Thank you for the reviews.

I'll just assume that everyone is a willing member...

TW: there is a small mention of suicide

The First Meeting of the 'We Hate Melissa' Club

"Just think, if this happened a year ago, I would have been happy," James said, knowing that he had to say it to someone at some point. And Amelia seemed to be the best candidate for it.

She just shook her head at him before they both went back to watching their dad mope about the playground. It was kinda hard to watch, knowing that the same time last week, he was so happy with their mum. And they were happy as well. They were so bloody happy. They were a family at long last.

"Although I do understand where he is coming from," Amelia said.

"So do I. Doesn't mean that I fucking agree with it."

"I haven't really missed you swearing as much as you used to."

"You've never told me you had a problem with me swearing before."

"Before I thought that I would never have a decent conversation with you again."

"Exactly. He is good for all of us."

"Okay then Jamie, how are we going to fix this?"

"I think we need to get involved. And we need to hold a meeting."

"A meeting?"

James turned to Amelia. "The first meeting of the 'We Hate Melissa' Club."

There probably would have been a time that Amelia would have told him that they couldn't blame everything on their auntie but it was becoming more and more evident that they could. Melissa blamed their mum while their mum never blamed Melissa. James could think of more than a few things that he could blame Melissa for.

"Well, I am a willing member," Amelia said, giving him a smile.

"Co-founder. Christ, Amelia, we do everything together, don't we?"

"Alright. Alright. Philip?"

"Oh yeah. We've got to ask him but he has always been able to see what Auntie Melissa couldn't."

"Dad?"

"Dad can join once we've had the intervention."

"Intervention?"

"Well, I don't think they are going to get back together by themselves."

"Nice. I suppose you have a plan."

"An idea but it is something we can discuss tonight."

"Looking forward to it."

It might not have been a lot but it gave them a bit of hope for the moment. And that was what they both needed a little bit of.

Rachel had thought that Kim would have questioned her over the rather frosty management meeting earlier in the week but Kim had left it a couple of days before she walked into her office and stood in front of Rachel's desk with her arms crossed.

"What's going on?" Kim asked.

"With?"

"You and Eddie. I'm not his number one fan, admittingly, but I found the meeting the other day rather awkward and I don't quite know whether I want to go blindly into another one."

Rachel swallowed the lump in her throat. "W-we've broken up." She said, trying not to let it sound like it was affecting her.

The concern in Kim's face rose and Rachel was sure that she didn't know what to say.

"When?" Kim said, eventually.

"The weekend."

"So that is why you've been coming to me more this week."

"I can't… I get that it is all my fault but I didn't quite think that he would have given up on us like he did. I just don't know how to make it right. I don't even know if I can make it right."

"What is your fault?"

"Melissa is back. I went to go and pick her up from Liverpool police station." Rachel forced out a laugh. "He is right. We would end up having a conversation that we had before and… it wouldn't be fair on him."

"Can I be a little forward?"

"I think you are going to be."

"Wouldn't both of you moping around be a good sign that it isn't over for you both?"

"It isn't. And he'll be there for the twins. It's just… I kept failing to let him in properly and I get close to doing so but then I just push him out. I have never fully let him in and I can't understand why I keep doing it. I want him, Kim. There is just something stopping me from completely falling."

Rachel could tell that Kim had more to say on the subject and she was sure that she would hear it at some point, but Rachel couldn't see a way that this could be resolved in the way that they wanted it to be resolved in.

James wished that he was making dinner for five but he was only making dinner for four, with him trying to give his auntie a very big hint that she was in the doghouse. And so he put his mum's dinner in the oven while Amelia took hers and his and Philip took his and went to sit at the table, with James not too far behind them. Which was probably the best way for them to be when Melissa did join them as they began to tuck in.

"Where is mine?" Melissa asked.

"There wasn't enough for five," James said.

"Really?"

"Really. And don't touch the one in the oven. This is Mum's favourite."

"What is going on?"

"What is going on?" Amelia repeated with James glad it was her that said something. "You do realise what you've done."

"I haven't done anything."

"You haven't done anything?" James said, trying to keep his anger in check. "We haven't been home properly for nearly a year."

"I still have no idea what this has to do with me."

The feeling that he wanted to shake his auntie rose in him again and he was sure that he was the closest that he had ever been to actually acting on that action. Which wasn't great when he looked over at Amelia and she gave him a small smile.

"You are better with words," Amelia said.

James took a long deep breath before he turned to his auntie. "This time last year, I hated Dad. I couldn't stand him and I certainly wasn't calling him Dad. I was hoping that he was going to be like all the other men that had walked into Mum's life and he was going to walk out at some point as well. But he fucking didn't and I was so blind to it. Because when Mum was with Dad, it was the happiest she had ever been. It was the happiest that we have ever seen her. And it would be, bearing in mind that Mum told Amelia that last time she was that happy, she was leaving the hospital with us. After we were born."

"She was pretty happy when she announced that she was pregnant with Robert's baby," Melissa said.

