Okay, a friend of mine told me long ago that I should probably write a story with Maryse and Max, and the first scene in this story appeared into my mind.
This is pure angst.
Don't get me wrong, I like Maryse, I really loved that part in which she tells Jace she had sung for him but he just hadn't heard her. The thing is, maybe because she was raised a Shadowhunter she was not one to show her affection too much and *spoilers for Cuty of Glass* I'm not over Max's death yet, so it practically wrote itself.
On the other side, I'm a feminist through and through and I don't like the idea of, even under the Maryse's circumstances -I mean her pregnancy- staying with someone who cheated on you.
So, here it is, I really hope you enjoy it! ;)
Didn't Love Him
She stared down at the baby in the cradle, but not with the fond adoration in which a mother is expected to look at her newborn, but more with the cold professionalism of someone who is testing something's worthiness.
The baby, maybe noticing he had to give a good impression, stared right back at her, not crying, not screaming, just observing. He had some beautiful eyes, Maryse thought absently, while she felt what could only be described as numb rage.
It was his fault, she thought bitterly. His fault. That baby, same one that laid so innocently in the cradle, the same one that stared at her, blinking calmly–his fault. His fault that she was still married to Robert Lightwood.
Robert and she had been contemplating divorce so, so seriously after what he had done. So, so seriously. So, so closely.
She had been so close from regaining her freedom. So, so close.
And now it was all gone. As soon as they had discovered she was pregnant, it had all gone to waste.
Yes, she was aware that in the Shadowhunter world she would have been looked at without any sort of compassion or pity if she did get that divorce because she hadn't followed a stupid rule placed there more than a thousand years before–marriage. But she didn't want any pity or compassion from others–she simply wanted her freedom back. Her freedom from marriage, her freedom from Robert Lightwood. Nor like if Robert had respected marriage either.
But now it was all gone.
Robert Lightwood was simply too much of a gentleman to get a divorce on a pregnant woman leave her alone. Sure, he was too much of a gentleman to do such a thing, but he hadn't second-thought about cheating on her, she thought contemptuously, which was the reason she wanted a divorce on him in first place.
The thought still made her throat tighten and her hand turn into stern fists.
A baby. Why, she asked herself as she stared at that child hatefully, why was it that she had become pregnant when the only thing she didn't need was a baby?
She didn't love that child, she realized suddenly, and it wasn't because of who his father was –because she, at least, knew what compromise meant, and that boy was Robert's son without a doubt–, but because of the fact that it was because of him that she was now tied back with Robert Lightwood more than what she'd been in years.
Even his name, Maxwell, seemed despicable to her now.
She hadn't chosen the name.
Robert and she had used the old rule of "If a boy, the father names him. If a girl, then the mother names her" since their first child, Alexander, and that was what they'd done this time too. Second names, though, were the choice of the other parent.
She'd gone for Joseph, Maxwell's second name because that was he grandfather's name on her mother's side. A respectable man, she thought scornfully. One that had been loyal and fair not only to the Angel's blood running in his veins and to Idris, but to his family too, not like someone Maryse knew all too well.
Sophia, Isabelle's middle name had come from one of Robert's relatives, while Gideon, a common name among Nephilims, was her grandfather's name in the side of his father.
Maybe, she thought, she had chosen such a name for Maxwell because she wanted to wish him luck. She wanted him to turn out as a righteous man, like both her grandparents had been–not like her husband, the baby's father.
She suddenly wondered if any of her children would name one of their future sons after her. If so, she wanted it to be whether Isabelle or Alexander, not Maxwell. She didn't want a daughter of his to run by her name, the thought was simply unappealing to her.
She knew she was being unfair, she just didn't care enough to consciously try to stop herself from doing so.
As if sensing her inner turmoil, Maxwell chose that exact moment to start crying.
Maryse didn't hurry to pick him up and appease his tears like any other mother would have, like someone would expect a mother to. No, she didn't, instead, she took a couple of seconds just to calmly listen to the child's cries.
He cried softly, unlike any of her previous children. Isabelle had had the lungs of a lioness from the very first time she had opened her mouth, and Maryse could only pray to the Angel for when her teenage years arrived.
