This is Us [ Elijah Mikaelson ] 2

sixty-three

"Hey, dad..." Penelope started nervously as she began making goodie bags for the police officers at the station and for Rose. "What were your parents like?" She asked carefully and Robert frowned s his body went stiff.

"Why?"

"I'm curious..."

"Why?"

"I just... I know nothing about them."

"There's a damn good reason you don't," He replied. "I know I'm not ever going to win any kind of father award with you. I've fucked up and all I can do is try and move on and build something with you..." He paused to take a deep breath. "But my parents were some of the worst people you could ever meet."

"You said you had good memories."

"Yeah, of Christmas. It was one day a year that I was able to pretend my family was normal and happy," Robert scoffed.

"I'd still like to know," She said after a few minutes of awkward silence. "Surely there was a time when they weren't terrible..."

"Nope," Robert shook his head then took a sip of his coffee. "I grew up picking up beer bottles and needles when everyone was playing outside," she knew her dads' parents were drinkers, but she didn't know they were drug addicts too. "Actually I didn't realize that wasn't normal until I was eight when my parents forgot to take pick me up from school and my friends mom took me home because it was raining," Her fathers voice grew quiet and there was this sadness there that made Penelope's stomach fall. "Their house was so...clean, and I had only seen the kitchen and living room clean on Christmas day... I knew then that my family wasn't normal.

"Our house wasn't large, it was small, it was a single wide trailer on some land," He shrugged. "Mom worked at a gas station, dad was a mechanic. They stayed sober long enough to work and bring home a paycheck so we could have power, running water and food on the table. My parents were decent enough to make sure I was fed and clothed but that was it," Penelope looked down at her trays of cookies sadly. "Dad was a mean drunk, he spent more time beating on my mom than me though. I think that was one of the only maternal things my mom did, was not let me be his punching bag. He beat me once, I was six and I remember it so vividly, even now forty years later. My mom came home in a rush, I never saw her look so scared before."

"Do you think she knew?" Penny asked quietly. "Do you think she had...a feeling that something bad was happening to you, and that's why she came home?"

"Maybe," He shrugged. "I don't know... I just know that if she had come home any later then..." His voice quieted and Penelope had a sickening feeling settling in her stomach. "After that night, he didn't touch me again... but I also hardly ever saw her sober. She started drinking more."

"Did you ever...ask why?"

"Why they drank all the time?" He asked, looking at her with raised eyebrows. Penelope nodded, and he scoffed. "My dad I knew why, he was disgusting piece of shit, it's all he knew."

"And your mom?" She asked carefully and Robert stared at his coffee.

"She really didn't start drinking until after that night... she used to have a few beers at night before she went to bed, but it was like that night turned a switch and all she could do is drink," He answered after a few minutes. "There was one time that I got angry at her, I was like...twelve or thirteen, and I just remember shouting at her and asking why she was like this, why she couldn't clean herself up for once..."