Chapter 17

Steve didn't manage to stay away from work all week. He had spent the day with Evie and Mary, and took Mary back to the airport. After a tearful goodbye, Steve and Evie had spent the night together. They had talked more about her mother and Steve had seen a change in his daughter. Steve had started doing work at home, while Evie was around sorting out her room, and packing for the trip this weekend. Steve had started packing already of all the essentials they would need to go away this weekend. He had spoken to Cath on the phone, but they hadn't met up since he had come out of hospital.

Meanwhile...

Things with Jay had gotten better for Cath but he was not back to his normal self. As time grew closer for them to go on the camping trip, Chelsea was not looking forward to it. She had packed, but packing light was never one of her strong points. Cath had offered to help, but it was quickly turned down, when Chelsea knew her mom would try and stop her taking half of the stuff that she had already packed. Cath had spoken the Steve and they had it all arranged, they were going to meet at the site on Friday afternoon. They were all packed up and ready to go. They got into Cath's car and headed towards the camp site. As they got closer Chelsea could see the main parts of the island disappearing. They were heading out towards the jungle, with them driving past fewer and fewer cars.

When they finally arrived at the site Steve had told them, everything was already set up. It was a quite spot with other people camping in the same area but they were far apart. Steve was just sorting out the last few things to make their camp site finished; Evie was sat on a chair reading her book.

"Do you need any help?" Cath said getting out of the car walking over to Steve giving him a quick kiss.

"Think I am just about finished." He said turning to face her.

Jay and Chelsea had joined Evie sitting on the spare chairs next to them. "How has your week been?" Chelsea said turning to face Evie.

"It has been good, we haven't really done much. You?" Evie replied.

"About the same, spent most of yesterday in bed watching films."

"You kids alright?" Steve said, as he and Cath walked over to join the kids.

"Yeah." They all replied almost in synchrony. Steve and Cath took a seat on the chairs that were around the table next to their kids .They had thought that going camping would be fun, for them all to bond, however, what they had forgot to plan, was what they were going to do, to keep their kids entertained, for this long.

"So...What are we going to do now?" Chelsea asked. They had sat there for a couple of minutes no-one really talking or doing anything.

"Well we need to get food to cook for later." Said Cath, it was something she hadn't realised until she had got there and asked Steve.

"Can't you just go and leave us here?" Chelsea asked, they had just got there and she didn't want to go on another drive.

"Okay, if me and Steve go and do some shopping, and you kids stay here if that is alright?" Cath asked. When all the kids nodded their heads, Steve and Cath got up and went to Steve's truck.

"Well I don't see why we couldn't do this at home or in a hotel." Chelsea said once Cath and Steve had drove off.

"Well they like camping, I don't mind camping. Evie do you like camping?" Jay asked, being quite snappy.

"I have never been before, its not that bad at the moment." Evie said looking up from her book.

"See, it is just you who doesn't like it." Jay said, he was slowly getting angry and Chelsea could tell that something was wrong with Jay. She had a feeling it was about their dad again, but she wasn't going to ask him, they had come away to get to know Evie and Steve and bringing up their dad was going to help this.

"Okay." Chelsea said, walking over to Cath's car to get a magazine out.

Meanwhile...

"I am thinking that we could pop home quickly, grab some food out of the cupboard and it gives me time to show you how much I love you." Steve said, looking over at Cath as they had just left where they left the kids.

"Well, as much as I would love that, though I think that our kids would notice if we drove all the way home." Cath replied.

"I am sure they wouldn't notice, if they did we could just tell them, we got lost."

"You Mr Navy SEAL didn't think this one through, how can you, an experience Navy SEAL and me Naval intelligence, who have both lived on the Island for a long time managed to get lost? I don't think that our kids would buy that."

"Fine, we will just go to the shops, but tonight I might have to move our tent a long way, from the kids tent."

"Who says I am sharing your tent. Me, Chelsea and Jay might want to share one, or me Chelsea and Evie might share one. Your getting ahead of yourself." Cath said with a cheeky grin on her face.

"You wouldn't do that." Steve replied, he was half stating it as a fact and half questioning it, not really sure if she would do that too him. He knew that they couldn't really do anything out here, because of how close they were to their kids and other people staying in the same area, but he needed to feel her warmth, something that they hadn't done in a week. They normally went longer than this, but knowing they were both on the island made it hard to go to bed alone.

When they arrived at the shop, they both got out of the truck. Steve walked around to Cath's side and pushed her against the car giving her a long, passionate kiss. "You wouldn't really leave me in the tent tonight?" he asked.

She didn't reply, she just pushed past him and walked to get a trolley. She knew that they would share a tent tonight but she wanted to make him, suffer a little first.

"What do we need?" Steve asked as they walked into the shop.

"Well firstly, Coke, I made a promise I would buy some for Chelsea if she came without complaining. Then more sugar filled food." Cath said walking up towards to sugar filled isle. She started to put some food in the trolley and turned around to see the look on Steve's face, it was the look that Danny described as his aneurysm face.

