|
That night was the first night for Ronnie since Danielle's death that she hadn't dreamed of her daughter. Over the months, she had grown used to the recurring nightmare where she was walking down her own street when she saw her daughter. At first, she never believed it was really Danielle, after all, she thought she saw her all the time, this must just be another mistake. Then her daughter would call out to her "mum". Ronnie would stare at her for a few moments and then run to Danielle.
But instead of hugging her and telling her she loved her and would never hurt or leave her again, Ronnie would find herself screaming at Danielle. She told her she was no daughter of hers, that she couldn't stand the sight of her and was so glad the day she died. All of this would come pouring out of her mouth and she would be forced to watch her baby's face as she took in the words her mother was shouting so cruelly at her. Then a car would come screeching round the corner and hit her daughter, throwing her a few feet away where she landed, dead. Ronnie would just stand and star at the scene in front of her until the driver climbed out of the car.
It was her father.
"You got your wish Veronica," he taunted, "you wished your baby dead." The Ronnie would wake, screaming and crying out for her Amy…
The nightmare would always cause Ronnie to start awake at 3.47 every morning. The same time Danielle died. This morning however, she was woken much later by someone's lips on hers. She opened her eyes to see Jack bent over her. He smiled when Ronnie's eyes flicked open.
"Morning" he murmured. Ronnie smiled back, one of the rare genuine smiles she gave since her Amy had been taken from her all those years ago.
"Well that's certainly a much more interesting method than an alarm clock."
"Do you prefer it?" asked Jack, still smiling.
"I don't know," Ronnie teased, "you will have to do it again so I can check." Jack kissed her once again and Ronnie lost herself in his embrace.
When she was with him, she felt different. Not happy exactly, but complete. As if the hole in her heart was slowly healing. She knew he could never fill the gap that Danielle left, but he could fill the other parts, mend the rest of the broken bits.
Suddenly, Ronnie pulled away, remembering the date. "Merry Christmas Jack" she smiled. Jack gave her a quick peck on the lips,
"Merry Christmas Ron."
There was a knock at the door. "Oi you, lazy! Get up it's Christmas" came Roxy's voice from the other side of the door.
"****" whispered Ronnie she didn't want her sister to find Jack there, not yet. She hadn't even got her own head around the fact that her and Jack were back together, she couldn't face telling anyone else just yet.
"I'm coming, keep your hair on!" she yelled back to her Roxy. In the next second she shrieked with laughter as Jack began to tickle her, she tried to slap his hands away, not wanting her sister to come and see what was going on, but it was too late.
"Ron? What's going-" the door swung open and Roxy paused mid sentence. She stared at the scene in front of her. She gaped at Jack, who was lying next to Ronnie, his hands still on her neck.
"I-I'll tell them you'll be down in a minute" she stammered, before turning and sweeping out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
Jack waited until Roxy was out of earshot before sniggering with laughter. Ronnie slapped him hard on the arm.
"What'd you do that for!" she snapped, "why not?" asked Jack, innocently, still laughing.
"Because I didn't want her to know, not yet. I haven't even sorted this out in my own head, let alone thought about telling other people."
"Well at least she knows now, and you didn't have to tell her, she walked in on us. Anyway, it's really none of her business what we get up to in the bedroom."
"You're the father of her baby Jack."
"So? That doesn't make it up to her who I date, me and Roxy, that was a one night stand, a mistake." Ronnie raised her eyebrows.
"Your daughter was a mistake?"
"No!" Jack protested, "that's not what I meant. It was a mistake because it cost me you. If the whole thing with Roxy had never happened, I could have had you back months ago."
"Could you now? What makes you think I would be so easy to win over?" Jack grinned,
"Oh, my wit, charm and gorgeous good looks?" he teased, "admit it, you
can't resist me."
"Oh can't I?" challenged Ronnie, Jack leant in to kiss her, but she pulled away.
"Resistance is futile, I will have you for my own. There's no point trying to escape." Laughing, Ronnie backed away and ran to the other side of the room.
"Don't try to run, I will always find you!" Jack charged towards her and grabbed her round the waist, tacking her to the floor. She shrieked with laughter and tried to shove him off. Jack seized her wrists and pinned her arms to the floor and once again leant in for a kiss. Ronnie gave up, he was right she couldn't resist him.
"Ronnie! We're all waiting for ya down 'ere, hurry up will ya!" Peggy's voice floated to them from downstairs, breaking the moment. Ronnie pulled away
and sighed.
"We'd better get dressed and go downstairs" she said, sounding disappointed.
"We?" Jack picked up on her use of plural.
"Well you can come with me or sit up here all day. You're gonna have to face them all to get out of here."
"So are we gonna tell them all about us?" he questioned.
"Who says there's an 'us'?" Ronnie teased, she saw Jack's face fall.
"I'm joking idiot, of course there's an us" Jack couldn't help smiling,
"Well I guess that got me back for Roxy" he reasoned. Ronnie giggled.
"Did you see her face? I though she was going to explode." Relived that he was forgiven, Jack laughed too,
"She looked as if she had just walked in on Peggy and your dad." Ronnie cringed,
"Please, Jack, that's not an image I want thanks." She sighed, "well I suppose we better go downstairs and face the others." Jack sighed too,
"I wish we didn't" he said "I wish it could be just us."
"Oh c'mon, my family aren't that bad. Very dysfunctional, totally off the rails and there's always some drama going on. Someone's always slept with someone else's partner or Phil's drinking again…ok, so we are that bad, but your usually the person in the centre of all the dramas."
"You have a point there" Jack agreed, "Ok, I'll brave the Mitchells, if they kill me though, it's your fault."
"I'll bare that in mind," laughed Ronnie, kissing Jack once again.
