Shocking, I know, but after five months I've finally got round to updating this story. I've had most of this chapter written for months, but I got a bit bored of this one so moved onto 'When Friends Become Lovers'. Then I had a moment of inspiration (thanks to saved-by-grace) that told me what I wanted to do with the next few chapters, and I promise there will be some proper Marsan stuff coming up.
Before I start, I want to thank everyone who has reviewed this story so far – Susan17, PinkSparkle02, Elisa1, EBStarr, HunnieBunnie, Dr-Mara-Weaver, satc-xfiles-wg-er, tv-crazy, abigailc and psalm57. I hope you guys haven't lost interest in this story. A special thanks to saved-by-grace too :)
A big thank you to PinkSparkle for being my bouncing board for all my ideas ;)
Chapter Eleven – Family
Mark rolled over in bed, his head thumping. He looked at his watch and groaned when he read 7.15am. He had been at work until 4am dealing with the victims of a multiple car pile up. He lifted his head to see what had woken him and heard raised voices coming from downstairs. He sighed, dragged his legs out the side of the bed and stood up wearily. He shivered. The winter chill had already arrived and the mornings were bitterly cold. After checking that Ella was undisturbed by the noise, Mark made his way into the kitchen where he found Elizabeth and Rachel having a screaming match. Elizabeth was holding a piece of paper in her hand.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Elizabeth was demanding, grabbing hold of Rachel's arm as she tried to get past her and sending a glass of orange juice flying through the air in the process.
"Let go of me!" Rachel yelled, eventually relenting. "You had no right going through my bag!"
"I didn't 'go through your bag', it fell out!" Elizabeth answered.
Rachel looked disbelieving at her.
"It's a good job it did, otherwise we'd never have known what you were up to!" Elizabeth continued.
"I'm not up to anything!" Rachel said angrily. "You're always moaning, always having a go at me about something. I'm not a child!"
"Well, if you acted more like a grown up, I wouldn't have to moan at you so much!" Elizabeth said.
"If acting like a grown up means being anything like you, I'd rather not!" Rachel spat.
"You rude little brat! Well whatever you've been up to, it's going to stop. You're grounded!" Elizabeth ordered.
"You can't ground me," Rachel sneered.
"While you're under my roof, you'll do as I tell you!" Elizabeth said.
"Just because you're shacked up with my dad, doesn't mean you can control me! YOU'RE NOT MY MOTHER!"
"Thank God for that," Elizabeth commented.
"Oh, piss off, you bitch," Rachel snapped.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Mark yelled, fed up with listening to them arguing.
Elizabeth and Rachel looked around, surprised to see Mark stood there.
"What the hell is going on?" Mark asked.
"Your daughter has been suspended from school," Elizabeth said, as Rachel stood scowling.
"Suspended? For what?" Mark asked.
Elizabeth looked at Rachel. "Are you going to tell him or shall I?"
Rachel didn't speak. Elizabeth sighed. "She got into a fight with another girl," she said.
Upstairs, Ella started to cry. Elizabeth grabbed the bottle of milk she had been warming and walked out the kitchen.
"You try and sort her out, she's your daughter," Elizabeth said to Mark as she passed him.
Mark stood in the doorway studying his daughter as she bent down to clean the orange juice off the floor. She was thirteen now. Thirteen going on twenty-five in Mark's opinion. She was no longer the little girl who had loved to curl up in bed with him, or sit watching the Little Mermaid over and over. She had stopped being that little girl when Jen had taken her to Milwaukee and they had gotten a divorce. The harsh realities of life had knocked Rachel hard. Jen had married a creep who Rachel had never accepted as any kind of father figure. Mark knew that Rachel hated living in St Louis and hated the fact that her mother worked all the hours she could, dedicating more time to her career than her daughter. But it was when he had been diagnosed with a brain tumour last year that Mark had notice a drastic change in his daughter – she knew now that life could be short; that life could be taken away from you at any moment, without any warning. Unfortunately, she had taken the phrase 'living life to the full' too far.
