Work Text:
He wept for his wife, his daughter, their lives, for the lives that could've been part of his future, but instead he chose to be separated from them by chains. He felt more alone than he ever did in his entire life. Alone in a room with a murderer. His son had seemingly melted away without his knowledge, or, the mere fantasy of him, murdering a young girl.
Katie Leonard, more like Latie Leonard due to this nature of his son being revealed late. Grimly and somberly. Her ghostly figure, pale, her coat covered in blood and cut marks, seven marks everywhere save for her head, staring back at him, standing there, staring, hauntingly in his mind's eyes. Staring back at him vacantly across from the table that had her photograph. The consequences of that night staring back at him in a room with a computer and two empty chairs as he leaned to his side. A bitter pun that didn't deserve to exist. Horrible!
And they were going to be losing him --what was left of their son-- to the justice system, they couldn't be by his side, see him get a girlfriend, get married, have kids, move out, grow old slowly before their eyes---
He wept for Katie and her last moments, being alone, bleeding out, scared, terrified, whether she was conscious or not.
Katie's mere existence did the world a favor.
Revealing a monster and yanking him off the streets.
And she didn't deserve to be the one to be responsible.
A little girl attacked viciously by his son.
Reeked of predicated murder with the knife.
Robbing her and her family in such a brutal relentless manner without any morals hindering him back as a relationship's ending was eked out in the horrors.
His son, now, in hindsight, deserved to have the arrest the way it was, the officers with guns barging in, ransacking the place, lying liar pants on fire with a silver tongue. A dangerous murderer using familial connections to avoid being taken in. It was all valid and disturbing all the same.
His heart breaking in two for her precious life. No one coming to her rescue. Being left there... Abandoned... like trash.
Dying in the dark all alone.
With only the stars as her company.
"Dad?"
Eddie wept for himself, too, he wept with all the sorrow on his mind, his son had lied to him, straight to his face, about the murder, about doing it. He wept for the little girl who was taken off the face of the Earth by his son.
His own flesh and blood.
He wept to get all these feelings out of him first before talking to Jamie.
So he can be the man that the family needs in the anguish and heartache and significant pain bearing himself for the denial, the disbelief, the wailing of his wife, the screaming, the grief, for how the pure little boy image was gone stabbed seven times over and over all over the place replaced by a moving image of a murderer in the dark with a glinting kitchen knife.
He wept before asking the question.
"What have you done?"
Looking over facing his sobbing son, a monster, a small one, an anguished one, hurt, frightened, deeply scared.
"What have you done?"
Looking at the one who had caused him so much heartbreak and disappointment. Even before asking the question.
"Why did you do it?"
The next obvious question.
Something the police had asked and didn't get an answer to.
Before crying with the boy who's life of freedom was effectively over grabbing him into a hug to comfort him.
He was like this little pathetic puppy with floppy ears and big eyes dripping wet and whining and scared--who was he not to be his father?
Jamie could've gotten away with it if he existed in a time when cameras didn't exist or had the confrontation done away from cameras. He could've moved on unlike Katie's parents while basking in satisfaction of getting away with it and never being suspected going under the radar, lying.