DECEMBER 2016 HIS RORY IV

"Feeling better?"

"Much"

Aurora came back into the living room in a pair of pajamas that Sean had left out for her. Of course Sean's shirt hung on her like a dress she probably didn't even need the pants but she wore them anyway.

"What are you looking at?" she asked joining him back on the couch "whoa you still have these? I have seen these pictures in years"

Sean chuckled as he shared the photo album with her. The next picture they were looking at happened to be from Halloween 1997.

"I wonder who that Pokémon is?" Sean teased pointing to the picture of Aurora with her arms raised in her makeshift costume.

Aurora blushed as she tried to turn the page but Sean stopped her and gave her playful grin.

"Gengar still your favorite ghost type?"

"Sean" she giggled, "Gengar was my favorite Pokémon period still is you know that"

"Oh trust me I know judging by the way you refused to trade yours"

"You were going to trade me a Mr. Mime" Aurora reminded him "you're still quite the comedian Sean Patrick Sullivan"

"As much as I try to be I think Luther rightfully earned that title"

"I miss him" Aurora said softly "he probably would have actually been a comedian by now"

There was another picture of the Halloween buddies with Sean and Aurora laughing at a joke Luther was telling.

"You think he's laughing with Mr. Solomon right now?" Aurora asked innocently

"Of course" Sean replied she was referring to their elderly neighbor that they helped that Halloween night "why wouldn't he be?"

Aurora gave a little smile at that wishing that they could have those days once more.

Due to his age through Solomon Brown passed away two years later and Sean remembered how hard Aurora took it. Then Luther was a whole different story.

Sean watched Aurora turn the pages of the photo album and her whole face lit up it was then he realized how much he had really missed her. A whole decade had gone by since he last saw her and people change a lot between age seventeen to almost thirty.

What had Mitch done to her? Aurora could have been killed by that slime ball and Sean wouldn't put it past him to do something like that.

"Sean you kept this?"

It was a picture of Aurora at her tenth birthday party she was smiling in front of her cake with her parents on each side as well as her brothers. Her eyes got a little misty as if she were about to cry

"Yes I did"

"That's nice"

Aurora closed the photo album and passed it back to him and got up to look outside the window at the snow falling outside. No more beating around the bush

"I called your mother Rory" Sean said, "she really misses you---"

"You did what?!?"

"Rory calm down---"

"I'm an adult she doesn't need to know where I am"

"Yes you are an adult but you'll always be her child" Sean tried reasoning with her "don't you think she was waiting for you to come back all these years she probably thought you were dead"

"I don't care" Aurora said stubbornly

"Yes you do"

"No I don't!" she barked back sounding childish "my mother doesn't need me!"

"How could you even think that Rory? She sounded so relieved when I told her that I found you"

"You make me sound like a lost puppy or something" she retorted, "she has my brothers she doesn't need me"

"Your brothers aren't you Rory you know that"

"You don't understand" Aurora went on to say "I was never the daughter that my mother wanted. I was a tomboy you and I both know that Sean I was never a girly girl"

"My mother had caught a lot of hell because of me" tears now falling down her face "folks even family would always say shit to her about me. ‘She going through a phase?' ‘She don't have any girl clothes?' ‘How come I never see her in a dress?'

‘Your girl a lesbian or something?' ‘How she supposed to get married and have kids one day?'"

"Hell I hung out with my father more than I did with her" she continued "she never got to go to any mother daughter events without me sulking the whole time the only two times my mother and I connected was when I was going through late puberty and getting ready for prom"

"Now what am I supposed to do?" Aurora asked trying to stop her tears "show up at my parents door for Christmas and have them accept me have almost a decade or stripping?"

"Yes Aurora Jolie" Sean said seriously "that's exactly what you're going to do and I'm going to be right there with you. Don't you think your mother can see past all that negative stuff you just mentioned? If she did for the past almost thirty years of your life she can still see past that"

Aurora shook her head in denial "But I'm a whore now---"

"No Rory you're everything but that. Your mother loves you. You hear me? she loves you and she always has. She wants you to come back"

"And I know you love her too"

More tears rolled down her face and she turned around to look out the window again.

Sean got up from the couch and gently turned her around to make her look at him. Being the stubborn person that Sean had always known her to be Aurora tried to push him away; but she ultimately lost that battle.

Sean was going to see fit that Aurora wasn't going to be pushing anyone away anymore.