"It's the last time I'm going to ask you that and I really would like to know the reason, but if you won't answer then I'm letting it go."

"Okay....." he says, sounding very worried and confused.

Conversation Part 2

"What's the reason for your Haphephobia?" i ask him slowly, really carefully.

He is in silence. His body tensed. He won't answer. I know it. I shouldn't have asked. He rises from the couch and walks over to the piano. I don't know what to do. I just sit on the couch, anxiously. He stares out of the french windows and combs with his long fingers through his dark messy hair. Is he considering telling me?

He takes a deep breath before he turns around, He walks back to me, his body is still tensed.

"Come on," he says, holding out his hand for me.

I take it and he helps me getting off the couch. Hand in hand we walk out of the living area. I feel the butterflies in my stomach going crazy. I try very hard to ignore them. It's nearly impossible.

"Where are we going?" i ask him as we walk through the glass corridor.

"To my office." he says and stops in front of the white double wing door.

He opens the door and we walk in. Once again, I get greeted by a breathtaking view of Manhattan at night. Then he opens up several cupboards, looking for something special.

"What are you looking for?" I ask him as I get seated on the couch. It's the first time I notice all these folders in the cabinets.

He continue opening it, "Got it." he says holding up a picture.

"Who's on the picture?" I ask him as he get seated next to me. 

Without a word, he hand me the picture. I recognize her right away.

His mother. Lily. she's beautiful. It's a close-up, showing her beautiful hair and same eyes as Richard.Her lips are full and pink. She's only wearing blush and mascara. She smiles into the camera like she is the sun in person. she is heart-shaped. She's breathtaking.

"You're mother." i say in one breath.

"Yes."

"You have her cheekbones." I say, my eyes still focused on the beauty. "And her nose." Now I know this man looks like a walking god. His mother was a goddess and his father....I'm sure he look like a good catch as well in his younger days. I mean, he still looks like a walking god at the age of.....Well, he looks like he's in the mid-fourties.

"That's a picture from her better days. Before she started using. The only picture I own of her." he starts explaining.

"That your mother was using Crack is only half of the story, Isn't it?" I ask him, having a bad feeling in my stomach, I feel like I've just hit the bulls eye. Something, I'm not sure If I want to know. But at the same time I need to know.

"Yes." he admits, running his skinny fingers through his hair.

"It's okay, you don't have to tell me......" I say in a soft voice. I would like to put my hand on his shoulder, but that would freak him out.

He is in silent. For minutes, neither of us say anything and just let silence fill the room.

He stares out of the french window, looking at the skyline of Manhattan "I killed her." he says in one breath.

My breath gets stuck. What?! He killed his own mother? How can he...How is this...It's his mother! I look at him with widen eyes.

"I knew you would react like this." he says in a calm voice. How can he be so calm?!

"H-How did you k-kill her?" I stutter. My body is tensed. My pulse is rising- this time not from the pleasure I am experiencing with Richard. This time it's because of the fear. The fear of sitting next to a murderer. Or possible murderer.

"She was drunk. A September night. She had just taken Crack. I was home.Alone.Scared. I was sitting in front of the television, watching some childish series. I can't remember the name. Something with a cat. She was working, as always at this time of the day. She worked in the morning as a waitress at the local diner. In the evening she earned her money by selling her body. 

She opened the front door and tottered in. She nearly fell as she was trying to close the front door behind herself. Then she walked up to me and started to talk to me. Mumble rather, I really had a hard time understanding her. I smelled the alcohol out of her breath right- away it was a horrible smell I won't ever be able to forget. She raised her hand and hit me, lie she always did when she got home late, drunk and on drugs. Out of a sudden she placed her hand around my neck and started to tighten them. i felt the air is getting thinner. I was scared. I tried to scream, tried to make her stop. With my little fingers, in which I didn't really have any feeling in. I picked up a lamp and threw at her. It cracked over her head and she let go of me. She didn't fall like in all those series, I thought. She could have fallen to the ground. But she didn't. as soon as she realized what I did she tried to grabbed me from behind and place her hands around my neck again. I grabbed a knife and stabbed it into her heart with all my strength." he stop for several seconds, as if he was remembering the whole evening. As if, traveling back in the time was possible. In your thoughts, it surely is.

