Forget You – Chapter Eleven – Nineteen Years Before

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

1997

A week after she woke up in the hospital, D.J. was able to go home and help with the search for Stephanie. Or at least to a certain extent.

In the days following the 27th, Stephanie's picture had been plastered all over the country via news stations. It was urgent that they found Stephanie due to the possible injuries that she had received during the crash.

Danny, along with everyone else (minus Michelle and D.J.) had been searching all over for any signs of the middle Tanner daughter, for any sort of sign of her, but had come to nothing so far. Nobody could seem to wrap their mind around how it was possible for her to disappear like that.

Whenever there was a search effort out for Stephanie, everyone but one – mostly Becky – would go, the person staying behind to make sure D.J. okay in her recovery and not injuring herself any further.

Michelle had fought with her father several times over the second half of the first week to stay off school and help with the search effort. But every time, her efforts would come to a fail as Danny had told her to go back to school, try and get on with life normally and allowing her to help look after school was over. Of course, he wasn't that cruel and allowed her to stay away from school for the first three days to visit D.J. in the hospital.

During the second week, D.J. had had enough of waiting around doing nothing and had decided to sneak out of the house. Not only had she managed to actually get out undetected, but she had also managed to cause a panic amongst her family when Becky had gone to check up on her, only to find her room empty. It was only when she had turned up at the meeting point for the search teams – and immediately sent back home with a stern talking to later (it didn't matter if she was twenty now) – did the panic cease.

Several weeks had passed an still nothing. The search had increased from just around the local area of the crash in the first few days to anywhere it was possible to hide a person. Security cameras all over were checked in hope of finding out where exactly Stephanie had gone and how the person who had taken her managed to get away with it for so long.

"Tonight an official statement has been released by San Francisco police investigators announcing that they are putting a hold on the case of missing teen Stephanie Tanner. They offered their deepest apologies, but said that the case was going nowhere, that they were not able to find anything further than the site of the crash." A news reporter announced one November night.

The family had been notified that if the investigators had found nothing over the next couple of days, then they would have to close the hunt. They couldn't keep spending money on an investigation that wasn't going anywhere.

And that day had come. Nothing on Stephanie had turned up in months now and most people's hopes for the fifteen-year-old to return home were fading away. Although it was never admitted out loud, there was a decreasing hope in the Tanner household for the return of the middle daughter.

There was an unsettling feeling of sadness over the house. It seemed to be too quiet without Stephanie's ability to ramble on and on and her happy attitude to brighten people's day.

Becky, Jesse and the boys moved out not too long after that. They had claimed that they had needed to finally buy their own home, that they couldn't keep relying on Danny to let them stay in his house but anyone could see that it was in an effort to try and get away from the memories that haunted that house.

Christmas 1997 was weighed down by sadness.

January 14th 1998 rolled around quicker than anyone would have liked. The thought of it being Stephanie's sixteenth and her not being there to celebrate with them was something nobody wanted to think about. Stephanie had already missed enough birthdays, Michelle's eleventh and Nicky and Alex's sixth were just two.

The idea for a concert to raise money for the 'Find Stephanie Tanner Fund' – something that had been started about a month after she went missing – was brought up one day at the end of December.

Things pulled together fairly quickly, Danny and Becky announced the event on their show to give it publicity to get people to buy tickets and since Jesse still owned the Smash Club, it was decided that the event was to be held there. To the family's surprise, a lot more people bought tickets than they first expected and they had to actually halt ticket sales as to not oversell.

Although it probably wasn't the best of days to hold the event, it was decided that they would hold it on January 14th as a celebration of Stephanie' birthday.

Jesse stepped forward up to the microphone in front of the crowd, "Good evening ladies and gentlemen," He spoke, gaining the attention of the audience. "Thank you all for coming out here today. As most of you know, I'm sure, today would have been Stephanie's sixteenth today."

"Over the last few months, even after the search became a private one, we have been searching for Stephanie after she was taken from the site of the car accident she was involved in with her elder sister, D.J. Tanner. That day was April 27th, 1997, exactly eight months, two weeks and four days ago."

"The aim of tonight is to raise money to aid the search for Stephanie and to hopefully bring her home. At any time during the night, you can donate to any of my family, who are holding tins," He pointed over to the Tanner's, Joey, Becky and the twins, who waved and held up the tins to show people.

