Chapter 2: Picking up from chapter 1, Ste walks into the club to join the little family reunion.

Warning: this chapter didn't get beta-ed because I changed it around so many times, but I didn't want to keep anyone waiting. Also, huge thank yous for everyone who read/reviewed Chapter 1! Positive feedback is super cool & I hope I don't disappoint.

xo pdsanonymous

The sound of the door slamming shut had made both the siblings look up; Brendan, looking rattled, barley together and Cheryl, with tears streaming down her face. Cheryl was seated at the top of the stairs to Ste's left, with Brendan standing in front of her, arms around her shoulders. This wasn't the sight that concerned Ste though, because as he turned his gaze to the right the whole world came crashing down. A gun placed on the arm of the sofa, a bar stool on its side toward the center of the bar, and to the right the man Ste had grown to hate, Seamus Brady, laid dead.

Ste couldn't help but to look back to Brendan, wide eyed and questioning. Ste couldn't bring himself to speak for a moment, unable to process what he was seeing, what had happened, how it had happened. He had more questions than he knew what to do with, but seeing Brendan's face made him realize now was not the time. While Brendan's face was dry, he looked fragile, shaken and drained; like he had given Cheryl all the strength he could muster. With Brendan's strength and confidence gone, Ste knew he had to fill its place. Rather than stopping to question, to comfort, to fall apart, Ste focused on the more pressing matter of keeping this between them.

"We need to lock the other doors, right…" his voice came out weaker than intended, clearing his throat, he continued, "Brendan? Can you do that for me? Can you lock up the downstairs?"

"Yeah, yeah I can do that…" Brendan twitched noticeably, as if to shake off whatever had just gone down. "But Chez?" he asked.

"I got her, go." Ste replied.

Brendan glanced at Cheryl for confirmation, and she nodded. He pressed a kiss to her forehead before bounding down the stairs to lock up. Cheryl tried to control her sobbing as Ste walked over to her. He wasn't sure what had happened, but Cheryl looked destroyed. Had she walked into this, like Ste had, her father dead on the floor? Or had she been here to see her father die before her eyes? Whatever the circumstances, she needed consoling. Ste sat beside her and pulled her into a hug, stroking her hair while quietly shushing her. Despite his damp clothes, he could feel her warm tears create a puddle on his shoulder. Ste only opened his eyes as he heard Brendan coming back up the stairs.

"All locked up…Steven, what are you doing here? You shouldn't be here." Brendan warned. There was a coldness to his voice that Ste had recognized from their past encounters. But this time, Ste wouldn't let himself be pushed away. After today, they were supposed to get their happy ever after.

"I was here to check on you. What happened Brendan?" Ste heard his own voice start to shake, as he felt Cheryl pull away from their embrace.

Wiping away her tears, Cheryl whispered, "I killed him." Ste thought he misheard.

"It was an accident…you understand what I'm saying it was an accident." Brendan kept his eyes on his sister.

"He's lying there, he's dead." As Cheryl said this, Brendan silently moved past them on the steps and crossed the bar to where the body was lying. Before giving the body a long, cold stare, Brendan covered the body with Seamus' own jacket. When he turned back towards the steps, both Cheryl and Ste were standing to meet his gaze.

"I know Bren…I know what he did to you." With Cheryl's words, Brendan glared at Ste for a moment before turning back to Cheryl.

"What are you talking about?" Brendan tensed, before pointing at Ste. "What's he been telling you?"

"I didn't say anything Brendan! I wouldn't." Ste couldn't hide his disgust at the thought. It wasn't his place to reveal Brendan's secret life of abuse, despite the burden Ste felt carrying it. If this is what it felt like to keep that horror in for less than 24 hours, he understood how messed up Brendan had become carrying it around for closer to 24 years.

"The gun, I found the gun in the flat." Cheryl interrupted them before the argument could continue. "And then I got this delivery and it was this thing, it was a USB. And I watched it… and it was you and Daddy in the house…with Walker from the other night."

"Walker." Brendan huffed. "I wanted to tell you Chez. I swear I wanted to tell you..."

"And then I started running. I ran as fast as I could to come and get you. And then…and then I saw what he was doing to you and the guns in my hand and…I killed him."

