Story: Fall to Pieces

Author: heartgddss

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or plots from Degrassi: The Next Generation. They are property of Epitome, CTV, etc.

Main Characters: Ashley, Manny, Craig, Emma, Jimmy

Summary: Ashley doesn't want to forgive Craig for breaking her heart. But when Emma gets involved, will love win over Ash's pride?

Rating: Two or three uses of harsh language, and other themes.

Before you read: Wow, you guys. I feel horrible for not updating sooner. My birthday is tomorrow and everything has been crazy... I'm gonna be thirteen lol... wow... I promise I'll be quicker updating. I swear!

Emma Nelson sat in her basement bedroom, completing her math homework. She licked the end of her pencil, concentrating on the mounds of solved math problems which sat in front of her. The last number remained unsolved, number fifty-one. Though, it was a bit hard to solve problems from her Algebra 2 class when her little brother Jack was wailing eight feet above her head.

"Carry the two..." she mumbled. She punched a few numbers in on her calculator and came up with a result. "Sixty-nine point two." She scribbled it down in her notebook, not caring if it was correct or not.

"Emma!" Her mother yelled down the stairs.

"What!" She called back.

"Just come up here, will you?" Spike said just loud enough to make her voice be heard over her son's.

Emma slammed her notebook shut and jammed her pencil into the metal coil. Her head felt light as she stood up quickly; spots began to form in front of her eyes.

"Emma!" Her mother whined. Emma looked up the stairs and saw her mother standing in the doorway. Emma cringed; her mother looked gruesome. Spike's hair was dull, limping down at the back, and her bangs askew. It looked as if she hadn't washed it in a week. She didn't have any makeup on, which made her look as if the grim reaper had paid a visit.

"Oh, mom. You look terrible." Emma climbed up the stairs and took the sobbing bundle from her mother.

"Thanks for the compliment," she chuckled. "I desperately need a bath."

"No kidding." Emma gave her mother the once-over. She had pink bunny slippers on her feet. "Go get some normal clothes on before I go into cardiac arrest."

"I'm on my way. I won't take long." Spike turned on her heels when Jack began an outburst again. She froze in her tracks, debating on whether she should take her child back or to continue on her way to the bathtub, which had been calling her name for the past six days.

"Don't even think it mom. Bath. Now," her daughter ordered. Emma stuck two fingers into Jack's open mouth. The crying instantly turned into soft cooing.

"Maternal instincts at age fourteen. Who would have known?"

Archie Simpson, Emma's stepfather, limped down the hallway leading to his wife and two children. He was a tall man, wearing a pair of pleated khakis and a red tshirt with white paint stains; his pale face making him seem almost ghost-like.

"Dad? What are you doing up?" Emma leaned to the left and pulled Jack up onto her hip. Archie opened his arms for Spike to come into them.

"Couldn't sleep. I was tired, and then I wasn't." Spike embraced him. "Did you finish your homework?" He eyed Emma holding his son.

"Yes sir," Emma slightly lied. Her math homework was done, but not the English paper due the next day. Neither was her history project. Not to mention the fact that she had to prepare for tomorrow's E.C. meeting.

Archie sensed Emma's bluff. "Go finish it, Emma. Schoolwork is first." He lifted Jack from Emma's arms.

"Dad... please let me take him. He can sit with me while I finish it." Emma played with the cloth that lied loosely at Jack's feet.

"What? You think I can't take care of my own son?" Archie sounded taken aback. He bundled up the rest of the cloth with his free hand and held Jack away from Emma protectively.

"Archie..." Spike warned.

"Look, he's my son. Just because my son's father has cancer doesn't mean he can't have one at all." He slightly stumbled back into the wall. He held onto the coffee table for resistance from falling down.

"Dad!" Emma rushed over to him, concerned.

"I'm fine, Emma. Go finish your homework, please," he demanded.

"Archie, give Jack to Emma," Spike ordered. Snake had been slowly slipping down the wall while they talked, and now he seemed as if he were sitting in an invisible chair. "I'm serious. Give him to Emma," she told him again when he didn't hand Jack over.

Emma crossed over and gently took Jack away. She smiled at him while he settled himself into Emma's arms. "I'm going to Manny's," she told her parents.

She trotted down the stairs to her room and gathered up her homework, including the clipboard with a few E.C. forms. Maybe she could talk Manny into it after all. Jack quietly hummed next to her, his drool slowly dripping down her gray sweatshirt. Emma wiped it off with a side of the white linen he was wrapped in, and swung her backpack over her shoulder.

She climbed back up the stairs, taking more time now, since she was now weighed down with twenty pounds, more or less.

"See? She's going to get scoliosis if she carries all of that at once!" Archie yelled once she appeared back up the stairs. Spike had her arms around him now. She was rubbing his chest in an attempt to calm him down.

"Dad, I'm fine. Go back to sleep," Emma said quietly. She gravely continued on her way down the hallway and out the door, with tears beginning to roll down her face, and Archie still yelling at her from the other side of the house.

She rummaged in the front pocket of her pink backpack for money. The zipper was stuck on a piece of cloth and she couldn't get it open.

"God, can't one thing go right?" she said lightly. Jack loudly yawned next to her. She smiled in spite of herself.

The wooden bench two feet ahead looked like a good place to sort things out. She sat down, placed Jack on her lap, and the backpack next to her. She tugged at it until it opened, even though now she had a small rip where the cloth had been torn.

She stuck her hand into the pocket, coming up with a bubblegum wrapper, a Chap Stick with no top, a broken crayon, and $7.83. She suspected that she had more money in her jean pockets, but she didn't want to move Jack, who was silently sleeping against her right arm.

