Title: Running From An Angel
Author: Triggersaurus
Genre: DR/CH/Other
Rating: PG (bad word here and there, like that’ll stop you anyway!)
Disclaimer: Most of these characters are mine, keep yer mitts off! But feel free to borrow Doug from my closet, where I like to keep him ;-)
Author’s Note: This sort of a follow-up to a previous fic I wrote, called Rolling Stone. It deals with Doug’s son he spoke of once in the first season and then we never heard any more about it. I created a lot of characters, and in this fic I continue with them, using plotlines from last time. However, it’s not crucial that you read the last story because this has an independent storyline, of sorts. Just expect to have to pick up some characters along the way! If you DO want to read Rolling Stone first, it can be found at Trig's ER Fic or at www.fanfiction.net
Also: I have to make the grovelling statement that I haven’t done the second half of this story yet. I just started my summer job and I work 8-5 every weekday, so right now I’m a little pushed for time! But I do have it all planned out and hopefully I’ll get to writing it very soon. Same goes for Every Street. Sorry.

Running From An Angel – Part One

Skid was dead to the world when his mom answered the phone to a hoarse-sounding Rob on Saturday morning. After some polite conversation, she put the phone on hold and ran up the stairs to her eldest son’s room.
“Skid? SKID! Wake up, Rob’s on the phone.”
“Uh?”
“Rob.”
Some deep mumbling came from under the heap of covers on the bed and a hand emerged to grab the phone on the bed stand. Angel surveyed her son’s room as he grunted into the receiver. The poster of some model in a bikini had come unstuck on one corner and looked like it was about to drop off the wall. Clothes littered the room; a sweat sock balanced precariously on the rim of a miniature basketball hoop, attached to the door of the closet. The only areas of the room untouched by disorder were the computer and the hook on which hung the school baseball team kit. The computer, one of those portable ones, had been a birthday present from Skid’s father, no doubt a very expensive present that had rather overshadowed the ballgame tickets and new coat of paint for the truck that Angel and her boyfriend had provided in celebration of Skid completing 18 years on Earth. Skid had been careful not to make his mom feel bad about the obvious cost difference between gifts, and had honestly been overjoyed with the opportunity to see the Cubs against the Cardinals – even if it meant driving for half a day to get there. But the computer was something else – he hadn’t been expecting anything besides a card from Doug. They had been writing letters to each other for almost a year since Skid had first tracked him down. That first meeting had been awkward, how do you handle a situation like that without being awkward? When they’d parted, Doug had suggested writing so Skid agreed. When he got home from the trip, far from the satisfaction he thought he’d feel, he felt more mixed up than ever, and it was his mom who had said that one of the best ways to establish how you felt was to write everything down. Never previously gifted in the creative writing department, Skid had some trouble finding the right words for what he felt but once he got going he managed to fill page after page with questions, thoughts and impressions. Before he could consider it too much, he put it all into an envelope and mailed it on impulse. After that he kept up a frequent correspondence with his new-found father and became more settled with the relationship. He told him about growing up in Chicago and Nebraska, about baseball, about the girl he’d been seeing for 6 months, about his brothers. He received letters about Doug’s childhood in Kentucky, his fiancé, basketball, his twin daughters and his job. It was as if the awkward barrier between them was dissolving as they learnt more about each other.

Angel snapped out of her trance when Skid suddenly sat upright and spoke in coherent sentences to the phone. Something must have happened, she thought. There wasn’t much that could force her son upright and into conversation before about noon at the weekend. Judging from his expression, it wasn’t good news either. He hung up the phone, swinging his legs out of the bed, finding a clear space on the crowded floor to stand up in. He rubbed one eye, then his head. Looking up properly, he realised his mom was still there, looking worried.
“Honey? Is something wrong?”
Skid looked around at the floor, locating a pair of blue jeans and putting them on over the boxers he had slept in.
“Yeah. Um. Becka died last night. The funeral’s tomorrow.”
“Oh. Oh my god. Oh, poor girl. Is Rob okay? And Mandy and Alan? You know, I have a pot roast in the freezer, I should come with you to see them…”
“No, Mom. I think they just want to, you know, they need sometime to themselves right now. Rob said he has to go out and do some stuff, get arrangements for tomorrow sorted and they need someone to watch the other kids. I said I’d do it.”
He grabbed a shirt from the desk chair, and the baseball cap hanging from a lamp and squeezed past Angel to get out of the room. She followed behind him, one hand clasped to her chest, looking shocked.
“Okay. Skid, please tell them, if there’s anything I can do…”
“Yeah, I will.” He swiped his keys from a small table and went out of the front door, letting it slam behind him.

Becka had been born around the same time that Skid had moved to Nebraska from Chicago. He hadn’t known her until she was a year old, when he first became friends with Rob, and he’d never really paid her a vast amount of attention – after all, he had other things on his mind, like girls, and sports teams. But he’d babysat her once in a while, watched her and her siblings with Rob, and taken her out on a few occasions. The day he’d walked in on her getting a chest and back massage to loosen the build up of mucus in her lungs had shocked him. He’d known she had some sort of illness, but not how serious it was. Becka was unlikely to live to her teens.

