The H ol e s in My Apologies {South}

The Lightwood house was, as usual, in a state of barely-controlled chaos. Of course, it was hard to keep any semblance of order when there were seven kids running around, not to mention two newborn babies thrown into the mix. Cillian and Siobhan had come into the world a mere two weeks previously, and were quickly being assimilated into the complex mechanics of life on the Lightwood estate. Riley had initially been worried about his own abilities to handle more than he already was when it came to making sure everything in the family was running smoothly, but he'd quickly found upon meeting his new niece and nephew that he'd find a way to make it happen. Maybe a few less hours of sleep, maybe a tad bit more stress, but for them, he'd make it happen.

"Hey there, pretty girl," he grinned, pulling Siobhan into his arms while Edana was busy feeding the Cillian on the other side of the nursery. The baby girl didn't have many Lightwood genes in her, with her tuft of crimson hair and rounded cheeks that contrasted the blondish-brunettes and slender features of her mother and her various aunts and uncles, but she was beautiful nonetheless. It had been years since Riley had taken care of a baby (he'd been twelve when Chyba was born and had pretty much done everything for him from feeding to diapers to guiding him in his first steps), but he was pleased to find out that the whole system was sort of like riding a bike: you never forgot how. Snatching one of Siobhan's many stuffed animals from the inside of her crib, Riley spared a glance back at his sister, silently asking Edana for permission to help out even though she never seemed to complain since two babies were a lot for one teenage girl to deal with. "I'm gonna go take her downstairs and feed her, okay?"

He didn't bother waiting for a response as he turned on his heel and left the nursery, cooing to the bright-eyed little bundle in his arms the whole way. As much as he loved his siblings and now his neice and nephew, the lanky guitarist admitted to himself that this was definitely enough parenting to last him a long time. It was a good thing that Bridgit seemed okay with not having kids at any point in the near future. At the thought of Bridge, Riley couldn't hold back a faint cringe. She was perfect in every way he wasn't, bright and sunny and incredibly loyal and trusting. For a moment he almost let himself remember the exact extent to which he'd broken her loyalty and betrayed her trust, but before the thoughts could work their way to the forefront of his mind he pushed them back into some dark corner of his consciousness along with all the other undesirable things in life.

After all, that's what I do best. Sweeping everything under the rug.

He hadn't breathed a word about the incident to anyone, especially Bridgit. Perhaps it made him a liar (it did), and perhaps he was a terrible person because of it (he was), but in addition to being a professional pretender, Riley was also very good at justifying his actions, no matter how scrupulous they were or weren't. After all, he'd explained away murder to himself a thousand times. But that didn't stop the crimson stains that plagued his mind any more than lying by omission about what he'd done to Bridgit stopped the scarlet tallies that inevitably worked their way from the razor blade stashed in his drawer into the already-scarred skin of spindly arms, physical manifestations of a guilt that could find no other release.

Lost in thought, he auto-piloted his way through a process he'd done a thousand times, getting Siobhan's formula ready with one hand while holding the rather squirmy little girl in the other arm. She calmed down when her meal was given to her, though, nomming contentedly on her bright-pink plastic bottle as Riley hummed a lullaby under his breath and carried her back towards the staircase in the entrance hall to bring her back to her mother, only to be interrupted by a sudden rap on the door.

Riley raised an eyebrow, glancing over at the solid piece of District 7 mahogany that the door was crafted from. As far as he knew they weren't expecting any company, and his mother and step-father would be gone all weekend, as was the usual bill of fare with the two of them. It must have been Bridgit since she was the only one who made a habit of coming over without warning, he decided, shifting Siobhan into a one-handed hold again and turning the knob.

Oh. Awkward.

"Fenn... hi," Riley stammered, amberdark eyes the size of saucers at the sight of the well-dressed girl standing on his porch. The two of them hadn't spoken since the incident, and Riley had planned on keeping it that way. He didn't need any more reminders of what scum he was than the ones that already haunted him. Still, the petite brunette on the other side of the door looked... odd. Disturbed by something, and Riley's politeness had always been stronger than his nonexistent knack for self-preservation. "Oh, hey, the music! Thanks for bringing it over. Do you, um, want to come in? I can make you cocoa or something since it's so cold out and you walked all the way over."

