Title: Hang in There, Baby

Summary: It's 14 years later, and Charlie is nearly 16 years old. When she stumbles upon a box in the attic of videos from a girl claiming to be her big sister, Charlie wants to get to the bottom of it. Who is this mysterious Teddy, and why does no one want to tell her about Teddy?

Rating: T

Warnings: Depression, attempted suicide (non explicit), mild cussing in strong situations, paranoia.

A/N: Alright! Here I am, starting a new fic. This idea came to me as I was watching: What would happen if the videos were found, but Charlie couldn't remember Teddy? This is where it comes from. Also, the title is subject to change. This is all I have so far: I just wanted to know if anyone wanted me to continue.

PLEASE DO NOT COPY THIS. I WOULD APPRICATE IT IF NO ONE PLAGARISED IT.

IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T READ IT.

My name's Charlotte, Charlotte Duncan. But you can call me Charlie. Everyone does, even though I don't really like it. But it's the way it is, so whatever. I'm Charlie and it's just stuck.

I'm fifteen, turning sixteen in two months, and my older brothers, PJ and Gabe never let me forget that I'm that much younger than them.

See, while my family is small—only five people—the age differences between all of us are pretty big. Mom and Dad are in their late fifties, PJ's sixteen years older than me, at thirty-one and Gabe's twenty-five.

We live in a small house in Concord, Massachusetts, me, Mom and Dad. Gabe lives with us, too, because he's a college student, and college students need places to live. That, and Mom refuses to let him live anywhere else. PJ barely was able to move out—and he still has to come over to check in every day at least twice—once in the morning, once in the evening.

Naturally, I'm closer to Gabe, even though I wish he was a girl. I'm the only girl, which is a huge pain because I can't ask my mom for help and I really, really can't ask Gabe or PJ for advice. That would be like asking a martian on how to operate a submarine. You just don't do it. And Dad's totally out of the question. At least Gabe has somewhat of a clue—he's kinda cool, for an adult. He's a college student and has an ear piercing and everything.

Well, he has it in when Mom and Dad aren't around. Mom doesn't like it. He's not that hardcore, really, but he's sweet. It's just like a silver stud. It's not like he's got the whole upper ear filled with piercings, but the way Mom goes on about it, it's like he does. And she always mentions someone named Teddy, and both of them shut up right after they realize I've heard Teddy. It's like I'm three years old again. So not cool. I love Gabe and he's my favorite brother (don't tell PJ, he'd so freak) and he's the awesome older brother everyone wishes they had but don't.

My only problem is that anytime I try to bring a guy home, he totally intimidates them and they never ask me out again. I mean, I see where they get that from the black leather jacket and earring and the tattoo on his arm, but seriously? It's a freaking teddy bear and a cross.

Why they think that's scary is beyond me. But I think it ties in with the mysterious Teddy.

Anywhoo, PJ's a total goofball, but what can you expect from someone named Patrick James? The word "Trick" is right in his name. He's a prankster and a goofball and I act like the older sibling around him.

He happens to be sixteen years older than me. And people still ask if he's my little brother. This is NOT fair at all. At least he's mature, sometimes.

PJ's old enough to have moved out—and he has—but she's stayed close to our family. He comes over for dinner three times a week, and we have movie night once a week. Sometimes, he drives me to school. After we moved, he got really serious with his girlfriend, Claudia, and they got married. They've got a little kid, Shane, and I babysit him all the time. They're both doctors at the hospital here in Concord—and it gets really confusing, since Mom works there when she's not in a funk, so the people at the hospital are Mrs. Katy Mattox (she's the secretary), Dr. Claudia Duncan, Dr. PJ Duncan, Nurse Amy Duncan, Nurse Samantha Benson, and Nurse James Alcantera. Half the staff are Duncans.

But both my brothers, Gabe and PJ are so overprotective of me it's not funny. I can't date guys, I can't go out with my friends without total itineraries of where I'm going and who I'm going with and how I'm getting there. It gets aggravating sometimes, but I kinda know that they love me and that's why they do it.

Doesn't it stop it from being annoying, though.

Mom's been sad and depressed all the time, since I was threeish. She goes to church a lot, and the doctors finally had to put her on medication. She'd gone kinda crazy and tried to jump off a skyscraper. She's practically put herself on house arrest—that may be why she makes PJ drive me to school and follow me around when I'm doing stuff with my friends. When she remembers to take her meds, she's totally cool, texting and making the world's BEST brownies and sandwiches, and being more like a cool older sister rather than a mom. She used to be an ER nurse before she locked herself up in our house.

Dad runs a pet shop. Apparently, he used to be an exterminator, back when we lived in Denver, Colorado, but we moved for some reason. No one really talks about it, and I quickly learned to not ask because everyone gets all sad and clams up. It's really weird.

