Work Text:
(In his late twenties, Terry Jr learned that he was going to die.
Not in the way most people do. He’d technically always known that he was going to die, in that abstract sort of way young adults do, the, oh, yeah, we’ll all die eventually, in one of those worsening natural disasters, or as the sea levels rise and destroy all our cities, or as our political system implodes and leaves us caught in the crossfire, or because your friend released an eldritch god into the world and all of you and your dads haven’t figured out how to fix it yet.
Nah. This way was much more direct. Die Another Day. Silly name. Terry wasn’t sure why he rolled it. He was thinking—something, probably. That it might help them defeat the Doodler. That it’d be worth it, if they could just do that. It was a year or so after Sparrow’s wedding. A week or two after he’d told them Rebecca found out she was pregnant. Maybe Terry was thinking, how could anybody bring a child into this world?
He’d always wanted children in that same abstract way he used to know he was going to die. But then things changed, and he couldn’t ever get that abstract knowledge back. It became entirely too concrete.
So he rolled the dice. It didn’t show him everything, but it showed him enough.
When Terry Jr died, he was going to be in a city. He’ll be somewhere high, looking out across the skyline. It’ll be beautiful, in an odd way, the way small things can be. He will be, for some reason, thinking about walking into his bathroom, and how the setting sun cast the cream counters in a warm golden glow. It’ll be a bathroom he hasn’t seen in decades. It’ll be the bathroom from his childhood.
There will be a girl with him. A teenager, maybe 14 or 15 or so. She’s holding a tape measurer, and she won’t be looking at him. He doesn’t know why, but his heart, in his chest, will be breaking, long before it will be stopped.
He’ll say, to this strange girl, “I love you.” And it’ll be in the same sort of questioning tone he’ll remember from Ron near the start. When they still didn’t know each other so well, and Ron was trying, and Terry didn’t want to listen.
And then he’ll die.
In the present Terry blinked. Staggered. Grant, nearest to him, caught his arm before Terry fell, and said, “what did you see?”
“My death.”
“No duh.” Grant frowned. “Do you…was it helpful?”
“I don’t know.” Terry tugged away from Grant to pick up the dice and tuck it away in his pocket. “But I don’t think anybody else should roll it. Unless things are getting—real dire.”
“So, tomorrow?” Lark chirped, sounding, for a moment, like the boy he was when Terry first met him so many years ago. But the humor fell off Lark’s face and he narrowed his eyes. “If it told you anything about defeating the Doodler—”
“It didn’t.” Terry said. He was still thinking about the girl. About the way blood might’ve splattered across her face. She was so young. He was so young, when he saw death for the first time. Somehow, he thought about Sparrow’s future kid. The kid he was bringing into this world, getting worse to live in by the year.
“Let’s just move on,” Terry said, and decided not to think about it. He knew how he was going to die, and it wouldn’t be right now. So he’d just have to keep fighting until then.)
He didn’t, of course, know all the details back then. But somehow knowing his death is coming hurts worse than not knowing at all.
(“Hey,” Terry said, years later, atop the roof of Sparrow’s house, to Grant who was climbing up to join him. “Tired of the party?”
“Rebecca tried to rope me into cleaning up the cake Hero smashed everywhere.” Grant hauled himself up, thumped down right next to Terry, who was on his back and staring up at the sky. “I shoved Nicky in to do it instead. He’s the one with demon powers. He can just burn the frosting away.”
“What, can’t clean up a little cake?” Terry teased, and Grant shoved at his shoulder, and Terry maybe got it, a bit. He didn’t visit his friends all that much. Even today was weird. Everyone brought someone but him. There were babies crawling all over the house. It didn’t make sense, how grown up everyone was. In a way Terry would never get.
“It’s too…domestic.” Grant wrung his hands tighter. He wasn’t looking at Terry, instead up at the sky. There wasn’t a whole lot of it that wasn’t an undulating black mass of eldritch terror. People called it light pollution. Terry knew it was the Doodler, but wondered, sometimes. Missed the Forgotten Realms like an ache, for no other reason than the times he got to watch the stars, and how numerous they were, enough to drown in. He and Grant stayed up late talking then, too. “I don’t belong there. It’s like I’m—ruining it.”
“Oh,” Terry said.
“Yeah. I don’t know.” Grant was quiet for a moment. “I don’t even believe in God anymore. But I just keep praying that whatever happens, Link doesn’t turn out like me. That I haven’t already fucked him up.”
