Title: Parent Life
(Fic Series): A Life Worth Living
Fandom: Free!
Pairings: Sousuke/Rin
Rating: T
Word Count: ~29k over all
Warnings: N/A
Summary: Post-Free! Eternal Summer Fic

A series of chronological glimpses into Sousuke and Rin's lives as parents.

Chapter 10: Loving Family (Age 13)

Rin felt something shaking his arm and he opened his eyes. Hana was standing there above him, a frown on her face. He rubbed his eyes and tried to sit up but finding too much resistance, Sousuke's arms holding him down. They had fallen asleep on the couch after watching a movie together.

He pulled a heavy, but otherwise unresponsive arm off of him and got up off the couch. He was grateful it was a large couch, but even then the two of them had to squish together on their sides to be comfortable. Sousuke always had an arm tossed around him to help keep him up just in case he moved wrong and fell off.

"Welcome home," Rin mumbled and Hana's frown softened a bit. He rubbed his eyes again, willing the sleepiness away.

"I'm home," she responded, before switching to English. "Dad, are you two happy together? You don't hate each other do you?"

"What?" Rin asked, much more awake than before.

"Do you two fight a lot when I'm not around? Are you just faking it?" Hana continued with a teary tone to her voice, and her eyes started to glisten. She went to leave and Rin stretched out and grabbed her hand turning her around.

"Whoa! Hold up, hey," Rin said grabbing her other hand and rubbing them with his thumbs. "Where's this all coming from?"

Tears started spilling down her cheeks and Rin pulled her down into a hug, squeezing her tight. She wrapped her arms around him tight and cried. Sousuke finally stirred at the sound of Hana's wailing when Rin asked her what's wrong and he sprung up.

"What's going on?" he asked, eyes wild and confused.

"I don't know," Rin whimpered, completely lost. "I don't know what's wrong. She just came home and asked if we fake being happy with each other and."

"Rin," Sousuke said, voice firm and Rin closed his mouth and let out a shaky breath. There was no good in getting freaked out himself. Hana's crying started to slow after a minute, Sousuke rubbing her back and telling her everything was fine and that they wanted to know what was wrong. When her crying bubbled down to tiny hiccups and sniffles she pulled back and wiped her arm against her eyes.

"Now will you tell us what's wrong?" he asked, looking at Rin and then back at Hana. She looked down at her hands and started twisting her shirt with them.

"Sarah's parents are getting divorced," she started. "They always looked happy together but they weren't. And Sarah said that her parents would lie and they'd fight when they thought she couldn't hear and," she cried, her voice cracking and her breath coming out in fast bouts by the end.

"Calm down, breathe," Rin said, rubbing her arm. "So that's why you asked if we fight when you aren't around?"

She nodded, and despite holding it down as best as she can she let out a sob and started to cry into her hands.

"She, she said that everyone's like that! And, and that everyone's parents get divorced," she hiccupped, weeping harder as she thought about it. "And I asked and lots of kids have divorced parents and even Jay's mom's been divorced before and," she cried, starting to hyperventilate as she kept forcing the words out.

"Hey," Rin called softly, finally grasping what was going on. He took her chin gently in his hand and tilted her up to face him. "That's them, not us. Even if everyone you know has divorced parents, or if everyone in in this area has been divorced, there are still tons of people who've haven't. Don't assume that we will just because it's common here."

"Even if there's only a few, you shouldn't just write us off," Sousuke said with a small smile, tapping her cheek. "We aren't just anybody, you know."

"But," Hana sniffled.

"No buts," Rin interjected, "no 'what ifs' either. Sousuke and I do fight, but you've seen when we fought. And you know it's never for long, and it's never over something big."

"Most of the time it's just because I'm being stubborn and your dad's trying to knock some sense into me," Sousuke added. Hana let out a soft laugh between her sniffling.

"Or if your dad's trying to stop me from pushing myself and doing more than I should," Rin continued.

"But those aren't things that are going to separate us," Sousuke finished, grabbing her hand in his. "Love is work, but it shouldn't be the painful kind. That's probably the biggest thing I learned from your dad and your grandma."

"That doesn't mean it can't be painful at times," Rin admitted, holding his hand out for Sousuke to take, gazing at him and feeling a satisfaction in his bones. "But it shouldn't be painful always. And even if there's a moment when it really hurts, that's when you speak up. You talk about it even if it's hard."

"Is it hard for you?" Hana asked looking at Rin and Sousuke cleared his throat, drawing there attention. He ruffled the back of his hair and gave a sheepish grin.

"It was hard for me, at first. But that's when we were younger, long before we met you. I used to bottle things up a lot, because I was afraid of dragging him down. He had a dream and all I had was a feeling that I didn't want to part with him."

"It was hard for me too, when I didn't know if he was being honest with me," Rin confessed looking at her. "When we were first starting out, but we talked about it. We talked a lot."

"Loves a lot of talking," Sousuke chuckled, "even when you don't want to."

"Makoto and Haru don't talk, they just look at each other," Hana argued and Rin let out of frustrated huff, though there was a smile on his lips.

"They talk, but in their own way. And sometimes," Rin whispered, as if it was a secret, "they get in really big scary fights when they don't."

"Scary fights?" Hana asked, eyes wide and worried.

"Scary because they've never fought often, so they don't know how to make up afterwards. But they always figure it out, or ask for help from their friends when they do," he explained.

"Are your fights scary?" She looked between them in fear and Sousuke shook his head.

"Not really, because when we do fight you feel it," Sousuke said, putting his fist against her stomach, "right there. You know in your gut your wrong and you're saying the wrong things, you're just stubborn and in the moment. When you feel that, you know it's your job to apologize."

"It's still a bit scary because even if you apologize, that doesn't mean you'll be forgiven. But, it is less scary when you know what the problem is, even if you're the one in the wrong. When you feel that feeling you apologize right away, you don't ignore it."

"When you're too scared to apologize and you ignore that feeling is when problems happen," Rin told her, a thoughtful frown on his lips. She put her hand over her stomach, and looked between the two of them.

"So you're really happy together?" she asked and Rin and Sousuke looked up at each other.

"I guess," they answered with twin shrugs. Rin was the first to burst out into laughter leaning in for the kiss Sousuke was begging for with his eyes. Hana covered her eyes with her hands and made a disgusted noise.

"Do you want us to stay together or not? Make up your mind," Rin teased. "I married him, I'm allowed to kiss him."

"You two are so weird," Hana said wiggling out of their arms and onto the floor, crawling away.

"You know what else married people do," Sousuke mused, grabbing a laughing Rin in his arms and dramatically kissing his neck. Rin giving him a playful shove as Hana got up and made a mad dash for the kitchen.

"You two are so gross!" She cried, covering her ears. "Forget I said anything at all!"