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Buffer had been working hard to keep his nerves in check in the last hours.
Concentrating on the fact that Bomber and Spider had went overboard and that he had forgotten to inform anybody that the two of them had went outside at all, he had been able to shove the message about his mothers death into the back of his mind.
In these hours he had been more than happy to be distracted from these heartbreaking news, but now, as his duty watch was over and he was seated on his rack in his small cabin, he realised that he had not done himself a favour by surpressing the thought about his loss.
Slowly, the adrenaline level in his blood was dropping as he started to relax, closing his eyes as he leant back against the wall, and there it was.
The pain.
It had been there, all the time, of course it had been there, but it had been numbed by his guilt about Bomber and Spider and his determination to find them, to do anything in that moment.
And now it started to come back.
Burning like acid, it was starting to seep through his veins, shooting into his heart and he felt like it had to stop from the ache. His chest tightened, as if somebody was enclosing it with iron bands, and it became harder to breathe calmly.
Buffer stared down at his shaking hands, but their form became blurred within seconds as hot tears swelled up in his eyes and this time, he did not find the strength to fight them back.
He closed his eyes, finally, surrendering to the sorrow that had built up inside of him since the moment he had last spoken to his mother.
It was as if he realised the meaning of „Your mother has passed away" only now – that she was gone, that he would never speak to her again when he visited his childhood home during his shore leave, that he would never be sitting opposite to her at the kitchen table, enjoying her delicious cooking, listening to his parents bickering with each other lovingly...
Maybe it was a selfish thought that he did not wanted her to leave because she had been in such pain over the last weeks that death actually was the best for her – she would never have recovered from the damage the cancer and the chemotherapy caused to her body. Modern medicine could have kept her alive, but for the price of more suffering, and a part of him could fully understand why she had decided to refrain from any further medical treatments.
But still, it was unfair that she had left him.
Even as a grown up man, as a navy soldier who had experienced a lot of challenging situations, he still felt like he needed his mother.
She was the person who had always reassured him that it was okay to pursue his dreams about a navy career, that his family would be there for him, always, even if he was away from them for months.
How her eyes had glistened with tears of pride every time she had seen him in his uniform...
He closed his eyes and salty tears fell down onto his cheeks, streaming down his skin, leaving small trails behind before they dropped from his chin into his lap.
A loud sob escaped Buffer as he tried to cope with a new feeling of guilt – that he had not asked for a few days off to stay in hospital with her. It had been clear that her condition was getting worse with every day, but he had told himself that there still was enough time, as if he was a child that was not able to fully understand what all of this meant.
He should have been there, he should have held her hand while she peacefully passed away, travelling to a place where she would never know pain again... He should have kissed her goodbye, told her that he loved her and that he was thankful for all the love she had given him... for being the best mother he could have imagined.
There were so much things he wanted to say, adding weight to his heart, dragging him down into the waves of his grief. Never would he be able to talk these things from his soul, she would never hear them from him.
She had told him on the phone that it was okay, and that she was proud of him, but he felt like he had betrayed her by not staying by her side.
The urge to scream raged inside of him and he slung his arms around his torso, hugging himself as if he tried to hold it all in.
Buffer barely registered that someone entered the cabin and he only looked up as the rack bend under the weight of a person sitting down next to him and arms pulled him into a embrace.
He did not wanted anybody to see him in this state, but as he recognised that Nav was the person pulling him into her arms, he refrained from sending the intruder away.
„It's okay, Pete," Nav whispered softly into his ear, her fingers gently stroking over his head that was leaning against her shoulder now. „Let it all out... it is okay to cry..."
She did not needed to say much in this moment – her presence alone was comforting him so much that he did not feel like drowning as he sobbed, giving in to the grief, crying over his beloved mother.
Neither Nikki nor Pete knew how much time had passed until he finally started to calm down and the tears stopped to fall from his face to dampen Nikki's grey t-shirt. His shaky breaths became deeper again and he wiped over his cheeks with the back of his hand while he straightened his back to leave her embrace.
„I know it hurts, Buff...," Nikki whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder. „If you want to talk, I am always there for you, okay?"
„I... I failed her... I should have been there, holding her hand while it ended, but I... I preferred to stay on Hammersley and now it is too late... I disappointed her..."
Expressing the guilt he felt about having left Cairns despite his mothers bad condition was somehow helping. It was unclear to him why it felt so easy to tell Nikki about his feelings while he would not have told anything about them to his best friends aboard the ship. But maybe it was simply because she knew exactly how he felt right now, after having lost ET a few months ago. She could understand his most unlogic self-blames because she had done the same after they had found their comrade, that she could have done anything to keep him from going on that diving trip.
„You could never disappoint her, Buff. She was so proud of you, it was clear to anybody who met her, and I am sure that she understood why you were here. Buff... I know that maybe, you don't want to hear that right now, maybe it is a bit early to say that, because right now, you just feel like you should have been there, but... you can't change the past."
She sighed slightly, her green eyes shimmering slightly as her hand wandered from his shoulder to his own hand, her fingers gripping him tight.
„It has happened the way it has, and there is nothing we can do about it. And even though I knew your mother not that well, I am sure that she would have wanted you to stay here. She could have asked you to stay, but she did not. She wanted you to be here."
Her words opened a new perspective to him and even though he did not feel like he could let go of his guilt, he realised that there was this one possibility that she had not wanted him to see her at her very end, that she wanted him to remember her as the strong, loving mother she had been for him all his life. That she did not wanted him to see her as the weak and sick woman she had been for the last year when he thought about her.
„I am sure that she wanted to be remembered with a smile, not with tears in your eyes," Nikki told him, as if she was reading his thoughts and voiced the feeling that was buried deep inside his soul, under a deep layer of sorrow. „But it is okay to blame yourself. That is only human, I guess... Just don't strangle yourself with it. At some point, you have to let that guilt go, Buff. Not yet, I know... maybe it will take months for you to be able to do that... the only thing that counts is that eventually, you do."
Buffer nodded briefly, not knowing what he should answer to that. It felt like these feelings would never go away. That this pain would stay with him forever.
„Will... will it get easier to handle the pain?," he asked carefully and Nikki smiled sadly at him.
„Slowly. And only just a tiny bit with every step. Sometimes it will just overwhelm you again, just when you felt like you are getting better in handling it."
He closed his eyes for a short moment. It felt like a huge mountain had suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his path. Overcoming this pain seemed so impossible... how could he not feel it every day, how could he not miss her in every second, knowing that he would never see her again... He was a strong man, but he did not feel like he would be strong enough for this.
Nikki seemed to sense his distress, because her grip on his hand tightened a little bit more.
„You are not alone with this, Pete. Do you understand? You can come and talk or just sit with me whenever you want or need. I will be there for you, just the way you were there for me."
„Thank you, Nav...," Buffer mumbled, sniffing slightly. She leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss on his temple before she stood up.
„Try to sleep a bit now. You look horribly tired."