Forgotten

*12 days later.*

BOBS POV.

With the help of the guys I had everything ready. They had come back from tour and are all living in Jersey at their various houses, whilst me and the kids lived in the band house together. Christmas spirit is running high and I can tell everybody is really excited. I have the biggest surprise ever for the kids. They won't even know what hit them, I couldn't have pulled it off without the guys though.

I've sold my house in Chicago. I want to keep the kids away from there, help them to forget as best I can, especially Josh. He's had a few panic attacks over the last few weeks, thinking he can see or hear Darren. I feel so bad for him, I can't even imagine what he must be feeling right now.

So, after selling my house in Chicago, I bought a house in New Jersey with the money. It's about two blocks from Frank's place and only about twenty minutes away from Mikey, Ray and Gerard who all live very close to each other.

I've not been spending a great deal of time with the kids at the moment, I've been getting the house ready for them. They don't know anything about all this, which is great because then they can have a huge surprise on Christmas day when I tell them everything.

The house has five bedrooms. One for me, one for each of the kids, and a spare in case my parents want to come down and stay or anything. They're coming to stay over Christmas which will be nice to have the family together.

I've been doing up the kids rooms in the new house, with help from the guys of course, and all three rooms are looking amazing now. Gerard's artwork has really helped out a lot, painting stuff on the walls, different in each room.

Ray and I had a go at building some flat-pack furniture for the rooms. That was a fun day with a lot of cursing and several angry rants about 'why the fuck somebody would even think of building a bed this way'.

Right now we were just finishing assembling the last piece of the damned flat-pack furniture. Cassie's wardrobe.

"Why the fuck does - ouch- this not fit right!" cried Ray angrily as we once again tried to fix the door to the main part of the wardrobe.

"Because, it's from a fucking flat package! Nothing fits right! God damn it!" I threw my screwdriver down on the floor and let out a sigh.

"Oh don't mind me then, just have a strop, I'll just hold this up all fucking day!" cried Ray indignantly. I quickly apologized and started trying to screw the door to its hinge once again.

"Got it!" Ray let go of the door and we high-fived each other, grinning widely because we had finally finished.

"OK, let's put it in place, then we're done." We heaved the heavy wardrobe into its final position and then stepped back to take a look at the whole room.

We had decided to paint the walls white and bright pink. Frank had sneakily gotten all the kids favourite colours out of them so we knew what they would like The pink had been too bright to paint all the walls, so Gerard had suggested we paint two walls pink and two walls white and the final look was very effective. The carpet matched the room, plain white but with a pink fluffy rug that we had named 'Ray' because of its similarity to the texture of his hair. He just loved us for that.

The wardrobe was in the corner at the far side of the room, a full length mirror mounted on the wall next to it. There was a chest of drawers which matched the wardrobe against the other wall and some shelves next to it going up as high as she could reach. We figured we could add more shelves as she got taller and got more stuff to put on the shelves.

We had put with pink bed sheets with white and gold swirls on them on her single bed. Her curtains matched her bed sheets. The room was just perfect, I knew she would love it.

"We did good man, she's gonna freak when she sees this," said Ray with a smile. I nodded as we turned off the light and shut the door to the room, knowing the next person to enter it would be Cassie. I smiled when I saw what Gee had painted on the door. It was her name, painted like a winding cable, a little microphone on one end and music notes all around it.

"OK, so, is everything ready in the boys rooms?" asked Ray.

"As far as I know. I mean, we finished the furniture yesterday right?"

"Yeah. Remember, we both got splinters trying to build Robbie's bed frame."

"Oh yeah. Bastard of a bed frame..."

"Tell me about it. Oh and with Josh's drums, are you gonna put them in the room, or wrap them up for him to open on Christmas?"

I thought for a moment. Wrapping up a whole drum kit sounds fun.

"Wrap them up. Cause its like his main present, the other two will have something big to open, I want him to have something to open too."

"I see your point," he said as we headed downstairs.

All my stuff from the Chicago house had been brought here and I had unpacked and set up the most of it with help from Frank and Mikey earlier this morning. I dropped onto the couch, exhausted. This past week and a half has been mayhem, trying to juggle sorting out the house, buying the kids presents and stashing them all in the band house, and still not looking too suspicious so they didn't suspect that much.

"Come on dude, they'll be wondering where you've been all day," said Ray and I nodded, heaving myself to my feet and following him outside into the freezing cold night. I locked the door and we walked to my car, getting in quickly to get out of the cold December air.

"It is so cold! If we're lucky we might get snow for Christmas," said Ray, looking out of the window as I drove us back to the band house.

"Yeah, that'd be nice."

"Bob can I ask you something?"

"Sure, go for it."

"I... it's kind of personal."

"You know you can say anything, ask anything, whatever. What are friends for man?"

"I guess. Bob, do you love them?"

My stomach gave a funny kid of jolt when I realized that I did. I thought for a moment.

"Yeah, I do, I think so anyway. I mean, they're my kids Ray, there's this kind of bond between us which I know is there, even if we don't always get along."

"I was just wondering is all. Do you tell them that?"

"Well... no," I said honestly, realizing it myself and feeling guilty.

"I gotta admit, I'm kind of jealous of what you have with them."

What do you mean what I have with them?"

"You know, like that special bond, I can't really explain it. I feel like I'm missing out sometimes," he said sadly.

