A/N - again sorry for that last chapter- it was ridiculously late - so I decided to get started on this one pronto. So if you do advise stuff - and please do - you'll find it could possibly not be in this chapter simply because I finished it first. Which is unlikely - but still...

Concrete Angel

What do I do to ignore them behind me

do I follow my instincts blindly

Do I hide my pride from these bad dreams

and give in to sad thoughts that are maddening

do I sit here and try to stand it

or do I try to catch them red-handed

do I trust some and get fooled by phoniness

or do I trust nobody and live in loneliness

because I can't hold on when I'm stretched so thin

I make the right moves but I'm lost within

I put on my daily facade but then

I just end up getting hurt again

Freddy collapsed onto Billie's bed. It'd been so long since he'd been in a 'real' bed, he could hardly remember how one felt. Freddy was actually a little astonished and slightly unnerved that he'd accustomed Billie's room himself. He could see litterings of things he had dilerbertly let in her room - he had an entire CD shelf, his drum set, school books and homework that he never intended to do, hell - even clothes. Billie's room wasn't exactly the cleanest anymore though, so his clothes could mix evenly with her own - and he could find Billie wearing some articles of his clothing. Of course she knew it too - she knew what didn't belong to her quite will - but she never seemed to mind him unconsciously trashing her room.

"What the hell is that?" Freddy asked pointing to a pile of garbage.

"I don't know," Zack answered. "But I swear I just saw it move a moment ago."

Freddy sighed, taking large gulps of air in. "Boy it sure is good to be back in the real world." Sure, Zack couldn't be happier to have his friend back, but still he couldn't quite bring himself to REALLY be happy. "Is it Marta?" Freddy asked knowingly.

Zack nodded. "She tell you?"

Freddy shook his head. "Billie told me."

This didn't seem to shock Zack all that much, but he still couldn't help giving Freddy a envious look. Zack hadn't been seeing all that much of Billie - she was always out, out at the hospital, or her new favorite hang out - Starbucks (oddly enuff) - or when she wasn't she was always in her room and no one really wanted to bother her. No one but Freddy. The guy who never took no for an answer.

Billie never seemed to reach out to anyone else. She was in pain, it was understandable, but Freddy still shoved his way in - more than willingly to comfort her - as if he knew what she was going through. As if he had already lost his own mother.

"You two heading for splitsville," Freddy added solemnly, yawning. "I hear it's not a very fun place."

Zack shook his head, dropping down onto the Billie's bed beside Freddy. "It's not," he groaned loudly. "I'm on the first train out."

"The S train?" Freddy asked triedly.

"What the hell?" Zack snapped, eyeing his best friend. "S? Summer? Those nurses gave you too much fucking drugs, you're as a high as a goddamn kite! Are you insane - knock your head against the ground ten billion too many times? HELL NO I ain't hooking up with her!"

"Why not?" Freddy asked rationally. "She's perfectly fine. Why should "

"She's perfectly fine?" Zack repeated. "She's prefectly fine! Are you seriosuly ill, Freddy, man this is SUMMER, the bitch from hell? What'd they do to you in that hospital."

Freddy shrugged. "Got an awful lot of sponge baths," he grinned brightly.

"Oh god," Zack groaned.

"This is stupid," Billie ground out, trying to prevent the glare from rising to her dark features. "Therapy. I don't need therapy. I'm perfectly fine. Really."

"Perfectly fine?" Janie Mooneyham repeated. "Sweetie, you've changed everything about yourself as you possibly could. Were you unhappy with your appearance before?"

"No," Billie answered. "But I didn't change everything. I didn't change my friends, I didn't change my personalty or my train of thought. I didn't change any of that important shit - just the things that people pick out to judge you on. And so what? Does looking this way giving you any insight to how I really feel or act inside? No. You're judging - just like everyone else."

"Sweety, we're just concerned for, that's all it is," Janie pointed out kindly.

"But you not," Billie argued. "You don't care for me at all! "

"Don't talk to my wife like that," John butted in a little angry.

"You don't know me the way you think you do, mooneyham," Billie pointed out calmly. "You don't know me at all, and how are you to care for somebody you don't know? How are you to care for somebody you can't find a reason to care for?"

"Sweety, lots of kids face withdrawal if a parent dies, he's not your fault," Janie tried to comfort.

Billie nodded. "Yeah, that's just peachy, except I'm not 'facing' withdrawal. I'm not withdrawing from anybody!"

"We have a strict policy against lying," John butted in again.

"That's great. Except I'm not lying! Everytime I left the house where did I go? To the hospital! To see a friend! A friend I am not withdrawing from. Sure I got a little testing, but you guys are the ones that backed off of me - not the other way around. I told you where I was, if you wanted to bother me - by all means I wouldn't have stopped you."

"But dear, you're not acting the same," Janie pointed out again. "You don't have that same excited yet bored look in your eyes."

"You can't be happy forever," Billie stated firmly. "I'm not happy - but then again are YOU really all that happy?"

