Chapter 20
As the years went on nobody had heard anything from Sandy or Joe, it had now been 5 years since the Roscoe family had spoken to their mum. Everything was pretty much the same in Chester for the family but for Freddie and Lindsey life had shown them a wonderful turn of events. They were now proud parents to a 4 year old little girl named Ruby, soon after Sandy left Lindsey discovered that she and Freddie were expecting a baby together. Both were beside themselves with happiness at the news that they were actually going to become parents. As Lindsey progressed through her pregnancy Freddie was completely by her side making her feel comfortable, he went with her to every single appointment which involved her and the baby. When Ruby finally came into the world 6 weeks early weighing no heavier than a bag of sugar everyone feared the worst but the tough little Roscoe that she was ensured that she pulled through, she was now a healthy 4 year old and doing well at all her milestones.
Freddie and Lindsey were as stronger than ever, Robbie once teased that having a child would build cracks into their relationship but as soon as Ruby arrived they both realised how wrong his words were. They were closer than ever before, like the best of friends who hardly ever argued. In the first weeks of Ruby's life she spent most days in hospital, Freddie and Lindsey were there all throughout. As soon as she was well enough to come home, the whole family prepared for her arrival with a little welcome home party. As the demands of looking after a newborn baby kicked in Freddie made sure that he helped Lindsey as much as possible, he would do the night feeds while Lindsey slept ,of course Lindsey objected sometimes but Freddie didn't mind doing the late feeds. By the time Ruby was a year old Lindsey had gone back to work, Freddie cared for her as much as he could. He would often take her to the garage while he worked, plenty of people to help him take care of her if needed.
Freddie and Lindsey would spend their evenings together along with Ruby, often sat watching baby TV with their little girl, many a times cooing at her excitable squeals as bright colours and swirling objects came on the screen. Family time to Freddie was paramount, Lindsey and Ruby were his everything. Almost every night Freddie and Lindsey would bath Ruby and put her to bed, once she had gone to sleep they would go an enjoy some time alone or time with the others. Robbie and Jason would often bring their partners home for dinner, Ziggy would do the same. When Ruby took her first steps Freddie was there holding his hands out in case she stumbled, proud cheers came from the others as she successfully made her way into Freddie's arms. Overall Freddie and Lindsey were extremely happy and felt always incredibly lucky to have such a healthy and happy little girl.
As she grew Ruby grew into her own little character, showing characteristics from both Freddie and Lindsey. Ruby had her mummy's looks and her daddy's height, for a 4 year old she was pretty tall. Robbie, Jason and Ziggy adored her they would sometimes babysit for Freddie and Lindsey so they could spent some quality time together. Freddie took Lindsey on romantic dates to The Hutch and took her to the cinema, when they came to their third anniversary of being together Freddie surprised her with a weekend away to Paris, they both enjoyed their small break away together. They hadn't got married yet, something told them that they should wait they didn't know what that was but each time they tried to set a date, fate would always change their mind. For now they were happily engaged and didn't see any reason to worry about getting married just yet.
Ruby had recently started school and was getting on okay, today she was taking part in her first ever class assembly, the whole of the Roscoe clan were going ahead to watch her in her show. Lindsey had cooked everyone a fry up before they all went along to the school, Ruby was very excited. She was sat on Robbie's lap while Jason was going over her lines with her, she didn't falter or anything and seemed eager to get to school. She would tell everyone that school was her favourite thing to do, everyone thought that she would one day become a doctor just like Lindsey because of her interest in medical staff.
"Breakfast!" Lindsey called as she finished dishing everyone's food up, Ruby leapt off of Robbie's lap and made her way to the table.
"Sausages!" she shouted with glee as two sausages, a portion of beans and a small piece of bacon came into view.
"What do you say to mummy Rubs for your lovely breakfast?" Freddie asked with a smile.
"Thank you mummy" Ruby beamed, and began eating her food.
Once everyone had eaten breakfast, they all left the house. Ruby kept running ahead so Freddie held her hand so she wouldn't come to any harm.
