I am sorry it took me so long to update, I've been a bit blocked on this story but something amazing happened in my life and it's gone now! (It's screwed up to think my writing depends so much on my mood, I'd guess that's very unstable).
This one has a huge flashback about Collin, I hope you enojoy!
Flashback
It was three in the morning when her phone starting buzzing on her nightstand, waking her up. At first, still caught on her sleep, she thought it was the baby monitor and lazily kicked Nate, those two little monsters had been fed two hours ago which meant, whatever it was, he could do it. Nate shifted and growled, but kept sleeping, completely unaware of his surroundings, the phone kept buzzing and her mind finally became clear enough to understand what was going on.
One hand got out of the ball of blankets and sheets she was wrapped in and started blinding fumbling on the nightstand until it reached the phone. She answered the phone without looking at the screen and sleepily said "Hello".
Nate woke up with his wife dressing a pair of jeans in the dark, almost tripping and falling as she searched for a blouse.
"What's going on?" He asked dozing from sleep.
"Eliot called, keep sleeping!" She said and left out the door, the mastermind immediately fell asleep; he was too tired to care.
As she approached the door she confirmed she was not losing her sanity due to sleep deprivation, there was in fact, a crying baby inside Eliot's house.
She knocked hard. "Eliot, are you in there?" There was always a chance she had driven to the wrong house, exhausted people did strange things. Eliot was the one that opened the door indeed, and there was a chubby baby crying in his arms.
He ushered her inside. "He's going to wake the entire neighbourhood if he continues crying like this!" He said as he rocked the baby, trying to hush him.
Sophie looked around, there was a huge bag on the floor of Eliot's living room, bright coloured stuff animals and baby clothes were coming out; the little human, whoever he was, was going to stay.
"Eliot, who is he?" She asked as she crouched on the floor, searching for something inside the bag.
"He's my son!" She froze for only a moment before she continued her search. That didn't surprise her that much, everyone knew Eliot slept around, she always assumed he took the proper precautions, however, mistakes happened.
"Who's the mother?"
"Alexandra Sanders" Eliot stated matter of factually and continued speaking with the baby with the softest, funniest voice the grifter had ever heard coming from his mouth. "Yeah, she's your mommy, big boy, and she loves you very much! Yes, she does!" In the meantime Sophie had gotten up not knowing what to think, wishing she was misconnecting the name with the face or otherwise Eliot was just being terribly dumb.
"Alexandra Saunders? Your army buddy from Arizona?" Eliot nodded as he started singing to the baby; even though his voice was fantastic nothing seemed to comfort the inconsolable baby. "Twinkle, twinkle little star... Yeah, you remember her? How I wonder what you are..."
"Yes, Eliot I do, but that baby can't possibly be your son!" Eliot stopped on his heels.
"You don't get you, do you Sophie? I didn't sleep with her, ever! That doesn't mean I am not his father!" She frowned at that sentence, completely confused. "Listen, she's broken, okay. She never had real support or love, not from her family, not ever and now this thug shows up on her life, gives her a wink and smile and she falls for him. There's no way she's going to leave him, not now. She got pregnant though, and she's no dumb, she knows that guy ain't gonna be a good father, hell ,she knows she can't be a good mother, not when you are as messed up as she is. So, instead of living him in the foster system, she decided to give her baby to the best person she knows." He paused for a moment, rocking the baby on his arms again, whispering soft words to him, and showing Sophie a side she hadn't seen ever, not even around the twins. "Imagine how terrible your life is when the best person you know it's me!" The brunette smirked at that, Eliot was still convinced he was a bed man. "So yeah, I am the kid's father!" He finally said and she nodded, the fact the hitter was willing to jump into that without question was enough proof he was going to be a great father.
"So, why did you call me here?" She asked her voice soft.
"He doesn't stop crying, I don't know what to do!" Sophie crouched on the floor again, returning to search something in the bag until she emptied it. When she got up she started taking her bra, without taking her blouse, which still made Eliot turn away.
"Whoa, Soph! What are you doing?"
"The baby's hungry, there's no bottle inside this bag. Probably because she never needed one... I'm going to feed the baby!" He took some steps back.
"What? No! That's crazy!" Her hands went to rest on her hips as she cocked an eyebrow at him.
"So, you're going to let your son starve just because you're a chaste?"
"No, I am sure there's something else we can. And I am not a chaste!"
"Yeah, good luck finding an open store that sells baby bottles and baby milk at half past three in the morning!" Eliot sighed.
"What about your home, don't you some bottles for the girls?" Sophie laughed condescending at him.
"Eliot, they are three months old and we are still having problems with them getting used to it, how do you think that will work with a baby that is... how old?"
"Three days... Fine! Do as you wish!" He handed her the baby, being sure he'd regret that forever and turned to the wall.
"I don't know what your problem is, Eliot. It's just a hungry baby, there's not wrong with this." He growled.
