Stay

"No... no! NO!" Chase screamed as a burst of green light flew from his wand, and hit her baby. "NO! KATIE!" Chase sobbed, struggling in her chair. "YOU MONSTER!" Chase was sobbing, and struggling, unable to move. "KATIE! NO!"

Giggling drifted from their lips in abundance as their intertwined fingers curled around a large bundle of brilliantly colored crayons. Though his fingers were thin and made entirely of bone and tightly wrapped skin, his hands enveloped hers in the way that a parent’s must. “There you go…” Calvin whispered in the child’s ear as he smiled against he cheek contently, “press them to the paper,” he proceeded to guide her small, fragile hands across the construction paper upon which they’d drawn many a rainbow and family portrait.

The most frequently reoccurring image was that of a familiar redheaded woman with a heart-melting smile; it seemed the child was beginning to miss the presence of Chase Moor just as Calvin had. “Bright!” Katie cried with excitement, before dropping her handful of crayons in a sloppy pile on the floor and throwing her arms above her head, which only furthered Calvin’s laughter. “Very bright! Bright is my favorite,” he informed her as he pulled her nearer to himself, wrapping her in his comically long arms.

Fingertips trembling, he watched as the baby monitor slipped from his grasp and clattered against the floor below. The child had emitted one last cry before the thunderous crack of an Unforgivable Curse was fired.

“Pancakes?” Calvin asked the child as she danced from a sitting position on the floor in front of him. Immediately, Katie’s eyes lit with the excitement of fireworks and squealed. “Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes!” Before long, it had become a song, as the pair repeated the word for several minutes, each too energetic to remain entirely still in the middle of that hospital room.

“I am so sorry, Katie.”

Thin and withering away, Chase stood at the door to Calvin's hospital room, staring inwards at the man she had fallen in love with, the man she had protected, and who had saved her life.. The man who had helped raise her child. She was told he had strong hallucinations of having Katie with him, and just watching him there, made her whole body shake with suppressed sobs. Chase had her traveling cloak on, and she wrapped it around herself tightly, watching her husband play with an imaginary child, a child who had been dead for nearly seven months now.

Finally a nurse came along and tapped the door with her wand, and the door opened allowing Chase inside. Chase slipped into the room and watched Calvin anxiously, wondering if he could be pulled out of his grief made insanity to notice that she had entered the room. After seven months of losing herself, and forgetting the pain.. knowing he was safe, safe and happy in St. Mungos.. she had traveled, been beaten up by any number of magical and nonmagical creatures. Tended to the wounded, healed where she could, ended the suffering where she could not. She traveled everywhere learning, building knowledge, and writing, yes writing. Of her journeys.. of her time out of country, but it wouldn't do any good.. She would never publish anything that she wrote.

"Calvin.."

Chase whispered as though from across the years.

"I remember when I first told you I was pregnant... a child who belonged to another man... and you raised her like your own.. remember when Jack found me.. and brought me home.. and you saved my life, over and over again.. Calvin.." Chase said and walked farther into the room, slowly going to her knees and sitting not to far from Calvin. "Hello sweetie.."

It had been her voice that had shaken him, rather than her presence in the room. Hadn’t she spoken as she’d taken her place by his side, Calvin’s attention would have remained solely on Katie, who had beamed up at him as she had taken hold of Calvin’s hand in her own, when brown orbs had flicked in Chase’s direction. His clouded eyes settled upon her image and had remained still for a moment’s time as his crumbling mind attempted to piece together the details that it had been provided with. His head fell to one side as he continued to stare at the woman before him; the woman with whom he had fallen so desperately in love. “Chase,” he sighed in greeting, though his tone suggested that he had not yet entirely made sense of the situation.

His thoughts began to drift after he’d identified Chase, and he once more addressed the child who sat in his lap, remaining unseen by all but himself. With the gentle touch that Calvin had always saved for Chase and Katie alone, he planted a kiss upon the child’s head, and he gazed forward disconnectedly.

He did not awaken again until Chase spoke aloud once more – to which he reacted with a startled jump; a jittery motion of his spine that forced him to recline further backwards until his hunched neck had hit the wall behind him.

Katie no longer remained within his field of vision, having disappeared when he had moved. “Katie?” In the span of several seconds, the expression of confusion that he’d worn in response to the child’s sudden departure became one of terror. "No... no! NO!" He screamed as those words which Chase had spoken during that darkest hour echoed throughout the confines of his skull. "KATIE! NO!" He'd become a mirror as he spoke, reflecting through the pairing of his expression and his cries (which appeared disconnected from one another in their nature) the image of the broken mother who he’d failed seven months before.

