Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this work of fiction, and am making no monetary profit from this.
A/N: AU that does not follow the current, or even past, timelines on the show. Written as a birthday fic for Suerum.
Warning: Deals with the aftermath of the death of a baby (stillborn), and depression. May be triggering for some. Heavy on the angst.
"Happy birthday," Spinelli muttered beneath his breath. He held his bottle of orange soda up, as though clinking it against someone else's, and then took a sip of the sweet nectar of the gods. He swallowed pain down with the almost too-sweet drink, offered a brief smile to the bartender, before spinning around on his stool, getting unsteadily to his feet and walking out of the bar.
One foot in front of the other, sober as a judge, Spinelli thought as he blinked in the blinding sunlight. He wavered a moment, and laughed, because, for the hour and a half that he'd spent in the dark, dank bar, drinking orange soda and eating peanuts, he wasn't even tipsy, yet he was staggering like a drunk.
Spinelli shook his head, ignored the odd looks that people were giving him, as well as the wide berth that came with people thinking that he was crazy or drunk. They were all strangers. Not a single one of them mattered in the grand scheme of things.
Getting bitter in your old age? Spinelli asked himself, and he shook his head again before taking a long sip of his orange soda and starting in first one, and then another direction down the sidewalk.
It didn't really matter which route he took. Either one would lead him to the same spot. Eventually.
Minutes, hours, or even days - if he lost track of time, and where his feet were taking him - from now, Spinelli would find himself standing in front of a small, gray gravestone. The words engraved there would blur together, because his eyes would be too tired and strained to read them, or they'd be filled with tears. He knew the engraved words by heart, though, and didn't need to see them to know what his fingertips would trace over and over again until he grew numb enough to stop and go home.
'Baby Girl Spinelli...Lost, but not forgotten'
Even stillborn, she'd been perfect. Spinelli could see every detail of her now, a year later. She'd had a dusting of fine, dark hair covering her head; a tiny, pert nose, just like her mother's; and her lips were a small, pink bow.
Spinelli stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk, almost dropped his bottle of orange soda, but caught it at the last moment. The bottle was still more than three quarters full, though some of it sloshed out onto the sidewalk, and over Spinelli's fingers, making them tacky.
"You alright, there, buddy?" A hand grasped Spinelli's shoulder, helped steady him.
Nodding, Spinelli straightened his spine and smiled at his rescuer. "I'm fine. Thanks."
"No problem. Just...take it easy." The man frowned, squeezed Spinelli's shoulder, and released it before moving on ahead of him.
Yeah, Spinelli thought, take it easy. A simple command that he should be able to follow. After all, walking down a sidewalk wasn't difficult.
Shivering as the sun's heat beat down on him, Spinelli gathered his wits, and squared his shoulders. He could do this. Take it easy. Could make his haunting of the graveyard that housed his baby girl's tiny body a yearly, rather than a weekly event.
Take it easy.
He hadn't taken things easily since his little girl has been born dead, and her mother had abandoned the both of them. Leaving Port Charles less than a month after the failed birth.
Maybe it was wrong for him to be angry with her. She'd been hurting, too. And there was nothing he could do to ease her pain, not when his own heart was broken, and reason had abandoned him. There was no logic in his daughter being robbed of life before she'd taken her first breath. No logic in the death of an innocent when evil lived.
Spinelli tripped over his own feet and more liquid Nirvana spilled onto his hand, and dribbled out onto the sidewalk. His hands were shaking, but he brought the bottle up to his lips and took another sip. It was lukewarm.
Stopping abruptly, Spinelli surveyed his surroundings. It wasn't far now. Ugly, tall buildings varying shades of steel gray and dirt brown were giving way to tree-lined streets. There was a park up ahead, and Spinelli could picture his little girl playing there at three and five years of age. She'd dangle from the monkey bars with one hand, thin fingers slipping, and Spinelli's heart would be in his throat as she waved to him. He'd reach her just as she placed her waving hand on the next bar, and his hands would shake in spite of the soft turf underneath the bars that would keep her almost as safe as he would. He'd stuff his hands in his pockets, and smile encouragement, tell her how proud he is of her, and what a brave girl she is. He'd push her on the swings, and they'd race each other to the slides. She'd win. Almost every time, because Spinelli knew that she'd never learn how to lose graciously, or be a good sport if she never lost at anything.
Spinelli's breath caught in his throat, and he pushed his false memories away, forced his feet to move in an ungainly walk.
