A/N: So glad you're enjoying what we have so far! Our chapters are averaging about 20 pages, single-spaced, so it's been taking a while to update! Thanks for being patient! This chapter mostly focuses on Charlie. If anyone has any cool ideas for chapters, do let us know. We are open to suggestions. : ) We plan on doing 3 more chapters in this time period, then we'll move on to a few years later. Without further ado…enjoy! (and review!)
Charlie sat in the last class of his always long day at Las Vegas Elementary School one Thursday afternoon. Fifth grade was much more demanding than fourth. He got way too much homework now, usually a couple hours a night. His older brother Noah didn't even get as much homework as he did, and he was in middle school. However, Charlie was in the accelerated program at his school, having inherited his mother's smarts and hard work ethic. He enjoyed school most of the time, but had been feeling bogged down lately.
The last class of the day was art, which they had to change classrooms for. Charlie wordlessly followed the rest of his class down the hallway in a straight line to the last classroom on the right, which always smelled at least faintly of paint and crayons. As they all filed in, they could see they had a substitute today, so some of the other kids started chattering and snickering more, hoping they could get away with some mild mischief. Charlie wasn't in the mood to care, and just plopped down on one of the stools near the back of the classroom. The substitute smiled as the students all took their seats, waiting with his hands clasped in front of him.
"Good afternoon, class. My name is Mr. Walters, and I'll be subbing for Miss Sweeney today. The first thing I need to do is take attendance, so please say present when I call your name."
The man was walking towards the front of the room from the back and as he passed the table that Charlie was perched behind in the second to last row, he stopped a and offered a smile of greeting. The other students filled the room with the chatter and clatter of their ten year old conversations as soon as they realized the man was distracted.
"Hey, you're uh... Charlie right?" The forty something year old teacher asked with a finger prodding gently into Charlie's shoulder.
Charlie merely nodded. He thought he recognized the man as an old friend of his step-father's, but he didn't care much to be friendly. He hadn't been in much of a talking mood lately, and Jennifer Perry–the girl he usually talked to during art was absent, so he'd already decided that it would be a quiet forty five minutes.
"You're Nick Stokes' boy right?" Somehow the friendly weathered face of Mr. Walters seemed to redden, or maybe Charlie was just seeing the world through the deep readiness of anger that always seemed to well when people said that.
Charlie pointed to the attendance sheet in the man's hand, at his name, and said "I'm his stepson. My name is Charlie Berman, not Charlie Stokes."
The man looked bewildered for a few moments and then finally came in with "Well, I've met your brothers... I've taught both of them too. They're Stokes'."
"They're my stepbrothers." Charlie quickly told him. He wasn't in a very good mood, and for some reason it was bothering him that this man was acting like he knew everything about his family when he didn't. Nick was a great guy, but he was not his father. And Brandon and Noah were not his brothers. He was Charlie Berman, son of Charles Berman, and always would be.
The sub sensed Charlie wasn't into having this conversation so he nodded and patted his shoulder. "Tell your step dad I say hey."
He walked up towards the front of the classroom to begin the class, leaving Charlie a bit red-faced in embarrassment. Unlike his stepbrothers, he really didn't like to be the center of attention, especially when he wasn't having that great of a day. All Charlie wanted was to get through this class, go home and collapse on his bed and sleep all afternoon, only he had tons of homework yet again to do.
The rest of the day passed slowly, consisting mostly of Charlie hoping that the sub would stay away from him and not ask any more questions about his family. Being reminded that he didn't have his real family – his dad, his mom, and himself – was depressing, and he wanted to wash it out of his mind.
It wasn't that he didn't love his stepfather and stepbrothers, and they were his family, but they weren't at the same time. Brandon and Noah still spent two weeks every summer out in Maryland with their mother, Nick still didn't have the same blood type as him, and he still had his real father's eyes. He knew that though his family was hectic and that he had more siblings than most of the other kids in his grade, it had a certain charm to him, but he wasn't ever going to stop wondering. The truth was he was not a Stokes.
Sometimes he felt like his own identity was washed away in the big picture. He had five brothers and sisters that were all Stokes kids, even his mother went by Sara B. Stokes. She'd kept his father's last name as part of her name in memory of him, but even she had moved on to the new name. So, he felt like the only person in his family that had an identity different from anyone else, and his was different from everyone else's. Nick offered, every year around his birthday, to adopt him officially and make him his son. They could change his name and everything, but every year he'd said that he wanted to stay Berman. Couldn't the world take a hint? He was trying to hold on to his father's memory... and that was hard for him.
Yes, he had his father's eyes, he made the same faces as his father when he was angry, but he only knew this because his mother had told him so. The truth was, he couldn't remember his dad. There was a certain aftershave that would make him think of this one time at a park, a foggy figure of a man and his mother were with him, and they were laughing. That was the best he had though, and it just wasn't enough in a world where everyone else was trying to make him forget his father too.
With all these thoughts clouding his mind, bothering him, he managed to load his backpack up at the end of the day with all the textbooks he would need to do his homework. Around him, all his classmates were talking and joking around as they packed up, reminding Charlie again of how different he felt from all of them. They must all know their place in the world, and know exactly who their family was. Why did he seem to be the only one so confused with his identity? With a heavy heart, Charlie allowed his feet to drag him down the hallway, out to the pick up circle, where his mother was waiting with the family mini-van. Colin and the twins were already inside waiting. Marley had taken the front seat, but Charlie didn't particularly care today. Sitting in the back might save him from questions.
"Hey, Charlie." Sara greeted him kindly from the driver's seat as he pulled the sliding door shut behind him. Charlie plopped himself down in the back row of seats as he told his mother hello. "How was your day?"
