Eyes glazed, thoughts slow.

That soft little gurgling was adorable. Those delicate blue eyes staring up at him from within the milky depths of his wool blanket was a vision that could make anyone’s heart simply melt. A gentle smile rest upon the older male’s lips, his fingertips gingerly tracing across the child’s smooth cheek as he peeled away some of that material to get a better look at his little baby’s face. To be honest, he hadn’t really been able to look properly at his child, as of yet. It had all been a bit of a.. bustle really. So many people had been there when the little guy was born, waiting to get a look at him, to hold him, to make themselves known as a relation to this child. And there was a bloody large number of relations to the little thing.

Louis had never thought he'd get to this moment in his lifetime. Ever since his early teenage years, he'd always been adamant that he would just sail through the rest of his life without getting married, having children, growing old with his loved ones.. He had known what fate was to befall him, and so he simply discarded those normal things from his list of priorities. And so, the fact that he was here, with his own little baby lying back against his thighs as he rested his own feet up against the mattress of Felicity's hospital bed.. well, it was overwhelming.

He couldn't help but allow his smile to extend as he rested his back against his chair and just simply watched the little boy in front of him gurgle every now and again, obviously starting to slip itself into a comfortable slumber. It was surprising what the presence of a baby could cause to stir in some people. Felicity's father had been in earlier, and the male had treated Louis more like a son than ever before (instead of looking at him distastefully and telling him to keep the hell out of his daughter's pants). Luke, Eben, and Paige had also visited. Little Paige's grin did not falter for a moment as she'd gazed at her baby cousin, and Eben had been quite silent whilst he watched his nephew sleep. Luke had mostly focused on the new-mother, making sure she was getting a bit of her own attention for a while after he'd introduced himself to the child (making sure to specify that he was the best uncle out of the lot of 'em).

It seemed that most either had that quiet joy or those bursts of excitement when they'd visited and met the little fella. But.. Louis wasn't entirely certain how he felt. Of course, he was happy. He was pretty certain that he'd never been happier than the moment that he'd first held that small baby in his arms. But.. that didn't stop the nagging feeling at the back of his mind. He was losing his soul.. slowly but surely. No one knew when it was that it would give out, no one was certain how long he had.. but everyone supposed that it would be sooner rather than later.

Throughout Felicity's pregnancy, Louis had kept his feelings about this to himself. Something as joyous as a new life didn't need to be tainted black with the thought of how little time the father would have actually being a father to his son. But now, it seemed, in the silence of the previously bustling room, the thoughts seeped back to the forefront of his mind. Eyes quickly glanced over to Felicity's sleeping form, seeing how peaceful she looked as she got that well deserved rest. Watching her didn't relax Louis as much as he'd hoped, though.. as his vision turned back to his son, a saddened tone just seeping through his body.

He wasn't going to be there for Jimmy as he grew up. He wasn't going to be there to show him things, to help him through any problems he had. He wasn't going to be there to make sure that everything was okay for him. Louis' heart dropped as he wondered just how long it would be until he could no longer be considered as a proper father, until he lost the ability to take care of him. Stroking the back of his finger against his baby's cheek, the twenty-six year old's eyes began to sting, a layer of tears threatening to trickle down his cheeks. Louis never showed a vulnerability as strong as crying. He was certain that it had been before his teenage years when he'd last cried, but now.. he once more felt overwhelmed, but not with the joy he'd felt earlier. It was the complete opposite.

Upon the bed, it seemed that Felicity was stirring, the covers making soft shuffling noises as she turned to face where Louis was sat with Jimmy. Louis quickly used the palm of his hand to wipe away whatever had been threatening to escape him, though his saddened, dazed look couldn't be rubbed away so easily. As Felicity's eyes began to slide open, she saw the less than joyful look upon her lover's face as he stared down at their child.

"Louis.. are you okay?"

Lifting his gaze up to her, the male managed the smallest of side smiles, attempting to hide everything that his mind had conjured up - hiding all of the thoughts that were simply breaking his heart.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

We are broken.

