This has taken a while, I know, but I think it's worth it. Leave me some love :)

"So, why did you want to see me, Hathaway?" Stan asked, crossing his arms. "I hope it's to apologise for missing a week of work." I narrowed my eyes, taking a deep breath to summons the courage I needed for what I was about to do.

"Although I do apologise for missing work without reason, I am entitled to two weeks paid leave, and so you won't be docking it from my paycheck, Stan. But that's not why I wanted to see you." He looked at me challengingly.

"Oh? So pray tell, what was the real reason?" He asked sarcastically. I set my jaw.

"I want a raise," I said simply. He burst into laughter.

"A raise? You're got to be kidding me. You go MIA for a whole week, come in here everyday with a shitty attitude, mouthing off the customers and me, and you think I'm gonna give you a raise?" He shook his head. "No way. I'll be generous and not fire you if you get the hell out of my office right now." I steeled myself.

"Look," Stan, I said bluntly. "I've been here for nearly two years. I'm always on time, I stay and help pack up at night for no extra money, I work hard. I think I deserve a raise."

"Get out," he told me firmly. "Don't let the door hit you on your way." I shrugged.

"Okay." I pulled out my phone and dialled a number while Stan watched suspiciously.

"Hello, can I speak to Mr. Ashford? Sure, I'll wait. Yeah, it's just that I want to report a coffee shop doing a tax dodge, and I heard Mr. Ashford's pretty good at taking the owners to court." Stan paled. I continued. "You need the name of the business? Well, sure, it's-"

"Okay!" Stan hissed. "Fine, Hathaway, you can have your raise. Twenty-five bucks an hour. Happy?" I snapped the phone shut with a grin.

"I'm glad you saw sense."

"Just keep your mouth shut, you extortionist," he grumbled, but I thought for a minute I saw him smile a little. "And if you need to take time off, let me know a few days in advance, alright?" He said gruffly. I nodded.

"Sure. Bye, Stan!" I called, and walked out of the office into the sunny afternoon feeling victorious.

"Well?" Lissa said expectantly. I grinned.

"He gave me double what I thought I could get." She smacked me a high five and grinned back.

"See? I told you he'd cave. You're a born blackmailer."

"Hey!" I said, pretending to be offended, and she giggled. Suddenly, my phone rang, and the familiar number made my heart lurch.

"Hey Liss, it's my mom," I trailed off. She squeezed my shoulder reassuringly.

"Okay. I'll meet you at home. Call me if you need me." I nodded, and answered the call.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Rose, it's me," my mother's quiet voice said, making my heart clench. "Is this a good time?" I sighed.

"I guess it's as good a time as any," I said, resisting the urge to bite my nails, a habit I seemed to have picked up recently. "But I think we should talk about this face to face."

"I thought you might say that." My mother's voice sounded sad. "I'm at the park in Westlakes right now if you want to talk." I straightened a little, not sure to be glad or anxious at the possibility of a face to face conversation, even though I'd told her it would be better.

"Oh…Okay," I stammered. "I'll be there in a few minutes." With that I hung up and slowly made my way to the small park, my heart pounding uncomfortably heavily in my chest. It was a typical small-town park- a few sets of swings with some hyperactive children and their overtired mothers running around, a few benches, green grass and a sandpit. I spotted my mother's small, achingly-familiar figure with ease. She was sitting on a bench a little way away from the playground under a large oak tree, reading a book. She looked…the only word was peaceful. My mother had always had this aura of sadness around her, one that said she never quite told me everything. It was that aura, intensified when my brother was killed, that had driven a wedge firmly between us. She looked up from her book and seemed startled.

"Oh. Rose," she said quietly, a nervous expression on her face. "I didn't think you would come." I nodded a greeting and sat down next to her, trying my best not to meet her eyes. I had no idea how to go about this. No idea where to even begin to start. My panic was intensified when I realised what it was that I needed. I needed Dimitri. No, I corrected myself. Not needed. Wanted. I hoped I was strong enough to do this on my own, and even if I wasn't, I was going to try.

So, I said, breaking the silence but then unsure of how to continue, I trailed off. A brief smile graced my mother's beautiful features, features which for so long had been marred by frowns.

"Don't, Rose. We both know you hate small talk."

"I suppose I do," I sighed. She looked at me hesitantly.

