Fitz felt his heart plummet in his chest. He realised, in that moment, that all the cliches were true. He really could feel it sink down into the pit of his stomach. June’s expression was passive as she looked back at him, and he knew he should be comforted by that. There was no snide tone to her question, nor a triumphant look on her face that screamed the fatal gotcha that his nervous system seemed to be responding to.
“I’m really trying,” he breathed, pathetically.
And it was true, even if everybody chose not to believe him. It might be just about the only reason he’d stuck with the godforsaken sport in the first place. He knew he’d disappoint his parents regardless – he could stay or go and he’d never be enough, not really. But that eternal, lingering weight of expectation and Brendon’s legacy held him in place, sturdy and unweilding. Fitz wasn’t nearly as stupid as most people assumed; He knew how much men like Elias hated him, how much of a resounding disappointment he was to Hayden and June, to Jax and Annie, to the whole fucking grid. He pushed his body to extremes with his head pounding and his ears ringing while every single one of his limbs screamed in protest, all to honour the ghost of a man who probably couldn’t have picked him out of a lineup.
There was nothing more he could add to the conversation, not to satiate June’s need for answers. He had nothing to offer, so he simply sat and waited, listening in earnest, quietly basking in the momentary glory of her fleeting smile. June had never smiled at him like that, and she likely never would again. It worked wonders to alleviate the ache in his chest, even if only briefly, and he wondered if she knew even a fraction of the impact she had on his heart.
He let June's words sit with him, possibly for a beat too long. He wanted to give her some great, fantastical response that would put the whole entire universe into perspective and help her view things in a fresh light. He wanted to twist the narrative and remind her that her mum was special, and that she'd meant something. Because she was, and she had. She still did. But he found that he fell short, his mind whirring with useless, meaningless advice and anecdotes that would take them nowhere but on a journey to a dead end. He wasn't smart like Elena or a wordsmith like Vinny. He was just some dumb jock that was in over his head.
"Well... Fuck the cosmic clock," he grumbled. He begun drumming a finger against his thigh, nervous energy coursing through his limbs. "An' on that note, fuck the dinosaurs too."
He huffed out a weak laugh, fully recognising how ridiculous he probably sounded to June, but he powered on anyway.
"Nah, seriously. Like, who gives a shit what some scientist says? Like, whether it's a theory or actually rooted in something, what does it actually matter to us? Maybe we're a nanosecond on the Universe's clock, but for us it's a lifetime. And your mum meant something, and she left a fucking mark whether the Universe likes it or not!" Fitz hadn't intended to get so riled up, and he'd hardly even noticed that he had been until he felt his voice lift on his final exclamation. He blushed, shaking his head as he ducked away from June's gaze and stared down at his shoes instead. Lowering his voice, he adopted a softer, lighter tone. "I just mean, like. She made you, init? And all those good parts of her are being kept alive through you, so she's not gone. Not completely."
The more he thought about it, the thicker his throat felt. He tried not to think about dead people all that much, you know, as a rule. He had enough on his plate without spiraling down the thought process of his own mortality, but it was hard not to let June’s words ring in his ears. He thought of Brendon, who was probably looking down on him now, clocking him for the fraud that he was.
“And Brendon, too. He lives on in people like you, like Eli and Jax...” he frowned, clearing his throat as he tried to disguise the way his voice cracked. He highly doubted he was making much sense as it was, the last thing he needed to do was cry in front of the girl of his dreams. “I don’t reckon there’s a clock out there that gets to decide who we are or how much we matter, I guess. Only we do.”
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