A/N: This is going to be more about Roach and his family. According to Sodapop765 shipping is all well and good but people want something with substance. Here's a little something about Roach and his family without my usual shippy flavor. Enjoy!
Normally getting the kids dressed up and in the car was like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube but today it was different. They were going to see someone who, until recently, they thought was dead. David Jr., disappeared in 1981 found ten years later shot and mutilated.
"Why do we all have to go?" complained Morgan as he kicked his dress shoe clad feet against the scuffed brown seat in front of him. Everyone shot him a look.
"Because he's our brother and he'll wanna see all of us." Said Donna in her most grown up voice
"But he never even met me." Whined Morgan. This was all too big for him and he just wanted to stay home, watch TV, and make something out of legos.
"He was really excited to be a big brother. He used to lay his head down on my stomach and talk to you…before." Said Amanda sadly, the ghost of a memory disappearing in her eyes. David Sr., took one hand off the wheel and gave his wife's hand a comforting squeeze.
"Why'd the people take him, Mommy?" asked Dot
"I don't know, Dottie, I just don't know." said Amanda gazing out the window as they city passed them by. It somehow looked even grayer than usual.
"Because the cops are a bunch of incompetents." Said David Sr. as he fixed his gaze on the road in front of them.
"What's that mean?" asked Dot
"It means they aren't good at their jobs." Said Donna
"But I heard on TV that the bad people gave the cops money to not say anything." Said Dot
"People knew something was going on in that house. People have been talking about that Family since before I was born. Not that I was born that long ago." Said David Sr. spitting poison as he spoke. The kids didn't like the way their father was talking, it scared them.
"Thirty two years is a really long time, Dad." Said Trysta
"Well you're only twelve so it feels like a long time." said David Sr.
"I saw a lady on TV named Eloise who escaped from the house way back when but they locked her up in a crazy house for kids until she got adopted by some lady with money and stuff. I don't like her. If it wasn't for her then this wouldn't have happened to David Jr." said Donna staring at the words on the page in front of her but not reading them. It just wasn't fair.
"Yeah and now she's adopting some guy named Messenger and his wife slash sister slash cousin who's having a baby. It's like some kind of a soap opera." Said Trysta. For the past two days they had all been glued to the TV absorbing all the information about the Robeson family that they could.
"They said on TV it was her grandkid. She got put in the cellar when she was eleven because she was pregnant and she's, like, forty something now so her kid had Messenger pretty young." Said Donna
"What happened to Messenger's mom and dad?" asked Dot. She didn't like the shows they had on about the bad people. They were too talky and boring.
"Probably dead." Said Morgan as he pushed up the sleeve of his special shirt and began to draw a tattoo on his arm with a ball point pen.
"David Jr.'s not gonna die, right?" asked Dot. She knew he was in the hospital so he'd probably get better like she did when her tonsils came out. He might not get better either just like Great Aunt Gladys or Cousin Carl.
"No he's stable. He's not all the way right though." Said Amanda. She had been working the night they brought her son in shot and bleeding. She hadn't left until he was put back together and had kept a vigil at his side, Alice O'Dell keeping her company, until she absolutely had to go home.
"He can't talk and stuff, we remember. That's why I got him this." Said Dot rummaging into her bag and coming out with a small chalk board and a box of multi colored chalk.
"We all got him that." Said Trysta
"Yeah, but it was my idea." Said Dot
"Well I thought about it first." Said Trysta
"How the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks do you know that?" said Dot
"Big sister psychic powers." Said Trysta and Donna in union.
"Yeah, right." Said Dot as she stuck out her tongue at them getting dangerously close to brat territory.
"Don't do that around David Jr., you'll make him feel bad." Said Amanda from the front seat
"Why'd they cut out his tongue?" asked Dot. It didn't make any sense to her. If the bad people wanted to be parents why didn't they just get kids from the orphanage if they couldn't have their own? And why'd they hurt the kids they stole? Parents didn't hurt kids. Sometimes they spanker them but they never hurt them.
"Because he tried calling for help one day." Said Amanda now staring at her white scuffed high healed shoes. She could just see her scared little boy, Alice said he was thirteen then, trying to get help and escape. Trying to go home.
"Do you think he missed us?" said Donna thinking out loud. She was six when it happened. They were at the park. They had fought over…something…and then the woman had come…and then he was gone…it was her fault.
"Do you think he even remembers us?" asked Trysta crammed into the back of the rusty minivan next to the bag full of stuff Dot had decided to bring.
"He was five when it happened so he should but if not that's Ok." Said Amanda grasping her husband's hand within hers, the sun catching on their twin gold wedding rings.
"Me and Morgan weren't even born yet so we don't have to worry about him remembering us; just him liking us." Said Dot
"Look in the other car; there's Debbie and some other girl." Said Dot jabbing her finger against the smudged glass of the mirror.
"That's probably Alice; their other daughter. You'd think the cops would have noticed all these kids disappearing from the same place." Muttered David Sr., as he gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
"She's pretty. You think she's David Jr.'s friend?" said Trysta as they sat there for the longest red light in the history of ever.
"I know they're close. She stayed there all through his surgery and waited for him to wake up…" said Amanda her voice trailing off. She hated then O'Dell family for that. They got their daughter back after a short observation period. She could talk. She hadn't been forced to live in the cellar. Amanda hated herself for these thoughts.
"How'd he make friends if he lived in a cellar with a bunch of crazy people eating people?" said Morgan slouching against the seat with his arms crossed.
"She was in the house with David Jr., I saw on TV." Said Dot. Debbie waved at them and motioned towards the scared looking girl in the back seat. They all waved back.
"That doesn't mean they were friends." Said Morgan in that same sour tone. Amanda wished she could reach back there and slap him upside the head. This was a happy time, they should have all been happy. Her baby was coming home.
"Well I know it's hard to believe but some of us are capable of making friends." Said Trysta looking right at Morgan.
"Yeah, Dot." Said Morgan. Dot reached into her bag and threw a book at Morgan.
"Shut up!" yelled Dot angrily trying to reach across the row to seats to attack her big brother. Because she was only six Donna and Trysta had an easy-ish time holding her back.
"Knock it off or I'll knock it out of you!" yelled David Sr. All the kids in the back stared up at their father in fear. This wasn't normal angry.
"Sorry dad." They all said at once. They rode to the hospital, where their mother worked and their brother now resided, in a pregnant silence. They didn't even notice the car which was going in the same direction as them.
"We're here. Last stop, everybody off." Said Amanda and David Sr. trying to bring some levity to the situation. The kids silently filed out of the car and into the hospital each stuck in their own thoughts. Who was David Jr., and would he like them? Would he be mad at them? Would he hate them? Would he even be sane? What if he wasn't? They felt older as they approached their brother's room, like they had a bunch of birthdays but with no presents.
"He's awake." Said Amanda as she came out of his room. The kids took a deep breath and stepped into a new chapter of their lives.