I'd just like to remind everyone this 'verse IS open for prompts and also let you all know that there's a prompt this is based on but I don't want to spoil the surprise. You can all thank AnonymousNerdGirl on Tumblr, though.
Being at home wasn't nearly as nice as being on vacation. For one thing, the sleepovers had ceased. Belle was lucky when she could sneak a kiss in the evening anymore. She was pretty sure that Bae had begun to suspect something was going on, and he was lurking constantly. They were going to have to tell him what was going on sooner rather than later, but it was still so early in their relationship to bring it fully out in the open.
Still, though, Arthur had been over for dinner almost every night since and in a lot of ways that was good enough. It was a pleasant routine, and when he broke it she felt his absence. It wasn't necessarily weird - he didn't always have to come to dinner, after all - but it was a definite absence. She missed seeing him more than she thought she would. When he missed a second day, she was starting to get worried.
Before she could second-guess herself, she picked up her phone and sent him a quick text.
Dinner tonight?
She set the phone down, trying to ignore how long it was taking him to respond, and how unusual that was for a man who had never made her wait more than a few minutes for a reply to a text since she'd known him.
Screw it. Her boyfriend was acting weird, but beyond that her son hadn't seen his father in days. She had to know what was going on with her family whether Arthur wanted to let her in or not.
Bae was in school, at least, for a little while longer so she didn't have to explain where she was going to any curious fifth graders. Not that she needed an excuse. This was definitely just normal concern for her son's father and not her freaking out that he'd changed his mind about them and didn't know how to tell her.
He didn't answer his door when she rang the bell, and she knocked over and over again with no answer. Maybe it was nosy to peek through the windows, but the lamp on the end table next to the sofa was knocked over and that had her scrambling in her purse for the key he'd given her. She wanted to respect his privacy, but his privacy was seriously infringing on her mental health and if he was okay she was going to kill him.
The house was eerily quiet, though she was only used to being in it with Bae around. The place was trashed. Somebody had gone through and torn the place apart. Little statues that had decorated various flat surfaces were knocked to the floor. She picked her way through the downstairs, as quick as she could - her phone held at the ready in case she found something. The downstairs was empty, and she made her way upstairs as fast as she could.
There were a million possibilities for what had happened scrolling through her head, each one more disturbing than the last. She just had to find him and reassure herself that everything was okay. She'd just found him, she couldn't lose him already.
Bae's room had been spared the destruction, as had hers, but his bedroom was also destroyed. The only room left upstairs was the office, and Belle almost collapsed with relief when she found him sitting on the floor by the desk with a bottle clenched in his fist. She wasn't sure if she was going to kiss him or kill him, probably both.
He was watching her as she stood in the doorway, an inscrutable look on his face. She had so many questions she had to ask him and so many things she just had to scream until he had to listen to her and there was so much going on in her head she just couldn't say anything at all. He'd vanished for days and now here he was...just sitting on the floor surrounded by broken glass and scattered papers and she had been so scared she wasn't even sure what she was feeling anymore now that she could see he was okay.
So, of course, she was choking back tears as she went to him slowly. He didn't have any visible wounds or injuries, or any reason she could see why the hell he should be sitting there in a pile of destruction and not on the phone telling her that he was coming for freaking dinner. All she knew was that he better have one hell of a good excuse.
"What the hell, Arthur?" she finally blurted out, dropping to her knees in front of him and checking him for visible wounds. "What happened? Are you okay?"
"As good as can be expected," he said with a wry smile, gesturing towards himself with the hand not wrapped around the bottle of scotch. "I didn't think you'd come."
She felt her rage reach a boiling point in her chest at that. He didn't think she'd come? Because she'd always been so unreliable before? So uninvolved in this relationship? She'd always come! Even when she'd been dating someone else she'd dropped everything for him. How dare he? How dare he insinuate she wouldn't come looking for him?
"What is wrong with you?" she shrieked, slapping his chest. "Why wouldn't I come? What's going on?"
He shrugged.
"You shouldn't have come," he said. "You've got your entire life ahead of you. You and Bae."
"Arthur," she replied. "You're scaring the hell out of me."
"It's better this way," he sighed, leaning back against the desk to stare at the ceiling. "You'll both be better off now."
"You're drunk," she snapped, grabbing the bottle away from him. "Did you do all this yourself?"
He just nodded sadly, and she couldn't tell if she was angry at him or wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him until whatever this macabre mood was passed.
"What's going on?" she said firmer this time. "You've gotta tell me."
