Weapons of War

“So, James talked to you right?” Quinn asked Riley curiously as they sat across from each other in a restaurant for lunch. Riley looked up and over at Quinn and raised her eyebrow and Quinn called her out, “I know you know, about Anna. You're not good at hiding things, inviting me for lunch out of the blue when normally you don't leave the house means you know.”

With a sigh Riley tucked a stray curl behind her ear and she took a long drink of water before she told Quinn, “Yes, James came over and he told me about Anna, and he asked me to talk to you, but this lunch thing isn't just about that.”

“So what else is it about?” Quinn asked her, giving her a side eye look as she glanced down at her menu, even though neither her or Riley needed to look at the menu. They were regulars here, before Noah got sick, this had even been their secret meeting place when Riley was pregnant and her cravings were getting the better of her and when Quinn was in the mood to ruin her 'diet' which was all the time.

Riley smiled, “Nice try buddy, but first we dissect your problems and then we can dissect mine if we have time.”

Quinn sighed and told her, “Alright, ask whatever you want.”

They ordered first, and then Riley took another drink of her water and she asked Quinn, “How are you?”

Quinn's brows furrowed together and she asked, “That's your first question? How am I? Fine. I'm fine.”

“Are you okay?” Riley asked, more or less repeating herself for the sake of pushing her point a little further. She knew Quinn, she knew she needed to be pushed and Riley really, really was in desperate need for a distraction from her life right now.

Quinn sighed, “I mean... yeah I am. I mean... as much as I can be, I can't say I was that surprised.”

“Honey it's okay to be upset. It's so okay to be upset, I would be.” Riley told her, and she reached across the table for a moment, grabbed Quinn's hand and gave it a squeeze before she took her hand back and dropped it in her lap.

“When she called me, it was um, the day she was due.” Quinn admitted, and when Riley's facial expression softened she let out a small chuckle, though her eyes were filled with tears and she said, “I thought she was in labor. I thought...”

“You thought you were getting a baby.” Riley stated.

Quinn nodded and sighed gently, “And then she told me that she couldn't go through with the adoption, that something changed and she just couldn't do it and I can't blame her, I can't be upset because I wouldn't have been able to do it either.”

“So be sad for as long as you want, but then pick yourself up and try again.” Riley told her, and when Quinn nodded her head slowly she reminded her, “Sometimes people have to try and try before it happens.”

“James bought a crib.” Quinn said softly, looking down at the table between them.

Again Riley reached out across the table and grabbed Quinn's hand, but this time she held it tightly and didn't let go, not even as she said, “So save it, store it behind a bunch of stuff in the garage where you can't see it until you're ready to take it out again.”

With a grin Quinn asked, “Alright, we solved my problem now let's solve yours.”

With an amused smirk Riley asked her, “What makes you think I have a problem?”

“You look sad Riley.” Quinn told her, and when Riley raised her eyebrow she added, “You look sad, maybe I can see it because we're so close but you do, you look so sad.”

Riley sighed, took another drink of her water. She wanted to tell Quinn everything; the baby and Shea and her messed up feelings about it all, but she couldn't. She could not do that to Quinn right now. Not after what had happened, and so she told Quinn, “Shea and are... I don't even know how to describe what we are right now.”

“What happened?” Quinn asked her curiously.

“We got into a big fight last week and we haven't really talked much since.” Riley admitted to her.

“Riley! You can't just go a week without talking to your husband, the father of your son.” Quinn stated, as if Riley didn't know this.

“We talk, we just... don't talk about our fight.” When she said this Quinn shot her a look and Riley sighed, tucked both sides of her hair behind her ears and said softly, “We don't talk about much of anything anymore honestly, unless it has to do with Noah or what time his next game is, or when he leaves next.”

“When did it get like this?” Quinn asked her curiously, and Riley knew why she was asking. Because she and Shea were so, so good at acting. She could be an academy award winning actress by now, if that actress were lying to all of her friends and family about what was really going on in her life.

