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gunmetalarchived · 3 years

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after the fight with @consultingsister ft. @diabolicaltendencies @epiitaphs @theasteriae

SEVERIN After the X-rays, and making sure his brother finally got seen to, Severin hadn’t known what to do with himself. With his misplaced anger and grief. Whilst he was busy, it had been easy to ignore. He had a job to do, and as director of the Hospital, he had to handle the situation. Avoiding Sam had been easy, with the man so distracted by every other player in the over-dramatic series of events. The problem came after the work day ended. And he had stoped to asses the worst of the damages. Something on his chest didn’t feel right. He hadn’t peeled back his shirt to have a proper look yet. There were scars covering black eye that looked a little impressive by now. Sebastian as going to be stuck in overnight, and Severin wasn’t sure they could even have a real conversation about what had happened if he wanted to. He left the hospital to stop the awkward questions, dodging the gossip as he walked home to his small flat south of the river. But his feet didn’t take him there. He followed the rhythm of step after step, numbly heading out across the city. He moved through the funeral numb. He moved through Jasper’s recovery numb. In all honestly, he couldn’t even remember the last time he had said her name. Had he been avoiding using it? On some subconscious level, that had to be a piece of it. Since the phone call, he had to keep running at a hundred miles an hour, breaking his neck to save the next person who needed him. It couldn’t happen again. The number of the building wasn’t even on the outside, this place was so fancy. He was almost stopped by the doorman, probably based on the dishevelled state he was wandering around in. Severin headed for the stars in order to avoid his questions too.

Royally fucking up didn’t even cover it. He was going to be fired, or suspended. He could live with either of those but lashing out at his wounded cousin who clearly wasn’t in a fit mental state to know the impact of his actions? It ate him alive from the inside. He felt the hot tears welling in his eyes, even as he tried to push them away and figure out which door was hers. He should go. The door opened before he could knock, almost certainly the worried doorman had called up. ‘ I-“ The lump in his throat stopped him immediately, the sight of her both taking his breath away and landing another blow. In all the chaos, it had completely slipped his mind. He was supposed to meet her at the pub by UCL four hours ago. He was fucked that up too. “ I-“ He tried again, his voice cracking this time as he couldn’t keep up his fight. A few tears began rolling down his cheeks, trying to regain control of the situation. “I’m sorry.”

CEE She wasn’t mad at him. This is how their lives were. Cee had even been prepared, bringing along her iPad and a book. In the two hours she waited she’d had three glasses of wine and got all her emails done. She had also finished the book she started over a month ago. It was even a little nice. Sure, dinner with Sev would have been nicer but it was like she was on a date with herself; something she hadn’t done in a couple years. Eventually, she had phoned. The haven’t you heard reply when she asked where they thought Sev might be didn’t worry her. It wasn’t the hasn’t someone told you that nurses give when a family member is in a coma and no one thought to call the brother. It was gossip. A tone of delight. If she was honest, she didn’t believe the receptionist. Alright, she fully believed that Sebastian and Sebastian had a punch up outside but thought there was some miscommunication. It tended to happen. Hospital chinese whispers. Severin had been there when it started, maybe got hit in a crossfire but he didn’t actually throw a punch. But the story seemed to have been verified by an eyewitness on her cigarette break and Tonya was dating on of the security guys so it seemed to be all true. Sev had been fighting. On her slow walk home, she half convinced herself that this was some sort of odd reaction to them getting back together. Sev taking out anxiety about commitment sort of thing. But by the time she had gotten home, she had decided to stop thinking so selfishly and order enough chinese for two and put on Some Like It Hot. Not a film you can stay annoyed while watching. The call from the lobby didn’t surprise her. She fixed her hair to make sure he would feel truly bad about it all and then met him at the door. Only he didn’t look like he could feel much worse. “Come here,” she coos, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as she hugs him, still in the hall. “What have you been doing to yourself, you idiot.”

SEVERIN He hardly beloved what had happened, and it was his own fist that had made contact with Sebastian Morans jaw. The second he felt the arms of her embrace, his body wracked with hot and heavy sobs. He didn’t cry like this. Even through the worst of loosing their child. He held strong for Cee and mourned for what could have been, but he hadn’t been through it alone. He could sleep at night knowing they had both given it all they could, and sometimes it just wasn’t meant to be. As their relationship started to fall into pieces around them, he could console himself that the time they had shared was worth every heartbreak. In private, he’d shed a tear. But his chest aches, not from the black and blue bruising that was starting to pull to the surface but with what he had let himself become. He didn’t recognise this person. Angry, tired and selfish. “I-“ He tried to talk but he wasn’t in a fit state to say much. Her kindness was making it all worse. He didn’t deserve it. “I fucked up. I’m sorry, I’m just so sorry.” What was he sorry for? All of it. Loosing her, moving away, pulling her back in, hurting his family... it was all his fault.

CEE Ask Cee and she will tell you that she doesn’t like men who cry. If they can articulate their emotions from time to time, she was happy. But Sev was pretty much always the exception from the rule. He was the nice guy who treated her right, a break between all the guys who fucked her over for their own amusement. He was a genuinely good person, the sort of person who made her look pretty evil in comparison. Her grip was tighter shoulders his shoulders and she turned her head to kiss his neck, whispering into his ear. “Shh, stop it, you don’t need to be sorry, come on, get inside.” The doctor pulls back but doesn’t let go of him, gently pulling him inside and then closing the door behind him. “Here, look,” she picks up a box of tissues and points towards the sofa. “Go, sit, I’ll get you something to drink and something to eat and you can tell me what the hell happened today.” She didn’t wait around to guide him to a seat, instead going to collect two crystal glasses, a whiskey bottle and left over take out. Cecelia’s home didn’t have a lived in feel and yet it was very Cee. There were pictures, mostly ones Mary had insisted on putting up, even one of Sev somewhere but the style was modern, almost clinical. Admittedly, between being at work and staying with friends, she didn’t spend much time at home. “Take this,” she ordered him about like a patient taking medicine. The whiskey was a smooth gold; only the very best. “What the fuck, Sev?”

SEVERIN Her grip hurt, but he hardly noticed. He was making so much of a fuss in the hall, he was an idiot. He should go, work this out and pick it all away where it wouldn’t hurt him anymore. The problem was that he let hisself be lead over the threshold of her door, into her home. He tried to wipe the worst of the saltwater onto his filthy cuffs, covered jn died blood and gravel mostly. He hadn’t really changed once his sprint from the car, too distracted by everyone around him. Putting himself last until he didn’t have a choice anymore. He moved to perch nervously on the edge of the sofa, ignoring the tissues as his eyes darted nervously around the room. His vision was too blurred to take in his surroundings clearly, his tired eyes puffy from both the blow to his face and the tears. He was too tried to argue against orders, and took the whisky to awkwardly drum his fingers against. His breath were still deep as he fought to stay calm. “I lost it. I don’t even know what I was thinking- I-I wasn’t thinking I just... I couldn’t stop it, even if I wanted to it’s-“ His mind jumped around from reasons to excuse without letting him bridge the gap between the two. He carried on trying to pull steady breaths through his nose and out his mouth, only pausing to take a sip from his glass. “He didn’t mean it- I know he didn’t. But he said that stupid thing about the crash and I couldn’t stop.”

CEE The crash. A delicate subject and somewhat unwalked territory for Sev and Celia. Cee had visited Jasper in hospital now long after, word of mouth had got back to her. She shifted somewhat uncomfortably, her knees pressing against his as she turned to face him. She kept her own whiskey clasped between two hands. “Who did... Bash?” Cee knew the three key-players in today’s little drama and doubted Seb would bring up the crash, let alone saying something stupid about it. “Listen... I’m not saying violence is the answer here but I feel like Bash deserves a punch to the face now and again. Hell, even I have thumped his arm for comments about my skirt length.” She tried to inject some humour into the moments but she could feel it falling flat before it even left her mouth. She changed track and instead reached out to take one of his arms. “Losing it every once in a while is... that’s okay. What did, what did he say?”

SEVERIN He could barely even look at her. He brought the glass to his lips again, still trying desperately to count his breaths. In for 7. Out for 11. Just like every panicking patient he had treated. Maybe he would be able to stop the pounding of his heart and how it seemed to hammer away in his eardrums like crazy. Finally, after what left like a lifetime but was probably closer to thirty seconds, he gave a curt nod. It had to be the polarisation of what he was feeling and what she was saying, but he couldn’t help but laugh at her comment even in his state. “Wouldn’t recommend it, honestly.” Partly due to his reaction, partly due to the swelling in his fingers that didn’t want to go down. Her touch was more welcome than she could know. And yet he dodged her question entirely, possibly not even aware he was doing so. “I’m sorry. I meant to be there tonight, I really did and I show up all... I don’t know.”

CEE She herself gives a shrug, as if it was nothing. “Would we really be top quality doctors if we didn’t forget about our personal lives?” Another joke, another smile, she can’t help herself. She spends her days with panicking mother’s and new-dad’s pretending they’re big strong men when in reality, they just need a strong coffee and a hug. You adopt a only semi-serious demeanour after that. Everything is fine, everything is okay, even when it’s not. Without really thinking, she leans forward so her forehead is almost touching the side of his head and hen flicks up her nose. It’s a vintage move of hers, she used to do it on Sunday mornings. It was a hey and a what are you thinking all in one, without really asking. It felt right but her stomach squeezed uncomfortably as if she had done the wrong thing. Passionate sex I his office is one thing but this is real intimacy. “I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to be okay.”

SEVERIN Cecelia was right. She was always right. They hadn’t always shared a love of career and each other, he understood completely when he had to take a back seat to her ambition. He would never, and could never resent her for that. In fact, it was one of the reasons he adored her. Her drive, her comparative nature, it kept Severin on his toes. He wanted to be a better person to be with her. And yet he’d let himself down. The gentle press against his forehead was like a leap back in time, enough to make him fight tears all over again. Trying to love as little as possible, he set his glass down and reached for her waist, as if to pull her into his lap. Any distance between them was too far. It had been pent up frustration that pulled them together again, the issue was that this was something real. Tangible familiarity so bitter sweet it could hurt. He shook his head against hers a little, his brow furrowing. “I’m not sure if I can tell you that.” He had to do it. He had to say her bloody name. Just once. “He said if he’d been there, maybe Alex and the baby, they’d...” he couldn’t finish that sentence any more than his cousin had. Because the worst part was, he could have been right. “I should have been there. I should have been here.”

CEE She gives a sigh of frustration, maybe even annoyance, tinged with amusement. “That Basher Moran is really something else.” She thought she knew his type. She chose medicine because it was prestigious, rewarding, exciting! He chose medicine, for lack of a better word, because he liked being the guy who swooped in and saved the day. “Superman wannabe...” she snorted, finishing her thought out loud. Cee followed Sev’s lead, lifting one leg over his and straddling him with both knees by his side. This was an excellent manhadinging position. Easy to grab his jaw, make him look into her eyes and hear what an idiot he was being for still feeling this way. She didn’t though. Instead, she pushes his hair back, over and over, almost absent mindedly. “You weren’t though,” she says, simply. “And we don’t have the ability to see into the alternative universe that you were. For all you know, it could have been ten times worse.” Her hand drops, as do her eyes. This time, she does pull up his chin. “Are you going to spend the rest of your life wishing you change the past and... miss changing the future? That’s your life plan, Sev? That’s fucking rubbish.”21 October 2020

SEVERIN A smile graced his face again, glad to have her in his arms. Glad to have someone who could cut through the mess inside of his busy head. Severin had never been much good at battling his own thoughts, he acted first and just had to live with the consequences. Every part of him was as reckless as his late sister, and his older brother. If a little less openly self destructive. With her fingers taking softly though his hair, he started to focus on her eyes. He blinked once, twice, as Cee questioned him directly. For all her sympathy, he hadn’t expected it. Lulled into a false sense of security, this was what she probably planned all along. “But I should have been.” He couldn’t let it go. Not when he saw the effect ricochet across his life. He shook his head again, small and unsure in the face of her confrontation. His life plan had gone out of the window the second she hadn’t been there- mainly because his entire plan had consisted of following her to the end of the earth. “I’m trying. I’m here. I came back. But what use am I starting fights instead of preventing them? He’s... he’s not well and I was treating him, Cee.”

CEE Cee can’t say she doesn’t understand. On bad nights, after losing a patient, or sometimes when a patient gets to walk out of the hospital with their new bundle of joy, Celia replays the hours and days before losing their baby. An odd pain there, a sip of wine she was told not to have, a m moment that she knew something wasn’t quite right and yet did nothing. What if she had done something. What if, what if. And then it’s 5am and she is putting her own life, and her patience life, in danger because she hasn’t slept with thirty-six hours. She walked around the halls like a zombie, fretting over something she could never actually change. “Before you came back, Sherlock came in to hospital. Massive OD, still says it was an accident. It was... touch and go for a couple hours. Actually, it was some sor to miracle he came through it. And the first thing I did when he wake up... was hit him. He made some stupid comment about heaven being more clinical than he imagined and I lost it wit him. I think I pulled out of one his tubes, a nurse had to pull me off of him.” Her eyes gleam with unshed tears and yet she smiles like she’s recalling a funny memory; it was funny. After all that, they brought him back just so Cee could kill him.

“My point is,” she clears her throat, “I spend my whole day being calm, level headed and professional. Cold, even. I am with mothers... with parents at the very beginning of their magical journey and they usually come to me when it’s all going wrong. However, it is not my job to b calm, level headed and professional when it’s my brother. When it’s someone I love. That’s why there are rules, that’s why we don’t treat family. Because... if you had been there, if Bash had been there, you would not have been calm. He would not have been calm. He might have even lost Jasper too. So thank fuck you weren’t there. Thank god, it was calm, level headed, professional doctors, doing their best work to save your little brother. But we don’t save them all Sev, you know that as well as I do. We can’t save everyone.”

SEVERIN It was putting too much out there to admit the last time he had a solid nights sleep in his own bed had been the last night they spent together before it fell apart. He often found himself int he on call room, or hidden on the couch in Sams office, even with his flat less than a twenty minute run away. He might go home and change, although he was far more likely to shower at the office and just find yet another clean pair of scrubs to cover up the fact he was burning the candle at both ends. Abroad there was always an excuse to keep going a little longer, although with an extremely qualified staff, he had no excuses now. Severin listened intently, pushing the stray hairs off of her cheek and letting his hand linger there. He didn’t know. It wasn’t like her brothers spoke to him anymore. Sherlock had always been... tricky. “Sounds like he had it coming, giving you a scare like that.” He pushed against her forehead, closing his eyes to mimic her gesture with his nose. God, it was like they were teenagers again. Her scent, her touch, it was grounding. “You’re right. You always are, it just doesn’t stop...” He couldn’t save everyone. He let the silence had for a moment before he carried on. “I miss her.” He had to learn to process his grief, and not let it explode out of him. Especially with Bash in such a fragile state. “I don’t think I’ve been in a fight with Seb since... I’m actually not sure I’ve been in a fight? Does the scuffle outside the Cock Inn count?”

CEE “Nah, everyone scuffles outside the Cock Inn,” she waved her hand as if she was waving away the very idea. It’s been such a long time since someone touched her like this but with Sev, it was like falling back into an old routine. Her leg goes there, his hand goes there. They slid into a position every time. Two halves creating a whole. It throws her off to hear Sev even alluding to the existence of Alex. For the most part, she avoided bringing up the subject of family, for either of them. Things were never less complicated just because you loved them. “Do you remember that time I let her do my hair? And she held the straighteners in too long and it burnt? My first ever bob.” She talks like this was some fond memory, which it was now, although at the time it was pretty traumatic. Celia had had long flowing hair since she was twelve; having to suddenly cut it too her shoulders had been horrible. “What do you miss the most about her?”

SEVERIN “That was your fault, you saw her hair and thought of course this girl knows what she’s doing. Yeah right. I thought you looked pretty sexy with a bob, if that matters.” It shouldn’t matter, he was very much a biased opinion. The corners of his mouth lifted in an soft smirk, his body growing still now he was comfortable enough to just breathe in sink with her. Calm. At peace. He closed his eyes, they tightened a little as he tried to remember the bitter parts of his difficult relationship with his younger sister. Not that Alex had an easy relationship with well... anyone. “It sound mad, but the rows she used to have. That house is just- it’s eerie now.” He hadn’t been back since the Christmas after the funeral, always finding an excuse to avoid being in his childhood home. It was hard to see the place in a state of cold absence. With a heavy breath, he found something brighter to hold onto. “She used to sit up on the roof with Seb and I, just blaring records and smoking where mum couldn’t complain. She knew all the words to every one, she thought it was Seb who had the half decent taste. No idea that mans totally tone deaf. They were all mine- well, one or two stolen from dad but she found them his side of the room and just assumed...” He had never once corrected her. He couldn’t take that away, that adoration for their oldest brother who was her hero. He was fine with it really, as long as he got to share the summer evenings on the roof in the fading daylight. “When you were pregnant, she appointed herself the baby’s music teacher. She was going to make sure that kid had ‘style’ apparently.”

