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thecowardlycreative · 6 years

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Title: Scraping the Paint

Previous Parts: Cocoon, Getting Time and Regretting It, Aftermath

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Pairing: Papa Kogane/Krolia (this work), Klance (series as a whole)

Summary: The fic where Krolia proves that overthinking things and making arguably bad decisions runs in the family.

(No previous knowledge of the series necessary)

Words: 8,416

There’s a woman sitting outside his house when he goes to leave for work one morning. She’s just sitting there, legs folded beneath her and arms crossed over her chest as the sun slowly rises, highlighting her in a buttery wave. She wakes up as he opens the door but doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Just stares at him.

Good god -- and she’s pregnant. Heavily so.

“I didn’t know if you still lived here,” she says at last. “And I know you probably don’t want to see me… so I didn’t knock.”

He just sighs and checks the time. He’s definitely going to be late. But the foreman is rarely punctual anyway and Nick will cover for him, no questions asked, if today happens to be one of those rare days.

“You’d better come inside, Lia,” he says and turns back into the house, trying not to see the way she has to use the wall to climb to her feet. And even then, it’s a struggle.

Her wrists are too thin. Her stomach is huge but her wrists and her neck and her fingers are too thin. They make her stomach look even bigger. She’s dirty and her clothes are beginning to fray at the edges. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail but it’s so oily it’s formed into those thick ropes and he can see straight through to her sunburnt scalp between the clumps. What the hell happened to her since they broke up?

She waddles, chin held high in the air, over to the couch and, with more grace than a heavily pregnant woman should possess, lowers herself onto it. She crosses her hands over her stomach and looks at him expectantly.

He just stands by the door into the kitchen and watches her.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s not yours.”

“I know,” he replies.

Then he can only sigh again. She looks away from him and he rubs at his eyes. This was certainly a surreal turn his morning had taken. Giving up on rubbing his eyes to shake the strangeness from his head, he switches to scrubbing at his whole face with both hands for a moment or two before he slips around the corner, out of sight, into the kitchen.

“Do you want coffee?” he asks, frowns, and tries again. “Can you drink coffee right now?”

“Tea is safer,” her voice says from the living room. “You seem to be doing okay.”

He just grunts in reply. He hasn’t seen Krolia for going on two years. She doesn’t get to turn up pregnant on his doorstep one morning wanting to know how he’s doing. They’d both agreed what they had wasn’t working. And she’d evidently moved on.

With Krolia curled around her tea, carefully breathing in the steam, and him sitting across from her in an armchair, frowning into his own mug, silence fills the room. Nothing but the kitchen clock ticking in the distance.

Finally he snaps and puts his coffee down on the table between them with a sharp sound. “What are you doing here, Lia?”

She swallows and, for the first time since she’d stepped inside, the faintest bit of uncertainty fills her expression. Placing her mug beside his gently, she licks her lips and forces herself to meet his gaze with obvious reluctance.

“I need a favour. A huge favour. A favour so big that, if you say you’ll do it, I have no idea how I will ever repay you,” she says.

“Okay,” he says. “That’s not to say that I’ll do it. But I’m willing to hear what it is.”

To be perfectly honest, it’s more curiosity than anything else that prompted the immediacy of his response.

He watches as she scratches at her palms and chews her lips, eyes focused solely on her knees. Krolia is by no means a nervous person. He’s always envied her conviction and self assuredness. So if she’s fidgeting awkwardly then this really does have to be a big favour.

“I need you,” she says, “to let me say you’re my baby’s father.”

His face freezes and then, very deliberately, he raises one eyebrow at the suggestion.

“On the birth certificate, I mean,” she clarifies.

He’s still just sitting there, staring at her. Things were not getting better. This had to be a dream. Life could not be this strange.

“We’d technically be lying to the government but I can’t think of any other way and they’d never know unless they did a DNA test anyway --”

“Lia,” he interrupts, holding up both hands. “What are you talking about? Why is this necessary?”

She drops her head back down and, after a moment, reaches for her tea again. One hand hovers protectively over her stomach.

“My baby,” she murmurs. “My little boy… His fa-- His biological father is not a good person.”

He just nods for her to continue.

“Violent,” she says and he nods again. He’d already assumed as much. “He… Um, he runs a drug ring in Chicago.”

“Dammit, Krolia…” he sighs and her eyes snap up to meet his in a glare.

“You’re not allowed to judge me.”

He raises his hands again, this time in surrender.

“He can’t know about this child, Jack,” she says sternly. “He can never know about him.”

“If you looked like that when you left, I’m pretty sure he knows already,” he says back.

“Then I’ll disappear.” She puts her tea back on the coffee table to stare him down. “I just need to know… If anything happens to me, the first person they’ll check up on is the father and it can’t be him. I’m not giving my baby to that man.”

“Have you considered leaving the father as just ‘unknown’?”

She shakes her head. “He’d go straight into foster care, then. And I have no guarantee that would be much better. Please, Jack. You’re the best person I know.”

A soft, derisive snort escapes him. “Then you need to make more friends.”

“Maybe so,” she replies with the ghost of a smile.

