Week 15 – UDC 7 - Mother's Day Prompts? Okay...

Wife

When he got home to his apartment that night, he wondered what it would be like to have her here all the time and not just when he could get away or when there was enough energy in the grid for her hologram to appear. Charlie sighed and went to fix himself something to eat, only to be interrupted by his doorbell. Frowning, he went to answer it… to find a delivery person standing there with a bag. "Can I help you?"

The delivery person handed the bag to him, gave him a folded paper, and left.

Charlie unfolded the paper to find a note: "Missing you and also craving normality. Eat. –Diana"

Mother

She noticed the metal man staring down at the pictures of her family and suddenly felt closer to him than she thought possible. After all, this was a police officer, and though she didn't quite understand what was going on inside his head and couldn't see his eyes underneath the helmet, she did understand police officers. She'd married one, and was mother to another. Glancing at the pictures, she nodded. "That's our son. Alex. He was killed on duty."

The response she got was quiet, but sincere: "I am sorry."

"I don't suppose you drink coffee?"

"No, thank you."

Daughter

Everybody cheered when she entered the station bullpen with the Sarge, and Gadget couldn't help but blink in surprise. They'd really missed her that much? She looked up at her adoptive father. "I don't get it."

He smiled and patted her shoulder. "You have a family here, Gadget, and not just because I adopted you."

"Huh?"

His explanation of all the officers of Metro South, even Bea, having grown attached to her since they'd solved the Dogtown Ripper case together did little to clear up her confusion, but that didn't make it any less poignant.

Sister

He found her sitting at the edge of a virtual lake that continuously shifted colors, and couldn't stop himself from putting his arms around her. "Hi."

Diana leaned back into him. "Hi, yourself."

"Haven't seen you much lately."

"Been thinking. A lot."

"About?"

Her silence stretched for a long while before she answered quietly: "My sister had her second child last week. A girl. They named her Diana. After me. Why did they do that? What did I do to deserve the honor?! Die?"

Charlie was at a loss for what to say in this situation and simply held her for a long while.

Aunt

In the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a little girl named Diana grows up hearing stories of the Aunt she was named after, knowing the woman had died young, but not how or when. She grows up and has a family of her own, and keeps the story of her namesake, the woman who went to work for a corporation as a secretary and didn't get to come home again to family, close in mind.

She never does find out that her aunt isn't dead, but has kept a close watch over her family from neighboring Detroit all her life.