Chapter Eight – It's Time to Meet the Family (2)

Disclaimer: If I owned Fuller House, I would, well I don't know what I'd do.

Emma woke up to the sound of movement in the kitchen. For a moment, she forgot the previous night's events and froze. She peaked over the top of the couch to see D.J. standing with her back to her, working over the counter top.

"What are you doing?" She asked suddenly and watched as D.J. dropped the utensil, giggling a little bit. D.J. turned and watched Emma laughing before jumping in, "Nice hair." She quipped.

That caused Emma to stop laughing instantly and try to flatten her hair. Silence was only brief before she asked again, "What are you doing?"

"Oh, well, I woke up – in what I assume – was your bed and well, I found you passed out on the couch." D.J. explained and turned back to whatever she was making. "I thought I'd make breakfast, and now I realise that I should have asked if this was okay and if you liked pancakes."

"Pancakes-?" Emma tried to ask but D.J. talked right over her. "Well, here's some pancakes. Now get over here and eat them."

"Uh, alright?" She shrugged and got up from her place on the couch before plopping down onto one of the chairs. "I can't remember the last time I ate breakfast; I usually miss it."

As she was placing her sharing of pancakes onto her plate, D.J. glanced up at her, "You know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you should never skip it, no matter what." At Emma's odd look, D.J. realised what she had said, "Sorry, again, motherly instincts."

Only small talk was made throughout their meal and before long there was two more dishes added to the pile in the sink. "If you don't mind, I'm going to take a shower because frankly, I smell like rain water and didn't have time – or energy for that matter – to do it last night. You can just make yourself at home. Oh, and I hope you don't mind that I washed your clothes for you. I mean, you don't have any here and nobody wants to wear clothes that have been covered in mud and rain and I'm going to stop talking now." Emma added the last part when she saw D.J. staring at her in amazement.

"Thanks." D.J. replied. "For washing my clothes, I mean." She furthered and as Emma began walking into her room to retrieve clothes, called after her, "By the way, you can really talk."

From inside the bedroom came a "Thanks" followed by a quieter "I think" causing D.J. to chuckle to herself.

While Emma was in the shower, D.J. couldn't stop herself from cleaning up the apartment when she had changed into her now clean clothes. When she realised what she was doing, she let a laugh slip out loud, seeing just how much like her father she was becoming with the cleaning habits.

"What's so funny?" Emma asked from behind her as she leant around D.J., "It's a coaster." She asked in confusion.

"Stop doing that." Was her first reply before she answered Emma's question. "I was laughing at how much I'm like my dad. Oh right, you don't know him, he, uh, he likes to clean… a lot."

Emma nodded slowly, "Right… So do you normally laugh at inanimate objects or is this a first?"

"Probably not a first." D.J. shook her head. "I have three kids with imaginations."

Nobody spoke for a moment before Emma shuffled her weight from foot to foot. "Deej, can I talk to you?"

Placing down the duster she had found, D.J. fully turned around. "Sure, what about?"

"Last night."

Sighing, knowing that she would have to explain what her breakdown was about at some point, she agreed. "Sure." This one was more hesitant and if she had the choice, this conversation would come much later.

The pair settled themselves on the couch, each a cup of coffee in hand – Emma was really starting to live on those things – and D.J. began explaining. "Well, I've told you about my sister Michelle." Emma nodded. "But I've never told you about my other sister, Stephanie." This was a lot harder than she originally thought as she watched Emma show more interest at the mention of Stephanie.

"Is that who's grave you were at last night?" She asked gently, as if too afraid to ask.

When D.J. looked away she got her answer, "Oh gosh, Deej, I'm so sorry, I, how? If you don't mind me asking."

"I'll tell you the story, but you have to understand that it is a long one, so bear with me." She paused to collect her thoughts before throwing herself into it. "I was twenty at the time, Stephanie was fifteen – so it was 1997 - and although I had already been at college two years, Steph had been bugging me during most of that time, tell me that we didn't spend enough time together anymore. Oh how I wish I was at home more. So finally, there was a weekend where we were both free with very little to do and we decided that we were going to spend that time together. We got into my car and headed off. I don't really remember where we were going, my memory is a little fuzzy from that day."

