Whumptober 2020 Day 19: Broken Heart—Grief/Mourning/Survivor's Guilt
Word Count: 1123
Author: Katie/Ally (aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl)
Rating: T
Characters: Sheska, Kain Fuery
Warnings: Grief, Death of a loved one
Summary: Sheska's mother has died. Who else does she have?
Notes: There's some headcanons I stuck in this, which amount to: Sheska's father died when she was a baby; Sheska's family ties are from a region up north near Drachma that Amestris took over when her mother would have been a young child. As per the seemingly usual Amestrian standard operating procedure, they people were not treated very well and their culture suppressed/wiped, and Sheska's mother took her and left not long after Sheska's father died. Sheska grew up in Central and as a full Amestrian citizen.
EDIT 2021: I have not and probably will not look at this chapter to see if it needs any fixes. I have not been able to look at this story since my own mother died and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. I doubt I'll return to this story anytime soon and am only posting this for completion.
Alone
Sheska had lived alone for years. It wasn't anything new for her. She was used to coming home to piles and piles of books on cheap bookcases, with no sound or presence of anyone or anything. She was used to the silence that greeted her, to not calling out that she was home to anyone or anything. This was nothing new to her. But until now, she had never felt actually alone.
She stared in at her books, and for once they felt cold to her. Her eyes wondered over them. There's the section of books that were new, that she hadn't had the time to read yet. The section of books that her friends would like that she had shared with them. The section of books that she had set aside to take to her mother. The section from her mother's homeland, written in a language that was nearly eradicated. The section of books that were childhood favorites that she had read with her mother. The section of books that were old and rare and that she was repairing.
She was repairing them to sell, so she could keep her mother in that nice hospital.
She didn't need that anymore, did she?
Tears welled up in her eyes again. She thought she had been all out of them after the funeral and the wake. Apparently, her body had replenished her supply, because they were back, and she didn't have the energy to stop them. She didn't have the energy for anything. She dropped her purse on the ground, and let out a shaky sob, swinging the door closed behind her. She stumbled towards her couch and dropped on it, not feeling like she was able to go any further, curling up as the sobs poured out.
She had managed to keep the worst of her grief back the past few days. There had been so much to do after her mother had died, and she hadn't had time. The funeral to plan, her mother's things to collect, all of the legalities that needed to be taken care of. She had cried, of course, and been upset, but she had been in a state where she hadn't been able to fully grieve.
But now it was over. Her mother's affairs were tied up. She was buried. The wake was over. There was nothing left to do, nothing left to distract her, and it was all hitting her full force.
The sobs tore out of her, one after another deep, and barely able to express the grief that she felt. Her mother had been her life, raising her by herself from the time she was a baby, Sheska's father having died not long after she was born. She was the only family that she had, the one person that Sheska relied on. She knew no one else. No family, no close friends who knew her at a child—Sheska felt so very alone.
She stayed curled up there, still in her clothes from the funeral, her face buried in the arm of the couch as she loudly sobbed the depths of her grief there, all alone, with no one there to comfort her, with no one to call her, no one to come check on her, no one to ever call her "my Sheska" or to make her favorite meals, or to reference things that she had loved a child, or to run their fingers through her hair in that loving way. She had no one who knew her anymore, and that loss stung so very deeply, ripping through her in a way she didn't think was possible until now.
She wasn't sure how long she was there, or when she had cried herself to sleep, still curled up on the couch, but she woke to a knock on her door. She felt stiff and exhausted, and she thought about not even answering, but the knocking was insistent, and she drug herself to her feet, running her hands over her face as she approached the door.
She opened it to see Kain Fuery on the other side of it, bags in his hand, and she blinked at him. He blinked at her for a moment, but then gave her a soft and compassionate smile. "Hey," he said. "I thought you might be hungry. I brought you some food."
"Oh, um…" her voice was scratchy. "Um, c-come in," she said, stepping back, giving him room to come in. She wasn't sure what else to say, but Kain didn't seem to mind.
He didn't comment on her state, or on her still being in her clothes from the funeral. He didn't comment on anything, and Sheska appreciated that. He just sat the bags on her coffee table, and then smiled at her. "I'll go get you some water, okay? You sound like you could it."
"…okay," she said, and he gave her a smile before going back towards her kitchen.
She drifted over towards the table, beginning to go through the bags and pull out the food out of habit. She stopped, though, and had to sit down when she pulled one of them out. It was a container of stuffed cabbage, the ones that she had shared with him once, from that one small little restaurant, the ones stuffed with the beef and rice and onions that she had said were almost identical to the ones that her mother had made her for when she was a girl. She felt her chin trembling, and her eyes filled with tears once again as she looked down at the food that Kain had gone through the trouble just to get for her.
"I hope you don't mind, but I got myself some wa—Hey, Sheska, what's wrong?"
Kain had walked back in with two glasses of water, and was looking at her, very alarmed. He quickly sat the glasses down and sat down next to her.
"Y-You… you…" Her breathing was shaky again as she tried to get the words out. "Y-you—you re-mem-bered!"
She lost it then and buried her face in her hands. She felt him shift, and she lifted the container off of her lap, and then moved to put his arms around her, holding her. She leaned into it, letting him tuck her head under his chin.
"Of course, I remembered, Sheska. You're someone I care about. I'm always going to try to remember these things about you."
She sobbed harder into him, not able to get out any words. But it didn't matter as he held her and let her cry on him. Her grief was still deep and encompassing, but, at least for the moment, she didn't feel quite as alone.