Author Note:

Firstly guys, thank you so much for all of your reviews. They mean a lot to me and I'm intensely proud of them all. Secondly, apologies for how long it has taken me to update anything - I'm fully aware that it's been a month since I last updated any of my work. This is due to a combination of issues thrown at me by life, and over the last week or so - writers block.

However, after watching last night's Waterloo Road and being left thoroughly unimpressed and missing Karen tremendously, it was the motivation I had to start working on my stories again.

So here is an update for you. Thank you all for you continued patience, and once again for the lovely comments. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Please read and review!

Leanne xx

Half Alive

Part Nine

When Rob made his way up to Karen's office he was surprised to notice that Janeece wasn't at her desk, so he just walked straight through. He knocked lightly on the closed office door and heard her quietly summon him in. Rob pushed open the door and Karen was sat at her desk on the phone. She smiled briefly at him, motioning him to come in and sit down. "Well if you could get onto it straight away, I'd appreciate it," Karen spoke through gritted teeth and Rob winced at the tone of her voice as he waited for her to finish the call. There was silence for a minute, "Yes I understand perfectly," Her voice dropped another octave and he was sincerely glad not to be on the receiving end of her words, "Goodbye." The phone was put back down with a deliberately loud clatter. "Hey," She said addressing Rob, after quickly recomposing herself.

"Hi," Rob answered quickly, "Bad day?" He gestured at the phone, forcing himself to start the conversation.

Exasperated, Karen ran a hand through her hair and sighed; nothing was going right today. She was surrounded by people who were incapable of doing the jobs they were paid to do, her whole body ached from Charlie's beating, and she couldn't fail to pick up on the stilted atmosphere that had descended on the office like a heavy black rain cloud with the site manager's entrance. She wondered if Rob could possibly know, even without her having mentioned it. "You could say that," She murmured, realising she hadn't given him an answer. "Eight weeks," Karen groaned, "Eight weeks I've been waiting for my replacement Spanish teacher and all I get from the board is that they're sorting it!"

Rob smiled sympathetically, though he was new that term he knew what Karen was on about; the staff room rumour mill were only too happy to fill him in on Cesca Montoya's forbidden romance, though that in itself was quite unnecessary. The local papers had had a field day with that story for weeks, leading Rob to wonder, quite how Karen managed to deal with such a negative sequence of events. "Sounds rough," He commented awkwardly.

Karen wrote an address on a brown envelope and didn't speak as she rifled in the top drawer for a stamp. Sighing again when she couldn't find one, she scribbled a note to herself before speaking again. "Is everything okay?" She asked, her eyes flicking from her computer screen to Rob's face. She watched him fidget uncomfortably for a minute and try unsuccessfully to rearrange his features into a neutral expression. "Rob?" She queried gently, when he didn't respond.

"Not really," Rob muttered, dropping heavily onto her sofa, "Can we talk?" He indicated for Karen to come and take a seat next to him, which she did so, a frown creasing her brow. "It's about Jess," He said finally, when it became apparent that she was expecting him to initiate the conversation, and when he realised that he couldn't exactly evade the subject. He just didn't know what to say.

Karen instantly thought the worse when she saw the worried expression on his face, in conjunction with the mention of her youngest daughter. Chris had already been in that morning to have a word about her slipping grades in both chemistry and physics. "What has she done now?" She sighed uncomfortably; sure she knew the cause of Jess' recent wayward behaviour.

"Don't worry; she's not in any trouble," Rob was quick to reassure her, groaning inwardly as he realised how his words had been construed. "She's in my office," He admitted after another pause, "I found her outside of class about an hour ago and she was in a bit of a state. I spoke to her but I think you need to talk to her. She clearly needs her mum."

"Did she say what the matter was?" Karen asked anxiously biting her lip, although she wasn't sure she could face his answer. She could feel a warm flush creeping up her neck and her cheeks became tinged with pink; her stomach also gave a guilty lurch because she knew the atmosphere at home had to be at least part of the cause. Jess had been quiet for the last week and a half and had completely distanced herself from her mother; it reminded Karen painfully of how things used to be before Bex returned. Rob hesitated; he didn't know how to tell Karen what Jess had said, feeling both horrified at the extent Charlie's behaviour was having both on her and the Fisher family as a whole, and slightly in the wrong for knowing more about her daughter than Karen did. "I'm a big girl Rob," Karen said, deliberately slowly. "I can handle it, if that's what you're worried about."

"Jess - she -" He stammered, feeling his face burn as he struggled over the words. "She knows what Charlie hasbeendoing toyou," Rob said quickly, his words all rolling together in his haste to get them out of his mouth without retching. He prayed she wouldn't ask him to repeat them because he wasn't sure he could, and found himself looking everywhere but at Karen.

"She thinks she knows," Karen said shortly, but if Rob had been able to bring himself to watch her he'd have seen her firmly fixing her gaze on the carpet, he'd have seen the blush on her cheeks and the wetness pooling in her eyes.

Rob reached across the table towards her, and placed his hand on top of her own surprised when she didn't shy away from the contact, "Karen," He started to speak, sternly.

"Don't take that tone of voice with me," She snapped defensively yanking her hand away from him and folding her arms across her chest; both as a measure of her discomfort and expression of the sudden anger she felt.

