Reaction drabble for 4x20. Companion piece of sorts to Mea Culpa.
Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline.
Maybe if he thought her name enough times, it would drive out the memory of this night, of the news that he had been told. And it was like the night he thought he was going to lose Caroline for good your fault your fault your fault. He didn't want to think about anything else but her.
Just when he felt for once that he was actually getting somewhere with her, even if she still had an attachment to the mutt, this... this had to happen, and it was his fault. The result of a drunken one night stand. The product of loneliness and hurt and despair. But still, he had made a choice, and now he was paying the consequences. He wasn't supposed to look at a child as a mistake, he knew that, but he did. It was nothing but a mistake, and he wasn't sure he would be able to consider it as anything but a mistake. He tried, he tried to feel something other than hate and disgust, bring up a shred of happiness at the news, but he couldn't.
He didn't want this, he had never wanted children, not even when he was human, even though that idea itself was against the customs of the time he had been born into. He was the original hybrid; he didn't have the time or the patience for a child. But for one moment, he let himself imagine. If things were different, if they were both human and together, what a child would be like with Caroline. Their child, oh for a moment he wanted their child, and he imagined what the product of their joining would look like, all blond curly hair like hers, blue eyes, and with his luck the child would have his temper. But that would be all right, because in his imaginary universe they loved each other. Caroline. She would be the only person that he would ever even be able to start to want to have a child with. The only one that he would be able to be happy about having a child with. The only one that he could fathom being able to be a good parent with. Because he knew that he would try for her. She was the one that he wanted. The one he wanted to be with. The one he wanted to love and show the world to, and have be his family.
But now, now he wasn't even sure that he would have a chance with her ever again your fault your fault your fault. If he lost her, if this was it, if this was where she finally cut him out of her life for good, would he have anyone to blame but himself?
Oh he could blame Tyler, he could blame Hayley, he was sure he could find a way to blame Caroline herself. But he couldn't do that. Because he knew, with startling clarity that this was his fault. His choice, his decision, and he shouldered part of the responsibility for what his and Hayley's mistake had caused.
And if he lost her, if she hated him, and for once, for the first time he felt that he would not question her decision, that if she cut him out for good he would let her, he would have no one to blame but himself.