Intertwined

Confrontational

A/N: Hello all my gorgeous people. Wow 7k reads of my fanfic. I thought maybe 7 people might glance at it. Haha.

Hope you enjoy this angsty chapter that gives some historical Amelia Roberts insight.

TW: Talk of suicide attempt (past event). Paragraph beginning: I was dressed. Please take care.

Thank you again for all your kindness and support.

These days, confrontation wasn't something Mia looked for. There was a time, not too long ago, where Mia would actively stir up trouble of her own accord just to let off steam and feel a release from the constant overbearing control that Roger exerted over her life. Not being able to determine the direction of her own life being the trade off for financial security and the hope of finding her father.

In the end the payoff was not worth it and ultimately a lie. Realising that, had been better than any release Mia had achieved through creating confrontation. It had been around the same time she fell in love with Char, and Mia knew she needed to be a better person if she was to have any hope of winning Charlotte's heart. She didn't realise she had already won it, but that was probably for the best. It had meant that she had found joy, love and purpose, rather than being stuck in a cycle of self loathing, self destruction and quick fix gratification.

It wasn't always perfect. Some days would still be punctured by the pain of the past, but Mia had started to gather the inner strength to live and even thrive, through it.

One other very important factor in helping on those days was of course Charlotte.

Charlotte was like Mia's North Star. Always guiding her in the right direction without even trying. Just being in her light gave Mia a clearer course to navigate. Mia saw Charlotte shine above all others and even in a crowd of thousands Mia would only see her girlfriend.

Now when Mia was feeling confrontational, feeling agitated and angry she would try to turn to other avenues to express her feelings, other than creating chaos in the world around her. She would think of Charlotte and see her smile and beautiful eyes and feel herself start to calm down.

Today though, her mother's birthday, was different. No matter what Mia tried to do to prepare or distract herself from her feelings of this day it wasn't working. All her emotions were mixing up, sadness, hurt, grief, anger, rage. She had been trying to focus on other things for the last few days, went for a walk and a run, to try and calm down, edited some of her photos, put on some music. Nothing seemed to keep this furious bubbling away for long.

She had purposely switched off her calendar reminders, she shut down her social media temporarily, telling Charlotte she just wanted a break. Her girlfriend thought that it was odd because Mia wasn't on it that much anyway, but Mia seemed ok otherwise, so Char didn't question it. Char didn't realise in all the business of the last few days, the time with the girls, the appointments for Michael and Charlotte, how well Mia was hiding her emotions.

Mia was trying to distract herself this morning, and after she cooked breakfast, cleaned the kitchen, she went back upstairs to sort through some boxes she had left in the walk in robe. Charlotte was changing the girls bedding while they were at their dad's, humming happily to herself, because she knew when they had finished their housework, they could just cuddle up on the lounge.

Mia hadn't expected to find the old photograph in the box. It had been packed in there for some years. She thought it was old office stuff and figured most of it would be thrown away or useful for the girls to use as craft materials. But there it was, a line of four photos from a photo booth when Mia was about six years old. Her, her mum and her father, pulling faces and posing. The last one was Mia looking up with a cheeky smile, while her parents both kissed one of her cheeks each.