Nothing Really Matters

Norman had fallen out of bed when he woke up. I had been asleep on his arm and it took me a few seconds to understand what was going on. When I turned to my back I saw and felt the IV and catheter. I leaned over the side of the bed and found him crawled up against the wall, hyperventilating and shaking. Before I could move however, Mingus rushed into the room and hugged me when he saw me. After assuring him I was fine, he went to check on his dad. I had to get to him. He had to know I was ok. But the wires stopped me from moving and once I started pulling at them Dr. Carter showed up out of nowhere.

"Get these fucking things of me!"
"London, stay still...."
"Take them off!"

I yelled at her.

"Ok, ok, calm down. I'll get them off. Just lay down."

Quickly I obliged and she had removed everything in less than a minute. I ran out of the bed but my legs were too weak and I ended up crawling over to him. I grabbed his head between my hands and forced him to look up at me. He was crying.

"I thought you died...."

He whispered and lowered his eyes to the floor.

"I fell asleep, your moron."
"But you where gone..."

I raised both eyebrows questioning at him.

"What do you remember, London?"

Annoyed I turned to Dr. Carter.
"Why are you here?"
"You've been unconscious for 3 days, London. It's Tuesday."

I saw her mouth move and I heard the words but they didn't make sense. Last thing I remembered was telling him I wasn’t doing ok, not at all and we had been in bed and he had held me.

“Really?”
“Yes. You were gone for 3 ½ days.”
“I thought I just fell asleep…. Baby, are you ok?”

When I turned back to him his head was hanging and I had to grab his face between my hands once more to make him look at me.

“I thought I lost you. I thought you were dead.”
“I’m here. I’m right here… Are you ok?”

Mingus was still sitting on the floor next to us. He nodded when I looked at him. He looked a little choked up, tears in his eyes.

“I love you, London.”
“I love you too, Mingus.”

He threw himself at the pair of us and we were suddenly in a tight embrace on the floor all three of us. I think all of us were crying after a while and I heard the doctor leave the room. I knew I was going to have to talk to her and figure out what the hell had happened, but for now I just needed to stay close to my husband and his son. He needed me close by. After a while we moved back to the bed and while Mingus left to get some breakfast, I was finally able to get him to talk to me.

“I love you… I love you so much, Norman.”
“I love you too, Lo. But….”
“But what?”
“I can’t take this shit anymore. You can’t do this to me again. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get through something like this again. I can’t lose you, Lo.”

He was sitting across from me in the middle of the bed, holding both of my hands in his.

“Seeing as I don’t even know what the hell happened… It must have been bad. You look like hell.”
“It was… It’s bad.”
“Worse than September 11th?”
“Almost… It was worse because I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing by not taking you to the hospital. It was worse because… You just gave up. It was like you just gave up. You always fought before… You really don’t remember?”
“No, I really don’t.”
“You tried to kill yourself.”
“Why?”
“Fuck, Lo. This is fucking insane. You don’t know?”
“Not this very minute. I’m sure if I talked to Dr. Carter she would be able to fill in the blanks for me though. I’m sorry. I asked you to call her, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. She knew this would happen. She said she was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. Did you talk about it?”
“Talked about what exactly?”
“Your breakdown.”
“Well…. We talked about why I hadn’t broken down. Why I never allowed myself to break down or let them break them. She always said the day would come. Because of you. She said you were the right person to break me. You know, in a good way, not…”
“You can’t break down like this again, London. I’ll fucking kill myself. I can’t take this anymore.”
“I know… You’re too good to me. You should’ve left a long time ago.”
“And you should’ve learned you’re worth fighting for by now… It’s not just me anymore, Lo. They all love you. Andy, Gale, Chandler… Mingus. My son loves you, London.”
“I love him too…. It’s feels weird to admit it, cause I never thought I would love anyone else but you. You know, that it wasn’t any space left after I fall in love with you… It was one of the things I think Dr. Carter sorted out when I was in Boston.”
“What was?”
“That it was ok to love someone else then just you. That I was actually able to love more than one person, all in a different ways. Andy and Gale are kinda like the parents I never had. With Chandlers it’s like…. He’s such a sweet kid and…. I guess, close to what it’s like to have a little brother. And with Mingus… I mean, he’s a smaller version of you so what’s there not to love? It’s just weird that I’m able to.”
“She’s one hell of a shrink Dr. Carter.”
“Sure is. I guess I need to talk to her about this too, huh? You might need to talk her too, right? You’re freaking me out a bit, baby.”
“Sorry… It’s just been a few fucked up days. We really didn’t know if you were going to make it or not and then I had to go back to work yesterday and you were still here and I didn’t want to leave you.”
“You know I would’ve kicked your ass if they killed off Daryl cause of me, right?”
He actually laughed and kissed the palm of my hand before placing it to his face.
“Yeah… That’s what Mingus said too.”
“He’s one smart kid.”
“How much time did you spend with him this summer? Where you always with him when I wasn’t home?”
“Yeah… I know you don’t like it, but I wasn’t going to lie to him when he asked about all the scars and about… other things. He’s a lot braver then you think. You don’t have to protect him, he’s not a kid anymore.”
“He’s my kid. He’s always going to be my kid.”
“I know. I’m just saying… He knows more than you think and more then I know you want him to know but I’m not sorry for telling him.”
“That’s why he wanted to come…His mom didn’t want him to leave at first. He went ballistic, cursing at her. He has never been the emotional type, but you… You’ve… You really don’t see it, do you?”
“See what?”
“That you make them all love you. You’re one messed up kid but you just make them all love you anyway. You make them care so fucking much…. So you can’t do this again, Lo. Cause I’m not the only one scared to death anymore.”

