Disclaimer: The Fleming family and the events portrayed in this story are property of me, and I'd appreciate it if people respected that. Thank'ee kindly.

A/N: This is a gift fic for the incomparable Siriusly James, as known here on FP.C. Go shower her with love and praise; if it weren't for James' adoration of Tiffany/Ravyyn Moonlight and probing questions, this fic would never have come into existence -- much less as something of this magnitude. Props and thanks to you, love.

If you haven't read my Through Hell series and aren't familiar with the characters, it really doesn't matter. I think this works all right as a stand-alone, though the end might get a little confusing, as it shows some of the events in my series through a supporting character's eyes, but I hope it is still comprehensible to anyone who might have picked up this story by accident. Let me know, at any rate. For people who HAVE read my series and are waiting for Worlds Away, this just might give some insight into why Paul has a breakdown twenty years from now.

Tiffany's story isn't a happy one. I put up this disclaimer because there's violence, language, spousal rape, and just all-around not fun things to read. But such is Tiffany's childhood, and I don't think this is written in a sensationalist manner. She's a very matter-of-fact narrator for the most part.

Ah well. Installment one, here we go!

Daddy's Girl

Shouts of laughter, jeering, taunts, and threats . . . the smell of cut grass and dirt and sweat and asphalt . . . screams of both triumph and defeat as children wrestled with each other for dominance over a black-and-white chequered ball.

Tiffany Fleming was in her element. The six-year-old raced across the soccer field on legs that, some of the kindergarteners would swear later, pumped so fast that they almost set the grass on fire. She screamed and cussed with the best of them, diving in for tackles when she couldn’t out-manoeuvre them any other way (playground soccer rules were nonexistent, really – at least in the good games), and weaving in and around the bigger boys who were reticent to really go after her because she was littler, and a girl besides.

They sure didn’t call her ‘Tiger’ just because she could roar like one, though that was part of it.

There was something about the rush of playing, the feel of other’s bodies jostling against ones own as everyone fought to control the ball, falling down and knowing there would be a giant grass stain later, sweating and not caring, muscles burning. Tiffany adored it. Relished it. Worshipped it, she would say, though only out of her mother’s hearing – sacrilegious, she’d say.

She had no plan for what to do with her life (“I’m in first grade, geez!” was what she’d said to her teacher on Career Day), but she knew she wanted it to be sports. This was way too much fun.

The defenseman had just fallen on his face in the dirt and Tiffany prepared to score again when she heard it.

If anyone asked her, Tiffany couldn’t explain how she could hear her older brother crying from all the way across the playground, but she could. Every time. She kicked the ball into the net and ran away before her teammates could give her a high five, her sneakers pounding against the ground.

It didn’t take long to reach the junior section of the grounds (they got higher swings, Tiffany thought, jealously), and sure enough, a group of senior boys had Paul cornered against the brick wall of what, schoolyard lore said, used to be a tornado shelter but was probably a creepy dungeon where all the bad kids went.

They weren’t punching him, because even bullies had qualms on actually hitting someone who was so much smaller (at least on school property), but they were pushing, and Paul wasn’t resisting. How could he? He was a sixth-grader with the build of a primary student, who had a penchant of stealing his sister’s clothing when he thought no one would notice. He couldn’t defend himself any more than Tiffany could get herself into a dress.

He was crying, though, and that made them laugh harder. One of the taller boys gave him a particularly rough shove, and Paul stumbled backwards, his sneakers sliding on the grass until his legs gave out on him and he fell, smacking his head off the wall.

She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but whatever it was made Paul curl up in a little ball and draw his arms over his head. He had bruises from shoulder to elbow, which made her wonder if they’d squeezed him.

Tiffany’s hands clenched into fists at her sides, and her teeth ground together harshly enough that it gave her a headache. She knew she couldn’t hold off four boys seven years her elder, but she could at least make them stop.

Letting out a yell and a litany of curse-words she’d picked up from the older boys on the field, Tiffany charged; she kicked, scratched, bit, clawed, punched . . . anything that got them to stop. The one good thing about being six and fighting thirteen-year-olds was that they didn’t dare hit back; it was no crime for her to defend her brother, but if they lay a hand on a first-grader there would be trouble.

