AN: Another day another chapter.


"I don't see why we couldn't go in with her," Bela complained to Charlie as they entered her apartment. It was the first time that she had watched her mother going to the hospital and she frowned. She didn't quite like being told no, someone should have been there with her and Brittany had to make up for all the days that she had missed. "It's her last session, we should be there."

Charlie agreed, but Santana had been adamant about the whole thing and had pointed out that even if she wanted them there. Bela wasn't allowed to sit with her, she didn't want her daughter anywhere near medication that they were pumping into her body. "It's three hours Bela and we'll be there to pick her up," Charlie said gently. "Maybe we should make her something?"

Bela huffed at this, she wasn't a child who needed to make a card for her mom. "No, I just want to make sure that she's okay," Bela's eyes narrowed as she looked at Charlie, "Since you won't kiss her."

Charlie made a face, there was a large part of her that wanted to tell Bela that she had indeed kissed Santana. But she agreed with Santana, that keeping it quiet right now was the best thing. This wasn't a situation that she could win with Bela, if she didn't kiss Santana and Santana died, Bela would blame her. If she did kiss Santana and Santana died, Bela would probably still blame her but there was also the possibility that she'd blame herself. Though Santana's last report had been good, it could be better and they didn't want to get Bela's hopes up. Not until after they tried the surgery. "I promise we'll leave early so we can pick her up."

Bela huffs at this, "Well I don't feel like building your arcade today," she said her arms still crossed, as she noticed the bag from an art store and a huge piece of wood that was leaning against the table.

"Okay," Charlie responds and moves towards the giant wooden board and grabs it, shifting it carefully and moving towards her balcony. She's aware that Bela is watching her carefully as she places the piece of wood on her balcony where there was already some tarp that had been laid out. She sets the board so that it's leaning against the rails of her balcony.

Bela puffs out her cheeks, she was being ignored. She didn't like being ignored, "Charlie," she snaps at her and she watches as Charlie turns to look at her. "Don't you care?"

Charlie tilts her head and looks at Bela for a moment before coming back inside, "You know I do—"

"Do I?" Bela challenged, her gaze so obstinate that Charlie is eerily reminded of Santana.

Charlie quirks a brow at Bela, "Of course I do. I want to be there for your mother too. I want her to get better, I need her to get better. That's why I'm going to make her something." She crinkles her nose a bit and turns back to the wood, it's far too big maybe she could cut it down to size and make into something cool. Her portable table saw was in her car. "Do you think she'd like a birdhouse?"

"My mom thinks birds are diseased rats with wings," Bela said biting her lip. "How about a clock?"

Charlie shakes her head, "I don't think giving her something that tells time is a good get well present," Charlie points out.

"Well," Bela said tilting her head a bit. "What's the first thing you made?"

"A box. I just made it to hold stuff, it wasn't a very good box, it fell apart in like two days."

Bela crinkles her nose wondering how you could mess up something as simple as a box. "Well, make her a box to put things in. Maybe a jewelry box—or a box to put all her pens, or maybe something for all her shoes and purses. Mom buys a lot of those." Bela tugs on Charlie's arm and motions for her to come closer before whispering in her ear. "Mom's addicted."

"So maybe a shelf in her closet for all her shoes—"

"There are a lot of shoes," Bela informed her.

"Well then." Charlie turned and looked at the piece of wood for a moment before nodding at Bela. "We'd best get to work then. We've only got a couple of hours," Charlie said stretching. "No you can't use the power tools," Charlie said with a shake of her head before Bela could even ask.

"Why not? Mom doesn't have to know!" Bela grumbled. It wasn't fair she would be careful and it would be so cool, and Charlie was right there. She was nearly eleven she was the perfect age to start using tools like that.

"Bela, your mom has a Mexican third eye, she knows everything. If I even think about it, she'll call me and start yelling at me." Charlie says as she puts an arm around her daughter's shoulders. "Come on, I need your help bring some of the stuff upstairs."

"You know about the third eye as well?" Bela threw her hands up in the air. "It's not fair, I can't do anything because she always knows. The only time she doesn't is when she's distracted."