I give him time. I say nothing. I didn't do anything. i don't want to scare him. I don't want to freak him out. I give him time. Time to decide whether or not he wants to continue telling me his story. The story of how he killed his mother.

"I remember her shocked face. Her wide pupils filled with fear. then I remember her hands on the knife and her white shirt getting soaked in blood. I didn't understand what I did in the beginning. I didn't understand that I had injured her deathly. She fell on the knees before she fell on the ground completely. The last words she mumbled to me were 'son of a bitch.' she couldn't have been more right." he says and laughed. "She was right."

"After I stabbed the knife in her chest she closed her eyes and stop breathing. A huge blood-puddle was around her body, which I had to clean. Clean that mess up- like I always had done. So I kneed down beside her and waited. Waited  for someone to come. Someone to notice. Someone to care.

I waited two days. I didn't move. I didn't eat. I didn't drink. I didn't even had to use the bathroom. It was like my body shut down completely. I was only there." he stops and take a deep breath, "After two days the front door got torn open by the police. They walked over to me and took care of me. They called a hearse and a social worker.The lady took me out of the one-bedroom apartment. She got me away from my dead mother. She got me away from this hell - or so I thought. I went to six orphanages in two years. Then Meredith Grey and Daniel Reynolds adopted me. i got into this very nice family, I didn't deserve. The first time I walked into their house, was like walking into lubber-land. I was in heaven. I got everything I wanted - although it wasn't that much. I needed a bed and a bathroom, that was it. No toys. Nothing. I was simple. Fucked up.

Two years later Samuel got adopted. Another year later Valerie was born." 

Fuck! Holy shit , this is.....I can't even describe how this story makes me feel. Shock and pity are both words which do not nearly describe my feelings. 

"It was a self defense Richard . You didn't kill her." I say in a soft voice. The best I could do for now. I try hard not to cry. I try hard not to imagine a four year old Richard sitting in that apartment. Getting choked. Killing his mother. Sitting next to the lynch. For....two days.

I cannot imagine all of these. All showing me pictures,scene rather. I don't want to see the fragile side of Richard Faulkerson. The fucked up side of Richard Faulkerson he would call it.

His head turns around, facing me. his eyes are filled with tears. Yet no fear seems to find it's way down his cheek. "I know what I did."

"You did nothing wrong. If you hadn't killed her, she would have killed you. Without a doubt." I say to him in the same soft voice.

"I...." he is speechless. Richard Faulkerson is speechless. Never thought I would see that. What am I suppose to do now? Will he start crying? Will he start yelling? No, probably not. Why would he yell at me? I don't know. Maybe he would.  I  don't know  what I'm getting into myself into  with Richard Faulkerson. I never  know what to do.....That's my risk. The risk I choose. The risk of insecurity, while I've never felt more secure.

I pull his tensed body into a warm, long hug. "You did nothing wrong. You saved your life." I whisper into his ear, with my arms wrapped around his body, which slowly relaxes. "You saved your life....." I say again and feels his arms around my body seconds later. We stay in this position for minutes. More than a few minutes actually, I notice as i stare into the skyline by night. "Do you have someone you can talk to about all this?"

He releases himself from my embrace, "Dr Flynn is  doing an excellent job. I'm paying him more than enough to fix me up for years now,"

I nodd, "Does it help?"

He shruggs, "It made my nightmares stop. Not completely, but it made my sleep a lot easier."

"That's why you have trouble sleeping. That's why you won't share a bed with another person. You're afraid you're getting hurt again."

He says nothing. But I know,I'm right. I never thought I'd see this side of him. The fragile side of him.

"Thanks.' I say to him.

"For what?"

"Thanks for opening up to me. It must've been hard."

He nodds, although he seems like his's somewhere else. Back in the past. Richard Faulkerson the CEO. Richard Faulkerson the time traveler.  "I've never talked to someone about this. Beside, Dr. Flynn of course."

thank you for reading

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