"We were just driving down the road, talking, although not much, but I do remember mentioning how much we missed spending time together. Stephanie was about to say something but instead she just screamed, "Look out!". When I did look, there was this car heading straight for us. Of course, naturally I tried to swerve out of the way but it kept following, it wouldn't stop following me. Before I knew it, we had collided head on and that was that."

"When I came too, I was in the hospital and had been hour for eighteen hours. A doctor came in and explained my injuries and such and then left after upping the amount of painkillers. My dad was there and when I was trying to get some sleep to see if it would help the pain in my head, I remembered Stephanie. So I asked him."

D.J. stopped for a moment and ran her hand through her hair. "You don't have to keep going if you don't want to." Emma offered, placing a comforting hand on the formers back.

"No, no, I want – need – to explain this to you." She insisted. "Anyway, he said… he said they didn't know where she was. She had disappeared from the scene of the accident. Nobody knew where she had gone. First thought was that maybe she had gone to try and get help but after so much time and she still hadn't turned up they began to think more into it."

"Teams were sent out all over the bay area to look for Stephanie and eventually, they began teams all over America. And they searched as much as they could, they just couldn't understand where she had managed to go. She had been in an accident for Pete's sake. She was probably beaten up from it like I was. My Dad had his own talk show, 'Wake Up, San Francisco' at the time and had her picture plastered over the show within the week, heck, her picture was plastered on nearly every news station in the country and our whole family had been questioned, myself several times."

"We were becoming desperate to find her. We all missed her so much and we just wanted her to come home. I took a break from college to help try and find her, but no luck. Within a year they had closed the case, leaving it unanswered. That hurt the most. They gave up on her. We didn't give up, of course, every now and then, Dad would show Stephanie's picture on the show and we set up the 'Find Stephanie Tanner Foundation', to get help with keeping the searches running, all we could do was hope and pray."

"Three years went by and still nothing. She would have been eighteen at this point when we got the call." Emma was beginning to tear up, having a feeling about what was coming up. "It was an officer calling. He had some information for us… about Stephanie. I was in my last year of college at this point so I was away and it was my dad who got the call. He went down to the police station and later that night I got a call to come home. When I did, Dad told us what they told him."

"A man had been arrested on suspicion of murder and when they ran his fingerprints and DNA through their system he came up. There was four people involved in that accident, Stephanie and I, a third man who died at the scene and a mysterious man. When they examined further they found traces of his DNA in both cars and was assumed to be the one who took Stephanie. That was the same man."

Emma gasped, something that she couldn't control and D.J. continued. "They had questioned him and he admitted to taking Stephanie." A tear rolled down D.J.'s cheek as she recalled everything. "He had said that as soon as he had taken her he fled the country at the first chance. How he got out was a mystery because it was about two weeks after the initial taking, he told them. He said he had fled to England where he lived for work and kept her hidden there for months."

"In early August things had begun to cool down and people began to accept the fact that there was little chance of Stephanie returning as time went on. He, he was 'done' by then and…" D.J. chocked on a sob as she tried to explain. "H-he, he beat-t her. Badly. And then-n he d-dumped her body on t-the side of the, the road. He admitted he assaulted her so badly that there was n-no chance of her s-surviving, especially where he dumped her. Nobody really went down that road. And when authorities searched his house, they found photographic evidence of his assault on my sister. Oh gosh, if you had seen the state she was in, it was nothing like when she had disappeared five months before."

"The following months were a blur. We organised a funeral for her, since most people assumed now that Stephanie really was gone and that she wasn't coming back, even with the lack of physical evidence. There was a vigil organised for her at her old high school where a lot of people showed up to show how much she would be missed."

"The man who took her was sent to jail, the photographic evidence and his most recent murder was enough to put him away for a long time. Eventually things went back to normal, it took a while, but it did and I guess that leads us to today." Thankfully the tears had slowed now, but they were still falling.

Emma reached over to a box of tissues that were on top of the table and offered it to D.J., who gratefully accepted. "Thanks."

Finally, the tears were stopped and Emma knew what she had to do now, "It's time you learnt about my past."

'It's Time to Meet the Family (2)' is now complete. Make sure to let me know what you thought down below, and until then, ciao!