Eventually they backed off, though belatedly, Tiffany realized she’d given them something else about which to torment Paul – she heard them, their voices sharp with derision, making comments about how Paul needed his baby sister to fight for him. She thought about chucking a rock at their heads but decided against it.

“Are you okay?” Tiffany knelt next to Paul’s shuddering body, noting that he’d withdrawn into himself again because he wasn’t responding. “How much did they hurt you? Can you hear me? Pauly . . . Pauly?”

She shook him, and eventually he uncurled, knuckling his eyes with grubby fists and peering out at her through the shock of black hair that remained, quite stubbornly, in his eyes. “Tiff?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Tiffany brushed back his bangs and tried to wipe the grime of dirt and tears off his face with her sleeve, but as she’d been running around all recess, it wasn’t much better off. Eventually she used her fingers. “I made ‘em go ‘way.”

“You didn’t have to,” Paul coughed and attempted to straighten his clothing and brush off the dirt, but there was no getting it out now. He sighed and tugged at the shirt, chewing on his lower lip. “I’ll have to buy Bethy new stuff now,” he muttered, half to himself.

“Maybe you should just wear your own,” Tiffany pointed out. She didn’t care if her brother dressed like a girl, though she was secretly glad he kept his female attire to pretty coloured shirts and shorts. She didn’t think she could handle it if he began donning skirts. “If that’s why they beat you up.”

“I don’t know why,” Paul scowled, examining a tear below the pocket of his shorts. “I could wear boy’s clothes and they’d still do it.”

“Maybe you should learn to fight,” Tiffany raised her eyebrows, though she knew he couldn’t. Not with that build, and certainly not with his personality – “Oh don’t touch the butterfly, you’ll brush off its feathers and then it can’t fly, just let it go please please please”, or “Don’t hurt the bee, it only stung you because it’s an ingrained defence mechanism and you provoked it, here, just let me have it” – so she wasn’t sure why she bothered.

“Why should I?” Paul grinned, and the expression shone even through the tear tracks on his cheeks. There was something about him that made his smile absolutely . . . well . . . radiant. “I’ve got you.”

Tiffany ducked her head and scuffed her shoes, pleased, though she tried not to show it. She knew then that Paul wouldn’t be telling their parents about today’s escapade, because they didn’t like it when she fought. At least, Mama didn’t.

“Are you going to tell Papa?” she asked.

Paul frowned. “I’d rather not,” he said, “He’d . . . he’d find out about Bethy’s clothes, and then he’d get mad.”

Oh. Well, she’d forgotten about that. For some reason, Tiffany got along much better with Papa than Paul did, mainly because Paul was the only boy big enough to play sports and he absolutely refused (not to mention he had a penchant for girly things), while Tiffany eschewed feminine games and preferred tossing a baseball back and forth in the backyard with her father.

“Okay, I won’t say,” she furrowed her brow and stared at the cuts and bruises that ran from Paul’s forehead down to his ankles. “But what about . . .” Tiffany gestured.

“I fell,” Paul’s mouth was set in a firm line, and she knew she couldn’t get anything out of him when he was in this mood. “And that’s all. I don’t wanna make you lie, Tiff’y, but if we don’t, we’ll both get in trouble.”

“Okay,” Tiffany shrugged, then took Paul’s hand in hers and tugged him to his feet as best she could. “C’mon, lets’ go play tetherball!”

Paul beamed at her, swung their joined hands, and they ran off together. She beat him, of course.

True to her word, Tiffany didn’t tell their father what happened that day – or on the days thereafter, as Paul’s tormentors seemed encouraged rather than the alternative, despite (or perhaps because of) Tiffany’s best efforts.

Her ensuing fights did land her in the principal’s office more than once, however. Tiffany refused to explain to the silly man why it was she kept picking fistfights with senior students, and eventually, this led to a suspension.

