Title- Coyote Farewell
Summary- a death in the family.
Disclaimer- DC owns Dinah, Roy and Lian
Warnings...references to character death..Angst.
Dinah's heart cried out as she heard the muffled sound as she walked past the room.Quickly opening the door.. she looked anxiously towards the bed to see the little girl sitting in the darkness in the corner.
"Lian?.. Honey?" Dinah's concerned questioning tone was answered only by the gentle sobs that issued from the child.
Dinah hurried to the bed and reached out to pull the little girl onto her lap.."Oh baby...I'm sorry..I didn't know you'd woken up ..Shhh honey..It's ok I'm here now." She cooed, her heart breaking as the force of the childs sobs increased.
Stroking the little girls silky hair she gently rocked her back and forth...Offering whispered reassurances..that she knew could do little to ease the childs suffering.
"I..I want my Daddy." The little girl sobbed.
"I know you do baby...I know your missing your Daddy." Dinah replied, feathering a kiss on the little girls head..her own voice straining with emotion.
"When is he coming back?" Lian asked tearfully, turning to look at Dinah with her large brown eyes haunted by uncertainty and confusion..tears still pooling in them and rolling down her little cheeks.
Dinah felt her own tears threatening to spill, she swallowed and blinked hard in an effort to stay strong...They had answered this question so many times before...but it never got any easier..Lian simply wasn't able to understand..or accept the answer.
"Honey, remember how we talked about this before?...Daddy can't come back sweetheart." The reply tore at her soul as she suppressed a sob..a huge lump of grief forming in her throat.
"Yes he can...Grandpa Ollie came back..and Aunty Donna... Daddy will come back soon, you'll see...He wouldn't leave me...I know he wouldn't." The little girl began to sob again, burying her face in against Dinah's breast, her body shaking and trembling.
Dinah had no answers to give the child..All she could do was rock her gently until she finally fell in to an exhausted asleep. She carefully lay the little girl back down..and pulled the covers over her...noticing the little girl clutched a carved figure of a coyote in her tiny had.
Dinah stood pausing to stoke the childs long soft hair before running her hand across the Indian blanket that Roy had given Lian..it had been Roy's as a child.
They had returned Roy's body to the reservation...he would be at peace there..it was what he would have wanted.
Ollie had been inconsolable...He had finally managed to rebuild the shattered relationship he and Roy had together..and now Roy was gone..lost to them forever...Lost to Lian forever.
Dinah stumbled out to collapse on the sofa, as her own tears began to flood out uncontrollably in huge anguished sobs...She had lost the closest thing she would ever have to a son...Although she wasn't old enough to be Roy's mother...she still felt as though she was.
She lay like that for quite some time..sobbing until no more tears would come..A burning well of emptiness crushing her from within and threatening to pull her apart...Until finally...she herself fell into a deep and fitful sleep.
end
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