Title: Yesterday to Tomorrow: Chapter Thirty-two, Always Be Here
Rating: R [violence, swearing, nudity]

Summary: Howard is buried and Chris struggles with how to support Alyssa during this time

Previous Chapter Smiling Down on You

Current Chapter Always Be Here

Next Chapter Music to the Soul

Wet hair whipped about her face, but she didn't notice or didn't care. Her emotionless eyes stared out across the murky water, focused upon the ferry lines. For a moment she wanted to lean over the edge, dive into the polluted water, join the smelly sea lions. But that thought passed almost as quickly as it came upon her. Swimming with the fishes would do no one any good. She had a man and children to love, a family of her own. Losing her father was not the end, not for her in the least.

Sighing, she pushed the wet hair out of her face, leaving streaks on her cheeks. To an unknowing observer she would have seemed to have been crying, which was very not true. Her eyes just didn't want to water, to cry, to... have any sort of emotion at all. So very empty.

"There you are," a soft voice came up behind her.

Alyssa's vacant eyes turned to the body that joined hers, "I was not lost."

"Yes, you are," he replied, touching her hand softly.

She shook her head, turning back towards the water, "I'm fine, Chris."

His thumb traced over the back of her hand, "Baby, it's all right to be sad. It's all right to be upset."

"I'm all right, Chris," Alyssa declared.

"You haven't cried. Once."

"I don't need to."

He moved behind her, arms wrapping around her, his head resting upon her shoulder, "Alyssa, I know this is hard on you. It is hard upon everyone. But, my love, you are not alone. I am here for you. So are so many others."

"Chris...."

He kissed, behind her ear, "Alyssa, it's all right."

She shook her head, "I don't have time for this."

"Time for what, love?"

"Pain."


Chris sighed, his eyes on Alyssa's back. As of yet she hadn't asked for... well anything. She didn't want to know anything about her father's final preparations or what he left behind. The only time she had even left the hotel room was the previous day when he found her staring blankly out towards the islands. And then she went right back to laying on the bed, avoiding. Even the children she was barely responding to.

And oh how he was worried.

Stepping back out of the hotel bedroom, he frowned. Tom immediately looked up.

"Chris?"

He sank onto the couch, "I don't know what to do, Tom. I feel completely fucking helpless."

"She'll come around, Chris. You love her," he declared. "That will bring her around."

He rubbed his face, "I've never seen her this way, at all. Not when her mother passed....."

"Chris," Tom sighed, "it's a difficult time. It will take some time to get over the shock, the stress, the impact of everything on her all at once. Love her. That's all you can do right now. Love her, Chris."

"There cannot be enough love in the world to heal such a broken heart."


"Into your hands, Father of mercies, we commend our brother Howard in the sure and certain hope that, together with all who have died in Christ, he will rise with him on the last day.

We give you thank for the blessings which you bestowed upon Howard in this life they are signs to us of your goodness and of our felloship with the saints in Christ.

Merciful Lord, turn toward us and listen to our prayers: open the gates of paradise to your servant and help us who remain to comfort one another with assurances of fatih, until we all meet in Christ and are with you and with our brother for ever. We ask this through Christ our Lord."

Music began after the intonation of 'Amen.' And yet Alyssa remained stuck in her seat. Her eyes vacantly focused upon her father's casket, willing him to push it open and step out. She knew he could. He simply had to want to. Push the lid open, step out, and walk her down the aisle in a few months. Simple.

"Baby?" Chris gently touched her arm.

Her eyes snapped to his. For a few moments she was more than just confused as to what he wanted. But slowly her thoughts wrapped around what his hand meant and she slipped hers into his. A few moments later, she lead the procession from the church, her father carried behind her and Chris.

At the cemetary, her eyes focused upon the headstone of her mother. All her anger and unresolved feelings to that woman seemed to surface all at once. And just like that were gone, the words of the pastor said over her father somehow applying to her mother at the same time. With a sigh she turned back to her father's casket, picking up more words then than at the church liturgy.

Alyssa remained where she was as people trailed away. Most would return to the church for the wake. Only Chris, his bandmates, and his kids lingered in the cemetary. Even the priest left, after touching Alyssa's shoulder and muttering something that was supposed to make her feel better.

