Work Text:
The harsh buzzing of the cellphone on the wooden nightstand rips Athena from her sleep.
Grabbing the device from beside her, with a groan, she prays it's not someone checking in on her.
Since Bobby's passing, people have been reaching out to offer their condolences; They ask if there's anything she needs.
It only makes her want to scream.
There is only one thing she needs, and it's the only thing she can't have.
Athena goes to unlock her phone just to realize it wasn't even hers that was going off.
Bobby's cellphone sits like a cold weight against her palm.
The phone lets out one more buzz because while most people have a much shorter notification alert for text messages, Bobby had Buck’s set so it would always give him enough time to wake up.
“I don't want to leave him wondering. I can't do that to him,” Bobby had told her the first night she woke up to the incessant buzzing, not even a week after Buck had woken from his coma.
Athena sighs as she squints against the harsh blue-toned backlight.
'I miss you.’
She wants to tell him to stop. She wants to scream at him that Bobby isn't around anymore and that texting his phone will never reach him.
The hypocrisy doesn't go unnoticed.
She's had plenty of time to disconnect the number.
It's been a month and sometimes she still calls the number herself, just to hear her husband's voice as the ringing comes to an end and the voicemail message finally kicks on.
She knows it's unhealthy, but she doesn't care.
And while it breaks her heart to hear the familiar tone every once in a while, she knows it would break Buck’s more if she severed the only thing the kid had left.
She continues to keep the phone line open and prays every day that Buck's texts will eventually wake them both from this nightmare.