A/N: This is sort of based off the fact that I did not see my mother when she slipped into a coma last year because my father said so. She did not die, but cannot shake the idea of losing her without saying goodbye and telling her how much I love her, and that Christeen will keep me safe if she isn't around.

Sarah x

He could see the stairs with the blue carpet and the bathroom at the bottom. He could hear his mother speaking in the living room, off to the right. He loved the sound of her soft, caring voice. And then she suddenly stopped talking, and he knew it had happened. The thing he had been expecting happened. As he realised that he would never hear that voice again, he was pulled back from the top of the stairs, away from his mother. He struggled against whatever was pulling him back, but it won. He felt a hand shaking his shoulder, and a pain in his neck. "Henrik," a faint voice said. "Wake up."

His eyes snapped open and Sahira jumped back from him. He looked angry. She noticed a sparkling of tears running down his cheeks. He had been crying in his sleep. She gently wiped away his tears with her fingers, not knowing whether he would make her leave. Right now, he seemed to be attempting to ignore the fact that she was there. He was trying so hard to not let the pain show, to keep his regret away from her. "There is no need to look so worried," he told her. "Anyone would think that I had tried to murder you."

"You look angry," she commented. The corner of his mouth turned up slightly. It was so like Sahira to worry that she had done something to annoy him.

"It is not directed at you," he assured her. It was directed at himself. He was angry with himself for just listening on the stairs all those years ago. He was angry because he so naively thought that his father knew best when he told him to stay away while his mother slipped away. Every time he had that dream, he woke up infuriated with himself and, for his role in his actions, his father.

He should have gone down and said goodbye. He had contemplated it, but he recalled abandoning the plan when he realised how furious his father would be. And he was drunk that night. That had been his father's only answer to a problem: crawl inside a bottle. No, at the age of ten, he believed that it was not worth the hiding he was sure to receive for defying his father's wishes. He wished he had seen her, just to feel her arms around him that one last time.

But now was not the time to be kicking himself over it. It was over and done with, and he stopped talking to his father when he was twenty. Since then, he'd fended for himself, relishing the fact that he no longer was forced to depend on a man who could not be trusted. He didn't even know whether the man was still alive or not. "Why did you come for me?" Hanssen demanded, reverting slowly back to his usual self.

"I was passing and I saw the way you were sleeping. I woke you up so your neck didn't hurt," Sahira explained. He smiled at the memory of when his mother had woken him from his slumber in a chair, telling him, "You will get a crook in your neck, sweetheart." She had led him to his bed and tucked him in. His father had never done that. He had always left Henrik to his own devices, to solve his own problems.

Perhaps that was why Hanssen was so good with children. Perhaps he remembered how his parents treated him and mimicked his mother while doing the opposite of what his father had done. "Henrik, what's wrong?" she sighed.

"I'm fine," he replied. He did not want her knowing what a coward he had been. He did not have the backbone to defy his father and see his mother one last time. She did not need to know of his regrets and his idiocy.

"No you're not!" Sahira argued. She wasn't going to be lied to. He lied to her often when she was making sure that he was alright.

"I have dealt with that dream for thirty-seven years, Sahira!" he shouted. "I am perfectly capable of coping with it by now!" But he was lying. He still had not figured out how to make it hurt less, how to make the pain go away when he woke up. Maybe he could not find a way. Maybe there was nothing to be found.

Sahira raised her hands and backed away from him slightly, unnerved by this outburst. He snatched up his coat and headed for the door. He turned back at the doorway and said to Sahira, "Make sure you never miss the chance to say your last goodbye to someone you love. Especially if it is out of fear of the consequences." She nodded slowly and looked at him, worried and compassionate, just like she always was. "Goodnight."

Hope it was OK!

Please review and tell me what you think!

Sarah x