She was beautiful at five. Dark hair in curls that danced down her back. Cheeks rosy with life. A dimpled smile. Green eyes sparkling with a mixture of mischief and curiosity.
Heart aching with the loss of such beauty and genius, Spinelli lurched forward, sipped at his orange soda. The walking dead, he thought, and laughed to himself.
That's what he was. A year after his daughter's death, and he was just the shell of a man. No heart. The walking wounded. A zombie. Brain murmuring memories of things that had never happened. Things that could never be. Mocking him with the things that, had fate, or god, or the universe been kinder, would have been possibilities.
Life is cruel, and will take everything from you if given the chance. It'll use you, chew you up, and spit you out, Spinelli reminded himself. He'd heard someone else utter those words before. Can't remember who or when, or if maybe they'd been his words, and he'd simply taken to repeating them every now and again, and forgetting that they were his.
Doesn't matter who said it first, Spinelli thought. It's true. Life is a cruel, fickle mistress, and once she's broken and used you, you die.
But his little girl hadn't experienced life's cruelty. Maybe he should be happy that she'd been spared the pain, even though it left him alone, shuffling along sidewalks like the undead.
It should be dark, clouds blotting out the sun, matching Spinelli's unending grief on the first anniversary of his daughter's birth and death. Instead, the sun shone cheerily, and beat down on him without remorse or understanding of his misery. It was not a friend, nor an enemy. Not even mother nature cared.
He'd read somewhere that, in Hawaii, a child's first birthday was cause for great celebration. Parents would go into debt to finance a child's first birthday, throwing elaborate parties and inviting, not only family and close friends, but acquaintances and coworkers, people from the neighborhood that they may have waved to on occasion.
Spinelli understood that impulse. The need to celebrate the life of a child, because, even with modern medicine, there were no guarantees. His daughter had been perfect in every way, except her heart had never beat, and her lungs had never been cleared of the various liquids that accompanied birth. She'd never breathed, or cried. And the only laughter that Spinelli could attribute to her, was that of the five year old she'd never be. The five year old he could picture as clearly as he could picture the infant who slept within a wooden box beneath rocks and dirt. There was nothing but a stone to mark her existence. A stone, a few words that didn't really say anything, and Spinelli's stubborn memories of things that weren't.
Spinelli walked past the park without seeing it. Take it easy. You alright, there, buddy? I'm fine.
Taking another sip of the warm orange soda, Spinelli sputtered and choked, stumbled forward on feet that slowed and faltered the closer he got to his destination. He slipped a hand in the pocket of his blazer, fingered the velvet box inside, and sighed in relief. All of this thinking, remembering events that had never happened, and he'd almost forgotten.
It was his little girl's first birthday. He'd told the bartender that. Had even shown him the silver bracelet, the words he'd paid, by the letter, to have engraved on it: 'Daddy's little girl'. He hadn't explained his sorrow, or why he'd stopped by a bar to drink orange sodas first. That was no one's business but his own.
The bartender had smiled at the bracelet, admired the workmanship, and their fingers had brushed when he'd handed it back. Spinelli hadn't felt alone in that moment. It didn't last long, and the overwhelming cold, the emptiness, the loneliness, and sense of absolute abandonment had returned as though it had never lifted.
Spinelli fell to his knees in the grass covered dirt, orange soda lying on its side, forgotten, the remainder of its contents seeping into the thirsty earth. A sweet treat.
His fingers already reaching out to touch the letters of his daughter's silent gravestone, Spinelli mumbled a much practiced phase, "Happy birthday, sweetheart. Daddy loves you." His voice broke at the end, but he pushed the tears back. Today was not a day for tears.
Echoes of a child's laughter rang in his ears, and Spinelli let out a single sob, swallowed it back. It tasted bitter, made him think of blood and the salt of tears.
It had been a year. To the exact minute. She'd been born on a day much like this one. The sun bright and hot overhead, as though smiling down on the world, sharing in Spinelli's joy. And it had continued to shine happily when Spinelli's heart stopped beating, and his world had crumbled and turned gray. He'd been sedated. Doesn't remember going home, or the months that followed. They'd all been dark, and dull, even with the sun continuing to shine and everyone else moving on with their lives.
You need to move on.
How long are you going to grieve?
It's not healthy to hold onto sorrow like this.
I think you should see someone. You know, get some professional help.