Terry said, with much more feeling, “oh.”
He didn’t know how he was supposed to navigate that conversation. It was all something he’d never had, not really, no matter how many times he used to think about it, when he was younger and still thought maybe there would be a world in which he could raise a child. He used to think it might be nice. Before the Doodler.
Terry said, “why did you do it anyways?”
Grant shrugged. Picked at an old scar that stretched across the skin of his thigh, that he’d never let fully heal. Even now it was bleeding, staining the underside of his nails.
“That’s not really an answer.”
“I know.” Grant laid back, sighing.
Terry hummed, watching the black void of the empty sky. It was weird, to remind himself that the kids—Grant’s son Link, Sparrow’s daughter Hero and his next child yet-to-be-born, and Nicky’s son Taylor—would never know anything else. That to them, the sky would have always been and always be the god Lark unleashed.
“I don’t know,” Grant said. “It’s probably nothing. I guess I just keep telling myself that I’ll be the dad I needed when I was a kid. As long as I’m not like my dad, it’ll be…fine. Or something.”
Terry said, “what if that isn’t enough?”
“I mean, it’ll have to be,” Grant said, and groaned when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He dug it out and the light from its screen blinded Terry, like light blotting out the stars. “Shit. I gotta go. Apparently Hero and Taylor are terrorizing Link. Poor guy. Must be hard being the youngest.” He sat up, offering a hand to Terry. “Want help down?”
Terry shook his head. “I’ll stay up here longer. Good luck.”
“Yeah.” Grant hopped down. “Seeya later.”
He wouldn’t, probably. Grant would go home with his family, and Terry would go back to his apartment, the one he lived in alone, and he might call his mom, or Ron, but probably he’d just stare at the ceiling until he finally fell asleep. It’d feel empty, but it sort of always would. He wasn’t expecting it to change any time soon.
He didn’t expect much of anything at all. Maybe that was something he should talk to his parents about, but he never really did.
It wasn’t like it was going to kill him.)
I wanted you, he hopes she understands, you weren’t an accident, or an afterthought, or an addition I had to accept.
He still remembers what he was doing the day she was born. He was sitting in his room, lying on the floor, with his cat on his chest, and he didn’t think he’d ever give that moment another thought until over a decade later.
You were only ever you, and I’ve loved you before I ever even knew you existed.
(When they had the amplifier and the switching spell and the memory syringes and all that was left to do was press a button before finally escaping from underneath a world shrouded by the Doodler, Terry couldn’t help but wonder. Wonder why he was here, still. They’d already lost Nicky. Terry agreed to betray him, but sometimes he wondered if it was a mistake. If there was any point to it.
He used to talk to Grant about it, sometimes. He was trying to make something they had when they were kids again—when things still made some sort of sense. Terry’s entire life was divided in two: Before the Forgotten Realms, and After. But often he was just trying to get back to that place between.
Why are we doing this? Terry would ask Grant. Is it even worth it? Nicky was our friend.
It’s for our kids, Grant would reply, and Terry never liked that answer. It clawed at his sides like some beast trying to bleed him dry, because that answer never included Terry, did it? He’d had years to try and come to terms with his life. To try and apologize to the kid he used to be, who wanted, so much. He used to think he’d be a pretty good dad. That he had some pretty good role models.
He could’ve adopted, maybe. Probably would’ve considered it, in a better life. But he couldn’t justify it to himself. He couldn’t justify taking in a kid when he couldn’t promise that kid safety. Would die staring at a city skyline, and he’d break a kid’s heart, and it would be all his fault.
Lark said, “is everyone ready?”
You chose to bring them into this world, was what Terry wanted to say, even as he nodded along with everyone else. What right do you have to regret it now?)
I’m sorry, Terry wants to tell her, but his lungs don’t have the breath. I’m sorry that I knew, and that I loved you anyways.
(He met Veronica entirely on accident.
They had similar grocery routes, was how it started. The first time he moved aside so she could fit her cart past him, he barely even noticed, and doubted she did, either, explaining to her daughter, a girl Terry assumed was 13 or 14 or so, that no, they can’t buy more ice cream, they already have some at home. But by the tenth time, she was laughing, and stopped, saying, “you know, you’re the only person I ever see buying eight boxes of crackers on a Tuesday afternoon. Not a weekend shopper?”
