Apocalypse, Steve Harrington

Chapter Fourty-Five. Through The Eyes of A Child

INTERLUDE / FLASHBACK
July 4, 1967

    He's having a staring contest with a screaming baby. His stomach hurts.

    He doesn't want to be a father. Jim is afraid, and has always been afraid, that he'll replicate the love his own father had given him, as a child. He is afraid he'll be incapable of love. He never planned on this. His life, seemingly, had already been played out— join the army at eighteen, and work as a sheriff for the rest of his miserable days. Now, Jim is offtrack. He's confused. He's horrified.

It's been one day. One day, since a pair of wailing babies appeared on the doorstep of the police station. One day, since he had been dumped into a pit of eternal contemplation of his morality. His eye-bags hang. His face droops. His shoulders lower. If he wants to, really wants to, he'll cry. He'll cry like the babies sat in front of him.

He has no one to call. He wants to grab a phone, and dial his mothers number, and ask her what she did with her children as babies. What he should do. He wishes he could call his sister, or Joyce. Mostly, Jim wishes he could find it in him to turn these children in. They aren't his. They never will be. Who's are they? He doesn't need this.

    This is karma. He didn't act right as a high-schooler. Karma for being with Peggy Prescott, or Janie Jones, or Ally Knight. The crying baby is a reminder of the near consequences he had almost faced, numerous times, for how careless he was as a teenager. It caught up to him, finally.

Her tanned cheeks are bitten red and her eyes are glossy. The baby gasps, her wails coming to a close. Jim sees her feet kick. Her small fingers twitch. Her wispy eyelashes bat against her chubby, freckled cheeks. He sees the wisps of her brown hair. He meets eyes with the baby. Big, green-ish irises bore into his own. Tears threaten the child's eyes. He sees her lip twitch.

"Oh, don't cry. . . it's alright."

    The words are raw in his throat. He speaks softly, he speaks gently, and he speaks as though he's talking to a child. He is talking to a child.

The boy babbles. His thick, dirty-blonde hair sticks to his forehead. The AC is broken. The boy opens his mouth, and kicks his feet. In the distance, a firework explodes. Jim is reminded, suddenly, that it's the fourth of July. His friends are barbecuing. They're swimming. They're setting off the fireworks. His coworkers are patrolling. The girl cries, and he is reminded. He is here.

Jim's brow narrows. He looks at the babies. It's nearly impossible to tell them apart. The only indicator, the boy, a dirty-blonde. The girl, a pink bow clad in the mess of her brown curls. He presses his palms to his eyes. The bow, given to the baby, by her mother. A mystery. A woman he had seen through one photo. A photo, of their mother, with her name on the back. Grace. She had bundled it in the blanket with the girl.

The girl has a name. Lucille, he sees, on the bottom of the photo. The boy has a name. Daniel, he sees, besides the girls. He feels sick. These children are real. They have names. They're crying. They are someone's babies.

He looks up. His bloodshot eyes meet with the girls— Lucille's— tear-filled ones, and his chest falls. Shakily, Jim extends his hand. He's slow, and careful, and weary. The girl clamps her pudgy hand around his pointer-finger. His stomach drops.

He's fucked.