Summary: Annie finally snaps. Set some time around episode 11 in season 5. Warning: contains dark subject matter. Feedback is greatly appreciated.
Baptismus Cedo Mortis
Annie slumped against the counter, cradling the small orange bottle in her palm. It was her first moment alone all morning, now that the kids were at school, Eric was locked away in his office working, and Robbie was presumably off ironing everyone's socks if his recent behaviour was any indication. She uncapped the bottle and shook the pills out onto the counter; it was the third week of the month and yet there were over twenty pills sitting there in front of her. Had she really been off her medication for so long? She knew she was absent-minded when it came to taking them, but Eric was usually good about reminding her. She relied heavily on him to keep her grounded and stable, to deal with her illness so much more readily than she had ever seemed to be able to do. If she was being honest with herself, she knew a part of her had started to forget on purpose, just to see if Eric would remind her. To see if he still cared and still paid attention to her. Judging by the number of little pink capsules in front of her, he didn't.
She tried not to blame him, she really did, but everything had been turned upside-down in their lives lately and she felt like somewhere in the shakedown she had slipped through the cracks. First there had been the terrible ordeal with Mary, and then before she'd even had time to recover from that, Robbie The Reformed had wormed his way into their lives. Everyone else had taken to him so quickly, was so eager to assure her he was to be trusted. From the start, his living with them had rankled her; maybe it was how blatantly her children adored him, or how unnecessary and replaceable she felt when she came downstairs in the morning to find breakfast on the table and all the lunches made. She tried to convince herself it wasn't because of how she sometimes thought she caught Eric looking at him for just a little too long, with something a little too akin to desire in his eyes.
She brushed that thought away, refusing to dwell on the implications. She just felt so on-edge lately, so unstable. The rational part of her knew it was being off of the meds, that without them the cells in her brain just didn't fire right, the chemicals all mixed-up and unbalanced, as a doctor had once explained. But while the rational part of her knew that, the rational part was no longer in control; nothing was in control. Sometimes she felt like she was a ship lost at sea, forced to ride the constantly changing peaks and lows of her emotions with no map to safe harbour. She didn't know how much longer she could hold out without capsizing, and how many people she would take down with her when she did.
This wallowing would get her nowhere. She decided she would check on the twins and then maybe lie down for awhile. A nap might clear her head and make her feel more like herself again, she thought as she climbed the stairs. When she walked into the bedroom, though, she saw Robbie sitting on the floor playing with Sam and David, both of whom were happily giggling and smiling. In that instant, something inside of her snapped. This was wrong. This was her house, her family – Robbie couldn't just waltz in here with his squeaky-clean new self and take that all away from her, take the love of her children and her husband and twist everything around so that suddenly she wasn't needed anymore. She wouldn't let him do that. The twins would love her or they would love no one. Now that she knew what she must do, a sudden calm came over her.
"It's time for their baths," she said.
"Oh, I can do that for you. You don't have to worry, I used to bathe my little brothers all the time when we were younger," Robbie replied.
"No, that's alright, thank you," she said. Her voice sounded deathly calm and flat, and she felt strange, as though it were someone else talking and she was listening from far away. Robbie looked slightly confused and concerned, but he scooped up the twins and handed them to her on his way out of the room. Now that he was gone, Annie shut the door and carried the twins into the bathroom. She set them on the floor and turned on the water in the tub, still awash in this strange calm feeling. She checked the temperature, then reached out and smoothed down both twins' hair.
"It's alright, my darlings," Annie said. "This is best for all of us, I promise." Sam and David just looked up in non-comprehension. She turned off the water and carefully lifted the twins into the tub. With a smile and a kiss to both of their foreheads, she pushed them down under the water. They thrashed and struggled, but she just held on tighter, softly humming all the while.
"Mrs. Camden, you forgot the towels—" Robbie trailed off as he entered the bathroom and observed the scene before him. "What are you doing?" he shouted, as he pushed Annie out of the way and grabbed the twins, the towels lying forgotten on the floor. She didn't fight him, but instead merely slumped against the side of the tub, staring at the tepid water. There were footsteps, and then suddenly Eric appeared in the doorway. He looked back and forth between Robbie cradling the sopping twins and Annie's crumpled form, understanding slowly dawning on his face.