Her eyes remained on the flower littered coffin as it was lowered into the ground. Cemetary workers started to clean up, leaving only hers and Chris's chairs. The others trailed away, Tom and Brad taking the kids and attempting to distract them and Tim while waiting for word from Chris.

"When I was little," her small voice passed her lips, "my dad used to take me to ice cream on Saturdays. There was this little ice cream shop not that far from our house. Every Saturday. Without fail. And we would always walk. He told me it was..... it was to balance out the ice cream. But when I got older I figured out it was because it extended our time together.

"I think my mother was jealous of our bond. I would never listen to anyone but Daddy. He almost.... he almost talked me into returning home the first time I saw him after going to stay with you. My dad is what made life with my mother bareable," she paused, her bottom lip trembling.

"When I turned thirteen, my mother gave me this Bible, which passages earmarked, highlighted, emphasized. My dad knew this was the wrong approach with me, the wrong gift. And..... and didn't give me my 'real' birthday presents around my mother. For that birthday, he gifted me with......" tears readily streaked down her cheeks finally. "....my god, Chris, I think I've lost the pendant he gave me."

"I'm sure it's just tucked away. We'll find it," he replied reassuredly, patting her leg gently.

Alyssa pulled abruptly from him, sinking to her knees on the ground. She crawled over the newly turned dirt. Her fingers dug into the soft earth, tears wetting it more than the misting Seattle rain.

"No, Daddy. Don't go. Don't leave me. No one to look out for me without you. Don't go," she muttered, pawing at the dirt.

Chris's arms looped around her, pulling her gently from the ground, "Baby, he's gone. There's nothing you can do. He's gone."

"Oh, don't say that, Chris!" she shouted, causing Tom to look up from entertaining Toni.

"Baby, he's gone," he repeated. "Gone, Alyssa."

His embrace loosened on her, his attempt to see what she would do. Rather than fall back to digging in the ground, Alyssa turned around, her dirty hands going around his neck. She clung to him, her body shaking with sobs.

"What am I going to do now? All my family.... gone."

"I'm still here, Lyss. I'll always be here," he breathed.


A drink. He really needed a drink in that moment. Anything would do. A beer, a shot, a bottle. But he knew that wouldn't really help the solution. Moreso because he had seen Alyssa after she attempted to drink herself to death after her mother's death. He was not about to allow her the chance again.

Though at the moment it wasn't really a threat. After crying for more than an hour at the gravesite, Alyssa had collapsed, physically and emotionally drained. Chris had more or less carried her to the waiting car, then up to their hotel room. Currently she slept on the bed, the door cracked just enough for him to know if she woke and needed him or not.

Meanwhile he and Brad sat on the couch, the kids playing at their feet. Chris was itching for a guitar, to somehow convey his thoughts and emotions for Alyssa in song. But then wasn't an appropriate time.

"I'm afraid we'll have to push back the wedding," Chris claimed.

"I'm not certain that would be a good decision to make now, Chris," Brad stated. "She needs something to look forward more than ever now. Besides I think she's not in the state to decide such a thing."

"I have never felt as pained as I did today when I held her crying," he confessed. "Even when she was hospitalized, even when she couldn't walk. Feeling her pain as I did was far worse."

"You will persist. This one is the right one," he offered. "You two are—"

"Where's Toni?" Chris interrupted, glancing about the room.

His eyes settled on the door to the bedroom. It was pushed far more open than he had left it. Moving to stand and pursue his erstwhile daughter, Chris was halted by Brad's hand on his arm.

"Children have a healing power we can barely understand."


"Lyss-lyss?" a little voice said in the darkness, heading to the bed.

Alyssa stirred but did not turn over.

The toddler pulled herself up onto the bed. Crawling over to the farside, where Alyssa lay, Toni laid on her stomach, using Alyssa's side as a pillow. The little girl's large eyes looked down at the woman, knowing full well she wasn't sleeping as she pretended.

"Lyss-lyss, no cry," Toni instructed. "Dada make it all better."

With her words, tears started to snake down her cheeks again. Alyssa hesitated but eventually turned, causing the toddler to lay across her belly. She wrapped her arms around Toni, embracing her gently.

"Why cry? Dada loves you. Je t'aime," the little girl declared.

"I know s-sweetie," she replied. "I miss my daddy."

"You have mine," Toni stated. "I share."

Alyssa smiled slightly, "Thank you."

"No more sad. Only happy. Only love."