OK so I was going to avoid doing any heavier Mother one shots because the episode was so well done I really don't think I could do it justice (or if I would be emotionally stable to tackle it yet!) but then at the same time I had this idea (with help from Shanshay) and then I felt like I wanted to at least give it a go as it was too tempting a challenge to ignore. I doubt I will do any more for this episode unless anything really speaks to me but I at least hope that this one isn't too bad! I couldn't really even attempt to convey what they managed to in the episode so I have not focussed on the specifics too much but I dunno...I hope that someone enjoys (for a lack of a better term) and that it doesn't make you too sad!
WARNING: This obviously deals with baby loss and the emotional events of 2x06.
Thanks to Shanshay, thesameguest and goodgirlz333 for their help. Couldn't do these without you guys, or you readers (...obviously).
Stef rubbed her face, trying to locate the scratching and scraping sound she could hear coming from some unknown location. She squinted in the light as she passed down the stairs and paused to try and pinpoint the sound. She was sure none of the kids could be up yet. The day before had been an exhausting day with Lena having returned from the hospital and she knew that sleep had been a luxury for most of them.
She listened carefully, finally deciding that the kitchen was the source.
"Mariana?" she asked as the girl turned briskly. She was surrounded by what looked like the emptied contents of one of the cabinets.
"Sweets, what are you doing?" she asked, confused, rubbing her hands down her thighs.
Mariana turned to her, her mouth open and looking at the mess around her.
"Nothing bad." she replied instantly. "You don't need to worry about anything."
Stef's eyebrows raised with concern as she watched her daughter wipe some flour from her forehead, an remnant one of the bags that were scattered around in front of her.
"I can see that Mariana, but it is kind of early. Are you...arranging the kitchen?" she squinted, assessing the scene.
"A little. I mean I wasn't..." She looked to the evidence again or some half gathered ingredients. "I was doing some baking...for later...but then it seemed like stuff had got a little out of hand and needed sorting and I didn't want Mama to have to feel she had to worry about the kitchen so -" Her pace quickened along with her rate of gesticulation as her eyes darted around the contents in the room.
"Love, love, love. Slow down." Stef assured her, walking over and wiping off the rest of the flour from her face.
"Honey, I'm thrilled you are trying to help us out but you really don't need to."
"It's no trouble, really. I want to do it." She replied, her eyes widening. "It's just been so long since I did any baking, I just thought it was a good day for it." She began before plunging into another tirade. "I mean, I know I've never done baking alone but I have watched you and Mama enough times and then it didn't make sense to start unless the cabinets were in order so I could find the ingredients. Mama and you are always saying how we need to sort through them." Stef could immediately see right through to the real reasons. She remembered Lena telling her a day or two after she had been shot that Mariana had been distracting herself purging and sorting and it had been a common reaction when she had gone through particularly difficult patches.
"Well I'm sure that will be a great help. Mama will appreciate it." Stef cocked her head, detecting a quiver in Mariana as her eyebrows shook, somehow prompted by the statement. In a further attempt to avoid the transparency of her feelings, she broke away from her Mom's gentle clasp on her shoulder and returned to her activity.
Stef watched her as she tried to get lost in the cabinets, but she could now also see her mouth twitching and her nose trying to fight back some moisture. The young girl hadn't hidden her emotions at the hospital but she had noticed a quietness around Lena, especially since she had returned. Ever since the baby had actually been lost it had seemed harder to get anything out of the kids, nobody quite sure how to react.
"Mariana." Stef tried to grab her attention back as she grasped and clanked and blinked. Seeing this wasn't going to get her anywhere she decided to be more direct. This girl needed to get things off her mind and this was not the way to do it.
"Love, come sit with me." She patted her daughter's side as Mariana tried to avoid eye contact.
"Mom, please can't we talk later? I want to get this done."
"I think it can wait five minutes." She assured her, removing a tub from her hand and gently grasping her other wrist before walking her around the table towards the breakfast nook.
"Mom, I'm fine, really." Mariana insisted as her voice betrayed her further. "You don't need to worry about me."
