A/N: Here's chapter 16. Hope it's better than the last chapter. I should warn you that you might not like where I'm going to eventually go with this fic. Consider yourselves warned!

It had been just over a month since Stan had died. Olivia and Mason were adjusting well. Olivia's behaviour had even settled down now that Karen was living with them again. They hadn't seen or heard from Lorraine since the day of the funeral but they didn't care about that or her. Something else was bothering them both.

'Hey Liv. Have you seen Karen this morning?' Mason asked his sister. He asked her the same question every morning.

'No. She's been really quiet the last few days. Do you think she's all right?' Olivia sounded worried.

'She's probably still upset about Dad. We should maybe go up and see if she wants breakfast or something.' Mason offered a suggestion.

'Yeah. Let's go.'

---

Olivia and Mason had climbed the stairs up to the bedroom Karen had shared with Stan. Mason knocked on the closed door before Olivia shouted through the door.

'Karen, are you in there? It's us. Can we come in?' When there was no answer, Olivia tried again. 'Karen, do you want some breakfast?' It suddenly occurred to Olivia how much they'd been looking after Karen in the last month, rather than her looking after them.

'Do you think we should just go in?' Mason asked his sister when they still got no answer.

'Yeah. Just in case she's done something stupid.' Olivia knew that this could be entirely possible with the state Karen had been in. When they opened the door they were not prepared for what they saw.

'Karen, what the hell have you been doing?' Mason asked, regarding the amount of empty bottles lying on the floor.

'Nothing, honey.' Karen was slurring her words.

'Are you drunk?' Olivia asked, sounding horrified.

'What would give you that idea?' Karen tried to act innocent.

'I don't know. Maybe all the empty gin bottles lying on the floor?' Mason answered sarcastically. Karen gave an over-dramatic shrug to indicate that she was defeated.

'Why did you drink this much?' Olivia asked sympathetically.

'I just wanted to make myself feel better.'

'Well, this doesn't work. Alcohol doesn't make anything better. It just gives you a hangover.' Olivia told her.

'Then you feel worse.' Mason tried to lighten the mood.

'Honey, you're right. What have I done?' Karen regretted getting drunk.

'Nothing yet. But you better not do this again.' Olivia said in a harsh tone. It's usually the stepdaughter that gets told off by the stepmother, not the other way around.

'We're going out later. You better not do anything stupid.' Mason warned.

'We're gonna let you try to sleep off your hangover.' Olivia added.

'But I don't have a hangover.' Karen sounded insulted.

'You will soon. Don't worry about it.' Mason joked. 'Do you want something to eat before you start to feel ill?'

'I suppose so.' Karen answered, while being dragged out of her room by Olivia and Mason.

---

A little while later, Olivia and Mason were making their way down to the park to meet Elliot.

'Can you believe she was hammered?' Mason seemed to find the funny side of Karen's drunkenness.

'I know. Do you think she'll do it again?' Olivia was concerned.

'Nah. We told her off. She listens to us.' Olivia wasn't convinced by Mason's answer.

'We better watch though. And we probably shouldn't tell anyone. You know what Jack will be like if he finds out!' Olivia didn't think Karen would want her friends to know that she got drunk alone.

---

Olivia and Mason were growing more concerned by the day. Karen was constantly getting drunk. She would drink alcohol with every meal, even breakfast. She woke up every morning with a hangover. It had been two months since Olivia and Mason had first found Karen drunk in her bedroom.

'What are we going to do?' a very concerned Mason asked.

'What can we do except try to help her. We've gotta do something before it gets too serious.' Olivia said, quicker than she usually would through panic.

'Where can we get her help though?' Mason asked, hoping his sister had a plan.

'I don't know but I'm sure as hell going to find out.' Olivia said while staring out of a window.

---

Olivia and Mason spent the rest of that day going through the phone book, calling every alcohol counsellor they could find, hoping that they would be able to find help for Karen.

'Okay, we've settled on taking Karen to Alcoholics Anonymous. How do we get her there? Because she'll never go if we tell her we're taking her.' Mason pointed out something that they both knew.

