All the Aches in the World

Chapter 1 : The Letter

Emma's brows lifted together, lips turning downwards in a harsher frown.

Elliot cleared his throat. "Now can you get changed, maybe shower, and come downstairs? It'd be best if we were all there."

"So Ethan's showing up too?"

His eyes turned down the hall to where Ethan's bedroom was, door closed and locked. But he knew he wasn't there. Ethan has barely been at the house, jumping around from school to programs afterwards, anything so he didn't have to be here, in a tornado that blew of death and despair.

They were all handling their mother's death in different ways. He just wished they could do it all under the same roof, be there for each other in precisely the right ways. Grieve as a family.

"Well, if Ethan isn't going, I'm not–"

Elliot was already shaking his head. "No, don't do that to me. Don't even go there."

Emma opened her mouth to protest, continue her argument further, but Elliot raised a hand to stop her. "I nee–would like it if you were there. For mom."

"For mom," Emma's voice wavered with a trembling breath.

Elliot nodded. "For mom."

~

The air was clogged with dozens of different kinds of flowers in the room, all bright and wonderful and everything Marsha Charles would have loved to see. Especially since they all came from the woman she fell in love with. Even if the price was Elliot's itchy and clogged nose, but he refrained from rushing from the room for fresh air.

Luna Stone, now Luna Charles, their eccentric step-mother owned the best flower shop in the city, Flower Tower. The same flower shop Marsha walked into fifteen years ago on her first day at her brand new entertainment agency to buy herself some fresh flowers for her office. The same flower shop that Marsha walked into, and met Luna. And fell in love with everything the crazy British lady had to offer.

For the last fifteen years, Luna was the greatest step-mother a kid could ever get. She was the best distraction for a seven year old whose father just left his mother. Elliot had no doubt she would continue to be the mother he would need for the rest of his life, especially after he watched her strut her way through the flowers, head bending over each bouquet and cluster, examining them all.

She had somehow beaten Emma and I downstairs into the family room, already ordering her own assistant, Kelly, to bundle different kinds of flowers here and there until she decided to take it over herself with a frustrated huff.

Luna didn't whisper a word of Elliot knocking on her bedroom door earlier that morning, and her–probably–extravagantly thrown vase or wine glass. She had just placed her hand to Elliot's cheek, her eyes sad and mouth set in a small but tight smile. She had given Emma a hug, whispering something in the girl's ear that he couldn't hear, but had them both nodding to one another quietly.

Elliot wasn't surprised to find Ethan hadn't shown up at all.

He continued to watch Luna drag Emma around the room, arm wrapped in arm, from flower to flower, arrangement to arrangement. Until they finally decided on one which they all knew was going to end up being the one.

An assortment of soft, multicolored gladiolus, pale pink orchids, and white Queen Anne's lace. A good mix of mother's favorites in gladiolus and flowers that showed great respectability for funerals. They represented Marsha Charles perfectly.

Emma smiled over their creation, coming to stand by Elliot as they watched Luna instruct Kelly to order a dozen standing sprays to keep the flowers in.