A/N: This is a VERY important, action-free, angst- and feels-filled chapter ... that was supposed to not happen here. What can I say? It happened here.

Thanks again for all the reviews; it is obviously impossible to please all of the people all of the time, and I'm sure I will disappoint a fair few before this is all said and done, but I love all of your comments and truly appreciate the time you take to leave them. xxx

CSotA

Previously …

"I don't understand," Charles said, shaking his head. "If there's an open home out there, and it's a viable option, then why do you seem concerned? Who is it?"

Elsie spoke up then, looking guiltily at Charles as she squeezed his hand.

"It's me," she whispered. "The other certified foster parent in Misty Cove is me, Charles. That's why Phyllis is here."

His jaw dropped and he just stared at his fiancée. "I'm sorry … You're a foster parent?"

"Technically, yes. Sort of. I went through the training years ago when I first moved here. There was a shortage of foster families in the area, and … well. So I did it, I got the training, and then there was just never a placement need. Over the years we've had several more families become certified; some stayed on the list and some were removed. But we are a small community. After a while I kind of forgot about it … well, most of the time, anyhow," she said, looking down at her hands.

"You forgot. You forgot? How does one forget this, Elsie?"

"The certification has to be updated periodically," Phyllis supplied. "Renewed. Elsie never did that, so she's currently on a sort of 'inactive' list. It's not difficult to renew, though, and that's why I'm here."

"So it's not already decided that Tommy would stay here?"

Elsie turned sharply to face him. "But he could, Charlie. If he needs a home, then I just do the recertification hours and he can be here."

"And I'd have to do it too, I presume. Or does that not matter?"

Phyllis sensed the growing tension between them; she pushed the chair back and stood, Charles and Elsie following suit.

"You two need some time to talk about this - calmly, and rationally," she added, giving them each a pointed look. "I know you've had a hell of a time of it these past couple of days, and I'd have spared you this if I could. But I need you to sort it; if that was Laura Barrow who perished in that fire, you know Tommy has to be my first priority."

"We understand," Elsie replied, standing and moving around the table to give her friend a hug. "Thank you."

"Call me," Phyllis said. She shot an apologetic look at Charles, who just nodded at her, a dazed look on his face. "I think I'd like to hang around for a few minutes, chat with Daisy while she does her barn chores. Is that alright?"

"Of course," Elsie replied, appreciating the effort to keep Daisy out of the house while she and Charles had their … conversation.

Charles watched Phyllis walk out the front door, and then slowly turned his head in Elsie's direction. She remained standing, moving to the opposite side of the breakfast counter to put some physical distance between them; he remained by his seat at the table. They stared at one another for a moment, the tension growing by the second.

"How could you never have brought this up?" he asked. "How, over the course of the past eight months, did this never come up?" The volume of his voice was rising, but he couldn't seem to control it. "People don't forget that they've signed up to possibly take in a child, Elsie!"

She immediately went on the defensive and took a deep, steadying breath to calm herself. "I didn't mention it because it never seemed to be possible that Phyllis would come knocking on my door, Charles. Someone else must have dropped out, because there used to be four homes - myself and three others - and I know for a fact that only two of them have children living there already."

"It doesn't matter how many potential homes there are, Elsie! It matters that you never told me! How could you do that? We've discussed having children of our own! How did this not come up?" he repeated.

"I don't know what to tell you, Charlie," she whispered.

"The truth would be good."

She pursed her lips tightly, her nostrils flaring as her anger grew. "I did forget about it, after a while. It seemed a non-issue, particularly after I had my fall. Obviously I was in no condition to care for another child. You'd just moved in with Daisy; I had to recuperate. My license is out-of-date, and in all the years I've been here I never once received a call to take in a child!"

"It didn't occur to you that Tommy might need a place?!" he bellowed.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Charlie, I didn't realize his father would disown him!" She felt the tears pricking her eyes and willed them to stop, tried to stuff her anger back down inside of her in case Daisy came back into the house, but she couldn't quite manage it. "How could I have known that man wasn't his real father, if that's even true?"

Charles watched as she turned away and stormed off down the hall.

"Don't turn your back on me, Elsie! We need to finish this conversation!"

