Before I Forget

Darkness

Trigger warning - self harm.
If you struggle with self harm or suicidal thoughts, please read with caution.

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On the passenger seat, next to the Medal of Honor, the phone kept buzzing. Sky ignored it and kept her eyes on the road. She wasn't going to pick up. She wasn't going to listen to what Hawk had to say. She would never speak to him again because there was nothing he could say that would make things right.

Her vision was blurred with tears, her breathing came in ragged, painful sobs that tore through her weary body. She felt like she'd been hit by a truck, there was no spot in her body that didn't hurt, her soul was bleeding out through the wound in her heart.

He had lied to her.

Repeatedly.

About everything.

All the times when they had talked about the trashing of Miyagi-Do coursed through Sky's mind in fast forward. When Sky had called him and asked about it, he had been so shocked, had denied everything - but had he already been hiding the Medal in his drawer? And when Sky had asked about it in Italy, more than once - he had lied to her, brutally, mercilessly, again and again.

All lies.

So little respect he had for her. No love, only lies, only deception.

I should have known. It was too good, too good to be true. I never deserved it.

That thought escaped her as a painful, broken sob. It took all she had, to be able to stay in control of the car.

Can't think about that, not now, not now—

She focused on her breathing - four counts in, six out - gripped the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles went white. She couldn't afford to crash the car now, she had things to do.

She glanced at the medal on the passenger seat and the phone that was still buzzing with Hawk's picture on the screen. Sky flipped the phone over so that she didn't have to see, but the buzzing continued as he tried to reach her again, again, again.

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Thank God it was Sam, who opened the door. She was the only member of the LaRusso household Sky was even remotely ready to face.

She knew she looked like shit - she certainly felt like that. The tears that had started to flow when she had rushed out of Hawk's room, were still running down her face and she knew they wouldn't stop, they would never stop.

"Sky—" Sam said and as she took in her wretched look - her wet hair, her pale face, and red-rimmed eyes, the tears on her cheeks - she went serious. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Sky couldn't answer. There was no way she could put it into words, so she simply fished the medal from her pocket and held it out in her outstretched palm.

"I'm so sorry—" she sobbed, meeting Sam's widened eyes. "I didn't know."

Sam picked the medal from Sky's palm carefully as if it was a priceless treasure - which it probably was to her.

"Oh my God," she breathed. "It's Mr. Miyagi's Medal of Honor! Where did you get it?"

Sky couldn't answer, She felt like she was going to be sick. Tears had started to flow down her face again and she was sobbing uncontrollably.