Title:

Title: Rolling Stone
Author: Triggersaurus
Rating: I used bad language…well I was writing teenage boys, I couldn’t escape it!
Spoilers: Such Sweet Sorrow
Genre: Series: Other/Doug
Summary: “Handing in his project, with a family tree that was more gaps than family, felt good despite it all. That was one load off his back. But while the project was done, the niggling questions about his father remained in his mind. He’d spent far too much time and money on surfing the net trying to find out all he could about this man he’d never known.”
Disclaimer: Actually, for once I own the vast majority of characters in this story. Hah, so there!! Come get me. But four aren’t mine, they’re someone else’s – in fact they seem to belong to lots of other people. So I’m sorry I stole them. Well, almost sorry. I had a lot of fun with them. Do you think they’d let me keep Doug for my own evil uses? ;-)
Thanks: Oooh, big woohoo for Emily! Thank you for reading this and correcting! It really helps when I don’t proofread myself (I know, shoot me). Thank you again! And go read her fics; they’re the best Doug/Carol ones I’ve read in ages. And another woohoo for Ryan, because he picked up on some major contingency errors that would have made me look really thick!
Note: Bear with the name. All is explained near the end!

Rolling Stone. Part One.

Skid Westwood sat at the breakfast bar eating cereal and trying to ignore the looks from his mother, who was wiping a juice glass for what must have been the fiftieth time. Two fish in a tank on the counter joined the staring contest as Skid shovelled in another spoonful of Cheerios, concentrating fiercely on the pattern the remaining rings made in the milk. Behind him he heard footsteps on the stairs, and the door opening into the kitchen. A short silence, and then the door clicked again and he heard the footsteps retreat back up the stairs. That juice glass had lost at least three of the painted oranges that decorated it. The pattern of swirls on the bottom of the cereal bowl was almost visible through the milk. The swirls joined up and made a picture. The same swirls were on t…

“MOM! Will you just cut it out?”

She sighed and looked at the glass, now missing four oranges. He stood up with his empty bowl and took it around behind his mom and ran some cold water over it before dumping it in the washing up rack.

“Are you really sure about this?”

Finally, she’d put that stupid glass down.

“We’ve been through this a thousand times, Mom. Yes I’m sure. Three days is all, I’ll be back on Thursday morning.”

He grabbed for the glass to put away in the cupboard, but she snatched it away and set about drying the invisible water on it once again. He groaned under his breath and pushed past gently and went into the next room. She followed him, grasping the “Landmarks of Wisconsin” dishcloth.

“I don’t want you to get hurt is all.”

“I’m a good driver, I promise you I won’t break any speed limits or drink five Miller’s before getting behind the wheel. Besides, Rob’s there and you know you love him. He won’t let me do anything stupid, right? We’re going to stop every four hours, we know what we’re doing okay?”

“No, no, I mean, you know. What if you travel all that way and he doesn’t want to see you?”

“Well, then at least I’ll know. Maybe I won’t give him the choice.”

“Oh Skid, please, no fighting.”

“Mom!!!” He let out a growl of frustration and knelt down, checking over his backpack. Behind him, he heard tentative steps on the stairs again and turned around.

“Hey Tim.” He smiled at the man on the stairs, wearing a pair of jeans that had once been blue but were now black, and a lumberjack shirt.

“Alright Skid? You going this morning?”

“Yeah. You off to work?”

“Yup. Let me know if you want me to look at the truck again before you go.”

“Thanks.”

Tim smiled and gave Skid’s mom and peck on the cheek before going into the kitchen.

She looked back down at Skid, who was rolling up a sleeping bag into a tight roll.

“Are you all packed?” Maybe the change in subject would help.

“Yeah. Just this sleeping bag to be done.”

“Here, let me.” She got down on the floor, putting down her therapeutic drying up, and leaning forward to grab the long piece of cord to tie everything up with.