She whipped around from where she stood in the bedroom doorway, and her voice dropped to a low near-growl. "This isn't a conversation, Charles, it's a goddamned attack. I'm not going to stand there and be shouted at - not by you, or anyone else. Those days are done for me, and you know that." She turned her back on him again and went into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her just before she burst into hurt, angry tears.

The worst part of it all, she knew, was that she had suspected once that perhaps Mr. Barrow wasn't really Tommy's father; hadn't Daisy said something about that, some bit of gossip that the other students were batting about? And she'd meant to ask Phyllis about it, but then it had slipped her mind.

My God, what a frigging journey this day has become ... She looked at the bed and shook her head, the sweetness of the afternoon they'd spent in it seeming like it was weeks ago now.

Elsie knew she was wrong to have never mentioned the whole foster parent thing, but she had just always assumed it wouldn't matter. It had been right after she'd moved to Misty Cove that she'd gone through the class; she'd been approved and certified … and had waited, then waited some more, for nothing. And who could complain that there weren't children who needed a foster home? Not Elsie, that's for sure.

And then she suddenly had Charles and Daisy to look out for, and the desire to dig her heels in and renew her certification was just something that didn't seem like a good idea anymore. And a few months later, she and Charles were engaged. They had discussed how they'd welcome a baby if they were blessed in that way, but they'd decided to just let nature take its course, accepting that a pregnancy just wasn't likely to happen. Elsie had decided she was fine with all that - and she was - because Daisy was everything she'd wanted and more.

The last thing Elsie had wanted to do after settling all of that with Charles was to throw out the idea that, for a long while, she'd considered the possibility of someday adopting a child of her own, that she'd let her license run out and 'Oh, would you mind if I just renewed that so we can take in another child?' She couldn't have Charles thinking that being Daisy's stepmother wouldn't be enough for her, and so she'd planned to just let her expired certification slide by the wayside unmentioned ... never figuring that Phyllis would come knocking on her door and throwing it all out in the open.

As she sat and thought it through, Elsie resolved that she would accept responsibility for having deceived him in some small way, for having kept the foster parent information from him. She knew she had to try to make things better, but for now she just needed some time to calm down, to separate the issue of her not confiding in him from the issue of how he'd reacted.

His anger had been understandable, but frightening; it was a side of him she'd never truly seen - not directed at her, anyway. She'd come so far to leave her father and Joe behind, all those years of difficulty, discomfort, and fear. She knew Charles would never raise a hand to her like her father had done, would never demand things of her in the way that Joe had as they neared the end of their marriage; yet when Charles raised his voice to her she was nine years old again and being whipped with the switch in her bedroom … or thirty-two, being blamed for slipping on the stairs and losing her baby. It was something she'd have to deal with, something she thought she already had dealt with, to be honest … and she now realized that it wasn't a problem that was completely independent of Charles as she'd once believed it to be; her healing would have to happen in front of him, because that was how marriage worked.

She knew that, from Charles's point of view, this entire argument happened because he suspected that she didn't trust him as much as she'd claimed to before. She knew she'd hurt him, and she knew she'd have to go out there and apologize … make it better, somehow.

And hopefully he accepts your apology, girl. If he doesn't, then Tommy will likely be leaving Misty Cove for good.

She needed to sit for a few more minutes, swallow her pride, and then march back out of the bedroom and do just that.

"Papa?"

Charles turned to the living room area and saw Daisy standing there, her coat half off as she stared at him open-mouthed.

"Hello, petal," he said softly, moving over to where she stood.

"Why are you and Elsie fighting? What did you do?" She looked accusingly at him, and it was like a slap in the face. But, as upset as he was, he'd not say anything to Daisy about it. She was astute and observant, but she was still a child.

"It's a long story, Daisy, and I can't really explain it to you."

But she was not to be deterred. He reached out to hug her but she took a step back.

"Try," she demanded.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," he said softly.

"I know."

He breathed deeply, tapping his fingers against his thumb once again. "She should have told me something and she didn't," he managed.

"Did she lie to you?"

"Well, no, not exactly. It was just something I wish I'd known. And I was … disappointed, I think. And it upset me."

