Alan wondered if it was because he'd been in love with the music of tragedy that it all seemed so dramatic and awful.
Every time he'd thought he was getting over Melpomene, every time he thought he was starting to make progress to being okay (even though he couldn't work out how to stop loving her) something happened that sent every one of his thoughts rocketing back to her. First it had been the labour, had been her calling him because he was the only one Melpomene wanted at her side. There had been no way he could say no the that, and afterwards he'd come crawling back into bed, freshly broken.
And then it had been Telos kidnapped to somewhere unknown, and the knowledge that Melpomene was out there somewhere in the city, completely destroyed. He knew what Telos meant to her. So often they had talked in the night, entwined together, about the future that little boy could have with them. And then Alan had left, and it wasn't a future he got to be part of anymore.
When he thought of Telos, only two weeks old, snatched away from the breast of Melpomene, it was impossible for him not to think he was supposed to be my son, and I've failed him. He had broken a promise of fatherhood to a child who would never know him.
So while there was relief (overwhelming relief) that Telos was home and safe, the lingering feeling of failing that child stuck with him. And, for the third time, he was heartbroken in bed over the family he had given up.
He looked up as the door opened and nodded a little. "I haven't washed my sheets in weeks," he warned Tuck.