silver | d.m.

22.luctus

January 2005 | H E R

"There is someone in your life," her father surprises her by saying.

With how much she has talked to him lately, that someone hasn't come up once. Not on purpose. It just truly didn't come up.

"How do you know?"

"I'm your father," he tells her. "I know everything."

She smiles softly, remembering the incident with her first boyfriend.

"You care for them," he says. Not questions.

"I do. He's," Tiana thinks about it. The things Draco has done for her. To her. His silver eyes pop into her mind, hypnotising and beautiful. The most beautiful kind there is. His sweet heart and unconditional support when she truly needs him. "He's quite special."

"Do you love him?"

She can't help the smile. "I love everyone I'm close with."

Do everything with love, my angel—her mothers words ring in her mind.

Her father doesn't seem convinced. "But with him, it's different, isn't it? I can tell," she can feel his hand moving in hers, probably trying to point a finger, but it remains on the mattress from weakness. "It's in your eyes. It's always the eyes."

He always knows. Anton Silver always knows.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she finds herself saying anyway.

"Is that fear I smell?" He feigns shock in his voice. "My sweet darling Tia, you must take the risk to taste life to it's fullest." She used to hear stuff along those lines all her childhood. Cease the moment. Don't waste them. Unsurprisingly, they stuck. "I don't want you to miss out on something as great as your mother and me had."

She strokes his head with her free hand, "I love you."

Sometimes she thinks how haunting it is, to see someone so sick. The life sucked right out of their body, which leaves a skelett covered in pale, thin skin. And then she thinks that this is still him. This is still Toni who has just as much life in him as he did a year ago.

But that doesn't mean he is any less ill. The moment she has been dreading has come. She just knows. This will be the last conversation, the last advice, the last shine in his eyes.

Uncle Mickey, who had sat with them, said his indirect goodbye already had to leave the room with a kiss to his brother's and then Tiana's head, because he couldn't bear it. It's too much and she doesn't blame him. Besides, she is kind of glad for the privacy.

Over this last month, all family came to have a chat with old Toni, trying to make his time as comfortable as possible. He loved it. He is just as much a family person as the rest of them and it helped take his mind off the pain.

But that doesn't mean suffering was left out of the equation. Sleepless nights, one minute crying sessions right out the door, hard physical and mental work were the definition of life lately.