It had been such a long time since he had felt like this. If his mind recalled, it was nearing one and half years, at least, since that beer bottle rim had touched his lips and drowned out the upset that had been swallowing him whole. And there it was again, attempting raise his mood but only dragging it further through the dirt.. into the vast abyss of his mind which he could no longer delve into to seek some form of solace. Because she was always there. Laughing. Smiling. Watching him with those amazing brown eyes that he had wished so hard to be allowed to forget.

Josh’s fingers held so loosely to the translucent, green bottle to the point where it could oh-so easily fall from his grasp, dropping down to the ground or the water below. His feet hung over the wooden edge of the bridge, bare to the world whilst his school shoes sat at his side like some faithful companion. And he had treated them as such, spending the few hours that he had been sat there talking to them as if they were the only things in the world that would listen. He’d joked about it with them, in fact, mentioning how silly it must have appeared to others were they to see a nineteen year old speaking to his shoes. But he didn’t care. Josh was far beyond caring about what other people thought, except that one person which he doubted held any thoughts of him anyway.

Ari.

She had so many other things to be thinking about now, so why would she need to think about that student of hers that rarely even attended her lessons anymore? The woman was getting married, to a man that he hadn’t heard of before, nor did he particularly care to try to know. Good news travelled fast, it seemed, around the halls of Delacroix. When an engagement ring is spotted, it takes an extreme effort to silence the mouth of the person those knowing eyes belong to. But it seemed that no such effort was made, and so the silence never came. Instead it was taken over by chattering, gossiping and quick assumptions that Josh’s ears couldn’t help but overhear.

He thought that the feelings had gone away. He had thought that he wouldn’t get that heart-wrenching feeling whenever he saw her. He had thought that he wouldn’t feel that sinking sensation when he found out the extent she had moved on. Of course she had to have moved on since that February the year before. Ari may have cared for him, but that wasn’t enough for anything to have been formed permanently in her heart. Why should it have been? Everything about what they had had was wrong, against the rules, against the accepted ideas of those around them. So, why should that mean that the norm followed after that? Their passionate moments were ones that they were supposed to forget, to hide beneath a rug and to never be uncovered again. From appearance, she had done just that, trampling over that rug from the moment she agreed for those new, [i]right[/i] feelings to remain forever in her life.

A gentle sigh floated through his nostrils as those strong-blue eyes of his stared down at the quite strong current of the river below, watching it as the water steadily streamed beneath the bridge and out of sight. It usually held such a calming effect of him, but now it just awoke that more of a frustrated feeling in the pit of his stomach and he hated it. What he was frustrated with, he really couldn’t put his finger on. The fact that he had just needed to be one year older and he’d have been able to be with her truly without it needing to be a secret, or maybe it was that she had been able to move on properly to the point where she was getting engaged. He let his fingers hold against the bottle a little tighter as he thought more, his mind delving deeper into the ideas and imaginings that just didn’t want to leave him alone.

How much has she moved on? Really? Had they kissed? Well, of course, they had to have.. They were to be married and it was hard to believe that any man could resist kissing her until they were wed locked. Had they slept together? It was one of those horrible thoughts that Josh could never really get over, one of the ones that he thought he could get rid of but always came floating back into his mind at various points during the day. Each time it seemed so much more of an infuriating image, something that made the male's teeth clench each time he thought about it too deeply. But he couldn't be angry, not really. He'd had sex with other women since the end of their 'relationship', he'd even had a friend that had a more beneficial status.. he still did. But, it was always there, nagging him that he would so much rather that the girl he was with was someone else entirely. And no matter how much he thought about it, the girl was always the same when he opened his eyes again, vision hazy from the usual alcohol in his system.