“Look, Skid…” she said a lot quieter now they were close on the floor. But before she could say anymore, he got up and ran up the stairs, muttering about getting another CD for the truck. She looked back down at the sleeping bag and wrestled it into a small parcel.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Upstairs, Skid surveyed his room, running one hand through his short hair. For over two weeks he had been planning this and sure enough his mom was driving him mad. The earlier he could leave the better, for all their sakes. Outside, the old truck sat on the roadside. Tim had given it a new exhaust and filled the oil and water, and even supplied a new spare tire in case of an emergency. He’d filled it with gas himself yesterday. He was all ready to go, he just had to get through the actual process of leaving. Grabbing a random CD from the rack that stood behind the door, he left the room and went back downstairs.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

At the bottom of the staircase, his mom stood holding the sleeping bag with a weak smile.

“All done.”

“Thanks. It’s really…small.”

She smiled again and handed it to him.

“I gotta go now. I’m picking Rob up at nine.”

“Oh, okay. Have you said goodbye to Barney and Bruce?”

“Uh no. Hey, Barn! Bruno! I’m GOING! I’LL SEE YA ON THURSDAY!”

The sounds of clunking upstairs were heard and an echoey “Buh bye!” before there was a crash and the voices got louder.

“I think they’re fighting again.”

“I’ll have to go and sort them out. Now, listen to me Skid. You be careful. I know you’re a safe driver and I know you think you’re ready to deal with all this. And I do trust you. But please, just don’t expect too much, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll see you on Thursday.” He kissed her on the cheek, and she enveloped him into a big hug before he pulled away and picked up his backpack, looking apologetically at his watch. He opened the front door, yelling, “See ya Tim!” and then running down the steps to the truck. His mom stood at the front door with her dishcloth and glass, watching him. He threw his bag into the back of the truck and got in, revving the engine and pulling out with a quick gesture that could have been a wave before speeding down the road in the direction of his friend’s house. She watched him until he got to the end of the street and then closed the door, polishing the glass that was now devoid of any pattern.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Skidaddle Westwood was seventeen, eighteen in July. He was born in 1988 and been brought up by his mother and a series of boyfriends, only one of whom had ever been really bad to him. He had two half brothers who were nine and seven years old, fathered by a guy called Devon who had been great and was around for four years before he got shot in a botched hold up at the drugstore. He was diabetic, and was trying to get his insulin when he got shot. Skid missed him, but had never thought of him as his dad. Now his mom was with Tim, a car mechanic who was pretty cool and more like a friend to him then anything else. His brothers treated Tim like a dad, despite Skid having a long talk with both of them about not expecting too much from him. They missed Devon a lot more than he did – well, of course they would, they were his actual children.