Mark knew that he had failed in his job as her father. It made him more determined to do things right with Ella. But he knew that he had to make things right with Rachel before she landed herself in any more trouble. Allowing her to move back to Chicago to live with him was the first step, although having a new born baby in the house meant that a lot of Mark's attention was taken away from Rachel and onto Ella.
Rachel looked up at her father, still scowling. "What?" she asked roughly.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Mark asked.
"Elizabeth was going through my bag…" Rachel started.
"Not with Elizabeth, I heard that," Mark said. "I mean at school."
Rachel stood defiantly, her arms crossed, refusing to speak. Mark spied the piece of paper that Elizabeth had been waving earlier on the kitchen counter and picked it up.
"You threatened another girl with a pair of scissors?" Mark asked, shocked.
"It wasn't like that," Rachel defended. "The teacher completely over-reacted."
"So what did happen?" Mark asked.
"What's the point in telling you, you won't believe me anyway," Rachel said.
"Try me," Mark said gently, sitting down on one of the kitchen stools and gesturing to Rachel to do the same. She reluctantly followed.
"There's this girl in my class, Marissa Jackson. She thinks she's so cool and pretty. She's trying to steal Andrew away from me," Rachel explained.
"Andrew?" Mark questioned. He had never heard Rachel mention this boy before. Rachel looked away from her father. "He's like, what? Your boyfriend?"
Rachel shrugged. "We hang out."
"So this was all over a boy?" Mark asked.
"She was flirting with him right in front of me!" Rachel said, starting to get worked up again.
"And you threatened her with a pair of scissors?"
Rachel scowled again. "We were in sewing class and I had a pair of scissors in my hands, so I threatened to cut off her dreadlocks. It's not like a threatened to kill her," she argued.
Mark sighed, not knowing what to do. He felt like he was losing grip on his daughter.
"See, I knew you wouldn't believe me," Rachel said angrily, getting up from the stool.
"I didn't say I didn't believe you," Mark said, catching her by the arm. She shrugged him off.
"You're just as bad as Elizabeth," Rachel spat. "You don't care about me! You're more interested in your new family, just like Mom!"
"Rachel, that's not true," Mark said. "You're my daughter, I love you."
"You didn't love me enough to come to Milwaukee though, did you?" Rachel questioned. "You didn't love me enough to try and make things work with Mom."
Mark sighed as Rachel stormed upstairs and he heard her slam her bedroom door. He hadn't handled that very well. Taking the letter from her school, Mark picked up the telephone to speak to Rachel's teacher. He was surprised by what he heard. She skipped lessons; she didn't hand in her homework; she was failing class tests. Mark knew she was bright, so why wasn't she working?
Elizabeth came downstairs with Ella in her arms.
"That went well," she commented.
Mark sat down at the kitchen table. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"What are you going to do about her?" Elizabeth asked.
"I don't know," Mark said. He checked his watch and sighed. "I've got to be back at work in a few hours."
Elizabeth grunted as she moved around the kitchen. Mark looked up at her.
"What?"
"Maybe if you spent more time at home and less time at that bloody hospital, things wouldn't be as bad as they are," Elizabeth.
"You know we're short-staffed," Mark started.
"That's always your excuse. You're not the only doctor in that ER. What about Kerry, or Susan, or Luka? Let them pick up the slack for a while, then maybe you could spend more time at home with your family," Elizabeth said bitterly.
"I'll talk to Rachel," Mark said.
"You think one little chat will change her? She's rude, she's lazy; she plays her music so loud the walls shake; she never tidies up after herself…"
"What do you want me to do, Elizabeth?" Mark interrupted. "I know she's not the perfect child…"
"That's an understatement," Elizabeth murmured.
"…but she's had a rough deal and part of that is my fault so I want to try and put things right. A bit of support from you would be nice sometimes."
"In case you've forgotten, I've been looking after our daughter. Where are you when she's hungry or tired? Where are you when she needs changing? Where are you when she's crying?" Elizabeth answered. "I'm stuck in this house day and night. If I'm not looking after Ella, I'm cooking or cleaning or food shopping. I don't get any help from you or Rachel. I need your support, Mark, but I don't get it."
