Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.
She's afraid.
She doesn't want to be. But it is a fear she can't control; a fear that secretly embedded itself in her flesh like a parasite sometime long ago, growing bigger and bigger with each argument, with each tear shed, with each night spent alone. It spreads slowly, pulse by pulse, ticking like a clock, counting down until it's the right time to explode. And explode it does.
It bursts when the door slams violently, hinges shaking just as much as she is, and it makes her want to scream and cry and cry and scream, but she can't because that's what her son is doing.
She has to chase him down because he's running to the door, reaching for the knob with small hands. "Takeru, no," she says, and her voice is broken and quivering, but she wraps him in her arms anyway, holding him close. "You can't. You have to stay here, baby."
"H-he took Onii-chan," Takeru sobs, and it's a sound that will haunt her, a sound that makes her heart break a thousand times over each time it echoes in her ears.
"It's ok, baby," she murmurs, even though it's not. Even though it will never, ever be ok. But she repeats it over and over again as if saying it will somehow make it ok, will somehow clean up this mess she's gotten herself into, will bring back the happiness she once shared with her family.
Takeru wails and wails and Natsuko can't keep her own tears at bay anymore. They cascade down her cheeks in small, salty waterfalls. She coaxes him into her lap, kissing his forehead, rocking him back and forth, back and forth, and doesn't stop even when Takeru cries himself to sleep.
She's struggling.
Her job isn't enough to support both of them, so she's looking for another one. She tells herself that many adults have two jobs, and it shouldn't be hard to keep up with. The problem is, there's no one there to watch Takeru, and Natsuko can't afford to hire a babysitter.
So she wakes up early, maybe five-thirty or so. She scurries to the fridge, which is relatively close to empty, and it tells her it's time to buy groceries. Still, she finds enough to pack two small lunches, and fills a cup up with juice for Takeru, screws the lid on tightly. She packs a bag with toys, crayons, and a coloring book in hopes that it will entertain him for the six hours that she will be working.
She's already prepared breakfast, which is just toast and butter. It's not much, and she hates that it's not enough, but she treks back to her room to wake Takeru anyway. As he stirs, she tells him, "Takeru, hun, we're gonna go somewhere, ok?"
"Where are we going?"
"Mommy has to work," she tells him. She can tell by the look in his eyes that he doesn't understand, and it stings, but she smiles the best she can and says, "C'mon, let's get you dressed. Then we'll eat, ok?"
"Ok," Takeru mumbles sleepily. He starts to sit up, and Natsuko helps him out of his shirt—actually, it's one of Yamato's shirts, she notices, and stops for a moment, because realizing this brings a whole new wave of pain and loss.
A piece of her world has been ripped from her. She feels as though she has been cut; it is a wound inflicted so violently, so suddenly, that she fears there is no bandage that will stop the bleeding.
As she stares at the shirt through tear-glossed eyes, she tries not to think about her other son, who she doesn't know when she'll see again. Weeks from now? Months? Years?
"Mama?" Takeru whispers, and when she glances at him, she sees his eyes are filled with tears, too.
"Don't cry, baby," she murmurs hoarsely. "It's ok."
"But you're crying," he says, and it's true, but Natsuko wipes at her eyes, tries to smile again, even though it feels foreign on her face.
She sniffles and breathes out, slowly. Carefully. It's all she can do to ease the tightness in her throat. "C'mon," she repeats, "let's go find another shirt, ok?"
"Why are you sad, Mama?"
"Go find a shirt. Can you do that for me, hun?"
Takeru nods and slides off of her bed. As he leaves the room, she presses her fingers to her eyes and takes another deep, shaky breath.
One day at a time, she tells herself. One day at a time.
She walks to work, holding Takeru's hand tightly in her own. It's not that far of a walk—four or so blocks, so there's no use paying for public transportation. But she knows Takeru will get tired soon, so she picks him up, steadies him, and wonders if Takeru already knows that this is how things are going to be for a while.
She unlocks the door to her apartment some time later, once again carrying her son in her aching arms because he had fallen asleep thirty minutes before the end of her shift. She's relieved, really, that he had. A child can only sit still for so long, and she knows he must have gotten bored with his toys at some point. Each day, she promises, will be different. Each day she'll figure out how to make sure he'll be entertained.
She's exhausted, physically and emotionally, and when she places Takeru on her bed and covers him with the blanket, she desperately wants to fall asleep, too, but knows that she can't. After all, she's got to find a second job, and she can't do that while she's sleeping.
"Mama?" Takeru says sluggishly, just as she reaches for her newspaper. She looks at his half-lidded eyes. "Mama, is Daddy coming home?"
She swallows hard. She can't will herself to lie anymore. It hurts her, and it hurts Takeru, and she can't give him any more false hope. "No, baby. H-he's... he's not."
"And Onii-chan?"
"I don't know, baby," she whispers, stroking his hair softly. "Go back to sleep, Takeru. I'll be here when you wake up."
She's angry.
It's stupid and selfish, but she wants to say this is all his fault. She wants to find someone other than herself to blame, so she doesn't feel so hollow inside, so she points the finger at him.
He's the one who walked out, the one who left. He's the reason why Natsuko's babies are separated. He's the reason why she can't see Yamato. He's the reason why everything has become so difficult. She wants to say he's the reason she cries, but that's only partially true.
She cries because she knows how much a boy needs his father. She knows how his absence will affect him. She knows that Takeru will always wonder why. She knows that she can't fill the void he's left in Takeru's heart because she doesn't even know how to fill the one in hers.
It doesn't matter how much she holds him, because even now, as she sits with him in her lap, arms crossed over his chest with her chin on his head, as she hums under her breath, trying her best to lull him into slumber, it will never be enough.
Just when she thinks her son is asleep, he looks up at her and murmurs, "Will you tell me now?"
"Tell you what, baby?"
"Tell me why you're sad."
"I'm not..." She can't finish her sentence. Can't tell him that she's not sad. But she is. And Takeru already knows it. Does he think she'll never be enough? Does he know that she knows she isn't? Will he hate her for it? Does Yamato hate her, wherever he is?
"I'm sorry, Takeru," she says, and she truly is. She's broken. She's tired. She's afraid. She can't fight the tears anymore, so she shakes as she sobs, and she continues to hold onto him, murmuring those same two words into his hair, but no matter how many times she apologizes, it won't express the guilt she feels inside. It won't make anything better. It won't bring Yamato back.
It isn't his fault. It's hers.
"Don't cry, Mama," Takeru tells her, his voice quivering, but the dam has already crumbled, so there's no way to control this river flowing inside of her. Her tears roll off her chin and onto her baby boy's cheeks. His own eyes are brimming with tears. "It's ok, Mama. Don't cry."
But she does. She cries. She hurts. She misses them. Misses her son and her husband. And all she can do is hold her youngest boy, her Takeru. All she can do is hope that just until she can figure this out, just for now, just for this moment, she can be enough.
That's all she wants.
a/n: There aren't enough stories out there about the Takaishi/Ishida family. Thank you for reading!