Chase watched him recognize her and then go back to the imaginary child in his lap. Chase was crying silently as she watched him, watched him lean back, and then start to freak out. Chase crawled forward to him and gently wrapped her arms around him, pulling him to her, cradling him against her no matter how much he screamed and tried to get away.

"Calvin.. it's me.. Calvin, it's me baby, it's me.. Chase.. Chase I'm home Calvin.. baby calm down.." Chase said, tears sliding down her face, as she wrapped her arms tighter around her husband. Tighter around the man she loved. "Calvin.. listen to me baby.. listen to me.. it's okay.. I'm here." Chase said over and over again, repeating the words, hoping to calm him down, tears sprinkling from her cheeks onto the top of his head as she cradled him.

She wondered how often he lost control like this, how often the terror seized him, how often Katie was with him at all.. Katie, the child who had barely grown old enough to sit up on her own.. a child who stole the heart of every person she was around. Katie, who had nearly killed Chase on her way into the world. Chase tried to keep it together while she sat and rocked Calvin in her arms, holding herself together by only her will to not break down in front of the love of her life. "Shh.. I'm here now Calvin.. I'm here.."

In the familiar warmth of Chase's arms, Calvin's fear settled and he once more had forgotten of the fit that had taken firm hold of him the moment prior.

It had become increasingly difficult for the young man to concentrate, or otherwise remain lucid for anyone other than the child whom he'd created as a method of coping. Such sorrow had overcome his innocent soul that evening, so distance in its nearness within his mind, that Calvin had found himself incapable of remaining entirely present. He had withdrawn from the chaotic storm around him, and he had built for himself several walls behind which he was content to forever remain, safe and in the presence of the young girl who's death he had felt responsible.

But grey areas had been scattered throughout his imaginary realm; elements which acted as bridges between reality and what had become Calvin's every day. Chase's calming embrace was one of these exceptions; an aspect of his earlier life which had made him feel so connected to Chase as to momentarily allow him to pull himself up and out of the fog, and whisper softly with the smallest and kindest of smiles, "Hiya, Chase. I love you. Don't cry..."

Chase looked at Calvin, tears still streaming down her face as she smiled at him. A man who she loved... and had once again, ruined. It seemed everywhere Chase went, she caused destruction and despair, no matter how hard she tried, people got hurt because of her. Chase carefully moved away from Calvin, and sat in front of him on her knees.

"Hey baby.." she said, letting a small smile cross her face. It seemed he had been pulled out of his fog for the moment, and she had Calvin.. HER Calvin.. smiling at her. "I missed you." She whispered, her voice sounding slightly hoarse, like she still wasn't used to talking, and her crying was making her nose run. Chase lifted her hand up and wiped her nose, smiling at Calvin.

"How are you doing baby? Are they treating you okay here?" She asked her attention turning to the room around her, wandering over the furniture and toys that he was given, treated like a child, or someone had had a child with him. It looked like a proper playroom, and she was happy for that, he was comfortable and having fun, even if it wasn't exactly him.. just a shell of who he really was, someone she had gotten to know, someone who she had hurt, and come back to, a boy who's life was ruined because of her. She knew she shouldn't have gotten close to him.. because of her past, he had been driven to insanity..

Her past would never leave her alone.

At the sight of the droplets that glided slowly down the flesh of Chase's cheeks, Calvin began to recall what it was to feel guilty. Behind his walls, all was void of grief, sorrow, and guilt; emotions which Calvin had never truly known until he had found himself tangled up in Chase's love, and her world had splashed against his own. Thus, it was her love that drew him outward once more from his safe cocoon, and he was reintroduced to the pain which his subconscious had tried so desperately to relieve him of.

"Are you OK, Chase? I love you Chase. You were gone when I woke up, Chase - you were..." tears began to well within the frames of Calvin's long eyelashes, causing his brown irises to swim with fear. But his tone of voice remained calm, for his suppressed emotions had not yet fought themselves to the surface in their entirety. "I'm scared," he whispered with a smile that did not suit his words, or the tears that danced across his childish face. He reached towards his wife with needy hands, and took within his grip the hand upon which her wedding ring remained.

The ring. He recalled the ring with impeccable clarity. "Forever..." he reminded himself of the promise that he had previously made to the young redheaded woman to which he now desperately clung - unaware of how confusing his thought process may have sounded when spoken aloud in the presence of another human being. "I love you forever," he sighed contently, for it was unbeknown to him that he was crying. "You weren't there. I'm scared - was. I was scared, I think. I think I was scared." Another tired sigh and faint smile. "I don't know; I don't remember."

