sometimes you look the same (just like you did before the accident)

by ishoulddefobeasleep

Summary:

henry never had the best relationship with his family.
then an accident takes half of his family away from him.
now it's just him and his mum, the two who have the trickiest relationship.
it's kinda difficult when it feels like henry also died in the crash.

(what if peter and dad die in a car crash, and henry's the only survivor?)

Notes:

i'm giving names to the parents this time cuz i kinda have to
mum is meredith
dad is simon
don't expect this to be finished any time soon cuz i have procrastination issues

slightly inspired by some fic i found but i cant remember what it was called cuz i read it AGES ago

Chapter 1: before

Henry never had the greatest relationship with his family. Some might say it was always kinda Horrid.

See, growing up, he needed to fight for attention with his perfect little brother. And if the role of the perfect child had already been taken, then the only other option to get attention was to be the horrid child. Which was how Henry ended up being the mischievous, insufferable kid. The troublemaker, who was constantly stressing everyone out.

It wasn't really his fault, if you think about it. Yes, he had done some really horrible things, and maybe he took the little troublemaker act a little too far sometimes, but he just needed to fight for attention against the most annoying kid to exist. If Peter got to be annoyingly good, then Henry would be annoyingly bad.

However, as Henry grew up and kept up the horrid act, because Peter kept up the perfect act, things took a slight turn for the worse. 

Naturally, his parents were pushed to their limits. There was only so much that they could take, especially cause the perfect son made the horrid son look a thousand times worse, and because of that, the treatment Henry got from his parents was a lot harsher.

As Henry grew up, the punishments he got from his parents changed from just being sent to his room and occasionally missing dinner, with a lot of harsh words that could've been classed as emotional abuse, to things being thrown at him and being shoved around. Arguably, it became physical abuse.

Because, even if it wasn't too frequent, they did hit Henry every now and then. 

And as much as Henry liked to act cool and tough, it hurt. It really, really hurt. 

But what hurt most was the hatred. Not being kicked out for the night and almost catching hypothermia. Not being punched in the face so hard he busted his lip open when it got caught in his teeth. Not even being slammed so hard into the staircase he saw stars for a few minutes. It was the hatred that hurt the most.

The hatred, the way they looked at him whenever he did something wrong. When Peter would snitch on him for the most useless of things, and his parents would just look at him with such disappointment, such disdain, showing how much they hated him without having to say the words. The look in their eyes right as they'd get physical.

That's what hurt the most.

But yes, it hurt when they got physical too. Of course it did. Henry was a little kid, a scrawny kid for his age considering he didn't eat much, and so because of that, of course it fucking hurt. The abuse messed with his mind and messed with his body. 

It didn't help that basically everyone hated Henry. Maybe not everyone, but most people did. His parents hated him, his teachers hated him, his classmates hated him, and his little brother hated him. So it wasn't like he could talk to anyone about what was going on, and if he did, it would just feel wrong.

Because even if he tried, it wasn't like it didn't feel right. Yes, it hurt, but he was a shitty child, and he understood why his parents couldn't stand to be around him, and why their anger turned physical sometimes. If they hated him that much, and so many other people did too, surely it made sense that they hurt him sometimes.

And besides, this was the attention Henry basically asked for, wasn't it? He didn't specify what kind of attention he wanted when he started acting up, so he had to take what he could get. It wasn't good attention, but it was attention. It wasn't the soft kisses on the cheek and the warm hugs that Peter got, but it was still attention.

It was physical touch, even if it left Henry bruised.

That's all he needed, right?

Henry was just lucky his parents weren't worse. After all, he was ten years old, and in Year Six now, and he still didn't know how to get his act together. He was a year away from going to secondary school and growing up, in a place where apparently no one would take his bullshit. So the way his parents punished him was justified in a sense, and he was lucky it was tame.

Miss Lovely had said Henry should probably get a referral, that there was probably a reason why Henry acted the way he did, but his parents dismissed the idea immediately. They didn't have time to deal with Henry being even more of a nuisance, and the fact that he was probably neurodivergent didn't change the fact that he was a nightmare child.

At least, his parents believed that.

But even if his parents were bad sometimes, or a lot of the time, there were still moments where Henry felt somewhat loved. And maybe Henry had to beg and try extra hard to get those moments, but they still happened sometimes.

Like now.

Henry had just seen a new Gross Class Zero themed toy, and he had to have it. And he hadn't asked for anything in a while, because he knew by now that it wouldn't work out the way he wanted, so if he asked now, all would be well. It wasn't too much to ask for either, considering it was relatively cheap.

So he just had to ask.

Just had to ask. Maybe beg. Maybe plead just for that one toy, and then he wouldn't ask for anything else.

So he did. 

He begged, and he begged, and he even kept calm as his mum ripped up one of his old comics because she thought Henry wasn't being grateful enough of what he already had. And then, only then, after his second-favourite comic was torn into shreds right in front of him, did his dad finally intervene and say that he'll take Henry to the shops.

And of course, that meant Peter had to tag along. Of course Peter tagged along. He could look at something for a second and five of the items would be placed into the trolley just for him. Peter didn't have to beg and sacrifice things in order to get what he wanted.

Peter got everything he wanted. Without the cost of bruises, yanked hair, or cutthroat words that rang in his head when he tried to sleep. He just.. got everything. Everything he wanted, whenever he wanted, without having to do anything at all to get it. 

As much as Henry wanted to sulk and throw a fit over his comic, and the fact that Peter was coming along with them to the shops, he didn't. Because the drive there was relatively peaceful. The weather was still relatively nice, even though it was nearing the end of September, and the radio was playing, and Peter singing Frere Jacques was surprisingly not infuriating.

The sun was out, surprisingly, and the sky was a pretty blue  - and there were barely any clouds too. It was beautiful. Henry was looking out the window with the background noise of his little brother and the radio, trying to make shapes out of the few clouds that were visible. He heard his dad laughing at Peter's singing, and not in a mocking way.

If Henry was in a more foul mood, he would've found it enraging how endearing his dad could be with Peter compared to how he was with Henry. But he wasn't in a foul mood, despite the argument he got into with his mum in order to be on the way to the shops. Everything was really, really pleasant.

And then something told him to look to the right, and he kinda wished he hadn't.

Because Henry saw the van speeding into their car at the junction, and his dad didn't. 

Too fast. Too close. Too late.

And that was Before.

Chapter 2: the crash

Summary:

i feel like there probably should be a warning here for:
graphic descriptions of a car crash, graphic and vivd descriptions of injuries caused by said crash, and lots of angsty horrible traumatic stuff !!!
enjoy i suppose

It felt surreal.

Henry had never been in a car accident before. He had never been in an accident of any kind before. He'd always found car rides pretty fun, so fun to the point that sometimes he didn't want to actually leave when they got to the destination. And he knew that accidents could happen, but he never expected to be in one himself.

And then he was.

And it was numbing. Surreal, and yet numbing.

Dad liked to speed sometimes. He wouldn't speed in city areas, but once they were on the motorway or a peaceful country road, he would speed. Only if there weren't speeding cameras around, of course. Peter would tell him to slow down, and Henry would cheer his dad on, and that's one of the few scenarios where Henry and his dad got along.

But his dad wasn't speeding then and there. No, he was abiding the speed limit, only going thirty-five mph in a forty zone, and abiding the traffic laws like a good driver. The light was green at the four-way traffic junction, and they were allowed to go. And because it had been green, and clearly wasn't changing any time soon, his dad didn't slow down.

He didn't need to slow down. It was okay for him to go.

But then the car, the car that only Henry noticed, came speeding towards their car, slamming into the driver's side at an incredibly high speed. And though it happened so quickly, Henry felt like he experienced it in slow-mo. 

The silver Audi was reckless, speeding through a red light, and if his dad had been speeding too, it would've hit someone else. Why? Or maybe if he'd slowed down, then he would've noticed and been able to swerve out of the way, or just brake quickly and let the Audi charge through. But his dad had done everything right, and that's what killed him.

Henry had to close his eyes and put his arms over his face as the glass from the shattering windows flew into the car, his seatbelt tightening around his body, and then he couldn't help but open his eyes again as their car spun around from the impact of the crash. Everything outside of their car looked like a fast blur, but from the inside, everything was slow and incredibly clear.

Henry grabbed onto the door handle for support as the car skidded across the intersection, tearing his eyes away from the right side of the car to his own, to his door and where the car was about to slam into a nearby wall. He couldn't comprehend how the car had made it so far from the original road they were on, but he was quick enough to let go of the door before the impact.

The car finally halted to a stop, the back-left side of the car slamming into a wall. The second impact was just as jarring, just a little more terrifying for Henry as he heard the sound of their car being wrecked by the wall right behind his ears. His body naturally lurched forward, but his seatbelt forced him back against his seat, cutting into his shoulder and collarbone uncomfortably.

For a moment, everything stilled as his head banged into his window, not too hard to really throw him out of consciousness, but enough to daze him for a moment. He was pretty sure there was glass in his cheek, and some sort of liquid was dripping down the side of his face, but for the most part, he felt okay.

His body had also slammed into his door at some point, and his left shoulder felt a little numb, bruised maybe, but it couldn't have been that bad. He was safe. He was okay.

And then he made the horrible mistake of looking at Peter.

Henry felt something in his stomach jump when he looked at Peter. His once perfect brother was a mess. The door had slightly dug into Peter's right side, and Henry could see it - could see how part of Peter's body was now mangled into the door, disgustingly vividly, and the seatbelt carved into what was left of him, red and deep and wrong.

Whatever rose in Henry's throat wasn't a scream, or a sob. Just sickness, thick and acidic and barely held down. And though he knew it would only scar him to keep looking at his brother, he just couldn't take his eyes off of Peter.

The worst part was seeing Peter's face. 

His eyes were open for a moment, glassy and unfocused, before they closed again. Henry could see Peter's mouth was open a little, and therefore could then notice how his chest was still slightly rising and falling. Peter, though he looked absolutely inhuman, was still alive.  

But at what cost?

Peter's face was pale, the right side of his face covered in blood and slightly smashed in from the window. His beautiful blond curls were now covered in blood, glass and something else that Henry couldn't figure out - didn't want to figure out. And his seatbelt was slightly cut into his throat, and suddenly all Henry could hear was the sound of Peter's sweet voice singing Frere Jacques before the crash.

Alongside the awful ringing in his ears that hadn't gone away since the original impact.

Henry fumbled at his seatbelt, blindly reaching out to find the buckle, relishing in the feeling of the seatbelt finally letting go and releasing his body from the tight hold it had. Though it had protected him, he wanted it to stop digging into his body, wanted to be able to properly reach out to his brother.

Henry reached out for a second, holding onto Peter's left hand. 

"Worm?" He tried to say, but his voice came out wobbled, barely even there. It felt like there was blood completely drowning every word in his mouth that tried to escape, even though he only tried to say one word. "Peter?"

That hand was safe, had escaped all other injuries, and so Henry held onto it for a moment. And then, with how close he was, he just noticed the rest of the injuries in a better detail, and he had to let go of Peter's left hand since all he could now focus on was how badly damaged Peter's right hand was.

Henry shook his head, trying to shake off the image of his brother, only to be scarred with another awful image. Because he then made another mistake - the mistake of looking at his dad.

His dad's side of the car was awful. The driver's side door was completely smashed in, since that was where the brunt of the impact was. The door was completely caved in, digging into his dad's body to the point where Henry couldn't really tell what was his dad and what was the car. And now he really regretted looking.

Because, even though it wasn't good to see at all, Henry's body naturally leaned forward a little to really see. And he could see bone sticking out from his dad's right leg, and that was what made Henry finally sit back and realise he need to get out. He turned back around and tried to open his car door, only to be reminded that there was a wall blocking his side of the car.

He turned back around, only for his eyes to focus in on his dad's face. And it was harder to look at than it was to look at Peter. Because his dad had really taken a lot of the impact, probably the most of it, and it had most definitely killed him. It had to have killed him, because Henry couldn't see his dad's body moving at all, not even the slightest of movement in his chest to show that he was breathing.

Henry reached out for just a second, yet again, to hold onto his dad's left hand.

"Dad." Henry called out. His voice was even more weak this time, horrified, desperate, because that was his dad. As bad as his dad was sometimes, that was still his dad, the person who was meant to be strong, meant to protect him. "Dad."

And he noticed how his dad's right hand was still on the wheel, the majority of his right arm wedged into the door, and Henry had to let go. And he didn't want to let go, because something was telling him that this was gonna be his last moment with his dad.

The smell of blood, flesh and rubber- or plastic, or metal, or something horribly acrid and metallic and definitely due to the car's damage- was now plaguing his senses, and the graphic sight of his brother and father's mangled, tortured-looking bodies weren't helping with how overwhelmed he was becoming. 

And so he turned back around. He couldn't get out from his door, and he definitely wasn't going to be able to get out from Peter's side, so the only other option he could think of was climbing out from the rear window. Henry had to have been a little lucky, since the rear window was just a little shattered, so he wouldn't have to do much to get out, right?

Except trying to punch the rear window until the glass broke hurt. Please. His knuckles were cut, bleeding, and stinging to the point that his eyes were beginning to burn, but he kept trying. Please. He couldn't stand another minute inside the car, so he kept banging at the window, elbowing it too until he finally broke the glass.

With a relieved sigh, Henry pushed the glass forward and climbed out of the car. The once beautiful red car was now destroyed, and the inside of the car was painted with a red that wasn't there before, and should've never been there. His red, his brother's red, his father's red. 

Once Henry was finally out of the car, finally free, his stomach lurched again and suddenly he was throwing up all over the floor. It was disgusting, and it made him feel dizzy and lightheaded, but he couldn't stop throwing up. He didn't even expect to start throwing up. But once he started, he couldn't stop.

And then when he finally did stop, he felt ten times lighter, and so very close to passing out. 

And that's when someone rushed over to him. The world began to fade out a little as someone put a hand on his shoulder and walked him away from the car. Distantly, he could hear himself muttering something about his dad and his brother still being there, but he didn't hear anything else. 

The loud wail of sirens began to tune out the ringing in his ears - or added to it - and his vision began to swim, with blue and red flashing lights blinding him every so often. He could hear radio chatter, some loud commands and rushing feet. He was pretty sure someone was walking him further away from the car, sitting him down somewhere, but he couldn't focus at all.

They're still there.

Henry let his eyes close, and all he could see was the image of his dad and brother from inside the car. 

He let himself fade away.

The only thing waiting for him in the dark was The Crash.

Notes:

ive been complaining about my laptop for EVER
i got a new laptop
am i writing on it? no.
i hate change.
live love laugh my shitty old lenovo (i will keep using her until she fails me completely) (won't take long)

Chapter 3: after

Henry didn't remember how he'd ended up in the hospital. He didn't remember anything, really.

The last thing he remembered was really wanting this new toy, and his mum ripping up one of his comics because he apparently didn't deserve a new toy. He couldn't remember what happened to make him end up in hospital. 

He was sat in a hospital bed, in a hospital gown, and his body felt a little bit sore. But he couldn't really feel much. He couldn't really feel anything at all. It was like he'd been completely taken away from his body and was now stuck in his mind. And his mind wasn't pretty at all, not with what he'd just experienced.

Whilst he'd been out of it, the ambulance had obviously driven him to the hospital, with paramedics checking on him on the way. And once he got to the hospital, nurses and doctors helped to remove his clothes from him and checked on the injuries he had. Lucky, they'd said he was, because he was spared from all major injuries.

All Henry had was bruising, around his shoulders, collarbones, and ribs, along with a mild concussion, cuts and scrapes on his face and knuckles, and whiplash. For the most part, he was okay. He'd been lucky. In a few weeks, all the proof of the accident would be gone and he'd be okay. He'd be completely fine.

Physically.

Henry didn't really register that he was in hospital. He could smell the antiseptic, hospital-like scent, and he was distantly aware that nurses and doctors had been fussing over him a short while ago, but he wasn't really there. All he had heard was lucky and he'll be okay. But he wasn't going to be okay.

Because once he'd finally remembered why he was in hospital, he felt sick. 

He'd been in a car crash. He'd been in a damn car crash, and he was pretty sure he was the only one that made it. Henry thought that maybe, just maybe, Peter could've survived, but that would've been cruel. Henry saw how badly injured Peter had been because of the crash, and he didn't want his little brother to have to live with all of that.

So, realistically, Henry knew he had just lost his dad and his little brother in a car crash. He'd seen the silver Audi speeding into their car, just barely seen the man in the driver's seat, and it had taken half of his family from him. He knew what happened.

He didn't want it to be real.

He hoped this was all just a terrible dream. That he'd wake up in a bit and his family would be alive and well. They would've never been forced to go to the shops just because Henry wanted a fucking toy. Everyone would be alive and well. Nothing bad would've happened.

But it did happen.

It happened, and it was Henry's fault.

He shouldn't have asked for the stupid toy.

This had to be karma.

He'd begged for a stupid toy, and now he was going to have to live with the memories of that crash. He was going to have to live, and his dad and little brother wouldn't. And it was his fault. He'd killed them. Not the man in the Audi. Him. He'd killed his dad and little brother, over a stupid fucking toy that he didn't even want anymore.

Henry really returned to reality when he realised he wanted his mum.

He could hear footsteps, and he saw a woman with blonde hair and glasses come into the hospital room. His mum was there, and he was really back in the present, with tears in his eyes at the realisation that he really wanted his mum. No, he needed his mum.

But then he saw her face, properly saw her expression.

She was angry.

"Why you?" 

Her voice was so quiet, but the words were full of such hatred, such anger, such venom. Henry was pretty sure he wasn't meant to hear them, but he did. He did, and realised he couldn't go to his mum for comfort, he never could. He wasn't sure why he let himself have that weird need for her, even if it was just for a second, but he shouldn't have.

He blinked back the tears in his eyes and pretended like they were never there. He had no reason to cry. He survived. Of all people, he survived. And it shouldn't have been him. Just like his mother had said, why him? Because, really, why him? In what world did Henry deserve to live when his brother and father were dead?

Because they had to be dead.

No one had told him anything just yet, but he knew. He was there, and he knew.

He saw his dad, saw his mangled body, saw his stillness and lack of life. He knew it in the car when he held onto his dad's hand, he knew it then and there, from the coldness of his body that he hadn't really deeped just yet, that his father was dead. Henry didn't need anyone to confirm what he'd seen, what he'd experienced.

And Peter?

Peter had to be dead.

He wasn't dead in the car, Henry knew that, but with the way his mum was looking at him there and then, he knew Peter must've died after the crash. Because if Peter was at least alive, then his mum wouldn't have been looking at him with such scorn and hatred. She would've been a little happier because at least the son she really loved was still alive.

"You're lucky, Henry." The doctor that accompanied his mum said to him. "You're gonna be okay, sweetheart. Just a couple scrapes and bruises. Nothing serious, lovely. We're gonna keep you here overnight, but after that, your mum's gonna take you home and you can rest up there. Is that okay?"

Henry looked at the doctor, and.. nothing. 

