Chapter Text
April showers bring May flowers.
“And more May showers, and then June showers….” Kris grumbled to himself as the deluge obstructing the visibility from his windshield continued to batter his car and cast a sparkling reflection from the red light in front of him. The old adage couldn't have tasted more bitter.
There wasn’t so much as a glimmer of sunlight getting through the vast thunderhead that had come over the area. It was three in the afternoon, and it was as dark as dusk except for those few, harrowing flashes of lightning that danced behind him on the lightning rods throughout the skyline. As sheets of water continued to shear through the air with the fierce wind, Kris looked at the carboard package in the plastic bag on the passenger’s seat. There were only a few marks where water had soaked the cardboard, and it still looked to be in good condition overall, but the thought of the mint-chocolate ice cream cake underneath getting ruined by the downpour gave Kris conniptions that almost distracted him from the green light. A few courteous horns from the considerate commuters behind him helped Kris regain focus. If it weren’t for the rain, he’d hear the kind words they had to offer along with the middle fingers they were sticking up from behind rain-obscured windshields.
He ignored them as he carefully depressed the pedal.
“Hopefully this’ll cheer her up.”
The road back home was a good forty minutes, though luckily, exit 32 came relatively quickly into the return journey, and he wouldn’t be subject to the horrendous rainstorm traffic for very long before the quiet backroads took over. They were bumpier than the highway, and so he couldn’t cruise along at 90 anymore, but the sound of the gravel and the absence of horns and jake brakes more than made up for it. The countryside looked so much nicer in the rain than the city or suburbs did. The grays of concrete and steel were replaced by the ochres and greens of roadside oaks and maples, mingling with the browns and reds of soil and compost. Every now and then there would be a hazy pair of headlights coming from the opposite direction, but they could be counted on fingers. The air was cool, both inside and outside the car. Kris had come to prefer it that way, especially today. No fog on the glass, and there was a better chance of keeping the ice cream cake in one piece.
The Police station and Hospital were just peeking through the verdant summer leaves, then on past the Diner, the Cats’ house, and the drive leading up to his mother’s place. The gravel on the road got coarser as the asphalt showed more and more signs of wear and age. The sound was soothing. It was like a fanfare that Kris had come to cherish, telling him he was home, and that Noelle would be right there when he opened the door with a hug and a kiss and warm fur the wrap him up in.
At least that’s how things were normally. Nothing had been normal for the past week. That was what Kris had been hoping to mend, at least a little. His eyes darted once more from the windshield to the cake and back again.
The lights were on, glowing amber from within the cozy, sizeable house, as was the case with just about every abode in Hometown. Gravel had become cobble, and it clacked and crunched under the wheels of Kris’ sedan as he drove past the open gate and up the long driveway. He came to a stop, and the ground fell silent, letting only the quiet hum of the engine take its place as Kris extracted the key and took inventory of his goods. Taking care to keep the plastic bag over the box, he gingerly picked up the cake and the papers that had been sitting under it, warped slightly by the cold moisture. Taking a few shallow breaths, he took it all under his chest, closed the car door and made a break for the front door of the house
A quick knock and an unlocked doorknob sent him in. He was alone in the front room. No hug or cup of hot chocolate. That’s fine, he thought to himself. It’s not like she owes me…
“Noelle? Honey?”
No answer. Only the pattering of raindrops on the windows.
“Honey?”
“Hey Kris.”
The voice was almost too quiet to make out as it drifted in from the hallway at the top of the stairwell at the other end of the house. Following it was a haggard, restless doe with slippers and pajamas on and a laptop in her hands. She shuffled over to Kris, setting the laptop down on the countertop and nestling her head on his shoulder. She was taller than him, so she had to bend down a little, but it was nothing new to either of them.
Kris’ lips landed over and over on her cheek. “Hey hon.”
“Hey…” Her voice was still low and somber. “All the filing done?”
“Yep.” Kris pulled the copies of Noelle’s ledger out from under his arms and set it aside on the counter. “It’ll be a direct deposit in 21 days, your account.”
“You sure you didn’t want it in yours this time?”
“Hey, you’re the award-winning children’s author, not me.”
“Thanks…” For the briefest moment, a smile crept on her face before it dissipated like hoarfrost in the sun.
Kris’ eyes darted between his wife and the cake on the countertop. “I got us something by the way.”
He might as well have stayed quiet. The doe picked her laptop back up, not even noticing the box. “It’s fine we’ll… we can have it later.”