It was then that his neck snapped violently to his left; a direction which would appear to be insignificant to any other eyes than his own. Katie had returned, smiling from her place across the room as she smacked a pair of blocks against one another. And they shared a collection of giggles once more, reveling their affection for one another through their twinkling laughter.

Chase watched Calvin come to his sense and it tore at her heart, watching him struggle out of his safe haven, a safe haven she had forced him into. It was all her fault. She had destroyed this man.. she should be destroyed... to have inflicted such pain upon an innocent soul like Calvin.. it was her fault. He spoke, and she saw the pain, the pure, raw, unadulterated pain that lay under the skin of the boyish face, the face that had eyes that had once twinkled with life, that had shared his love for Mario, and pancakes. Eyes that had drawn Chase in, and made her love him.

She had killed it.. killed the beautiful soul that was Calvin.. she was a monster.. truly, a detestable monster that should be locked in a room so she couldn't hurt anyone else. "I love you too Calvin.. forever." She said, giving him a small watery smile. "You don't have to remember Calvin.. be happy now okay? I won't leave on purpose again.. All you have to do is ask a nurse, and she can call me and I'll be here okay?" She said softly, her eyes watching him as she leaned forward and suddenly he looked to the left.

Chase's eyes followed his head, and looked over at a table where some blocks lay prone, a few drawings sat on the table that looked as though a child had drawn them, and Chase knew that Calvin had, but they closely resembled something Katie might have drawn. Chase looked at the table, and then back to Calvin who was giggling. Chase realized he was gone again, he was gone.. Chase had lost Calvin again.

"Is she over there?" Chase asked in a soft voice, looking at Calvin the whole time.

She was there in his midst, smiling at him with the glee that only children could possess without instigation or reason. The light that was present within her was visible to his tearful eyes, and yet a bitterness remained within him. A blackness had begun to brew at his very core, and it was all-consuming, despite the slow nature in which it spread. What had once been an inkling of doubt within him had grown with Chase's return, as though it were a contagion that she had breathed upon him when she'd held him near. It was the purest form of sorrow; that which he had denied for months, and feared with his entire being its return.

But Katie proceeded to grin widely and to stack blocks upon one another - until she turned for a moment to retrieve one drawing in particular, and produce it before Calvin. Having come to the conclusion that Katie was trying to tell him something, Calvin pushed himself towards her and the drawing that she had offered him with his flattened palms upon the floor. He seized the drawing and raised it a fraction into the air as his eyes danced across the paper. He did not recognize the image that he found there, and he was certain that he had partaken in the creation of every drawing that existed within the room, due to the warmth that drawing with Katie created within him. But this picture held an icy chill within the dark colors that it had been made up of. Such terror had been poured upon that page, that Calvin's trembling fingertips lost their grip on the page and the memory drifted slowly to the floor, revealing to Chase the image of an infant lying in a cradle of black cloth with wide, tear-stung eyes. A brilliant flash of green shone around her, creeping across the construction paper like a phantom.

Calvin's attention darted in Katie's direction at the sight of the dreadful creation, but when his eyes returned to where the young child had last been seen, it struck Calvin that she was no longer anywhere to be found. "No - no - no - no," He sobbed while he collapsed on the floor, until his forehead was pressed firmly against the tiles and his forearms were all that held him upward. "I'm so sorry, Katie. My fault! My fault! No! I'm sorry!" he cried against the cold floor.

Abruptly, there was a rap knock of knuckles against the sliding door, and a saddened healer awaited Chase's departure from the room, so to inform her of the tragedy that the Daily Prophet had learned of that afternoon.

Chase watched as he went over to the table and picked up the picture. She watched him with concern as he looked at the picture with terror and it fell onto the floor. Chase felt her hand go up to her mouth and she turned away from the picture sharply, only to hear Calvin's pitiful cries come from behind her. Chase flew across the room, kicking the horrible picture away from her as she did so. The image was forever burned into her memory though, the image that he had drawn on the paper.

"Shh.. shhh..." Chase whispered, her arms moving to take Calvin into them. Suddenly though, a nurse entered looking sad. Chase looked up at her, and then at Calvin. "Calvin.. how about you draw okay? Draw me a picture sweetie.." Chase whispered, looking at the nurse as she held Calvin in her arms, trying to calm him down. Chase carefully withdrew and went over to the nurse. "Can you get someone to help him?" She whispered to her, tears streaming down her face as she looked back at the man who had once been so happy and thriving, the man who she had ruined just by being her.