He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. His mug is long empty and he stands without a word to go and place it in the sink. He can feel Krolia following him with her eyes, boring into him, demanding an answer.

And what sort of answer is he supposed to give? Because, shit, yes of course he doesn’t want his ex’s child being raised in abusive environment but…

But what?

What would he lose? Absolutely nothing. Unless Lia died, of course. All she’s asking for is his name. She doesn’t want his help or support or money or space. She doesn’t want anything except the knowledge that if something happens to her, if she’s swept up in some stupid gang fight and dies, the innocent child she’s carrying will have somewhere safe to go.

And that’s bullshit. That’s absolute bullshit. Because how damn scared does she have to be to feel like that sort of safety net is necessary?

He sits back down with a sigh and a clear head. “What are you doing, Lia?” he asks.

She scowls, the expression somehow odd on a mother-to-be. “I just told you want I want.”

“But what are you doing? You’re going to… what? Walk out of my house and just live however until your son is born. You’re going to put my name on the birth certificate and then carry on running from this gang-lord, tiny infant in tow. What are you going to eat? Where are you going to sleep? How are you going to find work? What if he gets sick? Babies get sick all the time and you’d be living on the streets. What do you actually want to do, Lia?”

She doesn’t say anything. Just glares at him defiantly. God, she would really do it. She would find some way to make it work. She’s just stubborn enough and strong enough to do it. She’s willing to fight her way through the rest of her life rather than depend on him. Because asking for help is a weakness. Or, at least, it is according to Krolia Kogane.

“Stay here,” he says. He didn’t mean to say it but the words are out now.

She actually snarls, lurching to her feet to loom over him. “If you think, for one fucking second --! Sexual favours for security is how I met that bastard in the first place! God, I can’t believe what a fucking idiot I’ve been, coming here. Who do you think you are?”

“Krolia!” He’s on his feet too, trying to coax her back down like a python from a basket. “Krolia. Lia, please!” he says. “That’s not what I meant. Fuck, I’d like to think you’d know that’s not what I meant.”

She stills, still seething, fire in her eyes. She throws her shoulders back and looks at him. “Then what did you mean?”

He takes half a second to calm his own breathing, glancing down momentarily at the way her bump heaves with her every breath -- already alive and writhing. “You’re too thin, Lia.”

She laughs. “I’m the opposite of thin!”

“Maybe in this general area,” he grants with a raise of a scarred eyebrow and a smile as he waves his hand at her belly. “But everywhere else? Too thin. Your face. Your arms. Your fucking wrists. Shit, Lia, you can’t keep living like this. If not for your sake then for the baby’s. Stay here. Let me feed you. Let me take you to the doctor -- when was the last time you had a checkup? A scan? Have you found a midwife yet? Let me keep you safe. Those are my terms if you want my name on that certificate.”

A pause, long and heavy, while she stares him down and considers his offer.

Finally: “Alright.”

And she slowly lowers herself back onto the couch.

***

Just over a month later, Keith Akira Kogane is born. If the nurse gushes over him having his daddy’s eyes, no one corrects her. And Krolia, despite her earlier reluctance, brings him home to Jack’s house without a word having to be spent between them.

***

Keith is a little shit that can do no wrong. He starts crawling early and while Krolia and his coworkers and everyone he knows is telling him how proud he should be and what a great accomplishment it is, Jack just wishes he would sit still and stop hurting himself.

But, no matter what reservations he has, the moment the house fills with screams and Jack dashes into the living room to see that Keith has managed to headbutt a wall at full speed, he doesn’t even hesitate to scoop the little boy into his arms.

Keith cries, face a red Picasso painting of snot and tears as he grabs for Jack’s eyebrows.

“I know, buddy. I know,” Jack coos in response. “Let’s get some frozen peas on that, huh?”

He might be a little shit that won’t stop hurling himself into danger, he might have been a surprise that Krolia foisted upon him at the last moment, he might smell like shit 99% of the time, but Keith is Jack’s son. And he’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.

***

Krolia finds a job -- waiting tables at a restaurant downtown in the evenings -- and Keith has to go into daycare. But the creche lets out two hours before Jack gets off and after hours care is expensive. So he has no choice but to bring him into work.

The foreman is an easy conquest, it turns out. At first it’s, “Spencer! A building site is no place for an infant!” but then, later, Jack comes into the onsite office to find Keith on the floor, surrounded by colourful toy-blocks and the foreman’s prized paperweight -- the one he got from his mother-in-law and that he takes as a sign of her approval (though, really, it is a paperweight so her approval certainly seems grudging at best) -- in his mouth.

“He seemed to want it,” is the man’s only explanation, not even looking up from the papers on his desk.

“Ba!” says Keith, offering the slobbery paperweight to Jack. It’s been his favourite almost-word for the last week.

Jack takes it, wiping it on his pants before putting it back on the desk, and ruffles Keith’s hair. He gurgles happily and blinks up at him with those big stormy eyes, thick dark lashes fanning against his cheeks.

“Ba?” he says.

Jack nods and agrees, “Ba.”

