Secret smile

7

Sophie frowned and blinked quickly as she cleared the table. She was not going to cry. It was undignified and just because she was a Shepherd sister did not mean that she had to cry at stupid things like...okay, Derek's panic attack over pork chops hadn't been stupid but it didn't mean she was going to turn into a mess. He was playing with the kids now and she was cleaning the table.

She had thought she had prepared the kids enough for this. It had been their first time seeing Uncle Derek since the funeral a year earlier and she had tried to explain to them that Aunt Amy and Sarah were in heaven and that they couldn't ask about them. That it would hurt Uncle Derek's feelings. She and Brian had talked to all of them about it, but there was no way they could have predicted Liam's completely innocent question. She knew Liam would be too young to understand that his cousin was gone. No one really understood it but he was too young to not ask about it. No one understood how her brother had been so entirely happy just a little over a year ago and now he had had his entire world ripped away and he was barely a shadow of the big brother she had always looked up to. It wasn't fair. So when Liam had looked up from his mashed potatoes and quietly asked if Sarah was going to visit from heaven, she hadn't been sure what to do. They had all frozen, all of them, and her brother's face had fallen in a way that she could only remember from the funeral. And then he had panicked, his breathing becoming sharp and shallow and Mark had gotten out of his chair so fast, he had knocked it over.

She had seen Mark and Derek being close before. Mark had sat beside his brother at the funeral and held his arm through the entire thing. And then Mark had spent two months in New York helping him but she hadn't really seen Mark rush to him that quickly, and talk to him so quietly as Derek shook and gasped for breath. She had never seen Derek quite like that.

That wasn't her Derbear. Her Derbear was strong, always strong, and he really believed that life was generally okay. So it didn't make sense for him to be shaking in her dining room and looking...weak. It wasn't how she viewed him, he was going through hell and he was still alive and....but she had never seen her brother like that. "Soph," Brian breathed as he wrapped his arms around her.

"Brian," Sophie murmured, immediately leaning into him.

"He's okay," her husband whispered into her hair. "Listen to him. He's laughing with Cam."

"I know he is," she breathed.

"He's okay."

"He's not okay."

"Can you blame him?" Brian sighed. "If I lost you and the kids..."

"I know, Bri."

"But right now..."

"He's okay right now," Sophie nodded, clinging at her husband's shirt.

"He is," Brian murmured, pressing a kiss to her curly hair.

"But he was...that...he's Derbear."

"And he still is."

"He's not...not acting like Derbear."

"Course he is, Soph. He hugged you the second he walked in."

"And then he had a panic attack."

"Sophie," Brian sighed, pulling her onto his lap as he sat down. "We knew that could happen. Mom told us how bad off he was."

"I know."

"And he fought it damn hard."

"But Derbear...he doesn't have panic attacks."

"He didn't before Amy and Sarah died"

"I...I know that."

"He's trying, Sophie."