Skid was an average student at the local high school. He liked science, hated history, and didn’t mind English class, although that was more to do with Amanda McFadden, who he sat behind and had the most fantastic blond hair and a body to die for. His grades averaged B, although he’d had a couple of C’s. His best area was on the sports field. He played just about every sport there was, but his starring role was as the school baseball team pitcher. He’d had dreams of being a professional player but decided he’s prefer to be an engineer when he saw how much he could earn straight out of college. Besides, the physics spoke his language - a shovel is a shovel. Speaking his mind had got him in some trouble both at school and at home, there was the story that his mom liked to tell all visitors at some point about his kindergarten day trip to the zoo. He’d told his teacher that looking at all the animals was boring and that playing with them would be much better. At which point, he began to scale the fence and three attendants had to help get him down. A while after that incident, they moved away to Nebraska. Not because of the zoo, but because one day his mom said that she’d like to see some of the country. She was like that – impulsive. He quite liked that, just following feelings, but on the other hand sometimes he wished he had stayed in one place, with one set of friends, one house and one dad. Still, look at him now. This was about as impulsive as he’d been ever. Alright, so he’d done a bit of planning in advance, but really he couldn’t have not planned. The whole thing was a result of a history project. He was about to finish the class with an average that was very near D, and would have done if he hadn’t become so interested in the project. They had had to research their family in depth and come up with a detailed family tree, dating as far back as possible. The person who could go back the furthest was guaranteed at least a B, Mr. Ascott said, despite that not being strictly kosher. Initially, he figured he needed that B much more than anyone else in his class, so he went home that night and interrogated his mom about her family. Unfortunately, she couldn’t remember much about her grandma, and she’d never even met one set of grandparents. He had just resigned himself to his fate – failing history class – when he had a sudden flash of inspiration. He knew his mom knew little or nothing about his dad, let alone his family. All she knew was that he was a doctor and he liked Jack Daniels. Go figure. But if he could get his dad’s name, or at least his surname, maybe he could trace the family tree on the Internet. Or at least he could get a family tree and make it look like his own. So it came as a bit of a blow when his mom said she really couldn’t remember the name. He tried to jog her memory for about half an hour until she had a brainwave. She’d remembered that shortly after she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d received a letter from the guy, who had found out when she’d been at the hospital for a pregnancy test. Fuelled with this titbit of information, they’d both ran up the staircase two at a time and into her room where she’d ferreted through shoeboxes, old jewellery caskets, boxes of clothes, and finally found it in a beautifully decorated but dusty wooden box. She rummaged through lots of letters, blushing a little when Skid picked one up from the top of the pile and noticed it was from Tim. She grabbed it back, saying it was personal and carried on digging before eventually coming up all smiles and waving a small bit of paper in her hand. Skid grabbed it and leant back against the bed, sitting on the floor. The letter was written on a piece of paper that looked a lot like the prescriptions that he got when he had bad viruses. On top it said “Douglas Ross, M.D.” and “County General Hospital” underneath that. He couldn’t read some of what was written on it but it was addressed to Angel, which was his mom’s name.

“He sent two hundred dollars in the envelope with that.”

Skid looked up. “He did?”

“Yeah. To help with costs or something, that’s what it says there.” She pointed at the letter.

“Can I keep this? For my project?”

“I don’t know, Skiddo. You can have it for the project, but I’d like it back.”

“Okay.”

He got up and left the room, looking at the little piece of paper that was the only connection between him and the man who had fathered him. That night, he told his mom he was going out to play ball with some buddies, but instead he went into the town and paid twenty dollars to use the Internet for two hours at the newly opened cyber café. Not really knowing where to start, he used a search engine and plugged in the name Douglas Ross. To his despair he spent the next hour searching through thousands of websites and documents about Douglas Ross furnishings, Doug Ross Jr.’s love of Pokemon cards, Dougie Ross the cartoonist and Ross, D. who founded the St. Louis branch of Old People In Poverty. It wasn’t until he had fifteen minutes left that he clicked on a link to a Portland Children’s Clinic newsletter and found an announcement informing patients and their families that a Dr. Douglas Ross, M.D. had joined the practice from Chicago.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

“Hey.”

“Did your mom give you hell?”

“Nope, told me not to live on McDonalds then called me Harry.” Rob grinned.

Skid grinned back. “Your mom’s gotta get your name right one of these days.”

“Sure, I’ll just have to live at home the rest of my life. You get some beers for tonight?”

“Yup – in my bag, under the blue sweater. Asked Tim, he got me a four pack of Bud. Couldn’t get any more because they wouldn’t fit.”

“Cool, good job. I got two Millers from the fridge, so we got a beer each for every night we’re away.”

“Excellent. Did you bring that roadmap?”

“Uh huh, hang on…here it is. You know where we’re stopping tonight yet?”

“No. I figured we just keep driving until we get someplace, about eleven.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They turned onto a highway, making for the Interstate.

“You ever driven on the Interstate before?”

“Once, no. Maybe twice. I took Barney to his camp last summer.”

“Oh shit, yeah, I was with you! Remember, we teased him all the way because Tammy kissed him?”

“Heheh, yeah. Now he’s got some big time crush on his teacher. She’s a babe, I’m telling you. I’d kill for her to teach me some stuff, know what I mean?!”

Rob laughed. “Who is she? I swear I never saw her.”