"I'm scared daddy!" Ruby announced as they approached the school gates, Ruby wasn't a frightened child at all so Freddie and Lindsey were slightly taken a back by her sudden worry.
"What's wrong Ruby?" Lindsey asked as she picked her up and gave her a cuddle.
"That nasty girl might push me over again" she placed her head on Lindsey's chest and started to cry.
"What do you mean sweetie?" Lindsey rubbed Ruby's back in a comforting manor.
"There's a big scary girl in year 1" Ruby whispered.
Still not knowing what Ruby was getting at, Lindsey looked at Freddie in a worried way.
"Why don't you go into school with uncle Ziggy?" Lindsey put Ruby down and allowed her to run over to Ziggy, she needed to speak to Freddie without her being around.
"You don't think someone's picking on Ruby do you?" Lindsey enquired in a worried tone.
"I don't know, we'll have to keep an eye on her. If we suspect anything more then we should arrange a meeting with her teacher" Freddie said, he couldn't imagine anybody wanting to pick on Ruby as she was such a lovely little girl.
"It just seems weird her suddenly becoming so shy when she saw the school gates" Lindsey frowned slightly.
"Don't worry Linds, let's just go and enjoy the show and watch our little star" Freddie pulled her into a hug and kissed her head.
"Yeah you're right, I'm so proud of her" Lindsey smiled, thinking about their shining star.
Lindsey and Freddie made their way into school and to the school hall where other parents were seated waiting for the show to start. Freddie and Lindsey found the others and sat in the empty seats close by.
"I wish this would hurry up and start I wanna get home" Robbie groaned as he waited.
"Shut up misery guts, you're here for Ruby" Jason shook his head in disgust.
"I know that! I just want it to hurry up and start that's all" he tutted.
"Oi you two, shut your traps" Ziggy said sternly as he heard them exchanging words.
Freddie and Lindsey were sat holding hands, Lindsey had her head rested on his shoulder, both were nervous and excited.
"Welcome to year R's assembly" a small blonde boy beamed as the show began to start.
Freddie raised his eyebrows as he realised that Ruby was supposed to open the show, not wanting to ruin the little boy's moment he kept quiet and waited on Ruby's other parts which she had been learning at home.
"Today we are going to show you what we have been learning" the boy continued. As the boy walked off and the 3 ballet dancers from the next year up took to the stage Freddie's blood began to boil, Ruby was supposed to be the 4th girl in the dance number but for some reason she was no where in sight, Ruby was at the same dance school as the girls in the next year up, so was chosen to dance with them.
"This is getting beyond a joke! Where's Ruby?" Freddie spat as quietly as possible.
"Shh Freddie" Lindsey soothed as she squeezed his hand and smiled at the 3 little girls who had starred to dance.
During the dance Lindsey's phone started vibrating, sighing with frustration she pulled it out of her pocket to see who it was, it was the school. Lindsey quickly left the assembly to take the call, Freddie attempted to get up to follow her but she shook her head telling him no, he left her to it.
Lindsey had been gone 15 minuets when Freddie gave in and went to investigate, he nudged Ziggy.
"Mate, I'm off to see where Linds has got to, if Rubs comes on cheer for us would ya?" Freddie whispered. Ziggy nodded and smiled in acknowledgement not wanting to speak just in case he disturbed the show. Freddie walked out of the hall and got his phone out, before he had chance to look at it he heard voices. He followed the voices and saw Lindsey clutching an upset looking Ruby.
"What's happened!" he proclaimed as he approached Lindsey, Ruby and a teacher.
"She didn't want to take part in the show, she's scared of somebody but she wont say who" Lindsey sighed and kissed Ruby's head.
"Hello Princess, are you okay?" Freddie soothed as he saw a tear rush down Ruby's right cheek.
"Hello Daddy!" she quickly said with a smile.
"How about we all go for a Mcdondals hey?" Freddie offered as he lifted Ruby from Lindsey and placed her on his shoulder, tightly holding onto her legs.
"Yes please" Ruby nodded enthusiastically.
