All I Want Is This

4

It had been a long first of work for Mark. A train derailed not very far from Seattle and piled the ER with patients. He hadn't seen his daughter since he dropped her at daycare. It was passed 9 o'clock in the evening when Mark entered into the daycare. There were just a few kids there at that hour, distracting themselves from the long waiting with different games such as electronic games, play cards or some of them were just drawing. There was another child, a little girl, into a more private corner sitting down against the wall, with her knees to her chest and muttering something to her Barbie doll.

"Psst" Mark called her when he got closer.

Alicia looked up and her face blossomed from the smile that started growing on it. She stood up and ran straight into her daddy's arms, which was now kneeled waiting for her to come. "You are here." She muttered sinking her face in curve of his neck.

Mark took her up in his arms and gave her a tight hug. "Of course I am here, Ally!"

Alicia pulled back a little to look at him with sadness in her eyes. "I thought I would stay alone in here. Everyone left with their mommies." She muttered sadly.

Mark smiled lovingly at her and gave her a strong kiss. "You know I will never leave you alone, do you?" He assured her.

"I know, daddy." Alicia showed him her lighting smile again. "Because you will always love me."

Mark chuckled and kissed her again. "I will always love you." He stated proudly and carried her outside the daycare.

"I will always love you too, daddy." Alicia confessed as she put her head down on Mark's shoulder. "Where did you say my mommy is?" She asked him after a moment of silence.

"To hell" Mark muttered under his breath, being angry only to remember her.

"Where?" Alicia lifted her head from his shoulder to ask him again curiously.

"She is gone... somewhere... I don't know where." Mark sighed heavily. He never talked with Alicia about Natasha and he had never showed her photos. Alicia seemed fine with the denial from her daddy's side; she always received enough attention and love from her daddy, her grandma and from their friend, but she was a smart girl and deep down she knew that her mother was out there somewhere.

There were rare the times when Alicia got sad. In most of the times, she did it in a situation like this, when Mark had to work until late and everyone else was too busy to come and take her from kindergarten in time. Luckily, everyone did their best not let that happen too often, so the name of 'mommy' came very rare in their topic.

"Will she ever come back?" Alicia asked her daddy with a casualty in her voice that let Mark know that she was feeling safe with him.

"No" Mark answered with a sympathetic smile. "She will never come back." He gave her one more kiss before they got to parking lot.

"I think I was bad and that's why she left." She stated with the same serenity as she had put that question too. "Was I bad, daddy?" Alicia looked at him with lines of worry on her forehead.

Mark stopped dead in his track feeling his heart breaking at his little girls own conclusion. He put her down and then he kneeled at her level. "You were never a bad girl and are not a bad girl now either." Mark looked straight into her eyes as he assured her that she had no fault. "That woman was crazy so it's good thing that she left because otherwise we wouldn't have been so happy." Mark said it as he thought it, referring at Natasha as 'that' woman. Since she left, he stopped calling her by her name or 'mother'. "Aren't you happy to have me and grandma?" He asked her.

Alicia smiled happy at him and nodded as firm answer. She jumped at his neck and kissed his cheek. "I think I am a little hungry." She said as she leaned on him.