Can-Can I talk? She asked timidly. Once upon a time (not so long ago, actually) I would have made some cutting, snide remark, and she would have looked crestfallen, but then shot back an even worse one, and then we would have fought, things would have gotten worse. But I was wiser now, maybe even more mature. I knew that what was going to be said here wasn't going to be poetry- it was going to be blunt and jarring and emotionally damning. But it needed to be said, and perhaps most importantly, it needed to be heard, by both of us. So I met her questioning eyes and nodded.

"I'm not going to pretend to be innocent in this," she said, a little bit of her legendary steely determination-one I had inherited-coming back into her voice. "I made a series of horrendous mistakes, the results of which will continue for a very long time. And I can't give you enough words of apology. Her eyes filled with tears, and she didn't try to stop them. I surprised (and terrified) myself by reaching out and squeezing her hand briefly.

"I know, mom," I said softly. "I know you're sorry. And things won't ever be the same, but that doesn't mean everything has to be bad. I'm here. I'm alive. It was awful, but I've survived. All I really want to know is why," I told her, my voice breaking on the last word. She took a deep breath, then set her jaw.

"I have spent so much time thinking about it," she told me softly. "And the more I think about it, the more reasons I can think of. But you have to understand that a part of me just didn't think. And that's what I regret most of all." I nodded, encouraging her to go on. "I want to be honest with you, Rose," she said bluntly.

"I want you to be honest too," I urged her.

"I will. Just-just as long as you try to keep in mind that a lot has changed since then. I've changed very much," she said softly. I nodded.

"Okay, I'll try." She hesitated, but then nodded back.

"When I first heard…I was shocked. I didn't know what to think. You know that his family were so well-respected…his mother was a close friend of mine. He never seemed like the kind of boy who would do such a thing. She sighed deeply. "I now know otherwise. But at the time, I ignorantly assumed it was your fault. You always had been the troublemaker of your friends. I told myself you had probably just had a fight, you were exaggerating, or you had provoked him." She bit her lip and swiped at a few tears. "I failed you there, Rose. I did not do what a mother should have done. I refused to believe you, and by the time I finally did, you were gone. That is the best explanation of my actions I can give you, she said simply. "But I have to explain something else to you, something I have never trusted anyone with. When you came home, when you told us what had happened…A part of me wanted to help you, even though I thought it may have been your fault. But that part of me was squashed," she said quietly.

"By what?" I whispered, almost afraid to know the answer. "By who, Mom?" She took a deep, shuddering breath, squared her shoulders, and looked me straight in the eye.

"By your father," she said coolly. My mouth fell open.

"What?" I stammered.

"I told you when you were fifteen that Jack Hathaway was not your real father- that your father was a man called Abe Mazur. That we had been childhood sweethearts, but when I got married and had your brother with Jack, we ended everything. I told you that I had had an affair with Abe and never even told him I was pregnant." She sighed. "Most of that was true, apart from the reason I had the affair."'

"Why?" I was trembling now. She smiled sadly.

"I remember it so clearly. It was a day of firsts. It was the first day of my new job. It was the first day in march, and it was a beautiful day." Her smile faded. "It was also the first time my husband hit me." I heard a gasp, and realised quickly it had been mine.

"Oh, my god, I gasped. He-he-" She nodded.

"Yes, Rose. There had been verbal abuse before, but we were stressed, money was tight, your brother was still a baby and so sick…but that was the first time he laid hands on me. I fled, and a few hours later found myself at Abe's house. He welcomed me with open arms," she said, her voice quivering. "I stayed with him for nearly two weeks, and we managed to fall back in love with each other in the space of that time. But my husband was a clever, charming man, and managed to convince me to take him back. It took a while, but he threatened me with custody of your brother, and so I forgave him, convinced myself it would never happen again, that it had been an accident. I held onto the custody of my child, but I broke your father's heart in the process." She bit he lip and looked at me, her eyes bright with tears.

"I never told him where I was going, I made it impossible for him to find me. And so you, Rose…You are the only reminder I have of him. The only reminder of the only man I have ever loved," she said simply. "You always wondered why I was so close to you one minute, so far away the next. That is the reason."

"Oh, Mom," I breathed, completely stunned. I had no idea what to think. Everything I thought I had ever known had been turned on its head. "It happened again, didn't it?" I said softly. "Abuse always continues, doesn't it?"