"Fine." He answered dismissively, looking out the window at all the kids walking home with groups of friends, hanging on each other and horsing around. Luckily, the twins seemed to be quite talkative about their days, so Sara was occupied in having conversations with them. The girls were in the same kindergarten classroom, so both were always eager to share the exciting things that had happened before her sister got a chance.
"Mrs. Green said I was a good listener." Jordan boasted modestly.
"That's wonderful sweetheart," he heard his mother tell the younger child sitting in the row of seats in front of him. It was the last thing he paid attention to the whole car ride home. He chose to spend the ride working on his math assignment. At least he could finish one subject before he steeped into the land of lollipops and rainbows, where the girls seemed to demand all of the family's attention.
As soon as they pulled into the driveway, he had his seatbelt off and was clicking the door open, even before his sister had clicked her belt off. If he'd been picked up by Nick he would have stopped to take Colin out of the baby seat he was in and carry him inside, but his mother didn't like him doing that. She was always afraid he'd hurt him. So, he just hurried into the house as fast as he could without being bombarded with a bunch of questions about his day.
He would have forty minutes to himself in his room before his brothers would get home and then in another twenty minutes he'd have to leave the house for his karate lesson. Then, the rest of the night he'd either spend up stairs enduring the hustle and bustle of his family, or he could try to escape to the recesses of his basement room, but surely someone would bug him.
He decided to do the only thing he could think of to get out of an evening with the whole brood. He walked into the down stairs bathroom and turned on the blow dryer that his mother kept down there, just in case she couldn't get into one of the other bathrooms when she needed to leave for an emergency shift. He turned the blow dryer on high and pointed it at his face, taking special care to make his eyes water. Once his face was hot and a deep shade of red, he pulled a penny out of his pocket and tucked it into the side of his cheek. He was going to tell his mother he wasn't feeling well so he could stay in his room, undisturbed, for the rest of the night. Faking sickness always ended better for him than doing something to get grounded.
His mother hadn't gotten a good look at his face when he'd climbed into the minivan earlier, so hopefully that would increase his chances of her believing him. If he'd looked fine minutes before, and suddenly he was red-faced and teary-eyed with a fever, she might be suspicious. His mother was a trained observer, but Charlie was counting on the chaos that having six children created.
Charlie climbed back up the stairs to find his mother in the kitchen, fixing snacks for the four children who were home. Colin and the twins were all plopped in front of the television watching the Disney channel, their eyes practically glued to the screen.
"Girls, take one big scoot back, or you're gonna ruin your eyes." Sara called to the twins as Charlie approached her, and they both obeyed. She briefly looked at him and went back to cutting up more cheese cubes, but when her son's red-stricken face registered in her mind, she quickly turned her attention back to Charlie. "Oh my God, Charlie. You look awful."
"I don't feel so great." He told her, trying his best to sound sickly. Sara put her hand to his forehead and felt that he was burning up.
"Let me take your temperature." Sara told him, and fished out the thermometer from the little medicine drawer they kept in the kitchen. Soon, the device was popped into Charlie's mouth, and he used his tongue to position the sensor over the penny. He'd learned the trick from a friend at school, who told him that the penny had some kind of reaction with the thermometer, and made the reading go up.
After reading the thermometer his mother told him that he shouldn't go to karate that day and to go down to his room and try to take a nap before his brothers got home. She filled him up a glass of water and told him that this time she'd let him drink down stairs, something she only ever did when one of the kids was really sick. Usually there was a no food or drink anywhere but the kitchen rule.
He took the drink and headed back down stairs, though he had no intention of taking a nap. He'd wait until his brothers were home and everyone was entirely too busy to notice him, and he'd sneak into the attic and get the old box of pictures. Until then, he chose to while away his time with some homework. Before long, Marley appeared in the door to his room, crossed her arms and said "I saw you get in the car, you weren't sick then."
"Not now Marley," he groaned at her and closed the science book he was answering questions out of. "I just, didn't feel like going to karate. Don't tell mom."
"You hafta owe me," her little face all wrinkled up in the look she tried to make appear sinister.
"I'm gonna tell mom you're bugging me," he threatened his little sister. "And you're already grounded for what you did last week."
A perfect pout formed on Marley's face, her arms crossed over her tiny frame. They both knew it wasn't wise to be caught misbehaving when they were already being punished for something else.
"Fine." She grumbled, not liking that Charlie had apparently won. "But next time you want something from me, the answer's NO." Marley turned dramatically and made her way back up the stairs, leaving Charlie in peace once again. He'd been an only child up until about the age of four, so adjusting to having this many siblings had been difficult. It was hard not having any privacy. There was always someone butting into your life, or coming into your room when you just wanted to be alone.
Charlie was alone again for another twenty minutes before his two older stepbrothers came home. He could tell by the noise they always seemed to make, and could hear his mother telling them to keep their voices down, and only go downstairs if they needed to. However, they couldn't exactly be expected to stay out of their own bedroom for the entire afternoon. Soon enough, Brandon appeared to deposit his own backpack and get his football gear together for practice.
"What's wrong with you?" He asked his roommate as he opened his decidedly smelly gym bag to pack his workout gear.
"Nothin," he said with, not even really bothering to look up at the teen. He knew the older kid well enough to know that he couldn't say much or the boy would pry it out of him, with force if necessary. Despite the fact that he didn't like to admit it, Brandon was a great talker and not a half bad listener. The problem was that he had absolutely not desire to talk to him. What had him down was the fact that he didn't feel like he had a real family, so essentially if he tried to talk to his step brother about it, he'd end up hurting his feelings.
"Whatever man." Brandon told him, flipping the last sock into the bag in his hand and walking towards the door, "I'll be home in a couple of hours." It was the closest the brothers ever came to telling each other that if they needed to talk, they were here.
