The Apartment Above the Photo Hut - Saturday Morning

[flamesburned]

A lot had happened in the last twenty four hours since Liz had gotten back to Fandom, she had told Steven about the pregnancy and he hadn’t seemed to mind that she waited to tell him in person and Dr. Lecter had stopped by yesterday to check in on her and had offered her one of his guest rooms and now she was going to be moving in to Dr. Lecter’s house for the next little while so he could monitor her pregnancy and new bipolar diagnosis, she was nervous about these changes but she knew that it was the first best since she knew how she could get and that it would be better if she didn’t live by herself.

Then yesterday Goose had handwavily come round to tell her that he had made contact with Prompto and Ignis and that Prompto was going to work on trying to fix the connection, she now had her own communicator and she was hardly daring to hope that she could talk to Prompto - to be able to talk to him again, to tell him that he was going to be a father.

She didn’t have to much that she had to pack to take with her, some of it was still packed from when she went home - it was mostly Rain’s toys that she had to take but every now and then she kept glancing at the communicator that she wore on her wrist, trying to not get her hopes up that Prompto would reach her.


[expecting a long awaited call from the boyfriend but the post can also be open! ETA - I am so sorry about the careless way in which I posted about the subject of Liz's mental health and I have removed that comment from this thread. It was not my intention to cause any hurt or distress by my words and I will be more careful in the future.]

Comments

[flamesburned]

Liz jumped when she heard Prompto’s voice come through the communicator, the shock of just hearing his voice after all this time was overwhelming and a hand flew to her mouth in surprise as she tried to stop herself from crying out. The tears starting to spring to her eyes as she tried to compose herself, to actually say something to Prompto.

Even though maybe he did want to speak to Goose but she felt she had to try and speak to Prompto, hopefully Goose wouldn’t mind that she was talking to Prompto first.

“Pro-Prompto?” she said softly, hardly daring to believe that she was talking to him, “is .. is that really you?”

[hashtag_chocobro]

Goose? Goose who? Prompto had only been trying to reach Goose because he knew Goose was the one with the communicator, and he figured they'd have to work out some kind of elaborate phone network to reach Liz since she'd apparently gone back to the BPRD. But, apparently, she'd either made it back or Goose had somehow gotten a communicator to her as well, and once that initial shock that send his heart practically flying up into his throat, he just let out a long breath of relief and closed his eyes as if to just hold onto even just that small snippet for as long as he could.

And then he remembered, oh, right, he should probably keep talking.

"Ohmygod." It just came out in a whispered rushed, with an odd tangle of emotions that had him caught somewhere between wanting to cry and unable to keep a grin off his face. "Liz. It's actually....I mean....yeah. Yeah, it's....it's me. It's...."

You'd think, after so long of trying, once he finally managed to get through, he'd know what to say by now, but words were utterly failing him and he just shook his head in disbelief, and figured, at this point, there really was only one thing to say:

"Hi."

[flamesburned]

It took Liz several moments to remember how to breathe, it wouldn’t do either her or their daughter any good if she was to pass out before she could even have the chance to talk to Prompto and Goose had mentioned that it hadn’t been a very good connection.

She finally remembered that words were a thing, “hi.” she managed to squeak out, “I never thought I’d - I …I miss you so much! I - I …love you!” and then she burst into tears.

There was so much she wanted to tell him, how badly she missed him, how badly she had screwed up - all these new changes in her life and she desperately needed him with her.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Well. So much much for keeping a dry eye for himself. Prompto knew he was going to lose that battle right from that little squeak of a greeting back, and you could absolutely forget about it once that sob hit his ears. Suddenly, managing to just be able to talk to her seemed abysmally insufficient, what he really should have been working on was a way to just be able to reach out and hold her.

But he would. After this, they could try to get back to Insomnia, see if they could find the hubs, get them going again...

He was clearly getting ahead of himself, though, and pulled himself back to the current moment, the here and now, where he was actually, finally able to to talk to her, not just text messages or voicemails thrown desperately out into the ether and caught in the vast emptiness between dimensions.