“I forgot to eat lunch a lot,” Terry said, dropping the box he was holding into his cart. It clattered loudly against the metal but the woman in front of him didn’t seem to mind. “And, uh, my job has…weird hours.” An understatement, but he wasn’t about to tell some random woman about the intricacies of ensuring the Doodler wasn’t able to get any more of a foothold in this world than it did in the previous. “What about you?”
She shrugged. “It’s the only day of the week my daughter doesn’t have soccer practice, and she refuses to come with me on weekends.”
“Mom,” said daughter said, tugging at her hand, “you said I could get ice cream today.”
The woman glanced at her cart, at Terry. “Alright,” she said, and the girl cheered. “But only two, okay? Unless one of them is rocky road for me. Then you can get another one.”
“Okay Mom!” The girl yelled as she hurried off.
“Sorry,” the woman said, “her team won their tournament last week. She’s been insistent that this is her reward.” She stuck out her hand. “Veronica Marlowe. It’s nice to meet you for real! Always good to have a familiar face in the store.”
“Uh—Terry Stamper.” Terry said, taking her hand and shaking it. As he let go, he continued, “well, technically Terry Jr, but only my mom and Ron really still call me that.”
The woman—Veronica, laughed. The sides of her mouth scrunched up when she did so. “Terry, huh? Well, that over there is Terri, too.” She pointed off towards her daughter, who was attempting to shove her entire body into one of the freezers to climb up to a carton of ice cream on the top shelf she was just a bit too short to reach. “…I’m sorry to cut this short but I need to stop her.”
“No, it’s fine,” Terry said, and smiled somewhat to himself as she rushed off.
It wasn’t supposed to become a thing, but it did. After they met in the grocery store he started seeing her when he was just out and about, sometimes, and they’d talk. Eventually they exchanged numbers. Even later she asked him out for coffee, and Terry accepted. He asked her the second time. A few weeks later they kissed, and Terry thought to himself, I forgot how nice it was, to fall in love.
“I’ll have to tell Terri,” Veronica said, back at his place a month later. She was sitting on his shitty couch he’d gotten over a decade ago, when Lark moved in with Sparrow and started getting rid of all his furniture. His table was Lark’s, too. As well as the small collection of guns in his closet, except those Lark actually came back and got, a lot. He stored his extras with Terry since Terry was his only friend that wasn’t responsible for a child. “She’s been asking why I’m so giggly lately.”
“Giggly?” Terry sat beside her. It didn’t make sense, for her to be in this place, but he didn’t want to stop. He wanted to keep going. “Wow. The wonderful Veronica Marlow, giggly? Who could believe it!”
“Oh, shut up.” She laughed, shoving at him. Terry shoved back. Veronica said, pausing, “you know, Terri’s at a sleepover, tonight. I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
She offered her hand, and Terry took it.
Afterwards, when they were lying in his bed, Veronica said, “maybe you could come over for dinner, soon. I haven’t actually dated anybody since I had Terri. She’d love to meet you for real, I bet. Oh, she’s such a sweet girl. Didn’t you tell me you used to play soccer as a kid? You guys could bond over that! She always wants to practice with me, but I was never really into that sort of thing.”
“Yeah,” Terry said, smiling to himself. “Yeah, that’d—I’d love to do that. Um—when? I have a thing most of next week,” D.A.D.D.I.E.S related, and if he was at the meet his girlfriend’s daughter for real stage of things he might want to take a day to go talk to Ron and see if he had any advice on making a decent first impression, beyond that one time he said hi to her in the grocery store and Terri just sort of squinted at him for a minute before running off, “but I’d be free after that?”
“I’ll text you,” Veronica said, “figure out Terri’s soccer schedule. I swear, this new coach likes to change it up every week. It’s crazy.” She was quiet for a moment. “Hey, um. I’m—glad. That you’re, you know. Excited to meet her and all. I know you…don’t have to.”
“What?” Terry shook his head. “Of course I do! I’m dating you, and she’s your daughter. I’d love to know her.”
Veronica snorted. “You,” she said, “are very different from my ex.”
“Oh,” Terry said. “Do you…? I mean, you don’t have to, if it’s personal.”
“Nah, he just fucking sucked.” Veronica flips onto her back, resting her head on his chest. “The only good thing I got out of that relationship was Terri. He left before she was even born. Fucking dick. If I ever saw him again, I’d punch him in the nuts. He doesn’t deserve to be Terri’s bio-dad.”
“I’m sorry,” Terry said, not really sure what else to say.
“Not like you did it.” Veronica sighed. “But—yeah. Just. I mean, you were already hot, but this is—sorta takes that all up to another level. You know?”