“I don’t know her name. She’s new at the school. Real slim, I’ve seen her jogging at the park with just a tiny little shirt and tight pants on…what I wouldn’t give…”

“Hey, is she the one with the short hair, brunette? Tall?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

Rob growled and they both broke up into laughter.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Rob and Skid had been friends since they started high school. Rob was a basketball player, built for the sport at six foot four. He played pickup with Skid on his driveway, and although Skid wasn’t a bad player, he always got thrashed. They’d hit it off when they met in homeroom and had to pair up for one of those “getting to know you” games. Rob had six siblings – two older sisters, three younger, and one younger brother. His mom was constantly rushing around after them all and calling them by each other’s names. His sister Becka had cystic fibrosis and had a lot of hospital appointments. She wasn’t expected to live for very long when she was born, but now she was five and still around. Rob sometimes had to skip school to take her to the doctor for checkups, since his dad worked all the time to earn enough money to keep the eight-piece family, and his mom had to do numerous other things for everyone else. He said he didn’t mind helping out but Skid was pretty sure that there was something different about the relationship between Rob and his sister. He’d gone with them once, on a day off, and Rob didn’t really talk to Becka at all, acted all detached. Skid thought Becka was great and held her hand when she got a shot. He didn’t ask Rob what was going on – he was probably just having a shitty day or something. They’d dropped Becka off at home and then gone to the pool to swim and maybe get a date. They failed on that count, but soon after Rob started dating Alexis Hutton, who was a really hot freshman who also happened to be a cheerleader. Skid dated one of her friends for a few weeks but then took Lucy Brannon from his French class to the Spring Ball. Rob was the stud of his class – Skid wasn’t a stud but the girls liked him because he always had something to say to them, whoever they were. They made quite a pair. The road trip though was the first time they’d be going away alone. Rob had come on holiday with Skid and his family once, when they went to the Gulf coast. Because of his huge family, he’d never really been on a proper holiday, and both of them had a fantastic time. But now he was really overjoyed at the prospect of a trip with his best friend, when they weren’t accompanied by screaming brothers, sisters, and parents.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

“I say we quit here.”

“Yeah, it is kinda dark out here.”

“Hey, pull into that field. We can park there for the night.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, they’re always doing it in movies.”

“I don’t want to burst the bubble, Robbo, but not everything’s the same as in movies.”

“Doh. Dya think? Look, just park okay? We’ll be outta here by the time the farmer gets his lazy ass outta bed anyway.”

“Okay, okay.”

They swung into the large, empty field and brought the truck to a halt. Skid, now in the passenger seat, opened his door and dropped out, before vaulting over the side of the truck into the back where the backpacks and sleeping bags were.

“I didn’t know driving for so long could be so tiring.” Rob said, sliding the glass window at the rear of the cab backwards to talk to Skid.

“Yup. Want that beer?”

“If you don’t give it to me, I will have to terminate you.” He climbed out and went round to the side of the truck. “Oh fuck!”

“What?” Skid leant over the side to see what was wrong. Rob stood in the darkness, looking at his feet.

“Fuck man, I think this is a field of cows!”

Skid started laughing. “Aww you didn’t tread in cow crap did you?”

“Shit.”

“Ya don’t say.”

Rob looked up menacingly, but Skid just laughed and tipped over backwards, lying on the truck floor laughing. There were the vague sounds of grass rustling as Rob tried to wipe the stuff off his shoe, and Skid sat up again, trying to compose himself.

“Here. I think you need this now.” Skid threw a bottle at Rob from the rear of the truck.

“Thanks…Aahhhh….” Rob sighed as he took a long drink from the bottle, and climbed into the back.

“Hey man, don’t bring that into my truck!” Skid pointed at the shoe.

“Oh, I can’t bring it into your truck now huh?! The truck that stinks of old McDonalds, the truck with paint coming off the doors, the truck with,” he wriggled and pulled out a chunk of terracotta from beneath him, “an old brick in it…”

Skid jumped and grabbed at Rob’s foot, pulling at the shoe. Rob wrenched his leg away and got up, standing above Skid who was on the floor still.