"This is a little something I wrote in honour of Steph's birthday; I hope you like it." Jesse turned and gave the band a signal.

"Hey there now, Where'd you go? You left me here, so unexpected, you changed my life, I hope you know, cause now I'm lost, so unprotected.

In the blink of an eye, I never got to say goodbye.

Like a shooting star, flyin' across the room, so fast so far, you were gone too soon, you're part of me, And I'll never be, the same here without you, you were gone too soon.

You were always there, and like shining light, on my darkest days, you were there to guide me.

Oh I miss you now, I wish you could see, just how much your memory, will always mean to me.

In the blink of an eye, I never got to say goodbye.

Like shooting star, flyin' across the room, so fast so far, you were gone too soon, you're part of me, and I'll never be, the same here without you, you were gone too soon.

Shine on! Shine on! To a better place! Shine on! Shine on! Will never be the same!

Like a shooting star, flyin' across the room, so fast so far, you were gone too soon, you're part of me, and I'll never be, the same here without you, you were gone too soon.

Shine on! Shine on! You were gone too soon! Shine on! Shine on! You were gone too soon! Shine on! Shine on! You were gone too soon."

As the song progressed on, more and more people began to get into it, some even began to weep a little. The pots were slowly beginning to fill up over the night to the point where they had to be emptied once around.

D.J. was amazed at how many people had turned up that night. She wasn't expecting that many to come for her sister and show how much they missed her. They had raised a fair amount of money for the fund, allowing them to continue on with the search even longer under their own investigator.

The following day, Danny and Becky had talked on their show, thanking everyone for coming and revealing the total amount they had raised.

And then the next most dreaded day came around, April 27th 1998.

She didn't even get to really grieve for herself that day. Michelle had clung onto her, if she had moved somewhere in the house, Michelle would be with her, if she sat on the couch, Michelle sat with her.

D.J. couldn't blame the eleven-year-old, she hadn't been through all of this before. When Pam died ten years' prior, Michelle had only been about six months old, not even old enough to form a proper memory of her mother. That didn't mean that she didn't miss her mother - she did - but she could only go on what she was told about Pam and the videos they had laying around.

But it was different with Stephanie. She had had her in her life the whole time. They had shared a room for five years, only separating once D.J. had moved to college, allowing the room to be used once more. Michelle had stayed in the large room and Stephanie had taken D.J.'s room – not without a fuss about getting a smaller room though.

Said room hadn't been touched in a year now, the door remaining closed to keep the memory of Stephanie inside. Space was not an issue, Joey had moved up into the attic when Jesse and co. had moved out leaving D.J. to move into his room from a temporary bed in Michelle's room. No matter how many times Danny had told her that she could sleep in Stephanie's room, D.J. had declined the offer every time, not wanting the memories to haunt her. Danny fully understood and that was that, the door was shut, not to be opened for another fifteen years.

For the last year, D.J. hadn't returned to college. She had taken a gap year to stay home and help in the search for Stephanie. But now the school year was coming to an end again, meaning that a new one was beginning in a matter of months, Danny had urged D.J. to go back, finish her degree to become a Veterinarian so she can get a job.

And when she did return to college, she had met Tommy Fuller, the two becoming closer and closer over time, eventually the two got together and married, but that was another story for another time.

Time passed by, days into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. Hope of Stephanie's return began to slip away and soon it was only her family having hope of her return. They had managed to adapt to not having the middle Tanner daughter around, but they all could sense the emptiness wherever they were.

Slowly but surely, they to began to let go of Stephanie Tanner.

Oopsy, I do wonder if I managed to make anyone cry with this chapter? Did I? I'm sorry, but that means it was a good chapter, right? I feel like this chapter was needed to fill in the blanks of what exactly happened, although I'm not too sure I did that. I kind of skimmed over information, hopefully it added what it needed to though. The song I used was 'Gone Too Soon' by Simple Plan, if anyone wants to listen to it. I know it was release in 2011, wayyyy after '98, but just imagine Jesse wrote it please? Alrighty, if you could leave a review down below, we're so close to 50! Eek! Thank you for reviewing and reading :)