A/N: Hey there, thank you for the reviews! It's just a small chapter this time, but I'll make up for that in the next one.
'The walls we build around ourselves to keep out sadness, also keep out joy' ~ Jim Rohn
Later that night…
Calleigh was lying on the big couch in the lounge. She couldn't go up into her room, their room. The smell of his cologne on the pillow next to her, the clothes that hung in the deep mahogany wardrobe, the bed – oh, the bed where they had lay awake in each others arms for hours on end. No, it was just too hard to set foot in that room.
She could hear the rain on the windows and the slight buzz emanating from the refrigerator in the next room along, but even those – once soothing – rhythms could not lull her into slumber tonight, what if the kids need me? What if Isla..Danny..David..Iona? What IF?
She pondered on the 'what ifs' all night;
What if Eric were still alive?
Would he be holding me tonight?
Would he be working a case?
Out with the boys?
Tucking our babies in?
The list was endless and so was her guilt. She kept thinking that if only she had forced him to go to the doctor sooner, then all this would not have happened.
Well, so she thought...
Upstairs in his room, Danny was having similar thoughts. His revolved more around his mother. He could hear her mewling like a lost kitten downstairs and it was breaking his heart to hear her cry in her sleep. He'd always been fiercely protective of his mother; he'd even (once) taken to pretending to be her 'toyboy' when some jerk came up to her in the mall asking for a little something-something. Calleigh had played along and then berated him harshly for it in case 'someone from child services got the wrong idea' but he could see the laughter in her eyes. He knew he was like his father in a lot of ways. He was strong, family orientated, and stubborn, to name but a few traits. He also knew that there was a chance that the Cancer that had consumed his father may come back with a vengeance for him, but he was focusing on getting his family through this.
He remembered when he was little, how everyday before school he would lie and say he had a headache to get out of school (he hated Math class with a passion). Eric had never had any of it though, and always sent him off with a 'now remember son, one day you're gonna be Man Of This House, and I need you to be big, strong and smart to look after your Momma'. Danny would then always walk out of the door with a smile on his face and a secret wish that he would never have to be man of the house; he could never compare to his father, or so he thought.
But now the time had come for him to be 'Man of the house', and he would sure as hell try his hardest to live up to his father. He heard a noise downstairs and knew in that very instant that he was not the only Delko still awake.
He jumped down from his bed and began the slow trek downstairs. He knew that his Mother would probably jump and wipe the tears away with the back of her hand and try to profess that she was all 'fine and good' but she knew that he knew different. He resented his father at that moment; how dare he just go away and leave us? I need him, Mom needs him! Just as quickly as the thought came, he banished it; he felt awful and selfish for even thinking it.
He jumped as a flash of lightning lit up the eerily quiet hallway. As the sound of thunder resonated throughout the room he quickened his pace, anxious to get to his Mother; he knew that she hated thunderstorms.
Sure enough, there he found her, curled up in a ball on the couch. Wearing one of Eric's old basketball jerseys and a pair of tracksuit bottoms, she looked young and innocent. Her face however, told another story. Her puffy red cheeks and chapped lips indicated that she had indeed been crying and Danny reached out to tap her shoulder.
Calleigh jumped up just as he was millimetres away from reaching her, scaring the both of them. Wordlessly, he sat down on the couch and drew Calleigh into a hug. She sobbed as she apologised over and over again.
"I'm sorry, it should be me comforting you right now." She said meekly, looking up to meet her eldest son's eyes. He scoffed lightly
"Like hell, Mom, we all miss him. Why should you have to be the only person who bottles up your feelings?"
"I'm supposed to be the strong one." She whispered, forgetting to berate him for saying the 'h' word. Danny looked confused and motioned for her to continue, "Sweetie, there's a reason why we do not see my parents. They weren't like your father and me; they didn't give a damn about me; I was left to fend for myself at a very young age. I went through things that no child should have to go through, I learned what it felt like to be abandoned very early on. I also learned never to cry, to show what I was feeling, it was a coping mechanism, a way of escape. If I kept my feelings to myself, then nobody could pity me."
Danny stared back, shocked; he thought that the reason they did not see the Duquesne's was because there was some sort of family row. He never in a million years could have thought…
Calleigh smiled wryly and reached to touch his arm soothingly, "It's alright, there is no way you could have known. Don't you worry! I am going to be fine, and so are you."
Danny laughed despairingly at that, "Dad told me to watch out for that; the way you say 'I'm fine'. Mom, promise me that if you ever need to talk that you'll come to me. It's times like this that we need to stick together. Enough of this 'I'm-the-parent-therefore-I-cannot-cry-in-front-of-the-kids' crap. Seriously Mom, you have to promise me!" He pleaded, looking desperately into her eyes. She smiled weakly, holding him close.
"I promise." She laughed; he reminded so much of Eric…
"I found David sleeping in your Dad's Study about an hour ago." Calleigh continued, "I think we all need to get away from here for a while." noticing the stricken look on Danny's face she backtracked, "Not for too long, and not just yet; I need to sort my work out first. But I was thinking that maybe in a month's time that we could go back to the Copamarina in Guánica."
Danny smiled faintly; he'd always loved the family vacations to Puerto Rico and it seemed like the perfect way to come to peace with everything that'd gone down over the past year.
"That's settled then." Calleigh smiled, seeing the approving look on her eldest son's face.
The Next Night
Calleigh stared at the painted white door, just reach for the doorknob, slowly twist, and enter the room, she instructed herself. But, as easy at is was to think, doing it was another matter altogether. She wasn't sure if she was ready to let all the memories back in.
Sure enough, 2 minutes later she was sat on the edge of the bed. The crushed blue satin of the comforter felt good underneath her hand and the smell of Cinnamon pervaded her senses as she closed her eyes and leaned back heavily against the pillow. Tears prickled against the corners of her eyelids and she just opened her eyes and let them fall; she'd been holding back for far too long and it had finally taken its toll on her.
My favourite memory... she thought to herself...
...
~One Night~
It takes just one night to watch the moon move across the sky, to see the constallations, and to go for a midnight swim. It takes only one night to burn the midnight oil, to hide in the moonlit alleys and to forget your troubles in the safe surroundings of sleep.
It takes one night to let go of all your inhibitions and to finally let the tears fall.