He said nothing. He didn't move, didn't even change his facial expression. He just did nothing.

He felt like nothing.

Felt nothing.

"Alright, sweetheart." The doctor smiled sadly and turned to his mum. "I'll leave you with him. You're allowed to stay with him overnight until he's discharged. Just press the button on the bed if you need anything. Nurses will come by to check up on him."

His mum nodded, and then the doctor left.

Henry felt nothing.

His mum couldn't stand to look at him.

"They're dead because of you." She said coldly. Like Henry didn't already know it. "You just had to have that toy, didn't you?"

He didn't even get the toy. They didn't make it that far. 

Henry tried to open his mouth, tried to tell her he was sorry, that he blamed himself too. But nothing came out of his mouth. He hadn't spoken in a while, not since he'd gotten into the car. He wasn't sure if he'd spoken in the car at all. He wasn't even sure if he'd made any noise since, actually.

He was pretty sure he heard Peter scream in the car - or maybe that was him. 

But nothing since.

Henry had said nothing since. Felt nothing since.

He felt numb.

His mum shook her head and left the room.

I'm sorry.

She didn't hear. He didn't say it.

 

Everything was a blur from then on. 

The next day, Henry was checked over again, and then discharged from the hospital. He wasn't sure where his mum had gone, but she didn't stay in the room with him overnight. He was left alone, and it should've hurt, but he didn't feel anything. He wasn't sure what was going on with him, but he couldn't feel anything.

He could barely feel anything physically, and he wasn't sure what was going on mentally. 

The nurses had brought him food to eat, but he couldn't really eat it. He'd tried, but the most he could get down was a bite of bread before he felt like he'd throw up. The nurses said it was normal to feel nauseous after being concussed, but he was pretty sure that wasn't why he felt sick.

And then, in the night, when he was meant to fall asleep, he just couldn't. 

Because when he closed his eyes, all he could see was that godforsaken silver Audi speeding into the car, and he relived the crash all over again. He could barely cope with actually experiencing it the first time, and he definitely couldn't cope with seeing the crash all over again. He couldn't escape the damn memories.

He wondered if it'd be like this forever.

He really hoped it wouldn't be like this forever.

He didn't end up sleeping at all that night. He just.. laid in the hospital bed, feeling nothing. Nothing, and everything all in one. 

So when his mum came back the next morning, looking tired, exhausted, and devastated, Henry felt a little worse. He felt nothing, and his mum seemed to be feeling everything. She'd lost her husband and her only good son, and was now left with the one he was pretty sure she never really wanted.

Her eyes were red and puffy, and Henry could tell she'd been crying. He'd only seen his mum cry a handful of times in his life, and it hurt every time to see. Even if she'd made him cry quite a lot, because of her harsh treatment and even harsher hands, he still felt guilty whenever she cried. And now, he felt so much guilt.

He felt nothing, but he felt guilt.

So much guilt. Guilt for being the reason they were even in the car in the first place, guilt for being the only one to survive, guilt for not feeling anything but guilt. Just so much fucking guilt.

Henry had never felt guilt like this before.

He wanted it gone.

He kinda wished he was the one that was gone.

And when he looked at his mum, he knew she felt the same. He knew his mum would've happily traded him for his dad or his brother back. And Henry felt the same. He would've happily given up his own life for at least his dad or brother back. It didn't matter if he was gone. It mattered that his dad and Peter were gone.

His mum didn't speak to him as they left the hospital. She tried to get them into a taxi, but Henry refused. He didn't say anything, but he stepped away from her and refused to get into the car even as she shouted at him to get in. She shouted, and he felt like crying, but he wouldn't get into the car.

He wouldn't ever get into another car again.

His mum seemed disappointed, angry even, but she eventually gave up with trying to get him into the car and apologised to the taxi driver for the unnecessary wait. And then they walked to the bus stop.

Henry didn't want to get into the bus either.

So, even though Henry was so fucking tired, so fucking exhausted, they ended up walking home. Every time Henry heard a car drive past, he heard the sound of the impact of the crash all over again. And he felt like he was going to lose it, like he was going to pass out there and then on the street, each and every time, but he held on.

He couldn't become even more of an inconvenience for his mum.

He'd always been an inconvenience to his family, but this was the worst of it. He'd survived this. And he shouldn't have. He shouldn't have been the only one to survive. He should've been the only one that died. The car should've come from the left side. Should've hit his side of the car, and killed him on impact.

His dad and Peter should've lived.

No one would've grieved Henry's death.

Everyone was going to grieve his dad and Peter's.

His mum already was.

When they finally got home, his mum didn't look at him. Not once. She just went to the kitchen, and poured a glass of wine. Henry knew not to expect anything from his mum, so he just went upstairs to his room, and sat down in his bed. He still couldn't feel much, and he couldn't really remember anything after refusing to get in the bus, but he was home.

He was home.

His dad and his brother never made it home.

Henry got up and opened the door to Peter's room. Spotless, tidy, exactly how Peter left it. His bunny was still sat on the bed, where Peter had reluctantly left it. All because Henry said it looked stupid to take a teddy with him to the shops. And now, Bunny was still there and Peter wasn't. Henry closed the door and didn't go back.

Henry should've bullied Peter into not going to the shops. Then, at least, Peter would've been alive. Or maybe he should've let his mum bully him out of going to the shops. Then his dad and Peter would've been alive. Maybe Henry would've been bruised and upset because of his mum, but that was nothing compared to what really happened. 

Because Before, despite everything, would've been easier.

He was now in After.

Notes:

due to my boy still being asleep on call i have decided to write more
he woke up a few times but fell back asleep so i continued to write
i am still writing on my old laptop
i love how dark this is i never wanna stop writing it i love angst

Chapter 4: grief

Grief was a funny concept. Henry had never experienced grief before. Both of his grandparents were still alive, and all of his extended family members were alive. Hell, he hadn't even experienced the loss of a pet. Or a friend. Death was a completely unfamiliar concept.

And now, he knew death and grief like the back of his hand.

He'd escaped death.

His brother and his father did not. 

It felt very weird, to only be ten years old, and to know what it was like to witness death, to experience loss and grief. To have been a first-hand witness to death, to have been in a fatal car crash, to see how bad the aftermath of a car crash can be, what it can do to the once-living and how it can affect those who were still alive.

He never had a good relationship with his mum, but it felt weirdly worse now.

Before, his mum hated him, resented him, saw him as a nuisance, but at least she had her favourite son, and her doting husband. And then there was After, and his mum hated him even more, and she didn't even have Peter or her husband to balance out the hatred she had for Henry.

Being home was weird. It had been a day since The Crash, and Henry didn't know how to feel. It was weird, not hearing Peter practice his cello, or sing his little songs, or have his Best Boys club. It was weird, not having family meals - even if he tended to be excluded from them - and not hearing his parents talk as they watched TV together.

His house felt empty.

Ghostlike.

After coming home from the hospital, Henry went straight to his room. He was numb, empty, and he didn't feel real. But he knew this was real, whether he liked it or not. He'd lost half his family, and now the two members of the family that got along the worst were the ones that were left.

Hollow. 

He felt hollow.

Henry found himself wandering downstairs by the time it was dark. He wasn't hungry, or maybe he physically was but he didn't have an appetite, but he thought he should check up on his mum. And he'd seen her grab a bottle of wine before he went upstairs, so he really felt the need to check on her.

His parents didn't drink much. They only got out a bottle of wine on special occasions. Henry had never seen his parents drunk before, not even on Christmas. But he knew his mum was drunk.

Even if his parents weren't big drinkers, he knew that adults drank when things were bad. It was a normal thing. He saw it in the shows that his parents told him not to watch, but he did anyway because nothing else was interesting by the time he'd be able to sneak downstairs and get some TV time.

So, when he got downstairs, he found his mum passed out on the sofa, her back against his dad's favourite pillow, with the bottle of wine empty on the coffee table. The glass that she'd poured earlier seemed long forgotten, so Henry assumed that she ditched it and began to drink straight from the bottle.

His mum was meant to be classy.

She was really hurting.

Henry couldn't figure out why he wasn't reacting like that.

He switched the TV off, realising the show that was playing was one of his parents' favourites to watch together. He'd heard them talking about it a couple times when he'd sneak downstairs to get something to eat - when he'd been excluded from dinner for god knows what. 

As much as he saw his mother as a terrifying figure in his life, someone who never loved or nourished him or made him feel safe, he couldn't help but feel deeply sympathetic for his mum there and then, passed out on the sofa after finishing a bottle of wine, surrounded by the presence of her husband who was no longer with her. 

As much as he hated how loving his parents were with each other, only because they couldn't spare any love for him, he couldn't help but feel so fucking guilty now that his parents were split up. One was dead and the other looked dead without him.

He used to resent his parents because they'd both gang up on him whenever one was mad at him, but now he felt horrible, like he'd done this. Like he'd split up the happiest couple he knew. Even if his dad would hit him just because he'd shouted back at his mum, or vice versa, he felt so fucking bad.

That father he used to fear, was now gone. And the mother who he still feared was alive, and it looked like she wasn't alive. Not without her other half.

His mum terrified him. But on the sofa, passed out, she looked so alone. So young and full of the worst kind of grief - the loss of her husband and son. It was in that moment that he realised his mum really was that young, just over thirty years old, and she'd experienced the worst kind of heartbreak.

Death.

His parents were high school sweethearts. They lived in the same area for a long time, but only acknowledged each other in secondary school, with a solid friendship for a while before finally admitting that they loved each other in sixth form. And from then on, they never broke up, hardly ever fought, got married and had kids young.

Married at twenty-one, first child at twenty-two, second child at twenty-five. 

And now, his mother was widowed at thirty-two, and only had one kid left. The kid she didn't love.

Maybe they shouldn't have had kids so young.

Maybe Henry was a mistake.

He definitely felt like one.

And it had to be a mistake that he was the one to survive. In no world was that fair, not on his mum, or his dead dad and brother. He didn't deserve to live.

Henry didn't know what he was meant to do anymore. But all he knew in the moment was that his mum didn't look like the abuser he was so afraid of, but a widow who deserved better. 

So he took his dad's favourite blanket, that still smelled like him, and placed it over his mum, taking her glasses off and placing them down on the coffee table. And then, he kept looking at the bottle of wine, wondering if it was worth trying some. But it was empty, completely empty, and that was probably for the best.

Sure, he'd experienced something incredibly adverse at the age of ten, but he didn't need to be even more adverse by trying wine at ten too.

He took one last look at his mum, and went back upstairs.

 

Henry couldn't sleep that night either. 

It had been two days since the accident, and Henry had not slept properly since. Maybe he'd been asleep for a bit, but he couldn't really sleep, not properly. The accident happened on September Twenty-Sixth, a Saturday, and now it was Monday. Henry had school today, and he wasn't sure what he was meant to do.

His mum wasn't awake. 

Usually, his mum would have to come into his room maybe three times to get him out of bed for school, while Peter had already been up and ready and was happily eating breakfast downstairs. His dad would be downstairs too, reading the newspaper. 

His dad was dead.

Peter was dead.

His mum was probably still passed out on the sofa.

Henry wasn't sure of what he was meant to do. He'd never experienced grief before, never been close with anyone who died, so he wasn't sure what his jurisdiction was here. So he checked his clock, saw that it was about time for him to get ready for school, and figured he'd go. Susan's dog died, and she skipped school for a week, but that was different.

Susan actually cried, in school too even after the week off. 

Henry hadn't cried.

He barely felt anything.

So he was meant to go into school, probably.

It felt strange, putting his clothes and getting his bag for school, knowing Peter hadn't done the same thing. But he chose to ignore that, imagining Peter was with him, endlessly yapping about something that Henry half-pretended he didn't care about.

When he went downstairs, his mum was still asleep on the sofa. The kitchen was empty, not alive and smelling like fresh coffee like it usually did. There was the clear absence of two of the people in the house, and Henry didn't know how to feel about it.

So he ignored it. Ignored the weird ache in his stomach and left the house, walking to school on his own. Walking to school on his own. Walking to school without Peter.

Peter would never walk to school with him again.

He was walking on his own.

Henry ignored those thoughts too and went to school. He thought nothing would happen, but the very first thing he saw was the Best Boys crying at the school gate, before their parents shook their heads and decided to take them home. 

Was Henry meant to be crying, escorted home by his mum?

When he walked into his classroom, he noticed it go eerily silent. No weird comments from Moody Margaret, no random facts from Brainy Brian, no Weeping from William. At least Andrew looked Anxious as always.

Miss Battle-Axe was looking at him funny.

Henry had forgotten they'd all be aware that Peter and his dad died. 

Henry ignored it and sat down in his seat. Nasty Nicola didn't have anything to say, not a single snarky comment. His entire classroom was dead silent. Dead silent, and it felt so fucking weird, because they never went quiet when he walked into a room unless someone had planned a prank or something stupid like that.

Okay, so all he had to do was prepare for a prank.

"I'm really sorry about your dad and brother." Nicola said to him very quietly, weirdly nicely. 

Did she turn into Nice Nicola over the weekend?

"You didn't have to come into school today, pal." Aerobic Al said, suddenly sounding like Affectionate Al.

There must've been a personality swap over the weekend.

Maybe that's why he turned into Heartless Henry instead of Horrid Henry.

Cause he had to have no heart to feel nothing, and be unreactive to the fact that half of his family had died in an accident that he'd also been in. That's why his mum was extra angry at him, because he was so unresponsive and she was too responsive. Or maybe she was normally responsive and Henry was extra abnormal. 

"Yes, Henry, you don't have to be here today." Miss Battle-Axe told him. "All of the staff expected you to stay off for a while. You're allowed to have time off after what happened."

"Yeah, Henry, you can have, like, a week off." Sour Susan called out, except she didn't sound very sour. Was she Sweet Susan now? "I had a week off when, like, my dog died. You could have, like, four."

"Thank you for your input, Susan." Miss Battle-Axe smiled, somewhat strainedly. "Henry, you can have as much time off as you need."

Henry wanted to tell them that he didn't need time off, because he was fine. He wasn't crying all the time or anything, so he was fine. His mum was grieving, but he was.. hollow, so basically fine. 

Hollow Henry.

That sounded fitting.

But he couldn't actually get the words out. Instead, he just looked around the classroom and tried to ignore all the beady eyes, the pitiful looks, the gross sympathy. He really tried to tell them that there was no point going home since he was already there, but he just couldn't speak. The words wouldn't come out.

He hadn't spoken since Saturday.

Maybe that was what happened in The Crash. Maybe his seatbelt dug too hard into his neck and now his vocal cords were done. And that's why he hadn't spoken. And maybe the doctors and nurses had said that to him when he was out of it, and he hadn't realised.

But he'd spoken to Peter and his dad in the car.

Maybe the injuries kicked in afterwards.

"Are you alright, mate?" Rude Ralph asked Henry, and now he was sure that everyone had personality swapped. He'd turned into Respectful Ralph. "Do you wanna step out for a moment or something?"

This was weird.

This was too weird.

Henry got up and left the classroom. 

He was pretty sure Ralph followed him out, but he didn't turn to check. He just kept wandering around school until he bumped into Soggy Sid. And now the teachers had to be involved in the personality swap, cause Miss Battle-Axe had been nice, but Soggy Sid was now Strangely Sympathetic Sid, cause he was being even nicer.

"Oh Henry." Sid had frowned, looking genuinely upset. "Why are you in school at a time like this? You should be taking time off to grieve and heal."

Henry didn't need to grieve. Sure, he couldn't eat, or sleep properly, and he hadn't said a word or felt much since everything happened, but he was fine. He wasn't crying, and he didn't actually feel like he was grieving, so he didn't need time to grieve. He was fine.

"Kid.."

Henry turned back around and wandered off before anyone else could try to speak to him. He was fed up, and he hadn't even been in school for half an hour. And sure, that happened all the time, but not in this way. He was usually fed up cause everyone was annoying in the bad way, not annoying in a pitiful way.

He bumped into Ralph yet again, and he just couldn't.

"Henry, why aren't you speaking?" Ralph couldn't help but ask. "Was that what happened to you or something? Did your voice get injured or something?"

Henry stared at his best friend and just.. shrugged.

"It's really weird seeing you like this." Ralph said, in the most gentle possible way. "I don't really know what you're meant to do when your best mate loses his family like this. Reckon there's a handbook somewhere?"

Henry just shrugged again.

Ralph frowned, and now he looked like he was gonna cry. Why did everyone seem to be capable of grieving properly but him? 

"I'm really sorry, mate." Ralph told him sincerely. "Reckon there's anything I can do to help?"

Bring them back, Henry wanted to say. But he knew that wasn't possible. He knew it wasn't possible to erase the past and rewrite the future. If he could, he would. He'd erase the past, and with that, he'd erase himself from having a future. But he couldn't say that. He couldn't even speak in general.

"Okay." Ralph patted Henry's shoulder gently. "You wanna leave?"

Henry nodded.

"Okay. You could probably just walk out of the front gates if you want. I don't think anyone's gonna stop you after what happened."

Henry wanted everything to go back to normal. A week ago, he would've loved to have everyone treat him like he was special, treat him nicely, let him skip school and get away with breaking rules. But now, everything was already ruined and he just wanted something to be normal. But nothing was normal.

It never would be. 

How could it be?

Ralph left Henry, grabbed his bag from the classroom, and brought it back. "I told Miss Battle-Axe that you're gonna leave. Someone's gonna open the main gate for you so you can go home."

Henry took his bag and put it on, and then left Ralph. A small part of him felt like he should've said something, been more appreciative, thanked Ralph at least, instead of treating his best friend like a stranger, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. Nothing mattered to Henry anymore. 

He didn't feel anything anymore.

Anger, maybe, cause everyone was being weird.

But aside from that, nothing.

Henry went home, and collapsed in his bed.

Everyone else cried. Everyone else felt something.

Henry couldn't. 

He felt nothing.

Was he the only one not grieving?

Or maybe, this was Grief.

Notes:

i kinda dont like where this went
wasnt how i hoped
whoops
also the day peter and simon died is my sisters bday bc i realised its in september might asw link it to smthn important to me for funsies

on a lighter note i passed my theory test so now i have 2 years to pass my practical test and then i have my drivers licence !!! or i have to retake my theory 💔💔💔

Chapter 5: ghosts

Ghosts were a fun little paranormal concept that some people believed in, and some people didn't. 

Henry wasn't one to believe in something like that for any other reason but creative purpose. So if he believed in them, it was just to pull a prank or mess with someone. He didn't really believe in them. Ghosts weren't real. 

Ghosts weren't real, and yet Henry felt like everyone that mattered to him had become one.

Like he'd become one.

It had been a week since The Crash, and everything had been desolate since. His mum didn't do anything around the house. Henry only ever heard her sobbing in her room, or found her passed out drunk on the sofa after staying up watching shows she used to watch with his dad. It was like his mum had faded away too.