On the other side, Alexander had been a silent boy since forever, only crying when absolutely necessary, but when he did–oh, God, she swore he could be heard from one side of the Institute to the other.
But Maxwell didn't seem like that. He cried quietly, softly, loud enough so you didn't forget he was calling for attention, but low enough so it didn't become a bother. It seemed to her that the only thing he actually needed and wanted to achieve by his crying was to know that he was not alone, not an actual petition, like food or a diaper change.
Maryse slowly lowered her arms to the crying baby and then, just as slowly, raised him to her chest, letting him nuzzle his face into the crook of her neck comfortingly as she ran a hand across his back in soothing circles. He stopped whimpering almost as soon as her hands touched him.
She hadn't act out of any motherly urge, but out of simple practicality–she wanted him to stop crying, and the child wanted her attention. Give and receive, as simple as that, she thought as she rocked him softly.
She didn't consider that child her son, but she was all too used to desertion and to being forsaken, and she wouldn't have allowed that to happen to a child that had ultimately come out from her entrails. She wouldn't forsake him or betray him, like others had done with her. But she just couldn't be the mother he needed either.
She was being unfair and anti-diplomatic, she knew, but that was the best she could do–offer a surrogate mother for the child with the features and forms, but not the feelings, of the very original one.
She would be there and cover all her duties for with the child as she was supposed to do, but not out of love, but out of only that–duty, responsibility.
Pretend, lie to him, Lightwood, Maryse thought bitterly to herself as she slowly rocked the baby in her arms to sleep. You seem good at that, aren't you all, Lightwoods?
She didn't think, though, that pretending was a betrayal as well.
–*–*–
Time passed by, and soon enough days became months and months became years.
They were sitting in the living room of the Institute, Maryse's eyes fixed upon a book with a red cover, trying to read it, but of course, who could concentrate on reading when you had a two-year-old toddler under your care?
Slowly, Maryse put down the book, placing it next to her on the couch as she directed her eyes to Maxwell, who just then stumbled on her knees as he tried to walk pass her.
Maryse smiled warmly at him and bent down to pick him up, placing him on her lap. Warmly, not fondly, she thought hurtfully as she stroked the boy's hair absently.
"Mommy!" Max shrieked happily, ignorant to Maryse's pain. "I love you!" he said just before he circled his mother's neck with his small hands, though his childish pitch made it sound more like 'I robe lu'.
The affirmation instantly warmed Maryse's chest and most certainly wet her eyes too, at the simple and plain innocence with which her son had spoken.
She felt the words 'I love you too' forming in her tongue, but they died in her lips before she could pronounce them.
Not yet, she thought sadly. She didn't love him yet.
Instead of responding, she simply wrapped her arms around her son tightly, not daring talk just to prevent a lie from coming out of her mouth.
No, she didn't love him–not yet.
But she would learn to, she promised, Maxwell would tech her to love him.
It wasn't hard to feel your heart melting at the innocence that shone brightly in his eyes, at the candor of his laugh.
No, it was not easy to hate a boy with Max's characteristics, and it especially wasn't an easy thing to do when that boy had consciously done nothing to fuel that hate.
It was just a matter of time, Maryse thought. She would learn to love him, she knew. She would learn.
–*–*–
Destiny had a curious way of functioning, Maryse thought as she stared out of the window from the living room, watching her children and that boy they had taken in a few years aback, Jonathan, play happily and care-freely in the front yard of the Institute.
The four of them seemed so happy, so at ease, that she couldn't help but smile.
She didn't know what they were playing, but they were all laughing, sitting on the ground, Max comfortingly sitting on Jace's lap, clapping enthusiastically.
Unlike what she had first thought, almost feared, the children had adapted very well to each other, and not only was she talking about Jonathan, but about Maxwell as well, and about her other two children, Isabelle and Alexander.
When Max had been born, Isabelle had seemed thrilled with her knew brother from the very beginning, though if Maryse had to choose one of her older children to keep an eye on Max she would have gone for Alec, since Isabelle didn't have the patience to look over a child. Neither do I, Maryse thought as she smiled fondly at the picture in front of her.
Thinking about that, Jace was also a good bet when it came to watching over her youngest, Maryse had to admit.