Now that he thinks of it, everyone is an easy conquest for Keith. All it takes is one gummy smile, one long look into those eyes, one slobbery gift, and he has armies falling at his bootied feet.

“Come on, buddy,” he says, lifting his son into his arms again, “We’ve got a dinner to shop for.” He nods to the foreman as he steps out of the office. “What do you think Mummy would like when she gets home? What’s going to be her midnight snack tonight?”

“Ba,” Keith insists, seemily knowledgeable in all things.

“Aw, she had that last night, pal. What about something new?”

“Ba.”

“Alright. Ba, it is.”

***

Krolia watches her son play on the mat while she folds laundry. He’s already tired of his truck and his plane. Now he’s just crawling in a circle, eyes glued to the spinning mobile above his head, toy elephant being dragged across the ground from the one ear in Keith’s mouth. He’s got such a scowl on his face. Eyebrows scrunched and eyes narrowed. Gums chewing at the elephant ear with fury. Gaze ultra-focused. He’s going to catch that little mouse that keeps spinning around up there. He’s going to follow it until it falls asleep or has to take a rest. And he’ll be there, ready to pounce.

It’s a look he gets from her, no doubt. She only hopes he doesn’t suffer for that tunnel-vision focus she’s given him. It can be helpful but it can still hurt. Life’s not much fun if you’re only ever looking where you’re going.

He said his first word yesterday. It was ‘Dada’. And Krolia can’t pretend that doesn’t hurt a little.

Has she been too absent? She thought they’d been splitting the work fairly evenly; her in the mornings, Jack in the evenings. But maybe that’s the problem. That she’s been thinking of it as work. Maybe she’s been physically there but emotionally absent. Maybe she doesn’t play with him enough, hold him enough, love him enou-- No. No, that’s impossible. No one loves Keith more than she does. She’s just not very good at showing it, apparently.

She leaves the laundry where it is and crawls over to the playmat.

Keith sees her coming. “Muh!” he says urgently, trying to point up at the mobile of astronaut-mice and moon-cheese and rocketships. He just falls on his face. But, ever the little trooper, he doesn’t cry, he just shoots back up to crawl towards her. “Muh! Muh!”

“That’s right, baby.” She strokes one of his chubby little cheeks. “I’m your mummy.”

She lays down and lets him climb her like Mount Everest. Then, with a fist full of her hair, he begins to tell her all about the exciting hunt he’s just been on in his best consonants and gurgles. She holds him to her chest, feels his warmth and his weight press down upon her, and listens.

***

They spend Saturdays at the pond in the park. No one has to work and no one, least of all Keith, wants to spend a whole day indoors.

He’ll be one whole year old in a fortnight. He’s already walking which, in true Keith fashion, means he’s also already trying to run.

He waddles at full speed after the ducks, arms out and hands grasping, shouting a mantra of ‘qua qua qua qua’. For whatever reason, he only seems to move in straight lines, sitting down and swivelling on his butt to change directions. More of that tunnel-vision, probably. He’ll have a nappy full of dirt before the day is through but at least he’ll sleep well tonight.

Krolia and Jack keep one eye on him each as they set up the picnic. It absolutely wouldn’t be beyond him to follow a duck straight into the pond and find himself quickly up to his neck. It’s a simple spread of sandwiches and juice, a few leftovers from Krolia’s work thrown in.

Keith cries for a full half an hour when they take him away from the ducks. And then he sits there gnawing on his sippy-cup in a cloud of fury for another hour.

“Uh-oh,” he says when he speaks for the first time since they’d plopped him down on the rug.

Looking up, the only thing that could have possibly prompted such an exclamation is the old lady walking towards them. She has an incredibly fluffy, white pomeranian in her arms and the incredibly fluffy, white hair to match.

“What a lovely young family!” she says as she approaches. “How old is she?” She asks it like Keith is a dog and they’re comparing pets.

Krolia’s smile could poison a whole town. “He,” she says very deliberately, “is almost one. He also just doesn’t like haircuts.” She tries to put her hand on his head with its unruly cowlicks in every direction, but he ducks away, effectively dropping his sippy-cup and spilling juice in his lap.

“No!” he says. Obviously, the ducks are still not quite forgotten.

Jack reaches silently for the wet-wipes.

“Well, he’s a treasure,” says the lady. “I have my own grandchild about that age, my eldest son’s daughter. She’s a little devil but we love her all the same. My other son, though!” She scoffs and throws a hand in the air. The pomeranian in her arms gives a nervous squeak. “He must be around your own age and is he married? No! Is he even looking for a wife? Of course not! He ought to have settled down by now, found a nice girl and started his own family. I’m just glad to see that not all young people are like him. You’re little boy --”

“Keith,” Krolia supplies through clenched teeth.

“Keith. He’s a gift from God. I’m glad to have met him.” She bends down, squishing the poor dog in her arms and waves to him as Jack wrestles to hold him still long enough to wipe him clean. “Bye-bye, little one!”

“No!” says Keith again, though whether he’s talking to her or Jack is unclear.

She turns and trundles away all the same.