Enough is enough. You can't go on like this forever.
Life goes on.
It's been six months, how long are you going to keep visiting the grave?
It's been a year. It's time to move on. You can't grieve for the rest of your life.
Take it easy.
Spinelli clenched a fist in the grass and dirt, heart thudding in his chest. I should move on, he thought, though the pain of loss felt as fresh as it had a year ago.
Is there a timestamp on grief? he wondered. Is a year enough time to get over the death of someone you never really got to meet except for in the hours that you spent hoping and dreaming, planning out a future that ended, not with your little girl's premature death, but bouncing grandchildren on your knee, telling them the story of their mother's birth, and how much love and laughter she brought to your life? Is there a timestamp on that?
Blinking back tears, Spinelli rummaged in his pocket, pulled out the velvet box, and placed it on his daughter's grave. They'd never named her, at least not officially.
"You're my sunshine," Spinelli said.
He traced the letters that represented his loss, and smiled as he pulled the silver bracelet from its box. Reading the engraving aloud, he kissed it, and placed it on a hook that had been added to the gravestone. There was an additional cost for it. Her mother hadn't wanted it; Spinelli had. He was glad that he'd opted to add it, in spite of his former love's ambivalence. Maybe he'd never really loved her. His heart never ached at the memory of his time with her, though it was real, and his memories of his dead daughter weren't.
"I love you," Spinelli said. He kissed the tips of his fingers and traced the words of his daughter's grave.
Spinelli sat and talked to his little girl as though she was there with him. He told her about the game he'd created, and his latest work. He sang to her, pulled out one of the books Carly had given them at the baby shower, and read it to her, showing her the pictures as he went, not caring what others visiting nearby graves might think of him. He didn't mind being crazy. Might never make it back to sane again, and that was okay, because he felt as though a big part of him had died a year ago. A part that he'd never get back, no matter how much time had passed and whatever timestamp had been placed on his window of grief.
He lost track of time, not that it mattered. Not on his little girl's birthday. It was a special occassion, time was of no consequence.
The sun was no longer as high in the sky as it had been when he'd started out on his pilgrimage. It no longer beat down on Spinelli's head like a merciless tyrant, and though he didn't miss its false cheer, or the warmth that didn't quite reach him where he needed it most, he would miss its light when the sun finally retired for the evening.
For now, though, the sky was awash with color. A single, broad swatch of red cut across a canvas of orange and purple, with just a touch of pink. Something tugged at Spinelli's heart, and he held his breath as he watched how the sun painted the evening sky, almost as if, at last, it knew and recognized his pain and commiserated, gifting his little girl with a sunset befitting the gods.
Spinelli bent his head and mourned silently and without tears, fingers clutching at the grass and at the stone that hid his daughter. How could he miss someone this much, when he'd never gotten the chance to really know her? It didn't seem right, and it wasn't fair, but Spinelli had been done with anger and regret for awhile now, and all he felt was empty.
The five stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance - were not nearly as cut and dry as people seemed to think they were. He'd gotten through anger and denial, was on the other side of bargaining, and if God, or Fate, or whoever, refused to accept what he'd offered in exchange for the life of his little girl, Spinelli refused to believe in their love and benevolence. He'd made it through those stages, some of them had repeated themselves more than once, and they sure as hell hadn't been in any particular order, and sometimes they seemed to sneak up on him and hit him full force when he was least expecting it to happen, though he'd already 'dealt' with them and 'moved on'.
He was stuck, however, in depression, and doubted that he'd ever reach the lofty goal of acceptance. He wasn't completely certain that he wanted to accept this, or that it should be accepted. Acceptance would mean that he was okay with his little girl being robbed of the chance to live even a single minute in this world. It wasn't a perfect world, Spinelli knew that, but his daughter should have been given a chance. Just a chance. Nothing more than that. He didn't think that was too much to ask of anyone.
Shadows grew in the graveyard, lengthening headstones in a way that was reminiscent of scary movies and nightmares. Ghosts did not linger here, though. Spinelli knew that, as far as this cemetery was concerned, he was the only being that haunted it once the sun started its evening descent. He and the occasional chipmunk or squirrel.
Tracing the words of his daughter's grave with fingers that had memorized every nick and groove, Spinelli was, at first, unaware of a longer shadow that passed over him until its disproportionately shaped image completely engulfed him. Spinelli continued on in his routine, unwilling to break it lest his daughter think he didn't love her. He traced over the rest of the letters before sitting back and letting his fingers fall idle to his side.
