Sunday Mornings

"Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?" James looked over at Riley when she asked him this, and he shrugged his shoulders in response. He wasn't sure, not completely, but he knew he couldn't put it off any longer so after shrugging his shoulders he nodded his head. Riley smiled gently and asked him, "Where do you want to start?"

He let out a breath of air and looked around, before he admitted, "I have no idea, just not... the master."

He didn't want to tell Riley that while he thought he was ready for packing up Quinn's things going back into the master bedroom, and through her things, in there he definitely wasn't ready for. He wasn't at that point yet and he was sure he wouldn't be for a while yet.

He didn't have to tell her, instead, Riley smiled, nodded, and asked, "How about we start with her studio space? That will probably take the most time."

James let out a chuckle and nodded, and so he followed Riley into the studio behind the stairs, both of their arms filled up with boxes. Once they were inside the room James looked around, overwhelmed, while Riley unfolded three boxes and placed them in the middle of the room. He asked her, "Where do we even start? How do we... you know?"

She pulled a Sharpie from the pocket of her jeans and wrote on each box, telling him, "We can start one drawer at a time and work our way around the room."

James looked over at the boxes.

Trash, Donate, Keep.

So he took in a breath and he pulled the wheely chair out from where Quinn's computer had been and placed it next to Riley and as she took a seat he grabbed the chair from the other side of the desk for himself.

He told Riley, "I need you to be strong with me. Shit that I want to keep for no reason other than her, I need you to make me get rid of it. Otherwise, all of this room is gonna go in the keep pile."

She smiled gently and nodded at him, reaching over to grab his hand to give it a squeeze for a moment before she started gathering papers on top of the desk. She asked him, "Can you set up another box? One for the salon stuff?"

He was probably going to be useless for most of this day, but following instructions James could handle.

Riley had most of the things on top of the desk placed into neat piles by the time James had finished struggling to unfold the box. James admitted to Riley, "I don't even know what to do with half of this shit. Most of it's probably going to get thrown out, and who's gonna be able to find a use for a desk like this?"

"So you keep the desk, and get rid of everything else." Riley told him.

James shook his head, "I need everything to go Riley. I can't keep any of it. I have half the mind to build a wall over the door to this room right now."

"Okay, so we throw out anything that needs to be tossed and we donate the rest. Maybe donating things will help you with this." He didn't think so, but he didn't voice that. Riley placed all of the paperwork neatly into the box James had labeled 'Salon' before she turned to the first drawer between them. She turned to James then, and she asked him, "You ready for this?"

"Nope." He told her honestly, but he reached out and pulled it open.

Inside the first drawer were a few rows of lipstick tubes, some hair accessories and a bowl filled with change in it. Riley told him, "Most of this should probably get thrown out."

James reached in and grabbed two of the shiny gunmetal colored lipstick tubes that he knew by heart, and he said, "Except these."

Riley looked down at his hands, and then she looked at James and she spoke softly, "You told me not to let you do this."

He nodded slowly, "I know, but... I know it doesn't make sense but I can't... right now."

She was silent for a moment before she nodded and she told him, "Okay, here's the deal. You get to keep four items that I don't understand."

So he nodded his head and he placed the two lipstick tubes gently into the bottom of the box marked 'keep' and then he watched Riley dump the rest of them into the trash box and they moved onto the next drawer. It was filled with much of the same, well-used products went into the trash section, and anything new or untouched went into the donate box.

They worked in silence for a long time and James even found the process of going through Quinn's things and throwing them out a lot easier than he expected.

That was until he pulled the third drawer of the second unit open and found it filled with a mixture of cards, pictures, and jewelry kept in their protective boxes that he had given her over the years. He took in a shaky breath as he reached into the drawer and pulled out a big, flat, square box, holding it in both of his hands for a few minutes. He knew what was in it.

He handed it to Riley without so much as a second thought and told her, "We should make a pile of pawn shop crap."

Riley opened the lid and looked down at the delicate chain holding the medium sized triangle pendant, that had James, Quinn, and Peyton's first initials engraved on the back. She asked him, "Are you sure?"

He shrugged, "I got her that when we brought Peyton home. I have no use for it."

Riley closed it and she set it not in the donate or trash boxes but in the keep box. When she turned back to James to find him with his brow lifted she explained, "You might want to hold off on that. Those are the kind of things that the little girl upstairs might want someday."

James sighed. He hadn't even thought of that.

So he picked up all but one jewelry box and gave them to Riley to put in the keep pile, and then he handed her the last, largest one, and he told her, "You should have this."

Riley opened it to find what she thought it might be; Quinn's favorite statement necklace filled with black pearls, crystals, spikes, and studs. If there was every a piece of clothing or accessory that screamed Quinn it was this. Riley had seen her wear it on more than one occasion. She shook her head, "I can't."