Keith manages to slip out of the pants Jack’s gripping him by and goes running off across the lawn in his nappy, arms in the air and laughing like the villain he is. Much to the displeasure of all the ducks in the vicinity.

“What a controlling old bat,” says Krolia the minute Jack gives up with a sigh and settles next to her.

“Lia!” he scolds.

“What? It’s true.”

***

Except it’s not just one controlling old bat, is it? It’s the truth. They’re not married. They’re not even dating. No sex. No holding hands. Nothing. Just co-parents of child that is only biologically Krolia’s. And yet… she’s living in his house, rent free.

She’d never really thought about it too much before. Probably because she didn’t want to think about it. But now that the thought is in her head, there’s no escaping it. And it feels wrong on more than one level.

Jack had given her safety. He’d given Keith safety with barely a second’s hesitation. He’d offered his name and protection and his house without asking for anything in return. He paid all her hospital fees. And they hadn’t been cheap. Turns out it’s dangerous to give birth while severely malnourished. He never complains when Keith cries in the night and keeps him from sleep. He never complains about anything at all, now that she thinks about it. Just suffers through with a sigh and a quirked eyebrow. It hadn’t even been Jack’s idea that she find work. She knows she and Keith have to be a huge financial strain but he’d never even suggested it. And when she brought it up, he’d just said, “Whatever you’re ready for, whatever feels right for you, go for it.” He’d given her a hundred times what she’d asked for and she’d never even noticed.

And what had she brought in return?

She’d brought Keith who -- while she’s sure Jack loves him dearly -- is probably more of a hindrance to his life than a benefit. She’s not about to give up her son. She wouldn’t for the world. That tiny little bundle of giggles and gurgles and smiles. Those bright, stormy eyes and inquisitive fingers. He’s perfect. But, realistically, pragmatically, fiscally, he’s a burden. And what the fuck kind of impact was their being here having on Jack’s social life? No one’s going to want to date a guy who lives with his ex and her son.

She’s just a parasite. She’s the leech in the pond or the tick in the woods or the worm in your gut. Tiny, unseen, potentially lethal.

And all at once it hits her, at three in the morning in the dark of the spare bedroom that’s been her own for over a year, warm and safe in her blankets, the sound of Keith’s tiny breaths filling the room from his cot: she has to leave.

She just can’t stay here forever.

She stands and glides across the room by the light of the moon to where her son sleeps blissfully. His hair is still too long but they’d given up trying to get near him with scissors a while ago. It’s spread out over the mattress in a halo around his head, a silhouette against the pale cotton sheets. His cheeks are both squished -- one against the mattress and the other against the over-loved hippo plushie he has clutched against his face -- turning his sleeping toddler breaths into tiny kitten snores. Krolia reaches down and brushes the hair from his face with a finger. It must be cold because Keith wriggles a little and sniffs.

Her little baby boy. So soft. So fragile. Would he still be so if she’d gone through with her original plan? Could a baby born on the streets really be so squishy?

Her head is a mess. Ten thousand loosely connected thoughts.

She’s leaving again.

She can’t take him with her.

At least, not straight away.

She won’t make the same blind flight in the middle of the night again.

She’d need somewhere safe and clean and warm for him.

She’d need money and work and someone to care for him when she couldn’t.

She’d need everything she has here but she can’t stay here.

She can’t stay here.

Parasite.

The word hits hard in her chest and she reaches into the cot again to calm herself. Keith grumbles as she slowly rolls him into her arms. If he wakes up properly now, he’ll never go back to sleep tonight but she just doesn’t care. She needs to hold him.

“Mummy?” he mumbles into her collarbone and she bounces him.

“Shh, baby. Mummy’s right here. Everything’s okay,” she cooes and, thankfully, he just sticks his thumb in his mouth, clutches Hector the Hippo a little tighter, and dozes off again.

She walks to the window and back again. Looks out at the garden, rendered alien and colourless by the night. Sees the way every line is cut crisp by the moonlight. Then she turns and walks that bouncy, child-carrying walk back to the other side of the room. She paces, her mind afire.

Where can she go? She can’t take Keith but Krolia herself, she’s strong, she could survive anything. So… there’s only really one course of action. She’ll have to leave him here. Depend on Jack for a little while longer. She’ll leave him where it’s safe with someone who loves him until she’s settled. When it’s safe again, she’ll come for him. She’s fought so hard for him -- she’d fight the world for him, still. She’s not about to abandon her baby now.

***

Needless to say, Jack does not like this idea. Krolia stands firm but he manages to convince her to stay until Keith’s birthday. And then he manages to convince her to stay a while longer. He thinks he’s won. He thinks he can just keep postponing her departure until she forgets about it. But, a few months after Keith’s second birthday, she cries her tears and plants her kisses and leaves to make her place in the world. She leaves Jack, himself, with nothing more than a wink and a ‘Thanks, Tex’.

***

“This child looks nothing like you,” says Jack’s mother the second she’s in the door.

Keith stands behind his father, clutching at his pant leg and never peeking more than one eye out at a time to watch his grandmother.

