RUPTURED

Pairing: William/OC, William/Rita

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Family

Rating: M

Summary: Life didn't exactly turn out the way he had expected it to.

Warning: This is an AU and a SLASH as well, which contains an intimate relationship between MEN (mostly)... you'll see why this warning is here later on. So beware, people, those who aren't comfortable with this should leave before you read something you dislike/hate. And this will get DARK because, apparently, I cannot write anything else other than that.

-Dubious content-

You have been warned!

Disclaimer: I have not and will never own any of the characters in here. They are all borrowed from the movie "Edge of Tomorrow".

This story is based on the theory of William Cage absorbing the Omega's blood during the final battle before resetting once more back to the helicopter.

Additional note: I updated this on a whim because I reread my own work and found that maybe I should continue it.

3. Accident

"Go, Luke, go!" Will shouted at the top of his lungs even as the noises from the rest of the parents and spectators were drowning him out, hands on either side of his mouth as though forming a makeshift loudspeaker.

George was right beside him, cheering on as well. The day was cloudy, and it was just sort of perfect for a soccer game, what with the sun not glaring down so brightly and painfully at the children running in the field.

Because it was the first match between third graders, the discipline and formation were lacking notches, but then again, only obsessed people actually cared much about that shit in a kiddy's game anyway.

And as it turned out, Rita couldn't make it to the match. Something came up again at the office, she had told him through a phone call just fifteen minutes before Luke had to come into the field. William had reassured her that it was okay; if anything, the both of them, him and Luke, understood how unpredictable her work could become at times, especially with him having already worked in the same department for five years himself.

Honestly, domestic, peaceful life could sometimes turned out to be more of a handful and complicated than the one they had whilst at war, should William dare think so himself—with lunatics who thought it was a good idea to spike fear and distress in war-touched, traumatized people. They were all war-touched and traumatized by that extraterrestrial attack one way or another, but there were more positive methods to act it out other than triggering false alarms to prank people.

Therefore, he understood completely and was then recording everything on the new hand-held camera for Rita to see when she made it home, which he had made her promise to do so soon. Soon, as in within-the-day soon, not soon in as soon as possible.

God knew she buried herself in her work too much.

"Hey, Dad. Hey, Will."

Will snapped up to see Aaron squeezing through the row with Rose, his ten-year-old daughter, in tow. He grinned.

"Hey, Aaron." They gave each other a hug before Will turned to his niece and greeted the little girl. "And hello to you, too, Rose." Rose had always been a more active child than her older brother Tom, and so the little girl beamed at him toothily in that carefree, innocent way that children did, and slipped past her father to give him a hug.

"Hi, Uncle Will!"

He patted her back softly in return. Speaking of Tom… "Tom's still having that club activity you told me about, Aaron?" he asked once the two of their newcomers settled down.

"Trumpet practice, yeah." Aaron nodded, squinting to look at the scoreboard. "Who's winning?"

"Should that be the main question?" Will feigned a sceptical look at his brother-in-law, who returned it with a sly smile.

"Shouldn't it be, though?"

Will scoffed but smirked despite himself. "We are, of course."

"No! There's no reason why I should be looking at any of your recordings because I know what I saw!" The father of one of the boys who had somehow tripped, fallen, and sprained his ankle for a bit was nearly screaming into his face, the man's face was red with a vein popping on his forehead as he accused Luke of deliberately kicking his boy down.

William was not impressed, if anything, he was bored and only slightly exasperated as he stood there with his arms crossed in front of his chest, one eyebrow raised. There were certain instances in which civility became quite a trying practice, like right then, for example. And he honestly felt like smacking the man, whoever the hell he was, in the face and be done with it.

But he was a good agent with near spotless track record in the ruddy second largest advertising firm in all of London, and he wasn't about to bloody snap over nothing like this. He had dealt with worse—much, much, much (much) worse—and the reason how they had transitioned as smoothly as they had done from being invaded by aliens to still living in their planet as the animal at the top of the food chain, was the testament to that.

Not to forget bitchy, demanding clients at work, of course.

Right.

"Sir." Will raised a placating hand to stop the man from spraying any more spittle into the space between them. "I was just telling you about my point of view in this, and how I have evidence, right here—" He gestured at the camera still strapped to his hand. "—to proof that your theory is false. Of course, whether you want to believe me or not is up to you, although I think it's best if we keep this a nice and easy game for the children and all parties involved."

