Title: Soccer

Author: JennifferButterfly

Summary: ONESHOT. A specific event in Chase’s young life that was the beginning of what sorry things were to come.

Author’s Note: Chase-centric…as is everything else I write.

Warnings: None

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Soccer is one of the more fun games out there. If you have the length and strength in your legs, you’re almost guaranteed to be great at it. Robbie had this and so much more. He had great promise to become one of the world’s finest soccer players. He loved he sport and had been playing on the local boy’s soccer team for about two years now. If Robbie ever had a gift that would promise to take him places, this was it.

It was a fine, early spring day when Robbie was playing in the back yard, preparing himself for this game he had coming up later in the day. It was supposed to be against a local primary school’s team and it was supposed to begin in an hour. As a player, Robbie was expected to be at the game half an hour before it began. For that to happen he would need to leave in the next ten minutes. Robbie grew weary of where his ride was. The car was in the drive, but the driver was on the couch, passed out. His mum had just spent the previous night at a number of bars in town and then spent the morning topping herself off with homemade drinks. By noon she was passed out on the couch and hadn’t woken up since. Robbie wanted to check on his mum, he really did, but when she started having ‘happy drinks’ about a year ago, she taught him not to wake her when she went to sleep afterwards. So, Robbie had just been playing in the back yard for the past hour hoping his dad would come home in time to take him to the game.

A car pulled into the driveway making the pebbles bounce around. Robbie looked up from his soccer ball and stared at where the sounds were coming from. Within a moment’s notice, he ran over to the gate and walked through it. On the other side he was in the driveway of his parent’s house and his dad was stepping out of the car. Rowan still had his nice khaki’s, business shirt, and glossy black shoes on. Robbie ran over and dropped his ball so that he could jump up into dad’s arms. As he leapt, Rowan hastily dropped his briefcase and caught his son. He stood there for a minute, squeezing his son tight allowing Robbie to burrow his head into his dad’s neck. After a minute, his dad kissed his son’s head and then set him down. “Robbie, why aren’t you at the game yet?”

“Oh, because mum is still in her happy drinks sleep.” Robbie began to ramble as he picked up his soccer ball and started walking towards the door with his dad. “Dad, did you see the new jersey, look.” He tugged at his jersey to show it off. “We got them yesterday. And see, it has my name on the back!” He spun around and walked sideways, trying to show his dad.

Rowan wasn’t interested in the jersey though. “Yes, that’s nice. Robbie, did you check on mummy?” He pulled out a key and started to unlock the door.

“No dad, you know how she gets if I wake her from her happy sleep.” Robbie said.

Rowan got a concerned look on his face and after a final glance at his son he opened the door. He walked in and set his briefcase by the door just as his shadow followed and did the same with his soccer ball. “Nessa?” Rowan called out. He walked over towards the family room and called out again. “Nessa?” Still no answer so he pressed on with Robbie still in tow. Rowan passed through the sliding doors and looked in on the couch. There was Nessa Chase, sleeping off her massive hangover, or so Robbie thought. Rowan walked over to his wife and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Nessa, wake up. You forgot to take your son to his game.” His tone was irritated, but Nessa had yet to stir. “Nessa, Nessa stop it and get up.” Still nothing. Rowan rolled her onto her back and finally got a look at her face. She was pale, clammy, and slightly sweaty looking. Rowan placed his hand on his wife’s head and felt her cool temperature. “Nessa! WAKE UP!” he yelled. Still nothing. Rowan was so concerned now. He turned around to the door and faced Robbie. “Damn it! Why didn’t you watch her?” He stood up, stormed past his son, and grabbed the phone from the other room.

Robbie went blank in the face. He first looked at his mum in shock and then looked at his dad. “I- I – I didn’t think I should. She would be mad if I woke her.”

Rowan stomped back past his son and ran to Nessa’s side. “Well you thought wrong! She might die because of you!” He let his fingers fly over the buttons on the phone as he dialed up the police. “Yes, hello? My name is Rowan Chase and I need an ambulance sent to 1740 Milbun Street. Thank you.”

