31. The past

Sky couldn't stop shaking. All day, all night, there was nothing she could do but cry helplessly, which made her body tremble constantly. She had no idea what day it was, when she had eaten last and what the sun felt like on her skin anymore.

There was no way to live normally anymore. She didn't go out, she didn't eat, she didn't sleep. She couldn't breathe.

For the first few days after they had been driven home from the hospital, denial showed up. She refused to believe Noah was gone and imagined all sorts of scenarios that would bring him back. She even begged Callen to drive her to the hospital so that she could see Noah. Nothing made sense anymore.

When denial left, realization kicked in. She tore all of the wallpaper off, kicked, screamed, destroyed furniture. Nothing worked. Nothing seemed to ease the unbearable pain.

She was angry. No, she was furious. And Callen was too.

So they fought. All the time. No matter how late in the morning it was, no matter how bad their voices were broken and how bad their throat hurt from the crying combined with the shouting.

They needed to let the anger out, to find someone to be angry at, and since it was no one's fault that their little boy had died from liver cancer, they turned to each other.

"Stop yelling Sky! I can't take it anymore! I can't!" Callen shouted.

"Stop touching his things!" Sky screamed back. "Do not touch anything!"

Callen had tried to clear Noah's room to try to make it less messy than it was. When he was stressed, he needed to clean and it had seemed like the best idea. Until Sky had barged in and let out a strangled cry before pushing him from Noah's clothes, hugging them to her chest.

"I was just putting them in the closet!" Callen defended himself, tears of frustration prickling his vision.

"Don't ever touch them again! You're going to make his smell disappear! It's all I have left, just his smell, don't you dare take that away from me!" She neatly folded the clothes and put them exactly where they had been laying on the floor of Noah's room.

Deep, deep down, the sane part of Sky that was still alive knew she was acting crazy but nothing was crazy enough when your son had died.

When her eyes caught the picture of Callen, Noah and her they had hung above Noah's bed, she burst into sobs again, her voice breaking. She was still sitting on the floor and she rocked herself, incapable of doing anything else but cry.

"Sky..." Callen tried to approach her but she turned away from him.

"Get out." She demanded.

"Sky, let's..."

"GET OUT!" She yelled, pushing him away. "I want to be alone! GET OUT!"

So Callen left Noah's room and closed the door behind him before bursting into tears as well.

≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈

"I want a divorce." Callen whispered.

Sky looked up and they held each other's gaze, neither of them breaking the heavy silence that followed these four simple words.

"A divorce." She whispered.

He nodded and Sky did the same.

"I can't do this anymore." He simply said, as if it held all the explanation.

Sky nodded again and walked emotionlessly to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She turned the water and stepped in the tub, forgetting she hadn't even taken her clothes off. She needed to not feel anymore. She needed to stop her mind, to stop the pain, for just one second.

When the water had filled the tub enough, she closed her eyes and held her breath before lowering her head and putting it under water. There was no sound anymore and she let her a deafening scream that no one would be able to hear.

She only came out when she felt her lungs tighten from the lack of oxygen and realized she couldn't even cry anymore. She was numb.

She stepped out of the tub, dried herself and put some clothes back on. When she had gone out of the shower, Callen was gone. He had left a note that she read like a robot.

I'm spending the night at Blake's. I'll call you tomorrow so we can talk about everything. I love you, always. Callen.

Her usual self would have been mad that he had only bothered to write three lines when he was a freaking writer and could have written a million other things. But today, she couldn't let herself feel.

Numbly, she made her way to Noah's room and sat in the middle of it, picking up his favorite book and reading it out loud, while very well knowing no one was there to listen anymore.