"I went to the doctor," he said with a sigh. "I thought I'd see about getting a knee replacement so I could keep up with Bae. I hadn't discussed it with him in years, and thought there might be some new tech. God, I'm such a fool, Belle."
He paused, running his fingers through his hair and she reached out to touch his cheek as comfortingly as possible.
"It's okay," she whispered. "Whatever he said, we'll get through it. It's okay."
"No," he replied. "No, it's not. I have cancer, Belle."
She felt the word cancer shoot through her like a bolt of lightning, rooting her to the spot. Cancer. He had cancer. The one man she'd ever really loved had cancer.
"What kind?"
He let out a little snort.
"Breast cancer," he said bitterly. "Of all the damn things. Apparently men can get it, too. Can you believe it?"
Belle had known that, actually. She remembered it from before, from twenty years ago and a little pamphlet in the doctor's office while she waited with her father while her mother got filled full of poison to try to save her life. She'd filed that little factoid away alongside five year survivability rates in the list of things she tried not to think about when she looked at her son and thought about how when she was just a little older than him her mother had been stolen from her.
For a little while, Belle felt like she was drowning. She had always feared cancer coming for her, but it hadn't even crossed her mind to worry about it coming for Arthur. To have him in their lives only for this to happen was a nightmare Belle hadn't even thought to be afraid of. She didn't want this for Bae. She didn't want her son to be lost in the fear of loss that became such a constant companion that you almost missed it when it was gone, though not as much as you missed having your mother there when you needed her.
It just wasn't fair.
"My mother had it," she choked out at last, as though he'd asked about Colette French or even knew her name. "Are they sure?"
"Yeah," he replied. "They want me to start treatment this week."
"Good," she said, nodding stiffly. "That's good. Very good."
Treatment was good. Treatment was when they fixed things. Not that treatment had fixed her mother, but Belle couldn't linger on that right now because this time it was different. Arthur wasn't her mother, her mother had fought and he'd fight but he'd win because Belle wasn't a girl anymore and she would help him. There was money this time, and money could pay for a lot of things that her parents couldn't afford.
"Do you have a prognosis?" she said cautiously. She would not abandon him, but this was...she wasn't ready for this.
"They caught it early," Arthur said, his entire bearing changing in the wake of her reaction and she hated this weakness that made him need to comfort her. "I don't know what that means yet exactly."
"How long have you known?"
"I just got the results back today," he replied.
She wouldn't ask him how long he'd suspected, she didn't want to know. She didn't want to know any of it.
"And you destroyed the whole house?"
Arthur just shrugged in response, and in that moment she knew exactly what she would have to do.
"Come on," she said, standing up and offering him her hand. "We're going to pack you a bag and you're going to come stay with us."
He was watching her with a wary sort of hope on his face, as though there were any other options for her.
"You're Bae's father," she continued. "And I'm not letting you stay in this house by yourself."
He nodded slowly, letting her guide him to his feet and lead him into his bedroom. She went to the closet and pulled out a suitcase, dragging it to the bed and opening it up.
"Belle," he said. "You don't have to do all this."
"I'm not leaving you to stay here," she replied firmly. "At least not until we can get it cleaned up. It's full of broken glass."
"And when it's clean?"
"When it's clean," she said. "Then we'll talk. If you'd rather Bae and I stay here with you then we'll stay, or you can stay at my place. But you're not doing this alone."
She went to his dresser and opened a drawer at random and started pulling out undershirts and boxers.
"I didn't want to put you two through this," he said so softly she wasn't sure he meant for her to hear it.
"So what?" she shot back, turning to face him again. "You were just going to stop answering my phone calls and hope we didn't notice you were gone?!"
He was looking everywhere but at her and she stalked over to him angrily and pulled his face to look at her
"You're in our lives now," she said firmly. "We're going to do this together okay?"
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, finally leaning down to rest his forehead against hers.
"I'm sorry," he replied and she wasn't sure if he meant sorry for being sick or sorry for worrying her or sorry for disappearing, but she couldn't really focus on that yet, either. Getting their family through this was going to mean putting one foot in front of the other regardless of how badly she wanted to lock herself in the closet and cry. She could cry later in the privacy of her own room, but right now she just needed to get him packed up and back home so they could prepare to tell Bae about this. She would not hide this from her son.
And if later on she ended up sobbing in the shower, that would be her own business. Her family needed her to be strong though, and she could be strong for Arthur and Bae. Her son deserved two parents for as long as he could have them.