Another weird thing is that we don't have any pictures of when PJ and Gabe were little. All the pictures start when we moved to Concord—Mom says they were lost in the move. It's still weird, thinking that we have no memories of when my older brothers were little. On the upside, there aren't any diaper pictures of me for my parents to embarrass me with—those were lost too, apparently.

We visited our old neighborhood in Denver once, when I was seven. When I talked to people and told them I was Charlie Duncan, the mysterious Teddy came up again. They all smiled sadly and nodded and said, "Good luck, Charlie, wasn't that what Teddy used to say?" A black girl (sorry, one of my best friends, Krista, beat it into me that she's black, not African American and she's proud of it so don't call her or ANYONE African American because she's a proud black. I hope I don't offend anyone with that) burst into tears and hugged me, going, "Charlie, Charlie, it's so good to see you! Oh, Charlie, Charlie!" until PJ pulled me. I don't know what scared me more, the girl randomly hugging me or the fact that PJ was growling at the girl.

Seriously, my laid back, surfer dude brother was growling at this girl. She backed off and we left town within minutes. It really sucked, so we're not going back. That, and Mom got really bad with her depression for a couple days after.

So anyway, I'm living here in Concord with my family, and today is March 5th. To most people, this wouldn't be a strange day—it would be totally normal, except maybe a birthday or something. Not in my house.

Today, Mom dresses in black and leaves the house, while Gabe and PJ take me out to an amusement park or something, which I always thought was a special treat and they always looked like they were forcing their smiles just a bit. Dad gets all mopey. The same stuff happens on October 21st—and I've never really thought anything of it. It's just one of my family's weird quirks.

This year, I'm hanging out with Krista, Nina and Tristan, instead of spending time with my family. Krista's black, as I previously mentioned, Nina's…well, no one knows what Nina is, she's adopted, and Tristan's French-British-American. His little sisters, Juliette and Gabrielle are both totally sweet, for being six and ten years old respectively.

Tristan's the only guy my brothers let around me, and that's only because he and Nina have been a couple for about three years now.

Krista's got a great personality and is a total fashionista. She can kick any guy's butt to boot and can outrun most people in high heels. But she, cannot, for the life of her, talk sense when Gabe is around. It's annoying, it frequently bugs me and gives me plenty to tease her about. She's also not the greatest at school, but she's got excellent people skills. I will give her that. One word for Krista: Tough.

Nina's the…weird one…of our group. She's small, quiet, and totally insane. If we didn't have her, we wouldn't be a group like we are now. About Nina herself…well, Nina's the youngest because she skipped fifth grade. We met her in sixth, and she and Tris have been dating since…oh, gosh, seventh grade, early on? Nearly four years now, I guess. She's a brunette with huge brown eyes, and she's only like five two. She hates being short, especially because her boyfriend is six one—eleven inches taller than her. She's stick thin and eats like a horse.

Literally. The girl has the best metabolism on the planet. I envy her. She's ADHD sometimes, and like Mom, if she doesn't take her meds, stuff gets a whole lot more interesting. One word for her: Energetic.

As for Tristan, he's the oldest (he's older than Krista by two days), and he's kinda a sweetie. He's got blonde hair and blue eyes—and while I know Nina thinks he's gorgeous (obviously! She's dating him!), I personally don't think he's anything special. He's just Tristan, the kid who ran whooping through the sprinklers in a princess dress, high heels, makeup and tiara with me when I was six and Krista was out of town. We hadn't met Nina yet at this point. It's kinda why I find it hard to flirt with the guy when we're assigned as Romeo and Juliet in drama. (For the record, Nina does know and she knows I very nearly barfed my guts out when Mr. Thompson told me I had to kiss him. She also knows that I yelled at Mr. Thompson for multiple hours until he finally realized it would very nearly be incest because we'd grown up kinda like siblings.)

I can't even think of him in an even moderately romantic way without wanting to barf. The guy is like my brother—he's kinda like PJ and Gabe in the overprotective department too. Anyone tries to flirt with me or Krista, and Tristan's already beating the guy up.

Like I said, way annoying.

One word for Tristan? That's actually a toughy. Hm. Loyal, I guess. Imagine a long, intellectual pause in that "Hm" filled with tension and much dramatic posing with maniac giggling from my friends who have no clue what I'm writing.

As for me…well, there's not much to say. I'm Charlie Duncan, five seven, with dark blonde hair and brown eyes, glasses and a retainer, legally blind and moderately popular but somewhat a dorky nerd. I listen to a lot of music from the 2000s, rather than more modern stuff—I don't really like the stuff they mass produce today. Everything sounds practically the same now. I'm big into pureNRG's stuff and I think Skillet rocks (literally!) but more mainstream stuff like Superchick and Kate Voegele. The TV shows from the early 2000's are cool too. Like I said, not so big into the more modern stuff, like "Taylor's Tourettes". I don't think they looked up "Tourettes" before they put it as a band name.

But whatever. I'm just Charlie Duncan.

This is my life. Let's just see where it takes us.