Honestly, at first she had thought that those two wouldn't get along very well given the age difference between them and the fact that Jonathan had been sort of kept away from other children during his whole life for all she knew, but in the end it had turn out just fine.
Maybe it was due to the same reason she had feared would pull them further away what had actually made them closer, but whatever it was, the conclusion came out as the same: Max looked up at Jace as he would to any of his other siblings, and Jace was as protective of him as Isabelle or Alec themselves.
True to tell, when Robert had first brought up the matter of taking Jace in, she had opposed.
Why promise love and care –especially love– to a child that wasn't hers when she couldn't even love her own?
But then again, why let a child go homeless and orphaned when they most certainly had a room to spare at the Institute? Sure, they had a room at the Institute, Maryse had thought, but did they have one in their hearts as well to love and educate that orphan boy?
In the end, the fair and righteous side of her had come to light, and she had agreed to keep Jonathan Wayland in her own house, raise him with her own children, as if he were just one more of kids, but she hadn't singed-up for the loving part.
That was the brother of her children, she thought hurtfully, but not her child.
For some reason, though, her way of thinking seemed more bothering and annoying than ever.
Give a child a roof to sleep under but not a single ounce of love? What good did that do? Wasn't it even better to grow homeless but love-full, if the word even existed then?
She had no answer to that.
–*–*–
Years later, Maryse Lightwood stared down at her third child once more, but this time it was not with hate or suspicions, but with longing and yearning.
Dead, he was dead. Dead, her son, her child, her baby. Dead.
She was not looking down at Max's beautiful gray orbs or at his innocent smile, but at his pale and lifeless body.
Dead, she thought as she felt the tears forming in her eyes at the simple mention of the word, but she knew she wasn't going to cry. She was simply too dried up for that, as dried had she been of love all those years before.
She could feel Robert's strong arm around her shoulders, but, for once, she didn't shudder him off. She was too tired for that, too tired for pretending she really didn't need any comfort or support, even if it came from him.
Dead, dead. Max was dead. She couldn't even begin to believe it. He was too young, far too young for dying, even by the Shadowhunters' standards. He hadn't received his first Runes, hadn't learned to fight, hadn't grow up. He couldn't be dead. He just couldn't be dead.
Why hadn't someone else died, anyone? Why not a Downworlder or any other Nephilim? Why not Robert?, she inwardly pleaded.
Wait, she stopped her thoughts. She was just being selfish wishing that agonizing pain on someone else?
Why hadn't she died instead? She instead of her son? But why, oh why her baby, why Max?
She wanted so, so badly to scream out in pain, the pain provoked by a wound that was not even physical or tangible.
She loved him. Yes, yes she loved him! The words, in the form of a desperate cry were already forming on her lips, but she stopped them from coming out as she realized it was simply too late for even thinking of pronouncing them.
She'd loved him since the very first time that boy had stared into her eyes. She had loved him since the very beginning, since the very first time he had called her mother and she had held him close to her chest.
Since the very first time–she just had been too much of a coward to realize it on time.
Of course she had loved him, of course she had. Who wouldn't? Who wouldn't have loved that boy?
But now it was simply too late, she thought. This was her punishment, she realized, her punishment for having been too selfish, so hate-blinded, so stupid.
She had wanted a divorce a decade aback but a pregnancy had stopped her? A pregnancy took nine months, not ten years; she could have gotten her goddamned divorce after her child had been born, but no, instead she had decided to turn bitter and hateful over an innocent child, deep down knowing that that boy, her son at the end, had had nothing to do with the outcome, and deep down loving that child with every fiber of her body, too stupid not to realize it on time.
This was her punishment for having been too resentful towards her own child, towards her own baby.
Why not her?, she thought. Why wasn't she the one laying limp in the coffin? Why her baby, why her Maxie?
Because it was her punishment, that was why, she realized, turning her hands into fists, feeling her long, cared nails digging into the skin of her palms, but not caring to stop. Physical pain was no comparison for the emotional one and to the immense void she could feel forming in her chest.
She had claimed not to love him, hadn't she? Well, she thought, there it was–she hadn't loved him on time, and now he had been taken away from her.
It was all her fault, she realized. Not Max's, not Robert's, not the Angel's–hers and only hers.