"Don't worry, we will go to a healthy isle in a minute." Cath said. She knew that Steve would never eat this much sugary food.

After they had finished the shopping they had a lot of food. The amount of junk food they had, made Steve's stomach turn just looking at it. They walked towards the car to load it and headed back to the camp site.

When they got back to the camp site Chelsea and Evie were sat around the table still, but Jay had moved away and chose to sit on the floor by one of the tents. This was the first sign that something was wrong with Jay. He normally went quite and withdrawn before he exploded.

Cath and Steve, with a little help from Chelsea and Evie unloaded the shopping, and Cath and the kids camping stuff. Jay stayed his distance all the way through this. Chelsea had told him not to mess this up, he was trying, he was doing it for Chelsea, she had been through a lot and she didn't need this.

Steve noticed Jay was sitting away from the rest of them. He knew Cath has seen it, but she didn't do anything. After they had finished unloading the car, Cath and the girls had gone back to the table. He took this opportunity to go and talk to Jay. He didn't think they had ever had a proper conversation before, he wanted to make Cath his wife one day and he would need to start interacting with her kids, like Cath had done with Evie.

Walking towards Jay he stopped just next to him and sat on the grass next to him. Jay didn't move just carried on playing with the grass.

"You not enjoying camping?" Steve asked trying in someway to get Jay to talk to him.

"I don't mind camping." Jay said again not looking at Steve.

Cath glanced over and saw Jay and Steve talking. She hoped that Jay would last a little longer, hopefully till they were home, before he had his big blow up.

"Me and my dad used to camping here when I was younger." Steve said, attempting again to get Jay to talk.

"YOUR NOT MY BECAUSE YOU AND YOUR DAD USED TO GO CAMPING DOESN'T MEAN IT WILL MAKE US FATHER AND SON. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY YOUR HERE. YOU SAY IT IS BONDING BUT I HAVE NEVER SPOKE TO YOU. I DON'T WANT TO. MY MOM DROVE MY DAD TO HIS DEATH, HOW CAN YOU BE SURE SHE WON'T DO THE SAME TO YOU." Jay exploded, he started to run up the hills to get away.

Chelsea and Cath had both run over when they first heard Jay raise his voice.

"I'll go after him." Chelsea said slowly starting to run up the hill after Jay.

"Cath I'm sorry..." Steve started.

"Don't be, Jay blames me for all of this, it has nothing to do with you, you were just there at the wrong time. He blames me and I have made all of this worse. Let's go and sit with Evie and then when Jay and Chelsea come back I will go and speak to him." Cath said taking his hand and leading him back towards the table.

"You alright sweetheart?" Steve asked Evie as they sat down.

Meanwhile...

Jay carried on running up the hill and further away. Chelsea was a little behind him hoping he would stop soon.

"Jay." Chelsea called a few times, hoping he would stop.

When he finally stopped they were about 5 minutes away from the camp site. Jay just sank to the floor.

When Chelsea finally caught up to him, she sat down next to him. "I thought that I was the drama queen on the family." Chelsea said. When Jay didn't smile or respond she carried on. "You know Steve was trying to be nice. He knew that you were in a mood and he tried to help you. He didn't even know dad, none of this was his fault." Chelsea said. "You know it has took me a long time to realise, but Dad killed himself. I don't care what you say, every time he drank too, much or took drugs do you think he was thinking about us. Your right, mom wasn't there, but at least she wasn't pretending to be a parent, he was. The only proper memories I have of him are, him arguing with Nan or mom, or him coming home drunk. I would rather have no memories or mom than those ones of dad. This is hard, but mom is happy for once. For once in our life we could have a proper family and be like other normal families and I am not going to let you, or dads ruin it." Chelsea said. She was fluctuating between anger and upset, she need to say this to Jay, hopefully without crying, but she was sure that before they returned to the camp she would have been crying.

"Chelsea I understand that, but I can't get over the fact that mom never came back. I don't understand why she left. If she never left dad would still be here. They would still be together and things would be alright." Jay said, not looking at Chelsea.

"Jay dad had an addiction, he would have always been like that. Mom being here our life would have been so much different. They might not have been together. We would never have lived with Nan. If we never lived with Nan we would probably never had the same chances in life." Chelsea said looking over at Jay, hoping he would look at her, if she could see his eyes, she would be able to tell what he was feeling.

"I don't care about the chances we had in life, I care about our family, I would rather have had both mom and dad here living together and being a family. Mom left to join the Navy, she took that away from us."

"Jay, Mom joined the Navy because that was here dream, she did what she had to do, and she knew that she was too young to be a good mother and leaving us with dad and Nan would give us the best start in life. She did what any good mother would do, and did what was best for us. Mom and Dad were only together because of us, our lives would not have been happy family if mom and dad lived together and you know that. Non I suggest you get up, calm down and we go back to the camp site, before it gets dark and me you fall out over this." Chelsea said standing up, putting out her hand to help Jay up.

