His Drumming Heartbeat

Revelations

A/N: Warning: this chapter may contain some topics sensitive to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

The words reverberate through the raven-haired woman's mind frequently as she gazes off into space; flashbacks of her adolescence replay over and over. The same flashbacks haven't ceased to torment her, and the separate ones resurfacing after she presumed she disremembered after forcing herself. Vigorous as the colors from a beautiful sunset, yet the apollo did set when Lynnette was eight. Like a dark and nontranslucent night with no stars and moon to escort her. Everything was dark and bleak from then on until years following; her life felt cryptic, not knowing if she'd make it to the subsequent day or not with each waking second from when she woke up until she went to bed.

She exerts a shaky breath before proceeding, "do you know what Red's mom had?"

Bakugo shakes his head.

"Gotcha," Lynnette notes, "I can't remember the name of it specifically, but a family member of mine had it, but didn't make it."

"I'm sorry to hear," Bakugo apologized, "how close of a family member are we talking?"

"It was my mom," Lynnette sorrowfully answered, looking directly into his eyes.

Speculating back to it now, Bakugo remembered when Kirishima discussed how out of everyone who backed him through everything going on with his mom, Lynnette was the only one who genuinely understood it all. At first, he thought it was her being supportive, considering how close she and the redhead are, but putting the two pieces together, it all made sense she went through a similar manner at a pretty young age.

"My dad called me from my room to talk to me in the kitchen," Lynnette continues. "My mom said she'd make it, and always repeated, 'I'll be fine' while my dad never said a thing when I asked, but he knew more than I did because three years after her diagnosis, she passed away and everything went downhill for me."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Bakugo assured.

"I'll try not to go into full detail," Lynnette answers, "but I guess I never had a chance to process everything I went through until Karmin called."

The moment where everything began.

A/N: Play song now.

The rain was coming down hard in mid-April; it seems perfect given the atmosphere. Family members take their time giving their eulogy out to a beloved woman such as Linnea Nordstrand, Lynnette's late mother. Still, her mom's side knew her better by her maiden name, Gustafsson, while an eight-year-old version of the raven-haired woman sits in her chair, numb to the world. She was confused, lost, but grasping death in the scariest way to imagine because of everything that happened the last few years. Her mom was falling more and more ill by every waking second during her final moments, yet as the little child she was, she believed her mom would get over it like the stomach flu. Yet all she can do is sit there and not feel a thing, no tears to cry at her own mother's funeral.

Some family members noticed this and talked to Nils, Lynnette's father, asking if he considered grieving counseling. Her father thought, but knowing how easily Lynnette can adjust to things like her mother, he's not going to bother. However, even though he was undergoing as much pain as his daughter was, he didn't realize how much emotional turbulence it took on the two of them without getting her the help she needed. All Nils ever did was work constantly to take his mind off it, considering he's known Linnea for a good part of his life, and they were still married by the time she died. However, Lynnette would stay at Bella's place when they got off from school whenever he had his late shifts.