing it from him. Not that she would expect him to tell her the truth any of these days.

She glanced over her shoulder at the customers who seemed to suddenly burst into sound against after she actually looked in their direction.

She gave an exasperated sigh and turned back to the police officers. "How much is it going to cost-"

One of the men chuckled. "Oh no, ma'am that wouldn't be necessary. Although its mostly likely he will have to do some community service."

She nodded with her arms folded. "Of course."

"The usual for an offence like this will probably be ten hours a week for ten months perhaps."

"Do I have any say in this?" Jim asked sarcastically.

"You should have thought about that before you-" The other officer threatened before Sarah cut in.

"Please, officers. That will be fine." She added sternly towards her son.

"Well if that's everything, ma'am." The other said tipping his hat. "You have a good day now."

As soon as they left she turned back to her son and took him into the kitchen so that the customers wouldn't have to stare into their private lives.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on, Jim?"

He shrugged his shoulders and turned away. "James, look at me."

He kept on playing with a crumb on the work-surface for a while before finally deciding to blink and turned back to her.

He sighed and stared at her for a moment. "What?"

"You just got brought home by a couple of cops and you have nothing to say?"

He gave her a look which told her that the answer to that question should be pretty obvious. He just didn't want to talk about this. He wanted to go to his room and sulk about the whole event.

"They told you everything what more is there to say? Not that you would believe me over them." He snapped.

"James. Please. You are not the only one who has to deal with your father-"

"IT'S NOT ABOUT HIM!" He screamed. "You're the one who won't let it go!"

"Really, Jim? Because you've been acting so differently since he left- Don't you walk away from me!"

Then there was the sound of another slamming of the door which also brought yet another argument to a close...

~ (***) ~

Sarah couldn't take it any more. She just had to destroy something. Break something. And everything had been going great too up until now. She had just got the money (from Jim's shot-in-the-dark voyage) to build a bigger and better inn than her father would have ever wanted. She was finally having a dream come true. Then her sister had to call. She was calling to congratulate her. Or that was what she pretending to call her about. She had always been jealous of Sarah ever since she got 'the bad boy' she always had a crush on. Then she was finally able to look like the superior one when he walked out on her and Anne ended up with the rich husband. Apparently he was a widower and went to some club she 'gate-crashed'. She was always doing that for years in the hope of finding herself in this situation. Sarah pretended to be happy for the entire phone call but when she was put the phone down she threw her fist into a mirror. She cried out in anger and soon she was crying out in pain.

"Mom?"

She looked up to find Jim standing over her. He looked down at the broken glass and her bloodied fist and set to work. All those first aid lessons he was getting at the Academy must have paid off since within a matter of minutes her hand was almost as good as new. Just with a bandage on it...

"What was it?" He asked.

She waved her free hand. "It was nothing, really."

"No, come on. You're talking to the ex-convict here. I know when I see a broken mirror and a bloodied fist that can only mean one thing."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Jim, you shouldn't be referring to yourself as that. You're turning your life around you don't have to refer yourself to what you...Well its in the past now."

"Really? Because I think I'm not only one who's been keeping a die-hard grudge against a certain someone."

"Oh please...Don't give him that satisfaction. Anyway it was your Aunt Annie."

He made a vomiting noise. "What does she want this time? Oh God, she isn't coming to work here is she? Because you do remember that one summer..."

She nodded. "Yes, yes. I know. She's getting married to some rich widower. I don't know why I let it get to me."

He wrapped an arm around her. "You're better than them, Mom. You were too good for Dad and you're going to find someone ten times better than that rich snob Aunt Anne is going to marry."

She smiled and tapped him on the nose. "Since when did you get so smart."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I had a good teacher I suppose."

~ (***) ~

Sarah was cleaning up the dining room after all the guests had left after the lunch hour. It had been a while since she had finished building the new place and Jim had gone off to the Interstellar Academy. After he came back from space he had become a different person. He had changed. He actually started to talk to her. He started trying.

"Hello Mrs Hawkins." Said a shrilly voice.

Sarah looked up and saw her most loyal patron standing before her. "Mrs Jameson."

"I love what you've done with the place. I didn't know you had put it under construction."

Sarah chuckled. "You could say that."

She wasn't exactly sure whether it would be wise to actually tell people the truth and say that it was because a gang of pirates had burnt down the inn when they were trying to find a treasure map to a legendary treasure which actually turned out to be real. She definitely wasn't going to tell her that some of that treasure had actually been what funded the new re-construction and had made her dream of making the inn more of a liable business.

"I have to admit though I miss the old charm this place used to have but in this day and age you need to make such sacrifices."

Sarah raised an eyebrow and cast a glance about the place. In her opinion this change couldn't have come any sooner.

"I don't know whether I would call it a sacrifice." Sarah said uneasily.

"I suppose not...How did you find the finances?"

"Er..."

She wasn't sure what to say to that. No one had ever actually asked her about that surprisingly enough. It was more comments upon the improvements of the place rather than anything else. She was about to answer but then someone wordlessly walked through the door. She smiled when he stepped that little bit closer so that she could see who it was. Her nineteen-year-old son walked towards her with a grin on his face as he watched the exchange, really having no idea what it was about but knew it was something his mother couldn't handle.

"Let's just say that it was just a little stroke of luck." She replied with a smirk.