Chapter Text
March 2015
“Ran, calm down. You’re being unreasonable right now,” Blake pleads, trying to calm his wife down from whatever drunken manic state she was in this time .
“Calm? Calm down? I spent months trying to plan this and now SHE is ruining it all. It’s all she ever does Blake, ruin things, I’m sick of this!”
It doesn’t help that Ada’s door is next to the kitchen, that her step mother is drunk, that she has in fact ruined her parent’s whole vacation.
She feels horrible about it, she does. But Miranda is always like this- blowing up over things that can’t be changed. That they don’t have control over.
“No. You don’t get to blame her- this isn’t her fault Miranda! Thinking anything else is absolutely insane. Do you think she wanted this, planned this?”
He’s right, she shouldn’t feel guilty, but she does. She can hear the sadness in her father’s voice, the desperation of trying to get her step mother to calm down.
It’s been like this for months, the back and forth- the fighting.
She knows their marriage has been on the rocks for months now, that her dad thought maybe just maybe going on this trip could be the beginning of starting to fix things.
Their marriage couldn’t be fixed. She knew it, they knew it, but no one would admit it.
“No! I’m tired of that spoiled ungrateful brat ruining everything. This is your fucking fault Blake,” She stumbles out, the drunk mess starting to show in her voice, in the way she speaks.
Ada’s blood boils at that, and with one swift motion her hand is opening her bedroom door before she even knows what she’s doing.
Her dad told her not to get involved, not to come out, that he would deal with it.
Knowing that while Ada was nothing like her mother, they both shared the same fire in their eyes when someone hurt them, when someone lied about them, lied to them.
“Stop! Just stop! You yell and you wine and complain about me ruining everything when at the end of the day this is your fucking fault! All of it!” She screams at Miranda, eyes lit with rage- face full of anger.
“You little bitch,” comes screaming out from Miranda.
Before she knows what’s happening, before her dad can stop it, protect her, something is flying towards her, and then she’s bleeding, and her dad is yelling, screaming at Miranda, grabbing his phone frantically as he rushes to her side, holding something against her.
She doesn’t remember much after that, doesn’t remember the ambulance, doesn’t remember how much work they had to do to get TMZ to get rid of that 911 call, doesn’t remember the hospital, just remembers waking up in her grandmas house a week later, a walking zombie of herself.
Later her therapist would tell her it was a “coping mechanism” that her brain was just; “trying to protect her.” That maybe it was okay that she didn’t remember.
But somewhere deep inside of her, she wants to, wants to remember it all. Wants to share the same memory that her father does. The same pain.
She does, in some ways.
He got the house in the divorce, but it didn’t matter. They both refused to go back, to see the broken bottle pieces and blood splattered against the wall.
She remembers that. Knows that, no matter how much scrubbing they did it would never erase the fear, the violence that occurred that night.
They had the movers pack up the house and send it to her grandmothers.
She remembers the sight, crying over her childhood packed up into boxes that stood what felt like miles high in her grandmothers house. Remembers crying against her father’s hard chest as she apologized over and over again about how sorry she was, about how she was sorry she couldn’t go back.
Remembers how he just held her, let her cry, then spent the next week reassuring her it wasn’t her fault. None of it was.
April 2015
The new season of the voice was starting, nine, she thought.
She wanted to support her dad, be there for him, go to LA, see Adam, see Pharrell, and Gwen.
But she couldn’t. She was stuck, stuck cooped up in her grandmas house paralyzed in her makeshift room, reliving the past month over and over again.
“Ada. We have to start moving on. I know this is hard but your therapist-“
She slaps her dad’s hand away as he tries to tuck a hair behind her ear, and she can immediately see the hurt in his eyes.
She hates herself then. Realizes she shouldn’t be mad at him, but she is- she’s just mad. Angry, all the time.
She shouldn’t be mad at him, doesn’t want to be mad at him, but she is. He is the one that married her after all.
“I’m sorry,” her lips quiver as she speaks and Blake pulls her as close as he possibly can as he crouches next to her bed.
“It’s okay sweetheart.” He hushes into her hair, his hand finding her back and drawing soothing motions as she cries into him.
“I want to go dad, I do, I just- I’m not ready to. I want to stay with grandma here in Oklahoma. I’m not ready, I’m not ready to let go.”
So she stays. He goes, flying back and forth in-between filming and meetings. He waits, and gives her time, because just like him; he knows he needs time too.
July 2015
The news breaks, while they’ve been apart since the “incident”, It’s everywhere she looks. They’re divorced, the house is sold- the assets are separated.
