Lifelines
Tommy’s sister dies and he is given custody of her 6 month old daughter | rating: G | Total word count: 3,407 | Chapter 4/? |
[Read on Ao3 here]
Tommy finds that time passes regardless of his feelings about it. He starts to build back up. The grief starts to mould into a pressure under his rib cage. Not as suffocating as it used to be, but still there, throbbing in time with his heartbeat.
The months pass, he watches Ava grow. She starts to pull herself up on his old coffee table, wobble her way around it with a little crease of concentration in her brow. She starts to eat solid food. Watches as she goes from banging blocks together to building careful towers.
He takes up Howie's offers of walks, explores the city with fresh eyes, finds out where all the good play areas are. Jee sits with Ava in the sand, carefully explaining how to make mud cakes. Ava watches, clumsily scoops sand in the general direction of the bucket Jee is holding out to her, they laugh together.
The grief throbs.
[Read on Ao3 here]












