3.15 I'm Sorry

What is it with mothers that they always seem to know when something is wrong. Living in this house, but not apart of this household, his mother picked this night to come out of her cocoon of silence. So when Ryan came home from the bar, he saw his mother standing there, waiting for him. She only needed to take one look at him to know something had happened, so she opened her arms and took him in.
When Ryan thought he couldn't possibly have anymore tears to shed, he let go of his mother, while using his sleeve to dry his face. "Don't use your sleeve! It's like your 10 years old all over again," Ryan couldn't help but give his mother a small smile when she said that.

"Now tell me son, what happened?" Danya looks at her son, trying to figure out what could have happened to break through that facade he had created over the year.
Feeling like a teenager who is about to get a proper scolding again Ryan looks his mother in the eye as to dare her to judge him, "I ran into Madeline..." "Oh..." Danya did not know what to make of this. She always liked the girl and couldn't understand why she left so suddenly, she always wondered if something had happened between her son and her that made her leave like that.
"Don't look at me like that! I did nothing wrong!" Hoping that saying it out loud would make his heart believe it as well Ryan repeated softly "I did nothing wrong..." Danya raised her eyebrows, "who are you trying to convince here love, I don't think you did something wrong, but apparently you do?"
His mother always knew how to push the right buttons, sometimes he hated her for that when he grew up. "At first I was mad at her, I yelled at her mum, I blamed her for leaving us...and then she started crying and I tried to comfort her...and..." He had hoped his mother would fill in the blanks herself, but she just stood there and looked at him with a knowing smile on her face, "I kissed her mum..."
"I don't see anything wrong with a kiss boy..." Ryan's face turned red as he suddenly felt the need to study the nose of his shoes, "it ended up a few bases past a kiss mum." Danya couldn't help herself but chuckle, she thought Ryan had became an adult long ago, but apparently it was still hard to just name it as it is, "so you slept with her?" "Yes, I did, in the elevator..." Raising her eyebrows again, Danya pushed back the urge to laugh at the helpless look that appeared on her sons face. "Well, it's not the most common place to have sex, but it's not unusual either, you know your dad and I..." Ryan holds up his hands as to protect himself while turning his head away, "Oh god, mum! I do not want to know about you and dad! You are not helping at all!"

"It's not the elevator, it's the sex, I feel like I betrayed Satya, and to top it, I betrayed her with her best friend." Danya let out a sigh, she was happy that her son finally found another women that peaked his interest, but didn't thought about the consequences. She was not sure what to tell him, she couldn't think about sleeping with another man either, but truth be told, she would probably not be around much longer either. Ryan still has the biggest part of his life in front of him, and she thinks he shouldn't be on his own. He was never the kind to be on his own. "I don't know what to say to you, other then that you haven't betrayed her. Satya would not want you to be unhappy for the rest of your life. I bet she would even think the last year was already to much." When she sees Ryan preparing to interrupt her she raises her hand to stop him, "wait, let me finish, you haven't betrayed her, she is gone, and she will not come back, and don't think I don't know how you feel, in case you have forgotten, I lost my husband too. And I realize I haven't been dealing it that well, but neither have you! Just take some time to think about it."
Ryan opens his mouth to contradict everything his mother just said, closing it again he looks at his mother helplessly, he pulls his mother in for a hug. "Ryan, stop it! You're smothering me!" Ryan is grinning when he lets go of his mother, "I'm off to bed, I'll try not to feel to bad about what happened."

And with that, life slowly started to go back to normal again. With some differences though, Ryan decided it was time to work on some future goals as well, so he tried his best to get a promotion again. Filling his days with training so he would still look the part at work.

He's spend time promoting his work, just to get the word out on the street.

Rafe still worried him though, the boy never talked about friends in school, never brought one home with him either. He was wondering if this might be because Ryan was always there for him, to play with him. Perhaps he needed to stimulate the boy to make some friends.

When Ryan finally got his promotion, he used the extra money to get them some new furniture. He felt things needed to change around here before he could continue on. He was willing to change the entire house if that would help them move on. The one thing he wouldn't do, was change his bedroom though. He needed that place to remember him of all the good times with Satya.

His mother kept true to her word as well. She slowly started to get around again. She would take care of Rafe a bit more, keep him company while Ryan was working out. Every now and then she even walked outside and looked at her apple trees. Rafe was happy his grandmother was around, but he was not so sure if it was helpful to have her around.

"Grandma! Help me! There's an angry looking ghost over there!!" Danya looked into her mug of coffee, she needed at least 8 cups a day to stay awake, all that sleeping she did was not good now that she wanted to stay awake again. "Don't worry hunny, it's just your great grandfather, don't mind him, he's just a mean bully, but he can't do you any harm. Just ignore him, he doesn't like that." Rafe looks at his grandmother, not sure this was the help he was looking for, but sure enough, as soon as Rafe looked away and stopped paying attention to Avian, he went away to throw a fit at the computer in the hope of getting attention that way.