The only thing that was able to pull her out of her hurtful thoughts was Isabelle's sobbing.
Slowly, Maryse raised her eyes to meet her children.
Isabelle was crying on Jace's arms, for once not caring about how she looked or what the others would think of her. Jace, on the other side, was as pale as wax, his arms absently placed around Isabelle's lean shoulders, his eyes empty, much like they had been the first time Maryse had seen him. That thought on its own was able to transform everything in her chest into tight knots
Next to them, Alec looked down at the casket with the same unbelieving expression Maryse was sure she herself had held just a few seconds before, the boy's left hand wrapped into that warlock's, Magnus or whatever.
For a second, the sight of her eldest being touched by that sent chills down Maryse's spine and she had to refrain herself from walking up and separate them.
First of all, that was Downworlder they were talking about, and most of all, that was another guy. The simple idea of two people from the same sex being together was simply revolting, Maryse thought.
But it was then that she noticed the way in which Magnus looked at her son. He looked at him in the fond and selfless way Robert had never been able to look at her. The compassion, the pity, the love in his eyes was so genuine, and so immense, that Maryse's fists instantly relaxed.
He loved him, she grasped, he loved her son. Whatever the blood in his veins and the genitals in his body, that guy loved her son. He loved him.
And that was when she took a sudden resolution: if somebody wanted to throw the first stone at her son and his new boyfriend, that was most certainly wouldn't be her. Let it be Robert, or the Ministry of Magic, or whoever dared and had the guts for it, but not her. She would act as a shield for his son if needed, but not as his rival. She had already lost a son because of her own stupidity and because of the Shadowhunters' rules; she was not going to lose a second.
She wasn't going to let another one of her children go alone just because of her idiotic prejudices and because she wasn't able to love him enough. If Robert had something even slightly contemptuous to say to her son, he was going against her, and, most likely, over her dead body.
But that was thinking too much into the future, she realized numbly as she heard Isabelle mumble something intelligible to Jace, who absently stroked her hair.
They were suffering, so, so much, her children, her precious children. Of course they were, she mentally scolded herself, the one laying dead in front of them was their baby brother.
A part of Maryse simple wanted to crawl under the covers of her bed and stay there forever. A second wanted to cry out her eyes and scream until her throat was sore. Meanwhile, a third one wanted to wrap her arms around her children, the three of them that were still alive, and promise them everything would be alright, even if she knew she would be lying, and even if it had been so long since the last time she had held any of them to her chest for more than ten seconds.
Jace, and Isabelle, and Alec, they were all her children as much as Max had been, she realized and seeing them hurt so much cracked every single piece of her heart that had still been standing after they had told her that Max was dead. The sight of her children suffering made her want to push her own pain back and promise them they would be fine, that they would be able to come out from this backstab.
But she couldn't, she thought, she couldn't lie to her children like that, so she stayed exactly where she was standing.
She slowly bent down to the coffin, looking into her baby's features once more as she brushed a couple of rebel bangs away from his closed eyes.
"I love you, Max. I loved you with my whole heart, baby, with my whole heart" she whispered as a single tear slid down her left cheek and into the boy's forehead as she kissed him softly.
As she straightened herself back up, she remembered something Jace had told her the first week he had been staying with them
'To love is to destroy, and to be loved is to be destroyed'.
Yes, she thought then, to love was to destroy–to destroy the fear of being hurt, of being betrayed. To love was to destroy–to destroy prejudices and misunderstandments. To destroy mistaken ideas.
But the second part of that phrase was just as right as the first one, she realized numbly.
To be loved meant you gave the one you loved the capacity of destroying you, trusting him not to. To love and to be loved meant you could destroy each other–by betrayal, by harsh words, by unplanned actions, but decided not to just because of that same love that allowed you to be so dangerous to each other.
To love meant to destroy the fear of being hurt by the person you loved just because you trusted him not to ever hurt you. To be loved meant that you would do whatever it was needed to protect that special person without any second-thoughts.
But to love and to be loved meant that when the one you loved with your whole heart stopped existing, or just left, you would most certainly be destroyed.
How did that go? What do you think about the whole idea? What do you think about Maryse in general, and about Max's death? You can let me know in your comments!