Ste felt his heart drop. 'What he was doing to you,' what did Cheryl mean by that. Brendan had told Ste about the abuse of his childhood and adolescence, but Ste had assumed it was all in the past. Whatever it was, it had been enough to push Cheryl to kill her own father.

"What was he doing to you Brendan…today I mean…?" All Ste wanted to do was comfort Brendan, to pull him into his arms and never let go, but not now. Brendan was on edge, trying to block out whatever had happened here before the shooting, dismissing him.

"Nothing Steven—it was nothing."

Ste looked at Cheryl and Brendan both, trying to find an answer, but they both looked at the ground. Clearly, Ste wasn't going to hear much else about what had happened before Cheryl shot Seamus, but now that she had, only one question lingered.

"Well what do we do now?"

Walker, Walker, Walker. The sneaky bastard had spoken about a parting gift, but this was a doozey. If he hadn't been dead already, Brendan would be seeking him out now. He ran his hands through his hair as he thought of a response to Steven's 'what now.' What now, was that Walker had won; he had torn their lives apart alright.

Rather than speaking, Brendan just pointed at the steps behinds Chez and Steven. He couldn't do this here, couldn't talk about what they were going to do with that monster's body while the memory of what almost happened was still in his mind, happening in the same place he stood now. Before waiting for any kind of response, he brushed passed them both and headed down the steps.

When they caught up to him, Brendan was already behind the bar downing a glass of whiskey. He poured another before offering the bottle to the others, which they denied. Chez and Steven both took a seat, but Brendan couldn't be stilled long enough to sit, so he remained standing.

"I need to call the police," Cheryl said, breaking the silence. "Tell them what I did."

"No…you do that and you get locked up for life." Steven interrupted.

"You're not going to prison. You're not going to get your whole life taken away, not like this. Not today. I can fix this."

"I killed him Bren."

"No you didn't. I did." Brendan spoke the words before he could even think of their implications. He could feel the heat from Steven's stare, but wouldn't meet his eyes, looking only at his sister. "You know what unconditional love is Chez? Unconditional love is standing in front of somebody and taking a bullet for them. Taking the heat. I'm taking that bullet for you." He slugged back another drink before daring to glance at Steven, who had started to cry.

"No, you didn't Brendan. You're not going to take the fall for this. You did nothing wrong. Cheryl? …Cheryl! You can't let him do this." Steven pleaded with Cheryl, but she remained silent at the end of the bar. Steven looked back at Brendan, tears now rolling freely. "How can you do this to someone who loves you as much as me?"

"It's non-negotiable Steven. She's my baby sister," his strength was beginning to fade as he looked into Steven's eyes, his own starting to well up. "Besides, I should have been locked up a long time ago for all the things that I've done."

"And do you think I can live with myself knowing what I've done?" Cheryl sniffled.

"What you've done, is stop any other kid going through what I went through by his hands! What you've done, is make this world a better place!" his tears turned to anger. How could she feel guilty? How could she not see the good in what she had just done?

"I'm not going to let you die in prison for something I've done! No way."

"I'm not doing to die in prison." Brendan took a breath. "It's not going to happen."

"You can't protect her forever Brendan!" Ste shouted through his sobs.

"Yes I can! Yes I can! I can't let him win okay! Because of what he did to me as a kid, we've landed here. We were so close weren't we, all three of us. We finally got it right and then what happened? He turned up and started tearing everything apart…." Brendan fought back the tears and swallowed before continuing, "Walker's dead. Dad is dead. And what are they doing? Laughing from the grave." Brendan twirled his empty glass on the bar top, knowing that they had won. There was no getting out of this situation unscathed. He reached for the whiskey bottle and poured another round, this time with a glass for each of them.

"If you do this Brendan, they'll both have gotten what they wanted. You can't let them tear us apart. Nobody's going to take our lives away from us—any of us." Steven did his best to gain control over his tears as he reached out. Brendan thought he had been going to the glass, but he instead grabbed hold of both Brendan and Cheryl's hands. Feeling Steven's touch made it worse, knowing this could be the first and last chance he had at properly holding the boy's hand. He held it tightly, as Steven attempted a slight smile up to him, before speaking again.

