Rip - Becoming Whole

Regression

Rip woke with a inexplicable sense of sadness that had him thinking about the family he had lost. He had tears in his eyes and was wondering if he had been dreaming of them but couldn't remember anything he had dreamt. This hadn't happened to him for a while.

He was slightly cold, having kicked off the small blanket his uncle had placed over his legs. He had no idea how long he had been sleeping there. Last thing he remembered was that he was trying desperately to stay awake.

Last night, when Sebastian and Samuel were trying to jam with him, while the others were talking amongst each other, he had felt part of something. It continued even when they stopped. Robert and Jamie took it in turns to try to wheedle and bribe him into divulging Jacob' secrets. But his lips were sealed, much to the amusement of everyone. It was a good laugh. For once he did not feel like a spectator among them.

But now he was alone in the living room. They had just left him there on the couch. He felt abandoned, and uncared for. He knew of course he had fallen asleep and they were probably just considerate, not wanting to wake him up for no good reason, but it was not the first time that what his brain told him to be true, did not match with what he was feeling on the inside. He sat up, picked up the blanket from the ground and wrapped it around himself. Being alone in the semi dark with only the light from the upstairs landing softly illuminating the wide stairs beside him, leading into the downstairs living area, he allowed his feelings to take over and cry a little.

"Oh good, you're awake", he heard his uncle say. The old man was looking down on him, having come halfway down the stairs with his bedding in his arms. "You might as well go into your own bed so! Come on, son," he softly called. Rip briefly looked up to his uncle on the stairs but then quickly turned his head, he faked a yawn and stretched in an effort of pretending it was sleep and not tears he was wiping away from his eyes. He felt guilty for having thought he had just left him there with a tiny little blanket and ashamed that he had let it affect him so much that he cried. "I'll be up in a sec," he croaked, his voice betraying his feelings, he stayed put. He didn't want his uncle to see that he had cried. 

The old man came all the way downstairs though and placed the bedding on the couch beside him before sitting down on the coffee table opposite him. "Were you crying? Did you have a nightmare?" he asked him quietly, gently moving his chin to look into his face. The boy shook his head but then shrugged his shoulders and said, "maybe. I don't know. I woke up crying."

"Ah god. Come here," he said and took the boy in a warm embrace that opened the boy's floodgates so that he was sobbing openly into his uncle's chest. "Come on Rip. What's eaten you up. You've been like this for a while now. Talk to me," the man said, but Rip shook his head. "I don't know Papa. There's nothing to talk about. I just feel so alone, sometimes," he said, which wasn't exactly a lie, but what had him crying now, was the fact that his uncle had come back downstairs with his bedding, wanting to make sure he was warm for the night. He gave the old man nothing, but grief and he just couldn't understand why he kept being kind to him. He could never understand why he had taken him in, in the first place. Why did he bother, why did any of them bother, and why did they forgive him over and over again? They didn't need him, there was nothing he could give to them in return for their kindness. He had nothing to offer.

"Lonely, Huh," the old man said. "Tell you what. Let's sleep down here tonight. Go lie down," he gently pushed the boy back down and covered him with the bedding he had brought down for him. "I am going to sleep on the other couch tonight. I just go and get my blankets," he said. "You don't have to do that," the boy said awkwardly, but his uncle sat himself on the edge of the seat beside him, stroking the hair out of the boy's face and wiping his tears away. "I know I don't, but I want to," he told him.