A light knock on the door made both of us turn towards it. Mingus pocked his head inside.

"Dr. Carter says you need to get out to the kitchen and eat something. Now."

His father nodded our response and before I knew it, he had left the bed. I stayed for a second, watching him walk out, walking away from me. Mingus looked as confused as I felt when he turned to me. The tears that started to build up were out of frustration. I hated that I had put him through this. Again. I was mad as hell at myself because my fucked up past kept destroying his life. Our life. He didn't deserve this. Nor did Mingus.

"Give him some time..."
"Oh, shut up, Mingus. Don't sound so grown up, you shouldn't have to tell me that..."

He actually laughed a little as he walked up to the bed.

"He loves you."
"I know that, I'm not just sure he should anymore. For his own good."
"Now you shut up! Are you fucking insane? He hasn't been this happy before."
"Really?"

He had sat down in front of me and when he smiled at me I realized he was the only one who actually truly would know that.

"Really, Lo. I mean, mom and he were happy too I guess but that was ages ago."
"I'm just afraid it's too much. That he's finally had had enough of this fucking bullshit. I'll never work right..."
"You don't have to."
"But I want to. I don't want to hurt him. Or you, or Andy...."
"You're trying. That's enough for me. Besides, if you weren’t this fucked up, you wouldn't be you."
"Thanks a lot."
"I'm just saying he fell in love with you because who you are, all fucked up parts included."
"What if he stops?"
"Stops what?"
"Love me....? I mean I've never been able to keep anyone in my life before, I drive them away sooner or later. What if this was it? What if this was the last drop, the nail in the coffin, whatever you want to call it?"
"Have you stopped?"
"Stopped loving him? Of course not, I never will."
"Trust me, nether will he. He's just a bit messed up right now. I think he really thought you had died."
"Then why the hell does he just walk away like that?"

A loud crash of china hitting the floor made both of us rush up from the bed and head towards the kitchen. Dr. Carter came rushing down the stairs at the same time as I located the source. Norman was holding a glass in one hand and threw it hard into the wall next to the back door when both of us came to a staggering halt. The shards after a plate was already scattered on the floor. The glass shattered into a million small pieces when it hit the wall and I just stared, not knowing if I would laugh or getting pissed. He was crying when I finally took a step closer to him, stopping Mingus to approach him. He had just raised a second glass but when I put my hand on his arm and stepped into his line of vision he lowered the glass. I hadn't expected it at all and had no idea how to deal with it, but he recoiled when I tried to put my hands on his face. He even glared at me through the tears. He was angry as hell. At me and he had all right to be I just hadn't expected him to be. He had always been the forgiving one. We kept staring at each other. I tried to get inside his head to figure out how to make things right again but he didn't give me any clues at all. I had been able to read him like an open book in the beginning but now when I needed it more than ever, I failed. I could see Mingus and Dr. Carter disappear upstairs, leaving us all alone. I tried again and touch him but this time he stopped me by grabbing my wrist in a tight grip, forcing my hand away from him. Did he want to piss me off as well? Cause it was working. I felt my anger start to rise alongside the frustration of not being able to read him correctly. We had always had this way out. After every fight or argument or just a shity day we had always been able to kiss and make up. Had he really had enough?