"Does Christa want kids?"

"She said she isn't sure. I don't know how this is going to work, I mean, we're so different about some things, we don't agree on stuff."

"But... but... Ray! You've been together for four years! You can't just lose your relationship over something like this." Funnily enough, I was the best person to talk to about relationship advice in the band. Kind of ironic, considering I can't keep a relationship going for more then a few months at the most.

"I guess. I just have been having some weird thoughts lately is all. I'm jealous of your kids man, you better keep an eye on Cassie or I just might steal her while you're sleeping." I smiled.

"She loves you so much man, she'd probably rather you were her Dad then me."

"Nah you're a great Dad to them, I've seen when she looks at you, she admires you, she looks up to you, you can see it."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's pretty obvious."

"Oh. Right."

I hadn't noticed how late we had been at the house. It was eleven O clock and Cassie had long gone to bed, following a bedtime story from 'Daddy Frank', so she called him. Robbie was sat with Gerard and Mikey on the couch, watching something on TV.

"Where's your brother?" I asked Robbie. I had been checking on Josh regularly, wanting to keep a close eye on him so that he couldn't hurt himself again.

"He went to bed, said he was tired."

"OK," I dropped down onto the other couch and relaxed, not one single thought about what could be going on with Josh.

JOSH'S POV.

Robbie held me tighter as we listened. Just listened to what he did to her.

"NO! DARREN NO!" She screamed. I flinched and Robbie held me tighter. I could feel him trembling.

"SHUT UP YOU STUPID BITCH! I'LL DO WHAT I WANT!"

Mom's reply was unhearable but the next thing we heard was a thump and then crying. I hated this. I hated to hear this.

Cold dread filled me as I heard him stamping up the stairs and then along the hallway to our room. Without knocking he slammed the door open, light from the hallway flooded into the room. The bulb in our room had gone long ago, but nobody did anything about it.

"You see what you just did!" he spat, advancing on the two of us cowering on Robbie's bed.

We didn't say a word, I was silently begging him to just leave, just get out and never come back. This had all happened six years ago but I remembered it so clearly.

"DID YOU SEE WHAT YOU JUST DID TO HER! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

I whimpered and started to cry and I could feel Robbie's tears dripping onto my head.

"Both of you. Get up."

Neither of us moved a muscle. I didn't even dare to breathe.

"I SAID GET UP!"

I heard Cassie begin to cry from the next room. She's only a baby, her crib is in Mom's room, she doesn't understand but she knows to be scared when he starts to shout like this.

"I SAID GET UP!!"

I scrambled to my feet and Robbie did the same.

"You've got some fucking nerve, the both of you. You upset your mother and now you make the baby cry," he growled. I didn't look at him.

"LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

"Yes sir," I said quickly, forcing myself to look at him.

"THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" He roared, backhanding me round the face. I whimpered and clutched my stinging face, yet another bruise there tomorrow.

"What do you want! You blame everything on us! It's always our fault! Maybe we never do anything, maybe it's your fault!" said Robbie bravely.

"What did you say?" whispered Darren.

"I... uh..." said Robbie, knowing he had said too much.

"YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT!! YOU FUCKING UNGRATEFUL BRAT!"

With a sickening thud he hit my twin so hard that he fell straight to the ground. I dropped to my knees to help him and was met with a sharp kick in the ribs.

"You, boy, don't help him. Come here."

I whimpered and scrambled away from him, desperately trying to get away.

"I SAID COME HERE!"

"No! You always hit me! You always hit us!"

"YOU WANT ME TO HIT YOU! I'LL FUCKING HIT YOU BOY!"

After that moment all I could remember was pain. I cried out as loud as I could but I knew it would make no difference. I could cry and cry and nobody would ever come...

Somebody was shaking me roughly by my shoulders. I wrenched my eyes open and stopped yelling, my breathing heavy. I was met with a wild mane of curly brown hair.

"Jesus dude, you scared the fuck out of me!"

"Ray!" I gasped, so grateful to see a friendly face after the horrible dream.

"I'm goin' to get your Dad," he said, leaving the room in a hurry and returning a moment later with Dad in tow.

"You OK?" he asked.

"F-fine," I said, blinking hard and rubbing my eyes, trying to rid the image of what Darren had done six years ago from my mind.

"You had another dream about him didn't you?"

I nodded silently. Ray left the room.

"Are the dreams stopping at all?"

"A little, I mean, this is only the third one in almost two weeks so thats not too bad. I used to get them every night," I started to absent-mindedly trace the scars on my wrists. I had white lines on each arm, from my own stupidity.

"You shouldn't be getting them at all."

"I know, but at least it is getting a little better."

"Just think of something good and try and get back to sleep."

"What is there good to think about?"

"Um... the fact that he'll never get anywhere near you again or I'll kill him, the fact that it's Christmas in two days time! You should be excited!"

"I am excited! Wooooo," I said with absolutely no expression in my voice whatsoever and a completely straight face.

"I can tell you're totally thrilled," he said with a small laugh.

"Yeah. I'm not all that into Christmas, never had a good Christmas."

"Well, things change, maybe this year will be better?"

"Maybe."

"You gonna be alright now?"

"Yeah, goodnight."

"Night kiddo," he said, flicking off the light and leaving the room, closing the door behind him. I couldn't help but think about what he had said... would this years Christmas be better after all?