Disclaimer: Roger: Jonathan Larson's, everyone else: mine, story: mine, words: mine, title: borrowed from George Harrison, slightly adapted

While his guitar gently wept

The nine-year-old frowns at his boots.

"Roger…" He sets his jaw at the soft sound of his mother's voice. "You know I'm just doing this for you, don't you?"

He doesn't answer, just slips deeper into his coat, trying to keep the cold out, and tightens his grip on the guitar case at his feet.

"It's better for you, believe me…" He hears footsteps, then sees the slim frame of his mother standing in front of him. Avoiding her eyes he turns his head and pretends to take in the bus terminal.

"Your grandparents will take care of you, and I'm sure you'll be fine at the new school." Her son doesn't answer. He's heard the same lines a hundred times over the last two days, they don't mean anything to him.

"I know it's going to be a big change. I know it's not easy… it's not easy for me either honey. I just think it's best for you to get out of here for a while…"

The small blonde scowls, no-one asked HIM what he wants, what HE thinks is good for himself. And after all it isn't he who's the problem. He isn't the one who comes home drunk every second night, isn't the one who is likely to take the living-room apart in a fit of anger. He is just the one whose teachers got concerned about his behavior, the fights, that pack of cigarettes they found in his locker, the black eyes and bruises.

"He gets into fights with the other kids" his Mom claimed. They took X-rays, visited them at home, and Roger's step-father was a sober, loving father for an afternoon. A change of scenery might be good for him, they said. That it wasn't unusual for kids with his history to have problems. That if he was already smoking cigarettes it'd only be a year till he'd get drunk, another one 'till coke, then another few months 'till meth or heroine. Didn't they have some relatives in a smaller town where he could stay, just for a semester or so, they asked.

Thus, Roger and his Mom are sitting at the greyhound station in Chicago, waiting for a bus to take them to her parent's place in Maryland.

"Roger honey, talk to me, please? You know it can't go on like this."

...

It's been two days since he last spoke to his mom, since the night he crept down the stairs at night, hoping is parents would already be asleep, to get something to drink.

"How can you just go and make decisions like that about OUR kids?" He heard his step-father's voice across the hallway, he didn't sound drunk, but nevertheless angry. Curious what the argument was about, Roger stopped.

"Now all of sudden he's OUR kid? No Jack, he's MY son, not yours, and you know damn well you never even pretended to accept him." He swallowed, so this was about him. Had the school called again? Or Mrs. Henderson? It hadn't been HIS fault that her stupid daughter had teased him about his guitar…

"What are you; we raised him together the last six years, he -" Roger slowly slumped against the wall. He knew hell would break lose if they found him there, but he wanted to know what was going on.

"You call THAT raising him? The only thing YOU have done the last two years is sitting in bars getting drunk." – silence - "You need help Jack." The small boy tensed, slowly becoming aware that this fight was different than the others. Different cause he was sober for once, cause for once he let her say what she had to say, instead of throwing the first thing that came into his hands at the next wall or person.

"I'm fine."

"If you were fine my son wouldn't show up in school with bruises all over his body twice a week. And you don't seem to find a fucking other way to deal with your problems than to take them out on MY son. He's nine Jack. I don't know what your fucking problem is, but it's not him. And if you don't get back on track soon Eva and me will be the next ones to get out of this place…" His Mom's voice wavered, "I love you Jack, but if it goes on like this, I can't… I already called my parents, he can stay there, the school shouldn't be a problem. I'll take him to Maryland on Friday and Eva will stay at Helen's over the weekend."

"I can take care of my own…"

As the two grown-ups continued their fight in the living-room, the boy sprinted up the stairs, slipped back into his room and let himself fall onto his bed. They were going to send him away, cause she loved this asshole more than him, cause it was all his own fault anyways, cause he was only a nuisance that wasn't part of THIS family. He slammed a Scorpions 8-track into his player, picked up the headphones and cranked up the volume. After hearing his Mom and Jacks' bedroom door close he crept out of bed and started packing. His clothes, schoolbooks and tapes, into the suitcase behind the closet. Only his guitar remained in it's corner by desk. He wasn't going to run away, he did once, in the summer; hid in his best friend's garden after Jack had come home particularly drunk and pissed off. But the nights had been cold even then, and once his Mom had called all of his friends' parents it didn't take them long to figure out why Paul had been sneaking food out of the kitchen.

When his Mom woke him up the next morning, he didn't say a word, neither when she tried to explain to him where he was going and why, not even when she asked whether he'd heard the argument the night before. Instead, he took his guitar and played, all day. It had been his Dad's guitar, the only thing he'd left him behind. His Mom had told him how he'd had an accident back when Roger had only been a baby, and Roger had practiced like a maniac since he'd been big enough to hold the guitar. Had practiced at school during breaks, as soon as he came home in the afternoon, especially in the evenings, hoping his step-father would leave him alone for once. It was his only way to connect to his father, to get a bit of the family back he lost so early on in his life. Had his mother told him the truth, that his father, 18-years-old and terrified of the responsibility that fatherhood brought along, had taken off without a note, leaving behind nothing but a few clothes and a guitar that she'd never had the heart to throw away, Roger would've never touched that guitar.

But, two days later, unaware of the lies that had been told, he carefully set it into its case and carried it down to the cab waiting in front of their house.

So they sit, and wait. Wait for a bus that'll take them away. Not knowing what will happen next. A young women in her mid-twenties, sending away her oldest son because she doesn't see another way out. Because she loves a man that took a wrong turn somewhere. Because she only wants the best for her child. She's not aware that there are bad influences and drugs even in small rural towns; doesn't know his father, after leaving her behind with a two-year old to take care of, will show up at his sons doorstep six years later; doesn't know her son will take off to New York after graduation; doesn't know he'll spend two years of his life on the search for the next shot; can't possibly know she'll be at her own son's funeral a mere fifteen years later.