The food in the house was beginning to go off. If anything wasn't off, it was because his mum had eaten it whilst drunk and bawling. Henry would find the house a mess, see his mum a mess, and would find himself idly cleaning everything up like nothing happened at all. He wasn't sure when he'd stepped into such a caretaking role, but he had and it felt right.

Not right, because nothing felt right, but it felt like the very least he could do after being the reason his dad and brother were dead.

Henry hadn't taken care of himself at all since The Crash. He didn't know if he'd eaten at all, but if he had, he wouldn't have been able to remember it. His mind felt so foggy and spaced out all the time now, and he was struggling to figure out what was reality and what wasn't most of the time now. 

He kept thinking back to Before, and it would make the realisation that he was forever stuck in After hurt so much more.

It felt like he was still covered in deep, unhealing wounds, but there were no marks to show for it.

His body was slightly healing, not as quickly as it should've been, but it was healing a little. If he had been eating properly and actually taking care of himself, he probably would've been a little more healed. But alas, he hadn't. 

Maybe it was good that he was still covered in the bruises. It was what he was used to seeing on his skin anyway. And if he couldn't prove to anyone that what happened in the car a week ago hurt, then at least he could prove he was there and it was real and it was damaging by still bearing the bruises and cuts that he developed from the accident.

Maybe that was why everyone looked at him so weirdly when he went into school on Monday. They definitely weren't all being weird cause he'd killed his dad and brother. No, it was because he was injured and no one was used to seeing him like that - even if his parents used to leave him with bruises all the time back Before.

That didn't matter anymore, since Henry hadn't gone back into school since. If they were all so adamant that he shouldn't be in school, then he wouldn't go in. He didn't need all the stupid pity from them. He was better than that.

(Or really, he just couldn't stand watching everyone look at him like he was different now. Like he was a Ghost.)

 

Exactly a week, and it was already time for the funeral. Henry knew his mum hadn't done any of the funeral planning, considering she didn't do anything at all nowadays. His grandparents must've sorted the funeral out, even though they were grieving too.

His grandparents - both sets - came to his house that Saturday, the morning of the funeral. Even though Henry had done his somewhat best to try and keep his house alive - though it was beyond ghostlike by now - his grandparents still fussed over cleaning and were apalled by the lack of food in the fridge.

They didn't shout at his mum for not taking care of groceries, but they did praise her for keeping the house relatively clean. It made Henry feel some sort of sourness in his stomach, or maybe that was the lack of nutrition. 

His grandparents helped to get his mum ready for the funeral, and then they helped Henry too. Henry didn't really respond, and just let them fuss over him, shoving him into the bathroom with a clean suit that they found in his cupboard from the last formal event he was dragged to. 

It was weird, how he turned on the shower and let the bathroom mist over with steam from how hot the water was. It was weird because it felt like that was exactly what had happened to his brain over the past week. His head felt covered in mist and hot, overwhelming steam, making everything feel faint and dizzy.

Henry didn't remember getting out of the shower, didn't remember washing his hair for the first time in a week, or having clean and yet still injured skin. He looked in the mirror, but it was blurred from the hot water, and he couldn't see himself. Couldn't recognise himself. Saw a grin from years ago. Disappeared like it was never there at all. And weirdly enough, it felt right.

But once he stepped out of the bathroom with wet hair, wearing a suit he couldn't remember last wearing, his grandparents looked so happy and pleased.

As much as they could considering the circumstances.

Henry couldn't remember the last time anyone had looked at him like that. His grandparents used to always look at him with scorn and distaste, because he was horrid, mischievous boy, and no one could stand to be around him. Everyone used to look at him like that, really. It was weird how so much had changed.

His grandads both put a hand on his shoulder and guided him downstairs to the car. Both of his grandmas tried to get him to eat something before going into the car, but it felt weird. It felt weird, like his body was made of rusted, mechanical limbs, the same way he felt when idly cleaning up the drunken messes his mum had left lately. 

The breakfast bars he was given left that sour taste in his mouth that he felt in his stomach earlier. The sweet taste of chocolate chips might as well have been battery acid in a spherical form, disguised into a healthy snack that Peter would've loved.

Another sour feeling settled in his stomach as he realised he was going to Peter's funeral. 

He was obviously aware that he was going to a funeral, but it had only just then dawned on him that he was going to his seven-year-old brother's funeral. His brother, who he had seen get ruined because of a car accident, was going to be lying still in a casket, in a casket right next to his father.

His father, who was also dead.

You weren't meant to outlive your little siblings, were you?

Henry stopped in front of the car and threw up.

His grandparents looked at him in distaste once more, the same way they used to look at him Before. And Henry liked it, because at least that was normal. It felt more normal than the pity looks. He could distantly hear his mum make some sort of exasperated comment, but Henry stayed still, staring at the vomit on the pavement.

And suddenly, it was like he was in that car again, banging onto the rear window with tears in his eyes and choked sobs in his throat, his knuckles bleeding in a desperate attempt to get out of the car. Suddenly, he was throwing up on the road by the car again, unable to stop, feeling dizzy and empty, whilst strangers rushed over and took him away from the scene.

Someone ended up walking Henry to the funeral.

He didn't know who. He didn't even remember having someone help him rinse his mouth out with water and replenishing him with a bowl of bland porridge to settle his stomach. He didn't remember watching his grandparents drive off with his mum. He didn't remember getting to the funeral at all.

But he was there.

He was there, in the same church that Prissy Polly and Pimply Paul had gotten married in. The same church that was so bright and full of joy because someone was getting married. The same church where his parents were alive and happy together, dressed up all fancy and formal, smiling brightly and frowning at Henry.

The same church where Henry and Peter were ringbearers, wearing the most ugly suits known to man, forced to match. 

Peter was now the one at the front of the church. Except his eyes were closed and there was no sound coming from his mouth, and no sound would ever come from his mouth again. The sweet sound of Peter singing Frere Jacques was only a haunting memory, and it would never really be sung from him again.

You weren't meant to outlive your little siblings.

There were people stood in the church, some that Henry didn't recognise, some that did. And it felt like being in his classroom on Monday, eerily silent and full of confusingly pitiful looks, except there were so many more people here, so many adults and children, all of which looking like they were grieving properly.

Everyone seemed to know how to grieve properly but Henry.

Henry felt his body moving for him, ignoring the sounds of people saying things like I'm so sorry for your loss. It wasn't even easy to decipher, considering it felt like Henry's ears had been underwater, and never washed out for sound to come out clearly again. His robotic limbs wandered towards the front of the church, to the two caskets.

He didn't know why it was an open-casket funeral, because he knew how badly injured his brother and dad were in The Crash. But when he walked up to the two open caskets, it felt like someone completely erased his trauma and rewrote it like it never happened at all.

He didn't know how, but his dad and brother looked relatively okay. Faint marks were there as proof of injury, and clothes covered what must've been much worse underneath, but otherwise, the two looked almost fine. Only half of the caskets were open, covering their lower bodies. And it felt like a slap to the face - because Henry had seen it, had lived it. 

His dad had basically become one with the car, his entire right side mangled and embedded into the warped metal, and the same happened with Peter but on a slightly less-graphic level. So how, how was Henry now looking at a lie, looking at a version of Peter and his father that was the closest he'd ever get to seeing them again the way they did back in Before?

This was wrong.

Henry closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he saw the truth. He saw what he'd seen a week ago in the car, the truth of The Crash, the real, red, raw and wrong version of his dad and his brother. He saw the versions of their bodies that made him sick, made him feel like something was scraping at his insides.

And then he blinked and it was gone.

He blinked, and it was gone. The truth was gone, replaced with a dulled-down lie that everyone else got to see, whilst Henry lived with the vivid version that would stay with him till he was in a casket just like theirs.

It wasn't fair.

He didn't really want anyone else to be scarred with the image of them like that, but it wasn't fair that his trauma was now being minimised with a false appearance of them. So he forced himself to step back, to stop staring at the caskets, and went and sat down. 

He ignored all the static-sounding apologies, the gentle touches that were meant to be comforting but actually felt like heavy weights on his delicate skin, and just sat down on the very same bench he sat down on back when Polly got married. He sat down, looked to his side, and saw his bright, smiling little brother.

Peter looked at him, and smiled. Peter didn't tend to smile at Henry. But that version of him did, smiling so brightly and happily, like nothing had happened at all. And then Henry looked up a little, saw his dad and his mum sat together with smiles too, their hands intertwined in each other's. He saw his family, alive and well and happy.

Henry felt himself tear up, just enough for him to quickly wipe away before it truly fell, and then he looked back to his side. And his family were still there, except when Henry looked down at the intertwined hands, he saw his dad's gory, mangled arm, and his mum's lifeless, passed-out drunk one, a sickly intertwined sight. 

And then he looked at Peter, who wasn't smiling anymore. His eyes were open, but bloodshot and watery, his bright smile now replaced with bleeding gums and chipped teeth, a side of his face barely distinguishable.

Henry closed his eyes and put his head in his hands. He squeezed his eyes so tightly shut to try and get rid of the image, because he couldn't stand seeing it any longer. It was all he saw when he tried to sleep, and it was all he saw when he tried to remember his family in a good light. And even though Polly's wedding wasn't perfect, it was still one of his somewhat good memories.

He couldn't let that get ruined too.

He held back that nauseous feeling in his stomach as people gave speeches, eulogies and told stories to try and lighten the mood, to try and make sure Peter and his dad were remembered in a good light. He found himself slipping in and out of his head throughout the funeral, memories of Before haunting him whenever someone tried to speak positively of his deceased family members.

Henry found himself stood by the freshly-buried caskets for longer than anyone else. He stood at the dirt, and just stared. Just stared.

Peter was not meant to be buried. He was not meant to lie beneath the soil, to be swallowed by worms and darkness. He was supposed to be Henry's bright little Worm - a stubborn, shining thing who loved the world's messy earth, but who was meant to grow and laugh and live, not be swallowed by it forever.

And his dad?

His dad loved gardening. Loved flowers, keeping the front garden nice and pretty, whilst his mum kept the back garden even prettier. And now his dad was also one with the soil, where flowers would blossom and bloom and he would stay still and surrounded by it forever. Unable to admire the beautiful earth, because the earth had selfishly swallowed him and kept him.

Right as someone tried to take Henry away, he saw two butterflies land onto the freshly-dug soil. Two pretty butterflies. 

Peter loved butterflies.

Henry closed his eyes and left the best images of his dad and brother to rest with the soil before being taken away.

"Goodbye, worm."

Those were the first words he'd spoken in a week.

 

Henry wasn't sure how he'd gotten home. He knew he was walked home once more, but he wasn't sure who by. All he knew was that after he'd spoken for the first time in a week, his words so quiet and raspy, like his vocal cords were fried and damaged, someone had taken him away and Henry stayed stuck in his head.

Stuck with the good memories he had left.

And then he was at home again. He knew he wasn't put into a car, because people knew by now that he wasn't going to get into a car, not ever again. He was no longer in his suit, sat down in his pyjamas in his bed, whilst people talked downstairs. He was pretty sure it was some of his relatives, staying back to comfort his mum for just a little longer.

Henry found himself wandering downstairs, out through the front door, onto the pavement outside. His vomit from earlier was gone, and so he sat down where he was pretty sure none of the vomit reached, and just took in the air. Took in the fresh air, instead of the thick, heavy atmosphere of grief that now lived in his house. 

He listened to the quiet hum of cars from the other streets, and ignored the memories of The Crash trying to creep in because of it.

He felt someone sit down next to him. And he knew that scent, knew that red hoodie, and he knew the voice that should've been heard, but wasn't. Because Ralph, this time, had learned that words weren't worth anything by now.

He didn't know where Ralph had come from, but Henry appreciated him being there. He appreciated his best friend being next to him, the two of them sitting in a peaceful silence. And so, Henry rested his head on Ralph's shoulder, and just breathed in the comforting scent of his best friend.

"Come round to mine if it's ever too much being at home." Ralph offered, his words sincere and his voice calmingly quiet. "And tell me if you need anything. Anything at all."

Henry looked up at Ralph, and then rested his head back on his shoulder. He didn't reply, only giving Ralph the very slightest sound of a hum. And that was that.

From across the road, Henry could see Peter sat down on the curbside too, an innocent smile on his face, Bunny tightly held in his arms, his blond curls messy and bright. His eyes were full of life, his skin glowing like he was ethereal, and it was just how Henry wanted to remember him.

Next to Peter was his dad. And his dad looked rested, not exasperated or tired in the way that Henry normally saw him. His dad was smiling too, like he was proud of Henry, or like he loved him. Henry didn't know what to describe it as, but it felt right, and it made his heart feel warm and glowy like Peter's skin.

A voice in the back of his head told him they weren't real.

And yet Henry ignored it, welcoming in his Ghosts.

Notes:

im meeting a boy tmrw and im scared
js thought someone should know
anyways enjoy ghosts (he's my ghostie)

Chapter 6: saviour

Saviours tend to come in the form of the least expected person.

Saviours tend to be unexpected in general. Those in need of saving don't tend to realise they need saving, and so when someone comes to help, it's even more unexpected. It'll be the very last person one would expect to come to their rescue, and the rescue would be even more strange, even more unpredictable.

Henry didn't think he needed saving.

Henry was barely functioning. His house was desolate, cold, empty, like no one lived in it at all. His mum was barely functioning too. She hadn't left the house, showered a handful of times, and was drinking a lot. All the food in the house was eaten by her and her alone. Henry wasn't doing much but take care of her, rather than himself.

His grandparents had been over a few times since the funeral, still in town, trying to help Henry's mum with the house and eating. They'd made a couple meals, though Henry was very sure that his mum had later on thrown them all up from drinking too much. Henry didn't even know that his house stored that much wine.

But eventually, his grandparents had to go back out of town, because neither of them lived closeby. They only came down for a few weeks, due to the circumstances, but couldn't stay. And to their knowledge, everything was getting better. Meredith wasn't drinking in front of them, eating whilst they were there, and making small conversations sometimes.

So, it seemed like everything was slowly getting better.

But it wasn't.

Henry had only eaten when his grandparents were there too, and that wasn't much, considering his appetite had been gone since The Crash. If he ate, he didn't remember it at all, but he did remember throwing up later on. He wasn't sure if he threw up every time he ate, but he had thrown up quite a lot.

He felt sick, dizzy, and lightweight a lot nowadays.

His mind felt like a forest, foggy and dark, and he didn't know how he got in, and nor did he know how to get out.

So a few weeks passed. His grandparents were gone for good, though they'd both promised to try and come back and visit within the next few months. Polly and Paul had come by a few times with gifts and wine - probably not the best considering no one knew Meredith was developing a problem - and some other relatives had been by too, but that was it.

Rich Aunt Ruby and Stuck-Up Steve had been by too. Great Aunt Greta too. Ruby all but left a stack of cash for them, telling Meredith not to worry about paying for things, and to reach out if she needed any financial help, and Great Aunt Greta had left a bunch of girly clothes which Henry couldn't find the energy to be angry over.

Stuck-Up Steve didn't say much. 

Henry wouldn't have noticed if he spoke more anyway.

If Henry was more aware of everything wrong in his life, he would've realised he was slowly withering away. With literally not a soul taking care of him, and no functioning adult managing grocery shopping, taking care of the house, and the bills, Henry was withering away. More and more pieces of him were slipping away from him day by day.

He would've noticed if the biggest chunk of his soul hadn't been stolen from him when that silver Audi slammed into their car.

Maybe Henry died with them that day. 

No one realised because he was still breathing.

 

The days were getting shorter. It was getting dark earlier on in the day now. Autumn was settling in further, preparing to soon make room for the darkest Winter that Henry would ever experience. 

It was solemn, experiencing the autumn leaves fall, the red and orange leaves that used to blend in with their car out front. Henry would watch his dad complain about how all of his flowers in the garden were beginning to fade away, to lose their summery glow, but Henry knew he loved autumn. It was his dad's favourite season.

His dad loved the cinnamon lattes, the maple hazel hot chocolates he used to get from the coffee shops, the spicy pear air freshener in the car. He used to love picking the leaves off the windshield, sometimes giving them to Peter to turn into artwork. And Peter would do exactly that, turning something already pretty into something so much more beautiful.

Peter had a knack for doing that.

Henry used to be so jealous of Peter for turning everything he touched into perfection, even if it meant everything Henry touched turned evil. But now, he really missed seeing Peter's liveliness around the house, bringing joy and life and beauty into the walls, the furniture, the paintings and decorations.

He missed hearing his mum and dad talk by the kitchen counter, both of them holding a mug of coffee, bright smiles on their faces. He missed the way their eyes would sparkle when Peter came home from school, even if their eyes then darkened and dulled at the sight of their problem child.

Henry used to like autumn too, just a bit. But he hated it too, because as much as his family embraced autumn in the most picture-perfect way, Henry was left out of it. Instead, his parents made the most of him being able to wear warmer clothes again, the marks of their anger and hatred concealed by Henry's worn-out jumpers. 

It was getting colder in the house now. Henry's clothes weren't warm enough, but he never really felt warm anymore. Since the accident, his chest had felt constantly cold, numb, like there was a piece of his heart missing, left behind in the backseat of the car that now rested lifeless and destroyed in a junkyard.

He wanted to find the warm clothes in Peter's cupboard, though they'd be small. But he couldn't bring himself to go into Peter's room, to touch anything in there, to destroy the scent that Peter left behind. The scent that had to be preserved because there was no way of bringing a dead person's scent back.

So, Henry stayed foggy-brained and cold in his solemn house, forgetting what the sound of his own voice sounded like because he hadn't spoken since the funeral. Hadn't spoken properly since before The Crash.

He was beginning to forget the sound of his dad's voice, his brother's voice. He could barely remember his mum's voice, and she was still alive and in the very same house as him.

Maybe his whole family died on September Twenty-Sixth.

Maybe the weeks since had slowly killed what was left of his family. Maybe, soon, he would die, like a plant that was left uncared for. Maybe, like the flowers in the front garden that his dad used to take care of, and the flowers in the backgarden that his mum used to water frequently, Henry would slowly die too.

And then came the very last person who he expected to try and save him. Henry didn't think he needed saving, but then came someone who was willing to try.

His rescue came in the form of a neighbour who loved pink, wore pink, and tried to pass off her hair colour as pink even though it surely had to be ginger or auburn. Someone incredibly argumentative, a little nosy, and very cunning.

His rescue appeared one random afternoon in early November, barging into his house through a door that should've been locked, and yet wasn't. His mum was passed out in her room, thanks to Henry waking her up in the middle of the night, helping her get upstairs without falling, and taking off her glasses before tucking her into bed.

He'd done that a lot lately, but was pretty sure his mum hadn't realised it at all.

Henry was in the living room when Moody Margaret waltzed into his house like it was her's. He'd been sat in front of the TV, on the floor, not actually watching anything. He could see his reflection in the screen, his head feeling like static, his ears still ringing like they did after the impact of the Audi crashing into their car.

She was incredibly her.

"God, what the hell is wrong with this house?" She immediately called out to herself as she wandered into the living room. "Is anyone even here?"

Henry turned around to face her, no words leaving his mouth.