The male’s fingers stroked softly over the neck of the bottle he was holding so loosely over the side of the small bridge, his body almost contemplating letting it just fall down into the slow flowing water. Maybe if he just let that go, he could let her go. She wanted to fall away from him, so why should he stop her? Not that he probably could stop her.. as said, she had moved on, didn’t want to be an aspect in his life anymore. It wasn’t as if he had asked her, but it was just something that had settled into his mind, something he had been drawn to realise somehow. Maybe it was because he had tried to pull away from her first.. he rarely turned up for her classes anymore, and when he did he barely took notice. She’d tried to ask him to stay behind once or twice, but had always escaped through the mass of pupils before she could even stop him. Josh was always the first out of her classroom - some kind of childish way of dealing with his mind’s problems. It was all because he couldn’t handle seeing her, let alone being on his own with her. Ari had represented something to him that he hadn’t properly felt before and hadn’t allowed himself to feel. That was the reason that he couldn’t stand the thought of her being with someone else and feeling that for him, and that was why he had to try and let her go.

Josh’s mind slowly churned these thoughts behind his vacant eyes, staring out at the water and realising that there was really nothing he could do. It was done. She was getting married and he was just some student that she had fun with to pass the time. That’s what he had to believe, to soak up so he could return to being that guy that went out with Brendon and had a laugh, always having to sneak out of someone else’s room to get back to his own. He needed to be like that again, to be the Josh that didn’t know about the engagement, the Josh that hadn’t had feelings for his Spanish teacher.

As he contemplated this idea, his ears vaguely picked up the gentle sound of shoes against the wooden planks of the bridge, a light rhythmic sound that slowed the nearer it got. The male didn’t look up to see who it was, he didn’t really care. But he knew who it was when they started to settle down next to him, sitting close with her leg touching against his. Felicity, one of the few girls that was really that close to him, one of his best friends. She was probably the one that gave him the most comfort, even if she didn’t realise it, because she understood how he was feeling from first hand experience. The pair of them were frequently there for each other, on the days that they felt that they couldn’t get by and the lonely nights when they just needed someone to be there with them. It was their relationship, their little thing that just helped them get by.

Words weren't really needed as the older teen rested his head down against her shoulder, her cheek leaning into his hair. She understood how he felt - that horrible sinking feeling at the knowledge that the one you love is with someone else other than you, and that desire to just be able to let go.. but it was impossible for the both of them. But they would struggle on, taking each painful step one at a time. She glanced over to the empty bottles that sat to the other side of Josh, and then the one that he held so loosely in his hand.

"It'll be okay, Josh.." her words were quiet and soft, reassuring. She wanted him to know that everything would work out in the end, even if she wasn't entirely certain for herself. "Things'll work out, I'm su-"

"But, they won't, will they?" came his even quieter, weaker response. He hated how particularly pathetic he sounded but, at that moment, he couldn't care less about that. He knew that he didn't sound at all manly, and that how he reacted to the new of Ari's engagement was borderline childish, but.. he just didn't care and wouldn't care until the moments had passed.

Josh paused for a moment, swallowing some of the upset as he continued to speak.

"She's getting married to some.. guy that's probably a million times better than me, and she's probably pretty much forgotten about me and any feelings she might have had. There's.. there is no chance that she gives a shit about how I feel about her any more."

"You never kn-"

"No, I do. I do," his voice grew louder this time, sounding almost stronger as he lifted his head up away from her, standing up from where he had been seated quite comfortably with his beer still held between his fingers. "I should've expected that something like this was going happen sooner or later, and I shouldn't still be so hooked on her. I was just some risky fling and that's it." His fingers tightened against the neck of the bottle he held, knuckles turning white as a desperate smile spread onto his lips, a sighed chuckle escaping him.

"I just can't get her out of my head.. I can't," as he finished those words, his arm raised and flung the bottle as far down the river as he could. Hearing the splash as it hit the water, he sunk back down to the ground, fingers rubbing against his temple. "She just.."

Felicity shuffled herself to sit next to him, one arm going to wrap around his shoulders, trying hard to comfort her obviously hurting friend, a sympathetic look planted across her features. Josh closed his eyes and let her pull him slightly closer, taking the smallest bit of comfort before allowing his eyelids to once more open, revealing those brilliant blue, cursed irises of his. But the sight that hit him seemed to have more impact than it would most, as he watched the green, near-empty bottle of beer float back down to the bridge, bobbing up and down as it drew closer and closer.

"She keeps coming back.."