Mama was furious, of course, but only on the surface – at least, that’s what Tiffany thought. She got the feeling that Paul had broken his half of the promise and told Mama, because after Tiffany got yelled at and sent to her room, she woke up the next morning with a big pile of candy next to her bed. ‘Lene had tried to eat some, but she was only four and couldn’t get it unwrapped.

Tiffany enjoyed the suspension – not only for the notoriety that she knew would await her upon her return, but also because she got to go with Papa to work. Her mother was busy taking care of the baby and couldn’t have Tiffany around all the time. Besides. Tiffany didn’t like the baby. He was number five, and she thought that was too many.

She had no idea where Papa worked, really; it was a big building with lots of people and windows and papers and computers and machines and lots and lots of people who came in looking scared and went out crying.

“This is my girl,” Papa would say to his coworkers, “She’s with me this week,” and then he would explain about her fighting and her bravery, though he thought it was because they’d been picking on her. The men would grin and clap her on the shoulder or ruffle her hair and challenge her to a game of squash, and the women usually eyed her and made tittering remarks about how “cute” she was. Tiffany rolled her eyes at them.

Tiffany liked going to work with Papa. He gave her papers with lots of important-looking writing on them and a big rubber stamp and ink pad, and let her put his seal on them – she sat under his desk while he talked with clients and told them why he couldn’t give them money because of something to do with Santa’s family.

One night, Papa stayed late at the office.

It was Tiffany’s last day accompanying him, and if she were to tell the truth, she was getting a bit bored. The takeout food Papa and his friends bought for supper was greasy and it made her tummy queasy, so Tiffany stretched out on one of the couches for a nap, hoping the churning would settle.

When she at last raised her head and peered around the office, having first rubbed the icky yellow stuff from the corners of her eyes, the light filtering through the glass was artificial rather than sunlight. The window, Tiffany noted blearily, was also on the other side of the room.

“Where’s my Papa?” she asked, her words slurring a little, and she sat up. Papa’s jacket had been draped over her, though, and Tiffany pulled it up over her shoulders, curling her fingers around the collar. It smelled like him.

“Oh, hey, you’re up,” said someone else, and Tiffany squinted across the room. It was one of Papa’s friends — Tom or Ted or Bartholomew or something. “Your dad’s in a meeting for a while and he asked me to watch you.”

“Oh,” Tiffany amused herself for a while with the tiny basketball and hoop that the man had on one side of his office, but it wasn’t very high up and she got bored quickly. Ted grew tired of her complaining and told her that if she could make one hundred shots in a row, he would stop and play a game with her.

At her one hundredth basket, Tiffany whirled around in triumph, but her victorious cry died on her lips. Ted had his back to her in his swivel chair, feet up on the windowsill as he chattered away to someone on the phone. Tiffany blew out her breath in a show of irritation and decided that Papa’s meeting had to be more interesting than this.

She got lost within a few corridors, but eventually Tiffany saw the painting of that scary looking woman that she remembered, and knew she was close. Sure enough, Tiffany saw the door to Papa’s office; she could read his name on the plate below the little window, she noted with pride.

It sounded as though someone else was in there with him, so he was still in the meeting. But Tiffany was bo-o-ored, and Papa should have been home hours ago. In the back of her mind, Tiffany was a little worried about how Paul was doing at school without her to chase away the meanies.

The door handle turned easily in her small fingers, and Tiffany edged into the room. What she saw was not what she had expected.

Papa was half-sitting on his desk, and one of the ladies who worked there was with him, though she was kneeling and looked as though she was kissing Papa’s . . . something. Both of them were wearing some clothing, but not much.

Tiffany’s brain almost short-circuited. She knew something was very, very wrong here. The details of said wrongness weren’t clear to her, she being only six years old, but Tiffany knew enough that the proximity between Papa and the other lady was one that should, in her mind, only exist between Mamas and Papas.

There were two ways of dealing with this situation. The first, screaming in panic and running to find Ted and ask why a strange woman was doing kissy-things to her Papa, became Not A Good Idea within a fraction of a second.