"Well you have a problem there then because I'm not going to stop doing." She guided her to sit and pulled her into her side as she placed herself next to her. Mariana now had a tear gently falling down her cheek but she quickly tried to hide it away, looking down to her hands.
"Sweetheart, it's OK to talk about it you know." Stef whispered close to her head as Mariana sniffed. "It's been a hard few days." She added.
"But not as hard as it is for you two." She replied, trying to fight back the tears, as Stef's heart sunk. She had been doing her best to be there for the kids but it had been impossible to hide their own grief completely and Lena had been her priority. She knew from her own experience that no matter how much your parents are there for you, seeing them cry is heartbreaking in itself and she knew that it had been a common occurrence over the last couple of days, especially in Lena; likewise, seeing Lena broken had set the emotions off in Stef. The night she had returned had been little more than a loving embrace as Lena sniffed and sobbed her way through the grief and exhaustion, even if executed with her usual grace and elegance. Right now however Stef had a different task to tackle and was able to put aside their personal struggles. This was her perfect opportunity to be there for the baby sitting in front of her, and in many ways, answering that calling was Stef's way of coping as much as Mariana's was purging.
She pulled Mariana to her a little tighter, catching a tear from her daughter's cheek before it spilled onto her loose fitting pyjamas.
"Grief is a strange thing, Mariana. I don't think it's something you can really compare when we've all had to deal with a specific loss, even if the nature of the loss affected us in different ways. Just because the baby was an more physically a part of Mama it doesn't mean it's not OK for you to openly feel you've lost a part of you too. We all need to be here for each other."
"But you have enough to deal with...and Mama...she doesn't need us to look after on top of everything else." She added through a whisper, trying to stop the pain from creeping in but it was becoming more futile with every attempt.
"Sweetheart, it may seem strange, but being able to be here to help you and your siblings through this tragedy is exactly the kind of love that gets us through it ourselves. If Mama didn't - " Stef found her words catching reminding herself of the truly heartbreaking decision her wife had been faced with but she focussed all of her energy in hiding it as fast as she could. "Mama needs you as much as you need her. You could never be a burden to her, even if you are both in pain. Does that make sense?" Stef licked her lip, relieved she had managed to make it through the sentence. They hadn't lied to the kids about the specifics of the situation Lena had been in, but nor had they rushed to disclose them. The reality of her choice was not a detail they felt necessary to share, especially with their more sensitive children. If there were questions, they would answer them but right now they were almost relieved that the kids themselves seemed happier to remain as ignorant to it as possible.
"I just want to be able to help her to make up..." Mariana looked down, closing her eyes with a sniff as her voice trailed inaudible, still deflecting her Mom's point. Stef could see that there was something she wasn't saying, her breathing had becoming low and her voice barely audible. She was insistent in being there for Lena yet had been barely able to look her in the eye since she had returned. Seeing it was going to take an alternative approach to draw it out of her, Stef gently brushed back her daughter's hair.
"You know what would help Mama more than anything right now? If you would spend some time with her." She added softly, the method working as tears fell more rapidly from Mariana's eyes even though the words were in no hurry to follow. She mumbled another incoherent comment as Stef winced to try and hear it.
"Love, is there a reason you don't want to be up with her?" She asked gently as Mariana now fully began to cry.
"Is it our fault?" She managed to squeak out as Stef's head cocked with a breath, pulling her in even tighter.
"Honey, how could it possibly be your fault?" She asked confused, the enlightenment not helping the statement baffle her any less.
"All of our fighting. All of the stress she's been under. If we hadn't have been making her worry about all of these things going then -"
"Hey, hey, hey!" Stef cut her off, shushing her gently as Mariana hiccoughed into silence.
"Now you listen very carefully. Mama's condition had nothing to do with any of you or with stress. Pre-eclampsia is just something which affects a small number of pregnancies. Yes, cutting down stress can help to calm it down but it doesn't mean that it causes it. This is absolutely not your fault, do you understand? It's nobody's fault."