She grinned at him and Terry felt his cheeks grow very warm.
“Aww,” Veronica said, nudging against him. “Love you.”
“I—yeah,” Terry managed, and it was terrifying, and he said it anyways. “I love you, too.”)
The funny thing is, Terry knows, looking out at the scene before him now, the scene he’s had burned, partly, in his mind since he first rolled that dice, is that it didn’t show him the one thing that could’ve prevented it all.
He knows he’s ruined her life. But if he had known, then, every last detail of this scene, of the cold wind, of the girl before him, wide-eyed, terrified, with absolutely no idea what was about to happen, he thinks he would’ve done something else. Would’ve made a different choice.
But then he thinks, you did learn, later. And you stayed.
What makes you any better than the rest of them?
(“Oh, shit,” Veronica said, one afternoon, shooting up from her chair at the kitchen table so fast it clattered to the ground.
Terry lifted his head from where he was lying across her couch holding what was supposed to be a scarf he was trying to knit above his chest, because Grant had given him a lot of knitting supplies, and Terry figured it might be a good hey so sorry for moving into your house before I told you Veronica and I were engaged because I’m trying to figure out the best way to do it present to give to Terri when he did finally have that conversation with her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I forgot I have to go back into the office today.” Veronica was already at the door, grabbing her purse off its hook, and her keys off the little side-table by the door. “But Terri’s still got soccer practice. Can you pick her up? I’ll just take your car, so nobody should question it if you pull up in mine.”
“Uh—why can’t I just take my own?” Terry asks, dropping his scarf.
“School policy,” Veronica said, distracted, “they only let parents or people parents register pick up kids and I keep forgetting to call them and let them know I approve of you to pick up Terri and the front office would be closed right now so just. Don’t talk to anybody. Can’t let them think we’re kidnapping a kid.”
“Of course,” Terry said, but paused. “You’re—sure?”
“Duh,” she said, “I trust you. My fault I never called. I’ll try to do that tomorrow, just—figure it out today? Bye, love you, she gets out at 5:30!”
“Love you!” Terry called back, checking the time. He had 45 minutes until he needed to leave, so he passed the time by working on his…was it even fair to call it a scarf? He’d chosen to knit it in alternating rows of pink and black thread, since Terri’s favorite color was pink but she’d started wearing a lot more black, recently, and they did go nicely together. But it…sort of looked more like a long rectangle than anything else. Maybe Terri would still like it? He wanted her to like it. He felt…bad.
It was a huge shake-up, him moving in. They were all still trying to figure it out and some part of him wanted to figure it all out before telling her he and Veronica were engaged. But probably she needed to know that before she could figure things out, so.
Terry sighed and set the scarf aside. Today wasn’t the day.
He made it to the school just as practice ended, a group of kids running to the parking lot out front from the field in the back. Terri was hanging back from the rest of her team, poking absently at the screen of her phone, though she perked up when she noticed the car and practically threw herself in before Terry even stopped it fully.
“Oh thank God,” she said, “Mom, I have to—” She stopped mid-tossing her backpack into the back seat. “You aren’t Mom.”
Terry pulled out of the parking lot. “You get into cars without checking who’s driving it?”
“Uh,” Terri scoffed, “I get into my Mom’s car. Because she’s the only one who drives it. Not her weird friend.” Terri squinted at him. “That’s new.”
“Boyfriend,” Terry said. “Her weird boyfriend.” And technically fiancé, but he wasn’t about to have that conversation now. “Also, I take offense to that! I’m not that weird.”
Terri rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever.” She slouched in her seat after she finished chucking her backpack in the back. “Why are you here? You know this won’t make my mom like you any more, right? She’s like, grossly in love with you. I don’t get it. You are the most just some guy type of guy I have ever seen.”
Terry snorted. I am almost certain I told my Mom that exact thing, when she introduced me to Ron. “Well,” he said, “your mom had a work thing come up. She asked me to pick you up.” He glanced over to her. “Terri, seatbelt.”
“It’s like, a ten minute drive.” Terri slouched even more. “Nobody’s gonna kill me.”
“Terri.”
“You can’t tell me what to do!” She sat up and jabbed a finger against his arm. “What’re you gonna do? Stop the car? I’ll just walk home.”
“Terri, please just—”
“I will!” she continued. “I know the way and everything.”
A car swerved out in front of them and Terry slammed on the breaks as his heart hammered in his throat. Terri blinked. Pressed her back to her seat. Buckled herself in.