"Yeah, bye." He didn't wave or look up from his homework. He didn't really even acknowledge his brother had really been there. He knew he was kinda acting like a jerk, but he wasn't really feeling like being the sweet little boy people usually saw.
Not soon after, Noah made a similar entrance, and looked suspiciously at his stepbrother. Both of the older Stokes boys were athletic and sociable like their father, and had trouble understanding Charlie sometimes. He was the most withdrawn of all the boys, and preferred less head-on competition. Charlie didn't like the bombardment of team sports, but more solitary sports like karate. He was a quiet, thoughtful kid; one that valued his own personal time.
"Marley said you're not really sick." Was the first thing Noah said, before biting off another piece of the graham cracker he'd been snacking on. Charlie groaned and let his head fall back against his headboard. Their little sister had such a big mouth.
"Well, Marley likes to convince people that her teddy bears talk to her," he pointed out. Marley wasn't always the most reliable source.
Noah chuckled a little as he got out a notebook from his desk drawer and then closed it afterwards. "She said you admitted it to her."
"So what?"
"So…I thought you liked going to karate. Are you upset about something?"
"I just had a bad day okay?" he said, a bit more aggressively than he really meant to. "And I don't feel like being part of the Brady Bunch for once. So just drop it."
Noah was taken aback, usually Charlie had a quiet demeanor but he did inherit his mother's temper, so there wasn't much point in trying to press the issue any further. Noah, who had just come home from baseball practice, grabbed a change of clothes and headed out of the room to the shower.
The solace didn't last for long though, because as Noah came back into the room from his shower, an equally wet Brandon followed him in. He announced something about there being a storm and the practice being cancelled. So Charlie's determination to have some down time had been consistently interrupted, and now completely shattered.
"So, now that we're both in here for the night, are you going to tell us what's up?" Brandon asked, "Or are we going to have to deal with you bitching and moaning like a chick on PMS all night?"
Charlie was practically seething with annoyance now that both his stepbrothers were on his case again after he'd told them both not to bother him. Frankly, he hated big families, and he hated having two older brothers. It was all too much for Charlie just then, so he angrily stood up from his bed, knocking his textbooks to the floor in the process.
"Why the hell can't anyone stay out of other people's business in this family?!" He exclaimed, feeling his own blood boiling. "All I want is a freakin' afternoon to myself, and you jackasses can't get it through your thick jock heads to shut the hell up!"
With that, Charlie stormed out of their bedroom and up the stairs, too angry to even wonder if his mother had overheard his use of profanity. Maybe if anyone in this family had respect for personal space, he wouldn't have been driven to it. He reached the living room, which connected to the kitchen and found his mother. Colin was sitting up on the counter crying, as Sara was trying to hold him still to wipe some sort of gunk off his face. As Charlie got closer, he realized it was a variety of lipstick and eyeshadow. The twins must have gotten a hold of him. Sara seemed a bit flustered, slightly angry, and slightly amused all at the same time. Charlie hated to bother her, but if he didn't get some privacy he was going to tear his hair out.
"Mom, can I please go lay down in your room? Brandon and Noah won't leave me alone."
"You're still not feeling well babe?" She asked him gently. She reached out to feel his forehead, which had long ago cooled down. Thankfully Colin made a lunge to get away from her and she hand to jump to catch him before he fell off of the counter. Sara didn't have the free hands to pay him any more attention, so she very busily said "Sure honey. Dad's up there showering, but he won't bug you when he gets out."
"Nick," he retorted a correction under his breath.
"What was that?" His mother asked, clearly lost as to what he was talking about, and why.
Wasn't it obvious? Charlie didn't understand how his mother could just refer to Nick as his father without even thinking about it now.
"Nick is not my dad." He gritted through his teeth, and before Sara had a chance to talk to him any further, he had disappeared up the stairs. Sara furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, not knowing where that had really come from. She referred to Nick as 'dad' most of the time by reflex now, because to five of the six children in the house, he was their biological father. Sometimes she forgot how emotional and sensitive Charlie could be. Perhaps the fact he was sick also had something to do with it.
Sara managed to wipe the remaining lipstick and eyeshadow from her youngest child's face, though he still had a frown on afterwards. Bored by having to stay indoors on this rainy day, the twins had decided playing with their mother's make up without permission would be entertaining. Sara had tried her best not to laugh at the sight of the girls and their younger brother looking like clowns. She'd made the girls wash and scrub their faces, and sent them to their room until dinnertime.
"There. All better." Sara announced to Colin, who didn't seem that comforted.
"I don't wike Marwey and Jordan." He told his mother. Sometimes, Sara admitted, they did treat him like a doll instead of a little brother. When he was a baby, they'd loved to help dress him and give him his bottles. As Colin got older, that had translated into using him as their personal plaything.
Sara heard the sounds of the shower upstairs shut off, and was bewildered as to what must be going on up there. Was Nick trying to have a conversation with Charlie, would Charlie say something so hurtful directly to Nick's face? Being accused of not being Charlie's father would surely hurt Nick's feelings a great deal, but as concerned as she was about him she couldn't help what was up with her son. She decided, though, that as long as he didn't bring it up again she wouldn't press the issue tonight. Perhaps in a few days, when he wasn't going to be quite as angry as he seemed to be today, she'd take him out to dinner, just the two of them, and they could talk the issue over.
"Mommy," the two year old she was still holding on the counter said accusingly. "Can I go pway now?"
"Yeah, sure sweetie, I'm sorry," she pulled her son off of the counter quickly and spun him in the air, pulling his cheek down close to hers for just a moment to plant a sloppy, wet, kiss on it before she set him on the floor. She secretly wished that he'd stay two years old forever.
