⌜ chapter eighteen ⌟

"Hey, what's with this microwave?" Eric asks as he toys with the one that's sitting on the counter by the phone.

"Oh, I unplugged it." His mom tells him as she walks over to the table where Morgan and her dad are both sitting. "It's been making this weird sound."

"What kind of weird sound?" Her husband asks as she pours him some coffee.

Eric plugs it in, and the lights all around the house start flashing and flickering, so he quickly unplugs it as they hear Cory screaming, "Noooo!" from upstairs. They all turn as he comes running down the stairs. "Power surge, my computer crashed. Somebody plugged something in."

"Get that finger away from me, you little twerp." Letty pushes his hand away from her face, and he looks around the room as she walks away from them.

"Here, Morgan, hold this." Eric hands the plug over to his younger sister as he quickly follows the brunette out of the room.

"It was me. I did it." Morgan says with the cord in her hand before she drops it to the floor.

"Hey, Letty." He grabs her hand just as she starts up the first step of the stairs, and she turns to look at him.

"What?" She asks, pulling her hand from his.

"I meant everything that I said before. I don't care about losing the internship, I only care that I don't lose you." He tells her. "Even if you never trust me enough to be my girlfriend again, I still need you in my life. You're my best friend, and I love you."

"I... I just— I need more time." She tells him. "Especially if I have to go back to watching you flirt with other girls. It wasn't exactly fun feeling fourteen again watching you ask Brenda out." She says, and his expression falls.

"You saw that?" He asks, and she looks down. But then he realizes, "It made you jealous."

"Glad you like that." She mutters as she turns away from him.

"No. No!" He quickly goes after her, grabbing her hand again to make her stop on the landing at the bottom of the stairs. He shakes his head as he stands in front of her. "That's not how— I didn't mean it the way it sounded. What I meant was that—"

The lights in the house suddenly start flickering again, and they hear Cory scream out in the kitchen. Both teenagers turn in the direction it came from, and then they run back in when they hear Mrs. Matthews yell, "Oh my God, Cory!"

Eric quickly stops running when he sees his younger brother unconscious on the tile floor. Letty crashes into the older boy and she grabs his arm to steady the two of them, then her eyes widen when she sees Cory.

"What happened?" The brunette asks.

"He plugged in the microwave, and it electrocuted him." Mr. Matthews tells them. "Eric, help me get him off the floor and into the living room." He says, and they carry Cory over to the couch.

The younger of the Matthews boys is out for a couple minutes, and his mom's sitting by his head lightly stroking his hair. Shawn walks in while Cory's out, and Morgan tells him what happened to his best friend. That prompts him to then call Topanga and tell her what happened to Cory, so she rushes over to make sure that he's okay.

They keep an ice pack on Cory's head where he hit it on the ground when he fell, and Topanga then goes to change the ice when what's in the bag starts to melt. Letty subconsciously leans closer to Eric as they stand behind the couch, and he looks down at her when the back of her hand brushes against his. The brunette looks over at Shawn as he sits on the arm of the couch by Cory's feet, but then everyone's attention is pulled back to Cory when he starts to stir.

"Cory? Cory? Cory, honey, are you alright?" His mom's voice is soft as she talks to him.

"I'm not Brad Pitt." He says as he comes to. "I'm not Brad Pitt!"

"Well, duh." Morgan says from where she's leaning over the couch, and Eric and Letty chuckle as they look at each other. His gaze lingers on her even after she looks away.

Cory starts to sit up, but his dad stops him. "Easy. Easy, pal." He places his hand on his shoulder to keep him flat on the couch. "You had quite the jolt."

"You were out cold." Shawn tells him, and Cory looks up at his best friend.

"Shawnzie?" The curly-haired boy asks as he sits up a bit better.

"Yes-zy?" His eyebrows furrow.

"You're always there for me, aren't you?"

"Hey." He gives him a thumbs up, and Letty laughs at the two boys because of the terrible Fonzie references.

"What are you looking for, Cor?" His mom asks as he turns in his seat, looking around the room as he lets his feet rest on the floor.

"She's here. I know she's here." Cory says just as the door between the living room and the kitchen opens, and Topanga walks back in.

"Hey, I got you some more ice." The teenage girl with the dirty-blonde hair says as she walks over and sits down beside him on the couch. "You okay?" She asks, and he simply nods, his gaze staying fixed on her. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I will always look at you like this." He tells her.

"Yeah, 'cause he's just as whipped as Eric." Shawn says, and the others all laugh as Letty looks up at Eric again. He smiles as he looks down at her, and all he wants is to finish their conversation from before Cory electrocuted himself.

There's suddenly banging on the front door, and everyone jumps as they turn. Eric pulls Letty into his side, wrapping his arm around her, as whoever's out there starts yelling. At first it's incoherent, but then the brunette recognizes the male voice.

"Oh, hell." Letty mutters.

"Is that..." Shawn looks at her.

"I know you can hear me, Scar! I gotta talk to you!" Alec calls through the door, and she groans in annoyance.

"Hey, Shawnie, trade me?" She asks. "I'll take Eddie, you can have him."

"No." He shakes his head as she starts for the door.

"Oh, you're so kind." She mutters as she opens the door, and then her older brother falls into the house and lands on the floor. "Please, come in."

"You gotta hear me out." Alec begs as he looks up at her, and she narrows her dark eyes. "I- I- I need to talk to you, I- I have to ex-explain."

"Are you drunk?" She questions as she steps over him so that she's standing on his other side, now facing the Matthews'.

"It's...a very minor... Yes."

