"Under pressure."

[aussielawyer]

Who: Mark Campbell and Ali Connor
What: Trying to process
Where: Campbell home
When: Saturday morning

It had been a really rough night the night before, that was after a very rough week in general. It was just after midnight that Justin came into their bedroom and told Mark he was feeling really sick. Mark had only just managed to get to sleep despite the he, Gen and Justin hitting the sack early. Gen had a board meeting sharp the next morning she couldn't miss, and Mark had just felt wrecked following a few long weeks in court. Justin had spent the whole day at the theatre rehearsing, so he was wiped out and nearly fell asleep in his dinner. It was definitely a case of family fatigue.

The early night hadn't stopped Mark lying awake, thinking over and over again about what his kid had confessed in the court statement. He had been trying to process it, but it was taking time. He didn't even know whether he should try to talk to Justin about it yet, or wait for his son to come to him. He had been debating that with himself since the case ended, and was still undecided. There was a big chance Justin didn't want to be going over it all again. As tormenting as it was, Mark had to respect that. But then his kid was up sick in the night. Mark got up straight away with him and Gen soon followed, but he told her he had it in hand and should get some sleep for her meeting the next day.

Mark thought it might have just been stress. He spent the rest of the night lying with Justin on his bed with him in between rushed trips to the bathroom. He sent Ali a text around 3am, knowing she turned her phone down at night so it didn't wake the kids, and told her he might have to shift his day with Jamie to another day because Justin wasn't well. They both fell asleep, but when Mark woke about 8am, he realised the rude way that it probably wasn't stress making Justin sick. Because Mark felt like he had been hit by a bus upon waking. He was hot and nauseous, and while his kid slept on, he went ten rounds with the porcelain goddess himself.

And then the doorbell was going when all he wanted to do was curl up in a ball of misery and hate the world. He wasn't at all surprised when he found Ali there. He held his hands up, trying to stop her coming in. "No, no! Fuck. There's, like, father and son cooties going on in here. He's got some sort of bug he's given to me because I was up with him all night. I don't want you catching it! And I have no idea if we've even got any Lysol."

Comments

[agentsullivan]

Ali nodded, but she had no intention of going anywhere. "I know, Sparky. We all had it last week. It's going around. So, if you think you're getting rid of me that easily, think again." She handed him a bag of necessities she just picked up from the pharmacy. "We haven't had a chance to catch up at all after the court case, so I'm going to kill two birds with one stone here. When your update texts starting to trickle off, I knew you were starting to feel overwhelmed. How's he doing? You look like crap."

She hooked her hand into this elbow and led him through to the living room so he could lie down on the sofa. "Have we got a bucket at the ready, or has Justin got it on timeshare? Has he been keeping up the fluids? Have you? C'mon, bitch, update me so I know where I need to hit the deck running."

[aussielawyer]

"He's got it. It's okay, leave it with him. He needs it. He's only had about an hour's sleep, so I'd rather just leave him in there without disturbing him for now. I'll need to wake him in awhile to try and get his meds into him. How long is this bastard thing going to last? He's been drinking water, but that's all he's managed." Mark sat down on the sofa, relieved to have the weight off his legs which felt achy and tired. He sunk back down against the back of the sofa and rubbed a hand over his face, giving Ali a tired look. "The court case itself was good..."

He shoved his hand up under his t-shirt to to rest it on his stomach. In the process of parenting, you had this ability to think you were invincible in whatever it took to take care of your kids. This wasn't part of the deal. "The ruling's on a print-out over there on the table. Just ignore the rest of the case note files underneath it. That's for Justin's criminal hearing."

[agentsullivan]

"A couple of days at the most. It's nasty, but it won't hang around. It's going around the school, so there's not a lot of avoiding it if it hits. You look wiped out, hon," Ali murmured in concern, looking over him for a few moments before she went to the pile of papers he was gesturing to. Everyone in the family had been waiting with baited breath for the best outcome possible. What they wanted was the bitch's parental rights to Justin dissolved, but Mark had been determined to take her down hard and fast. He needed some vengeance for his kid, and honestly, she couldn't blame him for that at all.

He came over and sat down on the chair nearby and started to read the outcome. Her eyebrows shot up and she looked at him over the top of the page. "Fucking hell. You went into this with more ammunition than you were even letting on, didn't you? This is fantastic. Was this what you wanted? You couldn't have gotten better."

[aussielawyer]

Mark nodded. "I am. I'm fucking wrecked. I've hardly slept more than three hours straight in the last month. I had to play my cards close to my chest because I didn't want it overflowing onto him. Whether we want to admit it or not, he's a really observant kid and he doesn't like having secrets kept from him. So, I've kept him informed along the way of things I was trying to gather, but he didn't want details this time. He's had a constant awareness the case was going on, but I needed to keep him separated from it too because that was what he told me he wanted. I asked him a few times whether he wanted to give a verbal statement, if he wanted to be there for it. He didn't. He admitted to me early on that he couldn't cope with it, and he didn't want to see his mother or be anywhere near here. The court completely respected that, and he dealt with it by focusing on regaining his strength to get back to work."

He rested his head against the palm of his hand while Ali kept reading. "It's more than what I wanted. What's more, Justin was awarded substantial compensation that we're putting into a trust for him to decide what to do with it when he's 18. Fuck, Al... he was sexually abused as a kid. Not by her, but one of her boyfriends. I've felt constantly sick since I heard his statement being read."