Colin wiped his cheek clean of his mother's kiss and scurried off, making Sara laugh. Since the girls were in their room, he had the whole living room to himself and she wasn't surprised that he dumped out his tub of large-sized Legos onto the carpet, big enough so that if he stuck them in his mouth, he wouldn't swallow one and choke.
Sara went back to preparing dinner, enjoying a rare afternoon of relative peace now. The oldest boys must be studying downstairs, Charlie was most likely sleeping upstairs, the girls were in their room, and Colin was playing quietly. She sighed in content and heard one of the upstairs doors open and close. Moments later, Nick appeared at the bottom of the stairs, now fresh and clean, dressed in a pair of jeans that always hugged his ass just right, and a comfortable old t-shirt. He'd come home particularly grimy today, so he'd basically gone straight upstairs to shower without sharing much more than a hello and a kiss with his wife. Nick walked up behind Sara and wrapped his arms around her, pressing a sweet kiss to her cheek.
"How are you, babe?" He drawled out, looking down at what she was preparing for dinner.
"Not bad." She told him, cutting a raw carrot into small pieces for the casserole she planned to make.
"It's quiet." The comment caused Sara to chuckle, because it was obvious this was just as surprising to him as it was to her.
"Yeah," said as she finished laughing and let out a deep breath. "Charlie's not feeling well and I think he's got pretty much everyone in the house afraid to talk to him right now. He even has Noah and Brandon scared to come up out of their room, it seems."
Nick laughed a little at the thought of little Charlie, as small in stature as he was, having the ability to turn the whole house into the quietness that it was at the moment. "If he's sick, I hope the other kids aren't coming down with it too. The weather has been pretty screwy lately."
Sara stepped out of her husband's grasp and opened the refrigerator door where she two pounds of hamburger meat and passed them to her husband, taking a box of tofu out for herself. They were going to have home made lasagna but since Sara and Charlie were the only two vegetarians in the house, they always had to make two batches. Though she was starting to prepare dinner, she didn't miss a beat in the conversation. "Yeah, it would be tough. We haven't had all six of them sick at the same time since Colin came home from the hospital with that cold."
"That was almost three years ago," Nick said aloud, a little remorseful that his youngest was growing up so fast. "Is Colin really going on three already?"
"Two more months," Sara said, with a smile to her husband. Neither one of them was really ready for their youngest to be getting so old, already. It felt like just yesterday when they were bringing the twins home, and they both knew that in the blink of an eye Colin would be off at kindergarten.
Upstairs, a bedroom door opened up very quietly, and both could just imagine Marley poking her head out to see if the coast was clear. They both waited to see if she was going to say something before ordering her back inside.
"Momma, can we come out yet?" The five year old asked forlornly, already bored out of her mind after a mere half hour in her bedroom. It was hard for Marley to sit around and do nothing for long. Nick and Sara both shook their heads at each other.
"Absolutely not. Get back on your bed." Sara told her daughter. They heard a grumble and she closed the door loudly behind her. Nick had been into their room a few minutes before to say hello, and was surprised to see them both laying on their beds. It was their rule that if they got sent to their room, they spent their time sitting on their bed thinking about what they'd done wrong.
Nick chuckled, leaning back against the counter now as Sara continued with the food. "What did they do anyway? All I got out of Jordan was that they'd gotten into your make up."
Sara sighed and had to chuckle a little at the state the girls and Colin had been in not long ago. "They took out about five shades of my lipstick in a dozen eyeshadows and basically painted all over their faces, and all over Colin."
"Man, and we've told 'em not to go playin' in it a hundred times..." Nick said, unsure of how angry Sara was about it, and decided to take the safe route and pretend to be miffed.
Sara, however, wiped her hands clean and picked up the digital camera that sat on the counter next to where she was working. "Yeah but babe," She said, flipping through the pictures before she passed the camera to her husband. "It was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time."
Both parents knew, of course, that they could never tell any of the three children involved how hilarious it was, but that didn't mean that they couldn't enjoy the photographic evidence between them. Brandon walked into the room at the same time that Nick seemed to lose control of his laughter and move a little closer to his father and step mother. "What's so funny?"
Sara leaned out of the way so that Brandon could fill the space she'd just been occupying, looking over Nick's shoulder. "Look what the twins did to your little brother while you were at football."
The teenager let out an amused snort, looking at the pictures over his father's shoulder. The girls had drawn all over their faces so much he could barely see any plain skin. And poor Colin, though he looked quite distraught in his photos, was quite the Picasso masterpiece in his opinion.
"So artistic." He commented and then walked to the fridge to get himself a Gatorade. "Did you ever figure out what's up Charlie's ass?"
Sara took the camera from her husband now that he was done and pressed the off button, planning to show the pictures to all her coworkers tomorrow. "I don't know. He seems pretty down, so I'm just gonna leave it for now." She told Brandon. She did know more, which she planned to share with Nick shortly, but Brandon didn't need to know all the details.
Brandon nodded after taking a sip of the cool orange liquid. "I don't know if I should tell you this, but we're pretty sure he was faking sick." He informed his parents of what he'd heard through the grapevine.
That didn't surprise Sara at all, really. She'd suspected something was going on when Charlie had come upstairs a few minutes before showing no signs of the reddened, feverish face from earlier. It didn't really anger her that he'd faked it; Sara just wanted to know what was bothering him so much he'd wanted to just curl up in his bed.
"Alright babe, I figured as much. Thanks for letting me know though," she ran an open hand down the teen's and gave him an appreciative smile. "Just, uh, do me a favor and leave him alone for a while."