The bubblegum wrapper and the Chap Stick went into the trash can next to her, and the crayon went back into the pocket. There was no telling when Jack might need something to play with. She didn't know when she was going home at this point in time.

For when her dad got hysterical like that, Emma and her mother had come up with an escape plan. Spike would do her best to restrain him while Emma got her stuff together. In Emma's bag there was always a spare bottle for Jack, a pacifier, and her house keys. Then she was supposed to get Jack and out of the house as quickly as she could.

The total times that Emma had had to do this was three. She either went to Manny's, or she stopped at the twenty-four hour diner on the corner to eat and finish her homework. Then she would sneak in through the window in the basement and keep Jack with her until the morning.

"Oh, Jack." Emma sighed.

"Emy!" He called, his hand rising towards her.

"Yeah, that's right," she smiled. "I guess I'm your mommy for today."

She checked her watch. It was already seven thirty. Manny's parents wouldn't allow Emma to come over this late, so she opted to go to the diner. Emma zipped up her backpack, stuffed the money into her pocket, put the backpack onto her back again, and lifted Jack onto her hip again.

The diner was an old mom and pop place four blocks away from her house. It had opened back in the early seventies, around when her mom was born. A guy name Freddy had run it at that time, so, naturally, it was called 'Freddy's'. They had the best cheese fries Emma had ever tasted.

A bell dinged as Emma pushed open the door. She hoisted Jack onto her hip as he started to fall, and found salvation in the closest booth she could find.

"What can I getcha, darlin'?" A mossy-brown haired woman with wrinkles and a gold front tooth came up to Emma and Jack, a pencil stuck behind her ear and a notepad in her hand. Her nametag read 'Greta'.

"I'll have a cup of coffee, and..." Emma looked at Jack, who was beginning to wake up. She unzipped her backpack and found his bottle at the bottom of it. "Warm milk, for him?" She offered the bottle to Greta.

"Of course, sweets." She scribbled down the orders on her notepad and looked back up. "He yours?" Greta asked.

"Um, no. He's my half-brother." She was slightly insulted by Greta thinking that Jack was actually hers.

"You seem like a good sista. You good for 'im." She smiled her golden-tooth smile and walked away to get their drink orders.

Emma sighed, and rammed her head against the cushion. She felt like crying all over again, but couldn't let herself do it in public. She decided to get her English paper done before she did her E.C. preparations. She pulled out her copy of 'The Great Gatsby' and three pieces of notebook paper and a pen. She stuck Jack onto her thigh, and began to bounce him up and down.

"Here ya are, sweets." Greta came over with a cup of coffee, Jack's bottle filled with warm milk, and a basket of saltine crackers. "Thought he might wanna snack." She placed the cup in front of Emma and the milk and crackers next to her.

"Thank you, but I don't know if I can pay for them." She offered the basket back to Greta.

"You wanna pay for a basket o' crackers? You so silly." She took her notepad back out of her apron and a pencil. "Whatya want to eats?"

"A bowl of steamed carrots and applesauce, thanks." Emma's stomach rumbled while she ordered just for Jack, since she didn't have enough money to order for the both of them.

"You not gonna eat, Sweets?" Greta looked at Emma concernedly, her wrinkles all lopsided.

"I already ate, thanks," she lied.

"The tummy tells no lies, darlin'. I heard it talkin' to you." Greta looked at her sternly. She obviously had been a mother some time or another.

"I really don't have enough money. Could you just bring the carrots and the applesauce please?" Emma was getting irritated. She needed to get her English paper done before ten o' clock.

"Look, Sweets, you get somat to eat right now, pay lata when you gots the money."

Emma looked at the kind lady. She supposed that eating now and paying later wasn't the most horrible thing to do.

"Okay. A basket of cheese fries, a cheeseburger with extra pickles, and a hot fudge sundae for me, please."

"Now we talkin'! Got ya order comin' right up!" Greta skipped back to the kitchen and placed Emma's order onto a clip. Emma smiled, and looked outside the window. The clouds were rolling into one another, creating a dark grey sky. She could hear thunder shouting at her in the distance.

"Great. Just what I need. Rain." She shook her head, picked up her pen, opened 'Gatsby' to page ninety-two, and began writing, all the while shaking Jack on her leg.

"What about company?" Emma heard a familiar voice ask her.

She looked up. Ashley Kerwin stood above her, looking down onto the mess that Emma had created in ten minutes. Jack's bottle had tipped over and now the milk was leaking out, and the crackers were askew in front of him. Emma's own mess consisted of empty sugar and cream packets for her coffee, her three pieces of notebook paper had somehow found their own spaces on the table, and her pen was leaking ink on her copy of 'Gatsby'. Not to mention that Jack was still drooling on Emma's shoulder.

"Oh, Ashley. Hi." Emma smiled, a bit embarrassed.

"Don't worry about it. I have younger cousins. I can relate."

"No, I don't think you can," Emma mumbled.

"Can I sit down?"

"Yeah. Of course."

Ashley took a seat opposite Emma and surveyed the disaster scene.

"Why aren't you at The Dot?" Emma questioned.

"I hate The Dot. Too much commercializing... too much socializing, too. This place is so quiet, and nobody from school ever comes here. Well, except you." Ashley smiled.

"Yeah. I guess." Emma surveyed Ashley's smile. It was that tiny, perfect smile that was rarely seen. She could imagine Craig kissing it and thoroughly enjoying it, and then going off and kissing Manny with the same mouth. Emma could imagine kissing Ashley's mouth herself, actually.

'Whoa. Hold that thought. I'm not gay... or am I?'