'You're being selfish,' Tony explained to her. 'Wanting me to go is selfish and nothing more and I won't let you push me out. Not again. I'm sorry Michelle, but I won't.'
'I'm not being selfish,' she said honestly. 'I've been going over this in my head for weeks. This is only half about me and him. The other half…the other half is about you and him.'
They were still sitting together on the couch, the box of their old possessions between them, and Tony was trying to make her see reason. He knew she was in pain. Mason's anger was doing terrible things to her, and he was certain she didn't mean the things she was saying. She didn't actually want him gone. He knew that, he just needed to ensure that she knew that.
'He thinks you're a saint,' she was saying. 'He thinks you're the greatest thing on this earth. He gets to play with you, gets to love you, but what is he going to do when he discovers that there are dozens of children in Washington who don't have their own fathers because of you?'
'He won't find out,' Tony growled.
'Don't delude yourself,' Michelle said. 'You can't stop him from knowing. He's not going to stay six forever. He'll be a teenager one day, then a man. It'll all come out at some point, and you'll lose him then.'
'He'll understand. I'll make him understand.'
But Michelle just shook her head.
'You know you're going to lose him, sooner or later,' she said, and for some reason Tony felt the truth of her words hit him. 'And…and frankly I want it to be sooner. I want you gone from here, Tony. You've put a strain on my life…on our lives. I can barely function. If I'm not appalled by you then I'm being rejected by him, and then I get depressed, or furious, or guilty and I hate myself because I want you, all the time. It's sick. It's not right. I'm losing my mind.'
Tony suddenly realised she was being serious. It wasn't just her pain talking. It wasn't just the weeks of rejection egging her on. This was thought out, it had been deliberated over; a conclusion had been reached. Tony felt himself drain away slowly. He felt all the hope, and progress, and warmth he'd found in this apartment leave him.
'We just need to take it slow,' he said urgently. His hands had gone out to grasp her shoulders. She flinched slightly. 'One step at a time. Let's…let's just sleep on it, alright? Let's talk tomorrow. We'll get you and Mason back to normal, you'll see. Everything will be back to normal.'
'No,' she said, her voice thick. Tears were forming in her eyes. She removed herself from his grip and backed away, sitting a foot apart from him on the couch. She looked empty. Resigned and empty.
'You should never have come back,' she whispered. A tear trailed down beside her nose. 'The second I saw you standing with him in the living room the night you arrived I knew this would happen. I knew it, Tony. Why …why did you do this?'
She was crying hard now. Tony watched her, feeling insufficient, feeling revolted by himself for destroying his family and revolted by her for breaking his heart. He knew he was killing her, knew he should go but…no! He suddenly felt desperation flare up inside him. He couldn't leave. What would he do? He had nowhere to go. No one to see, no one to care for, no one to care for him. No life beyond the two people in this stupid, fucking apartment.
'No,' he said forcefully, squaring his shoulders, allowing his fear to unfurl into outright fury. 'NO! I can't leave. I'm not going to.'
Michelle took in a distressed, rattling breath. Tony looked at her, his face rigid. He looked quite manic. The situation between them was sliding out of control. It was tilting beyond reality. It wasn't real. It couldn't be. Not when it felt so much like hell.
'Stop this,' he said, grabbing her shoulders again, his fingers digging into her skin. He knocked the box from between them and dragged her close to him. He hugged her so hard she could barely breathe and he refused to release her despite her struggling. 'Stop saying shit like this,' he snarled savagely into her ear. She cried against him, begging him to let her go. 'It's not happening, so just get over it! Hear me?' He gave her a rough shake and heard her gasp. 'Get over this shit in your head! I'm not leaving!'
He knew he was scaring her but he didn't care. He was losing his grasp. He couldn't do this. He couldn't lose his family. Not again.
Michelle shoved him back from her, clamoured to her feet and moved away from the couch. She looked simply horrified, and he could see dark red marks in her upper arms from where his fingers had clenched horribly at her.
'Please go,' she said, her face distraught, soaked with tears. She was begging at him. 'Please leave. I'm sorry, Tony.' Now she was sobbing, her words strung together, almost incoherent. 'I-I…I'm so s-sorry. Please go. Please. You need to go. There's no other way. P-Please.'
