Through Me (The Flood)

When Simon was a child, he didn't believe good things could happen to him.

His father made sure of that, and as he became an adult, he never really grew out of the mentality. It was only solidified, after Roba, and the loss of his family, only further engrained in him, after he woke in the dark with dirt in his mouth, airway blocked by the earth itself.

It was persistent. His constant. The world was an awful place. Full of awful people.

Until you. Until you possessed his every thought. Until he realized that the affection that he held for you was not some fleeting obsession but something far, far worse. Something he was terrified to lose. Something called love.

He didn't believe in good things happening to him, for him, until you.

He can't think of anything in this world that matters more to him, than you and Orion, the baby. Cannot name a single thing he wouldn't give, to keep you both safe. Happy. With him. Forever.

“I need to see my son.” His voice isn’t his own, echoing in the mic, helicopter blades completing with the thunderous rattle between his ears.

“Almost there LT.” He nods in acknowledgment, but gives nothing else. There’s a violent black hole inside him, a planet shattering, sun obliterating void of dark chaos growing wider and wider, threatening everything in his path.

You’re okay. You have to be.

But why haven’t there been any demands? By now surely there would have been video, some grainy wide shot of your face, beaten and bloodied, held up by your scalp to look into the camera.

He chases the image from his mind.

You’re okay. You have to be.

“C’mere little man.” Fat tears roll down chubby cheeks, and Simon smothers his son into his chest.

“He hasn’t been sleeping.” Cami’s voice is watery, and she hangs onto Kyle, trembling like a leaf. “He was in his crib when they- when-“

“Shhh, okay. It’s alright.” She buries her face in his chest, shoulders shaking. Orion clings to Simon’s shirt, little sniffles breaking his already shattered heart apart into smaller pieces. He rubs his back.

“We’ll bring her home, Ry. We will.”

Simon’s kitchen is splattered with blood.

He was expecting more, to be honest, preparing for the worst. You wouldn’t have fought, he knows that, would have gone willingly to protect Orion and yourself.

That didn’t stop them from ransacking the house. They tore the living room apart and smashed out some windows. Threw Orion’s crib to the floor, which explains the bruising and tender skin on his legs and neck. Somehow, thankfully, the bruising was the extent of his injuries.

He traces the arc of blood splatter on the cabinets with reverence. If this is the last piece of you, what will he do?

The thought forces him to his knees. A moment of weakness in a long stoic twenty four hours, he bends at the waist and claps his hand over his mouth to muffle the hoarse sob forcing its way out.

You’re okay. You have to be.

This is where John finds him. On his knees, in the kitchen, face wet.

For once in his life, he doesn’t hear the thump of a boot behind him until John is at his side.

“Simon.” He jerks upward, and John’s sad expression from earlier has hardened into steel. “We have a hit.”