"Yikes, bogey-brain, you look rough."

Weirdly enough, Henry appreciated it. Not the insult, but the fact that Margaret was acting exactly as she used to Before. She wasn't being soft and nice because of what happened, but instead insulting Henry like nothing had happened at all.

Her mild insensitivity was exactly what Henry needed.

"Are you going to talk?" She asked, voice petulant. "No? Didn't expect you to."

Henry stared at her, and then watched as she walked out of the living room and wandered around the house. Naturally, Henry got up to follow her, watching her distaste as she stepped into the kitchen.

"Where the hell is the food in this place?" Margaret complained as she looked through the fridge and the cupboards. "What the hell? This milk is like.. a month old. That's disgusting. And there's literally nothing else in here. Do you even eat, Henry?"

Not really, was the obvious answer. Henry didn't have to reply. Margaret was making enough assumptions of her own, but it was clear from the way she was eyeing him, that she'd realised he'd barely been eating.

Henry was even thinner than normal, and his injuries from the accident were finally gone, but he still looked like a corpse. His undereyes were dark enough to look like bruises, his face hollow, skin washed out and pale. He looked like a good representation of his mental state, and yet Margaret seemed to see right through it.

Whatever was going on in his head was a million times worse than what Henry looked like. 

"This is horrifying, really." Margaret muttered, walking up to Henry to poke and prod at him. "When did you last shower? No, seriously, your hair is filthy and you.. well, you should stink, but you kinda smell like dust and nothingness. How have you managed that?"

Henry couldn't remember when he last showered. 

He was never fond of baths or showers, even though he hated getting out once he was finally forced into one. But without anyone nagging at him to shower, he tended to forget to. His days were blurring into one big mess anyway, so he didn't have the mental capacity to realise he needed to shower. 

But when he couldn't sleep, or if he'd woken up from a hauntingly vivid nightmare of The Crash, he'd find himself sat in the bath, for hours until his skin was beginning to go blue, his teeth chattering, the water cold and jarring. It wasn't necessarily clean, but it was the most clean he'd get.

"You need a shower. No I will not be helping you. That is disgusting. However-" She took his hand, her skin warm and soft compared to his, and dragged him up the stairs, pushing him into the bathroom. "Shower. Now."

Henry stared blankly at her, because he didn't really feel like showering. And then she went into his room, audibly expressed her distaste, and then wandered back with clean-seeming clothes. She threw them at him, and slammed the bathroom door shut in his face.

"I'm not leaving until I see you get out of the bathroom with clean hair and fresh clothes."

Henry sighed, and then he was in the shower. He didn't actually remember taking his clothes off and stepping in, but the hot water was burning his skin in the best possible way, making him feel real for a fraction of a second. He found himself holding onto his dad's body wash, Peter's strawberry shampoo and conditioner, and it hurt.

And even though it hurt, he found himself using Peter's strawberry shampoo and conditioner, using his dad's fresh apple body wash. And he felt alive for a moment, alive with the scent of his father and brother now staining his skin. He knew they were dead, that he'd never smell them again, but this was close enough.

He couldn't believe how grateful he was for Margaret forcing him into the shower, because it was a small reprieve from the hollowness. 

And once he stepped out, in fresh clothes, his hair and body feeling clean for the first time in months, he could've sworn he saw Margaret smile. She'd been sat on the floor in front of his bedroom, back against the door, waiting patiently whilst reading some of his comics, looking up to see Henry with what had to be a smile on her face.

"You're clean." She said as she stood up. "Thank god."

Henry nodded. 

"Did you brush your teeth?"

Henry shook his head, but before she could shout at him, he'd already turned around to go do so. The bathroom door stayed open, and he was pretty sure Margaret was watching him as he brushed his teeth, but he didn't really seem to mind. 

"You took ages to shower, but you smelled like dog crap, so I'm not gonna complain." Margaret told him after he stepped out of the bathroom. "Do you not know how to towel dry your hair? God, it's like I have to do everything around here."

It was weird, and yet felt unbelievably comforting to have Margaret aggressively towel dry his hair, like she was a friend, like she was someone who cared. He couldn't remember the last time his own mother had done this for him, but now the person who he thought was his enemy was taking care of him.

"I suppose this'll do." She mumbled to herself, combing her fingers through Henry's half-dry hair. "Right. That's enough now. Come on."

Henry let her take his hand and drag him downstairs, but then she kicked a pair of slippers towards him. He looked down, put them on, and then found himself being dragged out of his own house and into her's instead.

He wanted to ask questions, but he wasn't even sure if he knew how to speak anymore. The only time he heard himself make any noise was when he hyperventilated after a really bad dream, gasping and wheezing, hands scratching at his throat and his chest. Sometimes, he heard himself scream in his dreams and knew it had to be in real life too, but he ignored it.

His mum must've ignored it too.

"Hi mum, hi dad." Margaret said as she kicked her own shoes off by the door, dragging Henry into the kitchen. "I brought Henry here for dinner. I don't think he knows how to eat."

Her voice was light, teasing, like she was mocking him, but her parents heard the subtle care in her voice. They looked at Henry, saw how he looked thin and pale, even if the shower brought a little life back into him, and realised exactly why Margaret had dragged him over.

"That's fine by us, isn't it, dear?" Her mum smiled. "Go on then, take him to the dining room. We've got lasagna and garlic bread today, Henry."

Henry felt himself submerge into the present as the scent of garlic bread crept into his nose, the rich aroma of lasagna sneaking in too. It felt so homely, so warm, so real and yet nothing he'd ever experience with his own family again.

Margaret sat him down at the dinner table, and then Henry felt unwell. He felt unwell, because her dad was there, and Henry would never be able to sit with his dad at the dinner table again. He looked at Margaret, and saw Peter instead, and something in his chest hurt.

"What?"

And then she was Margaret again.

Her dad was her dad. Not his. His was dead. 

He wouldn't ever eat dinner with his dad again.

"Come on, eat then." Margaret pushed his plate closer towards him. He hadn't even noticed it was there. "Eat. You're gonna like.. decompose if you don't eat. I'm uncomfortable just looking at you."

And this time, Henry heard the concern behind her falsely insulting words. Could now see it in her eyes that she cared. She cared about him, his wellbeing, wanted him to be okay. Wanted him to be clean, to eat, to be taken care of because he clearly couldn't take care of himself.

So Henry lifted his heavy limbs, picked up the fork and started digging into the plate. He couldn't eat quickly, and it took him a few minutes for the food to start tasting real, like it was actual food and not whatever scarce sustenance he'd been barely surviving off of lately. And when it started to ground him, he felt somewhat warm.

He felt warm, whole for just a minute, and that was enough.

And weirdly enough, Margaret seemed to feel whole too when she looked at him.

Henry ate in a peaceful silence whilst Margaret and her parents spoke. It felt, strangely enough, like home. Because he tended to stay quiet whilst his own family discussed things at the table. And though it wasn't his home, his family, it was the closest he'd get to reliving what it was like to have a family.

And then, there was dessert.

Apple crumble.

Peter loved apple crumble.

A deep stabbing pain hit Henry straight in the chest, like someone was piercing his heart with a thousand sharp needles. And Margaret noticed, somewhat of a frown on her face as she whispered to her mum to get rid of it. She didn't know why it hurt him, but she was trying to be mindful of it regardless.

But before her mum could take Henry's portion away, Henry found himself taking a bite, just to reminisce. And it felt like hugging Peter. It felt like hugging Peter and burying his face in Peter's soft, blond curls.

Henry couldn't remember the last time he hugged Peter, but this felt like it.

When Henry looked up at Margaret, she was smiling.

It was gone the second Henry noticed it, but he'd seen it this time. She was smiling, and so were her parents, and it felt so right, even though it should've felt so wrong. 

And once everyone was done eating, Margaret and her parents disappeared into the kitchen. Henry could hear them talking, something about how empty the house was, how it didn't look like Henry could eat if he tried because there was nothing to eat. And he couldn't hear what else was said, but he didn't feel judged.

Instead, he found himself being dragged home with the rest of the lasagna that had been cooked, and whatever was left of the apple crumble. It was sweet, the fact that Margaret's family had sacrificed that for him, and he couldn't find it in himself to feel like a burden for it.

He just felt strangely grateful.

"I'm coming back tomorrow." Margaret told him before leaving. "I better see all that food eaten."

Henry nodded.

"Good." Margaret said, and her voice sounded strangely soft now. "Mum's gonna take you shopping with us tomorrow. You need food in here. We'll drive-"

Henry stilled, his entire body freezing up whilst he tried to put the containers in the fridge, and Margaret noticed it. He couldn't see her face, and he would've hated it if he could, because she suddenly looked very sick, like she'd forgotten the real reason why Henry was like this.

Because she didn't realise that cars were still such a sore subject for him.

She didn't know that he wasn't ever stepping foot inside a vehicle again.

"Walk." She corrected herself, her voice wavering for a second before she cleared her throat. "We'll walk to the shops. Or we'll just bring you some food. We're not letting you live like this, bogey-brain. You'll fade away."

Henry felt himself exhale deeply, and then he moved again, continuing what he was doing. And then, as she tried to leave, he turned to face her.

"Thank you."

His words were barely audible. His voice felt like it was dusty, covered in cobwebs, out of tune like an old piano, because he hadn't spoken in weeks. But even though his voice was weak and hard to hear, the words were spoken as strongly as they possibly could be, with the most meaning that two simple words could have.

Margaret, this time, was the one that didn't speak. 

She didn't give a meaningless apology, didn't try to pretend like she knew how he felt. Didn't try to pretend like she understood.

She just showed up. And somehow, it made breathing feel easier.

So instead of responding, because she wasn't sure how to, she just nodded. Simple, acknowledging his words without overreacting, even though she knew it was monumental. And then before leaving, she flicked Henry on the forehead to maintain her usual demeanor. 

Henry wasn't sure he needed saving. He didn't think he was worthy of it.

But he was damn grateful that Margaret decided to play Saviour.

Notes:

lowk i want 10 chapters of this story and yet i already feel so attached to it i dont want it to end
i have all the chapter names ready n shi too like damn
anyways
the boy i said i was scared to meet in the last note is now my boyfriend and i miss him sm i miss my bf i wanna see him againnnn

Chapter 7: pieces

Pieces of a broken person are hard to sew back together. With two broken people in pieces, it's even harder.

Meredith was fractured, in little fragments. She had loved Simon since she knew what love was, since she saw everyone else in love and realised that was what she felt for her best friend. She knew from the moment they started dating that she wouldn't date anyone else. It was Simon, or it was no one.

She knew she wanted to be married to him, to start a family with him, to spend the rest of her life with him. And then she had that, exactly what she wanted. And she loved Henry for a while, but then Peter was born and Henry was suddenly this problem child, and she knew the easiest way to deal with that.

She was once like Peter, and her older sister, Eloise, was once like Henry.

Eloise was a problem. 

Eloise didn't know how to be good. Which meant that whatever Meredith did, she was good. She didn't have to be the best, only better. And because Eloise was so difficult to manage, Meredith did seem like the best.

Eloise and Henry were so similar. 

Eloise struggled in school, but excelled at the things she truly enjoyed. She was creative, her passions being music, art, and fictional literature, and those were the things she excelled in. But the rest of the boring, useless, academic subjects were what made her look bad, made her seem like she was incompetent.

Eloise was also neurodivergent, diagnosed with ADHD and later other mental illnesses. It got to a point where she was acting out so much in school that they insisted she was put into therapy, or some sort of treatment, and it was discovered that she had BPD traits, anxiety, depression, and C-PTSD. Though all of it was ignored by her family.

Because mental illness wasn't a thing in that family. It wasn't real, and nor was neurodivergence. So being given an answer, a reason to her behaviour, did nothing good. If anything, it only brought her more trouble in her house, because her parents hated her more for it.

Not realising that they were why.

It made sense.

Eloise wasn't treated well, just like Henry. Eloise wasn't allowed to eat most of the time, to the point that she was hospitalised for anorexia nervosa at fifteen, and her parents couldn't believe that either. They thought it was an attention seeking excuse to act out, and didn't help her at all for it. So it took months for Eloise to get out of treatment for it. 

And just like Henry, Eloise was hurt at home. Physically, verbally, and most definitely psychologically. It seemed like the easiest way to deal with a problem child was to just hurt them, hurt them till they learn better and act better. But Eloise hardly learned, unable to cope, and then she was gone.

At eighteen, Eloise moved out and never came home.

She went to university, cut ties with her family, and never came back. She had a job, and good friendship circle that could support her whilst she was away from home, and then she was gone for good.

Meredith would've grown up and realised that her older sister wasn't treated well, that this abuse damaged her severely and truly wasn't the way for a child to be parented, but she didn't. Because after a few years, she found Eloise on Facebook, saw that her problem sister had just graduated with her Masters degree, and was successful.

Meredith only checked her sister's Facebook a few times, but she could see that her sister was living a good life. Good friends, a beautiful girlfriend who was soon to be her wife, fostering two kids, in a highly respected field of work, and was doing incredibly well financially. To Meredith, Eloise was proof that bad treatment worked as well as good.

Which was why, when she realised that Henry was just like her older sister, she realised she could just treat him the way her parents treated Eloise. So it seemed completely fine to her to restrict Henry's meals, to isolate him when he'd been in trouble, and to backhand him here and there when he was really bad.

Or really irritating.

Simon, at first, didn't seem to understand the reason why Meredith abused Henry so casually. But when she explained how Eloise turned out, Simon ignored the obvious red flags and let the love of his life do what she wanted, realising that the way she treated Henry was slightly therapeutic.

It brought the both of them a sick sense of relief to be so abusive.

But now, Simon was gone. And Meredith felt like a part of herself was gone too. 

It tore her apart, like someone was clawing her insides out with a thousand sharp knives. She was at work when she got the call that there'd been an accident, sobbing loudly and hysterically without a care in the world that she was making a scene, because she found out Simon died on impact, and Peter and Henry were en route to the hospital.

She hadn't even made it out of work before finding out that Peter had died in the ambulance.

Naturally, all her work friends and her boss were there to support her. She was driven to the hospital by her boss, who had told her before she left that he was allowing her a break for as long as she needed, and that he'd continue to pay her as if she was still working. That she'd be supported until she came back, and that she could decide any time to never return.

Her friends called, her colleagues calling too, later on to comfort her. Some of which showed up every now and then to try and help, even though it was futile. 

At one point, Eloise had found out that Meredith had suffered so deeply and reached out twice. But Meredith ignored the calls, like she always did, because she'd yet to gain clarity on how wrong her parents were for the way they brought Eloise up. 

And then Meredith lost herself.

She wasn't a big drinker, but she became one after the accident. She found herself drinking all the alcohol her and Simon kept for special occasions, even the expensive ones that they planned to either gift or save for a really special occasion. She didn't care how pricey and fancy the alcohol was, because it meant nothing to her now.

All it was to her now, was an escape from the deep pit in her chest that was tearing her apart day by day.

Grief.

It was killing her.

She barely ate, barely took care of herself, slept a lot, and completely forgot she had another kid that was still alive.

She wasn't herself anymore.

Weeks, or maybe months, had gone by since the accident. Meredith had showered only a handful of times, eaten only when she was drunk, and passing out somewhere, appearing in bed or covered with a blanket when she woke up. She never realised Henry was trying his best to keep her safe, even though she'd never done that for him.

She'd truly forgotten Henry existed.

And if she remembered, she felt a deep rage in the pits of her soul, because she couldn't help but blame Henry for the accident. He was the one that wanted to go get a toy, and then he'd been lucky enough to survive The Crash. But Meredith seemed to forget the way she treated Henry before, and that the only reason Simon took him was to try and deescalate the situation.

Sometimes, she'd hear screams from Henry's room. Screams, or choked sobs, something that Henry clearly wasn't aware he was doing, because Henry had long since learned how to not make a scene when he was hurting. And Meredith would pause in front of the door, tempted to reach out.

And then she'd hear her own sobs in her workplace when she got the call, and her sobs from every other day since, and she'd feel the hatred in her heart return, plaguing her from consoling her son in the way he desperately needed. 

So Meredith faded away.

But Margaret's family didn't feel like they could let that happen.

Mr and Mrs Smythe were good friends with their neighbours, even though sometimes they felt a little annoyed by how loud Henry's house could get. But once Margaret had stepped in to try and revive Henry a little, her parents realised Meredith needed some help too.

Meredith came downstairs the night that Margaret had barged in, and found home cooked meals in the fridge. Lasagna, and apple crumble. Peter's favourite dessert.

She wondered if life was playing another cruel trick on her. And then she went back upstairs, finishing half of both portions, deciding she didn't feel like drinking that night. She just wanted to go back to her bed and sleep, because it was the only reprieve she had from the horror that was now her day-to-day life.

And the next morning, Margaret's family was in her house.

Margaret had taken Henry back to her house, and Meredith didn't know why. But Margaret's parents were waiting for her in the kitchen like it was some sort of intervention. And so, they sat her down and told her that they'd be helping around, helping by bringing in groceries for them, and ready-made meals for the two to just heat up and eat when they could.

And that Margaret was definitely going to be dragging Henry out of the house to theirs, or just to the park, something to give him fresh air and a break from being at home all the time, and that they planned on doing the same for her. And at first, Meredith was insulted.

Insulted, because they were treating her like some sort of charity case.

But then she realised they truly were only just trying to help. There was no judgement at all from them, not even judgement for how sick and thin Henry had been lately - which she hadn't even noticed. No, this was an act of service that she desperately needed, an act of love. Something that made her realise she needed to appreciate her neighbours being good samaritans.

So she let them help out, handing them a spare key so Margaret wouldn't just barge in from the unlocked front door all the time, and let them breathe her back to life. She let them take her out for walks, drives to the supermarket, and let them sit with her and drink tea and coffee and just live like a normal human being.

It was because of them that Meredith realised she didn't need to keep drowning anymore.

That as much as she hated it, life did go on.

And if she continued to waste away, she would be wasting the life she was lucky to have, because life was unpredictable. One minute, you're going to the shops, next minute you're dead. She was lucky that her life hadn't suddenly been taken from her, and she needed to appreciate that she was still breathing.

Simon and Peter died, but she didn't.

She was alive.

She now needed to live for her husband and son.

So Meredith lived like every day mattered again. 

It wasn't easy, and it wasn't a sudden, simple fix. It was more gradual, with just a little more progress as each day passed. Simple things felt like big accomplishments, like if she hadn't turned to the bottle that day, or if she'd brushed her teeth, or if she'd gone outside for a walk instead of rotting all day in bed.

She started eating more, making use of the groceries and meals that were graciously provided for her. She started drinking water more, showering more, having a coffee when she woke up instead of a bottle of wine. Started to look at the bills and actually pay them off properly instead of letting them stay outstanding. 

She started to clean around the house, opening the curtains in the house and letting light in, watching TV and not passing out drunk afterwards. She started acting like a real human being again, and though it didn't change the fact that her heart felt heavy and torn with unimaginable suffering, it still made her feel a little better.