"Cheryl deserves to live her life, and so do you Brendan—and so do I! And I ain't living my life without you. Not after everything we've been through. I didn't even know who I was until I met you." Brendan raised his free hand to Steven's face to wipe away the tears. He hated seeing Steven in pain, especially since Brendan himself had caused so much of it in the past, and today.

After a beat Chez spoke up, her voice hushed and uneven.

"Bren? When we were visiting Nan, and I saw you in that warehouse…" Brendan blood turned cold at the memory of his sister finding him covered in another man's blood chopping his body into bits; Joel's step-dad, another parasite that deserved to die. "Could you…could you do that again, but with daddy? Just make it go away."

Brendan's mind began racing, as he tried to think. Could he? Could he make this all disappear?

On her way to the supply closet, Cheryl stopped in the washroom to wash her hands, scrubbing away gun residue as Brendan had instructed. As she then gathered the cleaning supplies, Brendan and Ste pulled up the area rug from the office. Not in her most bizarre nightmares, did Cheryl ever think she'd be involved in body disposal; especially that of her daddy, who she had held on a pedestal all her life. The pedestal crumbled before her eyes when she watched that video and heard her father's words before Brendan. In some respects she was grateful to Walker, for exposing her father as the monster he was.

Cheryl busied herself with finding a set of yellow rubber cleaning gloves for each of them, before pulling on her own. She handed a set to her brother and to Ste as they placed the rug onto the floor. She found some rags along with a scrub brush and a bottle of bleach for herself, as she waited for the boys to move the body.

As they unfurled the rug, she heard Ste ask Brendan in a whisper, "Is this what you and Warren did with Danny?"

"Danny? Danny Houston? Did you kill him Bren?"

Brendan simply nodded, while Ste looked guilty for letting that one slip.

"I know they tried to charge you with it, but I didn't think they'd had enough evidence." Cheryl knew her brother was no angel, but his body count just went up by one.

"Exactly. No evidence means I cleaned up. Just rather I'd be doing it alone." Brendan huffed, as he moved their dad's body onto the rug, swatting off Ste as he tried to help.

"You need our help Brendan! You can't do all this on your own." Ste interjected with hands on hips.

"You shouldn't be left to clean up my mess." Cheryl moved over to where her father's body had just been. The concrete was still warm, as she cleaned the surprisingly small amount of blood from the floor. She began to cry as she did so, before Brendan's hand stilled her actions.

"He created this mess, not you Chez."

"You still need to let us help you, Brendan. We're all in this now…" Ste paused to crouch down to Brendan's eye level, "For better or for worse." Cheryl noticed the way Brendan looked fondly at Ste over the sentiment.

"So damn stubborn aren't ye Steven? Fine, do us a favor and grab a bin bag. Gotta get rid of these rags and anything that could trace him back here."

"Okay, I can do that. I'm gonna look around the bar and downstairs too, make sure he didn't leave anything behind." Ste stood and paused for a second, looking over the siblings before moving to the lower level of the bar to start on his mission. Cheryl could tell the task was meant to distract Ste, keep him occupied and away from the worst of it; that Brendan was trying to protect them both as much as he still could.

Cheryl shifted her focus back the stained flooring, scrubbing away the bloody stain left behind, but not the remorse. Without looking up, she muttered, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"You got nothing to be sorry for."

"For not seeing, not seeing what he was doing to you…Why didn't I see it?" It was all she could think about after watching the USB. How did she not know? Was there some sign of abuse that Walker had seen in Brendan, and taken advantage of, that she hadn't seen?

"I didn't want you to see it." Brendan replied, his eyes avoiding hers.

"I'm your sister, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I love ye. If I told you, everything you believed in, everything you cared for would just…just come crashing down. I couldn't do that to my baby sister." Brendan looked at her then, with all the love and affection he had ever shown her.

"When…Was I there, was I in the house?" Brendan remained silent. "I was wasn't I?"

"No, not all the time."

"I was in the next bedroom to you."

"Please, don't do this. Please." Brendan stood then, distracting himself with the act of rolling up the carpet around their father's corpse.

"I was jealous, could you believe that?" Cheryl knew Brendan was avoiding this conversation, but it was something he needed to hear. "I was jealous. I used to see him playing with you…I wanted to be you so badly. I wanted to be daddy's favorite."

