Disclaimer — Passions is the property of James E. Reilly and NBC. I make no claim to its ownership, and I make no profit from this exercise in creativity.
Francine Revere Crane comes into the world in the final minute of the year. Just moments after she hears her daughter's first cries, cheers float into the room from the hallway, and a nurse smiles down kindly at Ivy.
"Happy New Year, Mrs. Crane," she says fondly, nestling the newborn into her arms. Ivy's baby is a beautiful little girl, with bright blue eyes and lots of soft, golden hair. As she looks down at her daughter, Ivy remembers how incredible it had been to see and hold Ethan for the first time. She can't remember ever having felt so alive, or so full of love. The very room had seemed to hum with the joy of new life.
Ivy knows that she should feel the same way now, but tonight she feels only death and despair.
On Ethan's second birthday, Julian starts pestering Ivy for another child. "I need another son," he moans, hands groping and roaming, and Ivy's muscles tense at the thought of a little boy with Julian's face and demeanor. Ethan is such a perfect ray of sunshine that she cannot imagine having another son, let alone one with Julian.
"Or a daughter," Julian amends, sensing his wife's displeasure with his first suggestion. "A little girl as beautiful as you, in miniature."
Ivy draws back sharply. Memories of almost three years of marriage to Julian flood her mind as she thinks of the future that would await a daughter of hers, and she has to fight the urge to vomit.
"Go to hell, Julian," Ivy hisses. This becomes her refrain for nearly three years.
Then everything changes one warm April night, when Ivy finds herself locked in her bathroom after dinner. There's a pregnancy test held tight in her trembling hand, and even through her tears she can make out the little plus sign. Ivy tries to breathe through the panic building in her chest, wrapping its tendrils around her lungs, but it's as if all of the oxygen has left the room because all that she can do is take short, gasping breaths.
She stares at the plus sign for a few more seconds until she can hold it in no longer and promptly vomits into the toilet. Every bone and muscle in her body aches, and she sinks to the floor into an utterly undignified heap, her slight frame shaking violently with every sob. Why? she cries out to the god that she's sure abandoned her the moment that she abandoned Sam. Please, God, no, I'll do anything, just take it back! Take it back, please!
Eventually, she quiets; her body stills. With her forehead resting against the cool tile floor, coherent thoughts begin to return to her mind. Ivy slowly pulls herself up off of the floor and washes the evidence of her despair from her face before reapplying the careful façade that she's worn for the past five-and-a-half years.
That night, Ivy goes to Julian. She has no other option.
Despite being absent from his daughter's birth, Julian proudly shows off their baby to his family the night that they return to the mansion. Though still weak from her latest bought with illness, Katherine is thrilled to meet her first granddaughter and sweetly cuddles little Francine. With great tenderness, she passes the little girl between Ethan and Sheridan, who argue amongst themselves over whose turn it is to hold the baby.
Ivy sits quietly and numbly watches the scene with weary eyes. After Katherine helps Ethan to support the baby's head properly for the fifth time, Alistair puts out his cigar in a crystal ashtray and pulls himself out of his armchair. "Let me," he says, not waiting before plucking Francine from his startled grandson's arms. The room becomes eerily quiet as he peers down at his four-day-old granddaughter. The silence stretches on for what feels like an eternity, and it takes all of Ivy's strength to stop herself from wrenching her child from her father-in-law's arms.
"Good work, Julian," Alistair finally says, but when he looks up he stares directly into Ivy's eyes. "I can already tell that she's going to be every inch a Crane."
When Alistair appears in the doorway of her bedroom, Ivy assumes that he must be intoxicated; for as long as she has been married to Julian, her father-in-law has summarily ignored her. Ivy has never wept over this fact.
"What are you doing here, Alistair?" she asks, lacing her voice with as much ice as she can muster. "Katherine's room is on the other side of the mansion."
Alistair chuckles lightly, making the fine blonde hairs on Ivy's arms stand on end. "I really must commend you, Ivy. You've perfected the ice queen routine to a degree I once thought impossible."
With a roll of her eyes to display her disgust, Ivy responds, "I'm so touched. Now, Alistair, if you please—"
"It's incredible, you know," he interjects, stepping forward and cutting the space between them in half. "The other society women, I think that they actually fear you sometimes. They know that you're ruthless, that you'll resort to whatever underhanded trick necessary to get what you want." With a smile, he adds, "You're so much like a true Crane in that way. More so than Julian, I think sometimes. Definitely more so than my wife."
Ivy doesn't know where this conversation is headed, but she's certain that nothing good will come from it. She takes a deep breath to calm her nerves and keep her limbs from shaking, then retorts, "That's a fascinating analysis, Alistair. Now, if you really don't mind, I'd like to go to bed; I promised Ethan that I would take him to the zoo in Boston in the morning."