She didn't forget the loss she faced, but she was beginning to overcome it.

The biggest step she made was returning to work.

It was a strange juxtaposition, that she grew up ignoring her older sister's pain, but found herself doing a three-year nursing degree in university right after sixth form. She never liked helping her sister, always justifying the abuse she faced, but she found it strangely rewarding to be the one to help strangers.

No emotional attachment needed.

Right after she finished university, she married Simon. She spent less than a year working as a general nurse before she gave birth to Henry, and fell in love with parenting for a little while. Which was how, before she had Peter, she found herself training to be a pediatric nurse, working to help kids.

Henry became a problem, but Peter was amazing, so Meredith continued to work as a pediatric nurse, not thrown off at all by having a child just like her problem sister. She knew, or she thought she knew, how to deal with Henry, so she didn't get put off by being around children. 

It was ironic, how loving and caring she was with the kids she worked with, whilst she was so unsympathetic and violent with Henry. 

It was also ironic how she was taken out of the pediatric centre of the hospital she worked at after the accident to be taken to another hospital, another pediatric centre where Henry was.

But stepping back into work felt right.

Working in a hospital meant everyone around her felt like a tight-knit family. Hospital work was rough, damaging to the point it desensitised the staff to injuries and death. So colleagues were close with each other, understanding and caring, just like Meredith's were. And that's why her boss was so lenient with her, so supportive.

But it was ironic, so ironic, how Meredith was trained to deal with loss, to take care of kids, to be loving and caring, but she couldn't do that for Henry. She saw loss regularly in her workplace, but didn't know how to deal with it when it happened directly to her.

She knew how to take care of kids with injuries, but ignored Henry's completely after the accident.

And maybe returning to work should've helped her realise that there was a kid at home that needed her love and support. But it didn't. It simply gave Meredith back the control she needed in her life, the support she needed from her colleagues. It made Meredith feel like a functioning human being again.

The months since September Twenty-Sixth had passed slowly at first, days blurring into drunken weeks, memories hazy, barely functioning, but things were changing now. December had begun and Meredith was beginning to be alive again, feel alive again, feel like all hope wasn't lost.

She had support.

Margaret's family were still helping out, even though Meredith was beginning to actually function daily again. They still brought meals and groceries, and Margaret still took Henry out of the house every now and then. They were still helping out even though things were looking up for Meredith.

Even though Christmas was hard, Meredith didn't have any major setbacks. She didn't drink too much, even though she found herself with a glass of wine a couple nights a week after work. She didn't find herself slumped in bed all day without the ability to think of anything but the loss she'd endured.

She was getting better.

The new year had begun.

Everything was truly beginning to look up for her.

She was smiling more, hanging out with her friends more, interacting more with the kids at work like she used to before the accident. She went out for drinks with her work friends some nights a week, and knew when to stop drinking before it got to the point of a passed-out blackout. 

Alive.

She was alive again. As a human being, Meredith was beginning to feel alive.

But as Henry's mother?

As Henry's mother, she was still dead and buried next to Peter and Simon.

Because though Meredith was beginning to feel alive again, beginning to live her life the way she used to before the accident, Henry wasn't. Whilst Meredith started to gradually recover, Henry fell back worse into the suffering. Meredith got to sleep at night easily, whilst Henry woke up from nightmares with a hoarse throat most nights a week.

Whilst Meredith took care of herself regularly, Henry only did so when Margaret dragged him into the bathroom with complaints of how horrible he smelled. Whilst Meredith ate and drank normally of her own volition, Henry still had to be forced into eating at Margaret's house when she decided once a day that it was time to bring him over.

Meredith was healing.

Henry was still suffering.

He was still struggling to sleep without seeing The Crash replay over and over in his head, still struggling to keep all of his meals down, still struggling to breathe when he heard a car drive by, or a crashing sound, or a little kid laughing so joyously like Peter used to. Still struggling to look at his mum and see her as that, rather than the woman that abused him for most of his life.

Still struggling to understand why his mum was managing to move on and exist like a normal person again, whilst he still stayed at home all day unless Margaret dragged him out, still didn't eat regularly, still couldn't sleep, still didn't even want to go into school because he couldn't fathom how pitiful everyone's looks were.

It didn't feel fair, that his mother had support and was beginning to heal and recover, but Henry was still stuck.

It felt like everybody had moved on, but he stayed there, dust collecting.

Things were looking up for his mother, but for him, things were getting worse. There was nothing to prepare him for the hardship that was waiting for him, and nothing to help him exist as a human on his own again. Margaret could only help so much.

He needed his mother.

But Meredith was not a mother.

Her husband and son were gone, and with them, her roles as wife and mother. 

She moved on as Meredith - as a person, a nurse, someone alive.

And Henry?

He watched as his mother began to find the glue for all the broken fragments of herself.

Henry was still in Pieces.

Notes:

i came up w the eloise lore in the shower when i was waiting for my hair mask to hair mask
then i discovered rich aunt ruby is the mum's sister
due to free will and writer powers we will say that ruby is dad's sister instead
i love all the thematic links i make in writing so much

i miss my bf. i saw him on saturday. i miss him. i wanna give him head.

Chapter 8: birthday

Birthdays were always weird. A celebration of life felt weirder when two lives were lost.

Birthdays were always something Henry loved. It was the one day of the year where he felt like he actually mattered, even if people seemed to only tolerate him, or he ruined the day by being too much for everyone. Even if it wasn't perfect, they were always really fun somehow, and always brought him excitement.

This year, Henry couldn't fathom being excited to turn eleven.

Matter of fact, he didn't even realise he was going to turn eleven soon.

Because Henry still hadn't gone back to school, and didn't think he really would any time soon since he'd missed so much of his final year in primary school and was still mostly non-verbal and barely a functioning human being, he had no sense of time. Days blurred into weeks, weeks blurred into months, and Henry was just there.

Yes, the days were becoming a little more familiar because Margaret was still actively playing a role in keeping him active at least five times a week, but it was still a blur. When Margaret came by, or Ralph came by, just for them to sit in silence, mostly, or talk around him like it was normal, that's when Henry felt less foggy.

But when he was alone again, he disappeared. Somewhere in his mind, where it was either quiet, or so unbelievably loud. 

Where he'd hear nothing but static, or he'd hear the sound of metal colliding with metal, screams from someone in the car that he still wasn't sure if it was him or someone else, glass breaking and cutting into the delicate skin on his knuckles.

And so, time was a strange thing for him.

If Henry was aware that February Twenty-Fifth was coming up soon, maybe he would've been more prepared. But he wasn't, cause there was very little that gave him a sense of what time of year it was. No one cared about the calendar on the fridge anymore, still showing September, and Henry didn't own any electronic devices that would tell him.

He didn't even watch TV, or use the family computer, so there was really nothing that would show him the date.

He had an idea that it was winter, considering the weather gave it away, and he was aware that Valentine's Day had recently passed, since he found his mum passed out after sobbing, with a box of heart-shaped chocolates and an empty wine bottle in her lap. He'd been a little hurt, that she'd been drinking heavily again, but he understood why she was.

His parents were always very romantic on Valentine's Day, to the point both Peter and Henry would be on the same page for once as they told their parents to stop kissing and being gross. They'd go out for a date night, and come home with the brightest smiles on their faces, making full use of the technically-free house when they realised Peter and Henry were asleep.

So Henry didn't blame his mother when he realised she'd been drinking heavily on Valentine's Day. He simply took the bottle of wine and binned it, closing the box of chocolates but leaving it in her lap to hold as she slept, covering her with her husband's favourite blanket. 

Henry didn't blame his mother for anything really, even though he had every right to sometimes.

But even though he knew it was February, he didn't think at all about how eleven days later he would turn eleven. It didn't register in his brain, because he'd long since forgotten what it was like to give his existence some significance.

So when the day of his birthday finally came around, he didn't realise it at all. 

He'd woken up sometime before midday, and noticed that Margaret still hadn't barged into his house yet, so it must've been a weekday. He had weirdly started wanting her around, subconsciously beginning to enjoy her persistent presence, and began to want Ralph to be around more again.

It was like Henry forgot he was still a child, a child allowed to live a life and have friends. He'd forgotten that Ralph was still his best friend, and that he was allowed to want to be around him. He'd forgotten that Margaret wasn't all insufferable, and that he actually liked when she pestered him sometimes.

But now he was in his room, sitting on his bed, waiting for his mind to slip away until someone came to bother him. He'd woken up with a horrible feeling in his stomach, his heart feeling extra heavy, the remnants of the most vivid and graphic nightmare he'd had in a while lingering in the back of his mind.

He threw up only moments later, and then brushed his teeth. Forced himself to go shower in an attempt to feel a little less unreal. Decided to sit in an ice cold bath until his body began to go numb instead.

Found himself burning in the shower afterwards, staining his skin with the scent of apple body wash and his hair with strawberry shampoo and conditioner. He was almost done with the bottles, since they were brand new when they were last used by the original owners. It felt like another tug at his heartstrings, not realising he could easily just buy more.

Because buying more took away the fact that it had been bought for other people, not him.

For the people who were meant to use it.

Henry only found himself out of the shower when someone banged on the bathroom door, and he realised his favourite nuisances had finally come to see him. So he found himself stepping out of the shower in only a towel, because he hadn't thought ahead about getting fresh clothes, and found Margaret rolling her eyes before collecting some for him.

He wouldn't have had clean clothes without her family coming in to do the washing too once a week. 

Henry wasn't sure what the occasion was, but both Margaret and Ralph looked pretty excited to see him. And then he noticed the gift bags in their hands, and realised something was up.

"Happy Birthday, Henry."

Henry stared at the two of them in disbelief as they'd said that, completely unaware of the date. And then it made him feel even worse inside, and he couldn't realise why. It made his chest feel tight, and he realised it was going to be one of those horrible heart-attack-seeming feelings if he didn't get them to leave him alone soon.

Henry wasn't completely non-verbal, speaking to them very rarely, and using expressions and hand gestures to sometimes show he was there and listening. And in this moment, he really wished he could've found it in him to speak, but he couldn't.

He just knew he needed them gone.

So he shook his head and went into his bedroom.

"Henry?" Margaret's argumentative voice rang out, followed by sharp knocks to the door. "Come on, bogey-brain, a little gratitude would be nice. We remembered your birthday. We've even got a card signed by everyone from school. Like.. literally everyone, including the teachers. It's a huge card."

Henry remembered seeing condolence cards on the front door, posted in through the postbox, after the accident. He remembered ignoring them, leaving Fluffy to tear them up and get rid of them. He'd wondered where Fluffy had disappeared off to after the accident, only to find out that Margaret was taking care of her after his house became uninhabitable.

Fang had wandered off to Ralph's, somehow.

He wasn't mad when he realised at least someone was taking care of the little animals. 

"Mate, c'mon, no need to shy away." Ralph tried. "Just a small little thing for us to do for you. Let us in, mate, you deserve it."

God, Henry's chest felt weird. Really tight.

"Leave." He managed to choke out. "Please."

Ralph and Margaret exchanged a glance, both curious and concerned. They were sure they were being sweet and considerate, but they really weren't used to this version of Henry, no matter how hard they tried. 

Ralph gave Margaret a look, asking her with his eyes and a shrug of his shoulders if they should still try one or two more times. But Margaret shook her head, realising that maybe they'd overstepped. Maybe they shouldn't have tried.

"Sorry, Henry." Ralph said softly. "Didn't mean to upset you."

Upset?

He was not upset.

No, he was bothered. Disturbed. They needed to stop disturbing him. Infiltrating his space. 

"We'll leave." Margaret decided. "We'll, erm, we'll see you, snot-brain."

Henry heard their footsteps retreat, the front door closing and leaving him all alone in the hell that was his household. And a sense of relief washed over him for a second, but that tightness in his chest wasn't gone yet. If anything, it felt a little worse. Like he really was dying this time. 

The thought didn't even feel scary.

He'd long since stopped being scared of death.

So he got up and wandered out of his room, noticing the gift bags left by the door. He ignored them, not even bothering to check, because it wasn't right. There was no need to celebrate being eleven. What even was there to celebrate?

Death?

Henry didn't even realise he was in front of Peter's door until his hand had fell onto the handle and opened it. The smell of Peter's room hit him all in one, like stepping into the bathroom when someone had just had a long, hot shower. It felt like being slapped in the face, and he hadn't even entered the room.

The last time he had seen Peter's room was after the accident, and it looked exactly the same. Barely any dust, meaning his mum must've kept the room tidy as Peter would've, but nothing was moved. Bunny was exactly where it was last left, and Henry found himself walking into the room to pick Bunny up.

And oh, how it hurt.

It felt like his chest was being stabbed, the cold knife piercing deep and twisting till his heart was shredded into pieces. And then being dragged down to his stomach, making him feel like his blood would pour out of his mouth and stain the spotless carpet.

This was the first time Henry was truly feeling since The Crash.

Margaret and Ralph's words rang through his head, and his mind finally connected the dots on why it hurt his heart so badly to be told Happy Birthday. Because this was the first one he could remember having without his baby brother, the first one he was having without his father. He was eleven now, and Peter was forever seven years old, his father never aging.

Decaying. Decomposing. One with soil, returning to the earth.

He was getting older, but his dad and brother weren't there to see it.

Oh, no.

No, no, no.

It hurt.

It hurt. It hurt. It hurt.

It felt like being shot. Having every limb cut off slowly, torturously.

No.

Henry fell to the floor, collapsing to his knees with a light thud, tears slipping from his eyes and falling down his cheeks, soaking his soft, youthful skin. He hadn't cried in months, and he definitely hadn't cried after the accident. And he thought he was weird, a freak, not truly grieving because he hadn't.

And now he was crying and he didn't know what to do.

Because, oh, it hurt.

His throat felt tight, his lungs feeling like they were being drowned, his heart screaming and his eyes overflowing. Every single emotion he should've felt from the moment that silver Audi hit their car was suddenly hitting him like a truck, all in one, not a single emotion left behind this time. Right then and there, he felt everything.

He once wished he could feel something so it wasn't like he was the only stranger to the grieving.

But now?

Now, Henry wished he never felt anything ever again, like he used to.

Because this hurt more than anything he'd ever experienced.

This was the worst thing he could possibly think of.

This was real.

Bunny's scent felt stronger for a moment, the scent of Peter flooding his senses, and it only made Henry cry more. His brother was forever seven years old, and Henry was now eleven. He was moving on to a new stage in his life, whilst his brother would be forever seven because a drunk driver decided to run a red light.

Henry didn't know what it was like to cry like this, and he didn't know how to stop it. He could feel the tears increase the more he thought about how horrible it was to age when his brother wouldn't. He felt gross and messy, snotty and puffy, but he couldn't figure out how to stop. And now Bunny was beginning to smell like salty tears, and that made it worse.

Henry knew he needed to let go before he tainted Peter's scent, but he couldn't.

He couldn't, because Bunny was all Henry had left of his little brother now.

No.

It hurt like a million knives piercing every part of his body. Each and every single knife cut deeper the more the emotions began to hit him, the more these repressed and unprocessed emotions began to finally show up. The part of himself that felt, that he thought must've died with Peter, was finally back, and ten thousand times worse.

It genuinely felt like feeling emotions was foreign to him, since he'd been deprived of them for so long. And for a while, that was nice. If he didn't have to feel, he was lucky, right?

But now he wished it had hit him sooner, because feeling it all in one after five months of being a void was so much worse. Infinitely worse.

A butterfly landed on the window, and Henry squeezed Bunny tighter.

Peter loved butterflies.

Oh god, Henry couldn't do this.

That feeling in his chest was worse now, consuming his entire being. He'd never felt this feeling so strongly. His heart was beating so fast, his head feeling dizzy and light, and it truly felt like he was gonna die. Mouth dry, hands shaking, tears streaming down. Was he dying?

He wouldn't mind dying.

He didn't deserve to live after what happened.

Oh, this was bad.

No, no, no.

Henry couldn't see properly, like the world was a little blurry. Or maybe it was his eyes. Dizzy, head spinning, eyes blurry and foggy just like the way his mind felt all the time nowadays. His chest felt like it was being squeezed, and it really felt like he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. 

He couldn't breathe.

Oh god, make it stop.

Henry felt that same desperation he felt when he was trying to break the back window to get out of the car. That same desperation as he put a hand over his chest, banging at his chest like it was the window. 

It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. 

Make it stop.

He couldn't do this.

He couldn't.

He needed to get out.

He needed Peter.

Please.

He couldn't breathe. 

Shakily, Henry stood up, wiping his eyes to try and clear his vision, though it was futile. He felt like he was gonna collapse, but he managed to make his way to his parents' room, finding himself in front of his parents' cupboard. He knew which side was his dad's, opening it up and grabbing his dad's favourite jumper.

And now he had the scent of his father, for the first time in a long time, real and strong and comforting, there with him to remind him his father wasn't gone. But he was gone.

No one was going to wear these clothes anymore.

They belonged to a dead man.

Henry was eleven, and his dad was dead.

His dad would never be there for him again. Birthdays, every single one of them, he'd spend alone. Without a dad. Without his Peter.

Oh, no, the momentary reprieve was gone.

That split second of comfort that his father's jumper brought was gone, the pain and grief returning a million times harder. Hitting him so deeply in his heart that he thought it was going to explode. Beating so fast in his chest, pounding against his ribcage like it was trying to escape, leave him heartless and dead like he should've been.

He couldn't breathe.

He fell to his knees again, the jumper hugged to his chest along with Bunny, other hand holding on tightly to the cupboard for support. He held so tightly to the point his knuckles were white, because if he didn't, he was pretty sure he'd pass out. He needed some sort of support, some sort of comfort, some sort of love.

He needed his dad.

His eyes closed, and the memories of his father shouting at him and making him feel worthless returned to him. And no, no no no no no, please no, this wasn't meant to be bad. He wasn't meant to ruin his father's memory in a moment like this.

And suddenly, he could hear Peter's voice in his ears, the one he used when he was snitching on Henry with a smug look. The unbothered look on Peter's face when he saw Henry limp up the stairs after being hit for doing something he probably didn't even do. That arrogant look when Peter flaunted how much better he was than Henry.

No.

Henry was grieving, damn it, feeling everything he forgot how to feel, and now his brain wanted to remind him that he was grieving people that couldn't care less about him. Dead or alive, they didn't care then and wouldn't care now. 

Henry was the black sheep of the family for a reason.

So why did it hurt so bad to lose people who never loved him?

Why did Henry want to have those people who never loved him back so badly?

Why, as he bawled on the floor with his dad's jumper and Peter's Bunny, did he just want to be held and comforted by the two people he killed?

The jumper didn't even smell like love, but loss. Bunny didn't smell like joy, but resentment. 

Anger.

Henry was angry.

Because he wanted to hold onto the good so badly, but it was fading. Was there ever good to begin with?

How are you meant to grieve people you still haven't forgiven?

Was he meant to forgive them, or were they meant to forgive him?