Jack sighs. “Would you just take your coat off, Ma? Please, it’s Thanksgiving. Let’s have a civil meal and then you can leave as soon as you want.”

“Is that any way to speak to your mother?” Bobbie Spencer snaps but she’s following him through to the living room all the same.

She drapes herself over the couch, coat still on. Jack continues into the kitchen, slowly because Keith still hasn’t let him go and if he’s not careful they’ll both go tumbling over.

“Well?” she says, voiced raised despite the fact they would still absolutely hear her at her previous volume. They’re one room away, the door is open, there’s no need to shout. “Let me see him.”

Keith, three years old as of last month, tugs on Jack’s pants again and he bends down so they’re eyelevel.

“You’re okay, buddy,” he tells his son. “She’s loud but she’s not going to hurt you. Just think of her as Uncle Nick’s cockatiel.”

Keith smiles. “Hopper.”

“That’s right.”

“Hopper bit me once,” says Keith.

Jack has to hold in his laughter. “I can absolutely promise you, the one thing your Gramma is not going to do, is bite you.”

“You promise?” Keith holds out his tiny pinky and Jack links it with his calloused one.

“Promise.”

The moment is interrupted by Bobbie’s voice screeching, “Well?” again.

Jack rolls his eyes and Keith giggles.

“Coming, Ma,” he says.

Two minutes later, Keith is standing before her with his best posture, hands behind his back. Like a prized hog up for judging. Jack tries to keep one eye on the situation as best he can as he loads up the table. This is exactly why he didn’t want his mother to know about Keith. But apparently three years is the limit he can keep him from her. He really doesn’t like how stiff his usually exuberant and curious son is standing.

“Hmmm…” she says, tilting his face one way and then another by his chin. “He’s got very odd coloured eyes. Gets them from Krolia, no doubt.” Jack doesn’t correct her. “Never liked that girl. Too headstrong. Too independent. And what is wrong with his hair? He looks like a girl!”

Jack laughs. “You’ll be lucky if you can get Keith to let you cut his hair twice a year!”

Keith gives a cheeky grin that fades the instant his grandmother’s gaze settles back on him. She really does have the eyes of a bird. Maybe it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine her as Hopper.

“Mm, I see…” says Bobbie, clearly unamused. “Yes, well, I can clearly see that woman’s influence in his appearance.” Clearly referring to Keith’s distinctly Asian features. Jack tries not to wince at the blatant racism. “But where is the Spencer jaw? The Spencer stature and strength? Is this really your child, Johnathan?”

“Ma!” He drops all the cutlery onto the table. In two strides, he’s crossed the room and hoisted Keith into his arms. Keith grabs a handful of his shirt but doesn’t say anything.

“Well, it’s not the sort of thing I would put passed a woman like Krolia. To sleep with another man behind your back and then pawn the bastard off on you. And where is she, anyway? Already left her responsibilities behind? Run away with some other fella?” She scoffs. “This is why I wanted you to marry before you had children. You need some insurance that you’re not going to be dumped with a money sinkhole at any given moment.”

“Ma!” He’s actually covering Keith’s ears now because, holy shit, he does really not need to hear this. “You can’t say things like that! You may be my mother but that doesn’t give you the right to speak about Lia that way. To speak about Keith that way! He’s my son and he’s right here in the room. Have some tact!”

“Oh, he doesn’t understand anyway. He’s just a child.”

Jack glares. This cockatiel has one hell of a bite. “He understands English perfectly well. And, last I checked, that’s what you were speaking.”

She just scoffs and turns away with a wave of her hand and, in that second, Jack makes his decision.

“I want you to leave,” he says.

“Excuse me?”

“I want you to leave. This isn’t your house. You’ve done nothing but insult and disparage the people who live in it since the moment you set foot inside. You’re not welcome here.”

“Well!” she says for the umpteenth time.

Jack steps back, clearing the path between her and the door, and just looks at her meaningfully.

Finally, she moves. Creakily and full of uncertainty, she stands. Then she sticks her nose in the air and walks to the door.

“Goodbye, Johnathan. Happy Thanksgiving, I suppose.” She takes her umbrella from the rack, taps the melted snow from it, and opens the door. Then she changes her mind and turns back for one more parting comment. “I will have the grace not to tell you ‘I told you so’ when that woman finally tells you the truth.” Then she sniffs and steps out into the night.

Jack doesn’t hesitate to shut the door after her.

“Is Gramma not staying for dinner?” asks Keith quietly.

Jack ruffles his hair. “Nah, buddy, it’s just you and me. That good?”

“Good.”

***

It’s three months later when Jack wakes in the night to a coughing fit. And one week after that when the blood starts appearing on the tissue.

Nick has honestly been a lifesaver since Krolia left. So free with his time and his affection. Babysitting and gifts and always with a smile or two to give out. Keith loves him. Or loves his cockatiel, at any rate. So, Jack leaves him with Nick when he goes in to see the doctor.

He’s already pretty sure what he has. He hasn’t thought the word yet. Can’t bring himself to. But there’s been too many times at work when he’s been lazy with wearing a mask while drilling, too many instances that required wet-working that he hadn’t bothered with. Too many years of complacency in an environment where the air is thick with dirt and silica and cement.

