Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Okay, here comes Helen talking to Kevin after his fight with Will. I think it's a little sappy, but maybe you like it anyway. Let me know. ;-)
The Boat
Trying
(After the scene with Kevin and Will in Kevin's room and after chapter 8 "Who You Wanted".)
Helen looked into Kevin's room as soon as she'd reached the upper floor, but Kevin was nowhere to be seen. She sat down on his bed and waited for him to return. Only a little time later she could hear the toilet flush and the tap running. Then he came out of the bathroom, wheeling towards her, already dressed in his pajamas.
When he saw his mother in his room obviously waiting for him, he asked angrily, "What? Today is talk-to-Kevin-day?" He didn't want to talk, both talks he'd had with his parents today had been more than enough. Every single one had been more than enough but he'd known something like that would happen the moment he'd thrown the album into the fire.
Helen shrugged and said, "I talk to you, I talk to your Dad, I talk to you. It's what I do."
'Great,' Kevin thought, 'she talked to Dad. So I don't only have Dad bothering me, I also have Mom. Wasn't it bad enough as it was?' "Why can't you just leave me alone?" he said out loud, ending his strain of thoughts.
"Because I can't stand you two being mad at each other. You're hurt, your Dad's hurt and every time you talk you just seem to be poles apart. You two used to get along so great, is there nothing you can do to have something of that again?" Helen asked.
"Dad used to get along fine with the perfect son he had, the one who was great at sports, who could have every girl and who spent his nights partying. I'm not that son anymore and so there's nothing left that connects us. Live with it, Mom." Kevin was angry and he was tired of telling his parents what he thought they should really know by now. He wasn't the son they wanted, not anymore, and it was time to step to the real about it.
Helen shook her head. "No, I don't believe you. If there was nothing left to connect you, you wouldn't be so hurt and angry and…"
Her son didn't allow her to finish the sentence. "I'm not hurt," Kevin stated firmly. "I might be angry, but I'm not hurt. Why should I?" 'I'm not, am I?' he asked himself but nodded inwardly. 'I know how things work, so it's time for them to accept it, not for me. I already made that step.'
Smiling a weak smile at his lame attempt to be the strong man he'd always wanted to be, Helen said, "Because you told your father that you think he wouldn't want you. That has to hurt."
"He told you?" Kevin asked surprised, his walls starting to crumble, but he knew how to build them up again in record time. That was something he'd learnt by now. He wasn't going to let himself get hurt, so no, it didn't hurt. He was doing okay. More or less. But why did his father have to talk to his mother? Why did the two of them always have to talk about everything?
Helen nodded. "He told me. Do you know how much that hurt him? I think for him that was even worse than the burnt album."
"Yeah," Kevin laughed bitterly, "the truth always hurts." No one knows that better then me, he added silently.
"Come on, you know that this is not the truth. Your father loves you, a love so true and real and unconditional that it only exists between parents and children. He loves you, no matter what. He loved you when you were the sports star and he loves you now you've lost the ability to walk. It doesn't make a difference to him."
"Now I don't believe you," Kevin said, still the bitterness in his voice, not daring to let her see that what she said affected him. "If it doesn't make a difference, why is there an album full of the big healthy me? Why is it full of photos of the person I used to be and not a single photo of the person I am now? Why, Mom? Why?" He was almost shouting now, not wanting to accept that one could have the memories of the good times and still love him the way he was now. It wasn't working for him, so why should it for anybody else?
"Show me a single picture of you after the accident you would like to see in that album and I'm sure your father will stick it in there. Your father is trying so hard and you keep acting like an offended teenager." Helen was really angry now too.
"Great. So support him and blame the cripple. Thanks Mom." Thoughts were spinning in his mind, but they'd stopped making sense. Everything left was anger.
"I'm not blaming anybody, I'm just trying to make you understand how much you hurt him."
"And how would you know that?" Kevin shouted at her. Why did she always have to be Dad's back-up? Why wouldn't she only once not support him.
"Because he told me. And because he stood in the kitchen, on his way back to work, crying. He really wants to find a way for the two of you to connect again, Kevin, be it with sports or something else. Could you please try that too? I don't expect much, I don't expect you to join the wheelchair basketball team or anything, just try to find something to do with your father."
"Dad… Dad was crying?" Kevin asked surprised when reality began to sink in, more or less ignoring everything she'd said after that. His Dad had been crying? Big, calm Chief-of-Police Dad had been crying? Because of him? Because of what he'd said to him? "He really…"
"Yes," Helen said. "And now he's back to work, trying to arrest a murderer. Go figure."
She stood up, unwilling to continue the conversation. "Good night, Kevin."
Helen walked a few steps towards the door when she heard Kevin say, "I didn't want that."
She looked around and saw him in front of the bed, still facing it, too desperate to even spin around.
"I didn't want to hurt him, I just want him to love me the way I am now and forget about the past." The honesty in his words scared Kevin the most, unable and unwilling to hide any longer.
Helen stopped and returned, sitting down on the bed again, looking at her son.
Kevin hid his face behind his hands, fighting for his countenance, then inhaled deeply and stroked his hair back, not wanting to lose it.
"Come here," Helen asked quietly, padding the space on the bed next to her.
Obeying, Kevin set the brakes and transferred to the bed, looking at her expectantly. Now that he'd given up the distance-setting safety of his chair, he knew that he'd have no excuse to not say the truth anymore. His mother wrapped her arm around him and said, "He loves you exactly the way you are. Don't get me wrong, he'd do anything to make you walk again, he'd trade places with you in an instant – not because he wants you to live his dream, but because he loves you. We all love you, honey, that's something you can just take for granted. But I think you don't love yourself anymore, that's your problem."
Kevin leaned his head against his mother's shoulder, knowing that she was right. He'd stopped loving himself the minute he'd learnt that he'd never walk again. The minute he knew that his life was over – at least the life he'd planned to live. When he'd first seen himself in the mirror after the accident he'd wanted to disappear from this world forever. He still could hardly stand the sight of himself in a wheelchair, that's why he had taken off the full length mirror from his closet. She was right, he didn't love himself anymore. But why would he? What was there left to be loved? He felt a tear falling from his eye and he wiped it away with the sleeve of his pajamas.
"You are still a wonderful person," he heard the quiet whisper. "You're the son we wanted and a great big brother, walking or not walking," his mother said, her hand slowly stroking his back. "Will you please get that into your stupid head?"
Again Kevin had to wipe away a few tears, but this time he nodded and looked at his mother, forcing a smile. "I'll try, okay?"
Helen kissed him on the forehead. "Sure. That's all we ask for."
She continued stroking his back for a small moment, then stood up and said, "Good night, Kevin."
He nodded and pulled his legs up onto the bed. "Good night, Mom. And… thanks."
She smiled a genuine smile and said, "You're welcome."
A/N: A question for you readers out there: I have half-finished some more chapters, but they're for later episodes. Do you want me to post everything in the right order or don't you mind mixing things?