"No problem. I'll go down stairs and play cards or something with Noah, keep out of his hair for a while. Want me to take Colin with me?" Brandon asked. He was a good, kind, friendly, and helpful kid for the most part. From time to time he'd pummel his brothers for one reason or another, but that was just how boys did things.
"He's upstairs sleeping in hour room for the moment, bud," Nick added in, "So you're free to roam the house at will for a while, but if he gets up again and is still feeling down, I'd appreciate it if you'd try to keep the others off his back for a while."
"Okay." Brandon poured the rest of the Gatorade down his throat and passed the bottle to his father, who was standing between him and the trash can and then turned left, presumably to go back down the stairs.
Nick sighed and opened the cabinet that held the trash can, dropping the bottle into it. Sara walked up to her husband and draped her arms lowly around his waist as they both just looked each other for a moment, wondering just what to think about Charlie. Nick mirrored Sara's stance and they both sighed again.
"You know, Charlie said something interesting to me earlier." She began, thinking of their exchange in the kitchen.
"Yeah? What's that?" He asked her quietly.
"I just told him you were upstairs in the shower. I said 'your dad' and he corrected me. He insisted that to him, you were Nick, and you weren't his father."
Nick nodded and crinkled his eyebrows in thought. He wasn't at all offended, because blended families were a tricky thing when it came to titles and feelings. "Hmmm. You think that's what has him upset?"
"Well, not just that. Something or someone must have set him off at school about it. I know he's heard me call you dad before, and he's never voiced any sort of disagreement." Sara reasoned.
"Yeah. Well, I could talk to him if you'd like. Maybe he's confused about what our relationship is."
"No, I think it's better if I do. He might not be as comfortable talking to you about his feelings towards his father."
Before Nick could respond, they heard a high-pitched screech coming from upstairs, heavy footsteps, and then a door flying open. "Mommyyyy!!" They heard Jordan yell. "Marley won't leave me alone!"
"Well you helped her get into the makeup and she didn't force you, so you have to stay in time out." Sara called up the stairs, "but if she's really bugging you, you can take your sleeping bag and go lay down in Colin's room."
There was a little more protest before Sara asked Nick if he could please finish up with dinner so that she could go up stairs and solve the quibble between Marley and Jordan, and then have a little chat with Charlie. She kissed her husband deeply on the mouth, one of those kisses that said to him 'if we weren't in a house full of screaming kids right now, I'd be all over you.' Then, after kissing him once more, equally as deeply, she pulled away and went to her children.
After tending to the feud between Marley and Jordan, by physically moving Jordan into Colin's bedroom for the remainder of the punishment, she slipped into her own bedroom where she found Charlie, out like a light, curled up on her bed. She missed when he was little, and she could watch him sleep with this angelic looking smile on his face, but in the last few years it had turned into an angry looking scowl.
She didn't really know how to go about approaching her child. He was so much easier when he was four of fife. She finally decided to just lie down on the bed beside him, and started running her fingers through his hair gently. She wasn't trying to wake him up, yet, she just wanted to touch her baby.
Charlie continued to sleep for a few more moments, but soon the gentle touch of his mother roused him, and his eyes fluttered open to see her lying next to him. "Hey, baby." She whispered.
Charlie squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then began to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He felt slightly better after taking a nap, but he still had that feeling inside of not being happy. It was in his gut, and that was the hardest kind of feeling to shake. "Hey."
"How are you feeling?" She asked, rubbing circles over his back, hoping to offer him some level of comfort.
The boy coughed, remembering that he was supposed to be looking sickly. "Uh…a little better."
Sara reached out and felt his forehead again, and it was cool to the touch. "You know, Charlie. If something's bothering you, you can always come talk to me. You know that, right?"
A heavy sigh left the boy's body as he buried his face in his pillow momentarily in frustration. Where could he even begin? And even if he felt like sharing his feelings with his mother, she always seemed so busy and occupied with something else, trying to raise six children.
"You're too busy mom. I can't talk to you." He wasn't trying to be mean, just truthful, and his bad mood might have made the tone come out a little more hurtful than he'd intended, but he didn't care much.
"Right now, you're the only one I want to pay attention to," Sara told her son, still rubbing his back gently. "I know you're mad at me for saying Nick was your dad, or that you're mad at Nick, or somebody about Nick. Baby, why don't you tell me what happened?"
"Nick's not my dad, that's what happened," Charlie said roughly, pulling a little further away from his mom, but turning over so he was facing her. "Nobody gets it. He's not my dad. He's my step dad."
The look of hurt and frustration in her son's eyes broke Sara's heart. It was hard for him, she knew, not having his biological father. Sometimes Sara forgot how hard it must be for him. While she'd always miss Charlie's father, she had basically moved on and had a new husband. Not that Charles was replaceable, but it was widely accepted that widows went out and married again. With fathers it was different. There was never really anyone like your real father, and Sara had lost sight of that.
"Did something happen at school today?" Sara guessed, remembering that he'd seemed fine that morning when she'd dropped him off at school.
"Maybe." Charlie mumbled, not sure if he wanted to talk about it, because he knew he'd probably get upset again.
"Have you been thinking about your real dad?" She went further.
"Yeah." His answers were still all one-worded, but Sara was patient. She knew her son better than anyone, and at times it took some fishing around to get to the root of the problem.
"Would you like to talk about it? Sometimes it helps to let it out."
Charlie was silent for several prolonged moments, closing his eyes because he felt tears stinging, threatening to spill out. He liked to be strong and brave for his mother. Charlie took a deep breath and decided to spill what had happened in art.
"In art class we had a sub and he recognized me." He began. "But he said 'aren't you Nick's son?' And I told him that no, he's just my step dad, but he it just bugged me that everyone assumes Nick's my dad. I love him, but he's not."
