dreamlikenewyork | "Come on, baby, let me in, and show me what this really is about..."

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"Come on, baby, let me in, and show me what this really is about..."

Who? Gen Hart and Mark Campbell
What? Soaked in booze and tears
Where? The Campbell-Hart abode
When? Saturday, late morning, after this

Gen wanted to believe that she could hold it all together for her husband and son -- that when Justin was hurting, and Mark was hurting for him, she would somehow be able to be the strong one. But the truth was, her heart broke for her husband and son, too. She had come home from work and crashed out early, exhausted from a long day, and Mark had texted from work telling her that he was at work, but he was going to get Justin and he'd be home later. By the time she'd woken up, it was to a text from Ali telling her that Mark was passed out drunk on her couch. Thank fuck Justin was with Sam. Which probably said all anyone ever needed to know about the father Mark was. Even in the midst of heartbrokenly writing himself off, he was still first concerned about being sure Justin was safe. But what this meant to Gen right now was that, as Ali had told her, she had to get Mark home and really talk to him about what was going on, because if he was writing himself off? He wasn't coping with things, and that was when they needed most of all to be a team. Which was why she'd spent well over an hour after Ali's texts sobbing into her pillow in her room -- sobbing for her amazing husband whom she so loved whose heart was shattered for his precious son, and sobbing for that son himself... the wonderful boy that love had given her as a son, just as truly as if he'd been conceived and carried in her body... the boy whose innocence had been taken from him when he was still too young to even understand why this was happening.

Ali let her know when she was on the way with Mark, and Gen made her way to the bathroom, washing her face and trying to at least calm some of the puffiness down. By the time Ali got Mark home, Gen had brewed a pot of coffee, stout and strong, and was waiting for Mark on the sofa, both of their cups of coffee made just as they liked them. She'd invited Ali to stay and have a cup with them, but knowing that they needed to chat, Ali declined and left Mark on the couch with Gen, who was slowly sipping her coffee and trying to decide what to say.

It was an awkwardly long few moments that Gen and Mark sat there in silence, Gen prolonging a sip of her coffee to get her thoughts together despite the fact that hours of prep time hadn't allowed her to do that yet. And when she finally spoke, it was shaky and she felt like she might start crying all over again. "Mark," she said softly, setting her coffee down on the coffee table in front of them so that she could turn and look at her husband. "Sweetheart, I don't know where we should start talking, but we need to talk about this. Not just about you drinking, but about everything that's happened with Justin."

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At times like this, 'hangover' wasn't a good enough description. Mark was a mess. He knew it, because he felt it. He was unshaven, expensive clothes creased up, tie handing undone around his neck, shirt untucked, making him look like he wasn't shrouded in designer labels and instead should be sleeping on a park bench. You would think this would be a deterrence, and many thought it should be for alcoholics. It just didn't work like that. If only. That was like saying the cure to an obese person's weight loss would be to choose a diet soda with their supersized Big Mac meals. He had an horrifically pounding head and ended up puking into a plastic bag in the car on the drive over here. Luckily Ali was a mother and knew how to be prepared. He was dehydrated, and as much as the coffee probably would have helped, he couldn't stomach the thought of putting it near his mouth.

He would eventually shower, probably sitting on the floor of the cubicle for the duration when his legs wouldn't hold him, and cut himself trying to shave a few times. Then crash in bed for an indeterminable amount of hours. Upon which, if he didn't work to break the cycle, he would hit the bottle again the following night. At the mention of what happened with Justin, he just closed his eyes, feeling them sting. "I don't want you knowing everything that happened to him. I don't want you having all the details stuck inside your head that you can't stop thinking about it."

There was a part of Gen that would always just want to wrap her loved ones up in cotton wool and protect them from all the awful things that hurt them. But she knew it would never be that fucking easy, no matter how much she might wish it. There was no wrapping a heart up in cotton wool to shield it from the heartache and pain that this family was dealing with. Nothing could protect them from that, no matter how hard they might've wanted it to. Gen watched Mark carefully, afraid of what he might say. But ultimately, by deciding to stay married, and deciding to raise Justin together, they'd agreed to be a team... More than just a couple. More than even just husband and wife. Together, they were Mom and Dad to a beautiful boy who needed them, and who needed them united in their love and support for him. Mark was so hungover that he'd probably still feel hungover the next day at this rate, and Gen simultaneously wanted to smack him and hug him.

"No," Gen said firmly, shaking her head and letting him know there was absolutely no room for argument on this particular bit. "No, Mark, because he is our son. I'm his mother. You don't get to decide what I do and don't know about Justin. I know this hurts like hell for you, and probably a million times more for our son, but we have to talk about it. No matter how fucking terrible, because we're a team. We're raising him as a team, and that's just that." She focused on Mark's face, exhaustion showing in every line and curve. "And not only are we a team raising him. We're a team as a couple, and I want to take care of you, too. So you don't get to keep things from me about our son, no matter why you're doing it. We have to talk about it, Mark."