Awkward. This is so awkward.

There was really something off with Fenn, he noted around the flush that was creeping its way across his cheekbones against his will. Of course, they'd both been trashed (well, technically she'd been mildly inebriated and he'd been hungover, guilt-ridden and in an extreme amount of pain) the last time they saw each other, that morning in her house filled with throbbing headaches and half-hushed whispers of oh no no no what have I done, but she still seemed much more grave than the giggling young thing he'd met at the music store in the not-distant-enough past, and her eyes seemed fixed on Siobhan, who had finished her bottle by that point and was gurgling happily against his ribcage. Looking from Fenn to the baby girl and back again, Riley smiled slightly, holding her up for Fenn to get a better look. "My niece. Edana had her and her twin brother a couple weeks ago and I've been helping out because the kids love Uncle Riley. Right, squirt?"

He grinned as Siobhan shrieked happily and wrapped a tiny hand around one of his fingers, but his attention was again drawn back to Fenn and the almost-horrified look painting its way across her features. Something was wrong here, an insistent tingling at the back of his neck told him so, and within a few seconds Riley found himself taking a few paces back and handing the baby off to Avon, who looked at him with an eyebrow quirked but otherwise complied. He dashed back to the door, both hands now free, and gently closed his fingers around Fenn's elbow, guiding her into the house and across the entry hall into the library, shutting the door securely before turning back to her and trying not to let the worry slowly beginning to bubble in his stomach show on his face (probably failing, but oh well, failing was all he ever did). "Okay, tell me what's going on. You look scared out of your mind and I know you didn't come here to bring me that music. Tell me, Fenn."

Tell me and get it over with, because this just went from awkward to scary.

Riley tried to stay calm, he really did. But calm was never something he had done well, and the carefully crafted facsimile of composure that he'd been showing the world for most of his life cracked a little bit more with each passing second that Fenn stood in front of him wrapped in a cloak of silence. That suffocating quiet was more of an indicator that something was wrong than even the terror in her eyes or the tension in her features, and it unsettled him much more than he would have liked to admit. Fenn was vibrant and loud and in-your-face, a daughter of the sun every bit as much as Bridgit was (even if her light was a little more tainted than Bridge's, but that was a trivial point for another time and place), and seeing her this withdrawn was enough to set off every one of the considerable amount of alarm bells in Riley's head. Whatever this was, it was bad.

But pushing her to talk wasn't going to get them anywhere, Riley had figured that much out after years of simply waiting for siblings to admit to breaking this vase or cheating on that math test rather than harping at them to fess up. In the end, patience almost always won out, but that didn't mean that he had an endless supply of it (he liked for the world to think he did), especially with the awful feeling of impending doom crawling up his spine. What had happened? Had word of the incident gotten out to the tabloids on the tide of Fenn's infame? Would Bridgit be finding out about his infidelity from some copy of the Panem Enquirer while she was doing her grocery shopping rather than hearing it from him? A million possibilities spun through his addled mind, but he couldn't deny that one hunch was much louder than the rest of them.

He knew. Deep down, he knew. But he refused to let himself believe it. Not yet.

But when Fenn finally began to speak, a garbled mess of half-incoherent babble that he could barely make sense of through the slight, ever-present slur in her words and the growing roar of his own heartbeat thudding ominously in his ears, Riley felt any fragile remnants of what might have been hope that this was all a sick joke spiraling away into the paper-scented air of the library faster than he could reach out and try to hold them close to his heart, much faster than he could fabricate new justifications that could half-convince him that this wasn't happening. And as much as he wanted to clap his hands over his ears and shut his eyes and place himself into that delusional fantasy world that his mother had disappeared to years ago, Riley had never been one to kid himself about things (except for when he did), and in the back of his mind a quiet desire for Fenn to just spit it out hummed alongside the sinking of his stomach and the odd constricting feeling around his throat that robbed him of both words and breath.

"What I came here to say is, that I am pregnant, and you are the father. I'm sorry that I fucked everything up."