CEE “I’d never had the chance to be a big sister before, it was exciting!” She gives a whine that becomes a laugh. Cee had never had a want to be a big sister until she met Alex. Jasper was easy, over eager kid who appreciated anyone who treated him like a person, not a baby. Alex had to be talked into liking Cee. “I had to prove to her that I wasn’t just another nerd for her brother’s class. I had style, I was cool. Right up until I got pregnant... suddenly, mum, no style.” She laughs again but can’t quiet keep it up. The baby for Cee is much like Alex for Sev. An open wound, better not to prod at it too much. “She... I think she was the only person who didn’t treat me like glass after, you know? I don’t know, I was so ashamed to see your family after, like-- like I’d fucked it all up and everyone was so nice. I couldn’t-- well she still treated me like I was me. Asked if she was still her it’s godmother anyway.” It was hard to place herself in Sev’s position; losing a younger sibling. She is Alex in her family. Two doting older brothers. She knows that Mycroft feels a certain levl of responsibility for his younger brothers that Celia doesn’t. Myc had always been a grown up, no need to baby him. “What do you think she would be doing now? In some sort of rock band?”

SEVERIN Alex Moran had always had a mind of her own. Screaming until she was called Petya, biting teachers, breaking every rule she had been set and then some. No one, with the occasional exception of Seb who she had a special soft spot for, would be cool enough. Cool for her was not caring at all. She was effortless in her style and her rebellion, a born hellraiser. The more his kind lingered, the more he ached to see her again. He wasn’t going to break the illusion that Cee had of her, because in all truth Alex probably didn’t know how to treat someone like glass. “Cheeky fucker.” Severin shook his head a little, knowing he’d missed the toughest year with her. “Hmmmm, maybe. She talked about joining the army, even though mum was dead set against it. Even started to dry out a bit.” One of the last nights he had as holding her hair back, watching the absolute state she had worked herself into with bloodied fists on the edge of alcohol poisoning. “I don’t think sitting still was ever an option.”

CEE “I can only assume your mother telling her no would push her towards it.” Celia had never known a real parental-child relationship until she came into the Moran family. They seem to all take up their parts in a play; Sev the golden boy, Alex the daughter who couldn’t help but hate her mother. It was hard to imagine Celia ever fighting with Violet. If she went by what Mycroft said about their mother, Violet had never shouted in her entire life. Cee didn’t remember her father raising her voice that often either; he never needed to. “You know, I was half terrified we could have an Alex. Loved her to bits, obviously--” Cee smirks again. “But she kinda of scared me.”

SEVERIN “Absolutely. If mum had said yes, I bet she would have stayed at school out of spite.” He felt her breath on his face and lent forwards just enough to press a kiss to her cheek. But then he blinked. And blinked again just to be sure. “Have?” It was probably a drunken slip of the tongue, almost nothing. The issue was that nothing could be the ticket to exactly what he dreamed of. “I don’t blame you, she was terrifying. I don’t envy dad. But then imagine if we had a tiny know it all like you, well, I’m not sure I’d stand a chance.”

CEE Her smile is starting to get weaker. Her laugh sounds more like a sigh. Cee was never sure if she really regretted the miscarriage. That’s what made it worse. She half convinced herself that she had sent bad vibes to the baby. Not she told Sev this. She didn’t tell Sev very much after that. At least she knew she regretted that. It just felt as if she had given too much to him, let him get too close, allowed herself to be swayed from the goal. How was a baby going to help her make chief-of-surgery by thirty-five? Things had shifted in her mind since then; she had time to grow up a little bit. But she couldn’t say she had ever really dealt with that trauma, just learned to live with it. Forced herself to face it everyday and usually beat it. Saved mothers, healthy babies; everything she couldn’t have for herself she tried to give. “Do you think we would have actually made it? Young, dumb medical students with a baby. Happily married with dreams jobs? I just don’t-- didn’t see that. I think I would have resented you. And baby. I think-- I would have ruined it some other way. You would be a cute single dad though, all the nurses would fancy you. Proper superman. With the bitch of an ex-wife.”

SEVERIN Bringing it up was a stupid move, he should have left it. Except despite her fallen face, she didn't brush him off or freeze him out. There was room here to try and discuss the topic like adults, so long as he didn't push too firm. He pulled away just enough to get a better look at her face, not kissing Cee again simply to give her the chance to speak if she wanted to. "The job was your dream, you wanted it. It isn't mine. It's a means to an end." He could be changing plasters as a nurse in a primary school for all he really cared. He didn't need the title, or the accolades. If anything, they made it worse. Earning the approval of the board meant he was putting politics before patients, and that couldn't sit right with him. He didn't fault her for being ambitious, in fact he adored it about her. But she had to understand that this wasn't the be all and end all. He would sacrifice it in seconds, and already had more than once today with his stupid choices. Her comment about divorce aught him off guard. If she saw it ending in flames then... "Do you want to do this? A second go, I mean? I'm not... if you don't see it, why give me the chance?"

CEE Cee doesn’t ever remember having a conversation with her family about work v. home life. Morland worked twenty-four hours a day but it was more out of necessity than choice. And he never pitied his wife for wanting to spend all her days with her children. Someone have said Morland’s worldview had some sexist undertones but he raised his children all the same and Celia doubted he would have raised an eyebrow if Mycroft suddenly stepped down from his senior position to raise kids. Although, it would be very odd. But she knew, through his mask of delight, that Morland was disappointed when Celia got pregnant. That she was cutting her abilities short. Raising children is a fine pursuit, he might have said, but compared to medicine? Even she, who was witness to the magic of childbirth and parenthood every other day couldn’t compare the two. “No-- I mean then. I mean-- when we were kids pretending we weren’t. I had my mind on one thing and one thing only back then. That’s not-- I mean it’s still a little true but only because I don’t have anything else. If there was someone else...” she presses her lips together, then leans in to bump her nose against his. “I missed you. I never stopped missing you but I’d glad I had that time to grow by myself. I don’t think I was a very nice person when we broke up.”

SEVERIN Cecelia had every right to think they were children, pretending. The problem lay in that this man, this shadow of his former self, it was more of a mask than the happy father to be. The Severin of seven or eight years ago was effortless, probably a little naive but it was easier to smile. Easier to trust people. Far easier to sleep at night. A hum escaped his lips. “Hey- hey you’ve got me. You always have me.” And she would. “Whatever this ends up like... you’re stuck with me now.” In all truth, she wasn’t a nice person when they broke up. Whether that was intentional or not, he had been playing along like they might be able to fix things far longer than a sane man should have. From where he stood now though, he could only see it with rose tinted glasses. “I don’t regret any of it. I’d say I’d do it again in a heartbeat but I’m already here.” He pulled away, checking the time on his watch with a heavy sigh. “I should check in with Sam. Or downstairs. Sebs on observation overnight, he’ll need a change and a toothbrush or something..” He is noted the deeply purple finger on his hand, and the aches from beneath his shirt that still went unchecked. The near thirty hours without sleep was evident on his face, and yet his work was never finished.

CEE “That’s a lot of commitment for a first date.” Her grin suggested she didn’t mind. There was no taking it slow for them; it had been a ten year wait, filling time really. Her eyes followed his to his watch but she whined, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his head into his chest. “Don’t go. I can call Sam, I won’t get drawn into it. You can stay here and I can help with your face.” The doctor pulled back to inspect, holding onto his chin and tilting his head to either side, with a little more force than she would with one of her real patience. “You know... you kind of suit a black eye. Kinda sexy.”

SEVERIN “Good thing I’m not worried about scaring you off” There wasn’t going to be an in between for them. It just wasn’t an option. Even when it came to sex, they knew each other too well just to stop at the physical. Even the failed attempt at dancing around the point was stupid, in hindsight. He winced, but pressed against her anyways. God, we wanted to say yes. “Maybe. I think it’s safe to say this isn’t going to go away quietly.” His mind related backed to his friends crushed, confused face. Yet another thing to feel bad for. He always gave Sam the benefit of the doubt, it was why he needed him as the second opinion. He had acted so coldly that even Moira would be proud of him. He didn’t fight as he was examined, drawing a breath through his teeth. “Don’t get used to it, I’ve learnt my lesson. I’m getting extra security guards whenever Bash is on duty.”

CEE “I don’t scare off easy,” she nods. After one last kiss to the forehead, she steps off of him, her long giraffe legs moving with improbable grace. There is a joke around the hospital that Celia is 90% legs and it was a mystery as to how her legs held up her brain. And her ego but no one said that to her face. “Listen, take a breath, take a drink. I’ll call Sam and get an update, and then check the nurse group chat and get a real update.” Maybe ask Mary too, for a woman who pretend to be above it all she always knows everything. She moves back into the kitchen and returns with her phone in one hand an ice pack in the other. “Knuckles or eyes first? I think I’d go for the eye.”

SEVERIN The second she had left his lap, Severin leant forwards to grab his glass and take a sip from his drink again. He tried to stretch the swollen fingers, the purple one looked the worst but nothing felt broken. He very much wasn’t in the mood to fight anymore. “You shouldn’t tell him I’m here.” It was too long winded to get into, and realistically the American was going to put the pieces together himself. But give Sams very valid opinion that Severin couldn’t be objective around his... (ex? That didn’t sound right?) around her, it wasn’t the best idea to give him grounds for concern. “Oh god, the nurses know?” Of course they did, but the reality that it had hit the level of the nurses group chat made his stomach sink. And, it reminded him why he had been pulled up in front of the board in the first place. The fact no one was getting a raise this year was going to play wonderfully in their eyes. “How about neither, and we just let the ground swallow me while instead?”

CEE “That’s who I heard it from like two hours ago; the nurses know everything.” She handed over the ice pack and placed the phone to her ear, sitting on top of Sev again. “Why, are we a secret?” She covered the receiver as she spoke but the call rung out to voicemail anyway. “If we’re going to sneak around, you’ll have to let me know, because I’ll have to redo my whole wardrobe to accommodate-- not single but trying to look single, ease of getting in and out of and heel height for kisses.” Cee placed the phone back to her ear as it began ringing again and on the fourth ring, an American voice greeted her less than enthusiastically. “Hey you,” she used her sing-song voice, over twenty years of getting daddy to give her what she wanted, made men melt. “What’s the gossip? Heard there was a punch up?” It takes ten minutes of lectures about gossiping and how it’s a serious matter before Cee decides she should have just checked the group chat. She even gets off Sev, starts to pace. At one point she looks Sev directly in and the eye and says, “Sev? No, I haven’t seen him.” It’s so horribly obvious. Eventually, she hangs up with a disgruntled huff. “He hates me. He hates me more now you go all doe-eyed around me.”

SEVERIN "They may as well lead with it on the evening news." He took the ice pack, moaning a little as he pressed it to his face with his bad hand. May as well do both at the same time. He shuffled to let her get comfy, until her conversation pulled her away. He cracked a smile at her voice though, he'd heard that tone before. Usually when she needed to know which set of notes he'd borrowed or if he was planning on going to the library tomorrow. She still scrunched her nose the same way, even if her age wore it well. They weren't sneaking around as such just... letting it develop without an audience. Everyone already knew more than they should, it would take the pressure off to give them some time to figure things out. Not that they seemed to need it, it was an old routine. He had finished his glass by the time her phone call finished, watching her pace with nervous energy. The second the line went dead, he had to know. "Is Bash alright? Does he need anything? Should I go over there? I can be there in, well..." He flicked his wrist to see his watch again, a nervous habit. He cried out a little, forgetting about the swelling in his hand.

CEE She opens her mouth to say everything is fine, mostly but then changes tact and instead, gives a small gasp of terror. “No, everything is awful! Seb and Bash started fighting again and somehow the brawl moved into one of the upstairs toilets. They smashed up the sinks and water was going everywhere. The bottom two floors of the hospital are now flooded; patients are floating along corridors and Sam said it was reminiscent of scenes from the Titanic.” She takes her first deep breath, keeping up the panicked look, and continues. “Sam said he lost Bash and Seb for a while, but, still locked in a wrestling match, they made thier way down four flights of stairs because Seb demanded they go to WHS in search of a toothbrush. Meanwhile, somehow, on the fourth floor, a fire has started. It spread through to where we keep the oxygen tanks and the whole hospital exploded. Luckily, the flooding sort of... stopped the explosion though... and... okay, I’m out of imagined chaos.

Yes, everything is fine. Seb is a big boy. Bash is... being looked after. Sam has a handle on it all. Sue from accounting slept with the porter Chris, which honestly, after her divorce; totally valid.” She reaches up to take over icing his eye. “Until a phone rings, or my pager goes, the hospital does not exist. It’s just me... and you...” she kneels on the floor in front of him and for, she realises then, the first time that night, she leans up to kiss him. Slow and deep, like a first kiss. “You have to chill.”

SEVERIN Instantly, he was on his feet. Even now, he fell for her tricks- hook line and sinker. He was so easy to mess with, and far too transparent for his own good. Only as her hysterics hit the Titanic did he catch on, rolling his eyes at her stream of events. It wasn't far off reality. As their lips met, he stopped caring about anything outside of these four walls. The city of London could burn down and he wouldn't notice, dying a very happy man indeed. He kissed her back, sliding off the sofa very smoothly for someone who was supposed to be in pain. "I can chill. Need me to prove it?"

CEE “Why do I feel like your proof for chilling isn’t very chill at all?” It felt like they were back in university again when he kissed her; she was being pulled away from stacks of notes with kisses and seductive whispers. Take an hour off, just sixty minutes. Somehow, the hour always became two and two, more than often, because three. It was something of a miracle that they didn’t get pregnant sooner. “Oh,” she giggled against his lips, pushing him back into the sofa to move on top of him again. “I have a great idea. We one up the fighting rumours and say you got a black eye from trying out to somer super exotic sex position. That would travel way quicker around the hospital than a stupid fight.”

SEVERIN “Whatever do you mean...” He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her exactly where she settled. He stopped kissing her, only to trail yet more kisses down onto her neck and her collar. They hadn’t got the date they expected, but it looked like she was in the mood for him to stay the night anyway. He was practiced at being the perfect distraction after all. “Right. Subtle, I like it.” She had more than enough fun circling rumours about his entire extended family. “I think the witnesses to the other event might have something to say about it but sure, why the hell not.”

CEE "There is nothing subtle about me baby." Her hands move from unbuttoning his shirt to pulling the zip down at the back of her dress; restless, a little too urgent. She never felt embarrassed with him, or like she was stepping over the mark. Even as they danced around each other for the past six months; they made a good team in and out of the bedroom. "Wait, wait," she gives a annoyed little groan. "Stop, I want this to be-- our second first time was on your office floor. At least let me light some candles in the bedroom or something. We're not... horny teenagers anymore, we should be having sex like adults. With some prep."23 October 2020

SEVERIN “You can say that again.” He grinned from ear to ear, total putty in her hands as she undressed him. He tried to help with the zip, even if it was a little awkward. When she stopped to whine, he paused too. Had he done something wrong? No, she was finding all new objections. “What are you talking about? Sex?” He played it confused, furrowing his brows almost comically. “I though we were going to get into some pyjamas and have a nap- seeing as you wanted chill.” He didn’t care about candles, or ambience. She was the only important part of that whole equation. “Speak for yourself, I think I could still pass for a first year without the stubble.”

CEE She seemed to struggle between having some semblance of being mature adults and-- well, getting laid. In that one respect, she had not grown up and had no real intention of it. While she hadn’t pursued many, if any, serious romantic relationships since the demise of theirs, she couldn’t say the same about more casual pursuits. It was the most fun way to burn calories after all. “Alright, fine, we can have fun, spontaneous living room sex until we are-- all official and holding hands in public. From then on in, it’s only boring missionary sex with lights off in the bedroom. Like adults.”

SEVERIN “Hey,” He leant back into the sofa, pulling away to get a good look at her. “If you want special then let’s do it. It’s not- I don’t want to hide anything. It’s not that at all.” He knew the weight of expectation, and the fallout that falling apart would mean now he was technically her boss. “It’s more giving this a shot without work politics, without your family or mine. Just us. And I don’t think I can agree to that- nothing about you will ever be boring.”

CEE Cee ran her hand through his hair, nodding along. To be with him, without expectation, might be nice. Not to be in the nurse group chat everything other day because she met eyes with Sev or they seemed to have had a spat in the third floor ward. “Just us,” she repeats, as if she’s agreeing to a contract. Cee wrapped her arms around his neck. “Take me to the bedroom, and it will be just us.”

