A/N: Thanks for all your reviews on the first chapter! I hope you enjoy this one, excellently beta'd by the awesome tromana.
By the time Teresa Lisbon reached age thirteen, she was cooking most of the meals, helping her brothers with their homework, and was working off the books at her local supermarket, stacking shelves. Luckily she knew the owner, and had managed to convince them that she would be a reliable worker.
Her father wasn't working anymore, he'd been signed off sick several months ago and the income they had was from benefits and Teresa's job. Once she reached thirteen, she was legally allowed to work and moved to manning one of the tills, which brought in a little more money than before.
Still, it wasn't enough.
The Lisbon family moved into a smaller house and a public school, as they couldn't afford the upkeep of their home and the school fees. Once Teresa reached thirteen, she applied for a scholarship to a private college, and along with the bursary she could afford to carry on with her schooling.
Every week, she ensured she put away five dollars into each of her brother's trust funds, so that they would have their own money when they were older. Her father used any money he got, including the majority of the benefits, to pay for more alcohol. She couldn't do anything about it. Most of the time when she got home from school or work, he'd be flat out on the couch, with a pile of sick on the floor near his head. She'd clear it up, not the most pleasant of jobs, so that when she picked up Alan and Charlie from school they would just see their father asleep. She knew they were both aware of their father's alcoholism, but it didn't stop her wanting to hide it.
"Tess, can I go get an ice cream?" Alan asked one day when she was walking them home from school. Teresa pulled her purse from her pocket and looked in it. Four dollars and thirty two cents. And that was meant to last them for the next week.
"I don't have the money, Al," she said apologetically.
"But Tess!" Alan whined, and Teresa was hurt at the fact that she couldn't do anything about it. "You never get us anything!"
"I can't afford everything you want," she replied calmly, but her fingers were playing with the frayed pocket of her jeans.
"Mom would have bought me an ice cream!" Alan yelled, and ran off.
"Alan! Alan!" Teresa shouted after him, "Alan! Come back!"
She put her head in her hands, tears running down her cheeks. She felt Charlie hug her around the waist.
"He didn't mean it, Tessie," Charlie told her, always the calm one. Teresa wiped away her tears, and tousled Charlie's hair affectionately. He took her hand and they carried on walking home. She could only hope that that was where Alan was headed, too.
By the time they reached home, Alan was already there, thankfully, sitting on the front step. He was enthusiastically licking at an ice cream.
"Where did you get that?" Teresa asked interestedly.
"From the ice cream van," Alan replied stonily.
"Where did you get the money?" Teresa questioned him and he glared at her.
"From Janet."
He was referring to the elderly woman who lived next door to them. Teresa looked over the fence, and saw Janet watering her geraniums. She was a nice woman and a generous neighbor. There had been occasions when she had looked after the boys whilst Teresa struggled with the upkeep of the family home.
"Janet?" she shouted and got the old woman's attention.
"Yes, dear?" Janet walked over and leaned on the fence.
"Did you give Alan the money for an ice cream?" Teresa wanted to check that Alan had been telling the truth.
"Yes, I did. I'm sorry, shouldn't I have?" Janet looked worried, and Teresa smiled.
"That's very, very kind of you. Thank you." For some reason, tears pricked at her eyes at the fact that Janet would just give Alan the money. "Oh, and Janet?"
"Yes?" Janet looked at her quizzically.
"Do you need two boys to help with your gardening or anything at the weekends?" Teresa had thought of a way that her brothers could earn their own money.
"That'd be lovely. I would love to have them over here," Janet smiled at her warmly, and looked at the two boys. "You just knock on my door when you want to help."
Janet turned back to her gardening, and Teresa unlocked the front door and ushered Charlie and Alan in.
"Do we have to help her?" Alan complained, and it took all of her willpower not to hit him.
"You need to start earning some of your own money, Alan. I can't pay for everything around here." Teresa thought back to when she had last gone shopping for herself, at the end of the holidays. She'd had to buy herself new stationary for the upcoming school year. That had been eight months ago. She hadn't bought any clothes for herself in over two years. Instead, she used her mother's old sewing machine to adjust her old clothes, as well as her mother's clothes that would otherwise just hang in the wardrobe, gathering dust.
She didn't have a party for her ninth birthday. Or her tenth. Nor for her eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth or fourteenth. Her birthdays simply weren't important anymore.
She made sure that she saved up enough money to buy a cake, or at the very least, ingredients to make one, and have a small party for her brother's birthdays. She knew that Charlie wouldn't mind so much if he didn't have a party, as it was he only invited his three closest friends anyway. Lisbon almost felt like she was a surrogate mother to Lisa, Jamie and Georg now. As well as to Charlie and Alan.
She wasn't their sister anymore. She hadn't been for years.
She had to quit ballet after her mother's death. Dance classes cost money, after all. She'd practiced the steps in her bedroom, but she hadn't been back to her class, though eventually she simply did not have the time to do so. She had cancelled her piano and flute lessons. She had ended her singing lessons. She had to forget about her drama classes, too.