Standing on the doorstep of the house he felt he had almost lived in too, he noticed it was suddenly in sharp contrast to the warm and busy household he knew. It felt lonely, quiet and cold. For the first time in four years he rang the doorbell instead of going to the backdoor and letting himself in. As he heard footsteps, he grabbed his cap off his head, remembering that it was the polite thing to do. Rob answered the door in crumpled cargo pants and a black t-shirt. He looked like he’d been wearing the same thing for days. He let Skid in silently, taking a jacket from a hook behind the door and putting it on. Faced with his grieving friend, Skid wasn’t sure what to do.
“I, uh…you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just gotta do some stuff. Mom and Dad are at the hospital or something,” he looked around vaguely, “the kids are around. I’ll be back in a while.”
Before Skid could say anything, the front door has shut and Rob was burning rubber down the street.

Skid looked around and went into the den. The house was definitely very eerie when it was so silent. Normally the TV was on, at least one of Rob’s siblings was arguing with another, and the baby would be…he had obviously spoken too soon, he though, as a wail split the air in two.

Some months later, Skid got a letter from Doug in response to a request that he’d made in his own pervious letter. He had just got back from ball practice and read the letter after showering, while rubbing his hair dry with a towel. Dumping the towel on the floor, he ran down the staircase, missing steps as he went. Walking into the kitchen, he saw his mom through the window. She was in the yard, grilling something while Bruce hung upside down from the tree house at the back of the yard, talking to one of the kids next door. Holding the letter, he went outside trying to look casual.
“Hey Mom”
“Hey! You think I should grill that rack of ribs with these steaks?”
“Sure. I got a letter from Doug today.”
“Yeah, I saw. How’s he doing?”
“He’s okay. He said this summer is good.”
“He did?”
”Yup. I can go up for two weeks, and they have a spare room because Kate threw a tantrum and wanted to share with Tess…”
“Well, that’s great.”
Skid grinned and went back inside. Angel flipped a steak and tried to establish how she felt. She was genuinely happy that Skid was getting to know his father, seeing how he’d never really attached to any of the men she’d seen since. But it was also painful seeing the boy she’d brought up by herself getting drawn away. It wasn’t that she harboured anger towards Doug – Skid had been an accident, no matter how much she loved him, and any anger she felt had left her shortly after he was born. But now it did feel like he was being taken away, and being given all these benefits that she couldn’t always provide. She knew it was stupid to feel that way, and it had made for many a late-night mental battle, but it was the way she felt. Maybe the fact that Skid was going to spend some time with his dad this summer would help her get over it. Another thing she had trouble with was knowing that Doug had two other children now –Skid had twin sisters. That was the strangest thing, and the thing she chastised herself about the most. For after all, here she was herself with two other sons, Skid’s brothers. Still, it was something she’d never really thought about before, so it was a surprise when Skid returned, telling her about the twins…Shit, the steaks were burning.

On his way to Seattle, shortly after leaving home with a kitbag and backpack on the seat beside, Skid slowed to a halt outside Rob’s house. Over the months between Becka’s death and now, their friendship had taken a dive. Although Rob never said a word about it, the death of his sister had obviously hit him hard. Skid watched his best friend slide off the rails as he became like a different person. He was angry, liable to hit out at any time. A fight with team-mates had seen him dropped from the basketball team under instruction from the coach to shape up or ship out for good. His grades were plummeting. He went out every weekend, get rat-assed and more often than not Skid would be on call to feed him coffee and take him home. Despite the verbal boundary between them, Skid stuck by in the hope that he’d pull out of it without too much trouble. But a week before the summer break, Rob had lashed out at some fool and ended up punching out an ex-girlfriend who tried to break it up. Skid had seen the whole incident from his locker and went one on one with Rob himself that night. After that they had barely spoken. Until now – Skid was off to Seattle for two weeks and when he left his house all he could think was that the last trip he’d made had been with Rob, before anything went crazy. He wasn’t coming to apologise. In fact, he wasn’t sure what he was going to say. But he got out and went into the house anyway.

After some stilted, polite conversation with Rob’s mom, Skid went into the lounge. Rob was sitting in an armchair, wearing boxers and a Bayside t-shirt with a hole in it, watching some inane kid’s TV show. Amy, who was twelve and had a crush on Skid, was also watching.
“Hey Skid, “ she said, smiling almost ear to ear.
“Hi Amy. Could you, uh…I just wanted to talk to Rob.”
“Oh. Okay.” She left the room looking disappointed, and a heavy silence descended, interrupted only by the blast of the TV set.
“I just came to say ‘bye. Going up to see Doug for a few weeks.”
Rob stayed silent, flicking channels
“I wanted you to know in case…anything happens. Look, here. This is the phone number if you want anything, and I’ve got my cell too…”
He held out a piece of paper with the number on. The channels on the TV kept switching, so Skid put the paper down on the arm of Rob’s chair.
“I’ll be back in two weeks,” he said, and turned and left the room. Saying goodbye to Rob’s mom and accepting a packaged-up tin of leftovers – “for your dinner” – he walked out to the truck, balancing the tin by wedging it on the seat between bags. As he was about to turn the key in the ignition, he saw Rob come running down the driveway. He turned the key anyway, and the engine hummed loudly as Rob reached his window.
“Thanks”
Skid nodded at him, then twisted around, putting the truck into reverse and turned into the road, leaving Rob standing in the drive by himself.

©Triggersaurus 2001