Tiffany had never seen that look on Papa’s face, but it made her want to cry. Or run away. Or wet her pants. Or all of them at once. But whichever reaction it sparked, the fact remained that he looked shocked and angry and scared at the same time, and the combination merged itself into a sort of desperateness which one associated with criminals making a last stand.

In any event, that meant Option #2 was a go. Tiffany plastered a bright smile on her face and skipped into the room. “Hi, Papa! Hi, Lady I Don’t Know! Is it time to go home yet? I’m bored.”

The cornucopia of scary expressions on Papa’s face faded, replaced by a smile every bit as large and fake as Tiffany’s. “Hey, Tiger, sorry the meeting ran late, but you shouldn’t be running around by yourself. Why don’t you wait by the door and I’ll come get you once I, ah . . . finish up?”

She saluted him and obeyed, though once she was in the hallway, Tiffany began shaking. She knew there was something wrong with that situation, and the look on Papa’s face confirmed it. But what was she supposed to do?

Her inner plea was answered with the automatic response of “Nothing! It’s safer!” when Papa entered far sooner than her poor brain could come up with a plan. Tiffany then decided that her feeling of uneasiness was unfounded, as Papa swung her up onto his shoulders and carried her out to the parking lot.

“I’ll buy you ice cream if you don’t tell Mama what you saw,” Papa said, once they were in the truck. He kept his hand on the gearshift and stared at her, eyes serious.

Tiffany liked the truck. It was high up and powerful, and sometimes she imagined that if they ran over a little car (parked and empty, of course), they wouldn’t even feel it. The prospect of ice cream at such a late hour (when, by all rights, she should be in bed) was also a bonus.

“Ice cream?” Tiffany’s eyes widened.

Papa shifted the truck into drive and steered out into the street. “Ice cream. And you can have a large, if you don’t tell anyone.”

“Okay.”

Some time later found them, parked once again, behind the local Dairy Queen. Tiffany was attempting to devour her large extra-extra-extra strawberry Blizzard as fast as she could, in case Papa changed his mind and decided the late-night treat might give her a tummy ache.

“Listen, I’m going to explain something to you,” Papa had finished his own ice cream much sooner, and now rested one arm on the back of the seat, hanging the other elbow out the window. “When Mamas and Papas are married, they’re supposed to do Mama and Papa things.”

Tiffany inclined her head so he would think she was listening, but she was far more interested in chasing around that large hunk of strawberry that had heretofore evaded her silly plastic spoon. His statement made sense, anyhow.

“But for a while, Mama won’t let Papa do the . . . the Mama and Papa things,” his voice sounded funny. Like he wasn’t quite sure what to say. “And when Papa can’t do those things, bad things happen.”

This interested her. She dropped the spoon into the cup and frowned over at him. “Like . . . you’d get sick?”

“Yes, the Papa gets sick!” he smiled at her, and Tiffany wanted to tell him that he had bits of Oreo stuck to his teeth, but didn’t think it was the time. “So . . . because it would be bad if Papa was sick, he had to do things that are sort of like Mama and Papa things, but they’re aren’t as special because they’re not with Mama. Do you understand?”

No, Tiffany thought, but didn’t say. She sort of didn’t want to know; grownup things were complicated. “So you’re helping you and Mama so you won’t get sick and won’t make her sick?”

“Exactly,” Papa’s fingers made dancing motions on the steering wheel now; he couldn’t seem to keep his hands in one place for long. “Except Mama would rather Papa get sick, so don’t tell her, okay?”

“Okay,” Tiffany tucked into her treat once more — a little too fast, if one was completely honest, for she almost choked on a hunk of fruit. “Can we play baseball tomorrow?”

“Definitely, Tiger.”

Tiffany kept her promise. Papa must have felt guilty about whatever it was, because he stopped at a twenty-four-hour convenience store on the way home and bought Mama a bouquet of flowers. She was pleased, and so didn’t notice the distinctive smell of ice cream and strawberries on Tiffany’s breath.

Jolene did, though, and Tiffany had a hard time sleeping that night. Her little sister kept trying to lick residue off the corners of her mouth. Eventually, Tiffany clocked her with a teddy bear and pulled the blankets over her head.