#not even the 5th time practicing driving and I crash the car (bump into the curb and burst a tire)

[hopalongfairywren]

I am going to fucking kill myself

[neotrinitythinker]

Brush off The Grime Of Yesterday (And Begin Again) Chapter 4.

Hank's never really done Spring Cleaning. Even before everything that happened. Cleaning was time consuming.

Something shifts in April. Someone intensely hopeful and new.

In five months, it will have been four months since the car flipped over in practically slow motion and he lost Cole forever. And Isobel, though he lost her entirely on his own.

Hank's been up since 8 cleaning waking with the rest of the world as he hears the birds sing a unceasing, if not slightly annoying, melody. Each moment getting closer to opening Cole's room before walking away again. time. He needs fucking time. Even if the whole point of this was to get around to his room. He isn't avoiding, he tells himself. He isn't.

Connor hasn't noticed his hesitance towards going into Cole's room yet. Or if he has he hasn't said anything. Hank isn't sure how he'd talk to Connor about this anyways. What he even wants to say to him.

Connor's been busy cleaning himself, seemingly taking solace in the task. He's bumped into him a few times, exchanged a few greetings as he's scrubbed and discarded throughout the house.

But mostly he's been in his bedroom, he's had a lot of stuff just lying around the past couple years. He still isn't avoiding.

Maybe he's avoiding, just the tiniest bit.

He hasn't been in Cole's room since the week after the accident, he's drunkenly ripped off the wooden name sign with his name off the door that he bought him for his 5th birthday and broke it into several tiny little pieces, but he's hasn't stepped foot inside the room in four years.

Isobel couldn't either, he thinks. But he doubts she had time to even try with all the unceasing yelling and blaming they did in the following four months before she moved out.

He doesn't want to go in it. Going in feels like an invitation to finally move on. To embrace the fucking healing process. He doesn't want to have to move on. He doesn't want to be the parent that fondly remembers a bittersweet memory of their long dead daughter or son before resuming whatever they were doing before the memory hit them. Like a functional grieving parent. He wants to remember every moment with him.

Maybe there is no functional grieving parent. Maybe it's a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

There's a part of him that does long to move on. Wants his heart to hurt less, not think about playing a game of Russian Roulette with a bottle of whiskey and a pistol every time something reminds him of Cole. It feels...so possible. The thought of being alright again. It fades in and out of the realm of possibility like breath on a mirror more times than he'd like to admit.

He was tired of being angry with the world.

Then Connor came. Every moment with him felt like the moment the android doctor came back to tell him his son was dead all over again. That *he* had to done all he could do because the real doctor had been in some hospital closet getting high of Red Ice.

And Connor had come in and stuck. He had torn down those accusatory, grief fueled walls that overflowed with beer and spite that told him every android was the reason his son was dead.

He doesn't know what he did to deserve Connor appearing in his life.

Androids have had the right to move into their own homes for a month now.

Connor chose to stay.

They haven't talked about it. He just sort of stuck around. Stayed.

Hank finds that he doesn't actually mind. And he's been drinking less.

And in a way, it's another chance. However reluctant he is to talk about it with Connor, it feels like a second start. A reason to try.

Maybe they don't *need* to talk about it. He thinks. Maybe it's unspoken.

Family.

Eventually he manages to clean up or throw away all the things he didn't even know he had, trinkets, clothes he never wore anymore. Junk.

Except for the album.

He's kept the photo album shoved far into the deep recesses of the closet, like it's some sort of skeleton for him. And he supposes it is one. Even if he moves on. He's not going to throw it away. Not ever.

It's a baby blue colored, daisy decorated thick mass of a book. However short his time was with him, there was so many memories of him. So many moments he felt so unbelievably goddamn lucky to be privileged enough to even have. To even have the honor of witnessing. being a part of.

He runs a shaky hand over the outside of it, sighing. The daisy decor is still as scratchy as the day Isobel and Cole made it. They wanted it to be so special

Slowly, he heads to Cole's room, a shaking hand opens the handle.