Sara was going to respond though she wasn't quite sure what to say to her son, she felt really bad for forgetting that he was the only one like him in the house. He was the only Berman, he was the only kid with full biological siblings, and the only kid who was never going to see one of his parents again. She was about to tell him that she knew how hard it must be, and that she was sorry for forgetting like that when he continued speaking "Nick is a great dad, and he's a great step dad, but he's just not my real father. You're all I've got real parent wise, Mom. I just wish people would understand that."
"Well, honey, Nick loves you very much. He loves you just the same as any of his other children," Sara said to her son, "neither of us have to be alone without your dad. Nick's here for us, and so are Brandon, Noah, the girls, and Colin."
"Well, I mean, I know that they're my family and stuff. But... they're also not." Charlie noticed the look of confusion on his mother's face and decided to try to say it again, a little differently. "They're not all of my family. I still have a different father, I still have different grandparents, and cousins, and an aunt."
"But nobody ever recognizes it, they all just assume you're part of Nick's clan?" Sara asked, she was starting to understand the bigger picture. Her son felt like nobody wanted him to have his other family.
"I guess," he groaned a little bit. That was the closest he was going to let his mother get to the truth about what was bothering him, and it was true anyway, that was part of it. The other part, well, he was secretly afraid that his mother would be mad at him for–he couldn't remember his dad.
"Well, sweetheart, it's okay to miss your dad. But you're not disrespecting him or forgetting about him by letting Nick into your life. I know your father would want you to go on and live a happy life, and not dwell on the fact he's gone. It's okay to move on." She tried to explain gently.
"Yeah, I guess." He sighed, obviously not completely satisfied with her answer.
Sara offered him a half smile and stroked his hair some more. "You don't have to put a label on everyone. All that matters is that you love your father, but you love Nick too. Love is love, whether it's your real family or your step family."
"Okay. Thanks, Mom," He told her as she leaned under the bed and retrieved a battered old photo album, filled with pictures of their life before she'd married Nick, she told him that he was free to keep it for a few days if he wanted. Charlie didn't expect her to realize she didn't remember his father, and that's what hurt most. He didn't have any memory of him at all. It was awful, to have absolutely no recollection of your own parent. Looking at pictures of him was like looking at a photo of a stranger.
"If you need to talk more, you know where to find me. And don't think I'm too busy." She reminded him, ruffling his hair a bit. Charlie smiled at her weakly and sat up, because they heard the oven buzzer going off, indicating that dinner was now ready.
The sounding of the oven buzzer meant that everyone was free to roam the house at will. Marley and Jordan's punishment was over. The older boys knew that it would mean that Charlie was getting up, so they could make as much noise as they wanted to now, and with all the new activity going on around the house Colin woke up from the place he'd fallen asleep on the floor with his Legos.
The family flooded into the kitchen and formed a long line for hand washing while Nick and Sara finished setting the table and getting Colin strapped into his high chair between them. Once everyone's hands had been cleaned, and without even being told to do so, everyone took up their usual place at the table. Once the last one, Noah, was seated the clatter of passing dishes and serving different portions of the meal could be heard throughout the house.
Charlie wasn't feeling completely better about everything and was eager to go down stairs and start looking through the picture book he'd dropped off on his bottom bunk just before he'd come to the kitchen to get ready for dinner. This meant that he wasn't talking much, but though the whole family seemed alive with chatter, so he wasn't sure if anyone even noticed.
Sara had managed to briefly tell her husband about why Charlie was upset. He felt a bit helpless, since the reason he was sad was because of his biological father. All Nick could do was show Charlie that he loved him and cared about him, but assure the boy that missing his own father was okay. Charlie was a great kid, and Nick wished he didn't have to go through so much pain.
Charlie managed to stay almost completely silent throughout the whole meal, letting his step and half-siblings carry the conversation. He knew that his mother wouldn't push him to talk because he was upset. Otherwise, he would be getting just as many questions as the other kids. Nick and Sara excused him to go down to his room to get his album, not forcing him to help with the dishes when he was feeling so down.
"Sweetheart, why don't you bring the album up here so we can all look at it." Sara suggested, thinking it might help to hear other people discussing his father. She thought it might bring back some of Charlie's good memories of his father and cheer him up a little. Charlie agreed and retrieved the album from his bed. After the dishes had been finished, they all piled onto the family's couch to look through the album. Nick and Sara both hoisted a twin into their laps, and the older boys piled in next to them. Colin was more interested in his Legos, and played happily on the floor.
Charlie knew that anyone who could see the family now must think that the were some sort of Brady Bunch, or like the Tanners on Full House, never having a single quibble about anything. But, as much as he'd wanted to be alone with the album, he couldn't help but feel a little better that he had his entire family gathered around him as he opened the book to the fist page.
It was covered in a few pictures of Nick's wedding to Brandon and Noah's mother. The first image was one of Nick and Sara hugging, a cheesy grin on Nick's face, like he'd just won the lottery. Then next to that was a picture of Sara dancing with a tall, dark hired, man, wearing glasses, above it was the caption: 'our first dance.'
Sara pointed to the picture of herself and Charles, "That was the first time I met your dad," she told him, smiling from the memory. "Nick and Kathleen had just had their first dance and insisted that every one of their guests dance too. I tried to get out of it, complaining that I didn't have a date, which of course didn't work. Nick grabbed Charles, introduced us, and told us to dance."
Charlie smiled a little at the thought. His mother had never been the kind of person to be okay with dancing with, or even touching a complete stranger. The other boys laughed a little. It sounded like something that their father would do, and the girls were still gawking at their daddy all dressed up in a tux from the first picture.
