Disclaimer: Don't own Dark Angel.
A/N: Because obsessing with Logan's past is the right thing to do when you have 10 WIPs waiting to be updated...
Huge thanks to Shy for making time for a (literally:-p) faster than you can look beta. (Of course then it took me forever to come up with a (not decent) title)
xxxxx
In those lost hours, when he sat there brooding with the night, Logan could admit that he had more in common with his father than he cared to tell.
Stubborn and determined, they both became distant when things mattered and made any delay feel like failure. They worked hard, obsessively, wishing life was different and left more time for pleasant things… and yet knew that only working even harder would perhaps make things better. Was it really such a big difference whether they were kept awake with worry over an anonymous informant or over the few hundred families depending on Cale Industries?
Logan remembered his mother shaking her head over his dad's dedication, amused and exasperated as she'd muttered her quiet "Typically Cale." She'd seen and tolerated his long hours, yet had never failed to remind him to take care of himself, and would have given her son the same long look of concern. And maybe it was that calm, unfailing empathy that Logan and his father missed most, later on when she was gone.
Because missing his mom was the biggest thing they had in common.
It had brought them together and isolated them, each caught in his own grief until his father had died too. Looking back to that time, pierced by mourning, Logan often wished he could undo the years and start over again.
xxx
Her death hadn't been unexpected, looming for a long time… and still, the void once she was gone came as a shock to both of them. It was as if their family stopped being, leaving behind two people who tried to find their way back to their hope and comfort.
Even during the last months of her illness, when she'd slept so much, his mother had kept them together. Eyes dark with worry, she'd come up with rituals like their daily fancy dinner that even his father had hardly ever missed. Gathered in front of her bedroom's large bay window, the three of them would sit there and watch his mother's smile as Logan and his dad told her about their days. They'd spent so much time there in the large master bedroom that it had become their living room, now featuring a desk for his father and a smaller one where Logan had calmly done his homework as he'd listened to her breathe.
Now the bedroom was closed off. His father moved to one of the guestrooms, conveniently close to his office where he spent most of his time anyway. After a while he faced the inevitable and gave away some of his wife's clothes and other belongings that they didn't want to keep as a memory. But he never touched the room that had been theirs nor allowed anybody else to do so. It became the one weakness of the man never who otherwise never hesitated to do the right thing… and somehow it only made him stronger.
From time to time Logan caught his dad standing in front of the bedroom door, lingering there unmoving as if halted by better times. And from time to time Logan caught himself doing the same, realizing how much he'd grown by the pencil marks on the door frame.
Without the bedroom their house became an empty place, one that functioned only because of the maid and the cook and the gardener. No longer centered around his mother, comforting them with her laughter and smiles and understanding, Logan and his father now were alone with each other. And yet they couldn't look at the other without seeing who was missing, longing for the caring mother, remembering the loving wife.
His father did what all Cales did when life became too much, the same thing that Logan would do later when Jonas's remarks drove him out of the living room, when he filed for divorce or when he just couldn't forget about his legs: he buried himself in work.
Taking over Cale Industries from his brother again, Robert Cale hid his pain with an efficiency that scared those around. A natural leader before, he now emanated hard, unyielding authority that was no longer softened by flashing a boyish smile for his wife.
He hid his pain… and expected his son to do the same. Logan, however, couldn't. At first muted with the immensity of not having her anymore, shock grew into mourning when he realized what her death meant, every single day, every night when he went to bed. The first day of being back at school almost choked him, but coming back home, greeted only by the cook's strained cheer, was worse. And even worse was getting up on that first Sunday after, half-asleep, starting to stumble towards his parents' bedroom. He knew that his father too must have woken up with the thought of their Sunday breakfast, had probably also been stopped in his tracks and perhaps might have liked some company... But Logan just couldn't go, instead crawling back into bed where he curled up and stared at the wall.
Where his father's grief was hidden, Logan's was so intense that it made people uncomfortable. He didn't know how to react to the pity of relatives he'd never seen before, to his teachers' forgiveness or what to do about his classmates who suddenly treated him as if he wasn't one of them anymore.
It wasn't that he asked for their attention. He hadn't cried openly since the funeral… but he hadn't laughed either. His face was frozen grief, every forced smile feeling as if he betrayed his mother. He was silent mostly…. Unless somebody dared to suggest that he needed to move on, that enough time had passed to stop being a walking memory of her death. Then Logan turned his rage against them until they recoiled.
Only his father refused to be intimidated. He saw no sense in turning outside their utterly private grief, in turning inside to the books and music that had become Logan's refuge. But just like the others, he was helpless with the boy who'd been catapulted from happy kid to angry teenager. Unlike his wife, who would have had the patience to wait, he wanted to fix Logan rather than seeing him suffer. Yet how… he didn't know.
Finally, after weeks and months and another dinner of Logan only poking at the fries that had been his favorite food before, Robert Cale was too tired. Remembering his own father's death, he told Logan to grow up and pull himself together… to behave in a way that would make his mother proud.
It was a slip-up after a long work day, coming from of a man who was exhausted with trying to fix things… and taken aback by what he'd just said. They both knew it wasn't true. His mother would have been proud of the both of them… and would have wanted them to move on and be happy.
Still, his father's words had hurt. Deep down Logan knew that he couldn't go on living his life like this… but he couldn't take it, not from his dad ,who was still wearing the clothes his wife had bought. And so he lashed back, just as unthinkingly, accusing his father of not having been there often enough, of having failed his mother.
He regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth and would still do so decades later.
His father didn't say a thing, didn't try to defend himself. He just turned around and walked away, face struck.
The next days he was absent, brooding, turned inward even more than usual. He accepted Logan's apology with a nod, his hand shortly settling on his son's shoulder in a rare display of physical affection. Forgiven but not forgotten.
xxx
Logan just wished they'd had more time, that at least his dad hadn't died so suddenly without a chance to make up. He wished his father had lived long enough for them not to be defined by what was missing. Maybe they just could have relied on each other… Robert and Logan. Perhaps it could have been like before his mother's death, when his hands had been gliding over his father's rows of books, determined that one day he would know just as much.
As it was, Logan only had the memories of that first happy decade and the few strained years after. It had seemed so bleak, so hopeless then…. Yet in hindsight every one of his father's stern looks had been so much more sincere than his uncle's belittling comments. So much had separated them… and still, with his father it would have been so different, so much better than with Jonas and Margo.
He wished it had been different… but they'd never had a chance. And in those moments there in the darkness, Logan grieved for his father just as much as for his mother, both only memories from his childhood.
xxx The end xxx