Daughter - A Surrera Fanfic

Chapter 1 - If Only You Knew

Author's note:
Hey everyone!
I am so excited to post the first chapter of my new multi-chapter fic.
I hope you enjoy and leave your thoughts!
Story title from the song Daughter by Sleeping at Last.

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If only you knew
The sunlight shines a little brighter
The weight of the world's a little lighter
The stars lean in a little closer
All because of you

-Daughter by Sleeping at Last

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15 years ago

Robert can't bring himself to go to the place he calls home.

He knows that when he finally enters, he will be surrounded by her. The smell of her perfume on the T-shirt she probably left crumpled up on the bed. The sight of her smiling from their wedding photo, holding his hand. The sound of her favorite George Micheal CD she left inside the reader before heading outside to start her work day.

He can't do it, he can't go back home. Because the moment he steps out of Seattle Grace, he will have to start learning how to keep living his life with Claire not in them.

And never, in a million years, Robert Sullivan had thought he would have to do it before the age of 80. When he said the words till death do us apart, he imagined a house full of grandchildren and a porch swing, and he was going to keep his oath, for better or for worse.

Right now, sitting in the waiting area of the dark hospital, he can still pretend. Pretend that he is not a widower. Pretend that there is a chance that she will come back to him. The love of his life, the mother of his daughter. Pretend that there is still a woman wearing a wedding band that matches the one he keeps spinning around his finger.

Other than the clothes and the pictures, he has another thing to remember her by. The most amazing little thing he has ever seen in his life. The baby girl who is running around the hospital's waiting room, on her chubby legs and with a big smile, completely unaware that her mother will never come and pick her up again.

When the doctors came and told him that they have done everything they could, the first thought that crossed his mind was that his daughter won't have her mother around in every step of her life, big or small. Claire won't be there to see her on her first day of kindergarten, or take a picture with her on her high school graduation. She won't be around to fight with her daughter about her first boyfriend, and she won't be there to be a shoulder to cry on when he breaks Olivia's heart. She won't be there to see Robert walking their daughter down the aisle.

From this moment on, he has to raise Olivia on his own. He will have to teach her to be a kind person, and how to share. He will have to explain to her that life isn't fair sometimes. He will have to deal with her terrible two, horrible three, and much worse sixteen.

He asked Ripley to bring his daughter over to the hospital. He is not able to look at him right now, probably won't be able to look at him for far longer, but his daughter knows and trusts his best friend, and other than his wife, Lucas is all the family he has.

Now that his wife is gone, Ripley is the only person he has.

There is a red headed nurse who seems quite fond of his little one year old trouble maker. The nurse leans down to his daughter, and they look together into a filthy mirror hung on the wall behind the nurse station, that fascinated his child for an unknown reason.

He gathers up whatever little strength he has in him, and walks toward her, clenching the small bag of Claire's personal belongings in his hand, whatever the hospital staff was able to find on her body. His daughter flashes a smile at him, with only half of her mouth full of teeth.