[agentsullivan]

Ali's heart felt like it leapt up into her throat at this bombshell. She was putting the document aside, forgotten, and sat forward to take Mark's hands into hers. "Hey... I know there is nothing more horrific on the face of the earth you could have heard than this. But you can't blame yourself, okay? You need to try to simmer some of that stress down, not just for him, but for your own wellbeing with your heart. He will talk to you about this when he's ready, hon. But it has to be when he's ready. It might be a week, a year, ten years. He knows you know now, right?"

She and Mark were closer now than they had ever been when they were a couple. They were family, and she cared about Justin as much as she cared for her own flesh and blood. She also knew Mark's tendency to fall apart at the seams when emotional things like this fell out of his control. He was at risk of turning back to the bottle, as any recovering alcoholic was. And there was nothing in the world that could make you more vulnerable than hearing one of your kids had been victim of something like this. "Are you going to be okay if he doesn't want to talk about this any time soon?"

[aussielawyer]

"I can't not feel like I've failed him. I know it's not my fault that I was never told he existed, and honestly, after hearing the shit she was trying to lay blame on Justin for in the court room, I can see why she never fucking told me. She even tried to say she nearly died in childbirth because of him. I think we now know what bloodline Justin's mental illness came from. But all that aside, it's really fucking hard for me to cope right now with the knowledge that if I did know about him and have him in my life, raised him, none of this would have happened to him," Mark said, getting visibly upset now as they same churning through had their clutches back into his mind.

He sat forward, nursing his head in his head and looked at the carpet beneath his feet. "And I know everyone probably thinks I would have sucked as a father back then because I was young and stupid, but honestly? I would have gone home to my folks and done everything in my power to figure out how not to suck at it. I can't stop these feelings, love. I wish I could, but I can't. They're killing me inside. My kid was sexually abused when he was a boy, probably repeatedly, and I had no way of stopping that for him. It hurts," he added in a choked up whisper when he was tearing up and burying his face into his hands.

[agentsullivan]

Ali knew that Mark had a distinct history of letting emotional things bottle up inside him that would push him to breaking point, and then the bottle. When they had thought James had been murdered, Mark completely lost it and that was why Ali was left alone holding the baby. Even her supposed best friend had upped and fucked off to England right when she needed the most support, and they had never spoken since. But it turned out Mark had underlying issues too, like everyone. He ended up diagnosed with depression that had been the trigger for the alcoholism. He had been on the wagon a long time now, but something like this could ruin a parent. Which is why they all needed to band together and work through it piece by piece.

She moved to sit close beside him so she could put her arm around him in a gentle embrace. "It's okay to be upset. You need to let it out, Sparky. It's the only way you're going to be able to deal with this. And it's okay to let him see you upset, don't try to hide it from him. If he sees it's okay for you to be, he'll know it's okay for him to be too. He's spent his whole life trying to hide everything. He looks up to you so much, you saved him."

[aussielawyer]

Mark knew Ali was right, and hearing the words did come as a relief for him. Fuck, had they been to hell and back themselves, but they were really close now. They couldn't not be, having a child together. Many people screwed shit up, made raising a child all about themselves, but he and Ali had never wanted that. Once he recovered from the trauma of James' 'murder', which turned out to be a big undercover cover-up, he started to regain control of his life and stepped right up to the plate with fathering Jamie. Ali had never kept anything from him, he was allowed access to her whenever he wanted, and had input into all decisions about her upbringing. They had become exceptionally close friends as a result, and he was so glad she was here. He really needed someone to talk to.

And cry with, apparently. As soon as he started, the floodgates opened. He had cried a lot about his son since he came into his life. He ached inside for him, wanted to shield him from the pain. This was just that bit too much, he couldn't keep it together. He hugged Ali back as he broke down, and fuck, Justin would probably crap himself if he came out and saw this, but Ali was right... it was okay to let Justin see how upset he was about this. Because it had completely shattered him. He was bawling his eyes out on Ali's shoulder before he could grab hold of his composure. There was no point trying to stop it.

[agentsullivan]

Ali kissed his head and just held him. She was tearing up herself, not just because he was crying this hard, but because she was a mum. She was a mum who thought of Justin as just as extension of her own. He was Jamie's big brother, and this was such a terrible revelation that no one had seen coming. As awful as it was to contemplate, it explained a lot the behaviour of Justin's past that they had known. She knew Mark always had this heavy awareness that he missed such a large portion of his son's life that would have been filled with things he wasn't privy to... envisioning something like this was beyond fathomable. Reflexively, she wanted to go and check on Justin, but that was just the maternal instinct in her. She knew Mark would have been in there countless times, and if he said he was trying to let Justin sleep a little before waking him, he would have it all in hand. He was an amazing father, and she admired him unconditionally. He would die for his children.

Which wasn't far off what he was doing right now. He was breaking inside for Justin, and she could feel it in just how forceful his sobs were. And she just let him cry. He cried for a long time, and she didn't interrupt. She just held him, rubbing his back until he started to pull back a little of his composure. She only released the embrace to collect a box of tissues sitting across the room on the bench of Justin's piano. "Tell me what you're thinking, okay? We'll talk it out. There's specialists out there that help kids who have been through this sort of trauma. Or do you just want to let the dust settle and see how he goes with it? He would have known his statement would be presented in court, for you and everyone else there to hear, so he'll know you have an awareness now. What are you feeling like his the best step to take next? Not right now. Just when you're feeling better."