SEVERIN He was practically purring at her hands in his hair. Being without this, without her, that was torture. He didn’t even realise how hard that was until now. He had been functioning almost entirely on empty, or just adrenaline. But now it could be them, just them, again. “Nice to know you’re still as demanding as always.” He wrapped one arm around her waist, using the good hand to push against the sofa and get the pair of them two their feet. “You’re going to have to give me directions, remember?”

CEE She is dangerously close to getting lost in his smile. “Oh, shoot. Um--” she glances around as if she has forgotten. “Right to the end of the hall and then to your right. Left! You know at least two of the other doors also have beds so you can’t go too wrong. If you trip over shoes, that’s a closest.” She doesn’t say one of many. When she bought the place the realtor asked if she had any children, hence the six bedroom. No, she had replied, I just have a lot of Dior.

#discord thread 006 | after the fight #( S. M. | v: angsters anatomy )#miscarrige tw #injury tw #death tw #consultingsister

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rollingthunder06 · 4 years

Text

our babe

pre-hadestown , six weeks pregnant persephone wants cookies and her husband is happy to help. tw for mentions of miscarriages. they can have a happy couple moments before their hearts break

_____________

”I swear to the gods Hades if you-“

”I’m not screwing up your cookies, Seph.” Persephone rolled her eyes. “No need to bite my damn head off.” She bit her tongue so she wouldn’t snap more. Wasn’t his fault her hormones were making her moody. It was the baby growing’s fault, and apparently their babe wanted cookies and they wanted them now.

”Sorry.” She mumbled, resting her head on the kitchen table. She was only six weeks pregnant and their babe was already fucking hammering her insides even if it was barely bigger than a small fruit, worse then she’d experienced in the other ones. But that doesn’t matter. She was six weeks pregnant and that’s what mattered. Sometimes she didn’t get past three.

”It’s okay, lover.” She could feel his hand rubbing her back, his lips in her hair aiming for her head probably. He helped. Sure she still hurt, but having Hades’ attention helped. Knowing he was willing to put down his papers for her and their babe helped more than anything in the world could.

”No it’s not. I’m bein’ mean.” She mumbled, hearing her husband’s knee crack as he kneeled beside her. “Hey, look at me.” Hades cupped her cheek, bringing her head up. “You’re not being mean, lover. I understand, ya don’t have to apologize to me. Lover, please look at me.”

Why was she crying? It was stupid. She should be able to hold herself together like she usually did. What was this so different?

”I’m scared, Hades.” Persephone mumbled quietly, being pulled gently into her husband’s strong arms. “Shhh, I know, lover. Trust me I know. I’m scared too.” Hades rumbled, kissing her head. Being pregnant was terrifying. After how many they’d lost just in the last few years, it broke her down just thinking about the chance she was going to lose this one too.

Stop thinking about it, just be grateful you haven’t

Persephone moved off him, wiping her eyes. “The ovens probably heated.” Her voice was cracking but she tried to ignore it. Hades looked at her confused but stood anyways, pressing another kiss to her head. A safe spot. Affection, but not enough to prompt more. Sometimes she wished he wanted more but it didn’t seem like he did much anymore.

”Of course.” He grumbled, leaving her side and heading back to the counter. As much as she didn’t want him too, part of her needed him too. As much as she wanted to cry and be scared in his arms it would break her more that way and she knew it.

”We should talk about-“

Why was this so hard him to understand? He said he’s as scared as she is, but if he was would he really be pressing right now?

”No, no we shouldn’t.”

”I need some air.” Persephone said quietly. “I’m gonna go outside.” Hades turned to look at her. His gaze hurt like a honey bee sting. “Balcony?” He asked and she nodded. “Okay. I’ll bring the cookies when they’re done.”

She didn’t move fast getting up and walking, but she could thank their babe for that. Gods, she couldn’t imagine feeling like this for the entire pregnancy. It doesn’t matter though. Their babe would be worth every second.

As much as she was petrified, she was also giddily excited. If everything went good this time she would finally be a mother. Persephone placed her hand on her barely showing stomach, smiling to herself. There was a babe in there. Their babe was in there. It would grow, and in eight-ish more months of this so far decently uncomfortable pregnancy, if the fates were on her side she was gonna have a baby. They would finally have a baby.

”Hi baby.” She spoke before registering the words actually left her mouth. She settled down in her balcony chair, fanning herself with her outdoor kept fan. “I know ya probably ain’t big enough to hear me, but that hasn’t stopped me yet.” She laughed a little to herself.

”It’s your mama again. I’d introduce you to your daddy but every time we talk he’s always doin’ somethin’. I’m sorry, baby.” Persephone told her growing babe, more or less just to talk. “I sent your grandmother a letter ‘bout you. She actually sent me one back, she don’t do that much anymore. She said you’re gonna be a girl if ya make it. Your grandma knows a lot but not the answer I want. All I can do is hope for you, little babe. I love you y’know. Please don’t leave us, baby.”

She didn’t know why she was so insistent on talking to her barely made babe, but every pregnancy it was the same. She begged her babes to hold on like they had a choice whether they actually lived or not.

Fuck

Her body ached again nausea spreading, but as much pain as she was in she smiled down at her stomach. “You’re quite the little devil in there.” A low laugh rumbled from behind her, and Persephone jumped. She spun her head to look at the offending husband laughing in the doorway.

”What the hell did you do to my cookies?” She mumbled, Hades placing their plate on the small table between their chairs. He pressed a kiss to her cheek before going to his own side. Flour dotted his pinstripes, and it made her smirk. Even the the way too flat cookies on the plate made her still smirk. “Think it was too much baking soda.” He rumbled, that wonderful smile he saved for her and only her spread across his face. Even if he fucked up her very craved cookies she still loved him more than anything in the realms.

”How much did ya put in? Table or tea spoon?” She inquired, raising a brow and taking a cookie from the plate. “Table.” She threw her head back in laughter, reviving a semi-glare from her husband. Not that she was looking, rather she could feel his gaze. “Tea, lover. ‘tsp’ means tea spoon, ya idiot.” She teased, and before she could register the movement, her husband’s arms were wrapped around her playfully.

”Idiot, that’s not very nice, Seph.” She giggled a bit, turning her head slightly to kiss him. “Well, it’s true. But you’re my idiot.” Hades’ rumbling laugh echoed in her core, a warm and familiar sound. “Hey, say hi to your baby. You’re never with me long enough to talk to ‘em.”

”Hey, baby. I’m your father.” Hades said gently, now kneeling in front of her, his hand joining hers on her stomach. Where those tears in his eyes? Was he really crying? Was it her fault? She opened her mouth to speak, but the words died in her own forming of tears listening to Hades talk.

”I love you baby. I love you and your mama more than anything in the world. I’m gonna give you the world baby, I promise.”

#hadestown #persephone #hades #hades hadestown #persephone hadestown #hades and persephone #hades/seph #hadestown fanfiction #hadestown fanfic #rt writes #Hadestown fic #soft #tw for mention of miscarriges

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mrs-mikko-rantanen · 4 years

Text

Lost

Ok. I’ve been sitting on this for long enough...2430 words of angsty sadness. I’ll put warnings in the tags as well, but it does deal with the loss of a pregnancy, so please be careful if that may trigger you. (We do get to see some Brotp Bonding though, so I mean there is that at least.) modern au

“Whoa, hey now,” Thane said as he crouched down on the ground next to Avanda, “Crying on the floor in the storage closet is kinda my gig. Not gonna lie, Av, you’re kinda stepping on my toes here.”

Avanda sniffed loudly and wiped her eyes. “Sorry. I’ll be out in a minute. Do they need me in the hospital?”

“No, I came looking for you myself.” Thane said as he reached out, laying a hand on her shoulder. “You seemed off earlier, I wanted to make sure you’re ok.”

Avanda forced a laugh. “I’m fine.”

“No, you aren’t. What’s going on?”

Avanda shook her head, smoothing out the fabric of her shirt. “Nothing. It’s nothing, really.”

“That may just be the biggest lie you’ve ever told me.” Thane said, shifting into a more comfortable position, “Now c’mon. You’ve been acting weird all night; I haven’t even seen you drink a cup of coffee, what’s going on?”

“You can’t tell anyone.”

Thane smiled a little. “Hey, I’ve kept your secrets before. What’s one more?”

Avanda took a deep, shaky breath and nodded a little. “I was...late,” she started, “Like...two weeks late. So I took a test, and it came back positive.” She laughed bitterly, “I was so excited I took three more, just to be sure, and they all came back the same. So I waited a while, ya know, trying to figure out how to tell Ewan, and then today...I was going to tell him tomorrow...when he got home from work, but today…”

Thane’s face was a mask of concern as his hand rubbed up and down Avanda’s arm as she cried now, trying not to tear up himself as he connected the dots of her fragmented story.

“I had cramps in my back all day, and I felt tired, and-and I went to the bathroom, and there was blood, there was a lot of blood, Thane...And now, I have no idea if the tests were just....wrong,...or if...if I......lost…..” Her hand came up to her face now, covering her mouth as she started sobbing again.

Thane pulled her into a hug, running his hand over her braid. “Oh Av. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He murmured. “Is there any chance…?”

Avanda shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“God, Av.” He pressed his cheek to her hair and sighed. “I’m so so sorry. Does anyone else know?”

She shook her head, “I wanted to tell Ewan before I told anyone else. Just me and my doctor, and you.”

Thane nodded. At least people won’t be asking...He didn’t say it out loud. But it was a small comfort, at least. “You should go to your doctor, though. I mean, maybe…”

“Yeah.” Avanda hiccupped, “I’ll give her a call. I’ve gotta go clean myself up…”

Thane stood up, taking her hand and helping her to her feet as well. “It’s--” He stopped, deciding that some phrases were better left unsaid during times like these, even if they were the only words you knew to say. So instead he told her: “I love you, Avocado. And I’ll be here for you, ok?”

Avanda sighed and wiped her eyes again. “Yeah...yeah, thanks Thane.”

********

Thane found Avanda in the small break room an hour later, her head resting on the table, her hands clasped under her chin.

“I haven’t seen you sit like that since we were studying for finals and you were trying not to fall asleep while Carina made flash cards.” He teased gently, setting the Styrofoam cup down in front of her. “Decaf.” He said with a small nod to the cup as she sat up. “Just in case.”

“Thanks.” Her voice was like sandpaper as she wrapped her hands around it, not moving to drink it.

Thane glanced out the door quickly to make sure no one was walking by that might overhear them. “Did you call your doctor?”

Avanda nodded a little. “I have an appointment at 9:30. First one of the day.”

Thane nodded, taking a sip of his own coffee. “Do you want me to drive you in?” He finally asked.

“Yes please.”

He smiled at her and nodded. “I’ll see you at nine, then.”

“Thank you.”

********

Thane’s leg bounced a little as he sat in the waiting room with Avanda. He’d asked if she wanted him to wait with her, or if he should stay in the car. He didn’t want her to feel like he was hounding her, but he didn’t want her to feel like he was abandoning her, either. He had been relieved when she had asked him to come in with her.

She looked a mess, if he was being honest. Her flannel was buttoned crooked, and her braid was frayed. She had opted to wear her glasses instead of her contacts, which was a first in a long time. Even on days when she had a migraine she still put her contacts in, claiming that they were more comfortable.

He squeezed her hand a little as the door opened, a nurse popping her head out and calling Avanda’s name.

“Come with me, please.” She said, looking at him before she stood. “Please, I don’t think I can do this alone.”

Thane nodded and stood up with her, still holding her hand. “Of course.”

They followed the nurse to the exam room, and he waited outside while Avanda changed into a gown. She opened the door and he stepped in, returning to his post at her side as she sat down on the exam table.

“It’s gonna be ok, Av.” He whispered. “God, I’m sorry. I know it’s- that’s gotta sound really insensitive, huh? Like, how would I know? I just meant--we’ll get you through this.”

“Thank you.” She squeezed his hand a little. “I knew what you meant.”

“Good morning.” The doctor stepped into the room, a professional smile on her face. “You must be the father.” She reached a hand out for Thane to shake.

“Oh, uh no. No, I’m the uncle actually.” He said, shaking her hand. “Thane.”

“I see.” The doctor nodded to him a little before turning to Avanda. “And how are you feeling this morning?” She asked.

Avanda sighed. “Achy and tired. And I had a low-grade fever this morning before I left home.”

The doctor nodded before taking a seat next to Avanda and setting up some things that Thane couldn’t quite make sense of. “We’re going to start by taking some blood, send it to the lab for them to look at, and then we’ll do an ultrasound and see what’s going on, alright?”

“Alright.” Avanda’s voice was small as she laid her head back on the pillow, her hand shaking in Thane’s grip.

Thane smiled at her as she turned her head away from the doctor, her eyes screwed shut as the needles came out.

“Hey, remember that time Ny tried to do a blood draw on you?” He asked, trying to distract her a little, “I can’t believe Cael and I were able to hold you down.”

She gritted her teeth a little and winced as the doctor pricked her arm.

“You’re doing good. She’s only taking a little.”

Avanda nodded. “I know.”

“All done.” The doctor said with a forced cheerfulness. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

Avanda said nothing, her head turning back to the doctor.

The room fell rather silent as she set up for the ultrasound. Thane watched the screen with Avanda, eyes glued to the black and white on it, hoping and praying for news to be good.

“Well?” Avanda finally asked.

“Well,” The doctor said slowly, “It’s...not looking hopeful right now.” She admitted. “There are one or two more things I want to look at first though, before I make an official diagnosis…”

********

“You won’t tell him?”

Thane looked up at Avanda now. She had cried the whole way home, and upon their return to the apartment she shared with Ewan, had locked herself in the bathroom for about two hours. Thane had taken to stress baking, making enough cookies to feed the Renegades until the war was won. Avanda stood before him now, her hair unbraided and wild around her tear-stained face.

“Of course not.” Thane said, drying his hands on the dish towel he’d thrown over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Thank you Thane. For everything, really. I just…” She sank into the chair at the table, and he slid the plate of cookies over to her.

“The doctor said she wants to see you again on Friday,” Thane said hopefully, “There’s a chance…” He trailed off as Avanda shook her head.

“I don’t think there is. I think she was just trying to give me hope.”

They were silent for a long time, both of them picking at the table a little.

“Will you tell him?” Thane finally asked.

Avanda sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I should. I just...I don’t want him to hurt as badly as I am.”

“He would want to help you.”

“I know. But...why bring him the pain just so that I don’t have to carry it alone?”

“So that you don’t have to carry it alone.” Thane said, “You shouldn’t have to, Av. You two are in this together. You always have been. Let him help you.”

“I don’t know if I can. Maybe if I get good news on Friday…”

Thane sighed. “Do you want my opinion?”

“We both know you’re going to give it to me whether I want to hear it or not.” Avanda scoffed, crossing her arms. “May as well spit it out.”

“I think you should tell him. I think you should tell him, and should let him go with you on Friday. If you get good news, then awesome. You’ll be far enough along that you should be able to hear the heartbeat for the first time, and he’ll get to hear it with you. If you get bad news? Well then he’ll be there to hold you and to sit with you through that too.” Thane leaned forward, taking her hands in his. “If you are making a new life with him, I think that he should get to be here with you through the good and bad and all in between.”

Avanda nodded a little. “I suppose you’re right.” She whispered. “I just...I don’t want him to mourn what he didn’t even know he had.”

“But doesn’t he deserve that right?” Thane asked.

“I suppose so.”

“I love you, Av. And I know you’re going to make it through this. I just hope that you don’t feel like you have to make it through this alone.”

********

Avanda fidgeted with the sleeve on her flannel. “Ewan...Love, we need to talk about something.”

Ewan looked up at her, eyes quizzical. “Of course, Lass. What is it?”

“I, uh…we…” She laughed a little, feeling the tears start. “I can’t do this. Here.” She pulled out the box, and offered it to him.

Ewan frowned a little. “What’s this?” “Just...open it.” Her stomach was tied in knots. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, this was wrong. She had put the tests in there, expecting him to be happy when he opened the box, and to stay happy. He wasn’t supposed to open it and smile, only for her to drop a bombshell on him before he even really knew what was happening. She couldn’t watch as he pulled the lid off and removed the four positive pregnancy tests. She couldn’t watch as he started smiling, laughing a little as the meaning sank in.

“Av, are you serious? Really? Are you--” He frowned as he looked up at her, seeing the tears streaming silently down her face. “Are you crying? Babe are you crying?” He stood up, walking over to her as she nodded. He laughed a little. “Sweetheart, why are you crying?”

“Because that’s not all.” Avanda pulled away from him, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, I’m sorry.” She sighed, wiping tears away again. “I think...I was going to tell you sooner; but then something happened, and I think...I think I lost the baby.” She stared at the floor as she whispered the words, speaking them for the first time.