"I'm very sorry about this" the teacher said sympathetically.
"Thanks for calling, I'll keep an eye on her" Lindsey said politely.
Freddie went back to the hall to get the others, he stood at the door and somehow got Jason's attention who then passed the message onto Robbie and Ziggy, they all quickly left.
"What's going on, is Rubs okay?" Jason asked slightly concerned.
"Yeah she's fine we're off to Mcdonalds" Freddie announced,
"Jacksy little begger getting out of school early, that's my girl" Robbie beamed.
"Her teacher said she's been acting strangely at school for a couple days, there's something bothering her. I think somebody is picking on her" Freddie said.
"I'll see if I can get her to talk later, you'll help wont ya Jase?" Robbie asked
"Yeah, course I will. Don't worry Fred she'll be okay" Jason nodded and smiled.
Once everyone had been to Mcdonalds they all went home and had a relaxing day together, they watched some films and talked about general things, because she was safely back home Ruby wanted to perform her part of the show to the family, so they moved the sofa's and made it it look like a theatre, Jason, Robbie and Ziggy on one sofa and Freddie and Lindsey on the other.
"No talking everybody!" Ruby shouted as she took to the middle of the room and started to speak.
"Hello and welcome to year R's assembly, Today we are going to show you what we have been learning" she said in an extremely clear voice, she was a very good speaker for her age. Once she had finished talking she started dancing her small ballet number which she was supposed to do.
Lindsey wiped her eyes with pride as she successfully completed her routine. Freddie kissed her head and rubbed her shoulder.
"We would like to thank you for watching our show and we hope you have a nice day" Ruby bowed at the end of her little presentation and The Roscoe family cheered and clapped making her feel extremely good, to Ruby it was the best thing in the world to have people cheer for her.
"Well done sweetheart" Lindsey said as Ruby ran to the sofa and leapt on her.
"I did it mummy!" she beamed as she moved over to Freddie and started moving her fingers across his face. Freddie started to tickle her, she immediately moved her hands from his face and began to giggle, the more he tickled her the more she giggled. At 7;30pm Freddie and Lindsey went upstairs and took Ruby to bed, Freddie read her a story and Lindsey tucked her in.
Once she was asleep they went downstairs and rejoined the others. Around 5 hours later Freddie and Lindsey called it a night. The next morning they got Ruby up and got ready her for school, Lindsey phoned the headmistress up asked for an appointment, over night Lindsey had an underlying suspicion that Ruby was getting bullied so she wanted to discuss this and see what the school would do about it. There was definitely something going on, Freddie and Lindsey wanted to get to the bottom of the problem and quickly. When they got to school Freddie took Ruby to her class but she didn't want to go in.
"Come on Ruby, you love school. Look Mrs Woods is waiting for you" Freddie soothed as he saw Ruby's teacher waving at her.
"No no no!" Ruby turned her head and hugged Freddie's legs tightly. Freddie sighed with frustration not knowing that to do, he knew that it was important that Ruby went to school but he was also feeling guilty at making her upset by having to force her to go. Ruby reluctantly walked into the classroom, waving bye to Freddie while hiding behind the teachers knee and sucking her thumb.
"Nah I ain't helping"a young girl around 5-6 years old with a southern accent groaned and stamped her foot, Freddie turned his head to listen to the conversation which was going on at the end of the corridor.
"Why not" a teacher said to the girl
"I don't wanna" she protested.
"Please do as you are told" the teacher kindly asked the disobedient little girl, Freddie couldn't see the face of the child only her long light brown hair.
"No" the girl shouted and ran away from the teacher, running past Freddie.
When he caught sight of the girl shock erupted inside of him. The little girl was a dead ringer to Robbie, Freddie couldn't believe how a like she looked. Her attitude was like a younger Robbie too he thought to himself. He couldn't believe this, this little girl couldn't be Elsa could it? Freddie took a deep breathe and said to himself "It's just a coincidence, a lot of kids look a like these days"
Freddie rushed to the meeting with the headmistress only to be met with an even bigger shock...