Chapter Text
The noise was slowly making it’s way through Diana’s ears and into her brain. What started out as people passionately advertising the low, low price of their apples and pears and strawberries and whatever else they were selling, turned into a loud buzzing. Faintly, somewhere in the distance, Diana could feel the warm hand of her husband. That was the real world. But at times like these, days like the ones she was living now, the real world felt less factual than the one in her head. Through the buzzing, she heard him.
ZZzZZzzzzZz - Mom? - ZZZzzZzzzZ - We came here for fish, remember?
Yes. Another one of the ever hopeful Dan’s ideas. Cold-water fish was said to help stabilize mood and energy levels. Something Diana desperately needed. Even she herself couldn’t deny that. So here they were: a family trip to the market, to somehow fix a depressive episode with… fish.
“Mom? Can I walk next to you?”
Diana nodded, waiting for her daughter to step aside. They often walked like this. Dan on her left side, Natalie on her right. Gabe often stayed home. Said the saturday market was too busy for him. But today, Diana finally convinced him to come with. If he needed some comfort, she would happily give him that.
Natalie just kept on walking, acting like she hadn’t heard him.
“Natalie?” Diana’s voice was laced with frustration. “Could you step aside for your brother, please?”
As if they shared a puppeteer, both Dan and Natalie’s pace fell. Where Dan’s hand had once been, was now only the biting cold of autumn air. Diana chuckled, soon followed by the same sound coming from Gabe’s mouth. Then there was silence.
“What’s wrong?” Diana wanted to ask softly. But she had to raise her voice to get over the market sounds, which, combined with the nervous laugh still bubbling in her mouth, led to an almost manic yell.
The silence stayed. Gabe’s expression was as empty as Diana’s own. His big, brown eyes were asking all the questions she couldn’t answer.
Dan was… confusing. He was biting his lip and had his eyes tightly closed. He kept taking deep breaths and slowly shaking his head. And Natalie just looked angry. Which, frankly, only made Diana angry. “If I can’t even ask you a question without you getting mad at me, why even bother coming? You’re old enough to stay home if that’s what you’d rather do.” Diana scoffed. “All I asked you was to move aside so your brother could have some comfort. Is that so infuriating?”
The anger unwound from Natalie’s brows and left something far worse: sorrow. Slowly, her eyes started to fill with tears as she grabbed her father’s hand.
“Di, we’ve… we’ve talked about this, haven’t we? He- he’s not here. He,” Dan swallowed hard and fixed his eyes on the floor below. “died before Nat was born.”
Diana wanted to bang her head against the walls. One of them was lying. Either it was her sweet baby, her angel, her everything, the boy still silently staring at her with his beautifully innocent eyes. Or it was her husband, the man who vowed to never betray her, to never lie to her. One of them. The two people she loved most in the world. Oh, next to Natalie, of course. How could she forget? The girl was sobbing now. She seemed to agree with Dan. And yet, there stood her son.
Alive.
So alive.
“Why would you say that? Our son. He’s… he’s right here.”
Except he wasn’t.
Apples. Pears. Strawberries. Hundreds of people. But no Gabe.
“Oh my God. Dan. Dan!” Diana felt her breath quicken, terrified gulps of air as she took her husband at his collar. “Where is he?”
To her extreme exasperation, Dan seemed more annoyed than worried. “I know you know, my love. He’s been dead… all these years.”
Diana’s breaths turned into sobs. “You don’t understand, Dan. He was just here. Someone took him. Or he’s lost. Oh, God.” The world around her seemed to spin. “We have to find him. He must be scared out of his mind!”
Dan raised his hands as to calm her down, but nothing could stop Diana from protecting her baby. She sprinted to the first stall she saw - the one with the fruit - and slammed all products off the counter. In a swift move, ignoring the furious screams of the vendor, ignoring everything, she jumped on top of the counter and started screaming at the loudest volume she could.
“Help! Someone, someone help us! My son!”
From all around, people started looking up. Up to the blonde woman with big eyes and even bigger eyebags, screaming so loudly their neighbours on Walton Way could hear her.
“He’s gone. He was just there and now someone’s taken him! Please. Please, someone, help! He- He’s about this big,’ Diana said, waving her hand somewhere in the air. “Brown hair. Brown eyes. Apparently he’s dead,’ she said, suddenly laughing. “Yes. Yeah, you heard that right. He died! As an infant! But that’s not real. It’s not true.” The borders between laughing, crying and full on screaming blurred. “He is actually alive! Only my husband can’t see him. Oh, and my daughter.” Smiling, Diana pointed at Dan, on his knees to face Natalie, drying her tears.
When all bystanders just looked up, rage started blurring what the tears hadn’t already affected. “Are you people all retarded? My son is missing! Someone, someone help him! Help us! I swear he’s not actually dead. He was just here. They’re all lying!”
Instead of looking for Gabe, someone dialed a phone number. It wasn’t long before paramedics took Diana, still screaming for her son, and brought her to the hospital. The drive was quiet. Diana sedated, Natalie having cried herself to sleep and Dan… waiting. As he always did.
The headline followed a day after:
CRAZY WOMAN LOOKS FOR DEAD SON AT SATURDAY MARKET
Strangely, Diana was proud of the paper. She insisted on keeping a cutout and storing it together with all the happy memories.
“I did find him. At the hospital. He was there, waiting for me. So I guess what I did helped.”
From that moment on, saturday market trips were just Dan and Natalie. With some extra generous tips to the fruit vendor.