Henry felt sick, like his stomach was in knots, and he had to squeeze tighter around the possessions in his arms. Squeeze so tightly that maybe he'd squeeze himself to death so he wouldn't have to feel like this anymore. So he wouldn't have to be a burden, a waste of space anymore.

Those feelings, those old feelings of unwantedness, of borderline suicidalness because he was born into a family that didn't know how to love him - or simply didn't want to - were returning to him. He hadn't felt them in so long, and now they were returning to him with these new, foreign feelings of grief.

Why now?

He wanted to rip his heart out of his chest just so the pain would be gone.

Henry didn't know how long he spent on the floor, sobbing with that ache in every part of his body, grappling between old and new feelings, good and bad memories, grief and resentment, but it had to have been hours. The sky was dark, little stars peeking through the light pollution, two of which sparkling brighter.

For a moment, Henry saw his dad and Peter by the window, smiling at him before their ghosts turned into corpses, skin ashy and decomposing, bugs crawling out of their eyes, rotted teeth showing from their horrifying grins. And for the first time, Henry was scared by the strange images his mind created.

The sobs were louder now, tears still streaming down his face.

Henry didn't even know it was possible to cry this much.

And then his mother was standing in the doorway, looking down at him with a look Henry just couldn't decipher.

His heart was screaming, begging for some comfort from the woman that birthed him. He could taste the words on the tip of his tongue, calling out for his mum, for his mama, for his mother, please, for his mummy. Like he was three again, scared of the monsters in the cupboard that weren't there.

Please.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Did she even remember he existed until now?

"His- for god's sake, Henry, that's your father's favourite jumper." She shouted before snatching it out of Henry's arms. "You've ruined it. You've ruined it now, look. It doesn't- you've got tears all over it. How could you be so horrid, Henry?"

Henry couldn't breathe.

He'd forgotten the sound of his mother's voice, the sound of his name coming from her lips, the distaste and scorn in her tone whenever she scolded him. But hearing it now, even though it was familiar, still burned through his chest.

"I'm sorry." 

The words came out watery, weak and tear-stained, like his mouth was full of bubbles. 

"Look what you've done to Bunny too." She said as she yanked Bunny from his hold too, so angry and yet so clearly hurt by the irreversible damage Henry had done to the sacred possessions. "Oh, Henry, how could you?"

Henry couldn't hold back his tears, even though he was normally so good at doing that when his parents shouted at him. He couldn't look away, couldn't hide his emotions at all, even though it was so clear by the complete agony in his face. He tried to wipe his eyes with his sleeves, but it didn't stop the tears from falling.

"I'm sorry, mum."

"Don't apologise to me. It means nothing." She scolded him, lacking remorse. "You've ruined them. You killed them, and now you're killing the only things I have left of them. How dare you?"

There was a pit in his stomach, one he hadn't felt in a while.

Guilt.

He'd done this.

He killed his brother and father.

Please.

"I- I didn't mean to." And this had to be the most consistent speaking Henry had done in a while. "I didn't mean to, mum- mummy, please, I'm sorry."

His words meant nothing to her, her black and white thinking returned to her in this moment of grief. Because she needed a scapegoat for her grief, someone to blame, someone to be angry at so she could live with the loss she faced. She'd always made Henry a scapegoat to her anger, but especially after the accident.

"You're crying now?" She asked, scoffing. "You didn't even cry at their fucking funeral, and you think crying now is gonna change my mind? You killed them. You killed them and survived the fucking crash, even though you're the least wanted person known to man. You should've died. Not my Simon. Not my Peter."

No, please. Please.

"Mum-"

"Get out." Her voice was sharp and cold, unforgiving. "Get out. Get out of my house this instant, Henry, you heartless monster."

Heartless.

Henry wished he didn't have a heart.

Maybe then he wouldn't feel so bad.

Maybe he shouldn't feel at all.

Maybe he should be dead.

"Out."

Her voice was so loud, scaring Henry to the point he fell back against the cupboard. And his mother gave up with shouting, grabbing his arm so tightly as she yanked him up and dragged him out of her room. It felt like Before, when she'd hurt him so casually and love Peter so loudly. Before, when things were easier.

He'd forgotten that since it became After.

Henry was dragged all the way to the front door, standing up shakily on his own before he was pushed out of the front door, the door slamming in his face, a heavy feeling in his bones. Like he was done. Like there was no point anymore.

And he accepted it.

He let his feet drag against the cold pavement, his head becoming lighter and lighter, slipping away physically and mentally the further his feet took him along the cold, dark streets. 

Somewhere, he collapsed on the pavement, head colliding with the concrete like the Audi collided into their red car.

Hopefully, this was it.

The first without his father and brother, and hopefully his final Birthday.

Notes:

this + the birthday one shot
am i incapable of giving henry a good birthday
yeah i am
made my birthday his birthday again #narcissist

can everyone say well done z for posting back to back like look at her who is she

Chapter 9: silence

Silence was haunting. The worst moments happened in silence, and the best too. 

Henry's life, since The Crash, had been silent.

Most of his days were silent now. No noise in the house from him, or his little brother, or from his parents. There was noise in Henry's ears though, static and loud, ringing and pestering him within the empty walls. Noise in his chest, as though his heartstrings were screaming like an untuned harp.

And then, on Henry's birthday, something broke through the quiet.

The wall that was unintentionally built around Henry's heart, protecting him from the emotions he couldn't deal with just yet, had finally fallen, like water running through a broken dam. And through his heart-wrenching sobs, the stillness fell, and he finally interacted with his mother for the first time in months.

A new kind of quiet emerged after that.

The type of eerie quiet that comes from passing out in the middle of the street, exhausted from a breakdown after months of suppressing emotions. Where the streetlights were on, the lights in the houses all off, everyone around asleep peacefully, oblivious to the pain and suffering hidden so well around them.

It was a strange coincidence how Henry's wandering had led him to Miss Battle-Axe's house. He didn't realise she lived close by, and if he was still the same boy from before the accident, then he would've absolutely pranked his teacher, telling all his classmates where she lived just to be cheeky, but he wasn't the same boy anymore.

Boudicca Battle-Axe had been incredibly worried about Henry since the accident. 

She knew the troublemaker very well, and was a victim to many of his pranks, but despite the anger and frustration he brought, she still did feel some maternal instincts for him. She did for all of her students. That was the only reason she still taught, even if kids could be hellish, because it did bring a small maternally rewarding feeling.

And when she found out Peter and Simon had died in a car crash, and Henry was in the car and survived, she didn't know how to feel. It was a horrible loss, even if she wasn't that close to Peter and Simon, and she knew it must've been even worse for Henry. So she made sure to send her condolences, and didn't expect to see him for a few weeks, months even.

But then the boy walked into her classroom bright and early that following Monday, and surprised everyone. The initial surprise came from the fact that he'd shown up, so casually, like nothing had happened at all. And then the second surprise was how different he was acting - like he wasn't even Henry at all.

No one expected Henry to act like himself when he walked in, but no one expected him to be dead silent, like his vocal cords had been removed, staring at everyone in so much confusion. He looked so lost, like he didn't know what to do with himself, like an alien, and that everyone else wanted to use him as an experiment.

Boudicca didn't know how to approach the situation. She didn't remember her teacher training including how to deal with a student coming in two days after an accident that killed their brother and father. So she tried her best, and then watched as Henry walked out of the classroom he didn't feel like he belonged in.

She didn't see Henry at all after that.

Though Henry's seat stayed empty for months afterwards, he wasn't forgotten. Boudicca sometimes said things in her lessons expecting to hear Henry make a dumb comment, but she never heard them. Her classroom had lost a very special light to it, and now it felt dull. Because no one could replace the bright energy that Henry brought in with him.

Henry was special.

It almost felt like Henry died in the accident too.

As the months passed, Boudicca had hopes that Henry would one day appear out of nowhere, bright and energetic and unapologetically him again, but he never did. But she heard from Margaret and Ralph that they were trying to help him become him again, or be a person again, and that gave her some hope.

On Henry's birthday, Margaret and Ralph brought a card for everyone to sign. And Boudicca allowed them to miss time in their lesson to go round classes and make everyone sign. She wanted to make sure Henry had the best birthday possible despite the situation. She even left during her lunch break to buy chocolates to give to Margaret and Ralph for Henry.

And then, she couldn't keep Henry out of her mind as the day passed. She sat in her home, wondering how his birthday went, how he was doing in general, hoping that everything was well with him.

And she got her answers.

Something told her, when the motion sensor light by her front door was activated, that she needed to go out and check. Usually, being an older woman who lived alone and didn't fancy investigating suspicious things, she would ignore something like that. But this time, she decided to check, and was very grateful that she did.

Because somehow, the poor boy that she was wondering about had ended up outside of her house, passed out, head bleeding.

This was not the way she wanted Henry's birthday to go.

She found herself cradling Henry on the pavement, holding his head carefully, not at all bothered by the fact that he was bleeding onto her nice pyjamas, unsure of what to do. She hadn't expected to see Henry for the first time in months in such a state, but that didn't matter now.

She had to help him.

So she stood up, carrying the boy in her arms back into her house, concerned by how light and frail he seemed. In the light of her home, she could see how swollen and puffy his eyes were, streaks of dried tears on his cheeks, and she couldn't help but feel even more concerned. This was not the Henry she knew.

For a moment, she saw Henry in his iconic blue and yellow jumper, the messy brown hair adorned with a bright, mischievous smile. And it tugged at her heart, realising how different Henry was now, and probably would be for a long time, if not forever.

Boudicca placed Henry down on the sofa, placing a cloth over his head wound before calling emergency services, requesting an ambulance and informing them of the situation. And then, once she was done, she sat and waited for the ambulance, watching over the unconscious boy with a sick feeling in her stomach.

She watched as paramedics entered her house, taking Henry away on a stretcher, accompanying him in the ambulance because there was no other adult there. And that's when she realised she needed to make the call to Henry's mum, informing her of what happened.

She wondered how Henry had even gotten into the situation.

 

Meredith had been sat in her room, crying with Bunny in her hands, her husband's favourite jumper besides her, feeling an unshakeable pain in her chest. Ever since she'd thrown Henry out, something in her felt real and wrong and she couldn't dismiss it. But she didn't know what it was, couldn't pinpoint it, and tried to move past it.

But she was crying, a lot, like she was back in the initial grief stage again. She hadn't cried like this in a long time, and it felt like she'd regressed somehow. 

She felt guilt, and yet she couldn't bring herself to do something about it just yet.

There was a bottle of wine in her hands, and she'd been staring at it for a while. Eyes darting between Bunny, the jumper, and the bottle of wine. Like she knew it was wrong, and that's why she hadn't drank from it yet, but she wanted to. She really, really wanted to.

She didn't even know why she felt so bad. 

She used to treat Henry like shit, for so long, and she'd never felt guilt like this. Like she knew there was more to Henry's breakdown, some sort of significance to it, and that's why her reaction was haunting her so much. Like she was also subconsciously beginning to realise how awful she'd been, how negligent she'd been for so long.

And then, as she was about to open the bottle of wine, she got a call.

When she checked the caller ID, she was incredibly confused as to why her son's teacher was calling at eight in the evening. But regardless, she picked up, and it felt like her heart had dropped.

"Meredith?"

"Boudicca?" 

"I'm not sure how, but Henry ended up outside of my house, unconscious. I found him, and I'm assuming he fell and hit his head, because his head was bleeding. I've called an ambulance, and I'm in it with him now on the way to the hospital. He's gonna need you there, Meredith."

Meredith felt sick.

Because all of a sudden, she felt like it was September again, at work, getting the call from a paramedic about her husband dying in a car crash, her sons being taken to hospital. It felt like getting ready to clock out and get to the hospital immediately and receiving another call, finding out her youngest son was dead too.

"Where?"

"The one you work at, I believe."

A strangely cyclical moment, returning to her hospital after a call that made her feel sick, returning to the hospital she got a call so similar and even more heartbreaking. 

"I'll be there."

The initial shock was still there as she got up, wiping her eyes and fumbling to pick up her keys from the nightstand with shaking hands. She didn't even mean to, but in her rush, she ended up putting on Simon's tear-streaked jumper. She'd sworn off wearing any of his clothes, afraid to taint the scent, and yet broke the promise without even realising.

She found herself calling a taxi, pleading for them to get to her house with utmost urgency, and was on the way to hospital as soon as she could. It was on the drive that she realised it may finally be time for her to buy a new car, instead of getting lifts from colleagues and friends whenever she went to work or went out.

And she couldn't stop thinking of how similar it felt, being driven to hospital after a call like that. She remembered back then, after the fight she had with Henry, she'd been driven to work by a colleague without a single shred of remorse for how badly she'd treated her son for just wanting a toy.

She had barely even begun her shift before getting the call. 

She was about to treat a child in a car accident. 

It was strange how life worked.

She remembered her boss consoling her, or trying to, as she sobbed on the way to the hospital where her family were being taken to. She remembered being distraught, inconsolable, and suddenly becoming so unbelievably angry when she realised Henry was the only survivor. Because it wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair. 

He was the one that wanted the toy.

Simon should've never intervened.

In the chilling taxi ride to the hospital, Meredith had a split second thought, that maybe the accident wasn't Henry's fault. Maybe it was never the child's fault for simply wanting a toy. Maybe it was Simon's fault for intervening, or maybe it was Meredith's fault for being so cruel over the request in the first place.

Or maybe it was the drunk driver that decided to run a red light.

Maybe it was never Henry's fault.

And the thought was gone as soon as it came, because she was at the hospital now. She paid for the taxi quickly, overpaying but uncaring about the change she was meant to receive, running into her place of work with urgency she'd never had before, even on the rare occasion where she was late for her shift.

She found the receptionist, a good friend of hers, and asked quickly where Henry was. It was almost like all of her colleagues had also forgotten she had another child, just like she had. But despite that, she was given the room and ran up to find Henry before it could be too late - because that's what she was afraid of.

Too late for Simon, because he died on impact. And too late for Peter, because he died in the ambulance. And when she got to Henry, she wasn't too late, and yet she still didn't do her job properly - as a mother or a nurse.

But this time, she wasn't too late.

"Meredith?" Her colleague, Sara, called out when she recognised her. "I thought I recognised the kid. Do you wanna come in?"

"I know it's not normally procedure-"

"I don't care." Sara cut her off, hand on Meredith's shoulder. "Come on in, love, no one's gonna be mad. He's your son, and you're a nurse too after all."

Meredith smiled gratefully, walking in and feeling a wave of realisation as she did. Realisation, seeing her son in a hospital bed, wearing a gown, head wrapped in gauze, connected to an IV, looking just like the patients she normally worked with. And at first, she felt the need to do checks too, until she realised she wasn't a nurse right now.

She was a mother.

And Henry needed her to be a mother then and there, not a nurse.

"We're just about to get him into a CT scan to see if the wound is serious." Sara informed her. "I'll let you stay with him before he's taken out."

Meredith nodded again, unable to form words. She couldn't begin to process the guilt she felt, knowing that it was her fault Henry had wandered off into the night and passed out in the street. It was her fault, because he was in a moment of extreme distress, and she'd been the one to kick him out because of it.

She felt so ashamed.

She could see how neglected her son looked, in a state that normally would throw up red flags for the workers. Normally, the nurses would discreetly work together to try and make sure that once a guardian came to collect the child, that the child would be safe. 

That was her son.

Her son, who looked so damaged and frail and unloved.

Her son, who she'd do a safeguarding check on if she wasn't his mother.

Oh god, how badly had she fucked up?

"We're gonna take him in for the scan, Mer." 

Meredith nodded again, watching as Henry was taken out of the room. Sara guided her out of the room too, sitting her down outside on one of the chairs, because it was clear that Meredith wasn't focused enough to do it on her own. And that was when Boudicca noticed her, saw her sitting in a state of shock, and realised it was time to talk.

"Meredith?"

Meredith looked up, only just noticing that Boudicca had been there waiting too. "Boudicca."

"How are you?"

"As well as I can be right now."

Boudicca smiled, moving so she was a little closer. "Now, I know things have been difficult lately. I haven't seen Henry in months, not since he came into school after the accident. And I'd been hoping he was doing better, but.. I can't help but feel like he hasn't been."

"He went into school after the accident?"

It was in that moment that both of them were beginning to realise how much Meredith had missed. How detached she'd been from Henry's life.

"He was there for.. not even five minutes." Boudicca told her. "He came into my classroom, didn't speak at all, probably was overwhelmed by everyone trying to comfort him, and then he left. Ralph went after him, came back and took his bag, and then Henry was gone. I haven't seen him since."

"He's not back in school yet?"

Boudicca sighed, wanting to feel angry because Meredith was clearly neglecting Henry, but she couldn't. She knew that Meredith had been suffering too, and for that, she didn't lash out. But she knew that something had to be said.

"No, he hasn't." Boudicca replied. "According to Margaret and Ralph, they've been trying to talk to Henry more. Get him out of the house. Make sure he still feels like a normal kid. And I've heard that he's been very distant, not the same. I wanted to see him again, but I didn't expect it to be like this."

Meredith put her face in her hands, taking a deep breath. She couldn't believe she was finding out more about her own son from a teacher that hadn't seen him in months. Her son, who had lived in nothingness for months in the same house as her. 

"I don't know how Henry ended up outside of my house." Boudicca began. "I'm not sure I want to know. But I do know I shouldn't have found him like that. It looked like he'd been incredibly distressed, surely crying for a long time beforehand, not in the state to be wandering outside on his own."

Meredith couldn't help but feel a little defensive, sitting up to look at the teacher. "You're blaming me."

"I'm not." Boudicca replied. "But if you feel like I'm blaming you, that means you know you've messed up."

It was like she walked into a trap.

"I haven't done anything."

"Meredith." Boudicca said softly, putting her hand over Meredith's. "As hard as it is to hear right now, this isn't about you. This is about Henry. Your son. Who has been through far too much for an eleven year old boy, far too much, and needs his mum. I don't know what's going on with you two, but you need to step up. You need to do better. He's all you have left."

All she had left.

Henry was all Meredith had left.

She'd spent the last few months mourning like she'd lost everyone in The Crash. But Henry was still alive, suffering, in need of help. And Meredith had been living as if Henry didn't exist at all, recovering and healing in her own time, on her own, without a care in the world for how her son was doing.

But she had Henry.

Henry didn't die.

He was still alive.

But it was so easy to lose people, and she could've easily lost Henry today. 

And then she picked up on something Boudicca had said.

"Eleven?" 

"It's his birthday today, Meredith." And now Boudicca was beginning to feel really bad for Henry. "He's eleven. Margaret and Ralph brought in a card for him, got everyone to sign. I gave them some chocolates to give to him. They must've been by today to give them to him."

Meredith then remembered the gift bags left outside of Henry's room, the gift bags that she hadn't even given a second thought. She barely noticed them, not until now.

It suddenly made sense now. Why Henry had been so distraught.

Meredith knew nothing of how Henry had been coping, but even she knew that the breakdown Henry had wasn't like him, wasn't normal at all. But she didn't realise why, too busy getting immediately angry at him instead of treating him like a human being with feelings. And now it made sense.