He already knows. So the only word he can force out when the doctor looks up from the results in front of him, face haggard and filled with regret and pity and all those other things Jack had been praying not to see, is: “Please.”

“I’m sorry,” says the doctor softly.

“I have a son,” Jack insists because this can’t be happening. “He’s only three. I can’t…”

The doctor places a hand on his arm reassuringly. “It’s not hopeless,” he says but they both know that’s not true.

Jack’s going to die. He’s going to die because there’s no way he can afford the treatment for late stage lung cancer on his salary. His health insurance is shit. Was always going to be in a profession with so many occupational diseases.

“Does the child have a mother?” asks the doctor.

Jack nods. “But she’s not here at the moment.”

“I see.”

“She’s coming back!” Somehow, the defensiveness in his voice just makes it seem that much more like a lie and Jack has to look down at his knees. Anywhere but at the pity in the doctor’s eyes.

Still, the picture of professionalism, the doctor doesn’t let any of his doubts pass his lips. Instead, he just says, “You should probably let her know.”

And Jack nods.

***

He does try to find Krolia. Between working and looking after Keith and chemo (probably a third of what he’d need to even have a chance), he looks for her. But she doesn’t have a phone -- or, at least, she didn’t have one when she left and she’s never contacted him with a number since then, so he assumes she doesn’t have one. He knows she probably went to a bigger city, somewhere there might be more work. Entry level stuff. Jobs no one else wants. Cleaning, sewer work, call centres. But she wouldn’t go anywhere truly fashionable, then rent starts to get expensive. So he has ideas of where she might be. But he doesn’t have the time or the energy to physically search for her.

He asks his mother for help. It’s a last resort. And she is predictably resistant.

(“Why bother? You’re better off without her.”)

He asks her to look after Keith when he goes, if he hasn’t found Krolia yet. She refuses that, too.

(“He’s not yours, Johnathan. So he’s not my responsibility. Just put him in a home, like he should have been years ago.”)

He gives up on his mother after that and alters his will to explicitly state he wants Nick to be Keith’s carer in the event of his death.

Breathing is hard. Keith is in daycare for most of the day now. He sleeps at Nick’s house and spends a few hours with his father in the hospital in the afternoons. The rest of the time -- daycare. Jack doesn’t want to think about all the debt he’s stacking on those small shoulders by breathing another day more.

He just needs Krolia to fucking come home.

He whispers it at night like a prayer.

Come home. Come home, Krolia. Our son needs you. I’ve failed you.

Sometimes he remembers how scared she was something was going to happen to her. That’s the whole reason Jack got to have Keith in the first place. She’d been so scared for herself and her baby that she’d come to him. He was supposed to be the safety net. And here he was, fucking it all up.

Keith’s smile is brilliant, bright white teeth and crinkled eyes, as he storms through a recount of his day in a wave of words, holding up paintings and pictures made of macaroni and the little baking-soda volcano he built. And Jack just lays back against his pillows and listens, soaks as much of this magnetic boy in as he can, and prays he doesn’t understand what’s happening.

Ignorance is bliss, he tells himself.

Don’t tell him. Don’t tell Keith anything just yet. Let him smile a little longer.

When Jack dies, he dies in the night and Keith is confused about why he isn’t going to visit Daddy the next day.

***

It’s probably easy to blame Nick for giving Keith up. But the fact of the matter is, there’s a big difference between being ‘fun Uncle Nick’ and being a parent and he’s just not equipped to care for a grieving four year old. So he gives him up. It hurts -- to leave that little bundle of magic to the care of strangers, to go against his best friend’s dying wish -- but he tries not to dwell on his own pain. Because he knows, statistically, it’s probably going to hurt a lot more for Keith.

***

Krolia has an apartment. It’s tiny and it always smells a bit like some sort of burning fat from the cheap takeout place downstairs but it’s an apartment. She has a job — after purchase sales for a car dealer. Sometimes she feels a bit evil doing it but, fuck it, as far as she’s concerned, if you can afford one of those cars you deserve to be ripped off on heated seating, a warranty that’s already covered by consumer law, and branded footwell mats. She has friends. Or, at least, people she knows are honourable. And she’s five whole states over from Illinois so hopefully that bastard won’t find her. If he’s even still looking for her. If he’s even still alive. Part of her hopes he’s dead — took a bit too much from his own merchandise and ODed, finally pissed off the wrong person and got shot. In fact, the only part of her that doesn’t hope he’s dead is the tiny devil on her shoulder. The one that whispers, “Let him live. Let him live and go on living, just so long as he suffers the whole time.”

It’s certainly not what she’d hoped to achieve but it’s been years already. She misses her baby. He’ll be ten soon. He might not even remember her. She’s already missed too much of his life. It’s time to just face up to the fact that she’ll never have any more than this to offer him -- this and her own love, of course, but he can’t eat love -- and go bring him home.

Except there’s another family in Jack’s house.