See? That wasn't so hard.

So that was how the world ended. His world, anyway. Not with a bang, not with a violent explosion or torrents of blood or all the glorious apocalyptic carnage of life's mistakes all converging on him at once. No, the world ended with a quiet assertion that he had singlehandedly slaughtered everything he'd ever loved with one rum-soaked mistake of a night. Riley wasn't aware of his knees giving out until his grip tightened unconsciously on a bookshelf to keep him from crashing to the floor, the weak attempt barely enough to keep him upright until he could sink into one of the old leather armchairs nearby, feeling a thousand times heavier than his own skinny frame could possibly weigh. The fabric of the chair still smelled like his father's aftershave and pipe smoke even twelve years after his passing, and Riley couldn't help but pull the realization from his spinning brain that he'd been an utter failure at keeping the promise he'd made all those years ago. Keeping the family together? They were a wreck, barely afloat as it was. Taking care of his mother and siblings? He'd stood by and watched as she married an abusive monster who would rain terror upon the household until the day Riley and Keela brought the icy hand of death down upon his head. Being the man of the house? Some job he'd done of it, sitting here and staring blankly at a girl who he did not love, who happened to be carrying an illegitimate child. His illegitimate child.

"I'm not going to be an ass about this, Fenn." his voice sounded far-away and so weary that he hardly recognized it, the extremely rare use of cruder language betraying just how emotionally drained he was far more than he would have liked her to know. "I'm not going to make a big deal out of it or swear that it isn't mine or run away. I'm going to man up for once in my life and own my mistakes. And I expect you to do the same."

Riley couldn't understand how he could sound so calm, so collected when ever fiber of the fragile skeleton that held his sanity together was tumbling down in a thunderous roar that stole his very breath, making each word far more quiet than even his normally muted tenor. But as he went on, the gravity of the situation began to finally sink in, choking off the numbed syllables until the tripped over themselves to leave his lips because he had to do this, had to say it in order for it all to be real. This was one dysfunctionality he couldn't pretend didn't exist, not another one of Keela's nights out partying or his mother's denial of her duty to her children or even his own scars, mental and physical. For once in his life, Riley was going to have to face his demons instead of pretending they didn't exist.

"I'm going to deal with this even though it'll mean disappointing my family and losing my chance at a real career and... And losing Bridgit forever when she finds out what I did. I'm tired of just lying to myself about everything and I just need to come to terms with the fact that my life is over."

And those last words did the trick. They made it all so real, so horrifyingly real that Riley suddenly felt more lost than he ever had in his life, liquid fire lapping behind his eyes and threatening to spill over as he looked at Fenn through a watery field of vision, voice trembling as he repeated the assertion that he'd been hiding behind pretty lies for the last twelve years. "Oh my God. My life is over."

And then he had to bury his face in his hands. Maybe Fenn Klardie was holding his future inside of her, maybe she was supposed to be his forever now that they'd both screwed everything up so irreparably, but he'd be damned if he was going to let her see him cry.

"Buzz off, Riley," Antoinette growled, pushing past him with enough force to actually knock him back a few inches, her mile-high heels clicking a sharp staccato against the hardwood floor of the entrance hall. The grandfather clock against the far wall tolled two in the morning, the sound of the chime hollow and empty as it split the air between the first and third Lightwood triplets. Riley had been up all night, pacing the length of the library over and over again between breaks to make sure the little ones were soundly sleeping and worried glances at the front door. Antoinette had left without telling anyone where she was going, which was normal for her, but as the time grew later and the rest of the family was sent to bed, Riley found himself working his way into a full-blown panic, calling neighbors and family friends, none of whom had seen his sister. He'd had the phone in his hands ready to put in a missing persons report with the Peacekeeping force when 'Nette had finally barged in through the front door, hair mussed, makeup smudged, and swaying a bit on her feet but otherwise none the worse for wear.

