ah shit, don't throw things at me :(

it happened, the big boom of the storyline. rose is dead :(

you: WHY ARE YOU TORTURING HARRY LIKE THIS HE IS A NICE YOUNG MAN HE DOESNT DESERVE IT.

me: *shoves microphone away*

me: *probably cries self to sleep*

oh my god this was hard to write, i remember i putting this off for weeks bc i didn't want to kill off rose, but i have had it planned for a while now, so bare with me. also, really sorry for ripping your heart out and now i'm going to step on it. i'm not a sadist... i swear... *demented smiling*

please don't kill me i make harry suffer so hard in this, mY HEART BREAKS FOR THIS MAN OKAY I FEEL YOUR PAIN. EMPATHY. LETS FEEL IT TOGETHER. YOU CAN CRY AND ILL CRY TOO. IT'LL BE LIKE A BIG CRYING SUPPORT GROUP OKAY

w/love - and sadness,

dani. :(

CHAPTER 16

The worst part about someone dying is knowing you're not going to wake up to see their eyes, their smile, their anything ever again. When I woke up the next morning, I didn't wake up to Rose's face. I saw Drew, and that was enough to send me reeling once again. After forcing all of us to eat, I greeted Insley and thanked him three hundred times for letting us stay over. He smiled, "anything for you, take care – and don't do anything I wouldn't do." I rolled my eyes, but I promised myself I wouldn't be reckless. The drive was so quiet, that I was actually scared if I said anything I wouldn't be able to hear myself.

"You three don't have to go to school if you don't want to." I said, desperately wanting some kind of closure that my kids weren't falling apart. Nothing. Drew shrugged, Jude looked away and Aubella played with her fingers.

"How about we go stay with grand mum for a bit, huh?" I tried again, but nothing still, "you all seem to love her cooking more than mine." I laughed, but even I knew it was the fakest and most forced one I'd ever had to utter. Still nothing.

I sighed, "Hey, talk to me." Nothing, "I know it's hard, but it's not going to get any easier if you're all giving me the silent treatment."

Drew turned to me, "there's nothing to say, Dad. Mum's dead, that's it. End of story."

"Drew, there's a lot more than just Mum dying." I bit my lip, turning into our driveway.

"Whatever." He said as we stopped and got out immediately. The other two were just as quiet as we stepped inside.

"Any requests for dinner?" I asked, no answer yet again. I was growing quite tired of the silent treatment. It was not my fault she had died, but they were kids. I couldn't really say that.

"Guess we're having pizza then." Jude went to his room, and Aubella sat in front of the telly, as if waiting for Rose to switch it on. Drew was scarce as well. I walked over to the little girl, and smiled – a small, teary smile. She looked just like her mother.

"You're not mad at me, are you?" I bended down to her height, which proved to be a lot more difficult than it sounded. I sat down finally, and she broke down sobbing into my chest, her little body shaking with the vicious sobbing.

"Shh, shh, Bells. It's okay, Daddy's here." She looked up, her large blue eyes dripping with emotion. I wiped a small tear threatening to fall onto her pink cheek.

"I can't believe Mummy's dead." She finally said, and I had never been happier to hear her speak.

"I know, Bells. Neither can I." She cried a little more, until she requested I put the telly on, and then I went to check up on Jude and Drew. I was most worried about Drew, with his biological mother rejecting him at birth, and now Rose dying, he was slowly but surely losing everything he loved. And I was petrified he would be reckless, but he was intelligent, intelligent enough to know how to keep himself together long enough for the wounds to heal. I knocked on the door, and after no answer for about a minute, I stepped in. He was just sitting there, on his bed with a bunch of drawings scattered around him. They all looked so gruesome and sad, and my heart yearned for him. He didn't look back when I walked in, so I stood in the doorway.

"Squirt, talk to me. You're the only intellectual in this house whose opinion I actually value." I said softly.

"I'm angry. Scratch that, I'm pissed, Dad. So pissed, at myself, at you, at everything. At the goddamn doctor, and the nurses and mum and you and me and Dad, I don't know whether to cry or punch someone in the face." He said, and that's when I came to sit behind him. He finally turned around, and to my surprise his eyes were not rimmed red like I expected them to be.

"Well, don't do both. Because I did, and it's not fun punching your brother." He looked at me, smiling slightly.

"So that's why Uncle Insley's cheek was bruised."

"Guilty." I shrugged, "look, Drew. I'm sad, and hell I'm angry too. But your Mum, she – it was time for her to go. And that's a terrible thing to say because I really don't believe in any of that stuff – you know I'm pretty agnostic sometimes, but nonetheless I do believe your mother did die for something. I believe she died for a reason, I'm not sure what yet. But I'll tell you when I figured it out. All we can do right now, is carry on. We cannot shut down, you and I; we need to take care of Jude and Aubella. They need us. You need me."

"But Dad, who do you need? Who takes care of you?"