Elizabeth's harsh tone upset Ella and she started to cry again. Elizabeth gave her to Mark.
"I need to have a shower," she said.
Left alone in the kitchen, Mark gently rocked Ella to calm her down.
"Where did I go wrong, eh Ella?" Mark whispered. Ella looked up at him and reached out her arms to grab hold of Mark's t-shirt, gurgling. Mark picked up the telephone again, dialled a number and held the phone to his ear.
"Hello, Frank? It's Mark. Can you give a message to Kerry for me, please? No, I don't want you to page her. Just tell her I can't cover her shift tonight, something's come up. Thanks. Bye."
With Ella in his arms, Mark walked over to the kitchen sink and ran the hot water. Ella giggled at the bubbles that gathered in the sink. Mark put Ella in her cot and began to clean up the kitchen. It wasn't much, but it was a start, he contended. Elizabeth came downstairs half an hour later to find the kitchen clean and Mark in the lounge tidying up. Ella was in her cot, gurgling happily. Elizabeth softened.
"Any sign of Rachel?" she asked, sitting down on the sofa.
"No," Mark answered. "I think I'll let her stew for a while. I'm sorry about the way she acted towards you."
Elizabeth nodded, accepting the apology and smiled.
"I should yell at you at lot more if makes you do the housework," she joked. "What time do you have to be back at work?"
"I don't. I called and told them I couldn't do it," Mark said.
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, surprised. "Wow, I really should yell more often!"
Mark laughed. "So, what do you want to do today? We should go out somewhere and have some fun."
"What did you have in mind?" Elizabeth asked, moving her feet so that Mark could sit next to her on the sofa.
"They just put up the ice-rink. Rachel used to love skating when she was younger," Mark said. "What do you think?"
"Ok," Elizabeth said reluctantly.
Mark sensed her lack of enthusiasm. "Don't worry, I'll catch you if you fall," Mark said.
"What about Rachel?" Elizabeth asked.
Mark sighed. "I'll go talk to her."
He made his way upstairs and knocked on her door. There was no answer. He knocked again, but there was still no answer. He cautiously opened the door.
"Rachel?"
She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, her earphones firmly in her ears. The music was so loud even Mark could hear it. Sounded like noise to him, rather than music.
"Rachel?" he said again, a little louder this time, trying to make himself heard over the music.
Rachel looked over at him and pulled a face. She took out her earphones and sat up.
"What do you want?" she asked moodily.
"I was just talking to Elizabeth, and we thought maybe we could all go out together. As a family," Mark said.
"Where?" So far, she didn't sound impressed with the idea.
"To the ice-rink."
Rachel rolled her eyes.
"You used to love the ice-rink," Mark said, a little hurt.
"Yeah, when I was six," Rachel sneered.
Mark sighed. "Fine. Elizabeth, Ella and I will be leaving in ten minutes, it's up to you if you come."
He got up off the bed and went to the door. Rachel lay back down on her bed and went to put her earphones in again.
"I'd really like it if you came," Mark said, before leaving.
He went back downstairs. Elizabeth looked at him expectantly and he shrugged. They set about getting a bag ready for Ella – bottles, diapers, a change of clothes. As they were about to call goodbye, they heard Rachel's bedroom door open and close, and the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Rachel came downstairs, bundled up in a thick coat and a bright scarf around her neck. Mark smiled, pleased. Rachel smiled back and accepted his offer of linking arms. They walked, as a family, down to the ice-rink. It was quiet. A few couples were skating, hand-in-hand. There were some lone skaters, gliding round and round the ice-rink.
As they got closer, Mark saw a familiar body on the ice-rink. Small, slim and blond, with a young girl who had obviously never skated before. Elizabeth spotted her too and pursed her lips.
'Why does that woman seem to be everywhere we go?' she wondered with a sigh. She watched as Mark's face lit up at the sight of her.
"Susan!" he called.
Susan turned around, momentarily losing grip of the little girl in front of her, who proceeded to fall to the ground. Susan leant down and pulled her up, trying to suppress a giggle as the little girl grumbled.
"Hey guys," Susan greeted them.