His room is still the same way he left it the morning he left forever. Aside from the old whiskey bottle he left on the floor when he came into the room drunk the week after the funeral. Isobel had been so angry.

He doesn't know why he chose today to try and move on. Shit, why he chose today to be the day he finally went in the room. But he's here.

It's a room decorated by blue and green walls, walls joined by posters of this show Cole never stayed quiet about. In a way this room is deceitful, he's half expecting Cole to come crashing into it, asking him why he's in it and if he come with him to watch his shows.

He won't. But Hank can dream.

He has two bags with him. One for the things he can bear to get rid of, and the things he isn't sure he's ready to get rid of just yet. Maybe with time he will be, but this isn't the day.

Sluggishly, he moves forward to grab various things, it feels automatic. Like he's the android.

He takes the bag of things he kept with him, setting it down on the table next to the album as he sits on the couch with it.

He sees Connor out of the corner of his eye, a look of confusion, and then slight concern as he glances at the open door of what he can only assume is Coles room. And then back to him.

"Hank? What are you doing?" He asks softly.

Hank breathes in. "Spring Cleaning, kid."

"Are you okay?" Connor questions.

Hank scoffs. "I don't know. You know Cole helped make this?" He asks, holding up the album. "He was so proud of it."

"It looks very well made." Connor says simply. He's trying Hank thinks. He knows Connor sometimes has trouble with emotional support. He sure as shit was himself.

"Yeah. Yeah it sure is." He laughs bitterly. He holds up a toy he didn't end up throwing out. "I got this for his 3rd birthday. He was so....happy." Hank never wanted a drink this badly. But a month sober can't be all for nothing.

Connor moves, sitting down next to him. "Is that a photo album?" There weren't that many people that used them. At least physical paper versions nowadays.

Hank smiles. "Yeah. five years worth of memories in 'em."

The android doesn't say anything, and Hank continues.

"You know...the day Cole was born.. I thought I was the luckiest person on the goddamn planet." He starts. "He was one of the few great things to have happened to me. He was so...small and...happy. I didn't know what I did to deserve him. This...chance, I was given."

Hank opens a page of the album to a series of photos. His eyes set on one of them. A exhausted but grinning golden haired woman with grey eyes and a crooked nose held a blanket wrapped newborn. Next to them, a younger, less grizzled Hank stood nearby, a smile formed on his features.

"Those were the happiest six years of my life." Hank explains. "Until I took him for an afternoon drive and only one of us came out it."

Connor looks how Hank feels. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant." He doesn't bother to correct him with 'Hank.'

"Yeah...Me too."

Hesitantly, he closes the album with a heavy sigh. He needed to say it now or the room would just continue to collect dust. Cole loved the room. It didn't feel right to just let it suffer that fate.

"Look, Connor." He starts, shifting his body so that he was facing the other man. "I cleaned out the room...well, because it felt...like the right thing. Cole didn't deserve for it just be a ghost town.  But...also, maybe you deserve to use it now. Cole fucking loved androids. Only feels right that you use it now."

Connor's eyes widen slightly. "Hank, I... I'm perfectly alright with going into stasis on the couch, I don't even require a bed, I don't even need to go into stasis at night. I couldn't possibly take Cole-"

"Just say yes. Alright, you've been living here for five months, kid. And you don't even have a bed." Hank interrupts.

"But..it's Cole's room Hank. Are you sure your ready for that?" Connor asks.

Hank runs a hand over his face. "No, if i'm honest. But I need to fucking...do this someday or other." Moving on.

Both of them sit there for a good five seconds.

"You aren't Cole, Connor. But you're still...family." A son.

Hank continues. "You're family, now. Take the room."

Connor stays silent, expression thoughtful, before nodding.

Hank stands, walking towards his room.

"Where you going?" Connor asks.

"To bed, I need a damn nap." Hank says in an empty voice.

"I think of you as my family too." Connor says suddenly.

Hank turns. Connor's eyes shine in the living room lamps light next to the couch, his expression is warm, content. It's the happiest he's ever seen him.

"Good. That's good." He says, gently shutting the door.

Good.