"Robbie, could you get Sam and David dried off and into new clothes, please?" Eric asked. Robbie glanced over at Annie, whose back was still turned to him, before nodding his assent and carrying the twins out of the room. Eric closed the door and briefly rested his head against it before turning to face his wife.
"How long were they in there, Annie?" He asked gently. He was always so gentle. Sometimes it was infuriating to her; how could he still be so calm and understanding even now? Why didn't he rail and shake with anger the way she so often did? In this moment she hated him so much. Hated his gentle, kind understanding, his soft speaking and measured movements. His sanity.
"Only for a minute," she said. She still couldn't bear to look at him, so she unstopped the tub and watched the water slowly swirl down the drain instead. He was silent for a long time. The last drops of water gurgled down the pipes, and with nothing left to look at she finally turned and faced him. He made no move to approach her, instead choosing to remain against the closed door; his head was leaned back against the wood and a look of wary appraisal was on his face.
"I saw the pills, Annie. I know you're off your medication. That you have been for weeks now," Eric said, bringing a hand up to wearily ghost across his pained features. "Talk to me, Annie. Please." He sounded tired, she thought, more tired than she could ever remember. "You know," he continued, "I really thought you holding one of our children face-down in the tub was something I'd never have to experience again. I guess I was wrong." His words seemed to penetrate the fog that had obscured her mind and suddenly it was like a dam broke inside of her and she doubled over as her whole body was wracked with sobs. In an instant he knelt beside her, wrapping her shaking form in his arms.
The scene was startlingly familiar; it had been over twenty years ago, and a different bathroom floor, but the pain she felt was the same. She'd had the on-edge feeling then, always awash in frightening and rapidly changing emotions. She had blamed it on the stress of life; Eric was still in seminary, Matt was barely a year old, and ends were almost never meeting – wasn't it reasonable to feel a little unhinged? One day it had been particularly bad and she had been sure she was going crazy. She'd told Eric she wasn't feeling well, begged him to take the day off so she could have a break from watching Matt, but he'd insisted he couldn't and left her alone. She'd been feeding Matt lunch when he'd said his first word: Dada. It had been that exact same sense of something snapping inside, like she was a coil wound too tightly and suddenly the pressure was too much and she sprang open. Eric had come home to surprise her with lunch, only to find her holding a struggling Matt underwater in the bathtub. They'd gone to the hospital that time; doctors told them it was a psychotic episode accompanying severe Bipolar disorder. A shiny new prescription for lithium and promises of therapy in the future kept her from being committed. Eric had finished school that spring and by fall they were in Glenoak, the whole ordeal behind them.
Annie snapped back to the present. Eric was rubbing small circles on her back now, quiet, soothing words still spilling forth from his lips. With a few more ragged breaths she got her crying under control and extricated herself from his hold.
"I'm sorry, Eric. I'm so sorry. I don't know why I stopped taking my medication. I just…you used to remind me…and then, ever since Robbie…you just stopped noticing it, noticing me. I – I wanted to test you I guess, to make sure you still cared. You used to take care of me, but now…now I just don't know." She'd been staring at the pilly bathmat beneath her feet as she made her shaky confession, but now she raised her head to stare at her husband. He met her gaze with a carefully measured stare, his face failing to betray whatever his underlying emotions might be.
"I do still care, Annie, I will always care. But," he sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair, "But I think you need to start taking care of yourself, because I'm not sure I can do it anymore." With that, he pulled himself to his feet and walked out of the room. She sat there alone, not sure if it was minutes or hours passing. Finally, with a renewed determination, she got up. After quickly checking in the mirror to assess her presentability and composure, she exited the bathroom. Eric and Robbie were standing over the cribs, watching the now-sleeping twins. She riled inwardly at the sight of Robbie's hand placed comfortingly between her husband's shoulder blades, but she forced herself to smile and nod to him. He responded with a guarded smile of his own and a half-quirk of his head. Eric didn't look up.
She walked downstairs and into the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water. Someone had cleaned up the pills and put them back in the bottle, she noticed. She unscrewed the cap and shook one out into her palm. She glanced over at the fridge, and the numerous pictures pasted there: Matt's senior portrait, the twins' birth announcement, the family Christmas picture from last year, with everyone smiling and holding up their stockings. She stared down at the pill in her hand for a long moment before placing it in her mouth and washing it down with the water. It wouldn't fix everything, she thought, but it was a start.