That was the fastest she had ever shot down his attempts at cheering her up, and it made Kris worry, even more so than before. He trailed his wife as she turned into the living room, taking a seat next to her as she sunk into the couch cushions.
His arm wrapped around her shoulder “Honey, you’ve got to talk to me.”
She stayed quiet, her eyes wandering from the blank word document on her laptop and the pictures on the wall, lit by a dying fireplace. Carol and Rudy and Dess Holiday stared back at her with living eyes from beyond the frames. The blank document faded as the screen darkened, and her hand wasn’t on the trackpad anymore.
“Noelle, please. I hate seeing you down like this. You know that.”
She blinked, and the eyes were back to being polaroid sheets and studio printing paper behind glass.
“Honey, it’s been two years… I know it’s been hard, but…”
Kris turned his head to the calendar. June was left open and blank. None of the holidays in it mattered. As far as either he or Noelle were concerned. There was nothing to celebrate. Two years from last Sunday, he was speaking with Carol, formally, as usual. Stern as ever, but supportive. It was something about Noelle’s new publisher and his efforts to promote her newest work.
And a week later, she was gone.
Even if she wasn’t the warmest relation in his life, it still hurt enough that he had to swallow his spit before he could continue. “… but we have to be able to pick ourselves up.”
“What? I’m ‘up.’ I’m working, aren’t I?” She didn’t look at him when she answered.
He ignored the fact that the screen had gone black. “Well yeah but… it’s no good seeing you like this, you know?”
“How would you like to see me then?” Noelle’s brow began to fold a little, and her voice rasped cold.
Kris was taken aback. “I… I just… I just want to see you smile again.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She hissed as her brow continued to furl and her eyes got wetter. “I’ll just try and force one onto myself then.”
“Noelle!”
“What?!” She slammed the laptop shut and practically tossed it onto the coffee table.
“Honey, calm down! What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, squinting at him with grief-stricken venom. “How is it that you pretend to know what’s wrong and then you ask me?!”
“Noelle, I-!”
“You know how much it hurts this time of year… how much it hurts to remember…”
He could tell that behind the anger there was pain, and he wanted nothing more than to comfort her. “Noelle, it’s okay-“
She stood up in a huff, anger rolling down her cheeks from the corners of her eyes. “How is it okay?! You always do this whenever this happens!”
“Always do what?!”
“It’s like my feelings have to run on your timetable! Why can’t I grieve on my own time, huh?! Why am I not allowed to feel hurt? Am I not allowed to remember my own mother?! My Father and sister?!”
“I never said that you weren’t allowed to grieve them!” Kris stood up to defend himself, doing his best to maintain a calm composure. “It’s just that I hate watching it… sap the life out of you, you know?”
“Me?! Oh, you mean out of you?!”
“What?!”
“Look at that!” She pointed at the box on the counter with a deep scowl and look of revulsion, like it was a corpse sitting next to her refrigerator. “Every time I need to express my grief, you come in with some treat like I’m a dog! It’s like you say to yourself ‘Oh, she’s all mopey again, got to perk her up!’ It’s like I’m an inconvenience to you!”
“Noelle, calm down! You are not a-!”
“And there you go again! I need to express something from deep inside myself and you-“
“Noelle!”
“-And you expect me to just cheer up! Just shrug it all off and pretend nothing is wrong!”
“Noelle, that was never my angle. I only want to help!”
Now she was bursting into tears. “No! You’re just sick of me weighing you down!”
No matter how angry she was, or how much she pointed at him, Kris withheld his own anger with all his might when he saw those tears running along her cheeks. “You do not weigh me down-!”
“Yes, I do! You want to snuggle or go out or whatever while I’m still trying to come to grips with the fact that my entire family is gone!”
“I’m not saying you can’t grieve, I’m saying that you can’t-“
“’Can’t?!’ Can’t what?! Tell me! Tell me what I can’t feel-!
“You can’t-”
“-about mom dying!”
“You can’t just sit around and let it eat at you like this!”
Noelle crumpled her lips and threw her arms up in the air letting them fall limp at her sides. “Ah! Right! That’s right! How stupid of me!”
“Noelle, come on…”
“You’re right! I can’t just feel awful about my last living family member dying, especially a week from the day it happened! Who feels that way about something so stupid, right?! Just got to get a smile on my face! Nothing happened! It’s fine!”