The ambulance came and the paramedics picked up Nessa. Rowan grabbed Robbie by his jersey and dragged him over to the door. “Get your coat on!” Robbie did so as his dad did the same, and then he grabbed his soccer ball. Rowan opened the door. “Come on!” Robbie ran out and over to the car. Rowan quickly followed and unlocked the doors. Robbie jumped in and rode in the car as his dad went flying down the streets, following the ambulance to the hospital.

The hospital seemed colder and darker this time. Usually Robbie loved being here because that meant he was with dad, but now it seemed dreadfully cold and scary. He sat in a waiting chair just outside of his mum’s room as his dad paced the door, waiting for the doctor to come out. After an hour of long waiting, a man in a white lab coat with green scrubs beneath walked out. Rowan stopped in his tracks. “How is she?”

“She’s ok. We’ve managed to stabilize her for the time being and got most of the alcohol out of her system. Her blood alcohol level was .36, highly dangerous. We had to pump her stomach and give her a lot of different medicines, but we think she’ll make it.”

Rowan nodded in deep thought and took a sigh. “May I see her now?” The doctor nodded. Rowan walked over to the door and Robbie stood up. He quickly followed his dad but before they even made it to the door, Rowan whipped around with anger on his face. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I want to go in with you. I want to see mummy.” Robbie said. His face was blank with confusion again as he was unable to understand why his dad was acting this way.

Rowan grabbed Robbie by the scruff of his neck and opened the hospital door. “You see her in there on the bed?” Robbie nodded as he looked at his mum lying in bed with more tubes in her than a radio. “You caused that Robbie. You weren’t taking care of your mother and now she’s there. You had to be playing soccer in the backyard instead of watching out for her and look at where that’s gotten her.” As these words poured from Rowan’s mouth, Robbie soaked up each one and let them absorb into his brain. Blaming Robbie for this was the first of many mistakes Rowan was going to make in the years to come. As Robbie started to squirm to get out of his dad’s grasp, Rowan let go rather roughly. Robbie looked up at his dad but his dad didn’t look back. “I want you to go and wait in the hall, Robbie. I will come for you when I’m done.” Robbie ran to the chair that he had once been in and promptly sat down.

It wasn’t until twenty minutes later when somebody talked to him and that somebody wasn’t even his dad, it was a nurse. She was wondering how her boss’s son was holding up so she decided to go have a chat with him. “Hey Robbie, how’re you doing?” Robbie shrugged and the nurse looked away for a minute, trying to think of what else to say. She peeked under his seat and found a conversation starter. “I see you got your ball there, how was the game.”

“Didn’t go.”

“Oh…” the nurse was quiet for a minute before finally putting her hand on his shoulder. “Well there’ll always be a next time.” With that said, she left back to the nurse’s station.

Robbie thought it over for a minute. A next time? Another time in which his mum could get sick and have to be dragged here? Another time for Robbie to mess up because he was to busy playing soccer in the backyard? Robbie would have none of that. He grabbed his soccer ball and took off down the hall towards his dad’s office. He managed to get in after asking a custodian to let him in. The custodian didn’t mind since he knew the boy was Dr. Chase’s son. Inside his office, Robbie ran over to his dad’s desk and went for the deep drawer on the right side. After a minute of digging he found what he was looking for. Robbie pulled out a leather case and then sat down on the ground with his legs spread. He grabbed his soccer ball and placed it in between his legs and then opened up the leather case. When he did so, a shiny metal scalpel glistened as the sun from the window bounced off of it’s glossy surface. Robbie carefully peeled it out of the case and wielded it in his hands like a dagger. He closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and plunged the scalpel deep into the ball before him. After a quick readjustment of his grip, Robbie dragged the sharp blade through the fake leather of the ball, slicing it nearly in half. When he was satisfied that it would no longer work as a ball, Robbie put the scalpel back in his dad’s drawer and stood up. He grabbed the remains of what used to be his favorite toy and walked over to the waste receptacle. Raising his hands high into the air, Robbie thrust the ball into the trashcan and threw away what meant so much to him. When he threw it away he thought he was throwing away all his and his family’s problems. Quite the contrary, he was throwing away something that he was good at, throwing away his gift, throwing away something he could have proved to be excellent at if he had just stuck with it. It wouldn’t fix his problems but Robbie, with his eight-year-old mind, thought it might. So with that done, Robbie looked in the metal can at his ball and made a promise on this sad day, a promise to never play soccer again.

-The End-