ALAN - An Alan Rickman fanfic

Chapter 33 - Break The Mould

Last chapter!! Enjoy ❤ and thank you to my lovely readers!!

Keep reading to the epilogue and next upload for the reveal of the new fic!

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I sit staring pensively out of the coffee shop window awaiting my sister’s arrival, checking my watch for the fifth time. On the table sits two steaming cups of coffee. I hadn’t realised she was coming up behind me that very minute. 

“Hi,” she smiles, slightly subdued and sits down opposite. I realise I look at her belly when she does, though I know she won’t be showing at eight weeks. 

“How are you?” We both say simultaneously. 

She tells me that she and Dad have had “a talk,” but first wishes to thank me. 

“I know things haven’t been the best between us,” she says, stirring sugar into her coffee, “especially over this last year. I felt so pressured at med school, from mum, and then the split…When we came to New York to see you in the spring, being in a hotel with the two of them arguing was a nightmare. Finding out Dad was cheating on mum…I didn’t know how to deal with it, with anything. I completely broke down.

She looks at me and tries her best to explain, “When things were falling apart, Dad had disappeared and I was stuck with Mum back in London, I envied you, Ava. Some days Mum refused to get out of bed. You had your own life here in New York away from everything, from everybody, you made your own choices. I thought…’why should I have to deal with all of this mess?’ You were free to me. I felt trapped. Mum always treated me like I was the child prodigy.” Amelia emphasises the ridiculousness with a roll of her eyes. “She did a perfect job of convincing me that if I keep working hard, it’ll pay off. She was controlling me, Ava.” 

She looks me straight in the eyes, her brows wobbling and says,

“Ava I’ve realised that I don’t even want to study medicine. I hate it.” Mum had put her off it completely. 

Amelia developed an eating disorder along the way which Mum found out and it fuelled another war between them. Amelia was sick of nursing mum through her drinking problem alone and instead took it out on herself.

“Ben helped me though it,” she tells me - the father of her baby. “But then he just…” she sighs. “Left after a while. Everything was too much and I was a mess. I heard about you and Alan and I was jealous that you had someone to take care of you, I admit. I’m sorry. To me it was just another thing you had that I didn’t.”

I reach over the table to hold her hand. 

“I really admired what you did last night,” she continues. “Standing up for us both like that, for not letting Mum get in your head.”

“I put a stop to that a long time ago,” I affirm. “You should too.”

Amelia tells me mum has gone back to London. I’m not surprised.

“Dad and I spoke. He wants us all to make amends. He wants me to move in with him here in New York. I mean, for now. He lives with that Carol lady and her daughter Robyn.”

My ears prick up. “Robyn??”

“Yeah, apparently she’s about our age.” 

Amelia can see my head doing the calculations. So she’s the one who told Dad I was in Tuscany! Not Lizzy. She’s the reason why dad was yelling and accusing Alan of the unspeakable. 

“She never said a word that her mum was seeing our dad!” 

Amelia shrugged. Apparently Robyn didn’t even know at first. Dad never mentioned that he had us. He was just some regular guy her Mum was seeing as far as she was concerned.”