Disclaimer: I don't own Four Brothers, but the plot and original characters are mine.

Prologue:

My brother Bobby is in jail. There's no shock there. Ever since Ma died he made an effort to go straight, but it didn't change nothin'. He's still the same ol' Bobby. Trouble for him is like cigarettes for me-addicting. We try and stop, but neither of us has the willpower. Sometimes I wish we could, like right now.

Why right now? Because Bobby's in jail, serving two consecutive life sentences without visitation rights and I know for a fact that he didn't do it. He didn't kill no one. Those dumb ass cops took him away and put a fancy lawyer up against the cheap, fresh out of law school lawyer that was assigned to my brother. There was no competition, especially since this newbie didn't seem to care much for Bobby. Sometimes, when the case was open, I wondered if the kid thought Bobby was guilty and didn't do his best work because he didn't want him on the street. But I know the truth and I'm willing to work to get him out.

That's probably because I got nothing else. It's not that I don't care about Bobby and wouldn't work for him if I had something else, but since I ain't got nothing else, this one takes top priority.

Jerry moved away with his family. He took the girls and Camille with him when Camille was pregnant with their son only a few months back. I think Camille's had the baby by now, but it's hard to tell. I don't talk to them much because of the time difference. Yeah, time difference. They're not even in the States anymore, that's how much of a difference it is. They moved to England somewhere. To a place where Jerry was offered a job that paid him what he deserved. Didn't matter much to me. My brother was gone and I wasn't hearing very much from him. That's what mattered.

Not to mention that Angel is dead. Some bull crap story about an accident. It was probably a fight that went wrong between barrack-mates, knowing Angel. He was always the brawns, never the brains.

But Bobby was nearby, locked up in jail, far past the edge of the city and well into the countryside. But not the nice countryside that people go to, y'know, to get away from it all. No, Bobby was in the dirty, nasty countryside where no one goes. That might be because of the prison, but either way, everyone went to a different countryside to get away from it all.

Sometimes I wonder what 'it all' is. Work? Pain? Being tired? I deal with those things everyday in every sense of it all, but I don't go away. There is no going away. I learned that when I was younger, when my parents and then later my foster parents beat me, neglected me, raped me, tortured me and threw me into dark closets, knocking me out. I supposed the time I spent knocked out or passed out from pain were my little get aways. But those stopped when they took me to Ma's.

When I got here, I couldn't just get away. They wouldn't let me. They made me face it all everyday and just do my best. I made a habit of it and that's just how I've lived for the better portion of my life. But now I do it alone. It's so much harder alone. I miss Ma, Jerry, Angel and Bobby so much.

And I could move to England, but I can't. I know, it sounds retarded when I say that, but it's true. I had this talk with Jerry before he left. He understood what I was trying to say before I even said most of it. My life, me facing this every day, it's here, in this house. Ma's house. I might have gone away for a while to try and make my dreams to become a rock star come true, but I realized that's not what I should have been doing. To keep me stable and waking up every morning, I need to be here. Maybe that's why I was so fucked up when I was on the road with the boys. I've mellowed out since then, y'know, since I picked up my routine, but it's still there. My tattoos and my addiction still exist but that's about it.

Now, in addition to my original addiction, I have a new one. It's a new reason for me to wake up in the morning. It's to prove Bobby innocent. I know it's been a little while since he was thrown into the slammer for this one, but I know I can do it because his innocence is the truth.

Freeing Bobby. It's my new addiction.

Anyway, as I was saying, Jerry and Angel are gone and dead and Bobby's gone too. I can't keep this routine on my own. One day I'm going to stop moving and I'm just going to collapse. I don't know when and I don't want to find out. I'm sick of being without my brothers. I know they aren't my blood brothers, but what we have is even better than that. Blood brothers don't always care about each other the way me and my brothers do. When Angel died, that was a couple o' weeks before Bobby went away and a month or so before Jerry moved, the three of us just sat together in Angel's room. Back then Jerry didn't think Bobby was guilty. Back then we were three brothers instead of four.

They were almost three brothers instead of four when I nearly died during that shoot out in front of the house, but my brothers were spared the separation and I was spared the trip to wherever I'm going after I die. I'm not sure if it's heaven, hell, or some limbo, but I was spared it, which I was grateful for at the time. Had I known all this was going to happen, maybe I wouldn't have wanted to be spared it. Maybe I wouldn't have held on so tight to life. Maybe being with Ma, or wherever else I'm supposed to go would have been better.

Either way, here I am today alone, not wanting to be alone. Four turned to three, three turned to two, and then finally, as to be expected, two turned to one. I wonder if this is how Ma felt as we all left, one by one, leaving her alone. Sometimes I regret leaving, but only sometimes. It doesn't matter though. What does matter is that now I'm the one who's alone in a quiet, cold house that was once filled with clattering pans, laughter, yelling, slamming doors and warmth. Once in a while, a kid will come back to visit Ma. It doesn't happen often but that's when I feel most alone. Sometimes I can close my eyes and still feel the warmth and hear the noises, but when those kids come around, it all goes away for days, or sometimes even weeks at a time.

All of this is more incentive to fuel my addiction. An addiction that could go away for a short period of time with visitation rights, almost like a failed rehab attempt, but will never be terminated for good as long as Bobby is in jail.

A/N: And so it begins.

Love and Luck,

Gaby