"I'm not talking about it," Mark replied flatly but there was resolve in his words. It was bad enough sitting in the court room and hearing it relayed when Justin's statement was read out. He couldn't sit here and just regurgitate the information like he was telling a tale about a trip to the beach. He had suspected it for awhile. There had been ways Justin reacted to things, said things that didn't seem to be interrelated to other things he had faced. What he had been able to deduce was that there had to have been at least one other suicide attempt before leaving Chicago, and at least long-standing suicidal ideation. He hadn't needed Justin to confirm that, it was the pattern his bipolar had taken. It had been confirmed that just because Justin hadn't been diagnosed, didn't mean the first episode was when he got to New York and Mark realised something was wrong.

That was the first thing that came up in the statement. Justin had punched a window and tried to cut his wrists with a shard of glass. When his 'friends', kids from the bad crowd, realised how badly he was bleeding, they took him to the ER and the story was that he tried to punch someone and missed. Then there had been an incident with a car. He was walking home high one night and just walked out in front of a car. The car swerved, and Justin got scared and ran away. That had been expected. And even though he had suspected Justin had possibly been abused when he was younger, Mark could never have prepared himself for what he actually hear was logged in that statement. "You can read it, but I'm talking about it."

"I'll read the statement," Gen said, keeping her voice calm partly because the last thing she wanted right now was to fight with him, and partially because she was emotionally exhausted, and getting upset now probably would've torn her inside out. She was upset, but fighting with her husband wasn't going to help anything. "But we're still going to talk about it. I don't want you to tell me the details if that isn't what you want, but whether you like it or not, we're going to talk about what's going through your head hearing it, because to my knowledge, you haven't gotten drunk since we got married, and that tells me that you're not coping. Nobody expects you to just know how to cope with your son being sexually abused as a child, Mark. Least of all me, because he's my son, too, and I can't even begin to tell you how much my heart aches knowing someone hurt our boy like that. I would never expect you to just shrug it off and keep going. But I do need for you to find a better way than drinking. Justin and I need you, Mark."

She reached out, picking up the coffee mug and taking another long sip to try and keep herself thinking before she spoke. "I'm your wife, Mark," she said softly. "And I know that I'm not perfect. Not even close to it, but I do love you and our son. And when you're hurting... either of you... I want to be here for you. I want you to come and talk to me and let me listen. I can't fix it, babe. I know that. Neither of us can, no matter how much we might wish we could. But you aren't going to go through this alone. Don't shut down on me, Mark."

Mark didn't say anything. He was listening, of course he was, but sometimes you got to the point where there felt like there were no words left. That was where he had been the last few days. When he had been hugging his kid goodnight, his heart had been lodged up in his throat knowing what he had been through. When he had tried to sink himself into work, the details kept filtering back to him. It wasn't even just that he was feeling like a failure, and knowing he could have stopped this happening to Justin if he knew he existed. It was just the incredibly weight he, as a father, was trying to hold up here knowing how much pain his son had been through. He wasn't trying to reduce what Gen was feeling or purposefully pushing her away, he just got so very tired of talking. He was weakened from trying to process everything and trying to accept it, that he just couldn't. He had gone from needing someone to talk to, to this, feeling like no amount of talking could stop the pain.

So all he did was get up and go to his briefcase to get the copies of the court papers out that were in a blue envelope marked strictly private and confidential. They had been sealed documents before the case. No one but the independent attorney acting for Justin had known what was in those statements, and the court witness to them. Now the case was said and done, Mark had requested copies for his own records that could be used for Justin's assault case. At this point, he was poised to have those charges dropped but it would take time. He handed her the envelope. "Please, just respect the fact I'm not in this place as any sort of punishment to you, or diminishing your position as my wife or Justin's mum. Because none of this is about that, and I honestly don't have the fucking energy to fight you on this. I need you to just understand."

Gen took the papers from Mark, listening to what he was saying, because she didn't want him to feel for one moment that she wasn't open to listening. They had never done well with things when they didn't listen to each other, and Gen was bound and determined to ensure that she gave her husband the respect of listening to exactly what he had to say. She took Mark's hand, pulling him gently toward the couch to sit beside her while they talked, or didn't talk, and while she read what was in the envelope. She wasn't really sure she was ready for this, but on the other hand, she needed to know what Justin was going through... what he'd been through already. So once Mark was back on the sofa, she shifted to move closer to him, because even if she was upset that he'd gone and gotten wasted, she still loved him and wanted to be close to him when things hurt. "I know you're not trying to punish me, babe," she said softly, holding the envelope in her hand for a long few moments before she opened it and took out the papers inside. "And I don't want to fight you on anything. I just don't want you to end up where you used to be. When Ali told me you were drunk and passed out on her couch, I felt like throwing up."

