Closer 2

198.

"Heyy Elise!" Ray smiled, opening his arms as the little girl came running down the hospital corridor. She crashed into uncle's safe arms, hugging him as tightly as she could. It was so good to see uncle smiling and being happy, just like he should be. Not worried and sad like he had been before.

"Where auntie?" Elise asked softly, still worrying for her. Surely Sharkie had kept her safe, but still. It calmed her a bit when uncle lifted her onto his arm and stood up. "Auntie is just in the room here, and she is okay. But babygirl, there's something we need to talk about before we go see auntie. Do you wanna come grab ice cream with me?"

Oh, Elise knew that voice. Daddy sometimes used it when he said no to playing with her, if he wasn’t angry. Auntie used it when she wasn't feeling well and said they couldn't make noodles before Uncle came home. It was the voice grownups used when they had bad news.

"Noo..." Elise whined quietly, looking back at Daddy and Baba. They had the same look on their face as uncle. Daddy leaned over and whispered something to Baba, which made her feel even more unsure.

"Come on, I'll even pay for it," Uncle said in a kinda joking voice, but the way he glanced over at Baba made it feel not nice.

"Down, please," Elise asked, trying to scoot herself down from Ray's arms. "No thank you, Uncle."

She just needed to see that Auntie was okay, so why weren't they allowing her?

"Okay, we don't have to have ice cream, but I do need to talk to you first, sweetie. It's really important," Ray said, squatting down and setting her back on her feet again.

"Okaaay...?" Elise asked, glancing back at Baba and Daddy. She didn't like this. It felt like she was being told off by uncle.

"Li-Li, you know how much Uncle loves you, right?" Ray asked, carefully taking Elise's hands in his. "No matter what happens or who else is around, Uncle loves you so so much. You know that?"

"Yeah..?" Elise half asked. Oh man, this was bad. She knew this was very bad. She didn't know why yet, but she knew it was bad. She felt like she was about to cry, but tried not to. Baba and Daddy didn't like it when she cried.

"And no matter what, I'll come play with you and we'll have fun just like now. You know that?" Ray asked softly, but his voice sounded weird. Elise couldn't hold back her tears anymore, but Uncle wiped them carefully with a shaky hand.

"Yeah," she squeaked, sniffling quietly as she tried to hide that she was crying. It felt like something was very very wrong.

"And Li-Li, you know auntie loves you? So so much?" Ray asked her, looking like he was gonna cry too.

Elise just nodded, tears streaming down her face. She didn't understand, but she was so very scared. It didn’t help when uncle pulled her into a tight hug before wiping away his own tears, then hers and straightened up a bit.

"Then we can go say hi to Auntie, okay? And there's someone else you'll meet too," Uncle said, standing up carefully. Elise felt her stomach hurt, but before she could say anything, Uncle was leading the way the last few steps to a door and carefully opened it.