Ewan was silent, digesting the information. “Have. Have you seen a doctor yet? Do you know for sure?” His voice was tight and she could tell he was trying to hold himself together.

“I went to the doctor. She said that she wanted to see me again on Friday. She couldn’t ...say for sure.”

“What time is your appointment?”

“11:45.”

“Can I come with you? I'll leave work, I'll come meet you at the doctor's office.”

Avanda nodded.

Ewan pulled her into his arms, resting his chin on her head as he held her.

“I don’t think we’re going to get good news.” She said, her arms wrapping around his waist. “I don’t- I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Ewan said, kissing her hair. “Nothing.”

“I should have told you-”

“Stop.” Ewan said softly, shaking his head, “Just, stop. You didn’t do anything wrong in any of this. That’s not how this works. I love you, and I’m going to stay right here with you, the whole time. And if we don’t get good news on Friday, then so be it. I’ll still be right here with you.”

Avanda said nothing. She just stood there, crying. He was the only reason she was still standing. Her legs had given out a while ago now, leaving her leaning against him. He didn’t waver as he held her.

“And if we do get good news on Friday,” He said as he ran his fingers through her hair, “Then you and I are going to be in for one hell of an adventure, Lass."

********

Ewan squeezed her hand tightly as they waited for the doctor to say something, anything.

"Well?"

"I'm very sorry, Miss Alistarion."

Ewan let go of her hand, pulling her into his arms as tightly as he could as she wailed, her hands scrabbling against his bullet proof vest.

And just as quickly as the joy had come in, it had been swept away again. Hopes that neither of them had really realized that they had were dashed away, dreams that they never knew they had dreamed were shattered; leaving them clinging to each other and sobbing in the doctor's office.

#tw miscarriage #tw lost pregnancy #miscarrige #lost pregnancy #angst #ewvanda angst #ewan insp #avanda insp #thane insp #otp: red is the rose #brotp: avanda and thane right there #I have been sitting on this for almost a month #idk why I decided that NOW was the time to post this but here it is #I may do taglist tomorrow #and i'll try to write some fluff tomorrow too bc damn they deserve it don't they?

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johnlockedinwarstan · 5 years

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Mothers day headcanons

These are kinda angsty(tw miscarriage and infertility and drug use)

Mrs. Hudson had a son Sherlock reminds her of

Mrs. Holmes had a miscarriage between Sherlock and Mycroft

Mary was a surrogate mother

Mary, John, and Sherlock had been talking about trying for a second child before Ajay showed up

Molly Hooper cannot have children

Irene and Kate settled down in America. They have two children both of them from Sherlocks donated sperm.

Rosie gives her godmothers mothers day cards

Sally Donavan is a single mother

Since Mary's death Mother's Day is a danger night for Sherlock

#tw #tw infertility #tw miscarrige #sherlock #mary morstan #mary watson #molly #molly hooper #mrs hudson #mrs holmes #tw drugs

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babybluebanshee · 5 years

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Seared With Scars - Chapter 8 (Mystery Nerds AU)

“A company of believers is like a prison full of criminals; their intimacy and solidarity is based on what they can least justify about themselves.” John Updike

--- The ropes biting into Stan’s wrists brought back a slew of unwanted and unpleasant memories - the stifling heat of the trunk of a car left in the desert. The tight handcuffs slapped on him as he was ushered into a tiny, dirty prison cell with two guys who were bigger and much tougher-looking than him. The vice-like grip of an angry, uncaring nurse who warned him what happened to patients that stepped out of line.

All these memories flashed in his mind, churned up like chunks of a shipwreck in a frothing sea, each one a new exercise in fear.

But he couldn’t let that fear overcome him. He had to think. Every time he brought his gaze back to his brother’s prone figure, gasping on the ground under Matthews’ foot, he reminded himself what was at stake.

Those broken ribs could puncture lungs.

Those blows to the head meant traumatic brain injuries that needed attention.

The leg that was now a disgustingly twisted mess could, at best, not heal right, and, at worst, cause a whole host of infections that could-

No, he wasn’t going to think about that. He’d just gotten his brother back after ten years. He sure as hell wasn’t going to lose him again, especially not to the snot that stood before him and his friends, trying his damnedest to look tall and imposing, and called himself Blind Ivan.

Stan would have laughed at this young man, barely even an adult, trying to convince the world he was not to be trifled with if it hadn’t been for the way he looked at them.

His eyes passed over each of them lazily, like their presence before him was the most mundane thing in the world, something he dealt with every day, a simple chore that needed tending to. And yet, there was...something wrong in his face. Stan couldn’t quite put his finger on what. Maybe it was how, no matter which direction he turned, his eyes never seemed to catch the light. Maybe it was his skin, so ashen and pallid it made him look like a creature of the undead. Maybe it was his bony hand clutching Fiddleford’s knapsack, knowing exactly what was in it and why it was so dangerous that Ivan had it now.

It stirred a primal repulsion in Stan’s gut, that set all his instincts into overdrive to find a way out of this.

A quick glance at his immediate left showed him Fiddleford looked exactly the same as Stan felt. Guilt mixed ever so subtly with the apprehension as Stan recalled how he’d slung the little nerd around earlier, throwing all kinds of insults and threats at him. Now Fiddleford’s face looked like his entire world had just been shattered, and in a way, Stan supposed that it had.

Ivan, this person Fiddleford obviously thought that he could trust, was staring down at him like he was a fly to be swatted. Stan didn’t blame him for looking afraid.

“Get your hands off me, you bathrobe-wearing freaks!”

Helen, however, did not seem in the least bit intimidated by Ivan or any of the other cultists currently trying to restrain her. If anything, it all made her struggle harder, and most of that struggle was focused on her desire to break free and throttle Matthews.

“You absolute bastard,” Helen shrieked at him, lunging forward so hard that the cultist trying to tighten the rope around her wrists was nearly jerked off balance. Stan had never seen her so angry, not even after she’d gotten her first glimpse at the portal a few hours before. That had at least been brought on by the culmination of all the crazy shit she’d been forced to endure up to that point. Now, there was nothing in her eyes but cold, hard fury. “I believed you!” she yelled. “I gave you a second goddamn chance!”

“What can I say, Helen,” Matthews replied, flatly. “Thanks.”

Helen let out a low growl, reminiscent of a rabid dog. One of the robed figures tried to grip her by her arm, in an attempt to wrangle her back to a more prone position, but she merely shot her elbow back and up, managing to clock them square in the jaw.

The figure stumbled backwards, their hood falling back, but before Helen could take advantage of it, another cultist grabbed a clump of her hair and pulled hard. With a pained shouted, she was forced back into a kneeling position on the floor. The figure she’d struck slowly straightened up, the doughy face of Sheriff Leory Muggins glaring icily back down at her.

“Sure wish you hadn’t done that, Mrs. Stillwell,” Muggins said, massage his jaw where he’d been struck.

Helen stopped moving and her eyes went wide. “Muggins?” she breathed.

“That’s right,” the figure clutching Helen’s hair said, voice snide and mocking. Reaching up their free hand, they pulled back their own hood, revealing the grandmotherly face of the secretary from the hospital, her lips pulled back in a sneer through a jagged cross-hatching of scars.

She had seen them with Fiddleford when they first entered the hospital. That’s why she thought he’d be in Helen’s house. That’s why she’d been there, waiting to attack them.

She’d played them.

“Louise? Y-you…” Helen began. Stan could almost see the fight dripping out of her. “You were the one...the one in my house?”

“Sure was,” Louise replied, her tone sickeningly sweet. “And speaking of what happened at your house…”

In a blur of motion, Louise shot out her fist and punched Helen directly in her eye. Helen’s head snapped to the side as she let out a surprised cry of pain. Stan heard her glasses crunch under the force of the blow, then watched as they went flying from her face, shattering completely as they made contact with the floor.

Helen lowered her head, panting heavily. Stan watched blood drip from her nose and spatter on her pant leg. She didn’t look back up.

Any fear that Stan felt dried up in that instant, and he growled, “You’re gonna regret that, you hag!”

Finally, Ivan spoke up. “There you go, Stanley, making threats you couldn’t possibly hope to carry out,” he said, his deep, smooth voice cutting through the mayhem unfolding before him like a surgeon’s scalpel. “It would seem you and your brother share the idiotic tendency of trying to get out of problems you created by playing the brave hero.” Ivan’s smug grin widened. Stan wanted to claw it off his face.

“A pity,” Ivan continued, “that you’re not the only ones its gotten into trouble.”

Stan growled again, and barked, “I’ll show you trouble when I get out of this, you bald son of a bitch.” He then turned his attention to Matthews, and spat, “And once I’m done with him, I’ll be sure and fuck you up, nice and slow, you fucking traitor.”

Matthews didn’t respond. He just stared almost sleepily at Stan, right before digging his heel directly in his brother’s back. Ford practically spasmed beneath him, and let out a weak whimper of pain.

Stan forced himself to be still, even though the boiling heat of his rage still simmered inside him.

He needed to think.

Ford’s struggles were lessening. They were running out of time.

“You need not waste so much of your energy being angry with Dr. Matthews, Stanley,” Ivan said, taking a step closer to him. “He was only acting on my orders to finally bring our leader back to us. And then, of course, it dawned on me that this would be the perfect opportunity to reel in and dispose of not just one problematic interloper, but three, all in one fell swoop. All we needed was the proper lure.” He nodded his head in Ford’s direction. “And your brother more than proved effective for that.”

Ivan turned his attention over to Darryl, who’d been so quiet that Stan had almost forgotten he was there, and said, “But the person I really owe the most thanks to is you, Private Little.”

Darryl didn’t say a word in response. His expression didn’t even change. Despite the ugly bloody lip he’d received from the other cultists, payment for throwing his lot in with their enemies, his spine remained rigid, his eyes focused intently on the air in front of him. He gave no indication to Ivan that he’d even heard what he’d said.

“Had it not been for your bleeding heart and wavering faith, I would never have had the idea to...extend the olive branch, as it were,” Ivan continued, stooping low into Darryl’s field of vision, seemingly intent on getting some kind of reaction from him. He came within inches of Darryl’s face. “So, thank you, Private Little, for making all this possible.”

Darryl remained stonily silent, but Stan didn’t miss the flicker of shame in his eyes.

Ivan’s smile melted away, so quickly and so fluidly that it seemed almost inhuman, like the removal of a mask. “It does sadden me though, Private Little, that I simply must punish you for your transgressions against us.” There was not a hint of sadness at all in Ivan’s voice as he reached out a hand, his fingers ghosting dangerously close to Darryl’s neck.

“Leave him alone, Ivan!” Fiddleford called out.

Ivan’s hand froze in the air. Everyone in the room turned to look at Fiddleford.

It was like looking at a completely different man. Gone was the quivering, jumpy beanpole from before, trying to make himself small, avoid confrontation, appease rather than fight.

The man before them now had fire in his eyes; not an angry fire, but a righteous one, intent on stopping the cruel sideshow of horrors unfolding before him. His jaw was set in a determined line. He was straining to pull his arms free from the two cultists attempting to hold him down. Stan wondered where this side of this man had come from, so suddenly.

Then again, as he thought of the skinny nerd’s convictions at their kitchen table, the way he’d thrown back as good as Stan had given him when they argued, the finality of his proclamation that he was willing to stop Ivan by any means necessary...maybe it was safe to say this had always been a part of who Fiddleford McGucket was. And now he had reason to unleash it.

Ivan seemed to regard Fiddleford’s outburst more with annoyance than anything else, straightening up and turning that eerie gaze directly to this angry man on the floor. Fiddleford didn’t seem at all bothered by that look, and instead said, his voice as stern as if he were talking to an unruly child, “You got what you wanted, Ivan. You won. Your plan is over.”

Stan noticed that the room had gone completely still and silent. All heads - even Helen’s, despite her missing glasses and swollen eye - were turned towards Fiddleford, watching, waiting for whatever was going to happen.

Ivan blinked at him, then straightened himself back up to his full height. Although that meant that his hand was no longer anywhere near Darryl’s throat, he now began taking slow, deliberate steps towards Fiddleford. Stan’s stomach gave a lurch as he watched Ivan reach down into the knapsack and pull out the memory gun from inside it.

Fiddleford saw it too, but rather than showing any sign of fear, he kept talking. “Ya see?” he said. “You’ve got me, you’ve got the gun. You have everything you set out to get. No one else needs to get hurt tonight.”

Ivan closed the distance between them in a few steps, never once taking his piercing gaze off Fiddleford. It was the predatory gaze of a wolf that had just found an injured fawn in the forest, lean and hungry and ready to give itself up to whatever feral impulse came first.

Still, Fiddleford did not back down. “Stanford needs help, Ivan. If he doesn’t get to a hospital, he could die. I promise - I’ll stay here, things can go back to the way they were. I won’t fight you. I’ll do whatever you want. But you have to let Stanford and the others go.”

Ivan raised the gun until it was level with Fiddleford’s forehead.

Fiddleford kept his hard gaze trained on Ivan, but Stan saw the faint flash of his throat as he gulped, betraying his terror.

“I don’t want things to be the way they were,” Ivan said in a harsh, low whisper. “And I don’t want your pathetic, malfunctioning toy.”

With that, Ivan hurled the memory gun to the ground. It slammed into the stone, the sound of breaking glass and buzzing wires filling the space for the briefest of moments, before settling into a smoking pile of debris.

Ivan reached out and grabbed Fiddleford’s face, digging his fingers hard into the other man’s flesh, pulling him close. “You don’t understand anything,” he hissed. “You with your arbitrary rules, your moral pontificating about trauma and endurance and how resilient humans could be.” Ivan’s tone dipped into a high-pitched parody of Fiddleford’s voice, complete with exaggerated accent. “‘Humans were meant to deal with the trauma of the every day, and overcoming it makes you stronger.’”

He barked out a harsh, humorless laugh and said, “Trauma doesn’t make people stronger. It just breaks them, a little more every day. It never gets easier and it never gets better. You were content to let these good people suffer because of your self-righteous nonsense. I offered them real help. The only reason I wanted you to be returned to us is so you could fix the flaw of the gun and we could be done with you. We are better off without you.”

Ivan flung Fiddleford’s face away, and flounced to the center of the room. A pedestal holding an ornate wooden box stood next to a chair with straps on the arms. It wasn’t hard for Stan to put together that this must be where the Society conducted their freaky little rituals.

He was quickly proven right when Ivan reached inside the box and pulled out another memory gun. It was bigger than the one he’d destroyed, almost ridiculously oversized, but he realized this must be the original. He remembered Fiddleford explaining how this gun could hold any amount of memory, no matter how long or how long ago they happened.

They were fucked.

“What I want is to help the Society reach its full potential,” Ivan said, studying the gun in his hand as if it were a beautiful and rare flower. “We will help heal this town, make every scar it’s ever been seared with seem like nothing more than a bad dream. You and these interfering fools you call your friends are the one thing standing in our way. But I intent to change that.”

Ivan began to twist the dial. “None of you will be telling anyone else about what you’ve learned here,” he said as he reached Matthews’ side. He knelt down and, almost tenderly, reach out and lifted Ford’s head in his hand, by his chin. For the first time since the cultists had jumped them, Stan managed to get a good look at his twin’s eyes. They were glassy and distant, eyelids drooping down heavily, creeping ever closer towards unconsciousness. Without Ivan supporting him, Stan was sure Ford’s head would flop right back against the concrete.

“I believe we will begin with you, Dr. Pines,” he said. His mood seemed to have shifted again, and he almost sounded kind, compassionate, even as that evil grin split his features once more. “Perhaps, once I’ve wiped your friends’ memories, they won’t even remember why you need to go to the hospital.” Ivan chuckled darkly. “I can think of a few people here tonight who would love to watch you slowly die.”

Rage burned in Stan’s gut. He strained his wrists pathetically against his ropes. They wouldn’t give.

He was going to be forced to watch his brother die, and he wouldn’t even remember why.

Ivan pressed the bulb of the gun against Ford’s forehead, and began to ease the trigger.

“Do me first!”

Helen’s voice rang out like a church bell in the deathly silent chamber.

What the fuck?

Stan snapped his head in Helen’s direction, and saw her looking wildly at Ivan, tears streaming down her face. “Please,” she said, her voice now tiny and broken. “I want to join you.”

What the actual fuck?

Fiddleford looked about as stunned as Stan felt, staring incredulously at Helen, his mouth hanging open, probably burning to question what the hell she thought she was doing.

Then Stan remembered their conversation on the porch.

Every morning I wake up and it’s still there.

Oh god...she wouldn’t…

Would she?

