This last episode broke my heart and as much as I don't need two stories right now (though both this one and Morn His Loss continue to be one shotish). This chapter will stand alone but I might continue this or write another stand-alone one shot that goes with.
Set right after the moment in 3x13 where Andy learns about Robert's parents.
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Her heart broke from him in the midst of her own grief. To lose both parents so drastically, at such a young age.
She moved closer to him, resting her head on his chest. Her brain running through the things she knew about him wondering how she hadn't known this key piece of information. "That's why you are nervous on planes?"
His fidgety nods confirmed things for her and she felt her hands rubbing his chest gently. "I'm sad I'll never get to meet them. Thank them for raising a wonderful man." She whispered, " You don't have to tell me about the accident but can you tell me about them?"
Robert felt his heart constrict. "My dad was born in Austria and trained as a phycologist in France. He met my mother there and she was in Medical School at the time."
"He always said he knew right away she was the one for him. They both loved to travel and spent two years after they finished school in Ghana. My mother's tribe wasn't particular welcoming to my father and they ended up trying to have him killed so they left and went to Austria. My mother hadn't been received much better by Opa as you can imagine."
He paused, "So when they moved to France to do some more schooling they decided to get married and change both their names. They got married on Sullivan street somewhere in the U.K. and that's why they chose Sullivan as a last name. They wanted to be united as a family without the mistakes of their own parents to drag them down."
"I was born in Germany and it was my father's preferred language so we spoke German almost exclusively when I was little. When I was six my mother got a job as a medical director at a French hospital we lived there for two years but my father never got a grasp on the language or culture. Then when I was 10 we moved to Michigan when my father was offered a job as a professor. And that's when my mother and I learned English. But Michigan was cold and depressed and my mother hated it."
"My father wrote books and consulted with universities all over the world so he traveled constantly. And their marriage suffered. They always seemed to resent one another for the successes. And there was always a language issue. My father preferred German or English, and my mother French, then with my grandfather we spoke German."
"My parents had a lot of issues, starting with my grandfather living with us, but it didn't take much for them to set one another off. They both had a lot of similarities, most especially their professional , it's probably how I turned out so stubborn and hot headed. God they would get into these huge fights. And it was strange because he would fall back to German just like you do with Spanish when you get mad. And even though my mother was fluent in German she always yelled back in French. So they would just go at it in two different languages."
He paused feeling his eyes burn, "I remember being so confused in school about which words belonged to which language."
Andy looked up at him. "I did the same with English and Spanish. My dad used to call it Splanglish."
Robert chuckled. "You still do it in your sleep sometimes."
She nodded, "You had a dream after we first got together and it must have been German because for a moment I thought you'd been possessed by a demon."
Robert shifted, "I remember. It was the anniversary of my parent's death. I always dream the same dream. It's always in German." He mused. "I actually considered German to be my first language for a long time.
She held him tighter taking his hand in his. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but none of the words seemed appropriate. Sorry didn't make her feel better so why would it make him feel better?"
Robert sighed, "Are you sure you want to know? About the plane crash?"
Andy felt her body turn pale. But she nodded.
Robert looked away before he continued, "The older I got the more they fought. And when I was 15 they went to therapy. After that things got a lot better. We did a lot of traveling together as a family all over the world that year. So for this one perfect year I had a family that loved one another. I got what I'd always wanted. Then in March of 1992 my dad got invited to keynote a conference in Germany. I had gotten two Cs and a D that semester so my parents made me stay home with my grandfather. On their trip home their plane was hijacked by terrorists and just like that they were gone."
Andy glanced up to find his eyes glassed over in pain. "Robert." She paused searching for words.
Robert tightened his grip on her and sighed. "I was alone for a long time. I was sad for a long time. I've been alone most of my life. Then in literally a matter of weeks you changed my whole life." He paused, "Earlier when you said that we're all we have. For a minute I was reminded of everyone I've lost. But I've got you and that's more than enough for me. "