"Right?" Charlie nods in agreement as she grabs her car keys and the keys to her apartment. She opens the door. "It's really hard to hide stuff from your—" Charlie trailed off as she saw her dad standing outside the door his hand raised. Charlie blinked and immediately shifted her body, stepping in front of Bela. It was instinct her father had threatened to try and take her daughter away from her and she'd be damned if she was going to let that happen. "What are you doing here?"

"Can I come in?" Russell asked.

"No," Charlie stated calmly. "I thought I was clear, though I do appreciate the fact that you at least had the decency to knock. I don't like the idea that you know where I am at any given time. Now if you'll excuse us, Bela and I are busy."

Russell studied his daughter for a moment, he was not going to have this conversation in the hallway. "Charlie. I'm not going to leave until you at least hear me out."

Charlie grimaced and tilted her head to look at Bela, unsure what the correct action was going to be. She exhales slowly, "Hey Bela? Why don't you go—watch a bit of television. This won't take long," Charlie said turning to Bela who didn't move. "Bela please?" Charlie asks.

"Fine," Bela huffs and then waves politely at her grandfather. She grumbles she didn't like being treated like a child and she wanted to watch this argument. Maybe she'll listen at the doorway.

Charlie waits for a moment before turning back to her father, "You still can't come in," she says firmly. "What do you want?"

"Your mother asked—no she demanded that I fix things between us. I wish—to make amends." Russell said trying to keep the irritation off his face.

"You're here because mom asked you to be here?" Charlie asked incredulously. "That's why you're here?"

Russell closed his eyes and sighed this was awkward and he could think of a million things he would rather be doing. "Charlotte, I don't know what you want from me."

"To be left alone?" Charlie says dryly. "It shouldn't be difficult you've been doing it for years. I don't want an apology you don't mean, and you're doing it because you don't want to be in the doghouse. It doesn't make things better. Sorry doesn't automatically make things better."

"Charlotte, if you think I enjoyed this—that I took pleasure in your failing—you're wrong. I don't like what our relationship has become, nor do I enjoy what it's done to the family. Apologizing has never come easy to me, but if I didn't mean it then I wouldn't be here."

"Because having your father abandon you was absolutely the best experience of my life," Charlie says her voice dripping with sarcasm and barely contained bitterness.

"I've made mistakes. Getting you fired was probably not the best way to help you. I regret making sure that you had the best care but I didn't know what to do. I did what I thought was best, I've seen my friends—how they treated their children after they got hooked on drugs. I've seen how it destroyed the family, the lying the cheating, I wasn't going to let you do that, to run this family. Them blowing their fortunes on drugs, I've seen it all Charlie and I did what I thought I had to."

Charlie shifted ever so slightly, a year ago this apology would have been enough. It was she wanted, what Mike had told her that she'd never get. Russell was falling on the proverbial sword and she didn't care. "You don't know how much I wanted to hear that. To just be part of the family again, but the reality is I don't care. I'm not angry about the money, and I don't care about the job. I like my job now. But I have a kid now and I don't think there is anything that Bela could do, she could murder someone and ask me to help her hide the body and I'd do it in a heartbeat, because she's my daughter. What hurt me, was the emotional connection. I needed you and you weren't there and what's worse is you took Quinn from me and cut me off there too." Charlie exhales. "When Beth was born and you decided that I shouldn't be around her and convinced Quinn that was the best. I spent three weeks on my sponsor's couch because I was terrified that I was going to relapse. You threatened to take away my child and you expect that a simple 'I'm sorry, my bad' is going to fix all of this? It's not. I want to be left alone."

Russell studied his daughter for a moment and let out a resigned sigh, "I didn't expect things to magically get better overnight but I do wish to repair this relationship, and I hope that you'll at least take my peace offering. It's downstairs."

Charlie made a face, "I don't need anything from you," Charlie says crossing her arms. She knew her parents, things meant conditions and she didn't feel like dealing with it now.

Bela poked her head from the living room where she had been eavesdropping the entire conversation, "Charlie! You can't be rude! Mom says it's impolite to give back gifts."

Charlie sighs and made a face as her father smiled at her daughter, "Fine. We were going down to the garage anyway. Come on Bela." She already knew that she wasn't going to like whatever it was that her father had decided to give to her, but she didn't want to appear petulant in front of Bela. Parenting was hard.

