#bobby bear | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ohtobeleah · 1 year ago

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omg can we talk about Bobby Bear for a minute bc that entire portion of the finale had me sobbing 😭

Like seeing as how Dot’s only 3 and blocks out most of the final ToE events as she gets older, I doubt that she really remembers Bob or the significance of Bobby Bear. Of course she’ll still have him as a teenager, but I’m just thinking of what it’s like after the events of “Dot visits Jaidyn in jail” where she learns that someone literally died to save her. I’m also thinking of how she might ask her parents to take her to visit Bob’s grave—his final resting place for the last decade at that point 🧸

ToE

{ Listen, I’m a firm believer in the ideology that kids see ghosts. My mum used to tell me that when I was a kid I’d sit on the pool step talking to myself for ages and one time when she was hanging out the washing she heard me talking and asked who I was talking to and I said Nana Leonie. Who’s my dads mum who died when he was 12 in a car accident. They had never told be about her because I was only like four/five at the time. }

And I think that’s what happens to little Dot. She’s sitting on her swing set just talking to herself. She’s got Bobby Bear sitting on the grass beside her. Minding her own business.

“Who you talkin to over there princess?” Bradley’s asking as he hangs out some of the washing that needed to be done in an emergency batch. Flightsuits and stuff.

“Bobby—“

“Bobby Bear got something to say does he?” And Dot has Bradley frozen in a flashback that he can’t get out of when she replies to him.

“He says mama has a baby on board.” And all Bradley can hear in his mind is Jake’s infectious laugh coming through the comms from when they all came back together for the uranium mission, where Jake had assumed Bob stood for baby on board.

“Did Bobby Bear say that?” He’s got a little layer of sweat across his forehead as he asks. There’s no way, right?

“No, Bob did.” Dots correcting her soon to be legal guardian. In a few short months that’s what Bradley would be. “He says hi Tooster.” And it’s just the most shocking moment for Rooster. Because he’s just standing there at the line hanging washing watching Dot talk to herself and is all of a sudden in the middle of an existential crisis about the possibility of ghosts being a legitimate thing.

“Hey Dotty.” Bradley knows it’s probably stupid to ask but if there was a chance, even just the slightest chance, he wanted Bob to know. “Can you tell Bob I’m sorry?” And Bradley watches as Dot converses with herself like she’s having a full on in-depth discussion with someone standing right next to her.

“He said he knows.” That’s when Bradley is scooping little miss Dot up and collecting Bobby Bear and barreling into the house. He’s looking for you in a panic. Anxiety attack approaching.

“Fe?” Bradley calls when you aren’t in the living room. Dots hanging upside down as Bradley holds her like a surfboard. She’s a giggling mess. “Honey you around?”

“What’s wrong?” You’re racing down the hall because the way Bradley sounded made you believe the house was on fire. “Roo—?” He looked pale, like he’d just seen a ghost. Or heard from one that was.

“You need to take a pregnancy test and Dot sees ghosts.”

“Did you hit your head on something?” It’s a genuine question to a very puzzling statement. “Bradley, hon, what happened why do you look ill?” It’s the palm against his forehead that calms Rooster down, your touch always brought him solace. He placed little Odette down who takes her Bobby Bear and makes her way into her room. She had better things to be doing than watching her dad have a full blown anxiety attack. “What happened?”

“Do you ever talk to her about Bob?” It’s a blunt question Bradley is sure he already knows the answer to. You don’t talk about Bob to anyone let alone Odette. But everyone had agreed to not bring Bob up around your little girl, incase it triggered an episode. She’d begun to block it out, her therapist had told you it was normal in childhood trauma. It was a coping mechanism.

“Not directly no.” You frowned curiously. “Why?”

“She said that Bob said that you have a baby on board and then I asked her to tell Bob I was sorry and she said he already knows!” Bradley knew he sounded crazy by the look on your face you gave him in reaction to his explanation. “I ain’t crazy baby don’t look at me like that.”

“Bradley, I love you—but there’s no such thing a ghosts.” You reply a little sharper than normal. Bradley knows why, the topic of Bob never left you feeling good. It was still a fresh wound. “I’ll take a pregnancy test in a few days if I’m late—“ You leave it at that. Rooster hangs around the threshold of Dots room just watching her play. He felt like he was going crazy.

But what made it even worse was when that pregnancy test came back positive.

