A/N: Just a little something I wrote after I was inspired by a scene like this in Broadchurch... anyway, you don't have to review, this was simply a way of entertaining myself when I was bored. Which is also why I didn't re-read it to check for grammar errors... forgive me. I tend to look at the bigger picture instead of smaller details.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
'Memories from the past'
"Jane?" he heard her exclaiming from upstairs. He put down his tea and walked upstairs, following where her voice came from. He determined that the beautiful sound was coming from the attic, so he climbed the last stairs and found her sitting on the floor, holding something in her hands. She looked up when she heard him and smiled softly at him.
He was curious now and he wanted to find out what she needed to show him. He sat down beside her, and he suddenly saw what she was looking at.
"Tell me about them," she whispered. She smiled brighter, showing two rows of perfect teeth. She grabbed his hand. "I know you think that I don't want to know about them, but I do."
He ran a hand through her hair, and nodded. She was right – he had thought she didn't want him to talk about them. Not that he thought she didn't want to have anything to do with them at all, because she wasn't like that, but she never asked before to know something about them so he always assumed she didn't want to know. Thinking about it now, he knew he was an idiot for thinking she didn't want to get to know them a little bit.
He planted a kiss on her temple and she moved a box in front of him. He reached into it and looked at the first picture he could see. He felt tears forming in his eyes and she wrapped an arm around his waist, putting her head on his shoulder, letting him know she was there for him.
"This was right after Charlotte was born… she was only just bathed. And I got to hold her for the first time and I don't think I cried more than I did that moment. She was so beautiful, I knew I would devote the rest of my life to her."
He put the picture down and looked at the next one. He felt his tears drying on his cheeks and he found she was totally right – he had spent so much time focusing only on the bad memories, of their butchered bodies underneath that smiley face that he had completely forgotten about all the good times he'd had with them.
He passed through pictures of Charlotte's first birthday, countless of Mother's Days spent in bed with his little girl snuggled in next to his Angela, Charlotte finding her mother's make-up and making herself look prettier, and after a few minutes, he noticed he was crying again, but this time, it were happy tears. He kept talking, though, rambling about smaller things, smiling and crying at the same time.
He ended by holding the little bracelet they give babies in hospitals and staring at the name written on it, looking at the measurements of his little girl that the nurses had made that day. He put the two ends together and looked at the size Charlotte's wrist used to be. So tiny, the bracelet barely closed around his thumb. And he suddenly felt awash with love, for the beautiful little girl he got to meet that day, for the woman who had brought her to life, but also for the woman sitting next to him in that moment.
He looked at her. He knew what she was doing now – she didn't do it for herself, but for him. She knew he was still reluctant about a new start, and he knew as much as she did that he needed to be absolutely certain about their future life.
"Thank you," he whispered, and she smiled softly. She shrugged and moved closer to him, easily slipping her arms around his waist and hugging him tightly.
"You've been thinking about them in a negative way after what happened that night, but I knew that there are a lot of nice moments too. And I want you to be able to think of these moments too."
Especially when their beautiful baby would be born in about three months or so, he added to that sentence, but only in his head. He noticed Teresa reaching out and taking the tiny bracelet from him. And he couldn't help but feeling a strange sense of happiness when he looked at her holding a piece of his past, and she smiled while she inspected it, handling in with care.
He put a hand on her belly and felt much to his pleasure that their child was kicking against his hand – she felt it, too. And while she pulled him closer to her so that his head was resting on her swollen belly, he resumed explaining all the pictures, until he ran out of them. They remained on the floor, cuddling until they were getting hungry.
They should have done this years ago.
A/N: Yes, they should have. I have to be honest, I want to see something like this in the show - but then Lisbon's pregnancy can be left out, if they want to. But just Jane telling Lisbon all about Angela and Charlotte would be too perfect for words. Anyway, if you want to, please let me know what you thought of this story!