The words rolled off of his tongue in streams of silk, and Will took Luke's hand, feeling measurably proud that he had, to the very least, kept his composure in front of his young son, something that would go a long way farther down his path of development.

He wasn't going to make the same mistakes as his own father had.

"Now, if you'd excuse us." With that, he walked away, smiling at Luke to follow him. The child looked a little pale and flustered, but he smiled back nonetheless as Will gave him a wink.

But just as they had made their way back to Grandpa George, something caught Will's ears: "Fucking losers."

The hiss was vile and vicious, and he was already turning sharply on his heel before he even registered it, striding back to said enraged man.

"What did you just say?"

The man, who seemed to have just turned away quickly himself after spitting that sort of remark out into the open, whirled back with a sneer on his face, looking as every bit prepared to engage himself into whatever it was that was about to go down next. "What?!" he snapped.

Will's eyes narrowed. "I said, 'what did you just say?'" he growled.

There was a pause… and then, somehow, for some sort of reason, the man stiffened, blanched, and took a step back before scurrying away altogether toward where his own son was having his ankle checked out by the coach.

Someone snatched Will's wrist. "William."

He whipped around, Aaron's features filling his momentarily bleary vision.

"Yes?" he muttered, still confused by what had just happened with the other parent, as his eyes flickered down to Aaron's tight, lingering grip.

His brother-in-law finally relented. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Of course I am." He shot Aaron an incredulous look. "And I don't know." He shrugged, forefinger scratching a little at his cheek. "The man just… left."

With that he focused his attention back onto Luke. "Don't listen to what that mean man said, okay, son?"

George watched as Will talked to his son and headed over to where Aaron was standing.

"What's wrong?"

"Huh?" Aaron blinked, reaching for Rose. "Nothing, Dad… I just… I thought I just saw Will's eyes turn... black." He picked his daughter up with a slight frown to his brows.

That got George frowning, too. "Must be a trick of the light," the man concluded after sometime.

Aaron nodded and murmured, "Yeah, I thought so, too."

That was the only logical, possible, explanation.

They picked Tom up from Trumpet practice and went back to the Cage household for barbecue afterward.

"All right, kiddo," Will smiled, leaning down to press a kiss to Luke's forehead. "Sleep tight."

"G'night, Papa," whispered Luke sleepily, which got the quirk in Will's lips widened. "Love you."

"Love you, too, Luke."

It was a bit easier to wrestle Luke into bed that night (not in the literal sense of it, though Luke was quite an active child in his own right), considering the soccer game just that afternoon, and if Will were to be honest with himself, he was beat as well. Though more of because of the outdoor barbecue they had later on, along with a few pints with his in-laws.

Switching on the sleeping light and stealing another glance at his son who was already drifting off, Will quietly closed the door to the bedroom and crept away.

The dishes were still a stack in the sink when he got back down to the living room, but he couldn't give a damn right then really as he grabbed his unfinished beer and flopped down to the sofa, turning the television back on.

Rita didn't seem like she was coming home that night either, and a soft sigh escaped his nostrils in a slow, gradual rush.

Absently tapping his forefinger at the glass of the bottle, Will made up his mind and hauled himself up to begin commencing on loading the video he had recorded of Luke's first soccer match to the player and ultimately the TV because, really, the camera's screen was just too bloody small to completely enjoy the entire rewind for what it was.

That done, he scoffed with a petty sense of achievement (because if he could wield an exosuit like a second skin, he wasn't about to let a mere player get the better of him) and settled back down, pressing 'Play' on the remote control.

Background noises were loud, nothing out of the ordinary there, but the quality of the captured footage was beautiful, and already, he was grinning like a fool…

Small happiness, he told himself. Small happiness.

Driving back home a little late on Monday made Will suppose he should be happy that Natalia, Aaron's wife, was there to pick Luke up from school for him, along with her two kids, whenever something came up suddenly and he couldn't make it back in time.

The drive back from central London didn't have too much traffic, because there were still needed to be done even after thirteen years of rebuilding after the sort of devastation they had had. And the road got even quieter and less crowded the nearer he got home because the small town they lived in was wonderful if only a little far from the city.

"Ooh… I feel love. I feel love. I feel love. I feel love," Donna Summer was singing on the radio, and he was tapping his finger on the steering wheel along to the electronic beats, eyes forward to the empty road ahead, a faint, barely there smile on his lips.