“This isn’t because you told me to,” she said.
Terry felt the feeling come back into his limbs. His hands hurt from gripping the steering wheel so tight, but a few deep breaths and he was driving again.
“I know,” he said. That was—too close. He’d kill himself if anything happened to Terri, especially when Veronica trusted him. He—needed something else. The car was too quiet. “How was practice?”
Terri shrugged, leaning her head against the window. “Dunno. It was whatever.”
“Whatever?” Terry asked. He’d been to Terri’s games before—she always seemed to be having a blast. He’d never heard her so unenthused about soccer before. “Did something happen?”
“Do you care?” Terri scoffed. “It was fine. Hot.”
Terry laughed, a bit. “Well, I can guess why,” he said. “You’re wearing all black.”
Terri tugged her leather jacket tighter around her. “I like it,” she said. “I’m not taking it off.”
Terry held up his hands for the second they were at a red light. “I’m not telling you too.” He wouldn’t say it to her face, but he sort of thought it was adorable. Veronica told him Terri’d found it in her closet, that it was an old jacket she’d had when she was younger, and it was just a tiny bit too big for Terri. Terry had maybe gone overboard showing off pictures the last time he’d seen Sparrow and Grant. It was really nice, to finally have kid pictures to throw into the ring. “Just saying. Heat and black leather don’t go together.”
“They do,” Terri said, “if you aren’t a coward.”
Terry mock-gasped. “Are you calling me a coward?”
“Yes,” Terri said, with full seriousness. “Absolutely.”
“I cannot believe this,” Terry teased, and Terri didn’t grin, really, but she looked away from him and sort of huffed, and Terry counted that as a win. He was—trying, he really was. She was amazing, Terri was. He adored her. He still couldn’t entirely believe that when he asked Veronica to marry him, she said yes. That she wanted him in her and her daughter’s life.
He was…really, really doing his best. Doing everything he could. Terri deserved it.
“Hey,” Terri said, breaking him out of his thoughts. “Hey. Hey hey hey. Look. Look!”
Like a little kid, she was jabbing at the Dairy Queen down the street, practically bouncing in her seat. She continued, “you should get me a Blizzard. Mom totally does it like, basically every time she picks me up. If you didn’t know. It would be a crime if you didn’t pull in right now. I’d hate you forever.”
Terry felt something warm flare up in his chest. She was lying, of course. But—oh, what the hell. It was nearly summer. She’d been running around a soccer field wearing all black. Once he and Veronica finalized a date, she’d…
Terri would…
See, the thing was he never thought he’d have kids. Thought he’d never have the chance to, and he couldn’t bear bringing one into this world even if he did. This world that would just try to destroy them.
He pulled into the Dairy Queen drive-thru.
Terri stared at him.
“What?” Terry said. She continued to stare. “You’re getting the smallest size. Just so you know.”
“Oh, come on,” Terri said, but she beamed when Terry passed her their order, immediately shoveling far-too-big a bite into her mouth. She winced and Terry was pretty sure it was a brain freeze, but he didn’t mention it.
Oh, he loved this kid. It was—wildly different than anything he’d ever experienced before and he thought for the first time he understood why Ron kept trying, for so long, no matter how awful Terry was to him. Because why wouldn’t he? Of course he would. It was…
Something he didn’t have words for. Terry pulled into a parking space, pulled out his phone, and opened up the camera, trying to angle it to get both him and Terri in the shot. She was halfway through a bite before she noticed and tensed up.
“What are you doing,” she said, slightly muffled around her spoon.
“Selfie,” Terry said, leaning over the middle hump of the car’s storage, “say cheese!”
Terri ducked out of frame. “No. Absolutely not. Never.”
“Come on,” he said, even as she tried to shove him away. “Just one picture? I’m sure your mom would love to see it.”
“I will eat your ice cream but I will not!” Terri said, puffing up. “Be so degraded as to take a selfie with you! Nobody even says selfie anymore! That’s like, forever ago!”
“Selfie,” Terry repeated, and held up his phone as Terri unbuckled and wriggled past him into the backseat. “Terri!”
“Nuh-uh!” She held her ice cream clutched close to her chest. “I refuse! This is embarrassing! Plus, if Mom knows I got a Blizzard she’d—”
“Oh?” Terry said, fake-gasping. “Terri,” he put a hand to his heart, “do you and your mom not get a Blizzard after every single soccer practice? The soccer practice you go to four times a week? And not once have I seen you come home with one?”