Aggravation tore at Kris’ already frayed nerves. “Alright, now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“Yeah, I’m being super ridiculous!” She mocked in a sing-song tone interrupted by sniffling. “Just got to perk myself up, that’s all! Why don’t we just go out or have a pizza or some shit, like you want to do?! Hate to weigh you down, Kris….”
“Hon, that is enough!”
“Oh! That’s not what you want? Yeah, how silly of me. How about we head down to QC’s? My treat! I’ll make sure none of Catti’s family sees me all blubbery and what have you!”
“Noelle, please stop-“
“Oh! Oh, I know what it is! We haven’t had sex in two weeks, have we? Maybe that’s what this is about!”
Kris felt his mind explode at what was possibly the most disgusting thing she had said to him yet, and his red eyes lit themselves on fire as they widened under a furious brow. “Excuse you?!”
“Yeah, no worries! I’m in the mood! Nothing a little romp in the hay, won’t fix, am I right?!”
Kris hands clenched into fists. His temples and the back of his head were all on fire. “Okay, that’s enough!”
“See? There it is.”
He raised his finger at her, his arm shaking. “I said enough!”
“Yeah. Enough crying, enough feeling sad, enough feeling what you’re feeling, right, Kris?”
“We haven’t had sex because I could tell you needed space! I wasn’t going to ask you while you were still grappling with it.”
“And now you’ve run out of patience is that it?!”
That little barb nearly sent him over the edge. His lungs shook, ready to fill themselves to fill a scream he was holding back with all his strength. His teeth grit in a final attempt to keep his volume down.
“No!”
“That’s your only answer? ‘No?’”
“I HATE seeing you like this! I hate seeing you break down and shut out the world whenever you remember! How hard is it to understand that I just want you to feel better?! You think I like seeing you sad?! You think I like it when you’re miserable?!”
“No, you certainly don’t... especially when it gets in the way, huh?”
Kris shut his eyes, took a few paces, and slammed a hammer fist into the nearest wall. “Oh my GOD, how am I not getting through to you?! How are you not understanding me right now?!”
“No! You’re the one who doesn’t understand me, Kris! You don’t understand any of this!”
“You don’t think I know how feeling this way works?! You don’t think I haven’t felt miserable or alone before?!”
“I’ll tell you what you know! You know what it’s like to have a mother living next door! Having a father who’s just a five- or six-minute walk away! You know what it’s like to still have a sibling into adulthood who constantly calls you and keeps in touch with you! And he may be away, but at least you know where he is! There isn’t some long unsolved mystery behind where he works! I still don’t know what the hell happened to my sister! And in the meantime, the only two people I had growing up are DEAD! GONE! I don’t have anyone anymore! Sure, your family wasn’t perfect. Sure, it didn’t work out between Toriel and Asgore, but they’re still there!”
Kris’ expression softened. Now that she had aired it out, there was still one more opportunity to clarify his intentions. “… You still have me, Noelle. That’s what I’m trying to do. I just want to be there for you.”
“Yeah, that’s what you say, but the reality is, I’m just supposed to be there for you!”
Kris head sank between his palms as his heart sunk into his stomach. “Oh my God, Noelle…”
“You know what?! Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you do know what it’s like to lose someone. Toriel and Asgore aren’t your real parents, right?!“
Kris’s eyes shot wide open again. “Noelle, don’t-“
“I wonder if you even remember your real parents. You’ve never told me their names. Maybe you just don’t care that they’re not in your life anymore, huh? Like you don’t care that my family is out of mine?”
“Noelle!”
“Maybe they left you for a reason, Kris!”
Those words had hardly left her mouth before she wished she could pull them back in when she saw his face. He looked like he had just been shot. Eyes wide and wet, face pale, mouth slightly agape, breath shallow and quiet. His hands weren’t fists anymore. They just sat limply by his sides. His feet were unsteady, and they shuffled back as the weight in his lean carried him slowly away from her.
“Kris, I… I shouldn’t have said that. I just-“
He stayed silent, shaking his head as the tears in his eyes began to fall.
The sight shook Noelle back to her senses as regret mounted in her faster than she could collect herself. “Kris, please! I didn’t mean it! I was-!”
She stood there, still and paralyzed as her husband made a break for the door, slamming it shut behind him.
“Kris, I’m sorry…”
She knew it was too late for him to hear her, but it had to come out.
“I’m so sorry…”
She wept alone in the house. Alone with nothing but the sound of the rain drowning out her broken cries.
“I’m sorry….”