"Was it important, Papa? Whatever she didn't tell you, does it matter?"

He thought about that for a minute. "She didn't think it would matter, but it turns out that now it might matter a great deal."

"But she didn't know that before, or she would have told you?"

He closed his eyes briefly and nodded, feeling dreadfully ashamed of how he'd flown off the handle. "Yes, she probably would have."

He opened his eyes to see her looking at him expectantly, and he flashed back to the last time he and Elsie had argued: the day she'd presented him with tickets to London for his birthday, and he'd gotten upset about the extravagance of it all. He remembered Daisy's advice to him then, and imagined it must be the same now …

Fix it.

"Do you have homework?"

She nodded.

"Alright," he sighed, pointing to the sunroom. "You sit in the sunroom with Max and get that done, and I'll go and apologize."

She smiled at him. "Good."

Elsie jumped a bit, startled, when she heard his knock.

"Come in," she said, her voice muffled.

He breathed a sigh of relief and turned the knob, grateful she'd been willing to see him at all. He wouldn't have insisted, not if she'd needed more time; he wouldn't have been surprised, either. He walked in and saw her seated on the edge of the bed, gripping the edge of the mattress as she stared out the window, her back to him.

The sheer fact that she refused to turn and face him broke his heart.

"I'm sorry," he said immediately in a soft rumble. He turned and closed the door, not wishing for their voices to carry down to Daisy.

She nodded; her back was still to him, but she said nothing.

Charles walked around the bed to stand before her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She was staring at the floor, and he reached to tilt her chin up, noting with a pang that she refused to allow her eyes to find his.

"I came in here to apologize, but I refuse to have this conversation with your back, Els."

Her eyes did flash up to meet his then, her surprise shining from within them.

She bit down on her lip - hard - and willed her emotions to remain in check. She had been so angry when she sat and thought back on their fight, but she felt only sadness and guilt now that he was standing right in front of her.

"I shouldn't have allowed my temper to control me like that." He paused. "But I don't think I was wrong to be upset, either."

"Perhaps not," she allowed. "And I should have told you," she added, her tears springing forth again, "only … I was afraid to."

His brow furrowed, his prodigious eyebrows expressive in his confusion. "Why?"

"I didn't want you to think Daisy wouldn't be enough," she whispered, wiping at her face. "I didn't want you to think that I still wanted, still needed … well, more. Because it is enough, getting to be Daisy's parent, and I don't want you ever to think that the two of you don't complete my life."

He walked over to the foot of the bed and climbed up on it, scooting up behind Elsie and spreading his legs so that they surrounded her. He wrapped his arms around her body gently and tugged slightly; she leaned back against him, laying her arms over his.

Elsie sighed as she leaned back.

"I feel so safe when you do this," she murmured.

"Oh, Elsie. You should always feel safe with me. I'm not your father, and I'm not Joe."

"I know that," she said. "And I also know that I have a temper, and I'm stubborn, and I've gotten rather independent as I've gotten older."

"As have I," he admitted. "Perhaps more than I thought. But I need to feel that you trust me, Els. That you trust me to support you, and that you'll trust that if something upsets me, I'll not take it out on you."

She blew a sigh out forcefully, struggling to find a way to explain what she was thinking; he was patient, holding her until she worked it out and was willing to speak.

"I feel as though I'm getting so much out of this relationship, Charles, and that I'm giving you very little in return."

There, she thought, you've said it. Because that's really the problem ... never feeling like you give enough.

"Are you mad?" he whispered into her hair. "Are you absolutely, positively mad?"

She huffed out a laugh. "Probably," she said, sniffling. "But I can't help if that's how I feel."

"My God, Elsie. You give me more than anyone else has ever given me in my entire life! You care about the things that make me who I am. You know me better than anyone else in my life, and have known me for the least amount of time!"

He shifted and moved once again so that he could sit beside her, reaching around to cup her cheek and leaning in to kiss her softly. When he broke away he felt her tears on his cheeks, and he continued in a soft, but clear, voice.

