all we can do is keep breathing

ten.

the seams are jagged.

||✚||

Hours pass, blending into days, bleeding into weeks and all the while Harry stays glued to Avery's unconscious side. Nurses and doctors come in and out, taking vitals, running labs, ordering a constant revolving door of tests, but nothing changes. Nothing fucking changes and Harry is hardly holding it together with each passing moment.

He tries to distract himself, tries to do what little work he can manage from Avery's hospital room, but it's all useless. He misses her. Harry misses his little Avery so much. He would do absolutely anything to see her bright dimpled smile again. Or hear that cute little laugh. He is dying to listen to Avery ramble on about her most recent passions, like the dire importance of saving the walruses along with all endangered aquatic life or sit and answer all of her many questions about the most random of things that are somehow exceedingly important to her. And Harry's motto when it comes to his daughter has always been if it is important to Avery, then it is equally important to him.

If he could trade his life for hers he would, oh god, he would. If he could somehow throw himself in front of her and take the bullet aimed at her precious temple, he wouldn't hesitate. But the bullet is already in her blood, coursing through her system, contained within her failing body. Harry can't stop the gun from firing, but still he isn't ready to pick up the fallen casings.

Jesse comes in and out, but he can never stay long. Always an excuse on his lips, talking of work or meetings or conferences, rambling out useless apologies and justifications for his repeated absence. Harry would be more upset if he had the energy, if he had the will to care. But all his emotional faculties are honed in on his daughter, focused on just being there for her, making sure she knows she is not alone.

Harry spends hours talking to Avery, even though he knows she won't respond back, but he doesn't ever want her to feel lonely. He doesn't know how much gets through to her, but it doesn't quite matter because he would do it regardless. Harry reads to her and sings to her and he tells her every moment how much he loves her and how much he misses her.

Sometimes his mind drifts back to old memories of the two of them, when Avery was just a baby and Harry was an absolute mess trying to figure out his role of sudden fatherhood. One particular memory never fails to put a small smile on his face. His first real bonding moment with Avery all those years ago.

"Oh please, Avery please." Harry begged, standing in the middle of the baby food isle with a collection of baby food jars in each of his hands and a 9-month old baby who wouldn't stop screaming. He'd been in the store for the better part of an hour, trying desperately hard to figure out what Avery liked, all to no avail. Avery refused to eat, in fact she refused to do just about everything but cry, all day and all night it seemed.

And Harry felt way out of his league, having no earthly idea how to calm her down or how to get her to eat regularly. She wouldn't even sleep and Harry felt what nonexistent energy he had left completely depleting before his eyes. He'd tried everything—he'd bought a hoard of new parenting books and watched countless videos, but no where does anything cover his specific and unique situation. As hard as he tried, Harry just didn't have a bond with Avery yet—he was probably just some other random person to her at this point.

"Please stop crying—please, Avery..." Harry tried again with little to no hope whatsoever.

Avery's entire face glowed bright red as she wailed inconsolably, frustrated cries echoing throughout the grocery store.

"I don't know what you want me to do, ok? I don't know! I don't get it!" Harry groaned in utter frustration, pleading that she'd just cut him a break. "You won't help me out at all, all you do is cry and scream at me! I don't know how to take care of you! I can't do this..."