I wrote this in about half an hour when I should have been doing uni work, but I've deleted so many attempts at so many different fics lately that I had to just something down before I deleted this, too. I wanted to make the whole Johnny thing right in my head.


It was callous, selfish, heartless, he knew that. And yet the same thoughts refused to leave his mind. If only someone else could find his daughter, bring her home safely. He wanted her back, desperately, but he couldn't help but hope that someone other person – Peter, the police…. Someone more trained, someone who knew her better, would take the glory of finding her. He knew Peter took his lack of action as a lack of compassion, as not caring what had happened to her, what she might be going through, but he couldn't be farther from the truth. He needed to tell him that he'd spent every night since she'd disappeared lying awake, wondering where his daughter was sleeping. If she was sleeping. Every time he'd sat down to dinner, he'd wondered if she was eating; every time he took his medication he prayed to a god he didn't believe in that she was taking hers. Every morning, he hoped that somewhere, somehow, she was waking up, too.

He wished he could pound the streets in search of her, but truth was he was terrified of what he might find if he did.

Sitting alone in the back room of the pub, Johnny took another gulp of whiskey. Flicking through photos on his phone he was ashamed at how few he had of Carla. He had hundreds of Kate of Aidan, of Jenny, of friends and more distant family, but barely a single photograph of his own daughter. Not that he should be surprised.

He'd never been a father to her, not once in her life. He'd betrayed her at every possible point and then, perhaps even more selfishly, he'd come to lean on her. As if he'd earned that right, as if he'd done his part and now it was her turn to support him. But she had done. Any time he'd called her, moaned down the phone or over a drink of how awful his life was, she'd been there. Whenever he messed up – Liz, Jenny…. Carla had been there. No judgement, no lectures, just straight up support; unquestionably, she'd been on his side. Because he was her dad, and family support each other. Even after Aidan, she'd buried her own grief to support him and he'd let her. He felt sick.

But now that she needed him, now that he had a chance to finally go some small way to making things right, he was failing her yet again.

He'd missed the signs with Aidan, and this was his son that he'd actually bothered with, that he'd seen grow up and thought he knew inside out. What possible hope did he have with Carla? He'd watched her from afar growing up, lying and shirking his responsibility, throwing the odd wad of cash at her mother to alleviate his own guilt, knowing full well that the daughter he was trying so hard to ignore would likely never see a penny. And all the while he'd hoped – actively hoped, that it was all a coincidence, that Sharon was lying and that her daughter was someone else's responsibly. He'd gone home to his real family every night, the acceptable ones, the safe ones, and left his daughter to go through hell. Much as he liked to convince himself otherwise, he was still doing it, forty years later. He was the cliché absent father, even now. Still betraying her when she needed him most. he'd berated himself endlessly other the past year about all the ways he'd betrayed Aidan, how he'd let him down - sometimes even to Carla herself, without ever seeming to realise how much he was still failing his daughter.

If he couldn't help Aidan, how could he ever help Carla?

He poured another glass.

The truth was, every time he left that street, he'd find himself terrified that his daughter might be round the next corner. That day at the squat, he'd had to actively suppress his relief at not finding her. Not because he didn't want her to be found, but because now maybe someone else will instead. Someone better trained, someone who knew her better. Someone who wasn't so completely and utterly out of their depth.

He'd spent the past year wishing he had gone round to Aidan's that night, after the pub. Wishing that his son had just phoned him, told him what he planned to do, let him help him. But the past few weeks had made him question what on earth he might have done even if he had. How do you even begin to talk someone down from suicide? What do you say, what do you do? How can you ever possibly support someone in that state?

What if he did find her? From what Peter had said, she was so incredibly vulnerable. He knew nothing about psychosis, if that was what this even was. If she was drunk somewhere, full of self-pity but still lucid, he might have been able to help. But this? He was so far out of his depth, without a single idea what he might do to help. What if he made it worse? What if whatever he did or said was the final push for her to take her own life? What if she ran from him, and no one ever heard from her again? What if a body turned up years later?

He couldn't take the risk.

He'd already lost one child, he couldn't lose another.

He desperately wanted to join Peter on his search, prove himself as some kind of half worthy father, but how could he? He knew that Peter knew his daughter better than he ever could, knew that if it came to it, he could probably talk her down. She was better off with him, he'd save her where Johnny would fail. So he'd let him carry on – said the right things, but betrayed himself in his lack of action.

But now Peter was out of the picture, buckling under the strain he'd put him under of searching for his daughter alone. The moment he'd asked him to carry on the search, his heart had sunk, before he caught himself in the next beat and scaled himself for it.

"I'll do what I can" He'd told him. A cop out. What did that even mean? He'd sit in the pub drinking whiskey at hoping the police would find her instead, that they'd deal with it.

Like they dealt with Aidan.

Aidan. He was using him an excuse, knowing full well that his son was worth ten of him, that he'd have been the first to be out there, shoulder to shoulder with Peter, searching night and day until she was found. Because his son wasn't weak like he was, he'd have swallowed whatever fear he may have had and got on with it, because that's what brave people do. That's what family do.

That's what he had to do, now.

Johnny grabbed his coat from the hook, scanning the room for one final time before he stepped outside into the cold evening air.

No time like the present.