"Please. I get keeping the rest of it, but... that is the one thing I don't think I could ever handle keeping... but she would kill me if I threw it out." James told her, reaching over to close the lid before he took the box and set it on the desk in front of Riley. He told her, "That would be something she would want you to have."

So Riley nodded and they went back to working on the rest of the drawers. James didn't fight her on much of anything at all, which was surprising. He only requested that they keep anything that was really special to Quinn, like the little unicorn head sculpture ring holder, and her journals because he thought some day he and Peyton might want them. In fact, James didn't say much of anything until he had to face the closet that he knew was filled with all of the clothes that weren't quite casual enough for everyday wear. Clothing he could remember every date, outing or special event she had worn them to. Clothing that had a memory to go along with it.

That was when he told Riley, "I thought the rest of this room was gonna be hard... I'm sorry if I start fighting with you now."

She smiled and patted his arm and as he slid the mirrored closet door open she told him, "I'll try not to fight you back too hard then."

Once the door was open James stared inside, and he couldn't help but laugh at the absolute cluttered mess Quinn had left in there. Things were hanging off hangers, shoes were just tossed on the floor in no apparent order, the top shelf was overflowing with things that weren't folded, and had very clearly been simply tossed up there without a second thought, mostly purses, clutches and a few tops. It wasn't hard to tell what was of serious importance to Quinn in here; important items seemed to be the only things hanging, folded, or tucked away neatly.

He couldn't help but say, "She was a pain in the ass when she was alive and it's good to know that didn't change when she was dying."

Riley let out a laugh and nodded her head, and she asked him, "Is there anything you feel you absolutely have to keep?"

He looked around the closet, and he knew that realistically there wasn't anything in there he had to keep. Someone could use all of this stuff, he knew that but it didn't make getting rid of it any easier to him. He reached inside and pulled out a dress with leather and mesh panels and he told Riley, "I know it's crazy, but she wore this on the last date we had, before... before she got sick again. I'd like to keep it for now."

"It's not crazy at all." She assured him, giving his forearm a rub.

So she took the dress from his hands and folded it neatly into the keep pile, and James pulled out a cropped leather jacket and a pair of chunky heeled bright blue ankle boots and he turned to Riley and told her, "I think Jess and Taya would want these... can we set them aside?"

She nodded and took the two items, setting them on the desk by the necklace box before she turned to find James grabbing armfuls of clothes and putting them into the donate box. She watched him clear the rest of the clothing out of the closet, and then the shoes, all of which got shoved into the donate box to the point where it was overflowing.

She asked him, "Are you sure about this?"

"I don't want any of it, and Jess and Taya said they didn't really want any of it either. The only reason I pulled that stuff for them was because I know how much they borrowed them whenever they were here or we were there." James explained to her before he turned back to the closet to tackle the top shelf, where most of the mess was.

He pulled things out by the handful, taking a moment to take a look at the items to make sure they didn't have any kind of holes or stains that weren't supposed to be there even though he knew there wouldn't be. He wasn't even worried about having to wash things, despite the mess she made in here Quinn was meticulous when it came to her clothes and keeping them in great condition. Case in point was the pair of boots he was sending to Taya, a pair Quinn had bought herself as a present when she got the green light of remission after her first tango with ovarian cancer so many years before, and the boots still looked brand new.

It wasn't until the shelf was nearly empty that he noticed a little box sitting at the back by the wall. He reached for it, grasping it with his fingers and sliding it forward before pulling it off of the shelf and into his hands and he almost dropped it when he realized what it was.

A brand new, not even out of the cellophane, bottle of the exact perfume he had been almost devastated to learn was discontinued. Just like when the sales woman told him it had been discontinued, James could have cried right then and there.

He immediately put it in the keep box, and when he saw Riley watching him his cheeks flushed. She was quick to smile and tell him, "That one I do understand, completely."

He let out a breath of relief and told her, "I broke the other one, and when I went to buy a new one and she said it was discontinued... you would have thought the world had stopped spinning over a damn perfume bottle."

Riley let out a chuckle, and then in a more serious fashion she asked him, "Why'd you break it?"

James shrugged and sat down in the chair next to Riley, and while she folded the clothes to go back in the donation box so that they fit better he told her, "I don't know really. I was pissed off... I'm always pissed off lately. I mean, I think I have a right to be, but part of me knows that it's not okay to take it out on everyone else so I try to take it out on myself."

"That's not healthy either, you know." Riley reminded him and he nodded his head in agreement.

"It was when Mark and Tina were here. I couldn't sleep, as usual, and so I went outside and Tina came downstairs for something and saw me so she came out there with me and we were talking and... she made a comment about how hard it was for her to be in the house because she had been hoping I would have cleared all Quinn's crap out by then and... you know it was such a simple, innocent comment and it just made me so mad. I don't even know why, but I made some really rude comment back and went back upstairs, and... tossed the bottle at the wall."