He’s moved and taken her son with him. The new family has no idea who she’s talking about. She should have contacted him the moment she could afford a phone bill again but, no, she’d been so damn caught up in proving herself she forgot just who she was trying to prove herself to. Idiot.

Stupid. Stupid, Krolia.

She goes to Nick’s. Thankfully, he still lives there. And it’s so strange seeing him again. Still so unmistakably Nick but so much older. Grey hair, lines around his eyes, a few crooked fingers. He stares at her like she just fell out of the sky.

“Nick?” she prompts.

“You came back,” is what he eventually says. “He always insisted you were gonna but… none of us really believed him. Thought you’d done a runner.”

“Can I come in?” she asks.

It’s a simple question but Nick visibly shudders and pales. He runs a hand through his thinning hair and wipes imaginary sweat from his brow before, finally, hanging his head and nodding. “Yeah. You’re going to want to sit down for this.”

She punches him in the face when he’s finished telling all. He doesn’t even blame her. And she leaves with the name and number of the social worker who came to take Keith away.

***

That’s her son. That’s him. Playing in that front yard with the bikes with training-wheels in the driveway and the swing set nailed into the ground with tent-pegs to keep it from tipping over and the little white girl with the blonde pigtails. That’s his smile. That’s his laugh. He obviously still hates haircuts. It’s hanging long around his ears.

And Krolia’s sitting in a social worker’s car across the street with holes in her jeans and unwashed hair.

The house isn’t large. It’s just a bungalow. There are off-white curtains in the windows and the paint is chipping around the gutters. But the lawn is large and green and there are children’s toys scattered everywhere. And Krolia’s apartment smells like burning fat so she has no room to be critical. And Keith is smiling.

He’s not going to remember her. He’s going to look at her with blank eyes and suspicion. He’s not going to give her that gummy smile she remembers and reach out a chubby hand for her, asking to be picked up. He’s not going to call her ‘Mummy’ anymore. The thought hits with more weight than she wants to admit.

He hadn’t even been two when she left, barely able to speak a coherent sentence and run across the room without tripping over his chubby toes. Now look at him -- so agile and grown up at ten years old. He runs after the little girl -- his foster sister, she must be -- giggling and smiling, reaching out with grabbing hands and calling her name. It’s Abby. She calls his name in return with a familiarity that his own mother can’t claim.

Krolia’s still sitting in the car.

She turns to the driver’s seat where a young woman sits; smooth, dark skin and bright hopeful eyes. She’s impeccably made-up in that ‘no makeup’ makeup style that takes close to two hours and countless dollars to perfect. Obviously straight out of college. Obviously from a happy background. Still optimistic. She took over Keith’s case only six months ago.

“Does he know I’m coming?” she asks the woman -- Grace -- quietly.

Grace shakes her head. “I told his foster parents but asked them to only say that a guest was coming. Often biological parents don’t turn up to these meetings and we don’t like to raise expectations only to disappoint them. I don’t mean any offense. That’s just the statistics and the protocol that was born out of them.”

Krolia isn’t offended. She feels like she should be but she’s not. Because she can absolutely understand those parents who can’t bring themselves to see everything they could never offer their kids. She’s worked her fingers to the bone for the last eight years and… She’ll never be able to give him this. This stability. This suburban life with a lawn and a swing set and a constant playmate. She’d have to lock him up in her disgusting apartment to protect him from the dangerous neighbourhood. She’d have to leave him there for hours in the stink while she worked. All alone. She’d be taking him away from his sister. She’d be taking any chance at a normal life away from him. And for what? Just because she missed him? Was she really that selfish?

The worst part is that she just might be.

“He’s happy here?” she asks.

Grace hums her assent.

“These people don’t hurt him?”

“Not that I’ve seen. And I’m here every month. They’ve passed the background checks and I’d like to think Keith would tell me if they did.”

Krolia just nods.

“Are you ready?” says Grace.

The answer is ‘no’. She’s not ready. She’s never going to be ready. How can she ever ask him to forgive her for leaving him behind? How can she ever ask him to forgive her for taking him away from this?

She nods all the same.

Grace goes to open her door and Krolia suddenly changes her mind. She grabs the young woman by the forearm.

“Tell me,” she says a little desperately, “how long has he been here? At this one house?”

Grace settles back in her seat. Krolia is hit with the sudden urge to slap the understanding look off her face. She’s doing this on purpose, Krolia’s sure. She’s showing her her baby at his happiest, at his best, all so that Krolia can’t bring herself to take him back -- to take him home. The bitch. And it’s fucking working.

Krolia can’t give him this. She can’t give him this. She can’t give him anything. She can’t make him happy.

“Well, let’s see… longer than I’ve been with him, that’s for sure.” Grace flicks through the file in her hands. “Yeah, we’re coming up on a year here.”

And Krolia sighs. She knows already what she’s going to do but to do it without even talking to him, without touching him, without taking him into her arms and telling him how much she loves him, is going to destroy her. But she knows: if she does hold him, she’s never going to give him up, and that would destroy him.

She watches him, drinks in the sight of him happy and healthy, with her teeth gritted and her vision watering.