Ivan certainly seemed very interested in the possibility. He turned his head every so slightly to look in Helen’s direction, carrion eyes narrowed and inquisitive. After a moment, he lowered the gun from Ford’s head, and once again stood to his full height. In a few long strides, he’d come face to face with Helen.

“This is a trick,” he said simply.

“No,” Helen said, sounding so very, very small. “No tricks, I promise. I just...I can’t do this anymore. It’s too much. You’re right. It doesn’t get easier or better. It never will.” Helen exhaled shakily, and bowed her head. Two fresh streams of tears fell from her eyes.

“Helen, what are you doing?!” Fiddleford cried. He looked like his world was crashing down around him.

“Trying to get some goddamn peace,” Helen yelled back, turning her burning, tear-filled gaze to him. “Ivan is right. You don’t care about how much people have suffered. How much I suffered. You’re nothing but a cowardly idiot who won’t do what’s necessary! I just...I want my mind to be clear…”

Dear god, he was so sorry he’d ever dragged Helen into this. What had he done?

Suddenly, Stan felt something poke him in the arm.

Tearing his eyes from Helen, he looked down, and saw a folded pocket knife. Darryl was jabbing it into his arm. Stan looked back up at the other man, and saw his eyes frantically jump from the knife to Stan’s face.

Stan stole a glance at Darryl’s wrists. The ropes had been cut.

He wanted Stan to do the same to his own restraints.

Stan looked back over to where Ivan was still scrutinizing Helen. It almost seemed like Ivan was specifically focusing his red, filmy eye over her, as if it held some power to see into her soul, strip her bare, and expose any falsehoods. Helen sniffed heavily, trembling under his gaze, anguish plainly written on her bruised face.

His heart ached at the sight of it. If it was the last thing he ever did, he’d get them out of here and make it up to her.

Darryl slid the knife into Stan’s waiting palm. He flicked it open, and with a flick of his wrist, turned up the blade and started sawing through the ropes.

Never once removing that piercing gaze from Helen’s face, Ivan said, “What is it that you have seen? Speak honestly, or you will live to regret it.”

Helen gulped heavily, and then replied, voice trembling, “My baby...I...I lost my baby.”

“When?”

“Two years ago.”

“How?”

A beat of silence as Helen drew a deep breath, and let it out shakily. Then she said, voice thick, “I miscarried. Seven months in. They couldn’t tell me why. It just happened. My little boy...my Richie…” Stan stopped sawing as Helen’s words were swallowed up by a sob.

Little boy? Helen told him she was going to have a girl. Christina...

Realization hit him like a rock to the face, and he frantically began sawing again.

“You have to help me,” Helen said, her voice raw. “You’ve helped all these people. You understand. I can’t live this way.” She lifted her head, and Stan saw those dark green eyes of her, usually so full of warmth and maternal love, now desperate and full of pain. “These...these horrible men...all they’ve done is make it worse. Dragged me into their deranged world. I realize now that nothing good can come from them. I can’t trust them. But I trust you.”

Ivan’s face softened, ever so slightly, and he turned to Louise, who stood dumbfounded behind Helen. “Untie her,” he said. “She is no threat to us.”

Louise didn’t move for a moment, a symphony of conflicting emotions playing out at rapid speed on her face. She managed to open her mouth a bit, as if to protest, but Ivan snapped, “Have you gone deaf? I said untie her. She has clearly seen the light. She will make an excellent addition to the Society.”

Louise quickly moved to obey, and undid Helen’s restraints. Helen didn’t move as her ropes coiled to the ground limply. Ivan reached out, offering his hand to help her up.

After a moment, Helen, her hand shaking like a leaf in an unforgiving winter wind, accepted it.

“There, there,” Ivan said, the way one might soothe a frightened child. “Soon this will all be over.”

Stan could feel the ropes under the knife start to give. Just a little more...

Helen’s face fell in pure relief. She reached up her other hand, and breathed, “Thank you. Oh god, thank you so much. I knew I could count on you.”

Then, with a furious shriek that echoed off the walls, Helen slammed her forehead into the center of Ivan’s face.

Ivan roared in pained anger and stumbled back, shooting out the arm that held the memory gun, obviously hoping to strike Helen with it. Instead, she caught his arm and began to wrench tightly, gritting her teeth as she applied more force. Stan got a good look at her eyes, and saw the furious hellcat from before, heard it in the angry yell she unleashed as she gave a final tug, and Ivan’s hand opened involuntarily.

The memory gun fell from his hand, and Helen caught it before it hit the floor. Before Ivan could recover from her attack, she’d thrust the gun in his face, finger itching on the trigger. Her hands no longer shook. Her tears had quickly dried. The desperate pain in her eyes was gone, replaced now with white hot fury.

“I would never want to forget my baby, you arrogant piece of shit,” she growled.

Stan felt another of the ropes snap as the knife sliced through it. Come on, he was almost there…

“This is how it’s gonna go, Ivan,” Helen snarled. “You’re going to untie my friends. You’re going to tell Ed to back the fuck off and let us take Ford out of here. And before we go, we’re going to make sure none of you ever threaten or hurt anyone ever again. Understand?”

Gurgling was the only answer she received. Stan turned his attention toward the sound, and felt his heart stop for a moment. Matthews, his eyes still far away and glassy, had moved his foot from Ford’s back to his neck. Then he started to press.

“Put the gun down, Helen,” he said firmly.

“Ed, if you don’t get the hell away from him right now, I swear to god I’ll make it so this bastard forgets how to fucking breathe!”

“Stanford will be dead before you can pull the trigger!” Matthews shouted back. “Now put. It. Down.”

Stan could see the indecision play across Helen’s face. The gun shook minutely in her hand.

“Face it, Helen,” Ivan said, his tone superior even as he was held at gunpoint and his nose gushed blood. “You can’t possibly hope to defeat us all.”

The last rope finally gave.

“Maybe not,” Stan said. “But I sure as shit can.” In one fluid motion, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his knuckle dusters, slipping them on like a worn, comfortable pair of gloves.

He launched himself at Matthews. In the blink of an eye it took to close the distance between them, he got a good look at Ford, still under Matthews’ heel. This close, he could see the evidence of the brutal assaults his brother had been subjected to - his face was a mess of black and blue, mixed with blood and tears. His glasses were cracked. The leg Matthews had smashed was twisted in a horrifying way, a way that made Stan want to vomit and weep all at the same time. And then there was that goddamn shoe, pressing into his twin’s throat.

There was no two ways about it. He was going to kill Matthews for this.

With a furious roar, he slammed himself bodily into the old bastard, then raised his fist. The brass knuckle made a deliciously satisfying crunch as it made contact with Matthews’ face, and sent him stumbling backwards, into a stone pillar. He wheezed as air was forced from his lungs when his back made sudden and forceful contact with it.

Beneath him, Ford coughed a few times, no doubt sucking in as much air as he could now that his airway was free.

Stan forced himself to look away from his battered brother and focus on the cultists now moving in to surround him.

He threw out his arms, welcoming them to give it their best fucking shot.

“Anyone else want a piece?!”

The chamber exploded in noise.

Muggins was the first one to move toward him, his face drawn tight in animalistic rage. Stan shot out a left hook, catching him in the temple. It disoriented the pig, making him sway dangerously. Stan finished him off with a good one-two to the side, then an uppercut under his chin. Muggins fell like a sack of potatoes.

Another cultist tried to come in on his right and blindside him. Stan whipped around to face them, and shot out his left arm in a cross, catching the hooded freak in the cheek. When they bent down, a natural response to nursing an injured face, Stan gave a small jump that morphed into an overhand, landing squarely on the back of the cultist’s head, and they crumpled.

The next idiot who came wide at him received a right hook directly to the teeth.

It was all coming back to him now.

A heavy weight was suddenly thrown on his back, and Stan was thrown off balance. Someone was shrieking angrily in his ear, attempting to get sharp fingernails close to his eyes. He tried to shake them off, but they held on as tightly as they could, and suddenly a fist was flying in his face, sloppily, but doing enough to distract him and throw off his rhythm. One of the fingernails caught, and he grunted in discomfort as they dug into his skin, dangerously close to the stitches on the side of his head.

Then there was a loud crack, like the snapping of a twig, and the weight slipped from his shoulders. Whipping around, he saw Louise laying there, her fingernails stained slightly with the blood she’d drawn from his head.

Standing over her was Fiddleford McGucket, brandishing a baseball bat. He looked quite proud of himself.

The disbelief Stan felt must have been evident on his face, because Fiddleford shrugged and said, “Fight like a hillbilly.”

Behind Fiddleford, Stan saw Darryl, grabbing a cultist behind the neck and jamming a knee right into their midsection. The cultist fell to their knees, and Darryl quickly slammed his elbow into the back of their neck, splaying them out on the cold stone.

Helen, Stan saw, had abandoned Ivan and rushed to Ford’s side, saying something to him Stan couldn’t hear. All the while, she frantically twisted the dial on the memory gun.

One of the hooded figures started sprinting towards her, clearly seeing her and Ford as easy targets. Helen saw them, then simply leveled the gun at them and fired.

A brilliant column of blue light shot from the bulb, the force of it actually succeeding in knocking Helen back a bit. It smashed directly into the cultist’s face, and they gave a cry of surprised pain. Then they stopped, as still and lifeless as a statue. Even after the blue light faded, the cultist didn’t move, simply standing there, swaying slightly.

Helen had wiped their memory.

Made perfect sense. If these guys wanted to forget so bad, Stan had no problem helping them.

Fiddleford came up behind the mind-wiped cultist and brought the bat down hard on their head, bringing them down like a felled oak.

“We need to start wiping as many of their memories as we can,” Fiddleford cried. “Helen, as soon as we bring them down, hit them with the gun, got it?”

Helen gave him a stiff nod, then turned the gun to Matthews’ limp body behind her. She barely had a moment to put a flicker of pressure on the trigger before a shot of red slammed into her side, knocking her away from Ford and Matthews.

As the tangled ball of limbs rolled to a stop, Stan made out Ivan as he pinned Helen to the floor, teeth bared and eyes wide in animalistic fury. He snatched at the memory gun she still clung to and held just barely out of his reach.

“Give it back!” he roared.

Helen didn’t reply, simply reared back her foot and slammed it into Ivan’s midsection. He fell back with a pained grunt, and Helen rolled away from him until she was on her side.

She lifted her head, and saw Fiddleford, currently bashing the bat into the side of a cultist whose hands were dangerously close to his throat. She called out, “Fidds! Catch!” Fiddleford turned just as she tossed the gun.

The world seemed to suddenly descend into slow motion as the gun arched through the air towards him. Fiddleford turned sharply and reached up.

Then Stan saw Ivan getting to his feet, and spring across the room. Stan could only yell out Fiddleford’s name before Ivan’s fist suddenly connected with the other man’s face.

As Fiddleford stumbled back, the gun sailed directly into Ivan’s hand, and he began sprinting. Within moments, he’d vanished behind the curtain that lead to the stairs back up to the museum. Stan didn’t even stop to think about it. He ran after him. He couldn’t let him escape with that gun. They could take down every one of these loons, but if Ivan got out of here and still had that memory gun, then all of this would be for nothing.

He threw open the curtain and bounded up the stairs, two at a time. His heart pounded away, like it was about to burst out of his chest. He never let his sights waver from Ivan, keeping them trained on that red robe swirling around that bony, colorless frame.

As they reached the upper level, into the room with the secret passage, Stan found himself wondering what Ivan had to gain from all this. It was an odd thing to wonder now, after everything that had just happened, but it still wiggled its way to the front of his thoughts.

Ivan claimed that all this - the violence, the threats, the attempts on their lives, even the Society as a whole - was all in the name of protecting Gravity Falls. But as he’d pointed out to Fiddleford, this town wasn’t as fragile and unsuspecting as Ivan seemed to believe. The town wouldn’t even be there if the people weren’t tough enough to deal with whatever was here and endure it. Gravity Falls didn’t need anyone to protect it. It’d done a pretty good job of that all on his own.

So what did Ivan have to gain? Power? Control? Pure sadism? They were indeed pretty powerful motivators, as Stan had learned from years of dealing with criminals. But Ivan had proven himself so different from the run of the mill criminal scum that Stan had dealings with in the past.

Ivan didn’t seem to take any pleasure from having the control the Society afforded him. If anything, he seemed to view it as a burden, a hard, thankless task that only he could perform, now that he’d deemed Fiddleford inadequate. And while he did seem to relish in swiftly dealing out retaliation to any and all who opposed him, he clearly had managed to get away with the secret of the Society for some time without ever having to resort to it. He didn’t need to, as what he was offering seemed to be enough to keep members coming.

So the question still remained: at the end of the day, when everything was said and done, what did Ivan get out of all this?

Stan didn’t have time to ponder it any further, as Ivan neared an emergency exit. He must have been running on pure adrenaline, as there was a sign next to it that plainly stated that an alarm would sound if the door was opened, which Stan knew would also immediately alert the police to their location. As little love as he had gained for law enforcement over the course of his life, Stan knew that right now, authority figures were exactly what was needed, because they generally had ambulances in tow. But the only reason he could find for Ivan to do something so monumentally risky to himself was sheer desperation.

And Ivan being desperate just made Stan’s job a whole lot easier.

He slammed himself through the emergency exit and followed Ivan out into the darkness. ---

As Fiddleford brought the bat down on the head of the last charging cultist, Helen heard the distant clanging of an alarm bell, so faint and far away that for a moment she thought her ears were ringing. It wouldn’t have been the first time, as she gingerly touched the cheek where Louise had socked her. Who would have thought that this roly-poly grandmother had such a powerful punch?

It gave Helen a bit of sick satisfaction as Fiddleford went over to help drag Louise’s limp body over to the ever-growing pile of unconscious cultists they’d started in the center of the room. She was, quite frankly, tired of the gut-punch feeling that came with every one of these crazed yahoos dramatically flinging back their hood to reveal themselves as someone Helen worked with and even considered to be her friends. It made one feel rather indignant.

She ached all over and her face felt like one big bruise. The world was a blurry mess, thanks to the fact her glasses now lay twisted on the floor, shattered beyond all hope of repair. Somehow, the fact that meant she’d have to schedule an eye exam and get a new pair just rankled her all the more, to the point where she had to fight the urge to go over and plant her foot directly into Louise’s gut.

Her exhaustion was overruling her desire for retribution, however. They still had to drag all these idiots back upstairs, after all. It was going to be difficult enough to explain this all to the cops. They didn’t need to throw in a hidden chamber hidden under the history museum, at least not right now.

She’d honestly rather just curl up next to Ford and go to sleep for the next ten years or so.

As if on cue, she heard Ford groan quietly from his current position in her lap. She absentmindedly ran her hand through his blood-crusted hair, trying hard not to catch any tangles and hurt him any further than he was. He’d already been unsettlingly still since Ed had brought him down with a swift, merciless kick to the leg, which was now most likely broken. Even after spending nine years practicing medicine, seeing people mangled by car crashes and attacked by wildlife, looking at her poor young friend in obvious, exhausted agony made her stomach turn violently.

“Shhh, Ford,” she found herself muttering. “It’s okay. Everything's gonna be okay now.”

A dark chuckle echoed through the chamber. Helen turned her head and saw Ed, cheek swelling where Stan had struck him, but very much awake, as he lazily swung his head up like a rickety theme park animatronic to meet her gaze. His eyes were still glassy and vacant. That same distance from before, that stare that made him seem so very far away, was there again, but was now saturated with sadness. There was something broken in those eyes.

Ed’s eyes were the eyes of a man ready for death.

It sent a shiver up dread down Helen’s spine.

“They’re pretty words, Helen,” he said. “But we both know that, without that gun, all this struggle has been for nothing.” The truth of those words taunted her, but there was nothing taunting in how Ed spoke. His voice sounded like it was being carried away by the wind, raspy and soft. He sounded as tired as Helen felt.

“Shut up, Ed,” was all she could muster. She wanted to look away, away from that horrible look in his eyes that filled her with an apprehension she didn’t fully understand. But she couldn’t. It was like a car crash; the morbidity of it was almost fascinating.

Fortunately, Darryl spoke up, breaking whatever hold the gaze had on her. “That’s about enough out of you,” he muttered. He entered Helen’s field of vision, a coil of rope in his bloodied hands, moving behind Ed to lash his wrists together. Helen briefly wondered why he or Fiddleford didn’t just knock Ed out the way they had all the others, but then Fiddleford came to her side, at just the right angle to see his face, drawn and serious and above all tired, probably more tired than any of them. His entire world had pretty much imploded on him in a less than twenty-four hours.

“You can do whatever you like,” Ed muttered. “But you know I’m right. I guarantee you that Ivan won’t give up that gun without a fight. And I also guarantee that oafish friend of yours won’t be coming back with it, if he comes back at all. Not when he goes up against Ivan.”

