Family Ties
Chapter 1

Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to S. E. Hinton.

A word by the author: while the canonical ancestry of the Shepards cannot be definitively established, I regard this fic as being AU to established canon. It is therefore not necessary to believe the revelations in this fic to be the final word on the Shepards.

- - -

Angela Shepard didn't like hospitals on general principle, but today she particularly hated them. In the confused babble as she was pulled out of English class, it turned out her brother, Curly, had his knife in his jeans pocket when he went to school. Then he got into a fight with a Soc near the end of lunch and had apparently pulled out his knife without thinking. Said Soc also had a knife, and Curly was in the hospital now with a nasty cut to his side. Seemed he'd lost quite a bit of blood before the ambulance paramedics stabilized him.

The nurse in charge of Emergency reception had said, "What're you here for, miss?"

Angela had replied, "All I know's my brother Curly Shepard got cut up and now he's stuck here so they figured I should be here instead of at school. Where's Tim, my mom or my stepdad?"

"Your name is…?"

"Angela. Angela Shepard."

The nurse was scribbling something on her clipboard. "Sister, then?"

"Yeah. Look, can I see him or what?"

"Just a moment. I need to get the doctor who attended to him."

That had been five minutes ago. Now Angela was cooling her heels, sitting on the stiff chair in the emergency ward. She looked around; to her left were swinging glass doors which opened in either direction. It was late May, so warm air wafted across her as a wheelchair-bound guy in a cast was escorted out those doors by a nurse and a woman who looked to be his mother. To her right, she saw a long hallway with several doors which, she assumed, led into hospital rooms, operating theaters or other hallways.

A guy who looked like he could be in the high school came in, coughing noisily. He sat down a few chairs away, and Angela nervously wondered if she might catch his early start on a summer cold. After he whipped out a handkerchief and coughed like a foghorn into it, she scooted down as many chairs as she could, and wiped her hands on her skirt. She nervously thought, when the hell is my mom gonna get here?

Directly across the hall from her was the counter where the Emergency ward reception nurse had been standing, but which was currently unmanned. The occasional doctor or nurse ducked behind the currently-unmanned counter to look at the sign-in list, sparing her only the occasional glance as she wondered when her mother was going to show up, while Foghorn down the hall honked again. The principal had driven her to the hospital, but said he needed to get back to the school and so left quickly.

As Angela looked again towards the entrance doors, she noticed with some relief that a nurse was near the Foghorn Cougher, writing stuff onto a clipboard. A young male technician approached, and she heard "X-ray" in the middle of stuff the nurse was blabbering at him. As the X-ray guy led the sick guy off, she saw her mother bustling in through the entry doors, and Angela rushed over to greet her. "Mom! They won't let me see Curly! Where's Tim? Where's Hank?"

"Sorry, honey, but I don't know where Tim is, either. He took off this morning and God only knows where he is now. As for Hank, he's at work and I'm not sure they'll let him take off." Her mother sighed and wrapped her arm around Angela. "Where's the doctor, Angel?"

Just as Angela was about to reply after returning the embrace, a doctor accompanied the Emergency nurse as she resumed her post behind the counter. The man was a nondescript, graying doctor with horn-rimmed glasses. He briefly shook her mother's hand and said, "I'm Doctor Emerson. Curly Shepard – I understand that's a nickname – has lost enough blood that I would like to give him a transfusion. We've typed him, and he's type A negative. Normally we'd use the blood bank and use type O negative, but we're out of that and only have O positive. We'd like to check both of your blood types, if that's possible."

A transfusion? That didn't sound good at all.

Oddly, her mom seemed a bit uncertain as she lamely said, "Well, Angela's thirteen, and she doesn't like needles."

What?!

Angela whined, "Mom! That's not true!" She took a breath, and stridently said, "I want to help! Is Curly gonna die?"

"Now you hush up, Angela. I'll donate. Doctor, let's get this done already."