Tony got to his feet. He knew tears of his own were evident, and he despised himself for not showing more control. The fact was that he was petrified. He wasn't sure if he'd ever been this terrified before in his life. There was fear sitting in his chest, so acute, so sharp and vast that he could hardly find room for his next breath. He needed to find a solution to all this, and fast, and his desperation was freaking him out. He felt like panting, he felt smashing something, he felt like breaking down.
'You can't do this,' he breathed at her. She watched him, frightened. He knew his expression was alarming. It had to be. 'You can't fucking do this. I'm in love with you. I'm in love with him. Don't you get it? You're my wife. He's my boy. I can't…Michelle, I can't!'
'You have to!'
'Michelle, don't…don't do this!' he pleaded. 'I belong here!'
'Tony , I'm…I'm sorry…s-so sorry…'
'Give him to me then. Give him to me, Michelle. Let me take him.'
'What?'
The moment he said it he wished he hadn't. He knew he couldn't take him. He would never take Mason from her, no matter how much he adored him, how deeply he loved him. He shook his head.
'I…I'm supposed to be here,' he threw at her, not knowing what else to say.
'You aren't!' she yelled back, the words strangled. 'I know now that you aren't! How can you? You've ruined everything. You've ruined everything. Everything we had, everything we could've had. You killed so many people…why, Tony? Why did you have to ruin everything?' She let out a desperate, shuddering sob, looking ill. 'You need to leave. You need to.'
'NO!' he bellowed at her, his voice a blaring roar in the tiny study. She jumped, tears dribbling onto her shirt. 'No! My life is here. Fuck, Michelle! MY – LIFE – IS – HERE!'
'W-what's happening?'
Through their mutual agony they both realised they were no longer alone. They looked around to see Mason standing barefoot in the doorway in his green pyjamas. His hair was tousled, his face pale. He was looking stunned, frightened and quite distressed as his eyes bounced between them.
Tony felt his heart struggle at the sight of his beautiful child standing before them. The child he had to leave.
'Mase,' he said desperately. He rushed toward him, grabbed him, hurled him up into his arms. He needed to hold him, needed to feel his warm little body against his. 'Mase, it's alright.'
'What's wrong?' he asked, looking sleepily into Tony's face, placing his little hands on his father's shoulders. 'Why are you yelling?'
'Nothing's wrong,' Tony told him, his hand cradling his curly head. He cuddled him, breathing him in, feeling destroyed, feeling dead inside.
'Mum?' Mason asked, looking over Tony's shoulder at Michelle, his voice alarmed. 'Why are you crying?'
Michelle looked as though she wanted to answer him, but her lips shuddered and she shook her head, turning away slightly. She couldn't bare the sight of her son in Tony's arms, the sight of them together for the last time.
'I have to go away, Mason,' Tony said, his voice unable to conceal the fact that he too was crying. Mason blinked at him, looking overwhelmed by the things he was seeing in both his parents' faces.
'Where?'
Tony thought furiously, and realised he had no answer.
'Do you mean like when you went away before?' Mason asked suddenly, his eyes terrified.
'Yeah,' Tony said. 'I…I can't come back though.'
Mason blinked at him, as though he didn't quite trust what he had heard.
'No,' he said, his voice small. 'No…don't go away, Tony.'
Tony watched his son start crying, and understood, properly, what it felt like to lose a child. He thought he'd understood before, but now he realised he'd had no idea.
'Tony,' Mason urged him, wiping his dripping little nose. His hands were around Tony's neck. 'Don't go away again. Please d-don't go.'
'I have to,' Tony whispered. He moved his son's face away from his shoulder and kissed it. Mason didn't even move, looking shocked, looking as though he suspected he was having a bad dream. Tony kissed him, again and again, and held him furiously to his chest.
'I love you, Mase. I love you. I love you so much. I love you.'
Then, Mason was back on his feet in the doorway, swaying slightly as he watched his mother cry without respite, listening to the front door slam as his father left the apartment.
Michelle went to him, took him in her arms, and hours later he lay in bed, listening out for their voices, waiting all night for any sound that meant his father had come home and his mother had stopped crying. But there was nothing at all to be heard, and the next thing Mason knew he was opening his eyes, his little green clock chiming him awake. Tony had not come back.
x