“Stan can take him,” Helen replied, ignoring another jolt of dread that tripped down her back.

“He’s nothing but a dumber, sweatier version of that freak down there,” Ed shot back, nodding in Ford’s direction. “And he won’t stand a chance against Ivan when he’s angry.”

Ford let out another groan from Helen’s lap, and when she looked down to console him, she realized that he’d shakily brought up his head just enough so he could look Ed in the eye. Helen could feel him trembling against her, and put a gentle hand on his shoulder, trying to get him to relax and save his energy. He ignored her, and ground out, “Y-you...don’t know shit about my brother.”

Helen couldn’t help but smile.

Ed simply sighed and fell back against the pillar as Darryl finished binding his wrists.

“At least we can trust Stan,” Fiddleford said, every word heavy and accusatory. He sounded like a father whose child had just committed a terrible crime, and had left him wondering where he’d gone wrong. “Which is certainly more than I can say for you. All that pretty talk about wanting to help us, about wanting to help Helen...and the entire time you were just lying to our faces.” He turned his steely gaze to Ed. “And you had the gall to tell me that I was lowering myself to Ivan’s level. If anyone here is no better than him, it’s you.”

Ed’s eyes flicked up to meet Fiddleford, and once again, Helen was unnerved by the utterly inhuman way it made him look. Like a rusted robot, going through the motions of its ancient programming, just waiting to break down completely.

“McGucket, believe me,” Matthews finally said, sounding exhausted. “I never wanted Helen to get mixed up in all this. I meant it when I said all I wanted was to help her. I understand the kind of pain losing the baby caused her-”

“You don’t understand dick, Ed,” Helen spat, fury bubbling in her belly. “You’re the one who joined this freakshow because of some lake monster.”

Ed let out a harsh bark of a laugh, and said, “If you really bought that I’d go through all this just because I saw some monster in the lake, then maybe you’re the one who doesn’t understand anything.”

“What are you talking about?” Darryl asked, looking up from tying Ed’s wrists, a quizzical look on his face.

“I didn’t erase memories of a lake monster. I erased Andrea.”

“Andrea?” Helen felt her heart sink. “You erased your memories of Andrea?”

He shook his head, and said, “No. Not of her. Of her death.”

Oh dear god…

“Everyone believed me when I said that she was already dead when I came back from my rounds,” he continued. His voice quivered ever so slightly, the broken robot mask slipping further and further the longer he spoke. “But she was still hanging on. Not for more than five minutes, not long enough for me to actually be able to do anything. She was struggling to breath and I could tell she was scared and trying to claw her way back to life.” He gulped heavily. “And then, she looked at me. Those beautiful brown eyes locked on me and they were begging me to help and I couldn’t do anything but stand there and watch her die!”

Ed’s shrill cry echoed through the chamber. Helen saw tears pricking at his eyes as she stared at him in disbelief.

He took a few shaky breaths, and then said, “It kept me awake for weeks before I found out about the Society. This group is the only reason I didn’t just fall apart after Andrea died. That gun was what kept me sane. She was my whole world, Helen, and in the end, I couldn’t save her. I thought you, of all people, know what it’s like to be able to do nothing as someone you love painfully slips away from you. I thought you’d understand.”

For a moment, no one said anything, and the only sound was Ed’s raw, pained gulps of air, desperately trying to hold himself together.

Helen pitied him, much as she was loathe to admit it.

She thought back to the details of that horrible night.

Richard was at a late dinner meeting, so it was just her and the kids. They were at the dining room table, struggling through algebra, notes on the Industrial Revolution, the next chapter of The Great Gilly Hopkins, and she was filling the dishwasher. Her back had been hurting a lot that evening, but she also had been forced to sleep on it for the last week or so, since Christina really didn’t like it when Mom tried to lay on her side. Maybe she’d just leave the rest of the dishes for Richard and lay down for a while.

She’d just started to turn when the pain blossomed through her, like someone driving a hot knife into her kidneys, and a pained yell was ripped from her. She felt something hot and sticky trail down her leg through the haze of pain. She heard chairs frantically scraping at the hardwood floors and then Daisy was standing in the archway to the kitchen, staring down at her mother in abject terror, making her look about ten years younger than she was. Helen wanted to comfort her, say anything to ease her daughter’s fear. But nothing came out expect another pained gasp.

It was only when Scott and Amanda started trying to get past Daisy to see what was going on that she moved. Daisy began ushering them out, telling them in an authoritative voice Helen didn’t recognize coming from her that they were not to look, to go wait in the living room.

Daisy dashed to the kitchen phone, nearly pulling it off the wall as she frantically punched three numbers. Helen heard her speak four words that, to this day, made her insides clench and her brain send her into a mess of panic - “My mom needs help.”

She gave her head a hard shake, and looked back over at Ed. He looked much more human now than when this conversation had started. But Helen knew what he needed to hear.

“You’re right, Ed,” she said quietly. “I do know what that’s like.” Flicking her gaze down, she found that her hand had found its way to her abdomen. She didn’t remember putting it there.

Ed’s face flashed briefly in a look of relief. No, she wasn’t going to let him think he’d gotten to her.

“But you know what else I know?” she asked, her voice firmer, clearer. “I know that my pain doesn’t give me an excuse to hurt anyone else. Look at what this society has gotten you to do, Ed.” Helen gave Ford’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Look at what you’ve done to a man who never did anything to you. You never even met Ford until this morning. And you’ve broken every oath you had to take as a doctor, all because the man who made it so you didn’t have to face reality told you to.”

Ed said nothing. He merely looked away.

“That gun, this group,” Helen continued, “they’re not helping anyone. All it does is make it hurt worse. Every time the memories come flooding back to you, it’s like living through it again. No one can live that way, let alone heal. Even if you had offered me a chance to forget Ed, I wouldn’t have taken it. It wouldn’t have fixed anything.” She sighed. “These things can’t just go away, Ed. But they do get easier. Get some real help.”

The silence that followed was deafening, and for a moment, no one moved. It was as if time had stopped, just to focus in on this moment of pure human misery, simmering between this group of people with scars invisible to the naked eye.

Finally, Darryl cleared his throat and stood up, brushing the dust from the floor off his pants. Then, he pulled his robe up and over his head, revealing a white t-shirt and black jeans underneath, the average street clothes he’d been wearing at Helen’s house hours ago. A pair of dog tags clinked together, on a chain around his neck. He tossed his robe off to the side, in the dark surrounding them. He didn’t watch to see where it landed. He merely reached down and grabbed Ed’s bound wrists, and pulled him to his feet.

“We need to head back upstairs,” he said. “That ringing sounded like the fire alarm. Gotta get all these guys back up before the cavalry arrives.”

“Can’t wait to see how you explain an unconscious group of bystanders,” Ed muttered. “With injuries made by an illegal set of brass knuckles, no less.”

Helen shot him a scathing glance, but he had a point. There was no way they’d ever be able to explain this to the authorities without coming off like a bunch of deranged psychopaths. Three of these people were practically pensioners. There was no way the police would believe that they were the ones who’d caused any of their injuries.

“I think I have a solution to that,” Fiddleford said, wandering over to the wall. He felt along the surface for a bit, before his hand hit a stone that gave under his fingertips. The wall pulled back with a rumbling groan, and revealed half a dozen more memory guns, all the same size as the one Ivan had destroyed.

Ed scoffed and said, “Those things? They can barely hold an hour’s worth of memory. How are they supposed to help you?”

Fiddleford ignored him. “Darryl, would you check and see if Muggins has his police radio on under his robe?” He pulled open the panel on the side of the small gun and began fishing about in the wires. Darryl bent over Muggins, and pulled up his robe until it was around his midsection. Sure enough, attached to his belt loop, was his radio.

“Well, what do you know,” Darryl muttered. “Muggins may be an idiot, but at least he’s a reliable idiot.”

“Give it here,” Fiddleford said, pulling a long red wire out from the gun, curling it about in his fist. When Darryl placed the radio in his hand, Fiddleford pried off the battery compartment, and dug his thumb into the guts of receiver, pulling out another, shorter wire from within it. As quickly as one might tie their shoe, he connected them, and the receiver crackled to life. He twisted the dial a few times, then set the device on the ground, in the middle of the small group.

The screen attached to the gun said “SOCIETY OF THE BLIND EYE”.

It began to whine.

Then he reached down and grabbed the hem of Ed’s robe. Ed only had time to give off a small, indignant sound as Fiddleford began tearing off a long strip, then tore that into two smaller strips. “Helen,” he said, handing the bits of cloth to her, “use these to plug up Ford’s ears. Then you and Darryl need to cover yours.”

She did as he said, but that didn’t stop her from asking, “What did you do?”

“I amplified its frequency,” he replied matter-of-factly. “It’s still not as powerful as the original, but it should have a wider range now. Enough to store bigger memories from at least everyone in this room.” He punctuated that last sentence with a mischievous smirk at Ed.

Ed’s eyes went wide as the implications hit him.

The gerry-rigged memory gun whined louder.

“Say good night, Sally,” Fiddleford said, putting his hands over his ears.

Helen and Darryl did the same, right before a brilliant blue light flooded the chamber. ---

Twigs snapped under his feet as Stan sprinted through the forest, keeping his eyes trained on the billowing red cloak roughly a hundred feet in front of him. He beat branches away from his face as he moved deeper and deeper into the dense trees, ignoring them when he didn’t push them hard enough and they came back to slap him in the face. He tried to block out the feeling of the frigid night air constricting around him, leaching through his jacket and clothes like he’d been submerged in a cold bath.

He wasn’t going to let this bastard get away from him, not with that gun. He’d chase him to the ends of the earth if that’s what it took, but he was not going to let all the pain they’d gone through - Helen’s heartache, Fiddleford’s mental anguish, Ford’s torture - go to waste because of Blind Ivan.

The branches suddenly parted as he stampeded into a clearing, hazy moonlight peaking through the clouds to illuminate patches of mud and dead grass beneath his feet. He whipped around, looking for that shock of red. It was nowhere to be seen.

No, no, he couldn’t have lost him.

“Come out here and face me like a man!” Stan shouted, his voice echoing in the inky darkness. “You can’t hide from me forever, you bony coward!”

A mirthless laugh answered him, though from what direction it came from, he could scarcely begin to guess.

Ivan was toying with him. Despite the fact he could have used this opportunity to escape, he still stuck around to taunt Stan, lord over him how much smarter he was than him for escaping him so deftly. And arrogance like that could be exploited.

“What the fuck is so funny?” Stan shouted into the night.

“The fact that you think you’re somehow in control of this situation,” Ivan answered. Stan still couldn’t pinpoint exactly where his voice was coming from, but that hardly mattered. All he had to do was keep him talking, and Ivan would do the rest himself.

“Your kind always think that they can solve their problems with their might,” Ivan continued. “Yes, I know your kind quite well.”

“You don’t know shit about me!”

Another chuckle. “Perhaps not as much as the others, but you present yourself so plainly, it’s easy to draw my own conclusions. And what I find is this - you’re young, but you bear the scars of an old man. Scars that only come through unimaginable hardship. They’re not from any singular source, but every one is as painful as the last. And the worst part is that no one seems to care. After all, your suffering has made you who you are. Toughened you up. Made you a man. Isn’t that right?”

Stan flinched at the familiar words of his father being flung at him, but he couldn’t let that or the thought of how Ivan knew about them distract him. He simply had to make Ivan think he was getting to him. “Shut up!” he screeched at the trees.

“You keep trying to reach out to someone, to help you deal with these scars, but they brush you off. They sympathize, but they never try to change anything, and you’re left all alone to deal with it.”

Stan shouted back, “At least I’ve got people in my life because they want to be there. All you’ve got is a gaggle of robed weirdos who stick around because they’re afraid of you. If I had to make a bet, I’d say you’ve never had anyone around you that you actually gave a damn about. You wouldn’t know caring for another human being if it bit you in the ass.”

Silence was his only answer. He feared that perhaps Ivan had finally grown tired of his game and retreated.

Then something heavy slammed into his back.

His face struck the dirt hard and bounced, and for a moment, stars danced in front of his eyes. But then he felt the cold bulb of the memory gun press into the back of his head, and he rallied all his strength to push himself upward, flinging Ivan up and away from him, close to another cluster of trees.

As Ivan scrambled back to his feet, Stan saw his eyes flash in the moonlight, the first time he’d ever seen them catch any sort of light. And what he saw there was nothing but fury. This wasn’t just anger or gloating or frustration.

Ivan’s eyes burned with murderous hate.

Stan didn’t let him get any further than a low crouch before he sprang at Ivan and slammed him into the underbrush. They rolled over each other, both clawing and grasping, Ivan trying to shove the gun into Stan’s face and fire, and Stan trying to wrench it out of his grasp.

Then something solid and sharp slammed into Stan’s temple, right where he’d been stitched up, and his vision was flooded with white. He felt himself being slammed onto his back, and Ivan’s weight being pressed into his chest. As his vision cleared, he saw that Ivan wasn’t holding just the memory gun anymore. High above Stan’s head was a large, blood-stained rock. It must have been what Stan hit. And now Ivan was going to use it to smash his head in.

Acting on pure instinct, Stan shot out a fist, managing a hook right into Ivan’s right eye. The brass-aided punched forced Ivan from his position on Stan’s chest, and caused him to lose his grip on both the rock and the gun, and he fell to the ground with a thud.

Stan rolled just as the rock came down. The sound of rending metal and shattering glass caught his attention, and he looked up. The memory gun had landed directly on the rock, and lay broken in pieces. Ivan seemed to forget all about the pain from his injured eye. He simply gaped at the destroyed memory gun laying before him, occasionally sparking uselessly. “No,” he said quietly. “No...nononononoNO.” Suddenly his bellows filled the entire forest, and that burning gaze was back on Stan. “What have you done?!”

Stan took a moment to take in a few deep breaths and get his bearings. They’d managed to roll into another clearing. He faintly heard water rushing, and realized that behind Ivan was a cliff. Below it must have been the river that fed into the falls.

“It’s over, Ivan,” Stan said. “You’ve got nowhere left to run. You lost.”

The gaping devastation on Ivan’s face melted away like wax from a spent candle. From his throat bubbled up laughter, deep and unhinged. Stan felt the hairs go up on the back of his arms and neck, and he raised his fists in case this was the prelude to another attack.

But Ivan didn’t move, outside of his shoulders bobbing with his insane laughter. He raised his head to look at Stan, almost like he expected him to be in on whatever joke had played out in his head, like this was all some rollicking fun they’d partaken in together.

“You really think you’ve beaten me?” Ivan asked, his laughter now dying down into chortling hiccups.

“Look around, Ivan,” Stan replied. “You’ve got nothing left to throw at us.”

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, Stanley,” Ivan said. Swaying slightly, he got back to his feet, not seeming to notice Stan readying himself to start throwing his fists again. “If you think that one night of your interference can stop what I have planned, you’re an even bigger fool than I imagined.”

Ivan stumbled back slightly, steadying himself a bit as he added, “I have plans, you see. Plans that I have worked too hard for too long to see stopped by the likes of you. You can’t possibly grasp the magnitude of what’s coming, Stanley Pines. Not like I can…”

Ivan took another step back. He was less than two feet away from the edge of the cliff. A gust of wind whipped around him dangerously, making him teeter closer to the edge. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to fall. Stan actually found himself taking a step forward, ready to lunge for him if started going over, not out of any sense of wanting to help. He just didn’t want an accidental fall to keep this twerp from getting the punishment he deserved.

But then Ivan turned his gaze back up towards Stan, and he stopped dead.

Ivan’s eyes were sharp and clear.

Ivan wasn’t in danger of accidentally falling.

He was backing towards the edge of the cliff on purpose.

“What the hell are you doing?” Stan called out, not even trying to hide how panicked his voice was.

“What I’ve always done,” Ivan said simply. “What is necessary.”

He took one more step backwards. Then he was over the cliff.

Stan rushed forward, though he wasn’t sure what he thought he’d be able to do. By the time he closed the distance between them, Ivan had vanished from sight.

He heard the splash as Ivan’s body hit the raging river below. Stan finally reached the cliff’s edge, and looked over. All he could see was swirling foam as the water settled back into its current. Ivan was nowhere to be seen.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. He couldn’t think of anything else to say or do.

He heard the wail of sirens drifting over the trees. He needed to get back, make sure that Ford was okay. Be there for him, the way he’d wanted to be there for him throughout this entire thing. He gave himself a shake it get out of the stupor that shrouded him.

He took a step forward, and stepped on something smooth and hard. He raised his foot and saw a tube, laying in the grass. It was white, with two brass nodes at each end. Ivan must have dropped it when they’d rolled into the clearing.

