If Looks Could Kill (Sideshow Bob Fanfiction)

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter 42

Bob was vaugley aware of someone putting their arm around his shoulders.

"Hey!" Janet said, hugging Bob's shoulders, "What's wrong, Robert?"

"How a-about everything?" Bob choked, attempting, unsuccessfully, to stop crying. Bob wiped his eyes, but more tears only came as another sob wracked through him.

Janet gently pulled Bob's head out of his hands. Bob reluctantly took the hint and raised his head to look at Janet.

"Want to start from the beginning?" Janet asked, smiling reassuringly at Bob, taking a firm hold of his wrists. She felt a ridge beneath his sleeve, and rolled it up to look. She saw that Bob's left wrist was bandaged. She didn't need to ask what had happened, as Bob snatched his left wrist away and pulled down his sleeve almost immediately.

"Only if you want to hear my bloody life story," Bob wept bitterly.

"Surely it didn't start there?" Janet asked gently, giving Bob a sympathetic look.

"Well then I don't know when it did!"

"What happened, Brian?" Janet asked quietly, but Bob still heard.

Brian explained in a whisper about what Bob had told him.

"Oh, Robert! You were a wonderful father! I saw just how happy Gino was when you brought him in once," Janet said, squeezing Bob's hand, trying to comfort him.

Bob turned his head away, sobbing harder; Gino was . Gino would always be a was now, and it was all his fault.

"Gino should still be here!" Bob cried, "If I was a good father, or even an okay one, he'd still be here!"

"Robert, what happened to Gino wasn't your fault! It was completely and utterly out of your control!" Janet replied.

"Was it? Was it really?! Because I'm pretty sure that it was preventable!" Bob snapped, wiping more tears away.

"Robert, how was that car accident in any way preventable - by you ?" 

"Because I was a bad husband too! If Franchesca hadn't divorced me, chances are that I  would have been the one running Gino's errand! I would have been the one who was hit! I'd  have died instead of Gino! I wish that I was hit by the bloody car!" Bob shouted.

"Oh, Robert! How could you say that?!" Janet cried, saddened by Bob's reply.

"Because I wish I had have been! Gino didn't deserve to die! But I do! Everything I've done; I deserve to die twenty times in a bloody row!" he sobbed.

"Nobody deserves to die, Robert! Especially not someone as amazing as you are," Janet said, hugging Bob's shoulders once more.

"I miss him so much! All I really want is for him to be here again; I'd give anything just to see him one last time! Just once-" Bob sobbed into his hands as Janet hugged him.

"Oh, Robert. I can totally understand why you'd miss him. He was the most amazing kid," Janet said quietly to Bob.

"I can't believe he's gone- he was always so energetic and full of life!" Bob whispered, "It feels so strange- saying that he was. "

Janet glanced at her watch and then said,

"I have to go and see to something, but I'll be right back, Robert. You're so brave, you know?" 

Bob nodded, and then watched as Janet dashed out of the room.

Bob wiped his eyes and took a few deep breaths. After a few, he managed to slow down his sobs- though not completely stop them.