Checkmate || OUAT Fanfic || DISCONTINUED

Chapter 32; A Second Chance

"I wonder how biology can explain the physical pain you feel in your chest when all you want to do is be with someone."

~ Daniel Howell, one of the tweets Dan tweeted about Phil

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Peter's P.O.V (In The Underworld)

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    I woke up this morning with her name on my lips. Not Alice's this time but my mother's. Malcolm wasn't in the living room nor in his room so I just assumed he'd left for another meeting with Hades again. He's told me countless amount of times not to go back to the pawnshop to wait for him but I just didn't want to stay in the empty flat alone.

    Which was why I decided to go to the pawnshop anyway because that's where he usually goes to after meeting up with Hades. I guess I must've fallen asleep because the next thing I know I'm lying on a cot with my grandfather looking down at me.
   "What are you doing here?" he demands, looking a tad bit angry. "I thought I told you to wait for me back at apartment."

    I prop myself up with my elbows. "Are you alright, grandfather?"
   Malcolm's face softens and he shakes his head. "I'm sorry, laddie. It's just been a really tiring morning," he sighs, sitting on the edge of the mattress.
   "It's alright."
   "You had nightmare again, didn't you?" he asks.
   "Sort of."

    "Was it the recurring one?" he asks.
   I shake my head.
   "What was this one about then?"
   "It was about mother." I sit up on the bed, the thin blanket sliding off my bare chest as I do so. "We were in the kitchen together and I was recalling the day mother brought me to the market to buy food for dinner. It was the first time I noticed that the children in our village had two parents, a mother and a father whereas I only had one."

    "I think I was four or five years old at that time so I didn't know anything about how children came into the world, but I was child and children tend to be curious so I wanted answers. It took me a few weeks before I finally plucked up the courage to ask my mother about it." I pause, taking a deep breath before continuing. "I remember her smiling and telling me that all children had two parents."

    "And when I asked her where my father was she just gave me a sad smile and said that he wasn't around anymore. I apologized, thinking that I was my fault that he left, but mother just shook her head and told me that it wasn't my fault and that I was the best thing that ever happened to her. It was only a couple years later when I was a teenager did I learn that he left her because she wasn't normal."

    "I had always thought that he left her because he didn't love her but then I overheard the adults near the pub saying that it was because she was autistic. At first I couldn't believe it because my mother was the smartest person I knew but deep down I knew that made sense because of how she interacted -well, how she didn't interact- with the other villagers or how she did things."

    "Ever since that day I decided that I hated my father and that I'd make sure he'd stay away from my mother and I if I ever met him. Then came the day I finally met him. She looked so happy to see him, as if he hadn't left her all those years ago because of who she was. And then- And then he killed her."

    I close my eyes, not wanting Malcolm to know that I was on the verge of crying. But I suppose that my tone of voice told him that already because he started hugging me as soon I finished my story. "I miss her."
   "Shhhh..." Malcolm rubs my back. "Shhhh... It's alright, Peter. Let it out."
   I shudder, letting my tears fall. "Why did she have to go? And why isn't she here?"

    "She didn't know her parents, they left her at an orphanage when she was only a babe and she didn't have any friends."
   Malcolm continues to whisper soothing words in my ear, not letting go of me.
     "Did she move on?" I sob at the thought of my mother forgetting me.    Malcolm pulls back and cups my face with his hands.