Chapter Text
Everything can change in an instant. For Saguru, who was now closer to thirty than twenty, her life had changed in a domino-like row of instances, each choice falling into another and creating bigger and bigger problems. Back then she couldn't point any fingers except towards the mirror. She hadn't been forced into anything. She had made every choice in sound and sane mind.
From the moment she'd accepted the oh so manipulative kiss to standing over a bassinet, she had been in control.
That had been then, and this was now. Where she no longer had the control she had clung to. It was her son's eighth birthday and Saguru sat cross legged on his bedroom floor, alone for the first of many of his birthdays.
She was just here, so alone in more ways than physically, and she didn't feel like a person anymore. She was used to loss of identity, had experienced it her whole life stuck between countries and parents, but this was just a whole new source of hurt.
They should have been in the kitchen with a cake to cut. Laughter as Saguru made sure to lock her current case file in her briefcase and hand Baaya the key. There was an open case on her desk that she hadn't touched in weeks, even then that had to skim it before putting it back down.
This had been her life for so long, and she didn't know how she was supposed to just change . These days, ' Hakuba Saguru' was not an often used set of paired sounds that she heard. While she herself still walked this earth, it was more common for her to hear herself called Ms. Graham, after her mother's maiden name. Even that was rare, as she had been shuffled off to a home in the country like it was the early 20th century nearly as soon as she arrived back in England nine years ago. Not many came her way, and when she drove into town for groceries she at most got polite nods, and seconds of casual conversation.
It wasn't a terrible life.
She had tried to make the best of the situation. The sleepless nights, the stress, that bubbly little feeling when it all came into perspective. She was a mother. She had another shot at actually having a family she enjoyed being a part of.
The worst part is packing it all away.
Saguru folded up the final blanket that had been left on the bed, tapping up the box, and marking it down. She had been putting this off for months, every second on her pocket watch feeling like a day in itself. Packing up her son's room had been the last thing on her mind, but she couldn't keep passing by it and keep almost forgetting he was gone.
She had grown up hearing that you never wanted to outlive your child. Before she had one of her own, she hadn't understood that. Death was a natural part of life. Even after the baby had been born she had simply kept facts on her tongue about SIDS and how fragile babies were, and simply tread lightly with him both physically and emotionally. It took a lot longer for the postpartum depression to pass than her mother claimed it would, and what Baaya wished it would. Baaya had cared for her as a baby like her own daughter and Saguru had returned the favor by forcing her to raise her son in turn.
Baaya never made a fuss, never glared at her when the baby would start crying and Saguru would hunch over and focus even heavier on her book or case file. Just slowly introduced the baby into her routine until Saguru couldn't imagine a day without him in her arms.
Despite all she had believed as a teenager, how she acted in his first year, she had cracked when a day went by with him still missing, and shattered in the months since. She knew the statistics of missing children. She had never received any sort of ransom to know if he had actually been taken or if he had wandered off into the woods to never show up again. He had just been playing in the backyard one day, and then he suddenly wasn't .
Saguru didn't even have a small coffin to fill, to have some sense of closure. Just an empty bedroom, and a silent house.
She felt like she and Baaya were the only ones left to mourn him. Her mother had been distant at best, the townsfolk barely took notice of him. Saguru wasn't entirely sure her father even knew he was a grandfather.
And she had never told his father that she had been pregnant. Now with no child left to speak of, she doubted he would even believe her if she tried to tell him now. She had no meaningful stretch marks as physical proof, as her tall stature had left plenty of room for her growing womb. It didn't even seem fair anyways, to suddenly thrust knowledge of a dead child onto him.
These last months had been hard, and it put all her fears into perspective. He deserved to have known. She shouldn't have made plans to run away as soon as the test was positive. But it was too late for that.
Too late. The story of her life.
Going through his belongings made her feel even worse. An invasion of privacy even towards a dead boy. She couldn't bear to open his drawers, check in buckets on his shelves. Even straighten up the books on the shelf. She could feel his presence in every part of the room, only the layer of dust on everything different from when he was alive.
Logically, she knew that she was being stupid. The room didn't matter now. He was gone and there was no changing that. It wasn't like she was throwing away his things. Just boxing them up so she wouldn't have to look at them again. Start healing. Start trying to overcome that the last eight years ultimately meant nothing.
She'd kept her baby and gotten all this grief in return. Saguru didn't know if she had ever felt pain like this before. Tears of anger, loss... all of it had simply felt hollow and physically painful at the same time.
She didn't realize she was crying until she saw a drop hit the box below her. Right beside where she'd written in sharpie "Ash's Blankets" in neat if slightly wobbly scribble.
Saguru got up from the floor and left the room.