She turns to go to her bathroom, desperate for this conversation to be over, but before she's taken more than a step Alistair roughly grabs her upper arm, bruising her fair skin, and wrenches her body around so that they are mere inches from one another. Their noses are practically touching, and when he exhales Ivy can smell his breath, fresh and free of the stench of alcohol. With a start, she realizes that Alistair is sober, and full-blown panic roars through her chest.
"Let go of me!" she screams, trying to break away, but it's no use; he takes both of her arms into a viselike grip and begins pushing her back toward her bed. "Help!"
"Who are you expecting to come to your aid, Ivy?" Alistair sneers. He throws her onto the bed with a terrible laugh before climbing atop her, his hands and knees digging painfully into her flesh. "Katherine, Julian, and Sheridan's rooms are in another wing, and we both know that your son could sleep through an explosion. We're all alone here."
Tears begin to form in Ivy's eyes as she uselessly thrusts her fists, feet, and knees into Alistair's torso and legs. Her knee comes dangerously close to striking his groin; Alistair roars with rage, and then without warning he slams his fist into Ivy's face.
After that, her world goes fuzzy and her body slumps uselessly onto the mattress. As if from far away, she can hear the sound of a belt buckle jingling, then a zipper and the rustle of fabric. There's an unbearable pressure on her chest and a terrible, sharp pain between her thighs.
And then Ivy ceases to exist below the neck. She focuses on the electric clock on her bedside table and watches the minutes tick by like hours through unshed tears.
After being released from the hospital, Fancy is like a shadow of herself. Her blue eyes have lost their sparkle, and she never smiles anymore. Even Luis, once the source of so much joy in her life, cannot restore her ruined spirits or chase the never-ending nightmares away.
Smoothing her daughter's soft blonde hair like the doting mother she never was, Ivy feels Fancy's muscles tense and her breathing quicken in response to the foreign touch. Ivy understands these reactions all too well; she can say without hyperbole that sex with Julian so soon after had nearly killed her. Every touch and motion had triggered another debilitating flashback; she still gets them, sometimes, when Sam touches her without warning.
Ivy understands the depths of her daughter's wounds, and she knows that she could ease Fancy's suffering, help her to mourn and heal. But Ivy is still a coward; she keeps her mouth silently shut.
"You remembered to leave some carrots for Rudolph, right Mommy?" Five-year-old Ethan's eyes widen nervously at the thought that the red-nose reindeer might leave his home hungry.
Ivy smiles as she tucks her son's blankets tight up around his chin. "Yes, baby. Santa and his reindeer will be well fed tonight. Now sleep tight." She presses a kiss to his forehead. "I love you so much, baby."
"I love you too, Mommy." With the sweetness only a child can muster, Ethan sits up and kisses his mother's swollen belly, oblivious to way that Ivy tenses and the smile fades from her face. "Sweet dreams, baby sister."
With great effort, Ivy leaves Ethan's room and begins to head back to her own, her hands pressed into the small of her back for extra support in walking. The baby is due any day now, and all that she wants to do is to sleep, to drift away into unconsciousness. She turns the corner, looking forward to doing nothing but sinking into her bed, and freezes.
"Good evening, Ivy." Alistair brandishes a wide smile at her, one that fails to mask the malice in his eyes. "You look simply radiant."
Fear and panic, icy cold, snake through Ivy's chest, wrapping themselves around her organs. She was doing okay, she was starting to convince herself that everything was all just a bad dream, but she hasn't seen this man in nine months and now there's bile rising in her throat.
Alistair smirks, taking a step forward, and Ivy can't move for fear. "I trust that the child is developing well? I daresay, you do look as if you could give birth at any moment." He places his hands on her stomach, rubbing her overstretched skin, and something within Ivy snaps.
"Don't you dare touch me, you piece of shit!" she shrieks, shoving his hands away. She's on the verge of hyperventilating now, and her legs are trembling like she's going to collapse. "Just get away from me!"
Alistair laughs, and the sound rings through Ivy's ears like a drill. "Now, now, Ivy," he says, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender that she might have found ironically funny, once upon a time. "I know that you're pregnant and hormonal, but that's no excuse for rudeness." He starts to back away, but Ivy's heart does not yet stop racing. "You should get some sleep. It won't do you any good to be hysterical on Christmas. I'll see you in the morning."
With that, Alistair turns and leaves, and Ivy's legs barely make it a fraction of a second after his form disappears before buckling. She crumbles to the floor clutching, clawing at her stomach, and the ice woven in her chest finally cracks as a sob escapes her lungs. No matter where she goes, what she does, she will always feel him on her skin, inside of her, squirming and moving and kicking. He has laid claim to her, and now she will never be free; she will always be haunted by the image of his face, the memory of that night, and all that now results from it.
Ivy sobs on the hallway floor for hours. No one hears her, or comes across her, not even one of the maids. She is all alone, save for the child wriggling in her womb.