"Hi. Hey Susie," Mark greeted Little Susie.
"Hello," Little Susie replied. She looked up in wonder at Rachel, who had glided onto the ice like an old pro.
"Rachel, do you remember Little Susie?" Mark asked, as Rachel skated away. Mark sighed. Susan looked at him and raised her eyebrows.
"Don't ask," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't know Little Susie was visiting."
"She's staying with me for a few days over the holidays," Susan explained. "Chloe said she and Joe needed some alone time and asked if I would take her for a while."
Elizabeth coughed next to Mark, wanting to remind him of her presence. Her subtlety worked.
"Well, let's skate," Mark said to Elizabeth, grabbing her hand. "Good luck!"
He winked at Susan, who was still struggling to keep Little Susie on her feet, as he skated off, hand-in-hand with Elizabeth, pulling Ella in a little cart behind them. Susan felt a twinge of jealousy as she watched them together – a family.
"Ok, Susie, let's go. Just move your feet along the ice, like this," Susan said, trying to demonstrate.
They skated for a while. In front of them, Mark kept falling over, making them laugh. Even Elizabeth was a better skater than Mark, and she was only a beginner. Beside Susan, Little Susie continued to copy Susan's feet, her little legs sliding everywhere underneath her.
"Her skates aren't tight enough," came a voice from behind them. Susan turned as Rachel skated up to them. Rachel smiled, awkwardly. Susan smiled warmly back and Rachel bent down to fasten Little Susie's skates.
"This should stop you from wobbling everywhere," Rachel said gently to Little Susie, who went shy.
"Thanks Rachel," Susan said.
"Do you want me to skate with her?" Rachel asked.
Susan looked down at Little Susie. "Do you want to skate with Rachel for a while?" Susan asked. Little Susie nodded and reached her hand up. Susan stood and watched as Rachel accepted Little Susie's hand, gently pulling her round the ice rink. She smiled. Mark came up beside her. Elizabeth was taking a break with Ella by the side of the ice-rink, looking fed up already.
"It's strange how quickly time passes, isn't it?" Susan said to him. "The last time I brought Susie here was the Christmas just after you and Jen split, do you remember? She wasn't even one."
Mark smiled at the memory. "Rachel was sulking. I kept falling over."
"Some things haven't changed then," Susan laughed.
"You mean me falling over or Rachel sulking?" Mark said bitterly.
"She's a teenager. She's supposed to sulk," Susan said.
"It's not just that. She's been suspended from school for fighting," Mark said.
Susan raised her eyebrows. "Fighting?"
"Over a boy. The school said she threatened another girl with a pair of scissors," Mark said.
"What does Rachel say?" Susan asked.
"She said she threatened to cut off her hair. I wish I knew what was going on in head," Mark sighed.
"She's thirteen. I'd guess at boys, make-up and clothes," Susan said, jokingly. She saw Mark's serious expression and changed her tone. "She'll be alright. She just needs time to adjust, you know. To being back in Chicago, to Elizabeth, to Ella."
"But where does it end? When she actually does someone some damage? When she does herself some damage?" Mark asked, clearly worried.
Susan touched his arm. "I wish I had the answer for you."
Mark smiled gratefully. "I'm just worried about her. I'm worried about what she hasn't been caught doing," Mark said. "I don't know how to fix her."
"I'm not broken," came a voice from behind them. Mark and Susan turned around to see Rachel staring at them. Little Susie was stood next to her, holding tightly onto Rachel's hand to prevent her from falling over.
"God, what is your problem?" Rachel asked.
"Rachel, you were fighting," Mark said, exasperated.
"The other girl started it," Rachel argued.
"That's not the point," Mark said. "The point is you were fighting in the first place. The point is you've turned into this rude little girl who throws a strop when she doesn't her own way."
"Oh, piss off," Rachel said.
For the second time that day, Mark watched Rachel storm off. With an apologetic look at Susan, he followed her. Susan looked down at Little Susie, who was still unsteady on her skates. With one final wobble, her feet flew from under her and she landed on the ice. She looked up at Susan.
"Aunt Susie, I don't like ice-skating."