She picked at the paper napkin beside her, and tried to think of how to answer that question. When did it get like this? When did this happen to them? When did they end up where they are? She didn't know, so she told Quinn, “I don't know. I mean, one second things were fine. One second the most we argued about was who washed the laundry next or which drawer to move the utensils in the kitchen to, and then... and then they found a tumor on our two year old's kidney, and then Shea started to hate his job, and then I took it all on and never even stopped to ask if I could handle it.”

“And can you?” Quinn asked and when Riley's teary eyed face turned her attention to her Quinn explained what she meant, “Can you handle it Riley?”

She shook her head, “I don't think that I can, not any more.”

- - -

When Shea arrived home late after a game that night he was expecting to find Riley already in bed with her back to him like he had been coming home to for a week now. He expected more of the same, the same avoiding the elephant in the room, the same talking about everything but what they really needed to talk about. He didn't however, expect to come home after a gruelling game to find her on the floor in the kitchen scrubbing a couch cushion with what he guessed, based on the smell, was bleach.

He set his suit jacket down, pulled his cell phone, wallet and keys from his pocket and left them on top of the counter above the dishwasher and was alarmed when he heard the crunching of ceramic under his feet. He looked down and found a casserole dish and what he assumed was tonight's dinner shattered on the floor by the stove. He was glad he left his shoes on.

His attention was pulled back to Riley at the sound of her sniffling, and he stepped toward her. He bent down to be at her level and she didn't look up at him or even stop scrubbing so he reached out and wrapped his hands around her wrists to stop her. She did, for a moment, before she fought against his hands and eventually he let them go and he stayed where he was; bent down before her, and watched her scrub at an orange stain on the couch cushion.

Curiously he asked her, “Is that puke?”

She stopped scrubbing, nodded her head, sniffled and then went back to scrubbing. They both knew that stain was not coming out, but Riley didn't stop scrubbing so Shea didn't stop her. Eventually he sat down on the floor, stretched his legs out on either side of her, and finally Riley spoke, “He threw up all over the couch and he was crying and I was taking dinner out and I was so concerned with him that I dropped the whole thing on the floor and made a mess and now I can't get this stain out of the cushion and I can't clean it up.”

“It's okay. It was a dish, and it's a couch Riley.” Shea told her.

She tossed the scrubber she was using into the bucket of bleach and pushed the couch cushion off of her and she pulled the gloves off of her hands and ran them through her hair, pulling on the ends of her long brown locks and said, “It's not about the couch Shea.”

“Then what is it about?” He asked her, grabbing her hands in his.

“I'm tired.” She told him, and when his brows furrowed she continued, “I am so tired, and I'm angry, and I'm tired.”

“Angry about what?” Shea asked her curiously, watching her carefully.

She looked over at him, and tried her best to blink back the tears that were on the brink of falling from her eyes, and she told him, “Everything. Our life, Noah... why we're having to deal with this. Why he's sick, and why us and why him and just... why.”

“So you're angry.” Shea stated and she looked at him like he had three heads, and when she did so he got up and grabbed her hands, pulling her swiftly to her feet and he practically dragged her outside in the backyard. Once they were standing in the grass in the middle of the backyard at almost eleven o'clock at night Shea looked at Riley's confused face and told her, “You're angry? Let it out, scream.”

“Scream?” She asked him in confusion, and she glanced around the yard, all the houses had lights on somewhere but it was nearly black out, so much so that she couldn't even see the sand pit Shea had built for Noah when he was six months old, she couldn't see the poles that marked off the pool Shea was deciding whether or not he wanted put back there after a particularly brutal day where even the air conditioning just wasn't keeping up. She couldn't see anything but the house and Shea.

“Right here, right now. Scream as loud as you can until you get it out.” Shea told her, he had that mischieviois look on his face, much like the one Noah often had on his face, a look Riley hadn't seen on Shea's face in a very long time.

When she continued to stare at him in confusion he tilted his head back and let out a loud scream and she jumped in surprise. When he was finished he looked at her, as if expecting her to follow suit and when she didn't he screamed again.

“You're crazy.” Riley told him, but she smiled gently, and as Shea let out a third scream Riley tilted her head back and joined him.

They screamed over and over again, heads tilted back to look at the sky, until their screams morphed into laughter and their eyes met each other and they stared at each other while they laughed, and then Shea wrapped both arms around her and he held her tightly, as if that might fix her, and he told her, “Now, lets go inside.”