It dawned on me then that I was alone in this fight. I had all these people to take care of, who needed me. But whom would I need, who would look out for me? Drew was now in the same position that I was when Sylvester died, old enough to know what happened but too young to understand why. It was a terrible thing, this world. Fed of the sadness of the ones who lived in it, and we were all stuck in it. Stuck in its endless cycle of sadness, Rose was just the beginning, not the end. Our lives were not a film; it didn't stop when she died. I did not pass with her I was still here. Still breathing, still living, still plundering ahead with my eyesight weak and my will power fading. I didn't know why she died back then, I didn't want to know why she had to die but I knew I had to keep going – no matter how hard it got to walk, it wouldn't matter if both my legs were paralyzed, I would find a way to push myself forward. Not because I wanted to, but because of Jude, Aubella and Drew. They were something I would fight for until I no longer could, and even then I would still try because I would make sure they had the best life they could possibly have. If chopping off my hands meant my kids getting a better life, I'd do it without hesitation.

I woke early the next morning, with one thing clear – determination. I had to organize my brain, I couldn't have all my thoughts clouded, and I needed my head clear. Because from then on it was a straight path, a straight path to forgetting, forgiving. I had to start planning the funeral, notify the insurance company Rose had passed, and the hardest part – let the rest of the Darlings-fam know their beautiful Rose had withered. By six in the morning, I was up and running, searching the web for possible solutions, the 'parenting for dummies' books thrown around me and my reading glasses perched on the bridge of my nose. I had to know how to deal with my own kids, they'd lost a parent, and I wasn't exactly sure how to handle them since I never had a great example when Sylvester died. The whole family fell apart when he died, and I was not about to let that happen. Though motivation is only something that can last so long, it was not two hours later where it grew thin and I was falling back into the abyss of sadness. So many things needed to be done, the memorial, the cremation, everything. And I wondered, when would there be time for me to grieve? It seemed like everyone else was getting time to weep their eyes out, and be mad at the world, while I had to keep going. There were no tears, no time for being angry or brooding there was just the constant moving forward. At around eight, I grabbed the car keys and drove around with A Silent Film's music blasting at full volume. I cried a lot, got time to be angry, slam my fists against the hooter and then cry some more, until I composed myself because my cell phone rung. It was Drew calling, "Dad, where are you?" He sounded slightly panicked.

"The other side of town, sorry." I apologized sheepishly, and I thought I heard him sighing, and then drawing in a long shaky breath.

"I thought-" he cut himself off.

"What?" I asked.

"I thought you.. I thought you left us, okay!" It was clear that he was crying now.

"Drew, I would never do that, okay. I promise." I almost smiled the kid was just like me, so afraid of losing everyone.

"Yeah, that's what she said." He muttered, hanging up. The tears streamed down my cheeks again, and I cursed myself for being so weak. Teary-eyed, I returned home because they needed a man, not a mouse, someone who would be there when they wanted to cry, not someone who would be too absorbed in his own sadness. When I arrived home I heard music, and I knew exactly what was going on. Jude was drowning out his sorrows by playing the piano, that was enough to send every ounce of strength I scraped together flying out the window. Drew was sitting by the counter, absentmindedly playing with the cereal in his bowl, while Aubella was in the living room, dancing to the music Jude was playing. She had been taking ballet lessons ever since she was about two years old, and now she was getting pretty amazing at it. I went to stand next to Jude, and I could see he was crying as he slammed his fingers down on the notes.

"Careful there, you might break the piano." I said, as he stopped playing.

"Sorry." He replied, getting up, but not looking up to me.

"Jude. Come on." I said but he refused to look at me, just retreated back to his room. I decided then to call the one person who would know how to handle a child so much like myself – my mother. The phone rung three times before she picked up, "Harry."

"Hi, Mum." I smiled slightly.

"How are you holding up?" She asked.

"Pretty okay, it's Jude I'm worried about. He just keeps going to his room, and playing the piano when I'm not in the living room." I sighed, and I swore I could hear her laughing a bit.

"Sounds all too familiar. He's angry, H. He's grieving, and he'll be okay. Give him some space." She replied.

"Thanks, I just wish he would speak to me."

"I know I wish that too. But let him be, the kid lost his Mum, if he wants to talk – he'll come to you." She said.

"Thanks again, Mum. I knew I could count on you." I smiled as she said it.

"Anytime, honey. I love you and if it gets too much, I'm just a phone call and thirty minutes away, all right?" She replied.

"Yes, and thirty minutes?" I asked, genuinely baffled. She lived in Stockport, rarely ever left her house.

"I'm staying with a friend of mine in Cambridge, just for a bit. I need to be close to my son for a while." She responded.

"Thank you, and Mum?"

"Yeah, Harry."

"I was thinking of flying down to Italy, to visit Concetta and Benigno, but mostly to stop by his tree." I said, biting my lip.

"I want to go with you." She said.

"You hate flying." I responded.

"I know, but we both need some closure, we haven't been to his tree in a couple years." She said.

"I know, that's why I want to go. I'll give you some more details when I've finalized it all. Love you."

"You too." She hung up.