He sensed the shadow move. Watched without really seeing and understanding as his abandoned bottle of orange soda was righted and a small bouquet of flowers was inserted into the opening. The shadow left, returned, and with it, the flowers in their makeshift vase.
The shadow knelt beside him, placed a hand on his shoulder and said nothing. A finger, not Spinelli's, traced the letters that had engraved themselves into Spinelli's fingertips. Lips moved soundlessly, and heat seeped into Spinelli's shoulder, down his spine, worked its way to his hands and feet, and sank deep into his marrow, and it kept spreading until something was shaken loose inside of him.
He'd been alone in his grief for so long that he no longer knew what to do, how to handle the sudden, welcome warmth, but the silent shadow did. It embraced him, pulled him close, and held him,pressing his face against a solid, comforting chest as he wept. The sun sank lower, the moon kept a silent, sacred vigil, but his shadow never faltered, didn't mock or cajole him, it simply held him and let him know that he was no longer alone.
Awareness came slowly, as though he was waking from a long sleep, and eventually his tears subsided, but his shadow didn't push him away. Spinelli trembled with cold, and from the purge of a year's worth of tears.
"Stone Cold?" Spinelli's head ached, and his mouth was dry, but the overwhelming chasm of pain and sorrow that had been consuming him for so long seemed a little smaller, and a lot less likely to swallow him into an unending darkness.
Warm fingers kneaded the tense muscles in Spinelli's neck and shoulders. Reassurance that this wasn't a dream, or an elaborate hallucination.
"I'm sorry I haven't been here for you," Stone Cold spoke quietly, his breath rustling Spinelli's hair with each exhale.
"I...the Jackal doesn't...I, I don't want to be alone anymore. God, I miss her. You should've seen her, Stone Cold. She was the epitome of perfection. A veritable Diana," Spinelli whispered as though confessing a mortal sin.
Stone Cold rubbed Spinelli's back, and nodded. "Tell me about her?"
The invitation to speak almost rendered him speechless, but Spinelli eventually found his voice. It had been so long. No one had wanted to hear him talk about her, they'd only wanted to tell him that she was in a better place, or that, eventually, he'd get over it and move on. Eventually was a long way off, and Spinelli had stopped talking to people he'd once considered friends, had been avoiding them for months now, because they never wanted to listen, and seemed almost to be afraid of his pain. None of them wanted to share in it.
So, he talked. He told Stone Cold about the park, about how much she'd looked like her mother when she'd been born, and how likely it would be that she'd inherited his intelligence and imagination, her mother's natural grace. Stone Cold listened, somehow managed to get Spinelli to his feet, and home, wrapped up in a warm blanket, and sipping hot cocoa on the couch, and all without making Spinelli feel small or as though he was feigning interest.
Spinelli talked about his little girl, about how wrong everything had gone wrong between him and her mother after the stillbirth, and how he felt like he was only a shell of a man now. How he thought he'd never be truly happy again.
"You'll be happy again someday," Stone Cold promised when Spinelli's words had dried up and his eyes had grown heavy. He leaned against Stone Cold, drawing strength and warmth from the man whose abandonment had hurt him the most.
"You'll never forget her, and there'll always be a hole in your heart where she should be, but it will get easier," Stone Cold said, squeezing Spinelli's arm. "I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you before. I didn't know what to say or do, and I just thought that you needed to work through this in your own way."
Spinelli opened his mouth to defend his mentor as he always had, but Stone Cold placed a finger over his lips and shook his head.
"I was wrong. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me to be, but I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere." Stone Cold emphasized his words by placing an arm over Spinelli's shoulders and pulling him close. "If you need to talk, I'll listen. I won't tell you to get over it, or move on. I'll just...be here. That is, if you want me to. If I'm not too late."
Spinelli shook his head, and patted Stone Cold's hand. "You're not too late."
Stone Cold let out a breath and swiped a hand through his hair, as though he was worried that Spinelli would reject his olive branch. "Good, that's good."
Spinelli gave Stone Cold the first genuine smile that had graced his lips in a year. It wasn't the same gregarious smile that had defined him prior to that, but it was a start.
"Thank you." Spinelli closed his eyes and let Stone Cold take up the slack of carrying the burden of his grief for a little while.
Take it easy.
Sure. I can do that. One day...one step at a time.
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