Ryan managed to always make some time for Rafe though, lately they had been spending time fishing after Rafe had expressed the wish to learn how to do it. Ryan had never fished in his life, but he was happy to try and learn it along with Rafe.

Just as Rafe was trying out to a new move with his fishing pole, Ryan noticed someone walking towards them from the corner of his eye. When their eyes met, he realized that she came here to see him. "Rafe, you just wait here okay? I'll be right back..." "Dad? Is that Madeline?" Rafe asked when he looked over his shoulder, "yes it is son, I need to talk to her for a minute, you just wait right here." "But dad!" Ryan sighed while making his son look at him, "No but dad, you do as I say young man."

Madeline had take place on the swings to wait for him, but when he walked over to her, she looked at him and started to get up to face him. "Your mother told me where you were..." He knew she was a coward at heart, but if his mother told him where he was, she had to have been looking for him. She had to have been working up a lot of courage to do that after how he stood her up like that in the bar.

When she get's up he finally sees why she came to see him. It wasn't that visible when she was sitting on the swings. In the few seconds following that moment Ryan doesn't know how to feel. Anger flashes through him, as if sleeping with her was not enough to deal with, now he also has to deal with a permanent consequence of it. But as she is looking at him, waiting for him to start yelling like he did in the pub, he realizes it is not just her fault, and the anger flushes out of him and the look on his face softens.

"It's yours, in case you were wondering..." Madeline starts of this conversation, afraid he might accuse her of being a sleaze, sure she slept with other guys, but she can still count them on one hand. And since Ryan... well, she didn't feel the need to, actually, she hasn't since she met the Crist family.

Ryan's face saddens, "I hadn't even occurred to me it could be from someone else Maddie," but then again, he hadn't seen her in a while, that he had had his life on pause, didn't meant she had as well, "could it have been from someone else?" Madeline looks down to the ground, "no, I haven't slept with anyone before or after you for a long time..." Ryan didn't even know he was holding his breath until he let it go. "Oh, good...I think..." He doesn't even know why it is so good, but it is.

"Look Ryan, I was gonna tell you the moment I found out, but things came up." Ryan Raised his eyebrows while looking at her, "Things came up? for, what is it?" he took a look at her belly, "5 months?"
"Well, actually 6 months, it's a small baby...but yes." She sighed not sure how to continue, "the thing is, when  I would go for a job interview, people would want to know for how long I could stay...and as soon as I told them I was pregnant, their faces would drop, and I just knew I wouldn't get the job. So I have been out of work for the last few months. I had to move out of my apartment because I couldn't pay for it anymore..." Ryan looked at her, "where do you live now then?" "At a friends place, but her patience with me is growing thin..I can't stay there when the baby is born, it's a small studio flat. And I've been trying real hard to find a place of my own." Ryan felt sorry for her, but there was one thing that still bothered him, "so with no job to go to, you still were not able to spare a few minutes in a day to look me up and tell me you were pregnant?"
Madeline hesitated to look him in the eye, but finally she did, "no, I could have looked you up earlier," Madeline confessed, gazing to the ground again, "but I just couldn't face your reaction when almost everything in my life was already going wrong."

Ryan sighed and lifted up her chin to make her face him, "I know I have yelled at you, I know I have treated you unfair by standing you up in that bar, but did it not one moment, just one moment, occur to you that I might have been able to help you out?" She turned her head away again, not sure what she had been thinking all this time. She had seen how kind Ryan had been to Satya and his son, there was now way on earth he would have rejected her or this child if she had came for help earlier, "I thought...I guess I wasn't thinking...I thought you'd be mad at me."

Ryan knew there was only one thing to do, "You'll come live with us, but just as friends, I don't want to be in a relationship. This way you will have a place to live, you don't have to worry about a job, and we can both have a hand in raising our son." Madeline looked puzzled, "what if it is a girl?" Ryan grinned, "It can't be, this family hasn't had girls in a long long time," scratching his forehead, "though Derrick does have three girls...but  I do have a theory why that is..." "Ryan!" "Oh yes, right, I would be thrilled to have a little girl though! But anyway, you can sleep in Rafe's bed." Now it was time for Madeline to raise her eyebrows, "In Rafe's bed? And where does Rafe sleep then?" Ryan looked away, a bit ashamed to have to confess to this, "Rafe sleeps in my bed." "Oh..." noticing this might be a bit of a touchy subject, she doesn't mention it further, "well okay then, so I'll head home to pack... Will tomorrow be okay?" Ryan looks relieved that she didn't ask why Rafe is sleeping in his bed, "yes, tomorrow is perfect, we'll see you tomorrow." As Madeline walks home, Ryan walks over to Rafe to head home as well.

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I have no notes :D except maybe that Madeline has been living in the Crist residence ever since Satya died :) she never left to be honest.