You (Solangelo AU)

12. In My Attempt to Keep You Safe

I remember when my mother died.

My father had tried to dissuade my mom from leaving. 

She was in my room helping me pack. She said we were moving away to keep us safe. Bianca was packing on her own. Mother was helping me because I was younger. While she was helping me put away my shoes, he had barged into my room like it was his own. He was furious. At least that was how it had seemed at first because as soon as his mouth opened to speak, his angry facade crumbled. Silent tears spilled over as he asked, "Why?"

My mother, with a sad expression, continued to comb my hair back to keep me calm and urge me to keep packing. But with my father crying a few feet away from me, packing would now be a slow task. "There is a war. I warned you after Nico's birth that I did not want this life for my children. Now with this war... Hades, I will not have my children living in a war."

"Where will you go?"

"I have family in Domum."

He took a staggering step toward us. "Maria. Please. Stay here. I will keep you safe."

"You have a duty to your people. I will not make you loose sight of that in a time like this."

"But you are my wife━"

"We haven't married Hades."

"You are to be my wife. Those are my children. It is my duty to keep you safe."

She cast her gaze to the floor, never once stopping her ministrations with my hair. "I love you but this is not a life I can live. I'm sorry."

"Maria..."

She ignored him and began helping me pack again. When I looked at her, there were tears in her eyes as well. "Let's finish soon, yes darling? It's best to leave before it gets dark." 

It wasn't long before we were all done and went into the hall where Bianca waited. She saw our crying father and turned to ask our mother what was wrong but then she saw she was crying too and instead took my hand as we walked beside our mother. 

Hades didn't come out of my room. 

The next day was when she died. We had stopped at an inn for the night, in the wee hours of the morning, fighting broke out. The war my mother had tried to outrun had reached us. My mother hurried to get us dressed but that day luck was not on our side. The battle came into the inn. We ran down the stairs, trying to leave but we were too slow. 

My mother was stabbed.

When Bianca and I saw the sword protruding form her belly, we screamed. As she crumpled, somehow my father was there. He shouted something I was unable to hear over the fighting. Later, as I replayed the scene in my memories, I realized he had shouted our mother's name. But right then, he ran to us. He crouched and held my mother's body as we stood idly by, unable to process what exactly had happened. When a someone approached, attempting to kill us too he stood and fought. No one but us survived that inn.

The days following her death were filled with sorrow and pain. My father locked himself in his room the entire week before her funeral. That week, servants hurried to keep an eye on Bianca and I as our father could not be bothered to. I had begun to have nightmares, too. About my mother's death and Bianca was the one to care for me, she would lay with me until I fell asleep. After her funeral and our father still could not bother with us, Bianca had servants move another bed into my room because my nightmares had worsened. She shared a room with me for two years. As long as it had taken me to finally subdue the night terrors.

Finally, we seemed to be healing over our mother's death. Our father met Persephone and she helped him a lot but he also stopped paying attention to me. I blamed it on me having been there the night we left and they had argued. Maybe he had wanted me to say something and the fact that I had not was something he would always hate. Either way, in his eyes, I was practically invisible.