He bent down and picked it up. The moon offered just enough light to see words, scribbled shakily in dark ink on the side of the tube.

Preston Northwest’s Memories.

Who the hell was Preston Northwest?

Why did Ivan have his memories?

And why were they so important that Ivan would carry them with him, even as he jumped to his doom?

He glanced over his shoulder, to the cliff’s edge.

The raging current below offered him no answers. ---

Ford knew he was safe as soon as he opened his eyes.

Not just because his surroundings were a clean, bleached white, clearly not that awful, dank chamber under the history museum. Not just because the pain that had permeated his existence for the last several hours had faded to barely a dull throb.

It was because as soon as he opened his eyes, he was greeted by Stan’s tired smile. Blurred though it may have been because of his missing glasses, he’d recognize it anywhere.

Still, he wanted to hear it, out loud.

“Stan?” he said, his voice a pathetic, dried-out whisper. The single word seared his throat, but he didn’t care. He needed to hear it.

“I’m here, Ford,” was the reply. That wonderful, caring, supportive voice that sounded like a fork in a garbage disposal. It was music to Ford’s ears. He felt his hand being squeezed warmly, and it made him want to cry out of sheer relief.

“Here,” Stan said, reaching over to grab something from the night table. He leaned close, and slid Ford’s glasses back on his face. The world became clear again, despite the glaring crack in the left lens, and he could finally make out his surroundings. He was in a hospital bed, and a glance down revealed that his leg, the same leg Matthews had kicked in, was now entombed in a huge plaster cast, a foam wedge tucked underneath it to keep it elevated. An IV was at his bedside, no doubt responsible for the fact he wasn’t moaning in agony right now. The lights had been dimmed and the dark curtains drawn, although Ford could still see the pale gray of dawn peeking through.

But that wasn’t what Ford eventually focused on. No, what he focused on was the angry red gash at his twin’s temple. A line of neat stitches ran down the length of it, but it had clearly been a bad wound when it was received. Despite all his limbs feeling heavier than lead, Ford reached up and put his hand on the scar, and lightly traced his thumb down the length of it.

“Hey, don’t you start apologizing for that,” Stan said, reaching up to move Ford’s hand away, giving it another reassuring squeeze. “This had nothing to do with you.”

“I know,” Ford replied. “I still don’t like seeing you hurt.”

“How do you think I feel?” Stan asked, a smile creeping into his voice. “I’ve only been staring at your busted-up mug for two hours. Believe me, you’re no oil painting.”

Ford chuckled a little, forever grateful for whatever painkiller was being pumped into him by the IV by the side of his hospital bed.

“So, how are you feeling?” Stan asked.

“Like I got beat up by cultists,” Ford replied. “But the drugs help. And speaking of cultists...”

“Taken care of,” Stan replied quickly. “By the time the ambulance got there, none of them could even remember why they were in the museum to begin with.”

“Should we examine the moral implications of us stopping a group of violent memory-wiping fanatics by forcing them to violently have their memories wiped?”

“Who are we, the Justice League?” Stan scoffed. “Those nuts were gonna do a lot worse to us than just wipe our memories. You’re, ironically enough, living testimony to that.”

“Irony hurts like a bitch.”

“You’re telling me.”

A beat of silence passed between them, the question Ford wanted to ask and simultaneously never hear the answer to hanging between them. Finally, he took a deep breath, and asked, “What about Ivan?”

Stan bit his lip, obviously struggling with how he was going to answer. Ford’s stomach roiled a bit. Ivan had to have escaped. That’s all there was to it. Stan wouldn’t have been this hesitant if that wasn’t the case. If those words left Stan’s mouth, he wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to not vomit, out of sheer panic more than anything else.

“He jumped off a cliff.”

Ford blinked. That certainly was not what he expected Stan to say.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Stan replied with a halfhearted shrug. “I chased him to a cliff near the river. He tried to fight me. He lost. The gun got smashed up, so I guess he panicked. Took the coward’s way out.”

“Then it’s really over,” Ford said. He wasn’t even embarrassed by how meek his voice sounded to his own ears.

“Yeah, it is.” Stan gave his hands another squeeze. Ford hadn’t realized until then that they were shaking.

Another beat of silence passed between them, this one less oppressive than the last. For that moment, Ford just let the relief that his tormentor was gone wash over him. It was better than the drugs.

Then, he asked, “Is everyone else okay?”

Stan nodded off to the other side of the room, and with a bit of effort, Ford turned his head enough to see Helen and Fiddleford, set up in a couple chairs against the wall, passed out on each other. Both of them were covered in bruises and cuts, evidence of their struggle against the Society.

“They pretty much passed out as soon as we got the word from the paramedics you were gonna be okay,” Stan said. “Can’t say I blame them. We really put them through the ringer for this. Helen, especially...”

Stan trailed off, for a brief moment, as if he were thinking hard about something. Then he quickly added, “Ford, she knows about the portal.”

Ford felt his stomach fall to his feet. He gulped a bit, even though it made his throat stick, and asked, “How did she take that?”

“‘Bout as well as expected.”

“She freaked out?”

“Big time.”

“Oh boy.”

“To be fair to her, she found out about it directly after the whole thing with the crazy old lady attacking us in her house, so...maybe she’ll be a little more open-minded about it when she wakes up?”

“I know intense physical abuse always helps me process any bombshell secrets my friends drop on me.”

“You’re lucky your face is already one giant bruise, smart-ass, or I’d knock that sarcasm right out of you.”

Ford gave a weak chuckle, but he couldn’t fight the shame that bubbled up in his chest. He’d hoped no one else would ever find out about that damnable portable, that gargantuan testament to his shame, let alone someone he trusted and respected like Helen.

“We never should have dragged her into this,” he muttered.

His inner turmoil must have shown on his face, because Stan reached out an put a reassuring hand on Ford’s cheek, tilting his head so that his twin was looking him in the eye. Stan’s gaze was alight with compassion and love. It made the shame twisting in a Ford’s stomach seem like nothing.

“Hey,” Stan said gently, “Knowing her, she would have found a way to get involved. She’ll come around to this. And I’m sure she’s going to be much happier about the fact you’re alive to help her understand it.”

As if on cue, Helen let out a sleepy sigh. Ford turned to look at her just as her eyes fluttered open. She shifted slightly in her seat, which roused Fiddleford. Both of them looked around the room blearily before realizing what was happening in the bed in front of them.

“Oh, Ford,” Helen breathed, on her feet and at the bed in the time it took Ford to blink. She sat on the edge of his bed and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close, and planted a soft kiss directly on his forehead. He leaned into it greedily.

“Don’t get too cozy, you little shit,” Helen mumbled into his hair. He could hear her voice getting thick. “I’m still mad at you for stealing my car.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled back. “I’ll get you some cash for the gas.”

She only responded by holding him tighter.

Ford turned his head slightly, and saw Fiddleford looking back at him, near the end of the bed. His face was a strange mix of exhaustion, confusion, and relief. Ford couldn’t help but think back to that morning - or rather, yesterday, he supposed - when he’d seen Fiddleford’s face for the first time in four months. The haggard, gaunt, lost little man in the alley seemed to have vanished over the course of a day. Every time Ford looked at Fiddleford, he saw a bit more of his dear friend creeping back to the surface, out from under the smothering electricity of that horrible device he’d created.

Ford wanted to say so much to him. He wanted to apologize, but Fiddleford had told him not to, that he didn’t blame him, not anymore.

He wanted to promise to be better, but the smile Fiddleford wore, that smile that always made him feel like he somewhere safe and warm, seemed to advertise plainly that Fiddleford always believed in Ford’s ability to improve, that there’d never been a doubt in his mind.

He just wanted to talk, and listen to that soft, kind voice - the one that knew and could sing every John Denver song ever written and talked endlessly about James Baldwin and theoretical physics - answer him for the rest of his life.

Instead, all he said was, “I’m glad you’re okay, Fiddleford.”

“You too, Ford,” Fiddleford replied.

Before Ford could think of anything else to say, Fiddleford had come up to his side. Helen, almost intuitively, had moved to the side to let him through. And then Fiddleford’s arms were around his neck again, his head buried in his shoulder. His hair brushed against Ford’s cheek like thistledown. Ford could feel that smile stretch wider against his neck, and he knew that Fiddleford was exactly where he wanted to be. Ford brought an arm up and draped it over Fiddleford’s back, holding his friend as close as his worn out muscles would let him. He wished he had the strength to hug him forever.

Too soon, Fiddleford pulled away, looked up into Ford’s face. Ford saw tears welling in his eyes as he said, “I said some terrible things to you, and I’m so sorry.” He sighed shakily, and added, “I’m responsible for how I reacted to what happened to me. And now I’m responsible for fixing the damage I caused.”

Ford reached up and put a hand on Fiddleford’s. “Maybe we could try fixing things together,” he replied.

Fiddleford nodded, smile as bright as a hundred watt bulb, and said, “Sounds perfect.”

“I’ve got a portal of doom in my basement that needs dismantling,” Ford said. “If you’re up for that, I mean. I’m a little...indisposed at the moment.” To illustrate his point, he gave his plastered-up leg a small wiggle.

Fiddleford chuckled, and said, “I think I can handle that. I imagine it’ll feel pretty good reducing that thing to scrap.”

“Well, you might wanna put the kibosh on portal talk for a while,” Stan interjected, “and start thinking about how you’re gonna be getting around the house with a pair of crutches. I’ve walked around on crutches enough to know that going up and down stairs constantly with them eventually makes your armpits go numb.”

“I’m not even going to bother asking why you’ve been on crutches so many times,” Helen said, voice flat.

“That’s for the best,” Stan replied.

“Well, I suppose I could move down to the couch for a few weeks,” Ford said. “Especially since we are gonna have a house guest for a while.”

Fiddleford looked at Ford like he’d just said he’d give him his kidney as opposed to his bedroom. “Oh no,” he said, a bit of color flushing to his cheeks. “I can’t ask a man with broken ribs to sleep on a lumpy couch.”

“You’re not asking,” Ford said playfully. “I’m telling you that’s what I’m doing.”

“And I’m siding with Fidds on this one,” Stan said. “I’ll take the couch. Since I’m on the bottom floor, you can take my bed, and Fidds can have yours.”

“That’s an excellent idea, Stan,” Fiddleford said, giving him a cheery smile.

Ford looked between them in confusion. Where had this chummy camaraderie come from? A few hours ago, Stan was regarding Fiddleford like a forest creature that had wandered into their house and wouldn’t leave. Now, he was returning the smile, with a kind of conspiratorial smugness, like he and Fiddleford were in on some kind of joke together.

“Who are you two, and what have you done with Stan and Fiddleford?” Ford asked, only partly joking.

“Hey, someone’s got to keep you from falling apart completely,” Helen chuckled. “And between the three of us, I think we can manage it.”

Ford laughed a bit himself, just as the door opened slowly. He saw Darryl peek in, and, seeing everyone was awake and talking and even looking rather upbeat, open the door to come in. “Glad to see you guys looking better,” he said with a toothy smile, a blue jacket slung over his shoulders. “How’re you feeling, Dr. Pi-I mean, Ford?”

“They tell me I’ll live,” Ford replied. He found it so odd how the light tone rolled so naturally off his tongue. Here before him stood a man who’d risked his own safety, just to help this group of people he barely knew, and had really no reason to trust. “Listen, Darryl,” he said, “I wanted to thank you. For everything. I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am for everything you did for me.” “None of us can,” Stan added. “You were amazing back there.”

Darryl reached up to rub his hand down his neck bashfully, obviously trying to hide the faint glow that had suddenly risen to his cheeks. “There’s no need for that,” Darryl said. “I was just doing what was right.”

“So how’s everything going out there?” Helen asked.

“‘Bout as chaotic as you’d expect,” Darryl replied. “I don’t think anyone was ready for a bunch of injured amnesiacs to turn up in the history museum in the wee hours of the morning, let alone small-town cops.”

“Not even factoring in that the sheriff was one of those amnesiacs,” Helen muttered darkly.

“You got it,” Darryl replied. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small sucker. As he pulled the wrapper off and popped it in his mouth, he said, “Damn, my wife picked a bad time to convince me to give up smoking.”

Ford saw Helen and Stan exchange a glance over the bed. “You got two more of those?” Stan asked as he turned his attention back to Darryl.

Darryl didn’t reply, just pulled two more suckers out of the jacket pocket and tossed them to Stan.

Stan caught them, took one, and offered the other to Helen. She accepted it without a word.

It seemed to Ford that everyone had these little secrets together tonight.

Stan pulled the wrapper off his and asked, “So, what are we telling the cops, exactly? We need to make sure we keep our stories straight.”

“Officially, Ivan’s the main mastermind behind everything,” Darryl replied. “As far as everyone else from the Society is concerned, they were victims of a terrorist with a weird gun.”

“Not far from the truth, if we’re being honest,” Stan said.

Darryl smiled wryly and continued, “I even managed to convince them that you all were brave heroes who couldn’t stand by and let innocent people be tortured by some madman, so you gallantly stormed the place and beat the shit out of him.”

“And those were your exact words?” Fiddleford asked, clearly biting back a laugh.

“Well, the rookie cops may have started embellishing things a bit,” Darryl said with a shrug of his shoulders. “You know how things travel in a small town. Also, Ford, if someone asks you how you managed to wrestle Ivan’s trained attack deer with your bare hands, just know that I did not come up with that part.”

That finally drew a laugh out of the whole group. It was a marvelous sound, after all they’d endured. Honestly, it was all rather difficult for Ford to believe. All the secrets that had been spilled, all the conspiracies that had been blown wide open, all the wounds they’d been dealt, physical or otherwise - that had all happened over the course of one day. It felt like they’d been at it for years. Ford felt Helen lean up against him a little more, and he got a look at her face. Even once you got past the deep blue bruising, she looked utterly exhausted, absently swirling her sucker around in her mouth. Ford saw that she’d draped an arm over her abdomen. As much as he didn’t want to, he thought back to that dark chamber, heard Helen’s broken plea ringing in his ears.

Before he had a chance to stop himself, he said, “Helen?”

“Hmm?” She flicked her eyes down at him, sucker stilled for a moment.

He almost took it back. For a moment, he couldn’t bring himself to ask what he wanted to know. If it was true, he didn’t want to be the one responsible for upsetting her again. It wasn’t his place to ask that question.

But his mouth had other plans, and he said, “That...thing. About the baby? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but...was what you told Ivan true?”

Helen didn’t respond right away.

He’d fucked up. Oh man, he’d fucked up.

He averted his eyes from her and quickly added, “I’m sorry! Like I said, you don’t have to tell me. If you think it’s none of my business, just say so. I don’t -”

Suddenly a finger was pressed to his lips. He looked back up at Helen. She was giving him a lopsided smile. “Yes, Ford, it’s true,” she said. She gave the other three men a quick glance. “It’s not like everyone else in this room doesn’t already know.”

Ford wanted to say something, but then he looked again into Helen’s eyes. They were sad, as anyone’s would be when they had just admitted to something so heartbreaking, but there was something else too. To Ford, it looked remarkably like peace.

Stan sighed, and muttered, “We’re all just a bunch of sad idiots, aren’t we?”

Ford and the others gave grunts of agreement, but he saw that Fiddleford’s eyebrows were scrunched up in thought.

After a moment, he said, “I suppose it could always be worse.”

“Ugh, booo,” Stan groaned, rolling his eyes so far back in his head they might have been in danger of popping out.

“Man, you did not just say that,” Darryl said with a wry laugh.

Fiddleford gave them bother a withering glance, and said, “If you two would let me finish, I was gonna say it could be worse, because we could all be alone.”

No one interrupted him this time.

“I mean, we’ve all been through some kind of hell that no one else can really understand,” Fiddleford continued. “We don’t even understand each other’s trauma all that well. But we can at least be there for each other, when things get tough. We’re lucky in ways a lot of other people aren’t.”

Ford felt Stan’s hand tighten around his. Helen’s arm was back around his shoulder. Even Darryl had closed the distance between himself and the bed, and leaned against the edge.

Each of them had a pain unique to them.

They could drown out that pain together.

In that moment, Ford did indeed feel like one of the luckiest men on the planet.

---

Rfc Kwqrcpw Lcpbq fyxe qytcb rfc byw Ylb dpccb rfc rmul dpmk rfc Znglb Cwc’q quyw Dpgclbqfgnq qyjtyecb, zmlbq ypc kclbcb Lmu gr qcckq rfc qrmpw’q clbcb

#gravity falls #mystery nerds au #seared with scars #stanley pines #stan pines #stanford pines #ford pines #fiddleford mcgucket #helen bergstrum #blind ivan #the society of the blind eye #tw violence #tw suicide #tw miscarrige #tw ptsd

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sis-tafics · 6 years

Text

My Story

Summary: Jensen goes through the hardest day of his life.