"Gods, Liz," he breathed out, "I don't even think there's words to describe how much I miss you. How much I love you. How..." His breath caught on a desperate sound. "How sorry I am. That it's...that's taken me so long. But I've been trying, I really have, it's just...." There was no keeping the tears back now as he shook his head a little, struggled to even known where to begin. "There's just so much, Liz. So much has happened..."

[flamesburned]

Liz took several large gulping breaths and tried to stop crying, even though the tears kept falling, she tried to wipe them away, “it has been such a difficult month, I - I Summer had trouble getting a portal and I want so badly to be with you and so much has happened,” she burst out.

She had to take another several breaths.

“I’m - I’m sorry too,” she said guiltly, biting her lip, suddenly terrified now that she was talking to Prompto - she wanted to clear the air but she wanted to tell him her transgressions in person, to be honest and upfront but she was afraid “I - wasn’t strong all all, you … you would be ashamed of me, you’ve had so much going on and I’ve just fallen apart, I’ve been weak - I’m - I just miss you so much,” she started sobbing again.

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Hey," Prompto breathed out softly, curling in a little around the communicator, around the twist in his gut that those sobs were causing, around the stab of guilt in his stomach. Here, all he'd wanted was to just hear her voice again, let her know he was okay....well, not okay, but alive, at least...and now all he was doing was making her upset. Geez. Even a gazillion interdimensional miles away, he still managed to screw it all up! "No...no, it's....it's okay. It's been hard, for...both of us. And you didn't ask for any of this. None of us did. How could we have possibly known?"

But even as he said it, he felt bad about it. Because they could have known. They did know. They had all the pieces, from all those alternate futures and glimpses of what might be; they just failed to put it together in time to really see the big picture.

"I'm just....I'm just so glad," he breathed out desperately as he clung hard onto this one bright moment after all these months of darkness...both figurative and now literal... "to hear your voice again. I miss you so much...."

Half of this conversation was going to just be them telling each other that last part, wasn't it?

[flamesburned]

"I miss you as well," it definitely appeared that it was going to be the case now,, " I- I spent the last couple of weeks at home, I couldn't stay here at Fandom," she said softly, "I couldn't bear being here without you,"

There was a pause in between her sobbing as she tried to consider what to say next. There was so much she wanted to say.

"You'll hate me though," Liz said miserably, "I - I screwed up, I - I love you so much and I was weak and foolish and - and ..." she couldn't continue, she knew she wasn't making much sense but the shame and guilt was eating at her and that wasn't even on top of telling Prompto her other news as well - well that and the fact that she was going to be staying with Dr. Lecter for a while as well.

Except if she told him the truth, he might not want to speak to her again.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto was starting to feel like he maybe should have stocked up on potions before this conversation, the way that couldn't bear being here without out line seemed to slice him straight to his core. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she'd have just been better off without him, to just forget him and move on. If anyone should be hating anyone in this situation...

"I'm so sorry," he gushed out. "I didn't mean to. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I--"

All those bright, hopeful plans of his that had been so unceremoniously dashed upon the rocks came flooding back to him, and he had to close his eyes for a moment to fight them off.

"I don't think there's anything you could ever do to make me hate you, Liz."

After all, she wasn't the one who disappeared for months on end. She wasn't the one who ruined everything by leaving.

"I love you. And no matter what happens, nothing is ever going to change that...."

And then, despite himself, he had to laugh, a small, short thing, without a lot of mirth behind it.

"You're stuck with me," he reminded her, although he couldn't make it sound nearly as teasing as he'd wanted it to, especially considering the circumstances that just made it feel cruelly ironic, "remember?"

[flamesburned]

The irony of that particular statement was not lost on Liz and it made her burst into a fresh wave of tears.

"I ... I did something unforgivable," she sobbed, "I ... I wish I could confess in person though, I owe you that much but I ... I want you to know that I love you and I always will, even if you don't after this and I'm so, so very sorry for what I did," she trembled, hiccuping as she tried to remember how to breathe.