"So this is it? You're giving up? Are you seriously giving up on me? On us?"

He didn't replay but kept staring angrily at me. I wanted to yell at him. Slap him. Anything.

"So "until death do us part" was just a lie? "For better or for worse? In sickness and in health"? Was that just a load of crap?"

His gaze changed slightly. He looked a bit confused all of a sudden.

"Do you want me to leave? Are you breaking up with me?"
"We would need to get a divorce."
"But..."

I took a step back, not grasping the words that came out of his mouth. He wanted to hurt me and he succeeded. He turned suddenly and the glass flew through the air, hitting the wall behind me. I snapped too then. Getting feed up with his bullshit. I slapped him hard in the face before shoving him in the chest, making him stagger back, on hand on his burning check.

"You don't get to this! You don't get to walk out on me!"
"Why the hell not?! You did! You walked out on me! Twice! You just fucking left!"
"Are you going to make me pay for that now?! Are you really that resentful? I thought you were the forgiving one. That you understood... what happened to all the promises?"
"What about everything you said then?! Huh?!"
"I never promised you shit! I told you I was fucked up from the beginning. I told you, I warned you! You know this would never be like anything you have had before. And you said you didn't care! You said we had to try anyway. You said he was right. That Alex was right and I believed you. You made me believe you!"

I was so close up in his face I could count the freckles on his nose. His eyes locked with mine and I could finally break through his facade. He melted right in front of me, the anger vanished and his shoulders slumped. Suddenly he kissed me and I kissed him back and we were one tangled messed of lips and tongue and hands touching and pulling. He had me down on the floor, his hands on every possible part of my body and before I knew it, cloths were coming off. Too many cloths, too fast. But there were no stopping him. He was too focused on what he needed and the anger and frustration I knew he felt, made him rougher then he had ever been with me before. I couldn’t stop him, but at the same time I didn’t want to ether. I needed this, we both did and I didn’t give a damn about the fact that his son could walk in on us at any second. If he needed to realize his anger this way, I was more than willing to let him. Not even 5 minutes past and he suddenly tensed on top of me, burying his face in my shoulder, biting me. I returned the mixture of pain and pleasure when I dug my nails into his upper arms. I had half expected him to just get up and leave me there on the floor once he was done, figuring he was still pissed, but when he rose, he pulled me into his arms and headed back to the bedroom. He literally threw me on to the madness before turning back to close and luck the door. I leaned up on my elbows to look at him but when he came back, he just pushed me back down without a word and began the same rough treatment as minutes before.

……………………………….

Mingus was on the couch, headphones on and watching a movie when I walked into the house. I met Dr. Carter at the front door, getting ready to leave it looked liked.

“Going somewhere?”
“Yes. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Ok…”

With no other explanation that that, she walked out and before I had found it in me to protest or ask why, she had closed the door behind her. Mingus jumped slightly when I placed a hand on his shoulder. He removed one headphone when he turned to look at me.

“Hey.”
“Hi…”

He was grinning from ear to ear and that made me even more confused.

“Is everything ok?”
“Yeah, great.”
“Where’s your dad?”
“In the bedroom.”

I turned and took a few steps towards their bedroom.

“I wouldn’t go there if I were you though.”

He said, still grinning.

“Why…?”

My question was answered by a loud curse, followed by a London crying out.

“What the….?”

I found the door being lucked when I rushed towards it. When I starting bagging on it, I could hear
Mingus actually laughing behind me.

“Lo?!”
“Fuck off, Andy!”

Norman called from the other side of the door and I could hear her giggle.

“Lo? Are you ok?”
“Holly shit…! Don't stop…! Go away, Andy! I’m fine…Shit!”

I had really wanted to kick in the door but I slowly got it into my head what they were doing in there, and that was something I really didn’t want to see or know anything about. It was enough hearing it and I understood why Mingus walked around with headphones on.