The skinny sixteen-year-old quirked an eyebrow in his sister's direction, following her halfway up the stairs and stopping there, watching as she weaved and struggled with the simple task of ascending to the top. Riley was more than aware that Antoinette's "friends" weren't the most admirable people, but for her to come home like this, bedraggled and clearly under the influence... It worried him, and he wasn't just going to let it slide. "Not until you tell me where you were and what you were doing."

"That's none of your damn business!"

"It's my business when you had all of us worried sick and then you come home in the middle of the night looking like you spent the evening at a crack house!" It was rare for Riley to raise his voice in any situation, and he shocked even himself when the typically smooth tenor echoed off the wood paneling with an irritated edge to it. He blamed the stress. Blinking in surprise, he took a few seconds to breathe deeply and address Antoinette again, returned to his normal disposition. "Just tell me, 'Nette. You won't be in trouble. I just want to know."

Antoinette laughed coldly, malice glimmering palpably in her eyes behind whatever poison was working its way through her veins at the moment. "Stop trying to act like you're Dad, Riley. You're not. You're just a shitty replacement because God knows the little ones need someone to keep them in check, but don't try to pull that bullshit with me. I remember Dad, and he was a hell of a lot better parent than you'll ever be. I pity your kids someday. Really, I do."

Riley wasn't sure why his brain had conjured up that particular memory in an effort to drown out the nuclear explosion that was sending his psyche toppling off of its foundation. It was rather like sitting and watching TV while your house was being bombed and falling down around you, he decided. Some odd little quirk in his warped mental function must have decided that attempting to distract him from the blatant, harsh reality of his world shattering was better than nothing, even though all the memory did was ratchet his despair up another notch. Even though Riley took everything 'Nette said with a grain of salt (the grain of salt being that she insulted everyone and generally said insults were completely unfounded exaggerations), her words echoed around in the carnage of his mind ominously. He couldn't help but to believe that at least in that instance, she had been right. He would make a horrible parent, and the twisted, dysfunctional state of the family he had half-raised in the absence of their parents was evidence enough of that. With him and Fenn for parents... this poor baby didn't stand a chance in the world of being anything but a fragile, broken mess just like dear old Mom and Dad.

Over the next few minutes the tears dried into shameful salty evidence of weakness that lined the inside of his palms, and his internal hysteria melted into a shocked, blank-slate numbness that he wasn't sure he preferred over raw panic. He didn't want to feel like his house-of-cards life was falling (even though it lay in ruins before his eyes), but he at least wanted to feel something. And he tried, he really did, tried to pull up some vestige of optimism or acceptance or even indignance at the unfairness of it all, but there was nothing, nothing, nothing to the point where he mutely wondered how much he'd have to bleed before his mind would come out of lockdown, how many new scars he'd have to create to be functional again, even for just a few minutes.

Surprisingly enough it wasn't pain that brought him back, but rather the sound of muffled sobs from a few feet away. When the room finally faded back into focus, Riley let his eyes fall on Fenn, her tiny frame shivering with the force of the tears that were slowly working their way over the planes of her cheeks and falling into the rich carpet of the library - Riley tried not to think of the countless stains of his own misery that were sealed into that carpet after years of enduring vicious beatings behind closed doors almost every day for six years - the faint sounds of her own distress doing something to finally pull him out of his comatose state.

She asked him in a shaky voice to take the flask from her pocket, which caused a brief moment of confusion before an icy stab of horror shot down his spine. Had she been drinking this whole time? And if so, how much? Surely a lot if she made a habit of carrying around a flask with her. Riley was no medical genius, but after living through Edana's pregnancy he knew a thing or two about the condition a woman was expected to keep her body in if she wished to have a healthy baby, and he knew that alcohol was a dangerous thing to be messing with. With phantom fears of birth defects or worse shooting across the forefront of his mind, Riley didn't hesitate to take the flask from her pocket and carry it across the library, hiding it on the mantelpiece behind an old family photo. Fenn, it seemed, needed a crash course in being pregnant. He made a mental note to find some way to talk to Edana later.