"Are you deliberately thick? Mum was happy because she had to be happy. I thought you knew what happened with Robert."

"James."

"It's Jamie to you," James said before he really lost it. "The only people that can get away with calling me James are Mum, Amelia, Philip… and Dad. Not that Dad has ever called me that or that I've actually told him that it is okay to call me it." He took another deep breath. "Do you know what happened with Robert?"

"Not really. Rachel…"

"Maybe you should have asked! Maybe you should have asked her how she fell down the stairs because the truth is he pushed her down them. Maybe you should have asked why she decided to leave him when we did because the truth is she walked in on him…" James clenched his jaw. He had let this all go. It shouldn't be this hard to still talk about it. "She walked in with me backed into a corner as he was hitting me with his belt. My broken arm? He did that. Before the belt, he grabbed one of my football trophies and held my arm against the floor and smashed the bottom of the trophy into my arm as hard as he could a couple of times.

"Philip asked me what happened. He asked why Mum was so upset." He let out a breath, feeling better for getting it off his chest. "And it used to hurt me. It used to hurt me a lot because I always thought that our dad should have been there to stop it from happening. That Mum should never have met Robert because Dad should have been there. And that was why I didn't want to let him in but he, Eddie, Dad, he is the best man that I have ever known and Mum was so fucking happy with him and we were nudging them together and you had to go and fucking ruin it all.

"I don't fucking care about your problems. I don't care whether you hate mum because she was a prostitute or because she was the one to have twins or because she was waiting for this perfect man to walk back into her or whatever fucking petty thing you hate her for. You had no fucking right to take away her happiness. Not for one fucking second. She would drop everything for you. You couldn't even be arsed to fucking show up when she had been in the fire." James stood up and picked up his plate. "I'm going to eat in my room."

With James' strides, he knew that he could make his way across the kitchen rather quickly. Melissa wasn't going to stop him. She had always seen him as a 'loose cannon'. Someone that she didn't want her son to be around because she didn't want him to pick up any bad habits. Great things to think about her own nephew.

"Amelia, darling," Melissa said.

James turned when he got to the door to the kitchen, mainly because he was curious as to what his sister was going to say. Although, by the shake of her head, James felt like Amelia was going to be following him.

"Not going to work, Auntie Melissa. Because James is right. We loved being with Dad. Because what if everything happened without Dad being here. You do know that prick that I call a brother ran back into the burning building to save Mum." Amelia said, pointing to him when she spoke about him. "And I could have murdered him that day because I thought I was going to lose both of them. But Dad was there to take charge of the situation.

"But if he hadn't been here, I would have fallen and I… I'm not convinced that I would be here if Dad wasn't there to catch me. He, somehow, managed to stop Mum from rushing back to work and he is good for her. And he fucking adores her. You fucked up, Auntie Melissa. I don't understand why Mum has to clean up your messes when you couldn't be there for her when she needed you most. I know Jamie has my back. Jamie knows I got his. Are you ever going to have Mum's?" Amelia stood up and grabbed her plate before she turned to Philip. "You coming?"

James felt like he could start the journey to his room then, knowing that they would be following behind him. But he stopped not far from the door to the kitchen, noticing his mum standing on the mat by the door. By her face, there were no tellings as to how much she had heard of what had been said. Maybe he didn't want to know.

"Dinners in the oven, Mum," James said before they all made their way upstairs.

Rachel watched them as James, Amelia and Philip made their way up the stairs. As much as she knew what she had heard needed to be said to Melissa, she knew that it should have been said by her. Meaning that she felt like the only thing to do would be to do the same thing as they did and get her dinner and take it to somewhere that Melissa wasn't.

"Did you just hear that?" Melissa said as she entered the kitchen.

"Most of it."

"Well?"

"Well, what?" Rachel said as she got her dinner, a small smile rising on her face when she saw what it was.

"Well, aren't you going to do anything about it?"

"Why should I?"

The pure anger in Melissa's face told Rachel that she had a lot of things wrong with what the twins had just said to her.

"I have always said that James was a loose cannon. He is a bad influence. You should have always been harder on him."

"Or maybe you don't like the truth."

"What truth?"

"Well, where were you when I was in hospital? When I was in the coma? I… Without Eddie, I probably would have woken up to find out that I didn't have a daughter anymore and a son full of regret and grief. You can say what you like about mental health but Amelia's is fragile at the best of times. James' as well. Treat this as a wake-up call, Melissa. Because you lost nearly everyone. What else do you have to lose?"

Rachel didn't want to hear what she had to say to that, leaving before Melissa even had a chance to say anything. She slowed down as she reached James' room and tried to press her ear against the door.

"How are we going to fix this then?" Amelia said.

"Well that wasn't meant to happen," James said.

"It did need to."

"So what is this all about?" Philip said.

"This is about getting Mum and Dad back together," James said.

Rachel sighed before she continued to her room, not knowing how James was going to make that happen.