5 years ago
"Fine, I'll leave and you can live in your tower and protect your heart for the rest of your life and /nothing/ will ever happen to you. The only way I'm leaving is if you tell me to."
"Alex, please don't make me."
"It's the only way."
"Fine. Alexander Claremont-Diaz, by orders of the Prince of England, please leave my residence."
"...you're making a mistake."
He doesn't know how the sound of his heart breaking is louder than the slamming of the door.
Present
Henry woke up with a migraine this morning. A punishment for another night of insomnia more than likely. Seems his ability to sleep anytime between the hours of 7:00 PM and 6:00 AM was still as superhuman as it had been since he was a teenager.
Shaan of course, thankfully is still gentle with him as he's been since he was employed unlike others and has medication on hand to help ease the pain. It does only the smallest amount, but at least it helps him get through his appointments for the day. Especially when he takes more before one of his last appointments for the day.
It's not that he doesn't like going to Great Ormond Hospital. It's one of his favourite places to go, as the people there actually provide help on a greater scale than a lot of places and the children, even sickly as they are, respond jubilantly to the Prince's visits.
He can't count on two hands how many drawings he's received and he keeps them in a box which he pulls out to look at sometimes. He fills the hole in his heart that's still leaking from when he had to force Alex to leave.
God, Alex. The thought of him pulls Henry's migraine right back to its former intensity and he rubs his temples, trying to focus on what the clinical lead was saying as she escorted him and Shaan and others around the wards.
Alex had been right, he had made a mistake. He had regretted giving him up, but the Crown would never let them be and while he'd barely been able to function after Alex cut off all contact, e-mails and phone calls and texts going unanswered of Henry trying to explain himself, he'd pushed though as that's what he'd had to do.
He'd even attended events where Alex usually would show both in England and overseas, a smirk on his face and a whiskey glass in hand - but saw no trace of him. He'd even asked if Madam President (or really, the former Madam President, as her vice president got elected in her place after her last term, which Alex secured so he heard) could speak with him in private so she could tell him where he was.
She declined the meeting, an obvious choice.
It greatly concerned him that Alex was a no show now, but it seemed his Instagram kept updating itself periodically. Pictures of Austin and the country house as well as what Henry assumed was the house he grew up in peppered with obscure shots of blue skies and jumbled haikus which Henry can't decipher. No parties, no bad behaviour, no poses of being cuddled between a bunch of people Hnery barely knew having a good time.
It was like as soon as Henry dismissed him, the former First Son became a ghost.
Back in the present day, as they tour the final ward, Henry attempts to not let the thoughts get to him, weaving in and out of rooms and gladly greeting tired parents and even more precious children, only able to talk for a few moments before he's moved on again.
It's only when they move past one door with the door slightly ajar does he stop. "Are we not going in this room as well?"
"Oh, no. The father is fast asleep, he's been buzzing around entertaining the children like mad, including his own little one." The nurse smiled. "He's quite the celebrity around here and I'm pretty sure he hasn't slept in days, so it's best to leave Mr. Fox be I think."
"Fox?" Henry questions, a sudden pull pointing him directly towards the door that he can't explain, an overwhelming feeling starting to take over.
"Yes, that is…" The nurse files carefully through her paperwork to find a name, but Henry's already walking and opens the door gently, going pale at what he finds.
The room is like the others, but there are a lot of toys piled in a corner and get well cards and flowers on a bedside table. He recognises them immediately. Gardenias, Henry's personal favourite. It's also a private room, so there's only one bed and it contains a tiny child, covered in tubes and wires of varying degrees, oxygen prongs in her nose and dark blonde hair fanned out against her pillow, a green elephant plush stuffed under her arm.
It's her father that Henry suddenly finds his sights on that makes his world shake underneath, him, clinging onto the door handle to keep himself steady. His head is shaved down less than before and he's got a five o'clock shadow that doesn't suit him in the slightest. Wearing jeans and a shirt that are baggy just like the dark circles under his eyes.
His hand clutched in the child's free one between the bed bars like a lifeline.
His choking seemingly rouses the father up in an instant and his whole body sits up like it's been pulled by an invisible string, wiping his eyes. "Wh' goin on?"
His voice still sounds the same. Henry can't breathe as unfocused eyes land on him and they open in an instant, revealing disbelief, desperation, sadness and worse of all, fear.
"...Henry?"
"Alex."