She leaned her head against Mark's shoulder as her eyes slowly began to scan the words written there, and though she may have thought she couldn't cry anymore, it proved not to be true as, in Justin's own words, she read the retelling of what had been done to him when he was young and afraid and didn't know what to do to protect himself. Before Mark had known he existed to be able to swoop in and save him. Her eyes quickly flooded with tears, and she had to brush them away repeatedly just to be able to continue reading. What had been done to their son was the most awful thing Gen could ever imagine for a child of any age, and it was tearing her apart inside to read the details, right there in black and white.

Mark had just glanced at her with that comment. Did she think he wanted to end up back where he used to be? Did she think he did this deliberately and recklessly? Whatever it was, he just did not have the strength to have this all switch up and turn on his faults when it should be Justin they were focusing on. Mark knew he was going to need to end up back at the doctor to have his anti-depressants up, he knew he would going to need to go back to a therapist, he knew he was going to need to plant his arse again at the AA meetings. What he also knew was that he was hurting so much inside right now that the booze had numbed that for a little while. It was like a wildfire burning inside him that he had no other way to douse. He couldn't switch it off. He had barely slept since the court case, and drinking intercepted all of that for just a little while. He knew he shouldn't have done it, but at the same time, the temptation to turn it all off for awhile was too strong.

What had happened was Justin ended up staying at Sam's place. Lisa had been there, and when Sam got called into work on an emergency, Lisa had been perfectly fine to stay with Justin. That day, Justin was going to spend some time with Sam playing basketball and getting a burger. Which was a relief for Mark to have heard via text message a little while ago, with Sam adding a pointed 'We'll talk later' at the end of it. He put his hand on Gen's back, rubbing it softly. Inside, he was trying to urge the nausea to die down because he felt so sick. Justin's recount had a lot of terminology and simplistic ways of explaining what had happened, because he had only been a kid. He had a better understanding of how wrong it was now, but back then, he thought the only way his mother wouldn't give him up for adoption to a family who would hate him would be to submit to the cunt boyfriend's actions. "I wanted to climb over that bench and strangle her." At the time, Ash had to physically hold Mark back from doing just that once the statement had been read out.

Reading the contents of the envelope, Gen herself was suddenly going from being upset that Mark had gone drinking and gotten trashed to being upset that she couldn't go out right now and do the same damn thing. The pain of knowing what was done to Justin felt like a vice grip, tightening in her chest and making it so damn hard to breathe. She finished reading and slid the papers back into the envelope quickly, as if somehow, hiding the words from sight could erase the knowledge from her mind. But there just wasn't that much luck available in the world, and Gen could never unknow what she'd read -- what had been done to her precious, beautiful, talented son. In the process of trying to have a baby with Mark, only to find out later that there would be no baby, Gen had only come to be that much more grateful that she had the chance to be Justin's mother. He was enough. When she really looked at her own feelings, there was nothing missing from their family. Mark, Justin, and Sunshine were all she needed, and Ali was a gift as far as Gen was concerned, because she had no problem with Gen as Jamie's stepmother, and rather than making things difficult, was one of the strongest supports that Gen had.

Gen tucked her head into Mark's shoulder, wiping the tears from her face with the heels of her palms. "If not for the fact you would've gone to jail, I would wish that you had," she muttered, shaking her head. How dare that bitch make Justin so afraid of being given to an awful family to the point he was afraid to tell her that this was happening to him? How dare she scare him so much that his innocence was stolen from him and he couldn't even cry out for help? Gen wanted her dead, and if she could think of a way to do it without going to jail, she probably would go with it. She turned a little in her seat and wrapped her arms around his waist, cheek pressed to his shoulder as the tears continued to flow. "I don't understand how anyone hurts a child like that." Her head ached from crying so much earlier, and crying again now wasn't helping, but maybe right now, she and Mark needed to break together so they could figure out how to put the pieces back together again.

The court case had been horrific for Mark. He should be used to courtrooms, and to conflict, but when it was a case surrounding your own child and the fact he had been a victim of child abuse and neglect from his own mother, who deliberately kept Mark from him as punishment for him ruining her life, there was no way to cope with it well. He needed to be present for the whole thing, and force himself to sit there and listen to everything, but it had really impacted on him and not in a good way. "She went in there off on a tangent about how we were paying Justin off to keep him shut up about really wanting to be with her. Her amateur backdoor attorney tried to pin the bipolar on my genetics and said the only reason I married you was to put up a phony marriage front that I'm the better parent for the kid to be with because I'm a crook and just want to use Justin's status on Broadway for my own personal gain."