She nods. "I've been avoiding you for months, and you think that this is a good way to get me to talk to you?" The brunette raises her eyebrows as she crouches down beside him. "Were you hoping that I'd feel nostalgic for my days living with an alcoholic?"

"I...made a stupid mistake."

"Abandoning me or showing up drunk to the house of the very kind people who don't have to deal with this crap?"

"The... Yes, all of it." He nods, still on the floor. "I shouldn't've been drinking."

"M-mm." She shakes her head. "I don't deal with drunks, thank you. Get up and get out."

"Please, you gotta—" He reaches his hand toward her, and she flinches as she stands up straight and moves away from him. "I would never hit you." He says, the sight of her cowering a bit sobering for him. "I'm drunk, but I'm not Dad. I'd never hit you or my son."

"Yeah, well, you smell like him. Get the hell away from me." She says as she starts walking away from him, but then she suddenly stops. "Wait a minute, did you just... You have a kid?" She asks.

"He's the reason I left ten years ago." He says as he sits up. "He's a bit of a pain in the ass, but he's a real good kid. Actually, he kinda reminds me of you."

"How the hell can you make that comparison? You weren't around when I was nine." She says.

"Can you help me up so we can talk like adults?"

"I could...but I'd rather shove you out the door." Letty tells him. "You wanna talk like adults? How you gonna do that, drunkard?"

"I'm not that drunk." He says, and she nods.

"Mhm." She takes a deep breath and then lets out a sigh. "Morgan, can you get a glass of water for me, please?"

"Yep." The little blonde leaves the room, and Letty walks up in front of her brother.

"Okay, toe-to-toe." She kicks his shoe.

"Like when we were kids, and you'd get hurt?" Alec smirks as he looks up at her.

"That's not cute, and we're not reminiscing." She tells him, and he sighs. "I'm simply not throwing you out yet because you can hardly walk, and I'm a better person than you are." She says as he reaches up and places his hands in hers.

Letty makes sure the toes of their shoes are aligned with each others before she starts pulling him up. As he rises off the floor, she leans back to keep him moving, then she takes a step back so she won't fall. Morgan walks over with the water, and Alec takes it with a small smile. The little blonde narrows her eyes at him, and he chuckles as she walks away.

"They're all protective." He says.

"Yeah, well, you abandoned her, and she became our family." Shawn says, now on his feet. "Real family doesn't turn their backs on each other."

"You taught him well...better than I did with you."

"Yeah." Letty nods. "Because I wanted to make sure he never knew how I felt when you left. So I stuck around, and..." She scoffs as she looks down.

"What?" Alex asks as he drinks from the glass that Morgan handed him.

The brunette looks at him again. "Do you remember the last thing you ever said to me?" She asks, and his gaze immediately drops from hers. "Yeah, that's what I thought." She shakes her head as she turns to walk away from him.

He takes a step forward and sets the glass on the coffee table, then he reaches for her arm. "Scar, wait—"

The instant she feels his hand touch her, she spins around and clocks him in the face. Alec stumbles back and ends up on the floor again, his hand over his jaw. Mrs. Matthews puts her hand over her mouth, and Topanga's eyes blow wide. Everyone — aside from Shawn, who's laughing — has a different expression of shock on their faces.

"Glad to see you don't pull your punches." Alec says, rubbing the side of his face.

"Oh, I did." Letty tells him, and he chuckles as he looks up at her.

"Yeah." He nods. "That's the Scar I remember."

"You didn't tell me you loved me, you didn't say you were sorry, you never said you'd be back. I didn't get an explanation, I didn't even get a goodbye." She crouches down in front of him. "The last thing you ever said to me, five words — you watch out for Shawn... Not a word about me being safe or to take care of yourself. You know what that taught me?"

"That your brother was thoughtless?"

"It taught me that I wasn't as important as anyone else. Every time Shawn's gotten into trouble, I could hear your voice in my head, clear as a whistle. And looking after Shawn turned into looking after him and Cory, then Topanga. No matter what I was dealing with, it was never more important than pulling them out of trouble or just being with them when they were upset. I ditched school to sit with Topanga because she was being bullied, skipped class to threaten to take a bat to a thug's car to keep Shawn away from him, defended Cory against delinquents in the trailer park.

"Now, I don't really blame you or hold you at fault for that, because I like helping them. Shawn's my brother, and I will gladly take responsibility for his extended family any day. And I don't blame you for taking your son and getting him the hell away from Dad either — in fact, I commend you for it. You did the right thing for your kid. I would never wish for a child to know the hatred, cruelty, or violence of our father.

"And while all of that is true, I do not forgive you for abandoning all of us. You were the oldest, and we needed you, and you left us. And it took you ten years—" She snaps. "—to look back. Dad was an abusive alcoholic — every penny that I made went to fueling his habit. Jason's mom is a drug addict, who had less than...ethical ways to get money. Uncle John's nothing more than an empty shell who no longer knows how to be a father. And Delgado... He turned into a drill sergeant, who doesn't give a shit about anything anymore. You knew exactly what you were leaving us with, and you still vanished.

"Miller gave up his family to watch out for me while Dad beat and abused us both, and now he and Dean are raising Sam; Jason had to leave the only city he's ever really called home; Hope's terrified of the future that her daughters are going to have; Melissa's in California because her dad left her there after abandoning Hope here; and I share a room with my ex-boyfriend's little sister. There's a whole lot in-between that I'm not even gonna bother telling you.

"So if you're not that drunk...then get up, call a cab, and go straight back to whatever hole you crawled out of. 'Cause I am done with this conversation, and I'm done dealing with you." Letty then stands up and heads into the kitchen to get away from him.

⌜ author's note ⌟

check out 'Alternate Reality' to see Cory's dream after he was electrocuted