A/N: I, for once, own the plot. I also own Joseph. And this might make you cry. Sorry.

Trigger warnings / implied child abuse, alcoholism, hospitalized child

Chapter One: How Scott Lost His Father

Scott Joseph McCall was a rambunctious six-year-old, despite the fact he'd been warned many times it was dangerous to his health—Scott had severe asthma.

So Melissa McCall wasn't surprised that, when she came home at 7:30pm, he'd been knocked out for an hour and a half, according to his father, who was reclining in his chair and chugging a beer.

However, she was surprised to find he was half-awake on the floor in his bedroom, wheezing and convulsing, bruises and scratches decorating his body in a way that could've been ruled as child abuse.

She kneeled down to the floor, and brushed a lone unruly chocolate curl from his sweaty forehead.

"Scott, what happened?" she asked in a gentle voice, a single tear falling from her face.

"I was going to my room to go to sleep," he started, his voice scratchy. "and then I had an asthma attack and I couldn't get to my inhaler."

"Did you call for your Dad?" she asked, fearing the answer that Joseph had ignored his distressed son's calls for help.

The first-grader mumbled a yes as she scooped him up and ran downstairs, setting him on the couch.

"Did he answer you?" Melissa chewed at her lip as she rushed into the kitchen to call 911, Joseph was oblivious to the world, throwing microwave popcorn into his mouth, his hand still wrapped around his beer.

Scott weakly shook his head.

"911, what is your emergency?"

My emergency is that my husband, my formerly perfect high school football player recently turned asshole mechanic, is an alcoholic jackass unfit father, she thought in a bitter voice, but sighed and answered with the correct answer. "My son is six and he has severe asthma. He was running around the house and he collapsed. He's conscious. But it looked pretty bad, he may have fractured a bone when he fell."

"We're sending EMTs, ma'am," she wasn't ma'am. She was 24. A 24-year-old nursing student with a dream that would never come true—she'd never be a graceful dancer, all her long dark curls tied up atop her head, clad in a black leotard that showed off her curves, her loving husband and son watching from the front row in awe.

She'd always be Nurse Melissa, Mommy, Lissa.

"Mommy," her son, clad in only his child-sized plaid boxers and a white tee shirt, his right arm set in a sling for three weeks, whined later that night, it had been around 10pm. "Mama, am I going to die?"

"Not anytime soon, Scotty, hopefully not," she wasn't going to fill the boy with false hope—Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital was an amazing hospital, one of the best in California, but Scott's asthma was severe. He could've died tonight, collapsed in a heap on the scratched hardwood floor in his bedroom, if she hadn't been home in time.

Joseph McCall loved his son. He cherished father/son activities. Having a son as sick as Scott, they were always prepared for the worst, and loved normal six-year-old son moments like taking Scott, and his best friend, rambunctious Adderall-dependent Stiles, to sports games, always indoor so Scott's asthma wasn't triggered.

But, two months ago, sports games with Scott and Stiles had stopped. Time had stopped. Joseph came home everyday, grabbed a beer and turned on the sports games he'd been planning to take the boys to just months before.

If he even came home. Some nights Melissa slept on the couch, Scott curled up with his head on her thigh, the two of them waiting and then he'd come home, smelling of expensive perfume and sex.

She'd set Scott in his bedroom, kissing his forehead and telling him she loved him, and then the fighting would start.

"Dammit, Joe, you're having an affair and I know it but I'm afraid to leave you," she'd screech, their door pulled tight so Scott didn't hear the fighting.

"No shit, Lissa," he'd respond eloquently. "best sex of my life. She's pregnant and she's so cute too."

"Pregnant? We're married, Joseph," she spat, dropping his nickname, the thoughts in her head saying only happy couples can have nicknames for each other. She and Joe were far from happy, though it hadn't always been like that. "I swear, after I finish nursing school, I'm taking Scott and leaving you with your cute little girlfriend and your bastard baby."

And then they'd apologize profusely, saying neither of them meant it, and fifteen minutes later, she'd be moaning out his name while he teased her in the way only he knew how to do it, while he promised he'd never leave her for the horse-faced bitch he'd been cheating with, her delicate hands fisted in his unruly ebony curls.

And it was exactly the same the next night, but worse. Because he'd broken his promise and she still stayed. That was how a toxic relationship worked.

They were toxic.