Forever a Marsan fangirl with a perpetual infatuation with Susie fic.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Heaven knows that it's a crazy ride,
It's never perfect all the time,
It'll pull you down and send you flying,
So, baby, hold on tight on this crazy ride
-Michelle Branch;

The streak of hot pink hair falls across her face as she pulls her lanky frame into the chair beside the social worker's desk. She looks like a filly, wild and ready to run, with a frame disjointed with youthful clumsiness and a sallow stomach that hasn't been fed properly in months. For thirteen, she's far too grown up and all too young at the same time. Susie Lewis, like her mother, is just one step out of time and touch.

Chicago's department of children services is teeming with people and the little girl thinks she could disappear completely if she hadn't already done that. They're waiting on her Aunt Susan to show up and give her a home. It's been a few years since Susie had seen her aunt. Chloe had left Joe when Susie was nine and they'd fallen off the map together. At first it was fun, just her and her mama in that old Chevy taking on the world together and Chloe had a way of making anything seem like an adventure. Except Chloe liked drugs more than her daughter and soon Susie had services to offer and Chloe was trading them for drugs. A few months ago, a deal had gone sour and Chloe had put up a fight. Susie felt sick to her stomach just thinking of the gun shots, the smell of blood, and the vile things those men put her through.

A kind, old police officer just a few years shy of retirement had found her one cold night in Los Angeles while walking his beat. The men had grown tired with her and tossed her out like yesterday's trash and that's where the man had found her – tucked under a cardboard box and near dead with exposure and hunger. The hospital in LA had nursed her back to health and she'd seen a psychologist who helped her find her words after shock had turned her silent. Finally, she was home in Chicago.

Her beloved Aunt Susan was coming for her. It had been so long and so many bad things had filled the space in but Susie remembered what it was liked to be loved by her aunt. She waited on baited breath for that feeling again. She wanted to feel safe in the solid build of the doctor and breathe in that scent that lingered from her childhood. Susan had always been there, hanging out in the background like a guardian angel. Susie hated her mother for taking her away from that. Then, of course, she felt bad for hating a ghost.

The bell of an elevator rang across the other side of the crowded room and the thirteen year old's eyes shot up as her aunt stepped out with arms linked with an older, almost bald man. She remembered him hazily from a photo that had sat on her aunt's bedside table in Phoenix – a permanent fixture even when Charlie Dixon almost became her uncle – it was of Susan, Susie, the man, and a chocolate haired little girl with a crooked grin. Susan had told her stories of the man in the photo but in Susan's stories the man was always a super hero. He didn't look much like one but that was how he kept his secret, Susan had promised.

Susie took off from her seat in a flash; her holey Converse smacked against the tile floor and her blond hair waved behind her like a kite in the wind as she raced across the room. "Aunt Susan."

"Susie," the doctor whispered as she dropped Mark's arm to wrap the little girl up. "Oh, sweetheart, you're okay."

"I missed you so much," Susie choked out around the tears and ignored the pain in her ribs as her aunt squeezed her tighter. "I... Mama's gone, Aunt Susan."

"I know, baby," Susan breathed as she brushed the hair back from Susie's face. "I'm so sorry, honey. I've got you though. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. You're safe."

The sobs came silently now as she shook against her aunt, burying her face in her neck and letting her arms lock around her. She felt like a child as Susan somehow managed to hoist her tiny frame into her arms and carried her back to the social worker's desk. The teenager was exhausted, emotionally and physically, and the fight she had left in her was suddenly drained with the relief of seeing her aunt. "I'm sorry," she mumbled self-consciously. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," Susan argued. "I've got you."

Susie relaxed in her aunt's embrace as the social worker began to fill the adults in on what was to take place. Joe had signed over all rights he'd had in the adoption. Susan would be named her legal guardian in a court hearing in a few weeks after evaluations and proving she was a fit parent, that the fit was good. They could worry about things like adoption in the future. The social worker explained the traumas the teenager had endured and gave them a list of therapist in the city who could help them work through their problems. It was all stuff the little girl had heard before and she felt herself drifting off against her aunt's shoulder.

–

"Susie," the blond whispered as she poked her niece's side. It had taken the better part of an hour to sign all the papers and filling everything out with the bony thirteen year old in her arms hadn't been an easy feat but Susie had seemed so exhausted that Susan had managed around her. Mark had kept a steady hand between her shoulders when the case worker explained the abuse and sexual trauma her niece had endured at the hands of her sister's drug dealers. Though she would never say so out loud, it was a good thing that her sister was dead or Susan might just kill her herself for putting the little girl through all this. She regretted having not fought harder for custody of sweet little Susie the first time that Chloe had fallen off the wagon. Then they were gone and no one could find them. It wasn't until the police had found Chloe's body almost four months ago that the hunt for little Susie had begun.

Except 'little' Susie wasn't so little anymore and had endured far more than any person ever should.

"Aun' Susan," was mumbled against her shoulder and she brushed the girl's hair from her face before dropping a kiss to her temple.

"It's time to go home, baby."

"I'm so tired," she whimpered. "Don't make me move."

"I've got her," Mark spoke for the first time since they had arrived. He stood and lifted the girl from her arms like she weighed nothing more than a piece of paper – she barely did. Susan thanked the social worker and tucked the folder of papers into her messenger bag before tucking her fingers through Mark's belt loop and following him out of the office. "Reminds me of Rachel when she was about eight or nine. She'd fall asleep to the TV and I'd have to carry her to bed."

"She's thirteen," Susan breathed as they stepped onto the elevator. "She's thirteen and the size of a healthy eight or nine year old, Mark. She's been malnourished and abused and molested. She's witnessed drug use and god knows what else because my sister is... was... a self-centered bitch. I would have taken her in a heartbeat – all Chloe ever had to do was ask and I would have jumped. But that would have made me happy and it would have made Susie safe and Chloe couldn't ever have either of those things." Tears pooled beneath her eyes and she slammed a hand against the elevator wall before slumping forward. "I hate her, Mark. I really do."

His strong hand curled over her shoulder and she turned, falling into his free side and wrapping one arm around his waist, the other curling around Susie. "It's going to be okay," he promised with his lips at her forehead. "It's going to be okay."

"How do I make sure it is," she asks. "How do I fix this for her?"

"You can't," he tells her. "There's no possibly way to fix this, Susan. All you can do is pick up the pieces and move forward from here. She's never going to be the same as she was before and the sooner you make your piece with that, the sooner you'll be able to help her. The best thing we can do... we help her adjust, we help her find peace, we help her find happiness again. They stripped away everything innocent and good. All we can do is try to restore that for her. You can't undo the trauma, Susan. You can't fix the fact that she saw her mother get murdered. All we can do is help her move on from here."

"We?"

He nods. "We. You're not in this alone."

She cants into him deeply and sighs. "I'm glad."

.