Another story that I have had on my computer for a while and not quite finished yet, set after and Lily and Rufus get engaged, what happened in the summer that sends Lily running to her mother.
Lily sat bolt upright in bed, she was breathing hard and she was dripping with sweat, she tried to catch her breath as she dabbed at the cold beads that were dripping down her temple. She turned to see Rufus still sleeping soundly, one arm draped around her waist. She was glad she hadn't woken him, it was the third night in a row this had happened, last night Rufus had woken up the moment she had, she blamed a nightmare when he was concerned about her waking so suddenly….but if she was honest with herself, she knew it wasn't a nightmare. Nightmares woke you because you were terrified, they came to you in sleep from a deep rooted fear that you probably never even knew you had. What was waking Lily up in the night was something different, something that she was scared of she knew that much, but this wasn't a nightmare, this was real life.
She crept slowly out of bed, moving Rufus's arm from around her. He stirred slightly but remained in his deep slumber and she smiled down at him, he always seemed to be smiling, even whilst asleep. It was something he had always done, even when they were kids. Of course back then, they had everything to smile about, the world was at their feet and they had nothing to worry about, other than where they were spending their next night, but as long as they were together, nothing else mattered. So it surprised her when they got back together that he still had that same content, dreamy smile on his face while he slept. She loved that about him. She slipped on her silk robe and quietly made her way out of their bedroom and padded down to the kitchen. Eric and Jenny were both out tonight so she needn't worry about being quiet. She opened the fridge and poured herself a cold glass of milk, she was so thirsty, all of the time recently.
She gulped down the cool liquid and poured herself another glass. Sitting herself on the bar stool, letting her sweaty palms rest on the cold surface. She caught sight of her engagement ring, the diamond sparkling in the moonlight that was streaming in from the floor to ceiling windows in their apartment. She loved her ring, it may not have been the biggest diamond she had been given, or even the best quality, but she didn't care. It had come from Rufus, she had waited twenty years to wear his ring on her finger and so it meant more than all of the other rings she had worn combined. She would have worn that Lincoln Hawk wrist band around her finger for the rest of her life if it meant the world knew she belonged to him.
Looking down at it now, her mind was filled with doubts. Full of questions with no answers. She was scared, no she was terrified. Lily didn't like not knowing how her future was going to pan out. When Rufus had proposed, she was sure that this was it. Her and Rufus were together for good now. Nothing else could possibly stand in their way. He knew everything, about their son that she had given up, about why she had really left him all those years ago. That was her one big secret, the one thing that he could never find out, because he would surely hate her. He had been wonderful. Mad at first, yes, she thought she had lost him for a while, but somehow he had found it in his heart to forgive her, somehow he understood. It seemed strange to her that Rufus was able to understand something that twenty years later, even she couldn't quite grasp.
Knowing that their son was dead, still left her with an ache….deep down. Sometimes she almost forgot it was there, until she would look into Rufus's eyes and the image of her baby, their baby, would flood her mind once more. She was that nineteen year old girl again, staring down at her baby boy, their son who had Rufus's eyes and her nose. Their child who would forever be a part of them both, a symbol of their love without him ever knowing it. Giving him up had been the hardest thing she had ever had to do. She had not known that kind of heartbreak could even exist. She could still sometimes hear his screams as the nurse took him from her arms, those were the kind of nightmares that kept her awake for years, even after she had Serena. She would wake in the middle of the night and run to her room, just to make sure she was still there and that nobody had taken her away. Stupid, she knew she was, but it didn't make it any easier.
It was the right thing to do, she knew she wasn't ready to be his mother then, he deserved somebody better, instead of somebody who would look at him and remember what it was she had lost. The moment she had found out he died, a little part of her died with him. He was the dream, the dream that her and Rufus were a family, they might not have known it, but this person, this boy somewhere out there connected them both, and that somehow always comforted her. She had known she had no right to grieve a child that she gave up. She was never his mother, she had given birth to him, and she loved him as only a mother could. But she hadn't been there for him, she didn't know him, he didn't belong to her, but he would always be a part of her. She was glad she went through that with Rufus, she had kept him away for so many of the other emotional times in her life. It was so different having somebody there to hold her when she cried, she wasn't used to it…..but it felt good, it felt right.
Which is why at this point in her life, she didn't understand how she was going through something this scary on her own once again. It was her fault she knew that, she should just tell him, she loved him, she wanted to tell him everything, but once again, she was scared. On the outside Lily appeared to be a hardened Upper East Side woman, and in one respect she was, she did what was expected of her….she buttoned up and put on a smile for the rest of the world to believe was real. But deep down she was vulnerable and she was still that terrified nineteen year old who was pregnant and had no clue what to do for the best.
It was soon after he proposed that she started to feel…different, not unwell. Just… not herself. It was such a busy time, Rufus and Jenny were moving in. Serena was on the other side of the world, her life was changing around her, but instead of moving with it, she felt spaced out. She was happy though.. She knew that much. Herself, Rufus and the kids became a family. They had breakfast together every morning, they spent their days shopping with the kids, or walking just the two of them. One night he took her to this bar in Brooklyn and they both got ridiculously drunk, danced late into the night, and made love well into the morning, she felt like they were both teenagers once more, they were giddy, Lily was content. Rufus laughed at her the next day when she couldn't stop throwing up, she claimed she wasn't as young as she used to be and couldn't handle her liquor, knowing deep down that's not what it was. She was a Rhodes, her stomach was made of steel, it wasn't the alcohol. No, Lily knew then that something was not quite right.