"You see straight inside of my heart with those beautiful blue eyes of yours. And when you feel inadequate in this relationship, then my heart begins to shatter. Because of you, my life - and Daisy's life - are complete in a way that they never were before, not even with Alice. It's perhaps the biggest reason I want to marry you so badly; it's quite selfish of me, but I don't ever want to feel incomplete again … and I want to be able to complete your life, too. But you have to give me that chance."

Elsie just broke down and sobbed in his arms. She had no words that could possibly be an adequate reply to that, and she knew it. He wrapped her more tightly in his embrace, and held her as her tears soaked his shirt; he rubbed his hands up and down her arms and her back, placing soft kisses to her temple as she rid herself of what he suspected were years of pent-up emotions.

She finally lifted her head and sniffed loudly; he handed her a handkerchief into which she quite unceremoniously blew her nose.

"I do want to give you that chance," she said, her throat absolutely raw from crying. "I really do. I think … I think I have issues trusting people, and I need to get past that. I grew up not being able to trust anyone but myself, Charles. And then I met Joe, and I fell in love with him and gave him my life, turned myself over to him - along with Becky - and trusted him … and look where that got me," she said harshly. "Sometimes I wonder if I'd have been better off never having met him."

"Elsie, you don't really believe that - I know that I don't. You've said it yourself: you had some wonderful years with Joe, and so did Becky."

"And then look what happened," she whispered.

"Elsie, you need to accept that you are not responsible for his death, nor for losing that baby. They were accidents, happenings of fate that had nothing to do with any actions by you. It had nothing to do with misplaced trust in Joe. But if you're going to trust me, and do so completely, then you need to accept that what I'm saying is true. Trust doesn't lead to heartache, Elsie. I know sometimes it seems that it does, but that's not always how it works."

"I know. And I'm trying, Charles. I really am. But I need you to trust me, too. I need you to understand that my not telling you about this bloody foster parent situation wasn't because I didn't trust you, and it wasn't because I didn't think I could confide in you. I kept it from you because I thought it would hurt you. Obviously that was the wrong decision, but there it is."

"It was the wrong decision," he said firmly. "I know that you're a caretaker, and that you've always had to be, and I love that you take care of me. But you can't keep things from me because you think I'll be hurt - not if they're things I really need to know. Being a foster parent is a big thing, Elsie, and it may surprise you that I'm not against it at all. I just … well, I just wish I'd known."

She looked at him again. "You're not against it?"

He smiled gently. "No, of course not. Especially if it's Tommy. I'm quite fond of him, and I think he would do well here. I think we could truly help him. You said it once before: we know between us a bit about what it's like to be Tommy."

Elsie nodded. "I'm stubborn, Charles. And I'm rabidly independent, and I'm used to caring for others. I protect people, and I heal them. I hold their secrets, but I don't give up my own very easily at all. I'm … prickly," she said, remembering back, the corner of her mouth turning up in a faint smile as she raised her eyebrows at him.

"Ah, yes … 'prickly'. Yes, and 'not terribly threatening,' - I'll give you that one, too. But you are rather 'remarkable in appearance.'"

She laughed a bit and shook her head. "Resorting to flattery, I see."

He chose to ignore her. "After some time, the thistle becomes 'determined and dangerous,'" he added, "and inherently protective of everything she touches," he whispered, reaching up to brush her hair over her shoulder before resting his fingers behind her head. "And she has completely ensnared my heart, for better or worse."

"I'm not sorry," she said suddenly. "I mean, I'm sorry for today, but -"

His lips came crashing down on hers, effectively ending her sentence.

After a few moments she pushed him back gently. "Did you really mean it? When you said you aren't against us taking Tommy in?"

"I did."

She nodded. "Alright. And I promise to try and tell you everything from now on - not that there are many things you don't know now."

"There are some," he said, knowing she still had so much she'd never shared about her childhood. He squeezed her hand in his. "You can tell me your secrets, Els. You're going to be my wife, and I love you. Those secrets you have? They'll be safe with me. Just as I hope my secrets … the ones from my past, the hurtful things from when I was a child … will be safe with you."

"You know they will be," she whispered. "I love you so much."

"I love you, too, Elsie. Like no one ever has."

"I know," she smiled. "And I promise … I won't ever forget again."