She wants to believe this is a new chapter, the next step. But everywhere she looks she’s reminded of everything she’s lost. Everything they’ve lost, everything they’ve been through.
“They’re saying you cheated.” Ada states one night flatly, while sitting across her father at the dinner table.
“Ada…” He cautions, but she’s already rilled up, and he knows anything he says will just add fuel to the fire.
“SHE cheated, and then YOU tried to make it work, but noooo, it was never enough for her was it? Then she fucking assaulted me-“ It’s not long after that she’s quickly cut off by her father.
“Ada. Language.” She knows it’s not just her choice of words he’s scolding her for, and she sighs as she drops her fork back down to her plate- no longer interested in her dinner.
“I’m tired of living a lie dad. Her fans, everyone, they wouldn’t be supporting her if they knew what she did.” Her voice is small now, and she subconsciously runs a finger along the new found scar on her forehead, the one the matches the deep wound on her upper right forearm that still hasn’t managed to heal all the way yet.
Shes recently out of the cast, but it’s still foreign to her, looking down and remembering everything that happened, everything she had lost.
Miranda was never a good mother to her by any means, but she still was the other mother figure she had ever had.
“Ada?” Her eyes lift back up from her plate, and she suddenly realizes her father’s been talking and she’s been just staring.
Her psychiatrist warned her it could be part of the side effects of the new anti depressants, the numbness. The zoning out. At this point though, she’s not sure if they’ll ever go away- if she’ll ever recover from the trauma she’s been through.
“Honey, you have to understand that we just can’t-“ her father’s words don’t register to her, and she goes back to staring at her plate. She knows he’s talking, but she’s just not willing to listen.
August 2015
“You’re coming to LA with me. We’ve already started to move things to the new house.” It’s not a question, but a statement. Her father’s voice is stern, and she knows he’s not going to break.
She’s heard the rumors, seen the tabloids.
Gwen’s marriage ended. Then there was a shift in her dad. Suddenly he wasn’t so doom and gloom all the time, his mood was better, he looked like he was doing- well, better.
“We can’t keep doing this Ada. You’re coming to LA with me and this is not up for discussion. I’m not just going to let you wallow in you depression anymore, it’s time we move on.”
“Just because you’ve moved on and found some new whore to fuck doesn’t mean you get to drag me away from my home. I’m not fucking going.”
She regrets it when she says it. But she doesn’t care. She slams the door to her room regardless, locks the door, falls to the floor, and just cries, and cries for hours.
He’s still there when she opens the door again, back against the wall adjacent to her door, eyes slightly closed.
“Tell me about her.” She finally says after a moment, startling her father as his eyes flutter open and he darts up.
“What?” He seems genuinely confused, so she sighs.
“Tell me about Gwen. I want to know what’s going on.”
September 2015
September rolls around quickly. Too quickly she thinks, and while things are getting better, it’s still not enough.
It had been six months since the “incident” as they called it, and she still didn’t know how to feel.
Her dad was moving on- fast it seemed, and while he had assured her they weren’t dating and they were just two friends going through similar things, she knew he was lying. It was more than that, she could tell, and he knew she could see through his lies. She always did.
Therapy was going good, school was starting soon. (She had opted for online because she just wasn’t ready to face LA school), and she genuinely was doing better.
So she went, she hadn’t been back to the set since months before the divorce, but it felt good- to be back. She had spent so much time here over the last few years, watching her father do what he did best. It just felt right to be back.
Adam had came over and visited as soon as she had landed in L.A, but regardless- as soon as she had stepped into the studio he was dashing towards her and wrapping her in a hug. “Ada, my girl.”
His words were gentle, and she hugged him back, hoping to delay the inevitable.
He dragged her off to go see Pharrell, assumingely to give her father time to go see Gwen and give her the run down.
She loved her non uncle, uncle and spent the next hour talking and catching up on life, until suddenly there she was, baby on her hip, emerging from her trailer with her father in tow.
It’s not like she hadn’t met Gwen before, she had, one season before this. But this felt different, was different. Her dad was seeing her, and while he refused to admit it- she was his girlfriend, and she was his daughter who had disappeared off the planet for the past five months.
She knew everyone had been wondering where she was, what was happening, but they had made a plan- agreed to tell no one but Adam what really happened, and instead just settled on “she’s just spending some time with her grandma in Oklahoma, the divorce has been really hard on her.”
Sudden small hands on her legs and a tiny voice drawls her out of her thoughts.