“Told you…”

He said, smiling when I returned to the couch. He handed me another pair of headphones.

“How long have they been at it?”
“A couple of hours now… Dr. Carter felt there really wasn’t much she could do so… She woke up this morning. Don’t remember anything though. She thought she had just fallen asleep.”
“I need to text Greg… We’re supposed to be on set in an hour.”
“Good luck with that.”

I wanted to keep talking to him about what had happened in the morning but I didn’t have it in me to force to the poor kid to listen to his father having pretty wild sex. Instead I did the same as he and put the headphones on, tuning out the moans and yells extremely effective. Too effective in fact. Neither of us heard the bedroom open a while later, but all of a sudden she was standing in front of the TV. She was wearing one of his long-sleeved shirts, her hair a complete mess and she had red marks on pretty much every part of her body that I could see.

“London…!”
“Andy…”

She said as I rushed up to hug her. I kissed the top of her head and felt the tears start to build up on my eyes.

“Are you ok?”
“Yes. Are you?”
“I’m now… You had us all really worried there, honey.”
“Yeah, I’ve been told. Sorry.”
“Sorry I yelled at you.”

Norman spook from behind me and I spun around to find him wearing only jeans and a t-shirt in his hand. I stared at him. He had scratches on his upper arms and his neck had bit marks all over.

“What the fuck have you done to each other?”

When I took a closer look at her I could see the red marks were mostly bites as well. I had never seen anything like that before on ether of them.

“You really don’t want to know.”

She grinned at me, placing a hand on my arm, almost like I needed to be comforted. He had the grace of looking slightly embarrassed as he finally pulled on the shirt, but she just kept smirking at me when my eyes darted between the two of them.

“You ready to go?”

He broke the silence.

“Are you?”
“If you can stop somewhere along the way and get me something to eat.”
“Ok… Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m fine, Andy. Let’s go, we’re already late, right?”
“Yeah… Ok, sure. What about you?”

I turned back to London.

“I’ll be there later on. I just need to… Recover.”

She said with a grin at her husband. He grinned right back before walking up to her and kissed her long and hard, grabbing her behind as he did, making both Mingus and me turn and look the other way.

“Do you need a kiss too?”

He laughed at me when I finally found it safe to look back at them again.

“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Ok then… Let’s go. See you later. Love you, guys!”
“Love you too, dad.”
“Love ya.”

They called from the living room as Norman shut the front door behind as and walked towards my parked car. He stopped when I came to the road and it made me walk right into him. He spun around and hugged me hard.

“Ok…”
“She’s fine.”
“Yes, she’s fine. But are you?”
“Not at all, but I’m going to suck it up until tonight or whenever we’ll have time to talk to Dr. Carter.”

He said as he finally realized me and climbed into the car. I followed shortly after and we starting driving in silence at first. I figured he would start talking when and if he felt a need to.

“I don’t know, man I just… I freaked out completely this morning. I don’t know, a panic attack or something. I thought she had died during the night, her eyes were closed when I woke up and I just… I broke down.”
“Mingus said she didn’t remember.”
“No. She thought she just fall asleep. She remembered what happened with Sean and that we talked about it but after that it’s just blank. She has lost 3 fucking days.”
“So that’s why you’ve been trying to kill each other for the last couple of hours?”
“I just got so pissed… I even said we should get a divorce, I mean, fuck… I’ve never been this mad at her before. At anyone before.”
“And since you couldn’t kill her, you just fucked the hell out her, or what?”
“Pretty much.”
“Damn, Norman, you can’t… I mean, fuck, do you have any idea what you look like right now? There’re going to have covering all that up.”
“It’s worth it, every second of it.”
“Don’t get pissed, but I just have to ask… What about her? Did she actually want this…?”
“Fuck, Andy what the hell do you think of me…? It might have gotten rough, but not like that. She couldn’t stop ether.”
“I just know how messed up she has made you before. You don’t always think clearly.”
“She hit me.”
“She hit you?”
“Yeah. She slapped me in the face. I think I said some shit about her leaving and that it gave me some right to leave her too.”
“Did you honestly say that? How fucking stupid are you? That was probably the last thing she needed to hear right now.”
“I know, I know, I know… It just slipped out, you know, not thinking clearly.”
“You can’t leave her, Norman. She needs you just as much as you need her, you gotta know that.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m just done with all this fucking bullshit. I’m sick and tired of all the fucking drama.”
“That makes us two.