'We've just got to trick her.' Olivia offered her suggestion.

'How do we manage that?' Getting Karen to AA meetings wouldn't be easy.

'I don't know. We're gonna have to work that out. 'Cause she needs help. There's no getting away from that.' Olivia didn't have everything figured out yet.

---

'Karen, can we go out for doughnuts?' Mason asked. He and Olivia were putting their plan into action.

'Sure, honey. Wanna go just now?'

'Yeah, that would be best. I'm starving.' Mason gave an untruthful reason as to why they should leave now.

'Go and get your shoes then!' After Karen said this, both Olivia and Mason ran up the stairs.

'Okay, so far so good. We're getting her outside.' Mason informed his sister.

'That was the easy part! We've still got to get her into the place and get her to stay!' Olivia let Mason know that they still had a great deal of work to do.

'Yeah, about that, how do we get her to stay?'

'I have no idea! We're just gonna have to make something up on the spot!' Olivia informed Mason.

---

Olivia and Mason had managed to convince Karen to walk to the 'Doughnut Shop'. Karen was the kind of person who didn't like walking anywhere unless it was absolutely necessary, so getting her to agree to walk had been difficult. They'd been walking for about fifteen minutes before they got close to the AA meeting place.

'Hey Karen, do you mind if we go in here?' Olivia pointed toward the door of the meeting place. 'I need to get something for school.'

'Okay.' Karen answered suspiciously. She had a notion that they were up to something. Once the were inside the building, Karen figured out what they were doing.' What the hell is this? Is this AA?'

'Yes, it is!' A cheery AA volunteer answered on Olivia and Mason's behalf.

'What the hell are we doing here?' Karen questioned her stepchildren.

'We are here to get you help!' Olivia casually answered.

'I don't need help!' Karen protested.

'Are you sure about that?' Mason sarcastically answered back.

'Karen, you need to stop drinking before you get ill.' Olivia tried to convince Karen.

'But I'm not an alcoholic!' Karen protested once again. They didn't realise that all the other people in the AA meeting were watching what was going on.

'Karen, the first step is admitting that you have a problem!' Mason spoke to his stepmother as if she was a little child.

'But I don't have a problem!' Karen was determined to get out of the meeting.

Olivia couldn't take Karen's protests anymore. 'For God sake Karen! You're not getting outta going to this meeting! You're going to sit there and listen to what these people have to say and you're gonna get some help!'

'Why should I?' Karen was shouting like a little kid who had been told to go to her room for being naughty.

'Why should you? You wanna know why you should?' Olivia was close to screaming.

'Yes I do!' Karen was intrigued as to what her stepkids' reason was for bringing her here.

'Because we've already lost our dad! We sure as hell don't want to lose our stepmum as well!' Olivia screamed at Karen. She was on the verge of tears. Nobody in the whole meeting spoke for five minutes before somebody pointed something very sweet out to Karen.

'You're lucky that you've got kids who care.'

'We do, Karen. We do care.' Mason very sweetly added.

'Yeah, I know you do.' Karen said through light sobs.

'So, will you stay in this meeting?' Mason asked.

'For us?' Olivia added

'Yeah. Yeah I will.' Neither of the three of them noticed that many of the people in the meeting had tears in their eyes.

'Okay, good. We'll be back when the meeting finishes.' Mason told her.

'We'll see you later.' Olivia added. Once they were out of the door, both Olivia and Mason let out sighs of relief.

'Nice one, Liv. You got her to stay in there.' Mason was quite surprised Olivia had managed it. 'That was really heartbreaking what you said, by the way.'

'I just spoke from the heart.'

'So, do you think she'll stick it out?' Mason wondered, while taking one last look back into the meeting room.

'Yeah, I think she will.'

A/N: There's chapter 16. I'm not sure how accurate this chapter is. Sorry :-). Thanks to Panema, all4christ0398, karengraciewalker and Lindsey Grissom for reviewing the last chapter. Enjoy!