It was just a little after five, and he was about fifteen minutes away from home… when the dark shadow of something jumped out right in front of his car.

Will's eyes widened, his foot slamming onto the brake as the car swiveled sharply out of control with a high-pitched screech, spinning off course and crashing into a nearby tree. His head jerked forward, jolting against the steering wheel, but it was the burst of the airbag that actually disoriented him in the end.

He groaned. What the fuck was that?

Fumbling for the safety belt, he discharged it from the lock, pushed the door open, and fell out of the car gracelessly to the ground, which didn't help with the dizzy spell that was washing through him right then.

Suddenly, the world shook for a moment; a shiver shot up along Will's spine, and everything went black after that.

The frequency with which he dreamt about his childhood these days was growing rather unsettling, and Will no longer had any idea on what to think as he stood there like an outsider looking in on the miserable story of his own childhood.

The child on the single bed was crying again, pathetic, small sniffles emitting from its throat in choked hiccups. But it wasn't home anymore, and neither of its parents was going to come for it. Its father had been shot dead on his way back home from work, and its mother followed not too long afterward.

No relative came to pick him up at the orphanage because, frankly, who would? They couldn't make ends meet as it was, taking another child in was nothing short of signing their own death certificates.

And so Will stood there, staring at the sobbing child, who had just gotten bullied by the other children, feeling just a little numb and not knowing that the hell he was supposed to do right then.

Then, out of nowhere, arms slipped around him from behind and held him tight, steadily and firmly as though trying to pull together whatever fragmented pieces of him that he had never been able to put back into their rightful places.

"It's going to be okay, William," came the soft whisper in his ear, gentle and more Goddamn reassuring than anything he had ever heard in his entire life. "I'm here now."

The words had him shuddering involuntarily and almost violently in sheer relief.

It took him three seconds to realize… that wasn't Rita's voice he had just heard.

"-ill?"

"W-ill."

"Will!"

"Will!"

He snapped his eyes opened with a gasp, lashes fluttering in a frantic haze, as air rattled almost loudly in his ribcage.

"Will?"

Blearily, he looked over to the source of that familiar voice, hearing Rita even before seeing her sitting there… by the bed? What?

"R-Rita?" he croaked, voice uncomfortably hoarse and tongue thick in his mouth.

"Shh…" she inexplicably began to soothe, reaching up to stroke his cheek now, and it was then that his vision cleared enough for him to see the grim, stern note in her features. The smell of detergent filled his flaring nose, and everything sort of clicked into place.

Hospital. Car accident.

"What's… What happened?" he asked quietly.

"You don't remember?" That was a genuine question itself.

Will shook his head. "Not much," he admitted with a sigh, eyes somehow itching from tiredness even though he had obviously just woken up. "I…" He frowned, focusing, but the pulsing in his head became loud and throbbing, hindering his concentration. "I was driving home a little late… I just asked Natalia to pick Luke up…"

The lyrics of I Feel Love sprang to his mind. "I was listening to Donna Summer." Will laughed a little at this, looking over at his wife whose grave expression seemed to have lightened up somewhat at his antics, before frowning at the next part of his blurry memory. "Then something just… jumped out into the road right in front of the car… I braked and lost control of the steering wheel… and…"

What happened next?

"I got out of the car somehow, and I just… That's it… I can't remember anything after that." He heaved another sigh. "Must have blacked out somehow."

Rita was quiet for a few beats, her lips pressed thin. She looked worn with circles under her eyes, and he suddenly felt bed for doing this to her… even though he couldn't have possibly foreseen this happening. Still, though, she had already had enough to worry about as it stood.

"How did you find out?"

"Luke called," she replied, sighing herself, her blue eyes glinting as it caught a ray of dim light from the small lamp in the darkened ward. He was still a veteran and a former CO19—Central Operator Sector 19—so of course they had given him a private room. "He said he couldn't reach your phone, and it was already seven. So I drove home to look for you."

"Oh…" Then... what? He was out for… two hours? How? "Is it bad?" He feigned a dramatic voice, which got a soft chuckle from her.

"No," she scoffed halfheartedly. "Just bruised and barely a scratch."

He chuckled back, she leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips.

"Rest, Will," Rita whispered. "We'll go home tomorrow."

"Okay…" Will nodded and closed his eyes.

To be continued...