"She saw what happened between you this morning," Rob's own voice deepened, and he forced himself to look at her, "The lesson she walked out of was PSHE; its domestic violence week Karen, she knows!" He said the last bit gently; the tone of judgement which had been momentarily present had been replaced with one of sympathy.

Karen began to play with a stray thread that dangled from the cuff of one of her sleeves, her eyes stinging with the effort of keeping from crying. "Oh," She started feebly, not knowing what to say. She already blamed herself for the entire situation without him having to lay the guilt on thicker. The single word dissipated into the heavy atmosphere, leaving them both awkwardly watching one another. She tried to meet his eyes with a defiant glare but this only gave him the exact opposite impression; the overly bright eyes and trembling bottom lip gave her away instantly.

"You don't need to pretend everything is okay with me Karen," Rob told her softly, instantly breaking the façade she'd constructed between them, "You spend too much of your time having to hide the truth from everyone as it is, and contrary to how it may seem I'm not stupid. I can see that you're hurting."

"I don't even know what to say," She answered honestly, surprising herself not just because of how difficult she found it to hide things from him, but also because she was acknowledging feelings, she hadn't allowed herself to face up to over the past few months. "I haven't exactly felt much like talking lately," Karen's tone changed, and this unnerved Rob because she spoke so casually that they could have been discussing something as trivial as the weather forecast. He opened his mouth to comment at the sudden change in temperament and let out a sigh as he watched her, for she'd now gone back to staring blankly at the walls, and tracing the wooden whorls on her desk.

Karen inwardly groaned as she saw him hesitate before speaking and chose to interrupt. "Look Rob, I know you want to help and I don't want you to think I don't appreciate it… We will talk about this later but for now my main priority is Jess." Part of her knew she was only saying that to keep him from kicking up a fuss, but it also gave her some time to think about what she'd say to him.

"Of course," Rob replied quickly, relieved that she was at least willing to entertain the idea of speaking to him, even if he hadn't exactly given her much choice. Karen eased herself up from the chair behind her desk, wincing as the tenderness of her lower back protested. She tried to act like it was nothing, but Rob had been watching her closely and wasn't fooled for an instant, "Karen?" There was the hint of a question in his voice and she knew she'd been caught out, so resignedly gripped the edges of her shirt lifting it up her body. He couldn't help but to gasp at what he saw; her back was still bright red and mottled purple in places, particularly above where one of her kidneys should be. He could also clearly see the indent made, by what he assumed to be a door handle, "You should get that looked at," He told her reaching out and examining the injury more closely.

Karen's eyes narrowed scornfully, "Because that would take some explaining," She commented sarcastically, "What exactly am I supposed to say?"

"You could tell the truth," Rob suggested shrewdly but Karen was barely listening to him. She didn't even bother to dignify his comment with a response, holding the door open and pointedly indicating for him to step out in front of her. Sighing, Rob did as she instructed and they walked through the corridor in silence. Karen hesitated outside Rob's office, watching through the gap in the blinds as her daughter bent her head over a pile of work, pausing only to change the song on her iPod. "I'll just leave you both too it," He told her, sensing her discomfort. "I've got a few things to be getting on with anyway."

Karen nodded gratefully, "Thanks Rob," She paused hesitantly, "Thank you for looking out for my daughter. Over the last few weeks I've not been there for her, for any of my kids in fact, and I should've been. I'm glad that you were."

Rob smiled, briefly reaching out and squeezing her shoulder, "Don't beat yourself up about it," He answered absent-mindedly without thinking and stopping abruptly as he realised what he'd actually said. "Sorry Karen," He apologised, his face turning the colour of beetroot as he became suddenly interested in the grafitti on the wall. "I just meant -"

Karen, who'd momentarily frozen because of his poor choice in words waved away his apology, "It's fine," She answered, trying to muster a smile. "I know what you meant."There was an anxious pause, which turned into a couple of moments of thoughtful silence.

"It's not your fault you know," His voice quietly worked it's way inside her thoughts and she blinked a couple of times before replying.

"So you keep saying," Her voice was despondent and void of any emotion, though Rob had a feeling she was struggling to hide her feelings. "I know you mean well Rob, and like I told you before I'm grateful for everything you've done for me -"

Rob's forehead creased slightly as he anticipated what was coming next, "Why do I feel like there's a 'but' coming?" He questioned, scrutinising her closely.

"But it doesn't matter how many times you say that, it doesn't make it any easier to believe." She admitted.

"Jess doesn't blame you," Rob told her matter of factly as thought that settled the matter; he was sure after a conversation with her daughter that Karen was the last person to bear the brunt of Jess' anger. "If this is anyone's fault, it's Charlie's."

Karen paused at the mention of her husband, her fist closing around the handle to Rob's office door, "Well she should," Her words were almost whispered as she voiced her inner guilt, "Because I do. You and Jess - you can blame Charlie as much as you like for what he does to me but I should've done something about the situation before it ever came down to affecting the children." Her eyes clouded over with tears, and she ducked her head to hide them from Rob. She dimly felt him give her shoulder another squeeze, heard him utter a mumbled 'see you later', and his footsteps steadily retreating. Straightening up and taking a steadying breath, Karen pushed open the door, trying to control her hands from shaking.