"Whatever, but first thing tomorrow morning I am buying a bottle; can't believe Alexandra forgot that!"
When the baby was finally full and Eliot turned around to see him happily resting on Sophie arms he knew he could do it, with the help of his family, he could do it.
"Want to carry him?" She asked and he nodded. The baby boy started crying the moment he went to Eliot' arms.
"What's going on?" Eliot asked in frustration. "Why doesn't he like me?" Sophie approached them and started rubbing the baby's belly.
"He misses his mum, that's going to take a while..."
"But he was calm with you, maybe he just knows I am no good..." He was slightly pouting; Sophie never thought a man like Eliot would ever do that in his life time.
"You took this baby in your life and arms without a second thought, Eliot, that is very honourable so don't say you are no good! The thing is, babies: they are very sensible to the people around him. They feel how you feel. If you are agitated the baby will get that and he will be agitated too, you have to calm yourself first in order for the baby to calm down..." Eliot smirked and starting rocking the baby, sustaining his little head with one hand, holding him against his chest.
"The twins don't seem very calm to me..." She rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, well, they are Nathan Ford's daughters and we all know he's not the most serene person in the world." He smiled back, that was truth.
After a few minutes, crying became mumbling and mumbling became silence as the little boy fell asleep on his father's arms.
"What's his name?" Sophie asked realizing for the first time she did not know how the baby was called.
"Collin, his name is Collin..." Eliot whispered proudly, his eyes locked on the sleeping boy.
"Collin..." Sophie tried out with a smile. "Welcome to the family..."
Eliot sat on the couch next to Collin without knowing what to say. Hell, what were you supposed to say? That was the conversation he had tried to avoid his entire fatherhood yet, it was the one he knew he would have to face sooner or later. He felt bad Collin had found out about their parents that way, he had wanted to shield the child from everything yet those things were backfiring and there was nothing he could do about it.
"I am sorry!" was the only thing that escaped his lips as his son stared at him with a broken heart. He meant it, he really was sorry.
"You should have helped her!" the boy suddenly shouted getting up from his seat, tears of anger flooding his eyes.
"Collin..." Eliot tried to intervene, it was not that simple.
"You should!" He yelled again, hands curled into fists, knuckles getting white as his face turned red.
"I tried! I tried, but I couldn't..."
"Why not? Isn't that what you do? Don't you help people that have no one else to go to?"
"It's not that simple, Collin, she didn't want help!" The boy stopped starting to sob as tears run across his face.
"You should have searched for her! Izzie found her, how come you didn't? You just gave up on her!" He was so angry, so wronged, so sad... It broke Eliot's heart, the person he loved the most, the one he'd do everything to protect being harmed like that...
"I kept tabs on her, but I lost her after she left the state of Arizona, there was nothing leading me to her, she didn't have a cellphone, she didn't have a credit card or a bank account, there was no paper trail... Every time I got nearly close to her she switched identities and after a while I had no clue at all so I thought… I thought she'd come for me when she was ready, the way she always did..." The boy shook his head, not caring to clean his tears away.
"You should have tried harder!"
"She didn't want to be found!" Eliot snapped. "Okay, your mother was like that, you couldn't ever find her unless she wanted to... I mean, the childhood she had, what we saw in the army... Giving us a purple heart was their way of cleaning their hands, it's easier to call us heroes then to call us murderers... She learnt how to hide to survive; that was the thing your mother was great at. I couldn't have ever found her unless she wanted to, and she didn't want to..." Eliot got quite as his son took his words in, the room silent except for Collin's uncontrollable sobbing.
"Come here, son." Eliot said as he got up from his place to hold the boy, Collin started waking backwards, trying to push away from his dad, but ended up tripping on the coffee table, over the Monopoly game. Eliot took the chance to seat on the table next to him, pulling to his chest as the boy fought him with all his anger.
"It's okay, son, it's okay!" Eliot said because him being mad was the only right thing on that situation.
"She died. She died alone..." The boy yelped as he collapsed on his dad's arms.
"I am sorry. I wish there was something I could do..." The hitter responded as he rubbed the boy's back with his right hand, holding him with his left arm.
"Did she love me?" Collin asked after composing himself, he was still in Eliot's arms.
"Very much, she couldn't have loved you more!" Eliot said honestly. "It took her a lot of heart to live you like that..." Collin lifted his blond head to look at his father.
"Do you think she'd come for me one day?" Eliot faced dark eyes with his own blue.
"I am sure she would."
"Can we see her? Izzie says she was taken to her city and buried there..."
"'Corse we can, kiddo! We can also see your father if you want to..." Collin shook his head, nuzzling on the curve of Eliot's neck again.
"My father is already here..." and Eliot smiled.
Did you like it? I will try not to leave you hanging anymore so if you're still interested on the story, review and I will post the next chapter as fast as possible! : )