She always practiced playing the piano and her flute, though. She dreaded the day that she would have to sell the piano. She would have to sometime, she knew that. The piano was the only thing the family had left of value, now.
Her fingers danced across the keys, and she felt a slight waft of cool air as someone opened the door. She finished the piece and turned around.
"What was that?" Charlie asked her.
"Für Elise, by Beethoven," she informed him. She could play the whole piece without the music. It had been her mother's favorite piece on the piano, and Teresa had vowed that she would make it as perfect as possible. For her mother.
"It's pretty," Charlie replied as he sat next to her on the piano stool. "Can you teach me it?"
From then on, Teresa would teach Charlie how to play the piano. Though she couldn't spend as much time on them as she liked, she understood the importance of extra-curricular activities. Her teaching him was cheaper than hiring a teacher. Like her, he seemed to have a natural talent, and was soon playing in concerts at school.
"Tessie?" Charlie knocked on her bedroom door. Teresa looked up from her math book.
"Come in," she said, and the door opened.
"Tessie, Mr Langer asked me if we would play a flute and piano duet in the Christmas concert," Charlie reported, and Teresa smiled.
"I'd love to. I'm taking you're playing the piano?" she grinned, Charlie couldn't play the flute, and they both knew it. She'd tried teaching him all of once and that had ended in disaster.
"Of course, don't be silly Tessie. What can we play?" Charlie jumped onto her bed and sat down, his legs crossed.
"What about Clair de Lune?" Teresa suggested, and when Charlie's expression stayed blank, she picked up her flute and rattled off the first few bars.
"Oh! That one!" Charlie grinned. "Yeah. He says to talk to him at break time on Thursday."
Teresa had grown further and further away from Alan, who seemed to have no respect for anyone or anything, and yet closer to Charlie. Alan had stopped helping out at Janet's, while Charlie diligently helped out every weekend.
"Tess!" Alan hollered up the stairs. Teresa appeared on the landing.
"Alan, don't shout," she admonished.
"Can I have some money? I want to go out with Simon and Alex," Alan asked, and Teresa ran down the stairs and checked her small safe. She had bought it after her father had taken all of the money out of her purse and spent it all on alcohol.
She handed him a dollar. "It's all I have to spare," she said, and Alan glared at her.
"You never give me anything!" he yelled at her, "you're always doing your own things, or playing duets with Charlie! You don't care about me! I hate you!"
He threw the dollar back at her and ran out of the house, the door slamming behind him.
Teresa collapsed into a chair, her head in her hands. 'What did I do wrong? What have I done?' she asked herself, despairingly.
Half an hour later, Janet came rushing around, terrified. She ushered the young girl around to her house, where a phone call had been waiting for her. Their telephone line had long since been cut off, so Janet had kindly offered Teresa the service of hers, free of charge. The electricity had been cut off one time too, when she hadn't had the money to pay for it for a couple of months.
"Hello?" she spoke into the receiver.
"Mr. Lisbon?" a female voice spoke.
"No, it's Teresa. Miss. Lisbon," she corrected the caller.
"I'm from the General Hospital. We have you brother here…" Teresa interrupted her.
"Alan? What's wrong? Is he okay?" she choked on the words.
"He's fine, apart from a broken leg. He was hit by a car," the receptionist told her, and silent tears flowed down Teresa's cheeks.
'He could have been killed… It's all my fault!'
"I'll get there as soon as I can," she ended the call, and yelled out for Charlie to get ready quickly. She found her bus card, and took some money from the safe.
They waited for the bus which stopped outside the hospital and travelled there in silence. It took them fifteen minutes to get to the hospital. For the entirety of the journey, she felt sick, and fraught with worry.
"I'm looking for Alan Lisbon?" Teresa spoke to the receptionist.
"Are you family, miss?" the receptionist asked her, and Teresa nodded.
"I'm his sister," she told her. "Where is he, please?"
"What about a legal guardian?" Lisbon froze.
"He's… unavailable right now."
She hoped that they wouldn't say that her father had to be there otherwise they wouldn't be able to discharge Alan. Because Lucien Lisbon was currently blacked out on the couch at home, rather indisposed and not in any condition to get his son home from the hospital.
"He's in ward 33," the receptionist smiled at her and Charlie, and directed them down the hall to the children's ward. Teresa hurried over to where Alan was.
"Al? Are you okay?" Her fingers brushed gently over a bruise on her head.
"No thanks to you," he answered grumpily. Lisbon looked away, praying that she wouldn't cry. No one answered her call. Tears slid down her cheeks, and she walked outside of the ward, and leaned against the wall.
'What did I do? Why me? Why is it my fault? I should be a better mother to them…' She stopped in her line of thought. 'What? I'm their sister! Not their mother! Why do I have to do all the work? What have I done wrong?'
Half an hour later, they were back at home. Alan was getting used to his crutches, and though he still wasn't very good on them yet. All the way home, Teresa had her hand on his back, just in case.
"I've got your back, Al," she'd promised him when they left the hospital.
To her surprise, when she unlocked the door, her father was awake. Not sober, mind you, but awake.
It was a start.
A/N: I hope you liked this chapter! Please review!