“Muhahahahaaaa, I have you now!” he cackled, and slowly poured beer onto Skid’s head.

“Argh!” Rob grabbed him by the legs and dragged him down. Between breaths, he gasped, “Don’t waste the beer!”

“Who…said it…was…a waste!” Rob said, and grabbed Skid and rolled him out to the very end of the truck, grappling with his friend and the catch on the door until it clicked open and Skid landed on his back in the field.

“Alright, alright! You win! I give up!”

“Yesss! Champion again!”

Throwing insults at each other, they laid out sleeping bags on the truck floor, and sat down with what was left of their beers. Rob gazed up.

“It’s so clear out here.”

“Yeah…look, see that? That’s Orion.”

“Nerd. It’s cool though.”

They both looked upwards in silence. Some moment’s later, Rob picked up a bit of rubber on the floor and threw it out into the field.

“Hey, Nerd. Do you think the sky looks the same in Portland?”

“Yeah…probably doesn’t look the same in somewhere like Australia. But it’ll look the same in Portland.”

Rob looked down at the floor again, taking a drink from the bottle and rubbing some dirt around.

“Tell me about your dad.”

Skid looked over at him, then back up at the sky.

“I don’t know anything.”

“You must know something. You couldn’t have found where he was living if you didn’t know anything.”

“I know his name – Douglas Ross. And I know he’s a doctor. And I know he lives in Portland. He works at a clinic for children.”

“He’s got money then.”

“I guess.”

“What happened…I mean, when you were born…did he leave when you were little?”

“He left before I was born. My mom said it was a one-night stand thing. He sent her this letter…it’s in my bag. It was this bit of notepaper with his name on the top and he sent $200 with it to pay for stuff.”

“Sounds pretty shitty.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s all you know about him?”

“Yeah.”

They fell silent again.

“I thought maybe he was dead, for ages.”

Rob looked at his friend, who was still gazing upwards.

“You did?”

“Yeah, well my mum never said anything, and when Devon died I thought, maybe that’s what happened to my dad. But then Mom didn’t ever show me any pictures of him like she does for Bruce and Barney, so they don’t feel bad or anything and so they don’t forget him. She never said anything about my father, unless I asked and then she just gave me vague answers, just general stuff. I never really thought about it that much. Not till that stupid project anyway. I gotta get a C or else I’m gonna be up to my ass in it.”

“You’ll be fine. You always do better than you think.”

“I hope so.”

Silence reigned again before Rob said, “What would you feel if you found out your dad really was dead?”

“Huh?”

“Like, you said you used to think your dad was dead…what if he was?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a loss to me. I never knew him, I never could know him. I know what it was like when Devon died and I know I wouldn’t feel the same if my real father died, but I’d be disappointed, ya know?”

“What was it like for you when Devon was shot?”

“Pretty lousy.”

“No, I mean, what did it feel like?”

Skid looked at Rob, frowning slightly. “Kinda numb I suppose. It really messed up Barney, the doctors said he didn’t know how to grieve or something and my mom had to go with him on that special camp with all the other kids who had someone else die. I was more sad for Barney and Bruce than I was because Devon died. Ya know what I mean?”

Rob nodded. “They lost their dad and Devon wasn’t my dad or anything. He was cool and I missed him a lot, but I felt real bad for the kids because it wasn’t fair on them. It’s okay for me not to have a dad because he didn’t want me to begin with but when they had a dad who really loved them and all, and he wanted them, and then he got blasted away by some bastard who wanted some fix or whatever. It’s not the same.” He was getting angry, and frowned into the distance. Rob was silent, looking to one side at the floor, making patterns in the dirt still.

“I’m scared about Becka dying.” He whispered it, and Skid wouldn’t have heard it had it not been for the sheet of absolute silence about them. He turned to look at Rob, who was not meeting his gaze, focussing completely on the pattern he was making. He looked back out into the distance again, not knowing what to say. Becka was going to die, they knew that. He looked back at Rob.

“Why are you scared?”

“I don’t know.”

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""