Above all else, Riley Lightwood was a caretaker. Maybe it was a personality trait born of necessity, of being the only one willing to step up and shepherd an utterly lost group of children with a dead father and a mother who was dead to all else but the pretty fantasy world she'd created for herself, but whatever the cause, it was who he was. Selflessness and putting anyone and everyone ahead of himself was second nature by now, and he found himself thanking his lucky stars that Fenn was upset (cruel, he knew, but wasn't this whole turn of events cruel to everyone involved?) because he could finally find something to drown out the millions of worst-case scenarios and whispers of a carefully built tower of existence sent toppling to the ground. He could still function if he had someone to care for.

She was in his arms in a matter of seconds, petite form pulled against his tall one in a way that was a little too familiar, a little to reminiscent of the half-blurred memory that had led them to this place and these tears. Riley had done this a thousand times, hugged a thousand crying little sisters and consoled them with promises that it would all be okay, but this was different. Lacing his fingers through Fenn's hair in a way that was meant to be soothing was different because he could remember the heady smell of her shampoo mixed in with perfume and the fabric softer she must have used for her sheets, holding her too him was different because he still noted the way the curve of her waist seemed to be crafted specifically for his hand to fit there. This was all different because the thought struck him that he was holding onto the girl who held his future somewhere inside of her, no matter how unexpected or scary that future was.

"Hey. Hey, shhh, don't cry. It'll be okay, it's not your fault, you didn't ask for this," he murmured, hoping that he could at least get her calmed down enough to get her into the kitchen to give her Edana's leftover prenatal vitamins without the two of them drawing the attention of everyone in the house. And really, seeing Fenn this upset did sent a little twinge sparking somewhere in his chest. In reality, he supposed, Fenn was losing much more than he was. In the grand scheme of things, he was losing his family's respect and the love of his life, while Fenn's whole career would go down the toilet with the addition of a child to her life. Sex-symbol movie stars weren't nearly as sexy with a baby on their hip. Sighing, Riley pulled away and bent down slightly so that he was eye-level with the smaller brunette, deep amber boring into chocolate brown. "Listen. We're gonna get through this, okay? Both of us. I'll promise to stick with you if you promise to stick with me, and we're going to deal with this. Sound like a plan? I'm not saying it will be easy or fun, but we will get through this, Fenn, I'm promising you that right now."

And they would. Somehow.

Riley was surprised at how he'd managed to retain his outward composure through all of this - comparatively to the situation, his minor meltdown had been entirely justifiable even though he felt awful for making Fenn cry - even though his head was still spinning and his heart hammered so hard against his ribcage that he swore she could hear it in the heavy, hushed air of the library.

What happens now? Where do we go from here? What have I done?

The world was too big and too scary for his own fragility even when he wasn't facing down the prospect of yet another Lightwood in the world to take care of, and Riley felt the icy fingers of dread plucking at his frayed edges even as the small form in his arms shifted against him, wiping her tears and slipping effortlessly back into nonchalance almost as if she'd never been upset at all. Maybe it was all the acting training. Whatever it was, he found himself envying Fenn, wishing that he could put up fronts to hide his brokenness as easily as she seemed to.

"Yeah. Okay, Riley. But just so you know, I don't expect anything else from you. Don't feel obliged to marry me or something ridiculous like that. Oh, and one rule, don't fall in love with me," the shorter of the two brunettes said with a wink and a tight smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, seemingly reverted back into a normal state while Riley still felt panic roaring through his veins so fast and loud that he perceived the world through an odd sort of haze, a heavy fuzziness over everything that dulled his senses and left him isolated in the dark, frightening recesses of his own mind, questions swirling like windmills caught in a hurricane of dismay and stubbornly refusing to leave him alone long enough for him to even attempt to function. He looked at Fenn with something like distant confusion painting his features, blinked once, twice, mouth agape as his overloaded brain tried to fight through a million oh god I've really done it this times and how on earth am I supposed to raise another child on top of the ones that I'm raising that aren't even mines to produce a response.