Henry broke down because it was his first birthday without his father, the first he could remember without his little brother.

"I failed him." She whispered to herself. Her voice was quiet, but the devastation was clear. "I failed my son."

Boudicca put a hand on Meredith's shoulder, simple but comforting, unsure of what to do. She didn't want to hurt Meredith, not in a moment like this, but she wanted to ensure Henry was properly taken care of. 

"I don't know if that's true or not. It's not my place to say." She said slowly. "But whether it's true or not, what you need to do is focus on fixing that. Henry needs a mother. Can you be that for him?"

It hurt, just a little, because Meredith wasn't sure of the answer.

"I'll try my best." She replied instead, voice determined. "I've spent too long failing him. And you're right, he's all I have left. I can't keep dwelling on the loss I've faced when there's someone right there, alive, who needs me."

Boudicca smiled, rubbing her hand over Meredith's back. "I'm proud of you. You're gonna be okay, the both of you."

For so long, Henry felt like a stranger within his family. Felt like a ghost within the living. Like he wasn't there, screaming to be heard, but no one could hear him. Like no one wanted to hear him.

He never thought he'd be loved, especially not after The Crash.

But things were going to change.

Now he was seen. The suffering, the loss, the pain. 

His mum was finally hearing him within his Silence.

Notes:

a spider was haunting me as i was writing this #notcool #ihatespiders
mb for taking so long w this chapter i was busy writing smthn else when i had the time to and also i js havent had time
ik ppl have been waiting for the comfort part of the hurt/comfort so dw guys its on the way

one more chapter left watch me procrastinate like hell cuz i dont wanna say goodbye to this

Chapter 10: healing

Healing wasn't linear. To believe so would be a naive mistake.

Eloise was proof that whilst it wasn't linear, it was possible. After escaping her abusive household and never looking back, she built a life for herself and never decided to reach out to the people who made her suffer so much in her adolescent years. But she did consider reaching out to her sister a couple times.

After hearing about the loss Meredith faced, Eloise tried to reach out, but to no avail.

She didn't expect Meredith to call her randomly one night, months after the accident. Eloise was good with birthdays, so even though she'd never been there to celebrate her nephew's birthdays, she was aware that it was Henry's birthday. So she wondered if that was to do with why Meredith had suddenly called.

Eloise could've easily ignored the call, the way Meredith had done to her, but something in her told her to pick it up.

"El?"

Eloise hadn't heard her sister's voice in years, and yet she sounded just as young and innocent as she did back in their teenage years. Even though Meredith was never a good sister, Eloise always tried her best to look out for her and shield her from the harsh truths of how bad their parents were.

"Mer?"

The very last thing Eloise expected to hear was a sniffle. It invoked that same protective feeling she used to feel whenever Meredith was upset as a kid.

"I know this is last minute, and- I don't- you don't have to, but- can you meet me at the hospital?"

The hospital?

Now Eloise was even more worried.

"You really don't have to."

"Do you need me?"

There was a few moments of silence before Meredith answered.

"Yeah."

"Then I'll be there."

Even though it was getting really late, and Eloise had work in the morning, she didn't hesitate to get in her car and drive to the hospital Meredith sent her. It was just past nine in the evening, and Eloise hated driving at night, but she knew that there was no way her little sister would've called randomly, sounding distressed, if it wasn't serious.

And no matter how difficult their relationship was, no matter how traumatic Eloise's childhood had been, she wouldn't ever leave her little sister in a time of need.

Eloise found herself making her way to the floor where her sister was, and saw her sat on a chair in a waiting area, crying into her hands. She looked dishevelled, completely unlike the spotless look she usually went for. Eloise had seen her sister's Facebook, saw the reputation of perfectionism that she still had since childhood, so this seemed strange.

It also seemed strange to see her sister in person again for the first time since she left at eighteen years old.

It had been almost eighteen years.

"Meredith?"

Meredith looked up, wiping her eyes and standing up, facing her sister. It took her a little while to gather up the courage to even call her sister, so the fact that she was now there, so soon, was proving to be more difficult of a task than she'd anticipated.

"Eloise?"

Even though everything in her told her not to, because why would she, Meredith found herself running into her older sister's arms. It had been years since they'd spoken, seen each other in person, and definitely a very long time since they'd hugged, but running to her older sister felt natural for some reason.

It felt like being young again, little kids, the way Meredith found herself completely breaking down in her sister's arms. Eloise faltered for a moment, but found herself hugging Meredith tightly soon after the tears started.

It felt like how they used to be, before their parents pitted each other against them without meaning to.

"Mer?" 

"I don't know what to do El." Meredith sobbed into her shoulder. "I don't know how I failed him so badly. I didn't mean to. I didn't realise how bad I was. And- and I should've known. I should've known."

Eloise was confused. "Mind giving me a little more context than this?"

Meredith pulled back, wiping her eyes again, and sat back down on one of the chairs, waiting for her sister to sit beside her. She took a moment to look at her sister, noticing how her sister now had dark red hair, her once messy waves now beautifully tamed curls, and how she was now covered in beautiful piercings and tattoos that their parents would've had an aneurysm over.

Eloise found herself.

Even though all of these new additions to her appearance made her unique, Meredith could still see Henry in her older sister.

"I failed him, Eloise." Meredith admitted, her voice solemn and distraught. "I thought- I thought because you turned out okay, it would be okay if- if Henry lived a life like yours."

Eloise felt a pit in her stomach, realising what her little sister was alluding to. A life like hers had to mean abuse, which wasn't entirely unexpected as Meredith, though not a direct victim, did still grow up in an abusive household. It made sense that she'd adopted the same ways as a parent, but it wasn't right.

Meredith was a nurse, and a mother.

As a person, Meredith wasn't to blame for the mindset of abuse that she'd learned from her parents. But as a parent herself, and a nurse, Meredith had failed Henry, and she needed to be held accountable for it.

"You hurt him?" 

Meredith looked away, tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn't bare to admit it, but the slight nod was confirmation enough.

"Oh, Meredith." And now Eloise was trying her best to fight empathy and anger, because she had every right to be angry. For herself, her own childhood, and for her nephew who didn't deserve what happened to him. "How could you?"

But if Meredith stayed in contact with their parents, then of course she never learned right from wrong in terms of parenting. Eloise escaped the cycle by cutting contact, but Meredith didn't. She didn't get the same opportunity to learn and grow the way Eloise did. 

"I thought it was okay, because look at you." Meredith sighed. "You're successful. You're happy. You're living a good life, and- and I thought that meant that the way mum and dad treated you could work. And- god, Henry is so much like you, El. He's so much like you, so it just- it just seemed right. Like it'd benefit him."

"So what made you realise it wasn't benefiting him?"

Meredith stayed quiet, picking at her sleeves uncomfortably. It was only then that she realised she was wearing Simon's jumper - the first time since the accident that she'd worn his clothes.

"You.. you're aware of what happened last September, right?"

"Yeah." Eloise nodded. "I'm.. I'm sorry for your loss, Mer. That can't have been easy. I know how much Simon meant to you. And I haven't got any biological kids, but if I lost my Rosie or my Adriana, I don't know what I'd do."

"It wasn't easy." Meredith admitted. "It- it was really fucking hard. I- I've never been a big drinker, but.. I started drinking a lot. It took my neighbours' intervention to make me realise a few months later that I still had a life to live. I'm trying not to drink as much now, but.. I just.. I stopped being a person for a really long time."

"I'm sorry, Mer." Eloise put a hand on her sister's shoulder, rubbing it comfortingly. "And Henry?"

"Henry?" Meredith repeated. "I.. don't actually know how he's been doing. I kinda.. I guess I shut him out mentally without meaning to, too wrapped up in my own grief to register that he was grieving too. And- god, after the accident, I just- I just.. I blamed him for it, because he survived and- oh."

Oh.

"I blamed him." Meredith said, more to herself than to Eloise. "Oh, my boy, I blamed him. He survived and- and I blamed him. Eloise, I- I failed him. I failed my boy."

Meredith put her hand over her mouth, like she could take the words back. But she couldn't take them back. How could she take them back?

It was real.

It was the truth.

The realisation hit her hard, making something in her chest feel tight and awful and suffocating. Her guilt was squeezing at her chest, and she needed to feel the guilt, she knew that, but it hurt. It was cutting into her body like a dull knife, slow and agonising and torturous, and she couldn't imagine how much harder all this pain was for her son.

Her son, who she'd failed.

"Meredith.." Eloise began, trailing off immediately, because she didn't actually know what to say. Her heart hurt for Henry, and even though she shouldn't have, she couldn't help but feel hurt for her little sister too. "I don't know what to say."

Meredith shook her head, not wanting her older sister to say anything. This was the first time in eighteen years that they'd spoken, and now Meredith was the imperfect sister, the one with flaws, breaking down and coming to an incredibly tough realisation in front of her older sister. She should've felt embarrassed, ashamed but she didn't.

She felt guilt.

Only guilt.

Because she'd failed her boy.

"Eloise?"

"Yeah."

And it had been a very long time since Meredith was vulnerable enough to admit she needed help, even longer with her sister, but for Henry, she knew she had to put her pride aside.

"I need your help."

"My help?"

"You've been in Henry's shoes before." Meredith shrugged, trying to calm herself down and not less herself feel any weaker. She could deal with this realisation on her own. "You'd.. understand how he thinks and- and how he feels and, you know, that stuff. The stuff I can't figure out myself, and definitely wouldn't be able to get him to talk about. So I- I need your help."

Eloise could honestly see herself getting up and walking away, because even if it made sense, it still sickened her to know that her little sister, who she'd always tried to protect even though there was no reciprocation, had turned into the people she hated most. The people she was still, to this day, absolutely fucking terrified of. Their parents. 

But.

But Henry did not deserve the life he was living. And Meredith was right - Eloise did know how Henry felt, how he thought, and she was probably the best bet for helping him. No one offered this kind of support for her when she was a child, and so her teen and adult years were really hard, and to this day she still struggled, so she couldn't walk away.

She couldn't let Henry suffer just because she was still struggling with her adolescent trauma.

"I'll help." Eloise said softly. "But I want something."

"Anything."

"I want you to let me be a part of Henry's life." Eloise told her, the request sincere. "And I want you to promise me that if it gets to a point where you can't be better for him even if you've tried, and he's still hurting, and it's clear that you can't take care of him, you'll leave him with me."

Even though Henry used to be one of Meredith's biggest nuisance, the child she sometimes wished she never had because then she'd have a lot less on her shoulders, she couldn't actually imagine not having Henry anymore. And she'd already lost one son already. She couldn't imagine being truly alone.

So to avoid that, she'd just have to do good. 

For herself.

But mostly for Henry.

"I promise."

 

Henry didn't know what recovery was meant to look like, and he definitely wasn't a good example of what it should look like. But he had still yet to realise that he needed to recover, that he was owed just as much grief support and time to heal as anyone else would. He was still in a strange headspace.

He woke up fully for the first time in a hospital bed about a day after he passed out, with his head wrapped with dressings, hooked up to an IV drip, and someone sat asleep in a chair in the corner of the room. He didn't really realise what was going on, and then when he saw his mum there, asleep on the chair, he felt even more confused.

It felt a little like being in the hospital after The Crash, but he was awake for that, albeit barely present. But unlike then, his mum was actually there, and she looked the same as she did yesterday, just more tired, so maybe she'd been there since whatever happened, happened. 

It took her ages to come see him after The Crash.

It was weird seeing her there.

This was probably the first time in a while that he'd been in the same room as his mum without any arguing. It was oddly peaceful, seeing his mum asleep, although the chair couldn't have been that comfortable.

Henry wondered why he was there.

It took him a little while to remember being at home on his birthday, an emotional dam flooding him, causing one of the worst breakdowns he'd ever had. He remembered the fight he had with his mum, and felt uneasy upon looking at her there in the room now. He couldn't help the nagging fear that she'd wake up and shout at him again.

His arm suddenly felt a little sore, sore from where she'd grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the house. And now his heart was beginning to feel a little heavy again, his stomach unsettled with fear and guilt and anticipation, because he didn't know what was going to happen now.

He'd hoped that emotional breakdown he had before would be it, and that his emotions would go hide away again and never return, but they stayed with him. He'd unlocked a door that he didn't even realise was shut, and now the door was staying open. All those emotions came out, and didn't seem like they'd hide away again.

Henry shuffled so he was sat up, his head beginning to throb a little, which somehow made his mother wake up, sitting up and looking at him in a way he didn't know she could. 

She looked at him like.. like she cared.

When did Henry suddenly mean something to his mum?

"Henry."

Her voice sounded so soft, his name sounding so gentle, and Henry didn't know how to react. He couldn't remember the last time his mother had ever sounded so sweet with him, the last time she'd not said his name like it was a slur.

He tried to say something in response, but like it had been a lot lately, his voice stayed silent. He'd forgotten what it was like to be mute, because he'd found it pretty easy to talk when sobbing in front of her, but now that same struggle, that same choking feeling as though bubbles were in his throat, was returning to him. 

"Hi." She said, struggling to figure out how to speak to her own son. She couldn't believe how difficult it was to talk to her son, her firstborn child. "How.. erm, how you feeling?"

Henry looked down at his hands, trying to figure out how to make it clear that he was trying to speak, but for some reason simply couldn't. His mum hadn't been tuned in enough to his life to know that speaking, since the accident, had consistently been an issue. So he gave her a thumbs up and hoped she wouldn't pursue the conversation any further.

Eleven years old, and yet he never really learnt how to talk to his mother.

He couldn't even remember the last time had a proper conversation with his mum, without screaming and shouting, harsh words and even harsher hands. 

Of course he didn't know how to talk to her.

Meredith nodded, wondering if she was being ignored or not. So instead of trying to be a mum, she retreated back to what she was actually good at - being a nurse.

"They did a CT scan for your head injury." She told him, nurse-voice on. "You're all good, but they are planning to keep you for a few more nights because you're still physically malnourished and dehydrated. They'll look after all of that for a few days and make sure you're up and running well before discharging you. And they've-"

She paused, unable to say out loud how she'd failed him, and that there'd be people coming in to check on him because it was obvious she'd failed him. Standard protocol meant that there'd be social services involved to do an assessment, a nutritional specialist to make sure Henry was still capable of eating, and a psychiatrist to assess his mental health.

Having her own colleagues have to report her, and not even being mad because she entirely understood why, was gutting. No one shamed her, but there was an air of disappointment between her and her colleagues now, even though they knew she had been clearly struggling. 

She'd already been questioned, telling social services that she'd been struggling post-accident, and there was a period of time where she wasn't even taking care of herself either, but was now doing better. She told them that Henry was still not back in school, and not doing the best, but Meredith wasn't mentally checked-in enough to help.

It was deeply humbling to have to admit that, but they gave her the benefit of the doubt considering she'd been widowed and lost her youngest son in just one day. 

They did a home visit whilst Henry was still unconscious, assessing the house to be safe to live in, but it was clear that there was a solemn atmosphere within the house, like the walls hadn't recovered from the loss of life yet either. 

Even though Meredith knew deep down that she would've had Henry removed from her if they knew the full extent of the neglect and abuse, she was glad she didn't lose him.

She was going to do right by her son.

For herself, for Eloise, and for Henry.

"There's going to be some.. people that will talk to you once you're definitely feeling okay. They'll ask you.. some questions, and it may feel a little invasive but-" Meredith stopped, taking a deep breath. "You can be honest. If you feel the need to lie, don't lie. It's okay. It'll be okay, alright?"

If Henry was honest, she'd lose him.

But if she told him to lie, she wouldn't deserve to keep him.

"I.. don't really know why you're not doing much talking, but- you understand everything, right?"

Henry nodded. He was a little confused, but adults tended to hate when he needed further explanation. It was always best to nod and smile, and if he had any questions, then he simply should just not ask them.

"Okay, good." She nodded as well, a small smile on her face. It could've been over from here, and she wouldn't have to force herself to uncomfortably talk to a brick wall- the same brick wall that used to talk people's ear off incessantly. "There's a little more I needed to talk to you about, though."

She wasn't taking the easy way out.

"I know I've.. I've not been good to you." Meredith began. "I know I haven't. For years, I've.. I've been really awful to you, Henry. And I thought it was okay, that you'd flourish from the tough love, but I realise now that.. that I failed you. And you deserved better than the way we treated you. I can't apologise for Simon- er, your dad, but I can apologise for me. I'm sorry, Henry."

Henry had never been so shocked.

He thought apologising was a kids' thing, cause he'd never heard an apology from an adult before. And he never thought he'd hear one from his mother either.

"I should also apologise for Simon, because if it wasn't for me, he wouldn't have accepted the way I treated you. I feel like you're too young to hear things like this, but you're.. you're incredibly mature, and the reason for your maturity isn't fair. And I'm not trying to make you feel bad for me, I just want you to understand why - for your sake. You still with me?"

Henry nodded again. He usually tried to respond with facial expressions if not his words when Margaret and Ralph spoke to him, but he was a little too shocked by his mum apologising and being nice to him to remember to do that.

"I have an older sister. We were like you and Peter - her being a little troublemaker, me being the little perfectionist. And- and I guess I became like our parents, because she- she was.. wasn't treated the best, like you. But she moved away and made the most of herself, so instead of realising it was wrong.. I- I thought I'd be able to do the same with you and you'd be okay too."

Henry remembered overhearing conversations about a woman called Eloise, sometimes at night when he'd snuck into the kitchen for something to eat, and his parents were still awake talking. It wasn't often that they spoke of Eloise, or so he'd been aware of, but he always wondered who she was.

"El?"

"Eloise." Meredith nodded, both surprised to hear her sister's name from him, but also grateful to hear him speak, albeit barely. "She was a lot like you, really. With her arts, and creativity, and whatnot. So when I realised you were so similar to her, I thought it'd be okay to.. to be the way my parents were with her, with you. And I shouldn't have."

Henry didn't really realise that the way his family treated him was wrong. He'd spent a long, long time internally blaming himself for the way he was treated, taking all that hatred and anger and absorbing it into his heart like a sponge. He wouldn't have thought they were wrong for it, not with how easily he believed it was his fault.

So his mum, sat there with utmost sincerity, apologising for it was just.. confusing.

He didn't know how to react.

He kinda had questions though.

"Why?" He asked, voice croaky and dry, like it tended to be quite a lot lately. "Apologising?"

Meredith stared at him for a moment before piecing together the question of, why are you apologising? "Because I hurt you, Henry. And you didn't deserve it. Not from me, or your dad. And you definitely didn't deserve to have such a poor relationship with Peter because we treated you two so differently."

It was weird, knowing that the clarity she'd realised regarding her older sister, Peter would never get with Henry. He died thinking that his brother was awful, and deserved to be treated the way he did, and Meredith wouldn't ever get over that guilt.

She did the same thing her parents did to her and Eloise.

Being good with Eloise again unlocked all those forgotten memories of being young, and having such a good sibling bond with her sister. Before she was pitted against her unknowingly.