He shook his head in a vain yet fruitless attempt to stop himself from crying. But he just couldn't. He was wrecked and this was something he was seriously struggling to process. "I could handle all that. I expected it. It's why I made sure Dani and Curtis went in armed with everything to counter it all. But this?" he said, gesturing to the folder. "Anyone can tell me until they're blue in the face that it's not my fault, but the bottom line is, she kept him from me to punish me for fucking her and never speaking to her again. It's my fault my child was sexually abused, neglected, let to suffer the torture of a mental illness alone, scared, without help. It's my fault. It's not his, like she made him believe since he was old enough to understand what was being said to him."

Gen had stayed out of the courtroom for the duration of Justin's case. It wasn't that she didn't want to be there to support him and Mark, but that she knew that she wouldn't be able to hold her shit together to keep from constantly wanting to murder Justin's mother, and the last thing Mark needed was sensing her tension on top of his own already being there. "Fuck her. She's not the one who's up at night with Justin when he's feeling shitty. We do that. We make sure he's fed, that he's taken care of the best he can be... that he makes his doctors' appointments and gets his homework done." It wasn't as if Mark didn't know this, but Gen was so incredibly angered by the awful things this bitch had said about them that she kind of went off. She wanted to find the bitch and claw her eyes out for what she'd allowed to happen to Justin.

Then Mark was crying again -- they both were -- and Gen just held onto him, kissing his cheek as she rested her head on his shoulder. "I know you blame yourself, babe," she told him, not trying to argue with him, because as much as she knew it wasn't Mark's fault that Justin was abused, she also knew that she would never be able to convince him of that at this point. Mark needed to face the fact that he was blaming himself for all of this, regardless of how much it truly wasn't his fault. "It's definitely not Justin's fault," she said softly, holding onto Mark's hand. "I mostly blame the horrible cunt who let this happen to him and refused to tell his father that he existed. I understand you blame yourself, Mark. I get it, because if I were in your shoes, I'd probably do the exact same thing. But don't let the bitch off that easily. She made the choice not to include you in raising your son, when she didn't want to raise him either. I know you feel guilty and at fault for what happened, and I don't deny you the right to feel exactly how you feel. But if she didn't want him, she could've given him to you. Instead, she tortured him constantly just for being born."

Mark had been to hell and back with Justin multiple times since the kid turned up on his doorstep. Hell, his very welcome of them was to spew all other Mark's feet. At that point, Gen had understandably freaked out and questioned everything. Mark never judged her for that, but it was those initial moments where he hadn't remotely had a choice to back away and analyse the situation. The kid was his son. Well, either his son or Sam's, because he looked so much like him. Sam had never been promiscuous or slept around, so it wasn't even a possibility. Mark had taken Justin in and been determined to care for him no matter what. The kid was his son, and he was sick and in a really bad mess. It hadn't taken long for him to realise that there was something much deeper at play than just a delinquent kid who abused booze and drugs. He was absolutely screaming out for help, and with the right medical attention, the mental illness diagnosis had come. Even then, it was only gradual and piecemeal that Justin began to revealed traumas of his past. Mark remembered questioning Nathan about the possibility that Justin was being so secretive. It was Nathan who said that it was unlikely Justin was being secretive, and much more likely he was blocking things out in his past. It was something young people often did, especially mentally ill kids. He told Mark that over time, more things might come to light and warned him to be prepared for it. Nothing could have prepared any of them for this. "We can't keep holding on to the anger because it's going to spill over onto him. Like Ali said, the only way he's going to know it's okay to not be okay is if he sees that we're not either. But on the same token, he can't see that we're continuously angry either because he'll react to that too. You have to let it go."

The anger for him was dissipating for that very reason, but he couldn't shed the grief or the nauseating sickness inside from what had been in that statement Justin had made. There had been an attempt from the cunt's legal defence to try to say Justin was lying and making up stories, like he always did for attention. That he had a lengthy history of attention-seeking. That had been the nail in the coffin for the presiding judge. She chose to throw the book at them and now Justin's mother had a very lengthy jail sentence to serve and she couldn't get to him at all. "I know that. I do. But I have a hell of a lot to work through and I'm not dealing with any of it. At all. But I've made an urgent appointment with my therapist, and I've set up a session for all three of us to see Justin's therapist together so he can have a chance to open up about what he said in the statement if he wants to. I fucked up. I know I did. But I needed to shut down. I couldn't handle the pain. It's the worse pain I've ever felt in my life. Even above and beyond when I was told Jim was dead."

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"Come on, baby, let me in, and show me what this really is about..."

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