Why on Earth would her mother not want her to help her exasperating brother? Curly was family, even if she was tempted to deny everything at school sometimes. The doctor was looking at her mother a bit funny, like he wasn't sure what to believe about the needle thing. He said, "Well, we don't expect Curly to die, but his recovery will be delayed if we can't transfuse."

Mutinously, Angela looked Doctor Emerson in the eye and said, "Just check me out, too! If it makes him better, I want to help, damn it."

Angela felt the slight blow against her shoulder. "Watch your mouth, young lady!"

Angela didn't bother answering as she was sent off with the nurse into what looked like a fancy chemistry lab. The nurse pricked her finger with what was called a "lancet", held her finger over a test tube and dripped some blood into it, and then gave her a band-aid, saying, "wash the cut under that faucet."

Angela went to the sink and did as ordered. After drying and bandaging her finger, she went back into the Emergency waiting area, and her mother rejoined her shortly. She looked a little nervous as they both waited another ten minutes for the results. The doctor came up to them and briskly said, "Right. Mrs. Shepard—"

Her mom broke in, saying, "My name is Lillian Coleman. My children have kept their original family name."

The doctor looked askance at her, but continued. "Mrs. Coleman, then. You're O negative. Angela, you're B negative. Sorry, but only Mrs. Shep—ah, Coleman here can donate for Curly. Angela, you'll have to wait again."

Oddly, her mom paled slightly, but went off with the doctor while Angela huffily plunked herself onto the chair in the waiting area, and wondered how the hell long it was gonna take to get Curly up and around again.

After all, she still hated hospitals.

- - -

The next day at school, Angela's friends crowded around her at she said, "Look, I got no idea what happened to my lunkhead brother. I just know I got pulled outta English and the principal drove me to the hospital. He dropped me off there and said my Mom was supposed to be coming real soon 'cuz they called her at home. Anyway, he took off, I waited 'bout five minutes and my Mom showed up. They did some blood testing thing and my mom could donate but not me. So now Curly's laid up and my Mom's worried about whether we got any kind of insurance."

Her friends twittered and sympathized appropriately, but Angela's mind was back on the funny way her mom had tried (well, not too hard) to keep her from having her blood checked out. What did it matter if she was A, B, W, Z or whatever?

With that, the warning bell rang and Angela muttered, "Shit! I'll be late for math!"

She took off down the hall at a sprint and just made it to her desk before the teacher pulled his head out from the cupboard, and waved the pop quizzes from last week.

- - -

Curly, looking a bit pale, but otherwise okay, came home that night. Angela laid into him as soon as he got in the door, yelling, "Damn it, Curly, why'd you have to go get stuck with a knife?! God, for a while there I thought you were gonna die or somethin'."

She hugged Curly, then covering for her sudden lapse, punched him lightly on the shoulder and went back into the kitchen. She heard Tim saying, "Well, Curly, looks like you got a bad one there, huh? Lessee."

Angela snorted mentally as she grabbed the knives and forks to lay out at the dinner table.

Men and their bragging rights.

Later on, at dinner, Angela said to their stepfather, "How come you couldn't come down to the hospital? They mighta needed your blood."

Hank shrugged. "Wouldn't have been able to get away from work. I didn't even know 'bout this 'till last night when I got home. Don't think I coulda donated anyway; I'm AB or something."

Her mom froze up at that, and Angela again wondered what the hell was going on. "Well, the doctor said I'm B negative, Curly's A negative, mom's O negative and… Tim, you ever find out yours?"

Tim shrugged and said, "They needed to transfuse me three years ago. You probably don't remember. Think they said I was A negative, too."

Just as Tim finished saying that, he got a frown on his face, which disappeared so quickly Angela wasn't sure she'd even seen it in the first place. She could have sworn she heard her mom sigh in relief.

Author Note:

I'd like to thank Marauder and the Q for beta work on this, and xocrazililkelox for the idea which sparked this fic. :) I'd also like to thank mars on fire for the names she came up with for the Shepard parents.