…………………………

“I’m sorry, Mingus.”

She sat down beside me in the couch after handing me a plate of absolutely amazing smelling lasagna. She had been cooking for the past hour but I had left her on her own, having a feeling she might need to collect her thoughts in private for a while.

“What for?”
“Really? For all that…. Se…”

It seemed she had a hard time getting the final word out and I burst out laughing when she blushed slightly.

“For all that sex?”
“Yeah… Damn, why is it so fucking hard talking about this with you?”
“Probably because he’s my dad. He hates it too, so you’re not alone.”
“Good.”
“I really don’t care, Lo. I’m just glad you didn’t break up. What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. He was yelling, I was yelling and things just got out of hand. Then he was just kissing me and we… Well, you know.”
“Fucked.”
“Shut up! Don’t say that!”
“You know you got bit marks all over, right?”
“Fuck, yeah, I know… I’m sorry you had to hear it.”
“I didn’t hear much. Had my headphones on.”
“Good.”
“But you’re loud.”

I couldn’t stop myself from teasing her. It was just so good to finally be able to spend some time with her again. We hadn’t been alone since this summer and we had both had a great time then. I could really talk to her. Even about things I couldn’t talk to dad or mom about.

“Shut up…! Has he tried to talk to you about it?”
“What? You know you can say it, right? It’s just 3 letters.”
“Fine… Has he tried to talk to you about sex?”
“You guys having sex or me having sex?”
“Both.”
“No and yes. He hates it as much as you do when I bring it up. You know, that I know you’re having sex. But yes, I’ve had the safe sex lecture a few times.”
“Good. So is there someone special?”
“Not really.”
“Don’t sleep around too much though.”
“I’m not! It’s only been like 3 girls.”
“Come on, Mingus. You gotta give me the exact number, you can’t just say “like 3 girls.” Ether it’s 3 or 4 or 2? “
“Fine. Yes, it’s only been 3 girls.”
“Only? 3 are good. Don’t rush, you’ve all the time in the world. It’s not a damn competition, you know.”
“I know. How old where you?”
“The first time…? It was in 6th grade, I was 12. And don’t tell your dad I told you this. I haven’t even told him.”
“12? Really? Wow, that’s…”
“Early, yeah… I had an early rebellion against my dad. I just wanted to piss him off as much as possible. Maybe I had a secret death wish or something, I don’t know.”
“Was he a lot older?”
“Your age, 16. So please promise me not to sleep with 12 year olds. No matter what they want or how mature they might seem.”
“Hell no. What did you dad do when he found out?”

She turned her back to me and lifted up the shirt she was wearing and pointed to one of the scares on her lower back. I had never really looked close enough, but the one long thin scar she was point to seemed deeper and shown more clearly than the rest.

“He almost made it into the bone once he was done.”
“With what?”
“Wires. Metal wires.”
“Fuck… “
“Yeah, it was bad, real bad. I couldn’t lay on my back for a month.”
“Did you go to a hospital?”
“And say what? No, really I just tripped…? Alex was my on call nurse. Mom had… I guess she loved me in her own sick, twisted way but… She had made us a hidden room in the basement that dad didn’t know about. So that’s where we usually hid after something like that. So that I could heal in peace. And once I had, I was back doing the same stupid thing all over again and again and again.”
“Why?”
“Proving a point…? I don’t know. Dead wish? Suicide by cop? Letting him do it instead of just killing myself probably.”
“Did you ever try yourself?”
“Not when I was still in Boston. That came in New York, when things got worse.”
“Worse than tearing your flesh from the bones?”
“Yeah… Could we not talk about this right now, though? Talk about something fun instead. Are you gonna come with me to set?”
“Yeah sure. Shouldn’t you be talking to Dr. Carter though?”
“She ain’t here, is she? I’m sure she will be back tomorrow.”

The ride to set were spent with singing along to the radio on the top of our lungs, making both of us tumble out of the car laughing, a little hoarse. I turned and hugged her when she started to walk towards the place we had been directed to. She got a bit surprised but smiled and hugged me right back.

“I love you.”
“I love you too.”