The last picture was one Sara had snuck of Warrick and Catherine kissing. Nobody had known about them yet, well not officially. So, it was a great little piece of blackmail that had ended up living up to the title that Sara had given it in the album, 'foreshadowing.' Because it wasn't a full six months after that evening before Warrick had proposed to Catherine.
So far, everything was going well, and Charlie was actually enjoying looking at all the pictures with his family. They flipped the page, and found some baby pictures of Charlie, some of them with his father in the picture. One had baby Charlie perched on a very proud-looking Charles's knee. Yet another with Charles holding his hands, trying to teach him how to walk. Charles was smiling at the camera, and you could just tell that Sara and his son were his world. It made Charlie a bit sad that he'd never gotten to know this wonderful man.
They turned the page again, and there was a picture of what must have been a CSI Christmas party. A young Brandon and Noah were there, dressed in their best slacks and dress shirts. One picture showed them obviously horsing around with Charles, his father.
Brandon laughed out loud and pointed to the photo. "Oh my God, I'd forgotten all about that!" He rubbed his face in amusement. "We'd gotten an early Christmas present from Grandma. It was this pack of gum that snaps at your finger when you try to pull a piece out, and we'd just tricked him. He gave us both noogies."
Noah laughed also. "Yeah, I remember that. He had a good sense of humor about it, and for my next birthday he got me a whoopee cushion."
Hearing the other boys talk about his father like that made Charlie a little angry. He was in the pictures of that day too, and he couldn't remember a single thing they were talking about. His step brothers had apparently been close enough with his father that they could joke around with him, and that he'd bought them birthday gifts.
Charlie's thoughts were interrupted as Noah turned the page he was looking at for him. The next page boasted a picture of little Noah's pre-school graduation. Noah was wearing a blue cap and gown while sitting on Nick's shoulders, and Brandon was standing in front of Nick, his hands on his shoulders. To Nick's left was Warrick, with an arm draped over Chandler's shoulders. On the other side of Nick was Charles standing there, the same proud smile on his face he always bore, with a toddler version of Charlie held in his arms. The title over the picture was 'The Men.' But try as he might, he couldn't remember that day.
Sara looked down at the photograph after everyone had been looking at it for a while, "That one has always been one of my favorites. I used a blown up version of it in a frame on the wall of our old house, you remember honey?"
Sara rubbed Charlie's knee. He vaguely remembered the picture hanging in the hallway surrounded by lots of other school photos of the other kids. "Sorta."
He was going to continue speaking when he was interrupted by Noah again, "Hey, wasn't that right before uncle Charles fell and broke his cell phone?"
Brandon laughed, "Nah man he didn't fall, I think there's a picture in here somewhere." Sure enough a turn of the page revealed the scene he was referring to, "We pushed him. You, me, Chandler, and Charlie."
It wasn't fair. How come his stepbrothers, who already had a father, could remember his own father better than Charlie did? It didn't matter if they had memories of Charlie's father. The only person who really cared was Charlie, and he couldn't muster up even one lousy memory of him. Here they all were, a perfect happy family, when Charlie suddenly felt more alone than ever. Tears formed in his eyes as the rest of the family giggled and laughed at the pictures in front of them. Charlie couldn't take any more, and suddenly stood up, causing the album to drop to the floor, and stormed downstairs to his bedroom.
The rest of the family was stunned to say the least. Nick and Sara looked at each other, not knowing what had just happened, and the children were all silent for a few moments.
"Daddy, what's wrong?" Jordan spoke up from her father's lap, not liking when anyone around her was upset. She tended to get wrapped up in other people's emotions, and could easily start crying when others cried.
"I don't know, baby. He must've gotten upset about something," Nick answered, puzzled himself. He heard a little sniffle coming from his daughter, so he wrapped his arms around her a little tighter.
"I don't like it when Charlie's sad."
"I know, Jordan. Mommy and I will help him in a minute. Let's just let him calm down."
Jordan obliged and decided not to ask much more about her older brother. If something was wrong with him and her parents told her to leave him alone, she would. Well, at least until they weren't looking anymore. Jordan picked the picture book back up and turned to the end. She wanted to see pictures of herself.
The last fifteen pages or so were blank, completely empty. Jordan, who was completely confused by this, because her mother never left albums blank asked "Mommy, how come you didn't fill this one up?"
Sara looked down at her daughter and frowned gently, she flipped to the last photograph in the book, it was a picture of Sara holding a barely three year old Charlie in her arms. They were both dressed up in black outfits. Sara looked like she'd been crying for a week solid, "Because Charles died and I didn't really want to remember anything else."
Jordan didn't know much about this Charles fellow, only that he was Charlie's real father. It scared her that Charlie's daddy had died when he was little.
"Daddy, are you gonna die like Charlie's dad?" She asked curiously, turning her tiny head upwards to look at her father worriedly. If it had happened to Charlie's dad, it could very well happen to hers.
"No, sweetie." Nick kissed her head delicately. Though of course no one predict random events, he knew Jordan just needed some reassurance. Heck, he could be run over by a bus tomorrow morning, but Jordan didn't need to worry about all those possibilities. "Not for a long time. Don't you worry."
"Everyone dies, Jordan." Noah piped in knowingly.
"Noah, that's enough, please." Sara told her stepson gently, because he didn't want him upsetting Jordan. She had a tendency to over think things and get things way out of proportion. "No one's gonna die."
"Alright." Nick began to sit up, to break the little party up. "I'm sure everyone has a little homework to do. Jordan, Marley. Let's run you a bath, and then it'll be bedtime."
He led the two girls to stand up, and both of them groaned and protested. They'd spent enough time in their room earlier, and having to go to bed already certainly wasn't enticing. "Enough, girls." Nick told them. "Go upstairs and I'll meet you there."
