He couldn't stand it.
Bart was in his room, scrunching up a cloth tightly in his hands' grip.
What was going on with his mum at the moment? She was acting like Homer wasn't ever going to come home! That Homer was DEAD ALREADY!
It infuriated him... so much that angry tears balled in his eye corners and he looked out his window, seeing his neighbour's house so close... and yet this whole situation that was going down felt so far away and hopeless to stop.
But Bart HAD to stop this.
His DAD would be home soon, the boy just knew it! But Marge? Was she already moving on from a lifetime together with his father? Had she always had feelings for Ned?
Bart had to know the truth, and not only that... he had to stop things from playing out.
He slowly got off his bed and came down the stairs. The sky was pitch black, with heavy clouds overcasting the whole area.
He reached the door in mere moments before turning the door knob around and releasing it, leaving the house as the door swung open.
He began to walk in angry steps towards the house next door and as Bart reached it he felt his eyebrows lower, his eyes piercing with rage as he placed his hand on the nextdoor neighbour's doorknob.
He was about to twist it till he heard something that stopped him for a second.
Marge, his mother... laughing.
SHE WAS LAUGHING! And with whom?
NED!
Ned...
Bart remained so still for that moment, his eyes shaking a little in their gaze as he didn't know what to do now.
He gulped heavily before placing his ear against the wood of the door and could hear the two talking... conversing... enjoying the other's company.
"And that there is Todd when he lost his first baby tooth"
Ned and Marge were sitting down on the living room couch, looking through very old photo albums and Marge only laughed as she enjoyed seeing these photos that Ned had taken.
"And that's Rod's first night sleeping in his own bed."
"Where did he sleep before then?" Marge asked curiously, and Ned only grinned at her, bouncing his eyebrows before admitting.
"My bed... he was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to bedtime."
"Do you ever miss her?" Marge asked him then, as that question just came to her mind, and she wanted to know.
Ned gave a sad laugh before asking back, "Which her?"
"Maude?"
He became silent for a second, his eyes staring steadily ahead before he admitted.
"Yes... sometimes."
"And Edna?"
"Sometimes..."
"I'm sorry, Ned..."
Bart was still at the door, listening to this, but his own heart began to break.
"Don't be sorry, Marge..." Ned told her in honest truth, "They're with God now... a destination we all have to take."
Marge nodded her head sadly, before tears finally erupted out of her, and she began to cry heavily.
"Marge-?"
"My Homey! Oh, Ned... I really want him to come home and be with his family again!"
"He might still, Marge!"
"Oh, I don't know!" She only cried some more, "I feel I'm just giving up hope."
"Never do that," Ned said just then quite powerfully as he took her hand in his two and looked deeply at this sowerful woman full of woe.
"Because if someone like you can give up hope, what hope is there for the rest of us?"
She nodded her head, her bottom lip trembling as she squeezed Ned's hands back. She slowly looked back up at him, her eyes red and sore as she said to Ned with all the truth she had in her.
"Ned... if Homer really i-is gone... will you be the father my children need?"
Ned's heart stopped completely for a second before speeding up in heavy heartbeats.
"Marge..." He said to her finally, squeezing her hand back and admitting to the woman he had known through thick and thin, "If he never comes back, I will be more than just a father to them... I would marry you and be the man you need in your life."
Marge's own heart right then fluttered in worry but also hidden joy, and she looked him right in the eyes, her own eyelids dimming a little as she began to move towards him... and Ned, instinctively, did the same her way.
But just before the two shared a kiss, lightning struck outside the window, the two jumping away from each other, frightened, before rain suddenly lashed down right outside, and Marge got up quickly from her spot, saying in worry.
"I have to get home for the kids,"
Bart had been at the door this whole time, drenched now in rain but the second he heard his mum head this direction he bolted out of there, running to the back of the Simpson house and climbing their big tree back into his bedroom.
Marge ushered through the torrential downfall, waving goodbye to Ned and he waved quickly in return.
When Marge got to the house, she slammed the door heavily behind her, making the whole house tremble at the noise before she hurried to the living room and sat down, panting heavily.
Her hair was so wet it was falling around her shoulders, but it was her heart where all her attention was going to.
It was pounding hard against her chest... the moment only minutes ago being the deepest she had ever felt for Ned, the man next door.
She just closed her eyes right then, and uttered out to the world, the universe, God and whoever else was listening.
"Please bring my Homey back..." She took a deep exhale out before continuing, "P-please..."
Her heart felt like it was torn in two... and maybe now it really was.
~x~
Up in Bart's room he was in tears himself.
His mum had nearly kissed another man. A man who wasn't his father, a man who would NEVER be his father!