“Let’s just go,” she says as the tears finally break free, eyes stubbornly fixed on what she can never have. “He’s so happy.”

“Are you sure?” asks Grace with a concern in her voice so convincing that Krolia almost believes it.

“Yeah,” she says. “Let’s go.”

And Grace, with one more glance in Krolia’s direction, starts the car. Keith doesn’t even look up from his game.

***

It’s strange the way time passes after that. Because Krolia had always had a goal before then. She was going to go and be successful and build a safe place for herself so she could reclaim her son. That was the plan. That was the goal. But he was already safe. Without her. So what was she working so hard for now? She was just living for the sake of being alive. She knew she needed a new goal but it was so much easier to just shut her eyes and ears and let time simply wash her along.

Every few months she’d get a bundle of photos of Keith in an email from Grace and be reminded of how much time had passed, just how much of his life she’d missed. Then she’d pour herself a glass of wine and have a cry. But then, she’d get up in the morning and go into work and numb herself with normality. And then Grace got reassigned and the photos stopped. The little markers along the way stopped and Krolia could simply slip through life, ignorant of the passage of time.

Which is exactly how she finds herself over a decade after she last saw her son’s face, looking on it again.

It’s on an album cover on a colleague's phone, backlit with the brightness turned far too high.

She’s in admin these days -- admin and data entry for an advertising company in Seattle. But that’s not important. Because her colleague, a woman barely twenty and yet more qualified than Krolia will ever be, is prattling away with an animated face and bright eyes, trying to shove an earbud into Krolia’s ear.

“Have you heard of these guys? They just came out with a new album and it’s amazing. I’ve just been showing it to everyone. My boyfriend and my friends and my mum. I’ve showed it to the other girls in the office and they thought you’d like them too. I thought you might not because they’re not really your… you know, generation, but what do I know? Of course, I’ve been following them since their indie days but they’ve just broken into the mainstream these last few years and I’m so proud of them because, you know, no one deserves it more. Like, they work so hard and --”

Krolia takes the earbud and stuffs it in, not taking her eyes off the phone. The music is heavy and unpolished, vocal-based with the most beautifully rounded harmonies. It’s surprisingly dark, considering it’s Steph showing it to her. She’d kind of always expected Steph to listen to the soundtrack from some Barbie movie.

She can’t tell if the man on the album is really Keith. It certainly looks like him but the last time she’d seen his face he’d been eleven years old. She has no idea what he sounds like now. She can’t even remember what he sounded like as a toddler. So the music in her ears is useless.

The screen goes to sleep and she smashes the home button to bring it back to life before she even thinks. Steph stops talking at the sudden movement.

“This one,” says Krolia, pointing to the boy with the long hair on the album cover standing off to the side, not looking at the camera. “Who’s this?”

Steph looks a bit like Krolia’s just threatened to bite her head off. Perhaps there’d been more intensity in her voice than she’d intended. She’d been going for casually curious.

“Keith?” says Steph and Krolia feels a shiver run down the entire length of her body. “He’s the bassist but he also writes most of their songs and sings backup vocals. But he’s, like, super quiet so we don’t really know a lot about him except what people assume from his music. Matt’s my favourite. He’s the lead guitarist. He’s always smiling and making terrible jokes and -- oh, wait. Keith’s last name is Kogane, too. Oh my god, is there a family connection?”

Krolia doesn’t reply for the longest time. Because that’s her little boy. All grown up without her. Closer to thirty than twenty. Successful. Loved even by strangers. She must have had next to zero influence on his success but, fuck it, she’s still almost in tears with how proud of him she is. That’s her boy. That’s her son. She wants to shout it in Steph’s face. Wants to shout it from the rooftops. But she can’t. Because she gave him up. She has no right to be proud of him. She’s done nothing to get him here. She’s nothing more than a DNA donor to him, now.

So she gives Steph a weak smile and says, “Maybe. He looks a bit like my son would, if I still had him.”

And Steph’s smile falls off her face. “But didn’t your son… Oh, god. Krolia, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something painful. Here, let me take this back.” She snatches the earbud from Krolia’s ear. “And I’ll go make you a coffee or something. How about that?”

Krolia doesn’t reply because Steph is gone before she can form even a sentence.

Yes, it’s easier to tell people her son died as a child. It’s the fastest way to get them to stop asking questions. But she’s starting to regret doing it. If she hadn’t lied, would Steph have stayed a little longer and told her more about Keith? All those things his fans had assumed through analysing his lyrics? She didn’t care if it was all conjecture, she just wanted to know.

But Steph is already gone and Krolia has to get back to work.

***

Three days later, she sits down and writes a letter to Altea Records. She addresses it to Keith Kogane of Castle of Lions. She just can’t help herself. Maybe she is selfish, after all.

#klance #keith kogane #krolia #texas kogane #voltron #Keith's mom #tex kogane #papa kogane #keith's dad #laith #voltron: ld #voltron: legendary defender #voltron:ld #writing #fiction #fanfiction #fanfic #fic: Scraping the Paint #series: Honey That's Alright

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