Forget You – Chapter Twelve – Devastation

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

2000

D.J. was coming to the end of her time in university, now aged twenty-three. Her and Tommy had been together for around two years now and she had told him all about her past – her mother and her sister.

Currently, she was home for the weekend and had brought him home along with her. This wasn't the first time they had met, however. They had all loved him and thought he was perfect for D.J., which came as a bonus.

It was September 14th, exactly a four months until Stephanie's nineteenth birthday when the phone call came in. Danny had been at work at the time of the phone call and had left pretty urgently, not telling Becky what was wrong.

She had been questioned when she got to the Tanner's house, saying that she had no idea where Danny had run off to, but it had been a few hours now.

And an hour later, Danny strolled in through the door looking upset and unsure of himself. Joey – he was down for a visit - had been the one in the main room to see him come through the door, and when asked what was wrong, he had said that he needed an urgent family meeting.

Once everyone was settled, Danny stood by the TV and looked at everyone. "Why did you call us all here dad?" A now thirteen, soon to be fourteen, year old Michelle asked.

"I got a phone call at work today, as you all know, I assume," He got a nod in confirmation. "It was the police station. I was needed down there. They had found something."

"Something about what…" Jesse trailed off looking straight into Danny's eyes for an answer.

"Remember they found a fourteen-year-old girl dead a couple weeks back? They found their suspect. But when they ran him through the system, he came up. He was the fourth person in the accident."

Eyes widened in the room, but nobody uttered a word, letting Danny continue, "They questioned him and he confessed. He took Stephanie. He took Stephanie and…" Danny stopped and moved on. "He took her to England about two weeks after the initial accident, he said he had a private jet of his friends or something, I don't know how he did it. He kept her in his house in England until around August of that year where he, he beat her. Severely. He claimed that he did it bad enough to kill her before dumping her body on the side of the road."

"To make it worse, he took pictures of what he did. They know he did it and the chance of Steph being gone is so high because they found the pictures when they raided his house, along with ones of his most recent murder. I saw the pictures, to identify her, there was a very small chance. She didn't – I don't – She's gone," Danny broke down into tears, sobbing.

D.J. was frozen to the spot. She didn't know how to react. Tommy behind her wrapped his arms around her but she didn't move. Only when she felt Michelle's arms latch around her waist and the wet patch forming on her shoulder did she come back to reality waiting for the onslaught of tears.

But they didn't come.

They wouldn't come.

It was then D.J. realised that she couldn't cry.

She was too numb.

The funeral came October 5th 2000.

That was one of the worst days during the whole journey they had been on. They were letting go of Stephanie, forever.

The Tanner house – normally empty with only Michelle and Danny living there now – was full again. D.J. and Tommy had come back down once more, due to go back in a few days. Joey had come back down from Las Vegas along with his small family of his wife, Kaitlin and daughter Isabelle, aged one and a half, while Becky, Jesse and the twins only lived down the block.

They hadn't had a body to bury, so instead they had just a head stone.

D.J. still found she was unable to cry which was concerning her family at the lack of emotion she was beginning to display. Yet she brushed off their concerns every time.

It was time for the speeches to be made about Stephanie and both Michelle and D.J. had a joint speech.

"Thank you all for coming here today," Michelle started off. "I'm sure if Stephanie was here then she would love to see how much she was loved and missed. Uh, let's see, Stephanie had always just been there, if you know what I mean. She was my little-big sister – even though she was taller than Deej. I guess I took her for granted when she was at home, we had our sibling arguments like most do. We even shared a room for a few years. I only sort of remember when I moved into her room, I didn't want to – I don't know why – but now, now I would give anything to share a room with Stephanie again."

"It's too quiet, not having Stephanie around, she could talk for ages. Even though she would act like it was an inconvenience to her, she would always be willing to help out. And then she was gone. There was no more bugging her for the fun of it. No one to help me out when I needed some big sister advice of someone closer in age with me. None of it."

"I just hope the man – James Donald – who took Stephanie away from us knows what he's done. Because there will never be anything he can do to make this all better. He has destroyed part of our family and made a hole that will never be filled."

D.J. took over now, "What that man did was an act of cruelty. Stephanie was one to be out there and willing to try anything out, but that did mean she would get hurt easily. I don't want to think about the four months he kept her hidden away from us, what she would have felt during that time."

"I can't help but wonder, where would she be now? Would she be at university? If so, what would she be studying? What would she be doing? Those questions will never be answered because she has been taken from us too soon."

"Make sure you love your family, tell them how much they mean to you. Because you don't know when they are going to be taken right from your hands. You may think 'oh that will never happen to me', but in reality, in reality anything can – and will – happen."

"Even though we fought like mad sometimes because she would be reading my diary or something we would always make up. One time when I was seventeen, I had told her to get out of my life because of something she did. And you know what she told me? 'Maybe this time I messed up, but someday you'll need me, but I won't be there, because you want me out of your life, forever.' Thankfully, we made up after that argument, but gosh I didn't know how much that would be true. I do need her. But I can't have her help because she's gone, forever."

"I would like to take this moment to say thank you, Stephanie Judith, for always being there, for always being an amazing little sister, for always being an amazing person, for always making a bad day better, for always listening when needed. Thank you."

Finally, Donna Jo Tanner was able to cry once more.

The trail of James Donald came. D.J. had been asked to testify against him to prove he was guilty and she had agreed, Stephanie needed justice.

"Donna Jo, please tell the court what you remember from the day of April 27th 1997," The lawyer asked her.

"Stephanie and I were going to spend time together because she was complaining that we didn't see each other enough anymore. So we agreed to spend the day together. We were on our way to an amusement park when a car came straight towards us. I tried to avoid it but it kept following us. Before I knew it, the car had hit us and it was dark. When I woke up in the hospital and Stephanie was nowhere to be seen."

"Is there anything else you remember?"

"No, sorry. That's all I can provide with."

"Thank you Miss. Tanner, you may return to your seat now." The lawyer told her and she did so.

The verdict came the following day, "Mr. Donald, we find you guilty on three accounts of murder, those being Charlie Phillips, Stephanie Tanner and Indiana Moore. You will serve a lifetime sentence with no chance of parole. Case dismissed."

The Tanners could let out the breath they were holding. They had finally got the justice for Stephanie that she deserved and the man who had taken three lives was being punished.

And to top that day off? Tommy had proposed to D.J. that day too, she was now to become Donna Jo Tanner-Fuller.

Mhm, I had to add Tommy in somewhere. And yeah, I guess that this wasn't the best chapter, it skimmed over a lot again. I could have done a lot better with this chapter and the previous but I kinda just want to get back to the present – this chapter was more of a filler. I probably could have added a lot more detail to the whole thing, but hopefully this was okay for you, let me know in the reviews below! Maybe not the right time for Tommy to propose, but if it had been a bad ending and James got away free, he wouldn't have, trust me on that. Also, thank you for 50 reviews!

P.S. I have a new story out called 'Operation: Twins' based off the 1998 film 'The Parent Trap' (it's a full house story) so if you can check that out and leave a review, I would be very grateful!