"You're going to love it." Russell promised as they walked to the elevator and headed down to the garage.

"I—" Charlie grimaces when she feels a small pointy elbow in her side and turns to her daughter who flashes her a smile and leans in.

"Mom says even if you don't like it you're supposed to smile and say thank-you." Bela sniffed slightly annoyed that Charlie didn't know all of this.

Charlie scowls when she hears her father snort and shoots him an annoyed look. He was the one putting her through this hell, she just wanted to build a shelf with Bela and pick Santana up and drive back home. The elevator dings open and they step out into the parking garage. She watches her father moves towards the guest parking and pats what appears to be a brand new red Ford F150. Charlie stares mutely, he had to be joking she didn't need what she imagined was a fully loaded truck that was new and shiny and had a very small bed attached to it. "What the—"

Russell smiled pleased with himself. "It's amazing isn't it? It's the newest model and it's fully loaded, with all the safety features that I could get. All wheel drive of course and you can drive it to work and back. I also got you the platinum care package so you just need to take it in every now and again." Russell motioned for Bela to come closer and opened the door for her. "It also has a lot of safety features, and it can help you reverse park, and an excellent sound system."

"This is awesome!" Bela said and managed to duck out of Charlie's reach to check the car out. Russell opened the door for her and she stepped on the running board and propelled herself into the truck. Everything looked so new and shiny.

Charlie frowned, trucks were supposed to be rugged and have a bit of history to them. She didn't particularly care if it got a few dings, it simply added character. "I didn't need a new truck, my old one is perfectly fine." Charlie grumbles not impressed at all. She was about to tell Bela off when her daughter gave her a look that would have made Santana proud because never had her daughter looked more like her mother than she did at that moment.

"You're supposed to say thank you," Bela reminded Charlie crossing her arms over her chest.

Charlie's eye twitched ever so slightly before she turned to her father and forced a fake smile onto her lips. "Thank you," She gives Bela a look and is rewarded with a smile. Her own smile fades as she looks her father. This didn't make anything better in fact it felt like he was trying to buy her forgiveness, she didn't need or want his money.

"Can we take this car to pick up mom? She'll be super comfortable in it. She thinks your truck is a death trap, she's just too polite to say anything," Bela asked her grandfather before turning to Charlie.

Charlie made a face, "Santana isn't too polite to tell me that my car is a death trap, she may have mentioned that a few times." Charlie grumbled as her father handed her the keys to the truck. She blamed Santana for this.


Santana stared at the truck in front of her, and she suddenly understood why Bela had this huge grin on her face. "What the hell is this?" This is what happened when she left Charlie in charge of Bela for a few hours. How could Charlie think this would be a good idea?

"Charlie's dad showed up," Bela said stepping in for Charlie. "It's got heated seats! And we have space so you won't be squished." Bela tugged on Santana's arm gently. "You can also play your music without having to plug it in! It's super cool mom, and you can see the back when you reverse." Bela shifted so she could help her mom a bit better. "I had to remind Charlie to say thank you."

Santana flicks her eyes to Charlie who looks annoyed by this fact, "I see." It was obvious that Charlie had been stuck between a rock and a hard place and had chosen to do what was best for Bela. It was touching even there was now this monstrosity parked outside the hospital. "Your dad does know that you have nothing to compensate for right?"

Bela blinked and crinkled her nose when Charlie began to laugh, "What does that mean?"

Charlie turned red at the question and looked at Santana for a bit of help but there was that evil smirk on Santana's face and she knew she was on her own. "It means that I feel good about myself, so I don't need fancy things or big cars to make me feel good." Charlie explains pleased that she could come up with an age appropriate answer. Bela nods at this and opens the door for her mother, who was helped into the truck by Charlie. She grins at Charlie who opens the door for her and picks her up hoisting her into the truck.

"Well," Santana says after Charlie closes Bela's door and moves to close hers. "At least it has more space than your old sports car. We'll need to test that sometime."

Charlie blinks and then smiles at Santana, things were good they were looking up and Santana was suggesting future events. "I'll hold you to it." Charlie promises.


AN: See you tomorrow