"I beg your pardon?" Janie gasped quietly.

"Of course she's happy!" John butted in.

"I'm not going to therapy," Billie repeated, putting off her anger as much as she could.

"It's a requirement," John growled. "Either you go see a therapist or you get the hell out of my house."

"I'll go for that latter one." Billie rose from couch and hurried out of room before they could anger her anymore. Now she could remember why she hated that whole parent scene.

Billie bursted into her 'room' and went straight for the closest, ignoring both freddy and Zack. "What're you doing?" Freddy finally asked as they both saw her grabbed out a suitcase and begin to stuff clothes into it. "Billie?"

"I'm leaving," Billie ground out without stopping her flow of packing. "I'm leaving," she repeated.

"Leaving?" Zack repeated. "What? Why?"

"I'm NOT seeing a therapist," she stated firmly, zipping up her suit case. She tossed that one aside and pulled out another suitcase. "I'm not..."

"Why not?" Freddy asked, rising to a sitting position on the bed.

"She can't handle the truth," a deep voice answered from the door. Zack and Freddy turned toward the door to see Dr. Pepper (sorry, ran out of name ideas and there's a Dr. Pepper can right here) leaning against the door frame. (he's the therapist...)

"I can't handle frauds," Billie countered. She rose from the floor and started snatching valuable items from her desk/dresser ect. and tossing them into the open suitcase.

"I am no fraud," Dr. Pepper argued.

"Oh really? Well guess what, I don't need some dickweed to come in here - not knowing a damn useful thing about me - and start to tell me how I feel, and how I should act. I don't need another person to tell me I'm not living my life how its supposed to be. I like how I look, I like how I act, I like how I think and I like how I'm handling my mother's death, alright? I don't need you. You are useless. Now leave my goddamn room."

"What could your mother have done to make you hold her inside with so much anger?" Dr. Pepper asked, as if he had just ignored her comment before.

Billie frinally stopped packing to look at the doctor. "Nothing," she commented dully.

Dr. Pepper shook his head. "It can't be nothing. You hate her with all this fury, but why? What did she do?"

"Nothing," Billie answered. "She did nothing, even when I needed nothing more than her to do something. She closed her eyes and wished the world away and did absolutely nothing. She was a waste of human flesh. She was a goddamn waste that is about to be returned to the earth, so the earth can conjure another waste just like her. She's was nothing. And I'm not angry." She resumed her packing.

"Are you sure you're not angry?" Zack asked her. "Because if this is you happy, I fear how you might act when you're angry."

"You find this a joke, Mooneyham?" Billie snapped.

"Don't forget who's house you're in," Zack warned. "You have no right to talk to me like that!" They both knew it was fake anger.

"You don't understand this," Billie told Zack solumnly. "You don't get any of this. But neither does that fraud." She was talking specifically to Zack now. "It's not the fact that she died. I always knew she would die - and I always knew it'd be like this. I always knew it'd be at his hands. It's the fact that I told her he was going to be the death of her. I told her I wanted her to leave him. She said she would, she said the next time he came around, she'd kick him out. But she never did. He came around, already drunk stiff, he took care of what he wanted to do to me - leaving me semiconscious - then he'd ALWAYS go for her. He'd always get into bed, and force her to do what I can only hope she didn't want. I could hear her whimpers and her yelps and her screams and her sobbing through the thin wall. And it would just make me want to puke. I guess I kind of knew she wanted to end whatever she had with him, but she just couldn't. And I'll never know why. He didn't do ANYTHING for her, he didn't give her money, he didn't pay rent, he didn't help support the family, and all he ever did was come over to set me in my place and give her a good bruising as well. What kind of guy is that? But what kind of woman was she for allowing it? I dunno who's worst! Him for doing the crime or her for standing aside and not fighting. That's what burns me every night, Zack. That's why I was so impacted by her death. Because that just signalfied that her life was really a waste and it cannot be reversed. It can no longer be changed."

"Billie..." Zack murmured. "Billie, it's "

"It's nothing, Zack. That's all the therapy I need, Pepper." She looked up at the doctor now. "You hear that? I know why I'm like this and I know I don't intend to change it any more drastic. I'm not gonna go kill myself. I'm fine - I don't need her, and I don't need him and I definetly don't need them."

Freddy was onto his feet before he could prevent himself. He pulled Billie into a rough hug, ignoring the fight that she put up to get away from him. She eventually settled down and let him hug her. "We don't want you to go," Freddy murmured roughly into her ear. "I don't want you to leave us..."

"You don't understand," Billie muttered sadly in return.

"I understand perfectly fine," Freddy replied, softer this time. "You've met my parents, you know how they are. I'm pretty sure he's not as bad as your dad - but you can't let that old bastard run your life. By leaving here you'll finalise his control over you, Bill...you can't do that..."

"They told me to leave..." Billie mumbled.

"And I'm asking you to stay..."