Riley smiled and joked, "Well that wasn't very smart."

James let out a chuckle and he nodded his head in agreement. They were silent for a few minutes, before he finally told her, "Mark and Tina wanted to take Peyton back to Pittsburgh with them for a while."

Riley turned to him in surprise, "What?"

He nodded again, "They thought that it would be a good thing for both of us, for her to spend time with family and for me to... figure my shit out I guess. You know, at the time I was so fucking angry with them for thinking it was okay to never be around and then come in and say that... but now... now I'm wondering if maybe they were right; that some time away from her might do me good."

Riley shook her head, "Not time like that, no."

"What does that mean?" He asked her curiously.

"I get where you're coming from. I can't imagine what you're going through, I've tried... and I get that you're probably feeling like the way things are isn't working. You probably feel like Peyton deserves more than what you can give her right now, but it's never going to be easy James. It's gonna be a long time before you can look at Peyton and not think of Quinn and be sad. You're gonna struggle, it's gonna be hard, you're probably gonna hate yourself for a long time for things that you can't change. But what Peyton needs isn't family she doesn't really know, it's you." Riley told him softly, and then she grabbed his hands and gave them a squeeze as she told him, "I think you do need some time away from her, but I think more like a few hours here and there, maybe a night off every so often. You're always gonna have to learn to live without Quinn, that's never gonna change so handing Peyton off to people that she doesn't really know for a few weeks isn't gonna help either of you."

James had to admit to her, "I'm so overwhelmed with her... but I am terrified to be without her. I'm so afraid of having to deal with my feelings because I'm not sure I'll ever be able to snap back to who I was after that."

"You won't. It doesn't work like that. This changes people, losing someone changes you but you have to decide whether you want it to change you for the worst, or for the better." She told him, and when he nodded his head again she added, "It's okay to take some time for yourself James. It's okay to have a breakdown every once in a while but you just have to remember you have to pick yourself back up again. Trust me, after my dad died there were so many days where I didn't want to get out of bed. Where it was a struggle to do normal things."

"So what changed? How did you do it?" James asked her curiously. They both knew parents were different than spouses, but James was desperate for anything that might help him.

"I was incredibly lucky to have Shea, he'd been through it, he knew when to let me mope and when to tell me to buck up and deal with it." Riley told him with a small smile, and then she added, "Roman said he's called a few times, that you never answered. Maybe you should talk to him."

"Yeah, maybe." James said with a nod of his head. Instead of lingering on the subject James got up from his chair, took in a breath of air, let it out and then said, "Guess we should get this stuff out of here."

So Riley gathered the things from the desk while James stacked the trash box on top of the donation box and carried them out of the room. She held the front doors open for him and then unlocked his SUV so that he could put the donation box in his back seat. That was when he turned to her and he asked, "I know that this isn't... Can you take this home with you, and throw it out at your place? If I put it in the garbage bin here I'm gonna end up taking it all out."

Riley nodded and unlocked the doors to her own vehicle, letting him put the box in her back seat next to Isla's car seat. She closed the door and opened the driver's side door for herself, but she didn't get in right away, instead she reached out and wrapped James into a tight hug, and she told him, "I'm really proud of you for doing this."

"I'm uh... not sure I really did that much, you did most of the work." James said with a small chuckle.

When she pulled away from him she shook her head and told him, "You made all the hard decisions and I'm proud of you for really doing this."

If he was being honest he was proud of himself a little bit, but he would never say that out loud. Instead, he smiled, nodded, and told her, "Thanks for helping."

"Anytime."

James waited until Riley had rounded a corner before he went back inside and upstairs to Peyton's bedroom. She was awake, sitting in her crib giggling away. He asked her, "What's so funny?"

"Up." She told him, holding her arms up for him.

He reached into the crib and picked her up, holding her to his torso he asked her, "You wanna go for a drive?"

She nodded her head, and James chuckled and leaned over to kiss her temple softly before he got her ready to go outside; socks, shoes, a little baby sized sweater and even a hat. He pulled a light sweater on himself, shoved his feet into a pair of shoes and headed out to the car, where he strapped Peyton into her car seat and then got into the driver's seat.

He drove in silence, smiling as Peyton made noises from the back seat, and at a red light he glanced back to look at the box sitting next to Peyton, piled high with things he knew he had to get rid of. So he kept driving, following his GPS until he pulled onto the street next to a building that housed a women's shelter that he recalled one of his teammates doing a charity thing at, or maybe it was one of the wives. He couldn't remember, he just remembered the name of the place.

His life without Quinn had to truly start sometime, might as well make it today.