She followed inside, and past the kitchen, right up the stairs and through the bedroom, right into the bathroom. Shea sat her down on the toilet seat, and he turned the water on in the tub, testing it with his hand before he poured a small amount of bubble bath under the running water. Riley asked him, “What are you doing? I'm already knocked up, you don't have to try so hard.”

Shea looked over at her and smiled gently, “I do have to try so hard, you're my wife and the mother of my children, and I love you. I want to try so hard, I want to take care of you and make you happy and give you everything that I have.”

“Even after our fight?” She asked him curiously, and Shea looked over at her again with an almost sad expression so Riley added, “Don't apologize Shea.”

“I need to.” Shea said.

She shook her head, “You don't, I do. I am sorry that I made you think I didn't want this, and that I'm unhappy because I do want this, and I am happy.”

“I know that Riley, and I'm sorry that I picked that fight. I don't want to do this with you anymore, I don't want to fight and be angry with you... I don't want us to hate each other down the road. I'm sorry that I picked that fight.” Shea told her, and as he reached over and turned the water off he told her, “Now I need you to start taking care of yourself. Not for me, not for Noah, not even for that baby. I need you to start taking care of yourself for you, because you keep us together, because we need you, but also because you need you.”

Two hours later Riley found Shea sitting on the couch in the living room watching Sports Centre. She took a seat beside him, leaned against his shoulder and she told him, “Thank you.”

He shrugged, “It was a broken casserole dish, some food and a couch cushion.”

She glanced at the spot next to her, which was missing the cushion still, before she turned to him, smiled and told him, “I wasn't talking about the food or the cushion.”

He nodded, “I know.”

As she rested her head on his shoulder she slipped her arm underneath his and her hand into his and she asked him softly, barely loud enough for him to hear, “Do you ever wonder what our lives would be like if I hadn't moved here?”

He turned his head to look down at her but she didn't move to look up at him so he looked back at the TV and asked her, “Do you?”

“Every time we fight, but not in a bad way, I wonder about where we would be but never in an 'I wish I hadn't come' kind of way. I love you, and I'm so grateful for you and one or two fights isn't going to change how much you have given me and how much I love you.” She said, and he gave her hand a squeeze.

“I think about it, sometimes, too. In the same way you do.” He told her, surprising her, and then, he told her about all of the times he thought about where they would be if they were apart, “I always imagined you kicking ass in some big fortune 500 company, married to some big shot. You'd be making the whole working mom thing happen, a bunch of kids and a dog in Vancouver and you'd have monthly dinners with Dave.”

“You'd be married to some country singer with half a brain and you'd have two kids, only because three is an odd number and she wouldn't agree to four, and they'd all be named after... cars or cities, and you'd have a Stanley cup, and a Norris and you'd be happy and in love and you wouldn't be fighting with your wife about whether you can skip a road trip to be with your son during his cancer treatment.”

Shea sighed and kissed the top of her head and told her, “I liked the sound of that a lot better at a Stanley cup and a Norris.”

Riley chuckled and told him, “One day. This season you're getting that Norris.”

“And what about the Cup?” Shea asked her with a near smirk on her face.

She shrugged and told him, “That has more to do with you and your team, maybe you should stop letting pucks go passed you so often.”

“Is that so?” He asked in amusement, and when she shrugged he wrapped his arms around her and said, “Take it back.”

“Mmm... never.” She stated, laughing when they tumbled backwards on the couch. Shea adjusted himself, so that her legs were on either side of him, one pressed into the back of the couch, and one of his legs was on the cushions while the other hung off of it. One forearm rested on the couch cushion beside her middle, the other beside her head while his hand ran through the top of her hair, smoothing it out. He gently tugged on a curl with a wide grin and Riley couldn't help but laugh. She told him, “Some things just never change.”

Shea grinned at her, and then he glanced at the spot underneath them and he then said, “We should go couch shopping tomorrow.”

“We could just have the cushion reupholstered you know.” She told him as he leaned down so that their noses were touching, and he kissed her quickly.

He nearly grinned at her as he asked her, “Where's the fun in that?”