Jay took Chelsea's hand and got up. They started walking back towards the camp. Chelsea was glad, Jay had ran in a straight line because otherwise she was not sure how they would have got back.

"I'm sorry." Jay said, breaking the silence they have been walking in. Jay looked over at Chelsea, waiting for her to respond.

"It isn't me you should be apologising to." Chelsea said, looking back at Jay. "It's Steve."

"I know and I will apologise to him, but I am sorry to you, for bringing up all of this stuff about dad again. I know that it's hard for you, and for that I am really sorry. But I am also sorry for being moody the last few days and ruining the camping trip."

"Okay, thank you for apologising, but the camp trip is not ruined. We still have a while left." Chelsea said.

They got to the hill, just above the camp site. Jay stopped and looked over at Chelsea. "Can you just give me a minute and I will be down in a minute." Jay asked.

"Okay. Do you want me to ask mom or Steve to come up here and talk to you." Chelsea said. Jay just gave her a look. "You have to speak to both of them, privately, your choice who you want first."

"Okay, can you ask mom." Jay said.

"Okay. I will see you in a bit." Chelsea said as she made her way down the hill.

When Chelsea made it to the camp site, Cath looked over Chelsea to see if she could see Jay coming. She had a feeling that Jay had a carried on running or was being too stubborn, to come back.

"Where's Jay?" Cath asked.

"He is up on top of the hill. He wanted to speak to you alone." Chelsea said as she took a seat next to Evie.

Once Cath had gone, Steve started to get a conversation with both girls. He started to think about things Cath had told him about Chelsea, things they might have in common or might be able to talk about.

"Your mom says you and Jay are quite into music." Steve said looking over at Chelsea.

"Yeah, me more so than Jay at times. Jay likes to play the guitar but has to be in the mood to play. I prefer to play all of the time."

"What do you play?" Evie asked.

"Drums, piano, guitar but I prefer a bass guitar over anything. Do you play anything?" Chelsea said looking over at Evie.

"I started to play the piano but got bored." Evie said.

This conversation was going well Steve thought. Not only was he interacting with Chelsea, he had learnt something new about Evie and he loved seeing the girls getting along so well.

"Do you like camping?" Steve asked Chelsea but it was also directed at Evie as well as he wasn't really sure if she did or not.

"Not really, I have been once before, but I am not really an outdoors person, I like my bed, a cooker, and a toilet that isn't about a 5 minute walk away." Chelsea said, telling Steve not much more than Cath had already told him about Chelsea.

Meanwhile...

Cath took one look down the hill, before she reached Jay and she had to smile at the sight, of not only Evie and Chelsea getting on, but Steve and Chelsea as well.

"Jay." Cath said, as she approached Jay who had his back, facing her. She walked over to him and sat in front of him so she was facing him.

"Mom, I am sorry for shouting at Steve." Was the first Jay wanted to say. He was sorry for shouting at Steve, but he wasn't sorry for what he said. Everything he had said over the last couple of days was true, but it wasn't Steve he should have been shouting it too.

"I think you need to tell him that not me. What is wrong with you?" Cath asked. This was the first time in a long time she had sat down one on one with Jay and actually spoke to him.

"I miss dad." Was the only answer Jay was willing to give.

"I understand that Jay. I really do, but so does Chelsea, and we have moved on, we have talked about it. There has to be more to this. Have I done something too?" Cath asked.

It was answered by a nod of Jay's head. "Okay, can you tell me what I have done. We are alone and you have here and we are not going to go until we have talked about this." Cath said.

"You left us. You never came back when dad died. I missed you, we needed you. You never talked about dad, you just cut him off from our lives. I wish that dad was still here, I wish that you never left for the navy. I wish that you and dad were still together and that none of this ever happened. You moved on with Steve, it's like you are replacing dad with Steve, and I don't want that I want my dad. I want us four to be camping not with Evie and Steve with dad. I have nothing against Evie and Steve, though I just wish that life was different." Jay said.

"Jay I am so sorry. I never realised you felt this way. I am going to go speak to Steve and we can go home and sort this out." Cath said getting up. She looked over at Jay one more time. "I would like you to apologise to Steve but that can wait for a while until after I have spoken to him."

"I am going to wait up here for a bit. I just need to think about some things I will be down in a minute." Jay said.

Cath walked down the hill back towards were Steve and the girls were sitting. When Steve saw Cath he got up and walked over to her.

"What happened?" Steve asked, noticing Cath had a tear running down her face.

"Steve, we need to talk. I am so sorry for anything. Jay is still hurting from everything." Cath started.

"Cath..." Steve started, but was cut off quickly by Cath.

"Steve please don't make this harder. I am so sorry, but I need to focus on my kids. When I was away things were easier because I could pretend this wasn't real. But I have to face what I have been ignoring for so long, even if it means losing you." Cath finished. Tears rolling down her face. She saw that Chelsea and Evie were looking over, so turned away from them trying to compose herself...

Hope you enjoyed this chapter. I will update soon, please review.