"Of course it did, she replied, looking down. "It was good for a while, and I started to remember why I had married him again. But every time it got better, it would just get worse again. I was weak, Rose, far too weak to get away from him, because I knew what would happen if I did. He would make sure nobody ever believed me, that my reputation was gone, my friends turned on me. So when you got out of that taxi that day, he-he told me that if I tried to help you he would kill me," she breathed. "And it wasn't a false threat, Rose. I should have been strong. I should have helped you, should have put you before me. But I didn't, and I hate myself for it."

"Don't," I said immediately. "Please don't. I can't blame you for that, because I know what it's like. I know how scared you must have felt, because I've felt that way, too. I remember having to put survival above everything else. It's not your fault, Mom. And I forgive you," I said quietly. She regarded me for a moment, and then did something I can honestly say I had never seen her do before. She started crying. Like really, properly crying, not-even-trying-to-control-it-crying. Pushing past my conflicting emotions, I took her small shoulders and pulled her towards me, knowing that she needed someone, anyone to be there for her in that moment. We were so much the same, I realised. We had more in common than I had ever realised. We sat like that for a very long time, and when we eventually straightened out, we were alone in the park.

"Mom?" I asked cautiously. "What-what happened to him?" She didn't even have to ask who it was that I meant.

"He's dead, Rose, she said with a sigh. Died of a heart attack mid last year. By then, I'd been gone six months already. I didn't go to the funeral, and knew you wouldn't want to go either." I sighed, feeling a strange kind of closure. As shocking as it all was, it made sense now. My jumbled, patchy, far-from-perfect family life. Why I had never been close to my father, even though I had loved him. But that love had faded a long time ago, and now, was lost forever.

"And-and my real dad?" She shook her head grimly.

"It wasn't a fairy tale, I'm afraid. I have never looked for him. It's easier just remembering him the way he was." She gave a little chuckle. "Anyways, He always had big plans, big ambitions. He'll be long gone by now." She sighed.

"Thank you," I said quietly. "For trusting me, for telling me." She shook her head.

"No. Thank you, Rose. I know you're going to need some time to think about all of this…and I'm certainly not blameless in it, but if you ever need me, or anything, I'll be here," she told me, fresh tears in her eyes. "I'll do it right for a change, if you ever need me."

"I still have a lot of healing to do," I told her frankly. "And no offense, but it seems like you do too." She laughed, and the lovely sound made my heart ache. "But I don't want to heal with a cold heart. A tiny part of me is still really angry with you, and it probably always will be," I said frankly. "But the much bigger part of me understands. And you'll always be my mom. So…do you think that we could do this, this…healing stuff…Together?" I finished. She studied me, and after a moment, gave me an uncertain but determined smile.

"I think that's a great idea," she said softly, and it was her turn to pull me in for a hug. The perfect moment was shattered after a few seconds with the sound of running feet and a scream.

"ROSE!" A voice shrieked, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Looking around, I saw it was Lissa. She was in her court clothes- black skirt, white blouse, green cravat. Her golden hair was coming out of its neat coil and she carried her heels in one hand, her eyes frantic.

"Liss?" I said cautiously. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, everything's right!" She puffed. "But we've gotta go, right now!" I shot a glance at my mom, who nodded at me.

"Go, Rose, it's okay. Call me in a couple of days." I nodded back, swooping down to press a kiss to her cheek.

"Okay. I love you, Mom," I breathed, feeling the tears gather in my eyes and forcing myself not to cry.

"I love you too, sweetie," she replied gently. "Now go, before Lissa has a stress-induced heart attack." I couldn't help but grin as Lissa yanked my hand and pretty much tore out of the park like a pack of bloodhounds was after her.

"How did you find me? Did you run all the way here from court?" I asked, bemused. She grimaced.

"I had Mason hack your phone, and yes, I bloody well did. Now move!" She yelled.

"Lissa. What the hell is going on?" I demanded, skidding to a half in front of her and turning to face her. She took a deep breath.

"Court is closing in an hour and the jury has decided completely impromptu that they have enough evidence to make a ruling. I've called the final witness to the stand."

"Who?" I said, apprehension building in my stomach. Lissa looked me dead in the eye.

"You."

I know, you hate me for the cliffy, but it will be worth it!

I originally intended for the trial to be in this chapter, but the thing with Janie took much longer and I thought up part of the whole Abe twist midway through, so trial next chapter! Leave your thoughts! 2-3 chaps left!

Em xx