The twins slowly started towards the stairs, going snail-paced to hopefully drag out the evening a little as Nick turned to look down at Sara. They both knew that Charlie probably needed another talk. "You okay to handle Charlie?"
"Yeah. I don't think he told me the whole story earlier when I talked to him," Sara sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She was going to get up to go down to her son, when she noticed a note of concern in Nick's face.
Sara reached up to her husband's slightly stubbly chin and turned his eyes to look at hers, "He loves you Nick. He's just a little confused right now."
Nick's eyes betrayed that he was a little more than a bit hurt by the fact that his son didn't want anything to do with him anymore. He'd never once since he'd started dating Sara, thought of Charlie as anything other than his own child. It crushed Sara to know that her son was hurting, and that because of it her husband was too.
Sara reached up and pressed a gentle kiss to Nick's lips. "Trust me, he'll come around again."
Nick nodded, but didn't look that convinced. He knew deep down that it had just been a hard day for Charlie. The kid knew he was loved by both Sara and Nick, and all his siblings, but he had a lot of hurt inside from losing his father.
He stood up and then walked to the stairs to usher the twins to the bathroom for their bath, taking Colin along also so he could keep an eye on the toddler. The older boys had since disappeared to the kitchen table to start their homework, so Sara stood and made her way downstairs to Charlie's room. She gently knocked and didn't hear a response, but pushed the door open anyway. Her eyes fell upon a large lump hidden under the covers.
"Charlie?" She called gently as she crossed the room. A sob escaped from the form beneath the sheets and the comforter was pulled tighter. Sara sat down on the edge of the bed and began to rub what she assumed was his back, though it was hard to tell. "Honey, I can see you're upset. Would you like to talk about it?"
Charlie didn't dilly-dally around the issue at all this time, though his response was muffled. "How come Brandon and Noah even remember my dad, and I can't remember one single little thing? It's not fair!"
"Oh honey," Sara said, overwhelmed with a feeling of sadness. She knew that her son was having problems with his identity and things regarding his father, but she had no idea that he couldn't remember him. The thought had never crossed her mind that he might be struggling with something like that.
"It's not fair..." the boy growled again, peeking out from under the sheets. He looked like he was ready to say something else, but he decided not to.
"I had no idea you couldn't remember him, I mean I guess... you were so small when he died." Sara said, rubbing a hand gently up and down her son's arm. "You can't blame yourself. You were just too little to remember him. But I can tell you anything you want to know about him. We have pictures and videos, and we have Grandma and Grandpa, you can always call them too. Aunt Elane, she probably has some great stories."
Charlie sniffled, "I know. It's just not the same though." He pointed out. There's nothing that would ever really fix it. His father would always be dead, and Charlie would never truly know him.
"No, it's not. But you just have to focus on all the stories and the pictures and videos. That's your best link to him. And remember that you have so many people that love you and care about you." She rubbed his back, hoping she was getting through.
"Do you miss Dad?" He whispered a bit curiously. It seemed that his mother was so happy now with Nick and their new family. Sometimes he wondered if Sara even thought about his father at all.
"Yeah. Every day." Sara admitted. "I may not say it, but there's not one day that passes when I don't think of your father. Just little things remind me of him. Like seeing a movie he liked, or cooking one of his favorite meals. It's hard, but I find it helps to think of the good times. I know he'd want us to move on and be happy."
"Nick was like a brother to him, too," Charlie smiled. He could tell that his father and Nick had been really close in the years before he died. "You can tell if you look at the pictures."
"Yeah, he Uncle Greg, Uncle Warrick, and your stepfather did almost everything together for a while. I wasn't the only person who loved him." Sara leaned back and laid down on her son's bottom bunk, propping her head up on his pillow. She pulled her son down so he was laying beside her and absently played her fingers in his hair.
"Hey mom," Charlie said as he listened to his mother's chest rise and fall in rhythm with her breath, "Do you ever wonder what it would be like if Dad was still alive?"
"Well, yeah I do," Sara said gently, "Sometimes I think maybe it would just be you and your dad and me. We'd live in a big house, and we'd have all kinds of art on the walls, and our own library, but the house would be so quiet. Then, sometimes I think that you'd have a little sister, and Charles and I would get to go Christmas shopping for you two together."
"That sounds kinda nice," Charlie said, curling just a little closer to his mother. "But I'd kinda miss Marley and Jordan and Colin."
"Yeah. Me too." It was hard to picture her life now without Marley, Jordan, and Colin. They were her babies. While losing her husband had been one of the worst experiences of her life, in the end, it had resulted in her giving birth to three beautiful children with Nick. It was weird to think about, how his death had resulted in life for three little children.
The mother and son settled in further, Sara stroking Charlie's back as his eyes became heavy again. Only a few minutes later, Sara watched her first born sleeping there beside her, wishing she could magically fix all of his sadness, but knew it wasn't possible. Nick and Sara did their best, and tried to talk to their children about their feelings. She realized that was about all they could do.
About half an hour later, a fresh and clean Jordan snuck downstairs in her pajamas because she wanted to say goodnight to Charlie. She didn't like to see him so upset, and she was worried he was sick of being her brother. Jordan just wanted to let him know that she loved him very much.
She crept down to his room and found the door open, her mother laying on the bed with Charlie. Jordan wasn't sure if they were asleep. It didn't really matter, because she just wanted to be close to him. She very carefully climbed over her mother, who turned out to be dozy but not quite asleep. Sara smiled and pulled her daughter between her and Charlie. It was a tight fit, but it was nice to have all three of them laying there together. Jordan snuggled in, but then leaned up and gave her brother a gentle, quick kiss on the cheek before settling back in. Then, she got to say what she needed to say.
"I love you Charlie."