abyss ↣ joe sugg au

fifty six ↣ epilogue 1

Charlotte exhales the smoke, watches it thin out in the air around her until it vanishes. It's the first cigarette she's had in three years.

It was all probably a bad idea, sacrificing being in there where she's needed, for escaping off to Caspar's to get Rhino. She'd outstayed her welcome eventually, slinking back to the same spot on the pavement, with the sound of doors sliding open and distraught wails on repeat.

Rhino had been keeping her company until she dug around her bag for her emergency cigarette and lit up. Then, he just pulled on the leash until he was practically off of the pavement. Charlotte could understand, she didn't really like it either. 

"You're not smoking, are you?"

Charlotte's heart lurched, eyes fleeting upwards and she'd never been so thankful to hear that voice in her whole life. She dropped the stub to the ground and ran to Joe, Rhino already there yapping at his feet.

She let herself sob then, something she'd forbidden herself to do for the sake of her Mother. Joe hushes her, murmuring into her hair.

"I shouldn't have gone away. I'm so sorry. Business isn't important. I should have been here."

Charlotte felt a pang of guilt behind her ribs and she pulled away.

"This, it-it was inevitable but unreliable. I would never expect you not to go on a business trip, help us earn a living, to play a waiting game."

"Please don't tell me you see it that way." Joe's eyes flickered with something that made Charlotte uneasy. 

"Isn't that what all of this was Joe?" Charlotte bit, although she was too tired, too sad, to argue. 

"No!" Joe scrunched up his face, "it was a life Charlotte, for god sake."

He stepped away from Charlotte, took to petting Rhino instead. Charlotte couldn't help but let out a helpless sob and hunch her shoulders, trying to curl in on herself. 

Joe's head shot up, and his facial expression immediately softened. He straightened back up, brushed his hands down Charlotte's shaking arms until their fingers were intertwined. 

"I'm so sorry." Joe started to sob as well, the reality slowly seeping in. 

Charlotte shook her head, for the past few hours all she'd been trying to do is not talk about it. Think of other things, thinking maybe if she didn't say the words aloud - it wouldn't be real. 

She pleaded in her head for a few more minutes, just to pretend she wasn't in this reality. She fell back against Joe, head hanging limply on his shoulder and he sobbed into her ear and stroked her back with shaking hands. 

"Where's your Mum?" Joe whispered eventually, knowing that time stops for no-one. Least of all them.

Charlotte let out a quivering sigh, "They said she could go whenever she's ready. It's been three hours - I don't think she's ever going to be ready."

Joe let out a wrecked sob then, his resolve faltering as he gripped Charlotte tighter still. It was silent for a long time then, in the wide spectrum of things, say a lifetime, it was nothing, but Charlotte clung onto those seconds like it was everything.

"Joe." Charlotte breathed, her voice hardly audible.  

Joe barely managed a nod.

"Who's going to walk me down the isle?" Charlotte asked cautiously, the thought her mind had always tripped back too. 

"I don't know baby, I don't know. I'm so sorry." 

It was there that Charlotte let it all sink in. Let reality hit her from all directions that her Mother was crowded over a Hospital bed, clutching the hand of her husband-to-be whilst flicking through the folder Charlotte had organized for their wedding. When Charlotte had excused herself, her Mum had been breathing harshly between reading out every single note Charlotte had made on each page, all of which were inspired by the soon-to-be married couple. 

It was there that Charlotte realized that her Mum would never get to marry him and he would never see Charlotte get married either and the thought made her weak, made her crumble on the side walk. 

#

When Charlotte's Mum finally emerged from a private room, Charlotte and Joe were huddled up on the waiting room seats. Charlotte's Mum moved slowly, hair disheveled and the large book shaking in her hands.

Charlotte didn't even have the strength to stand up, she could only straighten her back. Her Mum's eyes bore into her but they were empty, vacant even in the blaring light of the hospital. She presented Charlotte with the book. 

"I don't want to see it anymore." She barely managed. Her voice was hoarse and barely there and when Charlotte didn't accept the book back, she just slammed it down on the ground. 

"Sally!" Joe sprang to his feet, getting on his knees to cradle his soon-to-be mother-in-law in his arms, rocking her back and forth on the cream surface.

Charlotte couldn't move. She felt so pathetic. Her Mum felt it, so bad and so real and the consequences were sprawled out in front of her, sobbing on the floor and Charlotte couldn't even blink. 

"You'll always be his wife Sally, you must know that." Joe tried his best at comforting, letting Sally sag into his neck. 

The words sent a shock through Charlotte's body, jarred her forward until she was on the floor also, clutching desperately for her Mum. 

Through her tears, Charlotte's Mum cradled her face and wiped away her daughter's tears like her own weren't important. 

"Don't let him slip away ever, Charlotte, promise me. Promise me." Her grip moved to Charlotte's forearms and held on for all it was worth. Charlotte shook under her grip, managing a nod before spluttering out, "I won't Mum. I promise."

Charlotte's eyes flickered over her Mum's shoulders to where Joe was huddled. 

"He would be so proud of you Charlotte, marrying him. He loved you both like his own, didn't he? Spoiled you rotten." Sally smiled shakily, brushing away tears.

Charlotte nodded, brushing away her own. 

"He loved you most though, ey? Moaned when you were together, moaned when you weren't, even moaned when he proposed on that buggering knee of his, but he loved you through it all, so, so much." Charlotte managed a weak smile.

Sally shook her head, gasped into her hand.

"Don't be nice. Don't say nice things about him. Tell me he was a bad person that deserved what he got Char, make me not hate him for leaving me."

Charlotte wailed, falling back onto her Mother, murmuring I can't do that I won't do that into her fleece. The thing was, Bert had become their family. In early months Charlotte and Joe would sit and try and work out if her Mum and him had a thing or not, cat-called at their flirtatious movements and wolf-whistled when they finally kissed after a meal.

Bert had been there for Charlotte after she'd left the house or started a shift in a rage because Joe had done something-or-other. He had been there for Joe when he needed help with proposing to Charlotte before proposing to Sally himself. He had been there for Charlotte's Mum whenever she needed him, and even if she didn't and allowed her to find her second happiness within him. And, they were all there for him, when he cursed himself for crying, sat down all three of them, his family, told them that he had colorectal cancer.

He swore then that the moment he was better, he'd meet Sally at the end of the isle to celebrate the rest of their lives together. He cried a little more when Charlotte asked if he could give her away and announced, "I promise you I'll be here for that."

Charlotte had held him to that promise. Believed in that promise even when they told Bert there was nothing they could do. She still believed that when she was forced to say goodbye, watch her Mother refuse to.

Now, though, on the floor of a hospital waiting room, she's knows she'll have to learn to accept that promises can't always be kept. That her Mother was promised a chance of forever, twice, and she got neither.

The epilogue is going to be about 5 chapters long I think, maybe longer. I know this seems like a massive plot twist and this whole fic is really marriage heavy but, anyway, r.i.p bert you were a good man. I've had this epilogue planned ever since I started so please just bare with me. Sorry for being such an infrequent uploader x

ALSO JOES IN LA FOR THREE WEEKS IOSHOFUG