"You okay?"

Henry shrugged.

He was hearing her explanation and apology, but wasn't really absorbing it fully. 

In his eyes, he was to blame for everything, and no one else had done anything wrong.

"I'm sorry, Henry." She told him, the guilt on her face clear as day. "I don't expect you to forgive me now, or maybe even ever. I just want you to know I am sorry, though, and that none of this was your fault. I gave you an explanation, but no, it was not an excuse. And I wish it didn't take failing you for me to realise that."

Henry stayed quiet.

It would take more than that for him to believe her. 

She was trying, but he wasn't truly listening.

 

Henry felt useless.

Three people had come to talk to him. He hadn't said a word to any of them. 

At first, the nutritional specialist had gone and asked the doctor if he had an injury preventing him from speaking, to which she'd explicitly stated there wasn't, and then she had to wait until the psychiatrist came in, telling the doctor and Meredith that Henry had trauma-induced mutism.

It wasn't definite yet, but according to her assessment, it was highly likely that Henry had psychogenic mutism.

They didn't tell Henry that, scared of making him feel like there was something wrong with him.

Henry ended up answering a bunch of questions via paper, and it felt weird to write after months of not being in school. Margaret and Ralph came by after all the official questioning was over, dropping off a get well soon card, just from them and Miss Battle-Axe this time, not wanting to overwhelm him.

That was how he found out he'd passed out outside of Miss Battle-Axe's house, hence the head wound, and how he was taken to hospital for treatment. 

Henry wasn't entirely honest in the questioning, despite what his mother said. He was confused, and didn't exactly know what he was doing, but he still sugarcoated the majority of his answers, because he didn't really feel the need to be honest. Because why would he? He was pretty sure it'd only make things worse, and he'd dealt with enough change already lately.

Henry was let out of the hospital a few days later, returned to his house, under strict dietician orders - because his lack of eating had been consistent, despite the support he was getting from Margaret's family, which meant that his mum would now be monitoring his eating. Which was weird, because he usually wouldn't eat because of his mum.

His mum was being really nice, and it was throwing Henry off like crazy. He couldn't remember the last time his mum had been this nice to him, for so long as well, and he almost missed the shouting, the hurting, the fighting- the way it had been Before, even though he'd completely forgotten how bad it was back then when social services questioned him.

Margaret and Ralph came over a lot more now, because normalcy and childish activities were essential in trying to get Henry to heal and return to the way he used to be. 

There were therapists coming over to his house twice a week - one being a familial therapist, another being his therapist individually, working on healing him from the trauma he faced from the accident. The familial therapist was sweet, easygoing, even though Meredith and Henry weren't the easiest to work with.

Henry didn't know how family therapy was meant to work, especially since it was just him and his mum. His relationship with his mum was the most stilted within his family, and even though his mum was trying now, it just felt awkward. Sat on the sofa with a therapist who had to essentially mediate for them to be better again.

The woman, Adore, was a lovely lady, completely patient and understanding. Though the first few sessions felt awkward, she still tried her best. She started with small exercises, and told them that she wasn't here to try and fix them, that their individual issues were to be dealt with with their own therapists, and that she was just there to help them see each other.

Firstly, she wanted to create a safe space. Meredith tended to over-explain herself a lot, getting defensive without meaning to, like she was trying to make up for lost time - or guilt - whilst Henry stayed silent. It made Meredith talk a lot more, word-vomiting a lot, like Henry's silence made her feel more inclined to speak. She was trying her hardest, though.

Henry knew his mum was trying, and he appreciated it. He really did. But it felt unfamiliar sometimes. Good, maybe, but still unfamiliar.

With Adore there to calmly remind Meredith that, if Henry was trying to explain something, she needed to prioritise listening over trying to justify her side of things. Henry was never a justifier, so he was also encouraged to try and justify himself sometimes instead of just accepting everything without question.

The majority of the first few sessions were more about Henry, but when Meredith's involvement increased, it was like.. weird. Unsettling, almost - because it was actually working. Henry felt understood, less scared to admit things, because Adore was like a behavioural leash on his mum. Or maybe therapy was working out for her too.

Because he knew if it was Before, then he'd be shouted at for daring to speak up. But After, as hard as it had been for a long time now, was starting to look better. There was actual communication between the two of them, and Henry actually felt understood, just a little. 

It was hard to be fully understood when there was so much he was yet to say, but it was getting better.

Henry had never thought it would get better, not like this, not this easily, but it was.

It felt almost too easy.

Or maybe, for the first time in his life, peace was actually on his side.

It wasn't perfect. But it was more than he ever thought they'd get.

And that, somehow, was enough for now.

Alongside family therapy, he was in therapy on his own too. They cross-communicated for certain things, nothing too personal, which made it easier for him as he wouldn't have to say things twice, and it meant he was more understood in family therapy, without being exposed or having boundaries crossed.

His individual therapist, Ria, was soft and gentle with him, letting him write with a fancy pen on an iPad to share his thoughts, because he wasn't speaking fully yet at the start. She helped him understand why he couldn't speak.

"What happened to you was so big, Henry, it made the world feel unsafe. Not just cars, or people - but everything. Sometimes, when something hurts that much, your brain tries to protect you by shutting down things it thinks you don't need - like your voice. You didn't choose to go quiet. It's not your fault. Your voice didn't vanish - it's just been waiting. Waiting for moments where you feel safe enough to use it again."

It made sense, to an extent. She explained it delicately, and he would've been annoyed by how everyone was treating him like glass, but he couldn't find it in him to care anymore. He'd been hurt, badly, for a while now, and now he was finally receiving support for it.

Even though it would've felt easier to be shouted at and ignored, this was for the best.

He wanted to be better.

He wanted to be able to talk normally all the time again, and get in cars or any kind of vehicle again, and go back to school and be a kid with a creative mind and troublesome behaviour again. He wanted his spark of joy and life and childishness back.

He was tired of being a void.

"That's why you could speak to Margaret. Why you said goodbye to your brother at the funeral. Those were moments where your voice knew it had something important to say, or someone safe to say it to. It's not broken - it's just been hiding, because it got hurt too."

And that, he supposed, also made sense. Even though he tried to speak and couldn't sometimes, there were moments where it'd be impossible not to. Like if Peter appeared somehow and told him he loved him, Henry would scream it at the top of his lungs if he had to, because how could he not?

He needed to say goodbye to his brother.

He needed to thank Margaret, for trying when she didn't have to.

And then it became easier to speak to her, because she'd stayed consistently safe, and so had Ralph. 

This therapist was weirdly smart. Even though it was her job, it was strange how easily she could read Henry.

He felt understood, for the first time in a long time.

"We don't need to rush it. Your voice is yours, and it'll come back when it's ready. All we're doing is making the world feel safe enough for it to return."

Lo and behold, his voice came back in more and more situations. The fact that Ria was so helpful and understanding, and so delicate with him, made speaking feel so much easier. There were so many times where he'd pause, words stuck in his throat, desperate to try and speak to her, but unable to. He wanted to prove to himself, and to her, that he wasn't gone.

He still had his voice.

The first time he ended up actually speaking to her, his voice was still croaky from being unused, and yet she was so sweet regardless.

"You have a beautiful voice, Henry. I can't wait for the day you feel safe enough to never hide it away again."

Henry couldn't help but smile brightly at that. 

"Thank you."

 

It had been a few months since Henry's birthday, and things had really begun to look up for him and his mum. So much progress had been made in such a short amount of time, and Henry was really beginning to feel proud of himself. At first, he didn't realise how far he'd come, but he was starting to see it now.

Things that he wouldn't have even considered to be milestones a year ago were now celebrated like he was the most important man on earth.

With Ria's help, and Adore's, Henry was starting to talk more. Ria's support helped him understand himself, and gave him a boost of confidence within himself again to talk more in her sessions, even though on bad days he'd revert to writing with the fancy pen on her iPad, and Adore helped to reiterate that therapy was a safe space, so he'd talk more then too.

The first time he had a session where he only answered with words, Ria and Adore helped Meredith plan a small party, with Ralph and Margaret there, to celebrate how far he'd come.

Meredith seemed to smile a lot more now, like she used to with Peter. Whenever Henry spoke to her, actually spoke, she'd have such a bright smile on her face, and it made Henry actually want to speak more.

He was starting to feel safe with her.

Henry managed to go a long way without having to admit how bad his home life used to be, but eventually it came out. It was a slip-up, really, with Henry talking to Ria about how food was still difficult to eat sometimes, because it didn't feel deserved, and that was how Ria joined into Adore's session and pulled back the truth.

Meredith cried, admitting that she was in fact abusive beforehand. And then her therapist, Cairo, was pulled in too, and it was one big therapy session, where Meredith talked more about how right it seemed since she grew up with Eloise being abused. Cairo was already aware, but didn't deem Meredith as a threat, since Adore had confirmation of the family being stable.

Naturally, social services had to increase involvement after that, but things were still going well. There were more unannounced and announced visits following, but there were no signs of any ongoing abuse.

The big therapy session in which the abuse was discussed was actually very helpful, becoming a safe space for Henry to actually talk about how it made him feel, how isolated he felt, how he was more hurt by the hatred and anger than the actual restriction of food and physical abuse. Meredith hated hearing it, but she listened regardless.

She needed to listen.

She was taking full accountability too.

Henry made a lot more individual progress with Ria after admitting to the abuse. 

He still kept the more extreme cases to himself, because he didn't want to ruin the progress made, but he told himself in the future, he'd be honest. He just liked how far him and his mum had come to disrupt that now.

In May, Henry started going back to school. 

It was a major step, and his mum was there for it. She walked him to school, and was there to pick him up before lunch, because Henry wasn't doing full days again just yet. He started with at least two half-days a week, and slowly built up to doing full days once a week, then twice. He was trying.

Before, school was far from understanding and supportive, but they were doing their best now. Henry was bound to fail his SATS if he did them when the rest of his class did, so there were arrangements made for him to do them at the start of Year Seven, and he'd have free tutoring outside of school to make up for lost time and the days that he wouldn't go in from then on.

It was weird, being back in school, still having the odd curious, pitiful stare, but he was powering through it. Ralph was always there for help, and Margaret became fiercely defensive over Henry, so he wasn't having to deal with anything unnecessary. Miss Battle-Axe had also become Henry's favourite teacher, strangely enough.

Henry's first full week of school since September was on the first week of July. 

The week before Peter's birthday.

Peter's birthday was July Seventh. He always used to make the most of his birthday, with some sort of boring party that Henry would end up trying to make more exciting. But this year, Peter wasn't there to celebrate, and nor was his dad. So despite the progress, July Seventh was still a hard day.

The morning of Peter's birthday, Henry and Meredith were in the kitchen.

Both of them had spoken a lot about the upcoming birthday in individual and family therapy,so they were both surprisingly regulated emotionally. The two of them were living in harmony now, even though there were days where Henry still felt a little afraid of his mum, or struggled to cope with the memories from The Crash, and Before.

Meredith was making toast, over-buttering the toast like she always did.

Henry always liked a lot of butter on his toast anyway.

"You had dinner yesterday, right?"

Meredith was back to work full-time now, even though she had shorter hours and less shifts so that she could work on her relationship with Henry. So there were nights where she'd miss dinner or breakfast, but most of the time, she was there. She managed to work fewer hours on the weekend, to be there for Henry more, and work more whilst he was at school.

"Yeah, I went over to Margaret's."

"Margaret, hm?" Meredith smiled teasingly, nudging Henry playfully. They were finally able to make small contact like that, small contact that wouldn't send Henry into a panic attack. "You're hanging out with her a lot lately."

"Mum." Henry rolled his eyes, shoving her slightly. "Margaret is my friend. You need to let go of that."

"A mother's intuition is always right." Meredith muttered to herself, knowing Henry could hear, unable to stop smiling at how playful her relationship with Henry was now. "Just saying."

Henry rolled his eyes a second time. "You over-buttered the toast again."

"I'm consistent."

And she was. These days, at least.

"You ready?"

No, Henry wanted to say, but that would be a lie. He wasn't fully ready, but he wasn't too scared to go. This, whether he fully believed it or not, was something he was capable of doing. It wouldn't hurt, not the way he thought it would.

"Yeah."

The two of them finished eating breakfast, and got ready to leave. 

Meredith finally bought a new car, nearly a year after the accident. It was a cream Mini Cooper, two-door, small and cute, not flashy or red and bold like their old car was. A small car, because it was just them that needed it now, nobody else. Only for convenience, so Meredith wouldn't have to lean on others for a ride anymore.

It was time.

Henry got to pick out a keychain, and he chose a bunny.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" 

Henry nodded, even though he was stood still, unmoving, in front of the open passenger-side door. He said he was ready, let his mum open the door, and told himself he'd go in. But he wouldn't move, and it felt the same as being unable to speak. But he was speaking more now, so why was he stuck?

"We don't have to, Henry." 

"I can do it." Henry told her, his words delayed slightly, like it tended to be when he was overwhelmed. "I just- need a moment."

Meredith nodded, putting a hand on his shoulder, her movements slow so he'd have time to move away if he wanted to, and then waited by him when he didn't move away. He leaned into her touch ever so slightly, appreciative of the fact that his mother was now someone that comforted him in times of need.

"You got it, bogey-brain." 

Henry turned around, seeing Margaret stood by her front door with an encouraging smile.

"Before you know it, we'll be going on drives to see those silly bands you and Ralph like." 

One step forward.

No steps back.

All it took was getting in the car now, and he'd be okay. He wouldn't be as scared the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. All he had to do was get in the car just this time for now, and he'd be better off in the future.

Henry took a deep breath, and sat in the passenger seat. He could hear Margaret cheering for him, which was oddly comforting, and then his door was closed and his mum was now in the car with him too. She faltered, hands on the steering wheel cautiously, before putting the key in the ignition and starting the car.

This was her first time driving since The Crash.

Her husband died in a driver's seat just like this.

"Mum?"

"Yeah, Henry?"

"Are you okay?"

Meredith nodded, steady hands on the steering wheel. "Yeah, I'm okay."

It took a deep breath from the both of them before Meredith put the clutch down and put the car in first gear, slowly finding the biting point. She hadn't driven in almost a year, but driving manual was the easiest thing in the world to her. Simon was the one to teach her, since he learned to drive before her. 

Simon taught her, and so manual was their thing.

But this car? 

This car was her's and Henry's now.

Henry held on tight to his seatbelt as the car began to move, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. Meredith changed to second gear, and he held on a little tighter, willing himself to relax, because nothing was going to happen. And eventually, once they had been on the road for at least five minutes, Henry let himself breathe properly.

He didn't even realise he'd basically been holding his breath.

"Did you remember the cake?" Meredith asked, never taking her eyes off the road, checking her surroundings far more than she used to. "And the flowers?"

"Yeah."

"I know this is difficult, but I'm so proud of you, Henry." Meredith told him, her words bringing warmth to his heart. "I know you've not seen the graves since the funeral, and we've never been together, so doing this, and on Peter's birthday too, is a really big thing. I couldn't be prouder of you."

Henry felt warm.

Safe.

Safe with his mum, in a car.

He really had come such a long way since September. 

Since Before.

"I love you, mum."

It was rare for either of them to be that affectionate, truly rare. 

Meredith didn't feel like she'd failed him anymore.

Before, maybe. But not now. Not anymore.

"I love you, Henry."

Henry felt like he could breathe, letting go of his tight hold on his seatbelt and placing his hands on his lap instead. He was fidgeting a little bit, but that was just something he couldn't control if he tried. And when he looked at his mum, he gave her a smile even though he knew she wouldn't look at him to smile back.

And then, when Henry had finally relaxed, he heard sirens.

Driving past an intersection just like the one he'd been on all those months ago, red and blue flashing lights caught his eye. Police cars and an ambulance, and two cars over by a wall. The right side of one of the cars, completely wrecked, the other with its bumper hanging off the front of the car.

"Mum." 

Henry's hands went onto his seatbelt again, his voice shaky and terrified, because this was exactly what The Crash looked like for him. Witnessing a complete reenactment of the aftermath of his accident from a bystander's perspective made his whole body go cold, his heart thumping in his chest, breaths beginning to get short and stilted.

"Mum." He gasped again, his voice trembling. Like it was gonna disappear the way it normally did when he got overwhelmed.

Meredith didn't know what to do, looking over for a split second to see what Henry was freaking out over. She'd heard the sirens too, but didn't pay attention the way Henry did, and when she realised, she immediately turned to a quieter road, straying off the route to the graveyard, far enough for the sirens and flashing lights to be less noticeable.

As soon as the car was parked, Henry took his seatbelt off and got out of the car, kneeling on the floor with a hand over his chest, hyperventilating. It had been a while since he'd had a PTSD episode, especially not one this bad, and Meredith had never been exposed to one. But she knew what to do now.

It felt like Henry's lungs were full of water, or blood, choking him. His ribs felt like they were squeezing in on him, his eyes shut so tightly as he desperately tried to push away the memories of the accident coming back to him.

"You're not there, baby." Meredith told him, her voice calm, despite the panic she was feeling for him. "You're not there, Henry, you're okay. We're safe, baby, you're safe. You're okay."

It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.

It's not me.

"You're okay, baby, breathe with me." 

I'm not there.

It's not Peter or dad.

"It's okay, baby, I've got you."

He reached out, and she took his hand and let him squeeze her hand tightly, copying her breathing with each squeeze, releasing her hand with every exhale. He tried to listen to her words instead of the sirens, far away yet so loud in his head, because the ones he could hear were from September.

"I've got you, baby. You're safe. Can you open your eyes and look at me?"

Henry shook his head, but she squeezed his hand tightly and so he tried, opening his eyes with tears in them, barely able to see her. She wiped his tears with her free hand, nodding at him and telling him it was okay. That she was there, and it wasn't real. It wasn't him. He was safe.

"It's okay." Meredith whispered. "I'm here."

She wasn't there in the car that day in September.

But she was here now.

She was real.

"I love you, Henry."

It would take a while before Henry would be okay again, but he would pull through the PTSD episode and get back in the car. He would go and celebrate Peter's birthday with his mum at the graveyard, and overcome the momentary setback. This moment of trauma and hell, he would pull through from.

He was strong.

Stronger than the flashbacks, stronger than the trauma.

"I love you, mum." He managed to choke out. "I love you."

The trauma would live with him forever. Never fully gone, always near.

But wasn't that it?

Wasn't that Healing?

Notes:

isn't it funny how i've ended up writing part of this in isolation with miss cardani which legit happened to henry before and mr tenley (real guy but thats a twist on his name) was monitoring the iso in the morning too
sorry for how long this took to write ive been busy and also lowk forgot to write this and as i mentioned i got put in isolation AT MY BIG AGE FOR THE MOST RETARDED THING EVER but cool its fine ig
fuck ass school
idk what else to say ab this story but im sad its over bc i lowk got attached but alas i hope how long this chapter was makes up for how long it took to post

Notes:

its complete pls dont ask for more
i will not change anything i like how it ended
pls
sorry if it doesnt feel complete enough idk