𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐘- 𝐑𝐀𝐅𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐍

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧- 𝐒𝐞𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐬

Mak hadn't settled all night. It was like he knew. As if he could sense the emptiness. Mitra was exhausted, JJ and Pope slept through all of the noise whilst Kiara took to warming a bottle for the baby.

"I just... I don't understand why he can't sleep tonight of all nights," Mitra complained as she wandered around the kitchen with the boy in her arms, head resting on her shoulder whilst tears wet the thin material of her t-shirt. Well, Rafe's t-shirt.

"He's missing someone. It's Rafe, isn't it?" Kiara leant across the counter and slid Mitra a green plastic bottle. "Does he treat you right?"

Mitra smiled, teary eyed as warm milk trickled down Mak's chin before he began accepting the plastic into his mouth, Kiara smiled as he began to calm down. "Yeah," Mitra's voice was small and broken, "but, God. Every time I think about him I think about Ward, and I can't stand that man."

Kiara, as much as she despised Rafe, couldn't help herself. "Listen... I hate the guy, alright? I really, really hate the guy... but, him and Ward are different people. Sure, Rafe's got Ward's genes, but that isn't the be-all and end-all, right?"

Laughing through her tears, Mitra wiped her eyes on her shoulder, "yeah, you're right. It's just... Ward payed for my life to be ruined, and it's just hard to look at him without seeing his dad."

Kiara placed a soft hand over Mitra's and gazed at her sympathetically, "if we were all guilty of our parents mistakes, we'd all be guilty of something."

Sighing, Mitra watched as Mak grew bored of his bottle and burst into tears once again. Kiara took the bottle from Mitra's outstretched hand, running it under the tap and scrubbing it with some soap before leaving it upside down on the draining board.

Whilst Mitra focused on rocking the distraught baby back and forth in her arms, occasionally wiping away a tear or kissing his forehead, the doorbell rang.

Kiara hurried toward the window to take a glance out of it. "It's Rafe," she announced, leaning against the table beside the window. "What do you wanna do?"

This was it. The deciding moment. Opening the door would let Rafe back in. Opening the door, as hard as it seemed, would solidify what she had been trying to ignore. That slowly, she had fallen in love with him. But, if she left him out there, waiting, broken-hearted, she would be putting her emotions behind the need for justice that she felt.

But she couldn't stop thinking about how lonely her bed felt without him in it. How the mornings felt slightly more bland and how no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop thinking about the glimmer in his eyes when he gave her that joy-filled smile.

"You can go to bed, Kiara. I'll handle him. Thank you." Mitra offered Kiara a grateful smile before watching her hurry back to bed.

Taking a composing breathe to collect her wondering thoughts, Mitra soothed Mak with a hand circling his back before slowly opening the door.

Rafe was staring at the ground. His eyes were stained red, his lip was slightly bloody from the way he bit it when he got nervous, his hair was messy and strands plastered to his forehead with sweat. The moment he heard the baby's cries and the door creak painfully as it opened, his pale face bolted up.

"Min, thank god!" he sighed in relief, carefully taking a step forward, "I've been goin' crazy. You don't understand, Minnie, I need you." Mitra felt tears welling in her eyes as the familiar smell of orange and ginger washed over her. Mak seemed to sense the comforting scent too, his cries dying down slightly. "I can't live without you, okay? I- I won't live without you." His fingers, tightly pressed together, formed arrows as they pressed into his chest, tears streaming down his face. "I love you, Min. And I know for sure that you love me too."

"Rafe..." Mitra sighed as she drunk up the sight of him crumbling on her porch. She couldn't turn him around, not when the moon perfectly absorbed the pink in his cheeks, or when she admired the way the porch light illuminated the tiny green and gold flecks in his eyes. His hair, a smooth honey colour mixed with the relaxing tint of caramel, mixed perfectly with his sun kissed skin, nose slightly burnt with a rose shade. "Rafe, I love you too."

The boy took a sigh of relief, his chest deflating slightly as his lips spread into a broad grin. "You have no idea how long I've waited to hear you say that." His arms brought the girl closer before his brain had time to agree with the motion, holding both Mak and Mitra closer than he ever has.

He never wanted to let go, the smell of Mitra's mango shampoo and matching body wash giving him an unexplainable high that he never wanted to come down from. Her skin felt like butter against his person.

"C'mon, it's gettin' late and you look like you could do with the sleep," Mitra held tightly onto Rafe's hand as she led him upstairs. "You'll have to be quiet, the Pogues are crashing. They've had a long day, like the rest of us," the girl led Rafe into her bedroom, pulling back his side of the sheets before watching him climb in, Mak relaxed against her shoulder, eyes gently closing. Mitra placed him down gently on her bed before searching the cupboard in the corner for the travel crib she stored away for nights where the baby needed to be close to someone who cared for him. She reassembled it beside her bed and quickly tucked Mak under a thin blanket that was strewn about her bed, smiling down at him. Bernard curled onto the end of the bed in a ball of black and white.

"Here," Mitra whispered, sliding Rafe's shoes off and placing them beside the bed. His blue blazer was next, tossed across the room and quickly followed by his dress shirt and bowtie. Rafe smiled as she carefully undid his belt, pushing hair behind her ear with his tired hands before dropping them down to her chin to rub his thumb over her skin. She smiled. Pulling his belt off, she caught sight of the small lines that marred his skin, pale and old. He pulled her hand from them as soon as he felt her graze over them. His belt slipped through the loops one after the other, hanging from the bedside table after a moment. His pants slipped easily down his legs, pooling on the floor beside Mitra. The girl smiled, climbing over him into bed.

Rafe waited for Mitra to get under the sheets before starting to talk, arms wrapped around her shoulders whilst her head rested on his chest. "I've never seen my dad like that before. He... I mean... I guess I'm just seeing him for what he is."

"If you're seeing him for a manipulative, murderer-paying, bad father then yeah, you probably are." Mitra sighed as she drew patterns over Rafe's skin, "I'm sorry, I know he's still your dad."

"Not if he's gonna do that to you and Morello, he isn't. I swear, Min, I'll never let him hurt you again."