The scent of cleaning fluid invaded his nostrils, stinging him and lighting up his senses and making him brutally aware of his surroundings. The lights beat down unrelentingly, wide and white. Sound didn’t quite permeate further than the lobes of his ears. He stormed through the hospital ignoring the pleas of the nurses to wait, to let them help him. They couldn’t, however – help him, that is. He slammed his hand on the button calling for the lift and got inside, a persistent nurse following in, badgering him for a response, one he could not give. He had nothing to say to her. He had nothing to give. He needed to get upstairs, and so when the doors opened, he continued to pace, the scuttle of shoes on tiles behind him flittering around his ears.
It did not take long for Theodore to find the room. After shirking himself out of the keening grasp of the nurse, Theodore burst in through the door, shattering the comfortable silence in the room. The nurse did not hasten to follow him but stayed a little away, holding her hand up to pause the security wizards who had rushed up in order to detain him. They were forced to watch as the muscles in the man’s shoulders tightened, his jaw clenched painfully, a vein popping out against the porcelain of his skin. They were forced to watch as his hands clenched, unclenched and his legs seemed to buckle absently. A hand slammed out against the frame to brace himself and Theodore Rookwood stared at his wife. Stared at his child, words unable to find themselves.
“Hallie,” was all he managed, a breathless, disbelieving word as utter sorrow changed to disbelief, absent hope. But that disappeared. It disappeared quickly and resolutely like a candle being snuffed out in the darkness.
Theodore’s hand slid off of the door frame and fell aimlessly to his side, every word on the subject that his father had handled so dryly with him once coming back to mind. It was to be expected, he’d said. Rookwoods had gross misfortune to make up for all that they had been gifted with. This happened. Though, only usually with weak, meek wives who couldn’t hold what was inside of them. It didn’t happen with strong ones. But of course, they didn’t marry strong-willed women. There was a reason for that. They didn’t listen. And when they didn’t listen, all hell broke loose. With Athena, leaving without preamble. With Bridget disappearing, allowing them to believe her dead. Now this.
And he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stand and lend a sympathising ear. He couldn’t pretend to understand because that was his child. He didn’t want to know what it was. What it would’ve been. He didn’t want to imagine a daughter, one he’d protect until it killed him, one who would be the envy of all others. He didn’t want to imagine a son, one he would look upon with pride, one that was so unlike himself, unlike all of those who had come before him. He didn’t want to have to face the what ifs. It was done. To take upon an air of empathy would hurt more than anything in the world. And he didn’t want it. He didn’t want to feel that unbridled sorrow. He couldn’t.
But what could he say? What was he supposed to say? He didn’t have it in him to find any words. He knew as soon as he’d clapped eyes on them. There was only one person in that room. The other had been born in vain.
Theodore turned and exited the way he came, striding as composedly as he could manage down the hall until finally grief took him out from underneath himself. A respectable distance from the room he reached out and braced the slam of his body onto the floor. The ice rattled through his bones and he screwed up his face, desperate to keep the tears and the sobs from wrenching forth but move him they did with great reckless abandon, his hands beating aimlessly until bloody against the tiles.
A calming potion later, he found coffee being pressed into his palms as he was deposited into a chair in a non-descript hallway. Theodore closed his eyes, dropping his head back against the wall of behind him. He twitched his fingers, feeling the temporary bandage around his hands, and he sighed, reaching up with a spare to rake his fingers through his hair.
“Are you going to see your wife?” A nurse’s voice flitted over to him and Theodore quirked open an eye.
“When does the calming draught kick in?” He asked hoarsely, his voice still full up with crying.
“Ten minutes, Mr Rookwood, but are you to answer my question?”
Theodore shook his head and got up, handing her over the coffee.
“I’m leaving,” he expressed solemnly but with an almost glib abruptness that made the woman narrow her eyes.
“How can you?” She asked incredulously. “How can you just go?”
“Because I can’t stay here,” he swore and turned on his heel. Then, with a crack, he was gone.