Chapter 3
Ronnie descended down the stairs of the pub, Jack in tow. She was slightly worried about what her family would say about their new found relationship. They all knew about their history, and Jack being Amy's father. She knew they didn't approve of Ronnie and Jack's relationship the first time, but that was because they were concerned for her, because they thought he would hurt her. It had turned out that he did hurt her, just like he had the first time round, but he couldn't be all to blame. It had been Ronnie's fault too for putting the holes in the condoms, for leaving.
When she left that night, she fully believed Jack no longer wanted her. She thought he had run away and would be back only to collect his things. After all, everyone hated Archie and Jack said she was just like him. Why would be want to be with her if she was so much like the man everyone despised? So she had left him before he had the chance to once again tear her heart to shreds.
"Oh Ronnie, Merry Chr-" Peggy stopped when she saw Jack. "What's he doing here?" she asked her niece, as if Jack wasn't standing right in front of her. Ronnie sighed.
"He stayed last night, I asked him to stay today." She mentally prepared herself for the storm, but to her surprise, Peggy smiled and said,
"Well it would have been nice to be told, but it's Christmas, the more the merrier," Ronnie stared at her, then shook her head, deciding not to complain about her aunt's lack of anger.
The rest of the family seemed to have reacted well to Jack's presence, with the exception of Phil, who seemed sure that Jack would end up hurting his cousin again, and threatened him with an 'I'll get you' if his prediction came true. But after that, he was perfectly friendly, or as friendly as Phil got. However, Roxy seemed to hate the entire idea. She didn't say anything directly about it through the course of the day, but she acted very coldly towards both her sister and Jack. At Christmas dinner, she hardly spoke to either of them. Ronnie decided she didn't care. She had Jack and was determined to have a good Christmas, if Roxy was just going to act like a jealous cow, let her.
Apart from Roxy's odd behaviour, amazingly, the Mitchells managed to have a pretty good Christmas. Ronnie was almost glowing with happiness, especially when around Jack. The rest of the family were thrilled to see her so happy for once, it was a long time since they had seen her laugh like she did that day, this just seemed to infuriate Roxy even further, as if she thought it a terrible crime against her for her sister to be so happy with the father of her baby. "It wasn't as if her and Jack even had a relationship," thought Ronnie, "it was just a one off, Jack would prefer it to never have happened if it wasn't for his daughter."
After lunch, when everyone was too stuffed to do anything more than flop in front of the the television and watch whatever cheesy movie that happened to be on, which turned out to be Titanic.
"Well that was brimming with Christmas cheer," said Jack, sarcastically once the film had ended and Peggy and Roxy were both in tears. Ronnie, who had spent the entire duration of the movie nestled into Jack, was as usual refusing to show any emotion.
"I wish they had picked a different name for the main character," she said, suddenly.
"What's wrong with Rose?" asked Jack.
"Nothing, it's Jack I have a problem with. It gave me depressing thoughts, especially at the end," Jack laughed at her.
"Well as long as we don't go on any huge ships to America any time soon, we should be OK." Ronnie laughed too.
"What about boats to Ireland? Are we OK with them?"
"I dunno, I guess we will have to test it, if it crashes and I die, then no, it wasn't safe."
"How about we just go with our gut instinct?" Jack grinned at her.
"Where's the fun in life without a few risks?" he said.
When the day finally drew to a close, everyone was surprised by their disappointment. They had been expecting a Christmas where Phil got way to drunk as usual, Peggy shouted at him about responsibility, Roxy and Ronnie got into a stupid fight about what to watch on television that escalated into a full blown row, and then Ben to shout at everyone for not just being able to have a normal family Christmas. Christmas usually ended with everyone feeling guilty and angry and with no one speaking to anyone else. Today however, everyone went up to bed smiling, and Jack told Ronnie that as much as he wanted to stay, he had better go home, to at least change.
"Come back when you're done?" Ronnie requested.
"Why not?" Jack grinned, "it's Christmas, no one should be alone." With the promise of spending another night with Jack, Ronnie couldn't stop smiling as she went into her bedroom and began to undress, before she had the chance to do any more than remove her shoes however, the door was flung open and Roxy strode into the room, looking murderous.
"Excuse me!" snapped Ronnie, "do you think you could at least knock? I was about to get changed!" Roxy ignored her sister's protests and came further into the room.
"What the hell are you playing at Ron?!" she growled, angrily.
"What do you mean?" asked Ronnie, she knew what her sister was referring to, but wasn't going to play along. She knew she had done
nothing wrong.
"You and Jack, you know that only ever ends in tears. God, when are you ever going to learn?" Ronnie's own anger immediately flared up.
"You know what Rox? It's none of your business, I can do what, or who, I like!"
"Oh yeah? When are you gonna see that you can't trust him? You had no problem cutting off all ties with Dad when he did wrong, so why do you always go running back to Jack whenever he clicks his fingers?!"
"Don't you dare sit there and judge me! What Dad did was far worse than any thing Jack has ever done, that man has ruined my life, he is pure evil!"
"Really? Have you ever thought Ron that maybe it isn't all his fault? Have you ever thought that maybe he didn't cause Danielle's death? That maybe you did?"
Ronnie froze, the words she was going to shout back at her sister faltered and died on her lips. She couldn't remember her sister ever saying anything so hurtful, she hadn't just taken a knife and stabbed her, she had twisted it several times for extra hurt and then pulled it back out again.
"Ron," Ronnie heard her sister's voice, all the anger had evaporated out of it, instead of sounding harsh and angry, it was now soft and full of regret.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that."
"Just get out," Ronnie said. She didn't shout or even sound angry, but there was something in her voice which made Roxy know there was no point in saying anything more. Her sister turned and left, the ignored apology still hanging in the air.
"Everyday," Ronnie whispered to the place where her sister had stood just seconds ago.
|