Burn it after midnight.

Chapter 17: Love Child, Runnin' Wild.

TW: Mentions of drug abuse. 

The first few days of Theo living with them were quiet. She mostly kept to herself which Eddie had expected. This was a big change for her and she was grieving. Also finding out she had an older brother was a new bit of information, he assumed she probably felt like the rug had fully been ripped out from underneath her.

"Hey kiddo" He knocked on the door frame gently. She was sitting on her bed sifting through what appeared to be a stack of photos.

"Hey" She said quietly.

"Steve's getting takeout, wondered if there was anything you wanted in particular?"

She shook her head.

"Nah I'm good with whatever" He had to smile at her indifference. Probably just didn't want to be a bother, he wasn't far off.

"It's no bother" He said "Whatcha got there?"

"Photos from Mom's closet"

He crossed the room and stood behind her, peering curiously over her shoulder.

"Hey I remember these!" He picked up a photograph of a kid who looked no older than four, sitting on the floor with a pair of way too big cowboy boots on his feet. He didn't know who they belonged to, but he remembered them vividly. "Wait this is me" He stared blankly at the photo. There was no way it couldn't be him.

"There's a few of you" She said sifting through the photos, handing him a few more, he was of various ages, even a photo from what appeared to be his sixth birthday, he was blowing out candles on a cake. He remembered because it was a couple of weeks after that that he was told he was going to live with his uncle.

"Never would have thought she would have kept any of these... she never told you about me did she?"

"No"

He sighed. Of course she hadn't.

He sifted through the other few, the final one making him choke. He was sitting on his Mom's lap, his Dad to the side, they were all smiling, Eddie was holding some sort of stuffed animal. He can't have been older than three. Everyone was smiling. They looked just like a regular family, even if that was incredibly far from the truth.

"You okay?" She looked up then, seeing how glassy his eyes had gotten.

"Yeah I uh..." He sniffed. "Can I show Steve?"

"Sure" She went back to sifting through the photos.

"Wait a sec" He said, stopping her when she got to a particular photo, it was of a little girl, maybe eight years old or so, holding the same stuffed animal that he had been holding in the photo with his parents. "That's not me"

"Who is it then?" She was wearing an oversized t-shirt, her face covered in chocolate, grinning at the camera, her two front teeth missing.

"I think that's you" He flipped it over to see if there was anything written on the back. Nothing. "Cos' it's definitely not me"

"It's the same rabbit" She commented

"Is it?"

"Yeah look" She reached over the bed to one of her backpacks and pulled out a very old, dog eared looking stuffed animal. It was the same one.

"Huh"

So they must have given it to her after Eddie was gone. He felt a weird twitch in his chest, like... well even though they never knew the other existed she had always had a part of him with her, in some strange way.

"I'm gonna go show Steve"

He was going to show Steve. But he needed a moment.

He shut himself in Steve's room, although it was more their bedroom now. Eddie had kind of unofficially moved in with Theo. More of his stuff taking up space in the house, he liked it.