“Hi, i’mwe Apollo,” he pops his o’s as he stares directly into her eyes, like he’s trying to somehow wiggle his way into her mind. “What’s your name?” He asks after a second, and when she doesn’t immediately answer he holds out the stuffed elephant in his hands. “This is Greg. My brothers say it’s a silly name but I like it!”
The three year old tells her proudly, stumbling over his words here and there and still not quite having the right pronunciation of things yet down yet- but it’s cute. Maybe dealing with Gwen won’t be that bad, after all she’s always loved kids.
October 2015
“I saw your performance on the tonight show, people are going to start saying thinks you know dad- you can see it, in the way you look at her.”
She announced one night in the kitchen, causing Blake to momentarily pause putting the dishes away as he looked up to find his daughter no longer focused on her homework.
“I like her. She’s okay.” She admits, and then turns back to her homework as if the conversation never happened.
October ends quickly, and November began the “official” start of their relationship.
December 2015, current day.
She hates this time of year. When she was younger she loved it, loved the joy and happiness it brought her- but this year, this Christmas; all she can think about is what happened last year, and everything that followed suit after.
How they’re Christmas was filled with fighting and yelling, how she had ended up at her grandmas house crying her eyes out. How three months later their marriage had been broken up.
“Ada, honey- come help me put this last touch on the tree.” Blake pleaded to her, and while she wanted to give in so badly to the desperation in his voice, the couch felt safer, she felt better afar from the Christmas decorations, from what was supposed to be a “merry time” in her life.
So she just shook her head, sunk deeper into the couch and pulled her blanket up over her body.
Some Christmas movie was playing on the TV, one she used to like when she was younger, but she was too lost in her own thoughts to even care.
Christmas this year wasn’t going to be the same. They were in LA instead of Oklahoma, and sure her grandma would be flying in the twenty-third, but it still didn’t feel right. Didn’t feel like she deserved to be here, celebrating. Didn’t feel like home.
Blake just sighed, and reluctantly set down the last ornament on the coffee table.
He didn’t want to push, didn’t want to break her again when she was so close to healing. So he let it go, and simply plopped down on the couch next to her.
She adjusted herself as her father’s body slammed against the couch, lifted her legs, let him set them in his lap, let him sit there, his warm body comforting in the presence of her mind.
“You know Gwen, she mentioned this thing.”
Ada raises her eyebrows, curious as to what her father’s sudden change in topic is about.
“She’s throwing a party next week, she’s invited everyone from the show. I thought it could be fun, if you wanted to go.”
While the news had already broken that yes indeed, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani were indeed an item, it was still an odd concept to her. That her father was dating, moving on, and she felt stuck in the past.
She ponders it again for a moment, shrugging her shoulders and the gears in her brain shift.
Blake can see it in her face immediately, in the same way he pulls his eyebrows together when he’s thinking hard.
She’d been to one of Gwen’s parties before, near the end of season seven. It was fun, it was good, but it wasn’t a Christmas party.
She thinks again how she’d love to see her uncle Adam, how things had gotten so busy and crazy over the past few months that she hadn’t made time to see him.
How Pharrell would probably be there, how she loved him as well.
“I don’t know. Maybe, it could be fun I guess. But I’m not sure.” She admits after a few moments, voice small and frail.
“Just think about it kiddo, you don’t have to. I just thought I’d put it out there.” Blake softly says back, squeezing at her ankles when she refuses to meet his eyes.
“I don’t like Christmas anymore.” Ada admits after a few minutes of silence.
“I know.” Comes back from her dad. A statement, not a judgment, a silent agreement that he too, shares the same sentiment. “I’m sorry the last two weren’t great, but that’s going to change now Ada. I promise, no more BS.”
She wants to believe him, wants to hope that maybe it actually would be better this year now that she who shall not be named was gone, but it just didn’t feel right, celebrating.
“I’ll think about it.” She finally says, eyes pinned to the TV.
“Good. Now come here, let’s watch this stupid movie together.” Ada grins at that, shifts, and suddenly she’s at her dad’s side, cuddled up to him like she did when she was a child, feeling safe.
“Love you kid.” Comes mumbled into her hair after a few moments of silence between them.
“I love you too dad,” Ada says, head pressing further against his chest as tears start to well in her eyes. “I promise I’m trying my best. I really am.”
“I know baby, I know you are, and I’m so damn proud of you.” He tells her, arms wrapping tighter around her small frame.
And they sit like that, long past the credits rolling on the screen, both hoping that maybe- just maybe, this really will be a turning point for them.