LISTEN FOR MY SIGHS
'You don't have a clue how your clock is supposed to keep ticking.'
Because I'm excited for the liver next week, but we know the show, we know the risks. A little bit of angst. (Ok, a lot of angst)
Oneshot.
Spoilers for everything that's aired.
Maddie's screaming and crying like she's four again. There are tears pouring down Daphne's face, and she doesn't look like she can quite breathe. But you can't even move. You're sat in the corner, staring at nothing at all, feeling intrinsically colder than you've felt in a long time. You drove the girls, sobbing, home from the hospital, despite Scarlett's suggestion that that probably wasn't a good idea – you'd literally had to be pulled out of his lifeless arms – and once the front door was closed, you'd sunk into the corner of the couch and stopped moving.
Life is happening around you, both your daughters are crumbling, but you don't have a clue how your clock is supposed to keep ticking.
You'd known there was always a risk. Your relationship with Deacon, your life with Deacon in it, hadn't been anything but a risk, not really.
Your life with Deacon in it. That phrase makes the nausea rise in your throat. Because it's your life without Deacon in it, now, isn't it?
Maddie's suddenly falls silent, crashing to her knees on the floor in front of you, burying her face in between her knees, shaking so viciously it almost seems she's being shocked.
Shocked. They would have shocked him in there, you guess. Tried to force some life back into him, when he'd unexpectedly had a huge immune reaction to the supposed-to-be perfect liver, leading to an anaphylactic reaction and an unmanageable length of cerebral hypoxia. He'd been pronounced brain dead on the table, and someone, one of the doctors, had come to find you in the waiting room far sooner than you'd been expecting. Someone to say that his machine was going to be turned off, there was no hope of recovery, did you want to come and say goodbye?
You hadn't been able to move for seconds then, either. Not even quite an hour ago he'd been going into a routinely performed and relatively common procedure, and you were going to force him into bed rest for at least six weeks, wait on him hand and foot, and give his recovery all the best possible conditions. Because less than an hour ago, his recovery hadn't been a possibility. It had been a definite.
When you'd finally found it in you to move, you'd gone through into his room and climbed straight onto the bed beside him, wrapping your limbs around him and burying you face in his shoulder. You knew he wouldn't be dead until they turned off the machine, but it was somehow taunting you that he was still warm, still had a heart beat you could feel, still smelt like Deacon. You hadn't wanted to move then, because whilst you were there, holding him, tucking his arms around you so he was holding you somewhat, time wasn't happening. It could have been a lazy morning in the cabin, he could have been about to wake up, pressing his lips to the crown of your head…
After Scarlett had had to guide you away, you'd had to tell your girls, and you've no doubt that was the hardest thing you've ever done in your life. In the hospital, Daphne had started crying and Maddie had fallen silent, refusing to look at anyone. The screaming hadn't started until you'd shut your front door.
But it's stopped now. And Daphne's crying has eased, too, and both your girls are looking at you, all those unanswerable questions in their eyes. Daphne, who's usually so much more grown up than her eleven years, suddenly looks more like the child she is.
"I'm gonna ring Dad." She breathes, and you give her a tiny nod, your eyes flashing to Maddie, and there's something of a fire behind her eyes. You can't blame Daphne, she can't be expected to keep her words in check after something like this, but there's a blind fury in your eldest daughter's face that scares you slightly. She doesn't need a reminder right now that she no longer has a father.
As Daphne leaves the room, Maddie turns to you, near desperation in her eyes.
"It's all wrong." She breathes, and then she lowers her head into your lap, sobs shaking through her shoulders again. "He said he was going to be fine, and he was going to be recovering for a long time, but HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO BE FINE! Did you know it wasn't going to be fine, you just didn't tell me? Because I should have known, I should have been able to say goodbye!"
That starts the tears you'd thought you didn't have left in you. You shake your head, slowly, stroking you daughter's hair. "It was supposed to be fine." You breathe, and you sound almost childish, your completely inadequate counterarguments to everything that's happened in the last hours. "No one could have known."
"It's not fair." Maddie half-whispers, and you feel like your heart's breaking all over again. Because it's not fair, and it's never been fair. You bury you face in your daughter's hair, feeling her tears soak into the denim of your pants.
"How am I supposed to keep living, Mom?" she breathes, eventually. "How am I supposed to go back to my life like anything's going to be normal, ever again? How am I supposed to live my life with…without…my Dad?" she chokes on the last few words, looking up at you with child's eyes, for a moment, still with the faith that a parent has all the answers.
How am I supposed to live without Deacon? you ask yourself, but you swallow the next sob. You're honest to your daughter, if nothing else.
"I have no idea." You breathe.
FIN
Sorry it's so tragic and angsty… I'm revising for third year finals, losing the will to live, and apparently that inspires me to write depressing stuff! Would love to hear what you think, constructive criticism is always welcome!