Bart respected Ned, he REALLY did more so than most adults he knew. But Ned Flanders had nearly gone too far... he had nearly KISSED HIS MOTHER!
And Marge had almost KISSED HIM BACK!
It was all just so painful and raw with his emotions. He wanted this to end! He didn't want ANYTHING between the two to happen!
It couldn't... it c-couldn't...
But it just might...
~x~
Marge was still breathing heavily downstairs, her chest rising and falling from what nearly had been... and the words Ned had promised her.
"If he never comes back, I will be more than just a father to them... I would marry you and be the man you need in your life."
Marriage! He was already talking about that level of commitment before the two had even shared a kiss...
But the deep devotion right out of the gate... she truly admired it. She truly admired him...
~x~
Ned only sat there alone on his own couch, looking still at where Marge had last been. He took his glasses off gently as he wiped the glass rim around them before quietly putting them back on and looking slowly over to the puzzle on the ground.
He got to his knees and quietly tried to put some jigsaw pieces together... doing it without her...
It was no fun.
He sighed heavily, as only a quarter of the puzzle had been solved, and the picture it was forming was a couple. A man and a woman sharing a swinging seat together in the summer wind...
He missed Marge already... not only that, he yearned to have her back.
He yearned simply to have her.
He stopped trying at the puzzle and only went upstairs, looking into his sleeping sons' bedroom, seeing them at peace before going to his own bedroom and sitting down on the side of his bed where his late wives had always slept.
He sighed heavily, placing his hand on the mattress of that side, touching it softly as he ran his hand slowly up and down... the place a loved one was meant to share with him.
He did miss them... he thought he always would...
~x~
Marge came upstairs an hour later, passing through the upper hallway till she heard sniffling and crying from the closed door to her son's room.
Marge knew Homer's absence was affecting Bart hard.
She slowly tapped on the door before turning the knob and coming in to see her boy.
"Bart, sweetie?" She asked, seeing him turned away from her as his head hung a little and tears were soaking down his face.
"What?!" He snapped, pain in his core and she slowly approached him, touching his shoulder gently before whispering.
"I miss him too..."
Bart only looked at her, incredulous at what his mother had just said, and he quickly snapped his gaze down again as he asked.
"So WHY were you over there with HIM?"
Marge didn't know what to say... her words had literally left her right then.
"I-" She finally choked out, before saying as calmly and truthfully as she could, "I need company sometimes..."
"Are we three kids not enough for you?" Bart asked coldly, and Marge's eyes filled with tears, but she did not cry.
"Sometimes... you need someone to hold you close and help you get through the hard times,"
"Like how Dad holds you?"
She didn't speak back right away, before finally nodding her head and replying.
"That is exactly what I mean..."
Bart glared his eyes sadly at the ground, before forcing out his angry words.
But they only angered him because they were true.
"Ned..." He said, so full of rage, but truth, "He... he is a good man... he is at least that."
Marge nodded her head as her son said this.
"But he will NEVER be my dad..."
"No..." Marge said simply, acknowledging that truth, "But what about... a father?"
Bart didn't say anything back at that moment. Only slowly blinked his eyes before finally turning them up to look into his mother's.
"I... I don't know..." He told her, shrugging his shoulders as that was the only response he could give, "I don't know..."
Marge held her son close in a hug then, and Bart hugged her in return, tears coming from his eyes as he dampened her shoulder with his heavy weeps.
"Don't tell anyone I cried..." He begged her, as he moved away, and Marge nodded her head in deep sincerity.
"I won't tell anyone..."
"I love you, mum," Bart continued on, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand, "And I just want you happy..." He gulped heavily as he admitted in shame, "Even if it's Flanders that makes you that..."
"I know, Bart sweetie," She said, kissing her son on the cheek before she got up and began to leave, "But your father will always be in my heart... but hearts are much bigger than what we give them credit for."
Bart sadly nodded his head, and the door was closed.
He slowly stared his eyes out through the window, seeing the tree's branches waving up and down from the heavy wind and the big downpour of rain.
The last few days had been horrific with storms and flooding.
~x~
While up on the hill so many miles away, the mountainous hillside that stretched all around Springfield, stood a man at the very top.
His clothes were ripped, his beard unshaven, and his stomach growling for food.
Homer Simpson stood there, looking down at the town he had known all his life... and he was nearly back home.
His dangerous adventure finally over... soon to be back with his true love and family.
Lightning struck down in the distance, lighting up the whole sky for a minute before thunder rumbled across the area and Homer nodded his head, pulling up a hoody he was wearing over his soaked clothes and began his journey home once more.
As he walked in heavy, strong and hopeful steps to the place he belonged.
Where he always would belong...?
He knew nothing else... and knew not that Marge's heart had grown bigger...
That she was falling for the man next door.
He didn't know.