"I ...I," she took another long breath, "I emotionally cheated on you, with Steven ... I was confused and weak and I'm so very sorry,"

She lapsed back into tears again, half expecting Prompto to hang up the call right then and there.

[hashtag_chocobro]

As if the dread that was gathering in his stomach with each word coming out of Liz's mouth just then wasn't enough, his attention was pulled away, just slightly, by a loud, screeching of tires just outside, on the main road. A sweeping of headlight flashing in through the diner's windows. A crash of metal, and shouts rising up from all around Hammerhead.

And the panic already making his heart race blowing up almost exponentially.

"Wait," he said, feeling himself suddenly torn between the crisis in the communicator and the crisis right outside. But whatever it was, Iggy and Gladio and Cindy could handle it, he was busy goddamn it. "What?"

Maybe...maybe the crash had distracted him, and he hadn't heard something right. Flashlights and shouts continued to fill the space outside the diner, but Prompto tried to hunker down and put all his attention into the communicator.

"Steven?" It had been so long for him, and so much had happened since, that he had to blink and work to pull up the name from his memory. "The guy who was helping you with your training? Emotionally cheat-- What does that even--"

Oh.

"....oh."

Oh no.

[flamesburned]

"I'm so so so so sorry," Liz gasped in between her sobbing, "nothing physical happened, I was lonely and I got lost and confused and I - I liked spending time with him and ... my head's been a mess lately, I'm getting help now but I - I don't know what happened, I don't know how I lost myself like that ...I love you, you're the only one who matters to me and ... I I messed up and now you'll hate me and ... and ..."

Liz couldn't finish, she was sobbing too hard to even finish that sentence, she had gone and messed up everything and her one chance to talk to Prompto in all that time and she had completely fallen apart.

[hashtag_chocobro]

The commotion going on outside was making it really hard to focus on what Liz was saying. Ugh, seriously! Out of all the times for something to be happening, it had to be now? Gods, he really couldn't just catch a fucking break, could he?

But he tried to focus, he tried to make sense out of what Liz was telling him right now, tried to wade through the massive jumble of thoughts assaulting his brain right now, contending with the deep, deep pit he felt opening up inside of his gut.

"I told you," he said, latching onto the one thing in all of this that he knew for sure with an absolute unwavering certainty, "I could never hate you. I love you, and nothing will ever change that..."

Even if he sometimes wished it could; just look at Yang...

But now that that was out of the way, he closed his eyes and tried to fight back the tears that came with an attempt to wade through all that other stuff, and the only interpretation that could have possibly made sense to him.

"But, I mean," he said, around a painful lump in his throat, tears stinging his eyes, "if that's...if that's what you want....if that's....what makes you happy....I don't....I don't think anyone can really blame you, either."

After all, even if you looked past every other blatant flaw and reasons why he definitely wasn't good enough, Steven would undeniably have one thing over him that he just couldn't give her: the ability to just be there.

The simplest thing in the goddamn world. Just being there. And he'd even fucked thatup.

Again.

No, he was already telling himself, failing to hold back a sniffle even if he was able to keep back the sobs, wiping the back of his wrist against his eyes as if that would help anything. This is better. This was better for her. Just as long as she was happy...

[hashtag_chocobro]

The chaos from outside (someone, Gladio probably, shouting his name; someone else, probably Ignis, shouting back) combined with the whiplash from her clarification on his misunderstanding left Prompto's head swimming, frowning as he just tried to keep up with all the information being thrown at him and all the activity beyond the diner's windows. Even though he didn't fully register it, the creeping feeling sliding up his spine could have only been from the presence of daemons nearby, too.

This was...a lot. This was...too much. He shook his head a little and tried to focus on just one thing. On the important things.

"Liz," he said, surprising himself with the firmness of his convictions, despite everything else, "being with you again is literally the only thing keeping me going anymore."

And, banking on the hope that she would understand the full weight, the full gravity of that statement and everything it entailed, especially in the context of everything else, he continued.

