Oceans [A.Shelby]

EPILOGUE

WHEN ARTHUR ENTERED his wife's childhood bedroom, the sight that beheld him made his breath catch peacefully in his throat.

His wife, looking fresh faced and as young and vulnerable as ever lying comfortably on her bed with a small bundle in her arms.

Their bundle.

Lillian turned to the man, staring at him as he stared down into her arms and she didn't quite know how to feel. She had spent endless amounts of time thinking about her decisions and the past years, about her love and about her happiness. About her sons happiness. Though she hadn't recited what she wanted to say she knew what had to be said but saying it was a steep mountain to conquer.

Despite everything, she knew meeting their son should be special to Arthur and from the look of wonder in his eyes she knew it most definitely was.

"Meet our son" She spoke softly, placing the sleeping boy gently down on the bed and unwrapped his blanket so his father could soak him in as he sat gently beside her.

Softly, Arthur stroked the back of his sons hand, who moved slightly, lips parting with a sigh that made Lillian chuckle.

"He's perfect." Arthur stated, "the best thing to ever happen to us."

Lillian couldn't disagree with him there, nodding along to his words.

The pair were silent for what felt like hours, Arthur picked his son up and cradled him cautiously, as if he was breakable china. The boy looking even smaller compared to his father. He didn't stir, continuing to sleep and Arthur felt his heart constrict further. This feeling he had never felt, he had never thought himself to be a soft man, for Lillian perhaps. Seeing their little boy who would grow up and call him Dad and badger him to kick a ball around in their garden, Arthur promised to protect him with his life. His son would have a better life than him, he would go to school and become something like a Doctor or a teacher, he would buy a house with a white fence and the latest car on the market. He would be a better man than his father could ever be.

In this room he wasn't a gangster, he wasn't a murder, he wasn't a right-hand man or a drunk. He was a father.

"Louis Theodore," Lillian's words broke their silence, answering the question that was on her husbands mind. He smiled in response, the name suited him and his small features.

The silence, the past weeks and the air that hung in the room, Arthur sensed what was to come without Lillian saying anything at all. He knew he had made many mistakes, ones which he knew Lillian would struggle to ever forgive. She had warned him tirelessly and he knew deep down that she was done. She had been for a while but the woman was stubborn and so was he.

There was no doubt in his mind that Lillian loved him, and despite all his fuck ups, his addictions and his mistakes, Arthur had always loved Lillian. He had learnt from those around him, love wasn't always enough.

Love wasn't enough if it was tearing them apart, affecting ones happiness.

Louis squirmed, opening his eyes to his father for the first time and Arthur fell in love once again.

"Our little blonde, he has your hair, and your eyes, lucky boy," Arthur grinned, "going to be a good looking boy I feel it."

"He's a darling," Lillian smiled as she raked through her sons fine hair with a gentle smile, "loves his milk and falling asleep on my chest, my father says not to coddle him but he's so small, so young."

"If that's what he likes, that's what he gets," Arthur smiled, Lillian agreeing.

They were newborn for only a few short weeks, though Lillian thought she wasn't a maternal woman, this was her son. The son she had nurtured and carried, who she would nurture till he was at the age of telling her to go away or disappearing with his friends. Until he didn't need her anymore, she was his.

"Lil?" Arthur called her name.

"Yes?" She replied in a daze as she stared at their son.

"You're leaving me, aren't you?" He questioned, the breathe catching in her throat at the abruptness, his demeanour didn't change, he still stared at his son lovingly, his voice didn't harden.

He knew, it was almost as if he had accepted the hard truth. Perhaps he had a lot of thinking time in prison, she thought. Perhaps the lack of alcohol and drugs had helped him come to his senses.

"I have spent years loving you and trying to help you when you didn't even try to help yourself. All this time, I've felt fractured and I have to do this for our child, Arth. I dont want him growing up and seeing me having to holding this family together, because that's all I've been doing for years. I've been waiting for you to come home, forgiving you for the things that time and time again you've promised you would stop doing. I've lost myself. I don't know who I am if I'm not with you and it's not right."

Placing Louis softly on the bed, Arthur grabbed Lillians hand who looked at it with a heartbreaking expression, wanting to pull away hoping this wasn't Arthur begging her to stay.

"I'll prove to you. I wont give up even if it takes years. I promise you, on my brothers lives I will change and be a better man. I love you Lils, the mother of my son, the woman who saved me, the woman who I have never deserved. I'll show you that I can be the man you fell in love with again" Arthur promised his wife and strangely, Lillian believed his words. She believed he could change if he really tried, but she wanted him to do it because he wanted it, not to earn her back.

She squeezed his hand, placing a soft kiss to the back of it, "get better because you want to, not for me. We will still be a family, a car journey from eachother, one that loves eachother, who'll have Christmas' and Sunday dinner if you so wish. We will never be strangers, Arth. We never could."

The pair were passionate lovers but Oceans apart and they had been all along, trying so hard to build bridges between them for years, to stay afloat on their makeshift rafts and alas one had admitted defeat. Her boat had sunk and she was washed ashore.

Arthur would build the bridges, or a thousand boats if he had to for now he had realised his faults he wanted to fix them. For his family.

He would make thing's right, even if it would take him the remainder of his life. There was only one woman he would ever call his wife and that was his Lil.

The End.