"F-fall in love with you? Why would I when Bridgit and I..." he stopped in his tracks, tawny eyes widening as another wave hit him, threatened to take his knees out from under him again and send him crashing to the floor. By some miracle he managed to stay upright (if I go down now I'll never get up again) but it was a battle to even breathe around the invisible blade that had suddenly been shoved cruelly between his ribs, white-hot and twisting agonizingly. It was a thought that had occurred to him among the many other panicked fragments that exploded in his head with the delivery of Fenn's news, but now it burned blindingly bright and unforgettable in the forefront of his mind, the sight of the only happiness he had left in the world charring and flying away as ashes on the wind. "Oh God, Bridgit. What am I supposed to tell Bridgit? She was never supposed to know; it was one night and I just was going to forget about it and not tell her, but now... She'll never speak to me again, she'll hate me forever, oh God, Fenn. I can't... I can't lose her, I can't, what am I going to do?!"

I can't lose her, but I'm going to. I can't make it in the world without her, but I'm going to. I can't handle this, but I'm going to.

He inhaled shakily, fingers snagging on dark-chocolate tousles as her carded them arbitrarily through his hair. "I don't... I can't deal with all of this right now. Right now the important thing is making sure you know what your body's dealing with and how to stay healthy. Edana's got some pregnancy books around here, I think..." His movements felt stiff, contrived like the motions of a puppet as he shuffled across the room and pulled an armful of books with cutesy pastel-colored covers from the shelf, many of them sporting tacky titles (What to Expect When You're Expecting? Really?). Well, as long as the subject matter and content were what they needed... He handed the stack to Fenn with what was meant to be a reassuring smile but only came out as a slight curvature as the corners of his lips flashed upward for the briefest second, unable to sustain the motion because of the weight of everything that was now hanging over his head and threatening to fall any second. "There. Educate yourself. I'm pretty sure the first thing that all of those will tell you is that alcohol is a no-no. All right, I'm going to go grab Edana's left over prenatal vitamins from the kitchen for you. Just stay here, okay, I'll be right back."

He asked himself why he felt the need to brush a reassuring hand over the smooth surface of her hair in the instant before he turned and left the library, but Riley found that strangely, he was unable to give himself an answer as his footsteps echoed across the entrance hall. He must have really looked terrible when he cut through the living room to take the short route to the kitchen - Avon hadn't given him a look filled with that much concern since she'd found out about the lattices of scar tissue wrapped around his limbs - but thankfully no one said anything to him when he ducked wordlessly through the doorway. The Lightwood kitchen, normally the noisy, bustling center of the home, was mercifully quiet. At this time on a Saturday Antoinette would still be asleep recovering from whatever party she'd been at, Edana was busy with the twins, Keela was out roaming the District, and Avon was keeping an eye on the younger siblings in the other room, which meant that Riley went unnoticed as he grabbed his backpack from one of the coat hooks by the back door (which was enough to make him remember that on top of all of this he still had a history essay due Monday. History, where he sat next to Bridgit. Bridgit... No. Shut up. Pull yourself together, Lightwood, you can't think about that right now, you have things to do, people to take care of.) and pulled bottle after bottle of vitamins from one of the higher-up cabinets, stashing them carefully into the worn canvas satchel and stuffing one of his jackets from the coat rack on top of them so they wouldn't rattle when he slung it over his shoulder, walking back to the living room and doing his best to act nonchalant.

"I'm going out," he informed Avon as he headed back in the direction of the library, this time fully expecting the odd look he received in return - Riley didn't "go out" unless he was taking Bridgit somewhere, it was just a generally accepted fact of life. "I'll be home in time to make dinner. Remember that Chyba needs to take his medicine for that cold in another hour, and the twins need to be put down for a nap in two hours. See you later."

Riley sighed heavily as he closed the doors of the library behind him, yanking the pea coat out of his backpack and tugging it on as he glanced in Fenn's direction. "All right, I'm going to walk you home. We need to be somewhere where we can sit down and discuss this privately, and there's no such thing as privacy in my house." The backpack rattled faintly with that absence of anything to muffle the movement of the pill bottles as the amber-eyed guitarist shrugged it back over his narrow shoulders, but no one was around to hear it as he held the front door open for the petite actress, just like no one was around to see him wrap a slender arm around her shoulders as the two of them walked up the road. "Hey. It's going to be okay."

I guess deep down I've always been a good liar.