"If he was with me, it meant he wasn't with you. It's why I didn't run away."

Before Cheryl could ask another question, Ste returned up the stairs, bin bag in one hand and Seamus' notebook in the other. It wasn't the exact same, but similar to one Cheryl remembered him having when she was a child. He had used it for his betting and book keeping, and had kept a photo of Cheryl and Brendan tucked in the corner; a picture taken on her birthday, the birthday party where Brendan hadn't been allowed cake. She now remembered when Brendan had told her he had gotten cake after all, when their daddy had brought him a big slice up after everyone else went to bed. The price of that cake, and the photo that he had kept to remind him made Cheryl shiver.

"Can't forget these!" Ste moved to toss the notebook into the bag, but Cheryl stopped him, reaching for the notebook and searching through its pages. "What are you doing Cheryl?"

She ignored Ste's question and her brother's inquisitive glare as she turned the book upside down to rattle out anything that might have been held inside. Sure enough, a small grainy photo appeared. Cheryl took a moment to reflect on the childhood they had both lost before ripping it up and throwing it into the bag. She then proceeded to rip out all of the pages of the book, along with the deed to the pub that was stashed inside; it was no use to anyone now.

Brendan held out the bag for her, as she threw away the last remainders of their father's 'business' dealings. Cheryl then returned to the floor to continue scrubbing the same spot as before. From the corner of her eye, she watched as Brendan and Ste grabbed the bloody rags to throw in the bin, along with their dad's other personal affects, like his shoes and cell phone that Brendan had removed the memory card from. She would have to repeat this process when she got home; to rid her home of the reminders of him, of all his belongings and the pictures that held nothing but secrets and lies. Brendan walked over to where she was now scrubbing feverishly and lifted her to her feet.

"I think that spot's cleaner than the rest." Brendan tried to joke, while holding her by her elbows. Looking down, she saw that it was true. The floor left no trace of any blood at all. Cheryl tossed the scrub brush into the bin bag that Ste was no holding open, and stopped to look at the ring on her finger while removing her gloves. Brendan had given her future back to her, a chance to start over, to live with Nate and be happy. Nate, a wonderful man that offered her a future she had only dreamed of; one that seemed uncertain after she had pulled the trigger on her on father.

"We're all ready. Chez, I need you to focus here." Brendan's voice brought her wandering mind back to the present. There was still so much to do. "I need you to go."

"What about you? You and Ste? I'm not going to leave you here. "

"Me and Steven, we got this." Brendan attempted a half-smile. "Go home, throw these clothes in the laundry, and get in the shower and scrub. Make sure you ain't got any residue left to find on ye. Change into some clean clothes. Catch up with Nathaniel yeah? Make sure he knows where you were all night…you were together right? He loves you, just tell him you were together all day and night, and he'll say the same."

"What are you going to do with…what are you going to do with him?"

"The less you know from here on out the better Chez."

"But you and Ste?" Cheryl knew she would lose the argument, but she couldn't help but to feel overwhelming gratitude as she looked between her brother and Ste, who had remained silent. Risking everything they had built and worked for, for her. It wasn't fair none of it was fair. As if reading her mind, Ste pulled her into a warm and gentle hug.

"Don't worry. We got this." Ste tried to joke, but Cheryl could feel him trembling ever so slightly as he pulled away, eyes filled with tears that were willing to fall.

"I love you." She reached out to her brother, and they stood there holding each other, neither wanting to be the first to break contact. It was an apology, an understanding, a thank-you, a lifetime of caring shared between them wrapped up in an embrace.

"I love you…now go… do what I told you." Brendan slowly pulled away and Cheryl nodded an understanding. She left quietly down the back steps, and crept over to the flat unnoticed, where Nate was already asleep on the couch. She was grateful she could put that conversation off until the morning. She busied herself following Brendan's advice, tossing her clothes in the wash on hot, scrubbing herself raw in the shower, changing into fresh clothes before putting the wet clothes in the dryer. She tucked herself into bed, emotionally and physically exhausted, but couldn't find sleep.

She couldn't shake the feeling that the hug they shared was goodbye.