"But if -"
"No." Stef insisted. "Honey, I will call every doctor in San Diego round here right now to explain the disease to you if it will make you believe me, but I promise you. This did not happen because of anything you or Mama or anyone did. Sometimes these things just happen, especially with pregnancies in older women. Do you understand me?" She poked Mariana who nodded with another sniff. Her poor delicate flower, she should have known that she would usually work in extremes, obliviously with herself at the focus. Ever since she had come into their lives she would either pull the world onto her shoulders or try to exclude herself from it completely. Whether it was expressed in a self-centred tantrum or a sheepish self-flagellation, it somehow always fell to her feet. Much like the shooting, this was obviously one where she had elected herself as the trigger. Stef cursed herself for not having picked up on earlier, exercising her own tendency to do similar with regards to responsibility for other people's pain.
Wiping her own tears this time, and with a little more confidence found from the reassurance, Mariana finally looked up to Stef in the eye. Her face was patterned with tears and her eyes glistening, even though they had calmed in their overspill.
"It's so hard to see her so sad. Is that selfish?" She added, Stef's heart warming a little at the honesty and the fact that she was expressing it willingly. She kissed her forehead and rubbed her arm.
"It's not selfish to feel like that, love. It breaks my heart to see your Mom cry, but that's something we have to face in order to help our loved ones get through those difficult times. We can't cut ourselves off from each other, it just delays dealing with the pain for all of us."
"So then I am making it worse for her by not -" Mariana's eyes suddenly bulged again as Stef chuckled to herself in desperation with another gentle purr of reassurance to try and calm Mariana's endless yearning to pull herself to the centre, even if with the best intentions behind it.
"Listen, it's not your job to make Mama feel better - all I mean is that if you want to help her, there are ways that you can. Also that as part of your own healing it may be easier for you to face those difficulties. It's hard to see someone you love cry, but it's even harder to feel helpless when they are lost. Maybe if you go and spend a little time with her it will help both of you."
"What would I even say?" She asked, feeling so desperately lost as Stef sighed deeply, rubbing her arm gently.
"Sometimes words aren't the answer, my love. Sometimes it's more just physically being close to someone."
Mariana nodded gently with another sniff as they sat clasped for a few moments before breaking the silence, her voice a little stronger but still heavy with the weight of her feelings.
"I was really looking forward to having a little sister." She whispered as Stef's lip folded up into a wistful smile. "And you would have been a very good big sister to her." She patted her gently, as the words cut right through, not quite able to say her unborn daughter's name. She shared in Mariana's grief, even if this baby hadn't always been on her plan and wanted nothing more than to try and reassure her that they wouldn't rule it out for the future, but the realistic part of her knew that this had to stay grounded. Promises made in haste with no guarantee she could keep would not be productive.
"Could you imagine if she'd have been a tom boy though? What would you have done?" Stef teased gently, trying to lighten things.
"No sister I helped raise would be a tom boy." Mariana sniffed gently with half a smile, picking at her chipping manicure.
"Oh I don't know. Three brothers...and Callie is no pink princess. Then me as a Mom." Stef nudged her. "You an Lena would have had a battle on your hands - not that I imagine anyone could have swayed her nature considering who her Mama was." She smiled, letting herself get a little too caught up in the fantasy before shaking her head back into reality.
"Either way, she would have been loved and she still always will be. That's why we're doing this little ceremony today - she will always be part of this family whether she is here with us or not. You can still talk to her if you want to some days. Share the little secrets that you would have done were she here."
"Isn't that a little crazy?" Mariana winced, scrunching up her forehead.
"Maybe..." Stef replied, catching her gaze. "But I still talk to my Dad sometimes." Mariana shrugged, mulling it over.
"Doesn't that just make you wish he was here still, though?"