“Um,” Terri said.
“I cannot believe,” he started, and Terri groaned, flopping across the backseat. “Who could’ve figured it out?”
“You’re the worst,” she said, resting the cup of her ice cream on her chest. “You’re literally so embarrassing. I don’t know why Mom sent you to pick me up. I’m not a baby. I can walk home by myself.”
“I know,” Terry said. “But then who would’ve bought you a Blizzard?”
Terri twisted around so she was staring out the backseat window. “You can take one picture,” she said. “One. Or else I walk home.”
“Thank you.” Terry angled his phone, and—it wasn’t perfect, because he could only get half of Terri in frame, but he didn’t even care. New phone wallpaper, that was for certain.
“Yeah, whatever, Dad,” Terri muttered. Terry froze. Did she—
“I—mean—” Terri jerked up so fast she slammed her head into the roof of the car. “Not that you’re my dad. Because you aren’t. That—I mean. My real dad, I bet he would—get me ice cream. And pick me up from practice if my mom couldn’t. And. Yeah.” She crossed her arms and turned away. “I’m staying back here.”
“Okay,” Terry said, softly. He wasn’t going to push her, no matter how much his emotions were on the spin from a single misspoken word. Dad. He.
Oh. Okay. So he was maybe tearing up a little. Probably shouldn’t let Terri see that. He rubbed at his eyes and rolled out of the parking lot, pausing only to text the picture to Veronica, with the caption, I think I want to tell her this weekend. About being engaged.
Veronica hearted the image. I think that’s perfect, babe.
That weekend Terry stuttered through telling Terri, helped along the way by Veronica, who ended it with a smile and a, “I guess that makes you Terri Jr now, huh? Or would it be Jr Jr? Since Terry here is already a Jr?”
Terri stood up and walked to her room. Her door slammed behind her.
Two days later at breakfast, staring Terry dead in the eyes, she told them that she was quitting soccer, and that her name was Scary.)
I knew, then, is what he should’ve told her, I knew that you were going to watch me die.
I loved you anyways.
(The last time Terry saw his stepdaughter—really saw his stepdaughter, without one of their minds being scrambled by the Doodler, is when he and Veronica went to drop her off at school.
It was like any other day. Terry had, as he had explained to Veronica and Scary, a work trip, which meant D.A.D.D.I.E.S stuff, which meant, technically, there was a chance he’d never come back, but so long as he kept Scary safe and out of it, everything would be fine.
He just wanted her to take the lunch he’d made her.
And she did. It took her some time, and Terry nearly missed it—but she grabbed it, and he cheered, and Veronica said, “I wish she wasn’t so aggravating. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t mind,” Terry said, and meant it. “I was just like her, when I first met my step-dad. It just took us time, that’s all.”
Just a little bit more time.)
Dying, Terry learns, is something like an endless moment.
There’s nothing after. There’s everything before.
In the moment that Terry Jr dies, he is staring at a skyline. The city around him is destroyed, broken-down, and dangerous, and there is no sun, not in a sky covered by eldritch static, but despite that it is still beautiful. He thinks, maybe, that he can even see the stars beyond the static, familiar constellations he traced when he was a scared, lost child. Like warm golden countertops.
There is a girl in front of him. A teenager, maybe 14 or 15 or so. She’s not the one holding a tape measurer, and she’s looking at him. He doesn’t know her. Not really. She’s not his stepdaughter, not the girl he met, and loved, and wanted to keep safe, despite everything else.
He tells her that he’s sorry for everything. That he wishes they had more time. That he’s proud of her, that he’s so proud of her. She should’ve never had to go through this. He knew, from the very start, that loving her would be a selfish thing. That it was going to hurt, like a knife in his heart, at the very end.
He says, “I love you.”
Death is an endless moment. He is always in those final few moments before the nothingness, because nothingness means there is no more him, and thus he will never actually experience it. In those last seconds, though, as the girl who is not yet his stepdaughter tells him that nobody has ever told her they’re proud of her, as his heart breaks yet again, for this girl he so desperately wanted to have just a little bit more time with, he hears something.
Sorry you were infertile, it says, in a voice he knows like his own heart, because she is his heart, he’s pretty sure. That sucks. You would’ve made a really good, um—I just wanted to say thank you for seeing me, I guess.
Terry thinks, oh.
And he replies—
(In his late twenties, Terry Jr learned that he was going to die.
If we had more time, he is going to hope, I think it could’ve worked.)