"Whatever you need to do--"

But he couldn't continue for long before he was interrupted, Gladio at the door of the diner shouting in at him.

"Wrap it up, lover boy! We've got company!"

"Give me a goddamn second!" Prompto shouted back, feeling another one of those new spikes of irritable anger that were becoming increasingly more frequent these days. "I'm kind of in the middle of something important right now!"

"You're going to be in the middle of your own grave if you don't hurry your ass up! Move it!"

"Fuck!" Prompto's fist angrily pounded into the table, wrenching out another sob, teeth clenched, as he tried to not get swept up in the overwhelming swirl of chaos. "Fuck. I--" He winced as he heard a familiar skittering sound off the side of the diner, claws against glass. Gladio really wasn't kidding.

"I gotta go, babe," he managed to wedge out of himself, even though it took every ounce of strength and effort he had to admit it, feeling the pain of it in his limbs as he went to reach for his gun. "We got...we got daemons, they're gonna....bust in here....any second now..."

[flamesburned]

"Prompto!" Liz panicked, realising how few previous seconds they had left of this call, "I mean, I'm going to be here - I'm going to wait for you, I - I really need to tell you something else, it's important - can you - I ..."

If only she had enough time to tell him, tell him that he was going to be a father ... that he was going to have a daughter.

She needed to tell him before he left, "please - please stay! Just a little bit longer," she begged.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Up until now, the inside of the diner had been softly lit by the floodlight of the Hammerhead's parking lot, but that light was quickly dimming from the crush of bodies swarming over the large glass windows. Frantically taking a moment to access the situation, Prompto snatched the communicator and the flask device from off the table so that he could swing himself underneath it for that extra protection, huddled around it defensively.

"Yeah," he said, his breath now a whisper. "No, okay, I got this, it's fine. I'm here. I'm--"

There was a scream from outside, and the sudden tell-tale sound of several lightbulbs bursting. The diner plunged into near darkness, with only the lights on the far side of the lot giving him any semblance of illumination, but that was not nearly as terrifying as the sound the followed: the complete and total shattering of all of the diner's windows, the shower of glass and sharpnel that followed, and the growling chittering of the daemons as they swarmed inside like locusts.

"Shit," Prompto breathed out, eloquently, and cocked his gun. "Okay, hold on. New plan. Just...hold tight, Liz, okay? Hold that thought. I'll be right back, I just gotta--"

The words cut off with a bang of his gun, followed by the splattering slump of a body hitting the floor right in front of the communicator. More shots followed, getting quieter as Prompto had no choice but to crawl out from under the table and start shooting his way out to some semblance of safety, to get with the others, to get the lights back on, anything to drive the daemons back, because they'd all be screwed if they wound up taking the Hammerhead, too.

[flamesburned]

Liz waited, jumping at the sound of his gun going off as she tried to keep the panic from rising in her … trying to take deep breaths as she did.

“Prompto?” she asked tentatively after a few moments, “are - are you still there?” She took a deep breath, “are you alright?"

[hashtag_chocobro]

Nothing.

For a good, long while, there was nothing, except what the communicator managed to pick up from the skirmish going on outside.

And then, the garbled, inhuman babbling of a daemon imp, as it found the device under the table and scraped it forward across the floor, examining it with confused curiosity in its hand. Put it in its mouth to chew on it, making a disgruntled sound of disappointment to discover it was inedible. And then its attention shifted to the flask connected to it, letting out a hiss at the bright light flashing within before seizing it. It let out a pained scream as it seared into its flesh, and then, angrily, it threw it hard against the wall, shattering it with a clap of thunder that cut off mid-way with the severing of the communicator's energy source and the connection.

[flamesburned]

“Prompto?” Liz tried again, tears starting to build up again as she waited for any kind of sign, any kind of sound that Prompto was still there that she could tell him that he was going to be a father.

That she needed him to come back to Fandom.

“Prompto? Please are you there?” she let out a sob.