Characters: Reader, Jensen

Pairings: Jensen x Reader

Word Count: 3500

Warnings: PLEASE READ THESE- Death, Angst, loss of a child during pregnancy, mentions of trouble getting pregnant, mentions of a previous stillborn. Jensen’s POV

A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading. This is both for Kari’s ( @thing-you-do-with-that-thing ) 9.5K British Song Challenge. My song was Small Bump by Ed Sheeran and Steph’s ( @torn-and-frayed ) Gif Challenge

This is unbetaed, all mistakes are mine

It’s been a long ass day filming, the trailer nap didn’t cut it and I can’t wait to get home. Pulling out my phone, I look at the sonogram snapshot on my phone, the one Y/N had sent me earlier from the appointment I’d missed, and I can’t help but smile as Cliff drives and bitches about the traffic, Jared talking to Gen in the other seat.

She’s so tiny, her profile defined and damn she’s got her mother’s nose. Five more months, five more months until I get to meet our baby girl. I’m so pissed I missed the appointment an hour ago, but Jared had been provoking Mish and the scene had taken way longer than expected. I couldn’t exactly tell them why I needed to go, Y/N and I haven’t told anyone yet. We’ve spent the better part of three years trying, had one stillborn, and a handful of false readings. Even though we are four months in, it doesn’t seem real.

I’m heading home. See you soon baby

It was just this last checkup and we were finally going to tell our friends and family. We really don’t have much choice, Y/N is just starting to show, and pretty soon she won’t be able to hide it. And anyways, so far so good. Every appointment so far, everything has been normal, and Y/N had texted me right away and told me everything went great this time too.

“Jensen, I hope you didn’t tell Y/N you were on your way, there’s an accident up ahead and it is going to be awhile.”

“Too late,” I chuckle, tossing the phone on the seat, staring out the window. She won’t mind anyways, I’m sure she’s just making it there herself, and we aren’t going anywhere tonight, just ordering in and spending the weekend together.

The SUV creeps up by the flashing lights of the cop cars and the ambulances on the six lane, the officers directing traffic to the far lane and around, trying to keep rush hour traffic moving.

I glance down and realize I left my phone unlocked, the picture still up. Jared sees it and snatches it off the seat.

“Give it back,” I try to get it out of his hands but he pushes me away.

“Is this...Is Y/N-?”

I swallow hard, “We haven’t told anyone yet… Not after what happened last time.”

Our first baby had been fine for awhile and then right after the six month mark, they couldn’t find a heartbeat. It had almost destroyed us. We’d only been married for about a year at that point, she’d shut herself off. She had to deliver and I couldn’t get a word out of her for weeks and weeks, I wasn’t much better. It really fucked us up for awhile, but we came out of it stronger than before.

Jared hands my phone back to me, “Congrats man.”

“Thanks, just don’t tell her I told you,” I chuckle.

“I won’t say a word.”

“Yeah right,” I smile, looking at the picture again, “You can’t keep a secret to save your life. Gen will know in five minutes.”

He laughs, his whole body shaking as he looks out the window, “Hey, it’s a good thing you aren’t driving, this car looks like your Dodge.”

My heart leaps into my throat, jumping; Y/N’s Impala was in the shop, she’d driven my car to her appointment today.

As we pass the crash a Dodge is demolished, smoking, it looks like a fucking pretzel. It can’t be her, but my heart keeps thumping in my chest and then it stops completely, seeing the anti possession decal on the bumper. She’d gotten us matching ones as a kinda inside joke.

“Cliff, stop the fucking car,” and I’m halfway out the door before he can, running through the open lane towards the accident. It feels like I’m running through mud, the smoke of the burning oil and gas clogging the air as the firefighters put out the last of it.

Hands grab me, stopping me in my tracks, “Sir, I’m going to need you to get back in your vehicle.”

I look over at him, shaking my head, seeing other officers heading over.

“Sir-”

“That is my fucking vehicle, my wife was driving it. That’s my-”

His hands drop, waving the others off, “I’m going to need you to calm down.”

“Where’s my wife...Y/N!” I look around frantically, where is she, she’s gotta be okay, her and the baby have gotta be okay, “Y/N!”

The officer tries to grab me and I shove him off, heading towards the wreck, panicking. There is a pickup that barely looks touched a little ways back and another car that spun out, hitting the median. No, no, no.

“Jensen,” Jared grabs me and spins me around.

“Y/N, she-” I can’t find the words.

“Jensen, they took her to the hospital, the ambulance already left. Let’s get back in the car and get there so we can figure out what’s going on.”

“Jared-”

“C’mon man, let’s get you out of here,” he pulls me towards the SUV.

I let him guide me, unable to think of anything but her. No, this can’t be happening.

The hospital is ten minutes away but that feels like years, time passing too slowly as I try to picture her face but can’t for some reason, the thought of the sonogram creeping in every time I think of her. They have to be alright, they need to be alright. I can’t go through that again, and I can’t lose Y/N.

Cliff pulls the SUV in front of the ER doors and Jared tries to follow me as I sprint in the doors, right up to the desk, “My wife was brought here…”

The lady looks up, holding her finger up for me to wait as she talks on the phone.

“Goddammit!” I shout, shoving papers off the desk, sending them flying, “Hang up your damn phone I need to know what’s going on with my wife, she was in a car crash.”

“Sir I’m going to need you to-.”

“No!” I yell, “Fuck that, I need to know if she’s okay. Her name is Y/N Ackles, she was brought in in the last half hour, now tell me where my wife is!”

“Come with me please,” an older woman in scrubs that was sitting farther down the station stands up and motions for me to follow her.

I nod, “Where’s my wife?”

“I’ll take you to her,” she smiles, but it isn’t really there, it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Please,” I swallow hard, feeling the tears sting the corners of my eyes, fuck, I’m so scared.

“It’s okay honey, just walk with me, we are going upstairs,” she waits for me to catch up to her, leading the way towards the elevators.

“Is she alive?” I whisper.

“I’m going to take you up to surgery and see if I can get someone to talk to you that knows more.”

“Is she alive?” I ask again, quieter, jumping when the elevator beeps.

“As far as I know yes,” she gets in the elevator and hits the button for floor eleven.

“What about our baby?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, they will know more upstairs.”

The floors click by- two, three, four, five...It’s too slow and with every floor the rotting feeling in my gut gets worse. If I just would have told them I had to go I would have been with her, this might not have happened.

The doors open at floor eleven and I let her out before me, and now instead of rushing and feeling like everything around me is moving too slow it feels like the world is rushing and I’m stuck here standing even though somehow my feet are carrying me forward.

She talks to another nurse behind the counter, gesturing towards me as I look around, there are people sitting in chairs, people flying through the halls, pushing gurneys and yelling numbers and orders. The place smells like fucking death and bleach.

“Come on honey let’s get you set up in the waiting room.”

“I thought you were going to take me to see her.”

“The nurse said she is still in surgery, she’s with Dr. Hanson, she’s in good hands. As soon as he can, he will come and find you.”

“But-”

She touches my arm, “There is nothing you can do but be here for her. Can I get you anything?”

I shake my head, trying like hell to stop the tears as she leads me to a room full of chairs. There is one other woman sitting in here, sobbing. I take a chair as far away from her as I can, resting my elbows on my knees, rubbing my face, I still can’t believe this is happening. Why is this happening?

I can’t think, I need to know if she’s okay, I need to know if they are okay and I’m not going to get answers anytime soon.

“Hey bud,” Jared slides into the seat across from me, “did they tell you anything?”

I shake my head, brushing the tear off my cheek, “Nurse couldn’t tell me anything other than she is in surgery. They didn’t even tell me what was wrong. Fuck.” I run my hands over my face, pressing as hard as I can, “Fuck.”

“I’m sure she’s fine, Y/N’s tough.”

“Yeah, yeah...I know. Did you find out what happened?”

Jared nods, “Yeah, I talked to one of the cops I found after you ran off. The truck hit her, they think the guy was texting and driving, went across his lane, another and into hers and ran her into the median. He was life flighted here.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snap, “This happened because some asshole couldn’t put his damn phone down? I’m going to fucking kill him if he isn’t dead already.”

“Easy,” he puts his hands up, “let’s just worry about Y/N first.”

“Y/N,” I whisper, almost whine and bury my face in my hands, trying like hell to hold it together. Not knowing is the absolute worst part, my mind is going crazy, but I know they would have told me if she was already dead, there’s still gotta be hope, there has to be. I can’t do this without her.

The minutes tick by into hours, people come and go, Jared leaves for awhile, comes back with coffees and is gone again. I can’t blame him, this place is awful, filled with people finding out the fates of their loved ones and I’m still sitting here waiting.

I think about her smile, about when we first started dating. She’s weird and quirky in the best way possible, always saying random shit that makes me laugh. That’s not what made me want to marry her though, what really did me in was the love I could always feel radiating off of her, her passion, her strength.

“Mr. Ackles?” A voice cuts through my thoughts.

“Yeah,” I stand up quickly, closing the distance to the man in the blood covered scrubs.

“I’m Dr. Hanson, I’ve been working on your wife-”

I swallow, “How is she doc? Is the baby alright?”

His face doesn’t show any emotion and I don’t know what to expect, “Your wife came in in critical condition, she had a lot of damage to her organs, broken ribs, severe burns on her arms, but what we’ve been working on is her brain, there was a significant amount of hemorrhaging and swelling. We’ve done what we can for now, but only time will tell. The one big thing is she is breathing on her own.”

“She’s alive?”

He grimaces, “For now, but Mr. Ackles I have to be quite frank, it’s going to take a miracle for her to survive the night. Unless the swelling in her brain goes down, best case she will be alive but will not have any brain function.”

“She’ll be brain dead?” No, I can’t lose her, I won’t.

“Yes.”

I close my eyes, rubbing my face, trying like hell to keep it together, “The baby?”

“I’m so sorry, we tried everything we could but your wife was losing blood too fast and she sustained injuries that were fatal to the fetus. We lost the heartbeat about an hour into surgery.”

“It’s not a fucking fetus, it’s our baby!” I growl, the surge of anger and loss rushing through me. I can’t look at him, turning away, grabbing the closest chair and tossing it across the room into the wall. Not again, please God don’t let this be happening again, I can’t get through this without her, “No!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jared comes rushing up to me, grabbing my forearms, trying to keep me from doing any more damage to the waiting room and scaring the shit out of the few people there.

“Jare-” I choke, unable to process this. I thought if it ever happened again, if we ever lost another baby I would know how to deal with it, but nothing could have prepared me for this, nothing.

I turn back to the doctor, “I want to see her, I n-need to.”

“I can take you to her, she’s out of surgery.”

I follow him down the incredibly empty and brightly lit halls, and it’s like I know what’s going on but I don’t understand. My chest hurts, and I feel like I’m going to throw up everywhere and everything feels stiff and it’s hard to move. My feet carry me, but my brain doesn’t follow Dr. Hanson. All I can think about is my wife, my wife and our little girl.

He stops in front of a door, “I’m going to give you a couple minutes and then I can answer any questions that you have.”

He holds the door open for me, and I walk in, fuck. She’s laying here, her head wrapped in white gauze, hooked up to tubes.

“No,” I walk up to her side, her face bruised and cut, stitches across her cheekbone, “No sweetheart.”

I run my fingers over her hand gently, scared to death that I’m going to hurt her. She feels colder than normal and I guess it’s all this shit they are pumping into her.

“Goddammit Y/N, I’m so sorry,” I should have been there, I should have been driving, the otherside of the car had barely been touched, she would have been fine.

My whole body shudders as the sob wracks through me, she can’t be here like this. The shouldn’t be her.

“Fuck,” I hiss, wiping away the tears angrily. She can pull through this, she has to pull through this. Y/N’s tough, hell, she’s put up with me for five years.

On the table beside her there are some of her belongings, it must have been what she had in her pockets when they brought her in. Her phone is laying there, perfectly intact. I pick it up.

“J-Jensen?” Her voice breaks through the quiet and I shove the phone in my pocket. Her voice makes my heart swell in my chest, the most beautiful sound in the world.

“Hey, hey, I’m right here baby,” I take her hand.

She blinks, looking around, confused, trying to get up, “Jensen? Where? W-What?

“Hold on, take it easy,” I push her back down gently, “You’re in the hospital.”

Her face falls, her hand tearing away from mine and moving to her stomach, her eyes widening and my heart breaks. I open my mouth, but words don’t come out, how do I tell her? How can I?

But I don’t have to, the tears start streaming down her face and she lets out a choked sob, looking away from me.

“Y/N?”

She looks back at me, her eyes glistening, “Jensen, I’m sorry, I’m so s-sorry.”

“Oh sweetheart, it’s not your fault,” I cup her chin, pressing my lips against her cheek, “it’s not your fault baby, it’s that asshole that ran into you.”

She shakes, sobbing harder.

I don’t know what to do, how to comfort her, how to fix this. Then I realize there is no way I can, because even though I’m suffering I have her, I can do this with her, but I’m not a mom, it’s not the same, I’ll never know what that feels like.

Her head rolls to the side as she looks at me, but she doesn’t say anything. Her eyes are so sad, lost and she’s trying like hell to hold it together.

“Jensen,” she whispers, her voice helpless and high pitched, “I-I-I…”

Her head snaps back and the monitors start beeping like crazy, but one screams louder than the rest, a constant beep with no change in tone, “Y/N? Y/N!”

Shit, no, she’s fine, she was just talking to me, “Hey! I need help! Hey!”

People in scrubs come rushing in, Dr. Hanson with them, yelling back and forth as they flatten the bed and start doing compressions. All I get are bits and pieces as I back up against the wall.

“Flatlining.”

“Charge.”

“Clear.”

“No pulse.”

“Charge.”

“Clear.”

“One more time.”

“Clear.”

“Nothing.”

“Call it.”

“Time of death 20:52.”

I don’t know where I’m going but I can’t stay here, my feet taking me down the hall, away from her. She’s gone, everything is gone. Nothing matters.

Jared is standing in the waiting room, but I walk right by him, down the hallway a little before I can’t move anymore, leaning up against the wall, breaking down and falling apart. I punch the wall, the tile not moving but at least I feel something and I do it again, my knuckles cracking.

“Excuse me.”

I look over and there is a man leaning on his crutches, his face bruised but that’s it.

“What?” I snap.

He swallows, unable to look me in the eyes and I know. This is the fucker that hit her, that killed her and my baby.

“You son of a bitch,” I grab him up by the collar of his shirt, slamming him against the wall, my fist colliding with his face again and again, “you fucking killed them.”

He doesn’t fight me as I hit him again and again.

“Stop!” A woman’s voice screams, “Stop!”

Hands grab my forearm, and I try to shake it off but then I see the woman that was crying in the waiting room earlier, “Please stop.”

I drop him, not saying a word as I back away, turning and rushing down the hall, I have to get out of here.

I get outside, the buzzing in my pocket making me stop, but I pull out her phone instead of mine, the last text I sent her still in the notification box on the screen.

I’m heading home. See you soon baby

____________

Eighteen Months Later:

I set the final wreath on Y/N’s headstone, taking a step back, my eyes traveling from hers to the two smaller ones beside her. I feel my heart sink and the tears prick the corners of my eyes.

Fuck, it hasn’t gotten easier and truth be told, I don’t think I want it to, I don’t want to forget her.

“I be back later baby, I promise. I miss you so much,” I choke before I touch the top of the stone, heading through the wet morning grass to the car.

I drive to the church I’ve been going to every week since a month after the accident. I’ve never said a word, just sat and listened. Jared made me start going after he had to come get me out of the drunk tank at the police station, and I’ve gone ever since. I didn’t like it then, I’m still not sure I like it now, but the repetition, the fact that it gives me something to do once a week, the repetition gives me some structure.

I take the seat I always do, the one furthest from the door, waiting for people to filter in and fill up the other chairs. The group leader, Darcy, starts the meeting, giving the usual speech, that anyone is welcome to talk, that we are all here to support one another.

“So if anyone would like to start off today, the floor is open.”

It’s quiet for a moment. Shit. She’d want me to get better.

I clear my throat and everyone looks my way, and half of them are shocked. I’ve been here seventeen months and never said a word. I shift uncomfortably, “Hi...I’m Jensen and, shit...I don’t know how to start this. I just want to thank you guys for letting me be here and I’m here every week and I get to look at you, and I get to see you guys, and I know you all have a story and I-I think I’m ready to tell mine.”

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#kari's 9.5k british song challenge #steph's 31 for 31 challenge #my story #jensen #jensen x reader #jensen's pov #jensen x you #jensen x y/n #jensen ackles #jensens x female reader #tw miscarrige #tw death #jensen ackles x reader #jensen ackles x you #jensen ackles x y/n

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