Where The Light Enters You

You know the thing about car crashes? You never see them coming. You're comfortably sitting in front of the steering wheel, trying to drown the obnoxious sound of that stupid elephant from the kids' show that your little son just adores as he sings in that squeaky little voice. You're trying not to mind that your wife is singing along. You're trying not to spill your coffee as you bring it to your lips while paying attention to the traffic lights. You're trying to tell yourself that it's only a couple of hours until you get to the waterpark.

You're trying. You're really trying to be a good husband and dad. You try your best every damn day, every single hour, every single minute, in every single breath. And the anger isn't directed toward Robin, or Morgan, or yourself. It's all directed at her father. That man. You'd throttle him for free.

But none of this is about him or how he's never approved of you basically running away with her, because hell, even you knew she was too good. Even you knew you hadn't been her only option. But because she picked you and because she didn't mind living below what she was used to, and because you had a son who had her eyes and your hair, you could let it go. Most of the time, at least.

You're trying to tell yourself that none of that matters. The he doesn't matter in your lives. That you're doing as much as you can. That you should check who's calling before you pick up the phone and get into a verbal fight with your own in-laws. Also, you're trying not to mind that Robin is singing to ignore you since you got out of the house.

You're trying. You're trying so hard.

And then the crash comes.

And then it's like Tyson punched your lights out and you're deaf for a second that lasts eternities and you're getting your world flipped upside down, inside out, and you think to yourself, welp there goes my organs.

But that's not the scary part. Because you're a father, because you're a husband, because you're not alone in the car, you can sense that senseless fear, that gut-wrenching sickness, that instinct. Now that's the scary part - trying to draw in air as your face scrapes against the asphalt while you crawl your way out the broken window - and you're distinctly aware of broken glass digging into your flesh - because Morgan is crying out in the back. It's scary to know he's hurt. It's scary to think how hurt he might be.

You're trying. You're really trying. But your vision is going blurry and the burn from your leg isn't giving. It just grows. You try. You try so hard. But no matter, you still fall unconscious listening to your little kid's wails. And you think you can hear sirens in the distance. You think. But you're not sure.

And then everything goes black.

You're not sure you've ever felt as much pain as today. Not even giving birth was as hurtful. Not even fighting with your husband ever made you cry quite as much. But it isn't the metal rod - god knows where that came from - stuck in your leg, or the broken arm, or the torn skin of your palm which make you shriek in the stuffy halls of the hospital.

It's the not knowing.

"Where's my son?!" you demand.

And indeed. Where's he? Where's Lon'qu? Are they dead, are they in pain, god did they survive? Please say they are alright.

Were you a believer you'd be panicking a lot less and praying a lot more, but you're a skeptical through and through. You never even married because you can't even believe in the system. All you have to prove that Lon'qu is yours is that tattoo you got of his name that he hates and you'd like to forget. Because you'd been young and drunk. Because you'd just had sex with him in his car and he drove you around until you stopped him at that amazingly suspicious parlor where some dude named Iggy scarred your inner wrist for life.

But now that you think about it, that only proved that you are his. But he is yours just by being round. And Morgan. Morgan. Your baby. It's him who your cry for the most.

"Where's my son?!" your shouts get hoarser by the second. Your tears run hot down your cheeks.

"Robin!"

Eventually it's him who answers you. You hadn't noticed him being brought in at your side until he started struggling to get nurses and paramedics off his back. You had never seen him trying so hard.

And you. You extend your bloody palm to him and manage to graze his fingers in the haze of arms trying to pull you apart.

"Where's Morgan?!"

You think it's weird to think about Robin's tattoo when she reaches out for you and you manage to grasp her fingers for a second before the medics pull you back down on the stretcher. You think that you can remember her silly giggles that night, how she scratched crescent moons into your palm with her too-long nails when the needle jabbed at her skin, and how you'd been too wasted as well to keep her from doing something so stupid.

You think you should have stopped her. You should have stopped it. Done something. Pay more attention on the road. Take a little longer packing that morning. Anything. Just to get yourselves a few minutes behind the center of the crash. You should have fought harder to hold on to her before they took her out of sight.

No mercy. They'd had to know by the way you tried clinging on to her and by your name on her wrist. But they wouldn't let you even out of their grasps. They were saying something about broken bones and internal bruising and blood from your head and emergency, emergency, prepare an OR!

But they said nothing about your kid. His name in your mind seemed so very distant. As if he was already gone. As if he'd never even been around to call you papa, or to tug on your hair when he was hungry, or to paint on the walls, or to ask embarrassing questions , or to say, I love you and mama, so much, papa, so much, before falling asleep curled up in your arms.

No one spoke of him. And you dared not ask.

You had your time to thrash in your bed, and to cry and to scream and to curse them all useless doctors who let your baby die. You had your time. And then some more. And then there was the nothingness and the sleepless nights.

And you saw him try. More than anyone. More than you. You saw him crumble and build himself back up several times a day, picking up rubble, kicking at debris, hiding in Morgan's room and smelling his tiny clothes. And then you'd join him and you both would curl into one another over plastic toys as if they were shrines.

And you'd mumble.

"I was there…" he'd say. "I just had to get him out…"

And then you'd tell him that at least he was there. At least he hadn't been lying motionless. At least he tried.

And then the blame games began. With foreboding trumpets. With little nuances. With slight hints. With the dark and rotten of your soul, and the cynical of your cracking mind. You ended up slashing across his heart with words that were not loud but measured and knowing, with things that stabbed deep, deep, and then twisted for good measure.

One day, while grocery shopping, not really caring. Not really seeing. Not really breathing. You spun on your heels. And you left. That's it.

You left.

You didn't miss her much at first. You didn't mind the shallowness of your bed at night. Perhaps you were grateful for the silence. Or maybe, as you'd tried convincing yourself - and you tried really hard -, you hadn't loved her as much as you thought you did. Always a very selfish man, you were. Always too much of a loner. Maybe it was for the better. What was the use, in the end? It seemed like such a joke.

Husband and wife?

Not even legally.

Only how it mattered. Ha!

It'd been a humorless laugh. It'd been hollow. It'd been dark. Something animal, like a bark. As if her being, her presence there by your side had had some sort of soothing quality, some cathartic mark.

It wasn't until you started sinking that you really missed her. Until you started drowning.

Then you started looking.

You'd always liked the warmer parts, you told him. When he found you. You'd always fantasized of living in mazes of fruit. That's why you lived in a fruit farm.

"A commune, of all places." he said with his voice flat, just like a palm ready to deliver a slap. But he'd never lay a hand on you. His words were enough, as you two had learned long ago.

"It's nice out here in the country."

"It's quiet."

"Yeah…"

"Too quiet."

Yes. That too. Too much quiet, in the years that you didn't see him, in the space that stretched between you, even now, where a question hung unsaid.

Will you stay.

Will you leave.

Where to?

Together?

Yes. You knew the questions didn't matter as much, as long as the answers to them implied you both together. Wherever, whenever. Just… together was enough. Enough for you.

"I missed you."

You can't remember who said it. Or if you both said it at the same time.

It didn't matter.

A/N: I don't know people. I was on a roll, I guess. Also, not that the description is a combination of wise words said by Rose Kennedy and Rumi(Persian poet).