Flowers//Elavan

~3~

They missed a red light. Liz freaks out and starts to scream at him, telling him that if he wanted to get arrested it should at least be for something badass like committing a murder. Avan chuckles, he puckers his lips and leans into her to give her a kiss. Her lips felt soft and almost like ice. He pulls away and she is suddenly not there.

Avan looks around in desperation. He starts to call out her name but nothing comes out of his mouth. His hand clutches the steering wheel tight and suddenly he is in the ICU, hovering over her bloody body. Panic fills his heart with every beep of the monitors, but he feels himself willing those beeps to continue. Suddenly, she wakes up and he expects her to look at him and smile but instead, she pops back into life is slamming his head against the glass windows.

"How dare you?!" she screams again and again.

He doesn't understand. How dare he what? What did he do to make her so angry?

Avan jolts awake and finds Mia beside him in tears, her small self curled up in a ball. She was shaking with sobs and she looked at him with so much fear, more than he has ever seen in her ocean eyes before.

"Hey, shhh. Papa's here, Mi. I'm here," he soothingly whispers with his croaky morning voice, trying to get his little one to come to him.

"You were screaming," she whimpers.

"I'm sorry, baby. I didn't know I was," he softly coos, holding her close to him.

He breathes out loudly through his nose. This has been happening for the past few days now. He's been having nightmares bring havoc in his sleep and he always woke up with a start. It was the stress of the whole situation finally dawning on him, he was sure.

Avan has always blamed himself for what happened that night. Maybe if he was more careful, more attentive to the road then maybe he could have avoided that god damn truck and its devil driver. If he had gotten his airbags checked earlier that month like she said, she wouldn't have gotten injured so bad.

But alas, maybe's and if's can only get you so far. What happened has happened and there was no going back now.

"Why did you say mommy's name?" Mia hiccuped, her hands gripping softly on her pajamas.

"Nothing," he lies. "Why don't we get ready for the day, bear? Then, you can play with uncle Ketan today."

"Why not you?" she pouts.

Avan smiles and plants a gentle kiss on her cheek, nuzzling it right after.

"Papa has work, remember?"

Mia looks down, clearly disappointed that she was going to spend another day with neither of her parents. She was still going through a major adjustment period with their new situation. Up until a few weeks ago, Mia had always been under her mother's watch. While Avan was away in the day working as a speech pathologist, Liz would stay at home writing articles and reviews for a famous online magazine.

"You're going to have loads of fun today, Mia-bear, okay?" Avan tries to cheer her up as they finished up breakfast.

Reluctantly, Amelia nods her head. She was young and naive but she wasn't dumb. Mia understood that Papa had to work to keep her alive. What she couldn't understand is why her mother has been sick for so long. At first they said that they had to put her under what was called a medically induced coma to heal the booboos in her brain from the car crash. She didn't what that was but she was told that it was basically a very long nap to help her mommy get better quickly. Now, she was awake but she still had to stay in the institute for some reason.

Avan never really went into detail about Liz's situation with Mia, always too afraid of hurting the child with the reality of it all.

A while later, a knock came from the front door and Avan opens it to let Ketan in. He gives him a couple instructions on what to do and what not to do with Mia, especially the strict rules that concerned screen time. After kissing his little girl goodbye, Avan was off to work.