A Birthday present for one of my Yondad-loving friends! Please Enjoy!
Outside, thunder was booming not far from their house, and Meredith turned her head just in time to see a flash of lightening beyond the windowpanes. It lit up the entire room, turning the waxy old candles all around her obsolete for just one moment.
Meredith rested her head back against the pillow before the strike ended. That one simple action had exhausted her and she found that it was best to continue being immobile, even while her hazy mind raced with a scatter of random thoughts. Her father was poking around in all the old drawers around the living room in the vain hope of finding some batteries for the flashlights he'd pried out of their crawlspace. Curtis had started helping by trouncing upstairs to see if there was anything in their only walk-in closet, but Meredith thought he'd been taking his sweet time up there.
Regina was in the kitchen, probably drinking that old red wine their daddy kept in the back cupboard to the very last drop. The only one beside Meredith now was her brother Bill, unable to go too far with Peter in the crook of his arm.
Bill hadn't looked up from his nephew's face, transfixed on his extraordinary appearance with wide, unblinking eyes.
Meredith didn't have the strength in her to yank his chain over it, although he was acting like Peter was a sideshow attraction and not an hours old infant, currently fussing after the intense flash of lightning. Instead, what little strength she had she used to lift a hand to the baby's hairline. Just feeling his soft, warm skin was infinitely comforting to the new mother, whom sighed serenely.
"It's okay, Petey." She said weakly, brushing a finger over his forehead. Her baby kept fussing, tiny nose wrinkling from being awoken so abruptly. "It's alright, baby, it's alright."
"Here, Bill." Their father came into the living room sans batteries and with his arms outstretched. Bill reacted rather slowly in turn before he passed Peter along and let his father sit down beside Meredith once again. "I got him."
Although she wished that she could've stayed awake until the baby was calm, Meredith could feel herself slipping away with the image of her daddy swaddling Peter close to his chest. She smiled softly; it hadn't been more than a few hours ago that Meredith had had to reassure her hysterical father that the baby wasn't suffocating.
No, her little baby was perfectly healthy and breathing just fine. His skin was meant to be the same color as Regina's prized amethyst ring, that's all.
Peter was born in the very same living room that she'd spent her childhood running around in.
The same living room where she spent her afternoons lying on her belly on an ugly orange crocheted rug, elbows up and hands on her head while swaying to the sound of Neil Sedaka from her daddy's turntable. Meredith would roll over onto the shear fiber floor, look up at the bright ceiling while her imagination ran wild to the songs she'd learned to love so much. Until Bill tripped over her, or Regina came in, smelling of smoke, but never letting that stop her from telling their dad that Meredith had his records scattered on the floor again.
Meredith hadn't let her siblings ruin what she considered to be a good time, not when she was naturally happy-go-lucky and spellbound by the rhythm of the music, not ever. Her daddy wasn't much of a stern parent in the first place, often letting his kids run free, as opposed to their mother – not that Meredith herself could remember the late Mrs. Quill very much.
She'd been told stories a plenty about her mother, though. Sometimes, their father would talk about his wife in-between reruns of the Twilight Zone and spoonfuls of ice cream right out of the carton. The ten-year-old Meredith may not have paid attention to it all, with her eyes glued to the screen and her heart rabbiting in her chest over what would happen next, but she'd had the image of what her mother may have looked and been like figured in her mind.
In fact, Meredith was sure that she'd been born a miniature version of her mother, in appearance if not in personality.
"Mom wasn't half as weird as you, Meri." Regina would always cut in, snottily, when dad compared Meredith and their mother.
Meredith would always show how much she cared what Regina thought in return, by sticking her tongue out at her sister when their father's back was turned.
The youngest Quill daughter thought that she was no odder than any other kid, at least no better or worse than the boys that played with trading cards during recess and went exploring through the abandoned junkyard next to the church nearest their school.
It shouldn't have mattered that Meredith liked watching those creepy black and white TV shows, or that she often drew ingenious creatures with claws and tentacles and horns on their heads in the margins of her schoolbooks. Those monster movies from the 50s that their dad watched when he came home from work, and that she would sneak down to watch from behind their paisley couch, were cool and gave her great ideas.
It was just what she was into. And it sure as hell wasn't any stupider than what Regina liked – sneaking out with her friends with stolen beer late at night.
And so, what if Meredith never quite grew out of those things. If she lacked motivation to properly learn equations until it applied to astronomy, and made her feel that much closer to the stars. Or if she hated the idea of her fingers being cut and calloused at fifteen, but the thought of playing guitar like Keith Richards made her play until her hands cramped up. And if, at the ripe age of seventeen, she danced out of the house with a transistor radio at her hip to go catch fireflies damn near every night.
The times, they are a changin' – But Meredith had grown to like her life the way it was.
More so when her sister and Curtis were married off and left town in opposite directions, though not out of Missouri for their dad's sake. And when Bill left for college to get his diploma and start teaching. That left the last Quill in Bonne Terre, free to express herself however she liked; if she didn't go bopping around in her bellbottoms near the old crones that whispered loudly whenever they saw her, of course.
Sure, it might've upset her that she didn't have the skills, or the ambition to learn the skills, necessary to be an astronomer or an astronaut. She hadn't even placed in her high school science fair, nor had she found better work than waitressing at the Goody Diner, but Meredith couldn't complain.
It should've been better than enough for a small-town girl.
When she could walk on her own two feet again, Meredith took Peter out onto the back porch and sat beneath the night sky with him in her arms. The darkness above them was dotted with bright stars and not a cloud in sight, and though the breeze that ruffled her hair and skirts was cold, it didn't keep her from smiling in relief. Being cooped up in the house for weeks at a time was not something Meredith reveled in. She'd missed the rustling of the trees and the sound of the far-off creek from out of the woods, and the smell of the sweet grass that grew wild by the end of the summers.
"What do ya think, baby?" She asked her son, carefully lifting the infant to give him a better look of the light above them. Peter gurgled, eyes opening and closing slowly as his mother spoke to him. He'd woken from a nap hours prior, but hadn't cried much, still drowsy.
Meredith looked at him adoringly, and ran gentle fingers close to the little red fin that grew from out of her boy's head until he could no longer stay awake. The stars continued to shine above them, some brighter than others.
A/N: Yes, I know that that isn't how genetics work, but Peter is a magical purple unicorn of a child in this story and that's that.