“Holy shit you do have a baby on board—“ The whole experience kind of confirms that there’s some sort of life after death for Bradley, which gives him a lot of closer, brings him a lot of peace. You don’t buy into it. And Odette doesn’t seem to really stick with the whole kids see ghosts thing either because as she grows up, her imaginary friend Bob doesn’t seem to appear as much anymore. She just grows out of it much like you thought she would. Bobby Bear is just another one of her many toys and suddenly—she’s being told exactly what happened that night on Uncle Jakes front porch after going to see that monster she’d been calling her dad for months on end.

“Will you take me to see him?” Dot had spent the majority of the day with you in bed, talking about the things that you’d endured, talking about Bob and about how Bradley was just always there for the two of you. “Bob?” Odette had a new found appreciation for Bradley, her dad.

“Sure baby, you know—before Riley was born you kinda had Rooster in a frenzy thinking ghosts were real and that Bob wasn’t just some imaginary friend of yours.” You could remember it like it was yesterday, how pale and scared out of his fucking kind Bradley had really been that day. He was convinced Bob was about to have him staring in something right out of the conjuring.

“How?” Dots asking, she just wanted to keep the conversation going. She wanted to know everything, no detail left out or stone unturned. If she couldn’t get it from you she now knew who to go to. Uncle Jake.

“You used to say a lot of weird things, just things only Bob would know— Or you somehow knew things we’d never told you about.”

“You don’t believe in ghost mum?” You shook your head with a firm No and a tight smile.

“I don’t believe that a man who was ground in mathematics and science and probability theory would ever be a ghost, no.” You just didn’t believe it was in Bobs inherit nature.

So the next day, you and Bradley took Odette up to Bobs grave. She’d never been there before. You’d never taken her purely to keep the memories at bay for her. All you ever did say in and day out as a mother was protect your kids.

“How’s it hangin’ Floyd?” Bradley clapped as he picked up some of the dead flowers Natasha had last left. He knew it was her because there was a beer bottle sitting next to the bouquet. The beer Bob never got to give Rhett. It became a tradition every-time Rhett was in North Island, the two would go up and see Bob for a while. “Brought you a visitor man, little Dotty got big didn’t she?”

“Does he do this a lot?” Dots asking as she walks with you up to Bobs headstone. Her hand couldn’t have been tighter in yours if she wanted it to be. Bradley Bradshaw had lost a lot of good people in his life, the idea they weren’t inherently gone for good helped him process that loss.

“Yeah, you should see him at your grandparents graves—it’s heartbreaking.” It’s a little overwhelming for the teenager who was only just now learning about the events you’d kept a secret from her. The fact someone had died trying to protect you, protect her made her stomach churn.

“I feel like I’m gonna be sick.”

“That feeling never goes away.” You held your daughter close as she cried into your chest. “I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you everything sooner sweetheart.”

“Bobby Bear?” Dot sobbed as she pulled away and wiped her tears. “That was Bob wasn’t it?”

“Uncle Rhett has one too.” Bradley confirmed as if it had been a massive secret that no one ever spoke about. “He was the one who gave it to you.”

“And we all have the same pair of glasses tattooed.” You showed your daughter the faded outline of the pair of aviators you had on your finger. It really needed to be redone. “Your father has his on his wrist.” Dot already knew about the tattoos you both had, she just didn’t know the symbolism behind them.

“Jake has his on his ass—“ The three of you laugh just as the wind picks up around you, Bradley’s convinced it’s Bob laughing too. You just think it’s been windy all damn day.

It’s not till a few weeks later when Rhett’s in town for parent teacher interviews with Phoenix and the twins does he learn that Odette knows about Bob. She tells him point blank when he’s over for dinner catching up with Jake and Amilia.

“Where do you keep your bear Uncle Rhett?”

“What the hell do I keep my what now?” Rhett’s frowning curiously until Dot hands him the tattered old bear that had been threw her entire childhood. Her favourite teddy bear. Bobby Bear.

“Jake told me everything that happened—“ She didn’t have the heart to tell him why, she couldn’t tell her Uncle Rhett she went to see the man who killed his brother. “Mum told me all about him, Bob that is.” Rhett doesn’t know what to say, he knew this day would come. He just wasn’t expecting it to be today.

“C’mere kid.” Rhett’s heading back into the house, he makes his way to the spare room as Dot follows and opened his suitcase. Right at the top is the same identical bear. Just a little less beat up. “He comes everywhere with me.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

#terms of endearment// bradley bradshaw #bradley bradshaw top gun #bradley 'rooster' bradshaw #bobby bear #Bob floyd #robert ‘bob’ floyd

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