"Honey, I will always wish that those I've lost were here. I don't think you can ever leave that feeling behind, but it is important to not stop looking forward." Stef added, making sure that the balance was clear. "We all have each other and have our lives to lead - it's important to keep those we've lost in our hearts, but to move them forward with us. Isn't that the best way to make sure that their memory lives on? Take what they gave you, all of that love and excitement, the things you learnt from them - even if they weren't quite here with us yet. It'll take a little while to get through the sadness, but that sadness can be a good thing. It's reminder of how important that person was...and to use that love to keep on going."
Mariana nodded again as Stef nuzzled a little closer.
"And never regret opening your heart up, even if it didn't end the way you expected it to. Don't regret having all of those ideas and plans, even they may not happen. Nothing can take away the feelings of happiness those thoughts gave you, even if they never became a reality."
After a few more moments of silence and noting the regulation of Mariana's breathing that indicated she had calmed, Stef wrapped her arm around further, readjusting her position.
"What was it you were going to bake before you got distracted?" She asked as Mariana shrugged. "Just some cookies, I guess. I would probably have just burned them though."
"Hey now!" Stef lightly scolded her. "That's no attitude to have."
"Well you always burn them a little." Mariana added with a twitch of a grin as Stef feigned offence, gasping her mouth wide.
"That's a little rude, I think! To think I was going to help you bake them." She prodded her, prompting a small smile as Mariana wiped off the last of her stained tears.
"Although, seeing as you did try and do some sorting for me, I'll make you a deal. I'll finish arranging the cabinets and can give you some pointers while you bake. I think we still have about an hour before anyone else gets their lazy butts out of bed."
"That sounds like a good idea." Mariana smiled, her eyebrows climbing up as Stef cupped her cheek and gave her another kiss on the forehead. Embracing it for a moment as they both drunk in the serenity.
"Well OK then." Stef whispered gently as she patted her side before pulling them both up off their seat, heading back over to the table, still cocooning Mariana until they reached it.
She finally pulled away, clapping her hands against her again.
"What do we have here then?" Stef asked, shifting some of the bags around as Mariana grabbed some of the bowls she had obtained.
"It's mainly the ingredients but I think some of them need to go in the trash, they are way past expiration."
"And I don't think we need all of these open bags of flour."
"Can you pass me some?" Mariana asked as she prepared the weighing scales.
"Sure." Stef pinched up a sample and flicked it in Mariana's face, greeted with a gasp of "Moooom!" and a look of shock as she wiped it off to the background of Stef's giggle.
"Oh, you meant one of the bags?" She replied.
"You are so not cool." Mariana grumbled, hiding her smile.
"Hey, I'm always cool." Stef replied, turning away to pick up a selection of measuring spoons.
"And don't even think about it -" She pointed out her finger at Mariana who was preparing her own pinch of ingredients for her revenge as they continued to play around, Stef hoping that by example she could convince Mariana that there could still be a little bit of sunshine through the rain - and convince herself of the same.
Hearing the softest of stirs from Brandon's room as she passed, Mariana carefully tip-toed to her Moms' room and squeaked open the door, tapping gently. Lena immediately snapped around having not been able to properly engage in any form of sleep despite her exhaustion.
"Hey baby." She whispered before noticing that she hadn't come empty handed. She winced through the low light in the room, only a beam drifting through the curtains and rearranged herself to be sat up.
"I brought you a cookie and some tea. Mom and I just made them." Mariana informed her, placing the plate on the side.
Lena gave her a smile before hiding the discomfort from the physical effects the trauma had left her with. Mariana immediately lost her gaze in the plate.
"We decided that it would be a good idea to clean the cabinets out so we threw away some of the bits and pieces." She informed her, the comment met with only a whisper of a tired response as Lena still struggled to muster words. Mariana kept her eyes fixed on the nightstand, not daring to look up at what she imagined would be a face fighting off her woe to try and find words to answer such an irrelevant comment. Mariana could feel the grief coming over her again, the feeling of desperation and churning that the thought of seeing her Mom exhibiting anything less than her usual tower of strength brought. Stef's words echoing in her mind, she fought it of and took a deep breath, turning her head to look up at Lena. The look she was met with wasn't as bad as she had feared. It was still broken and tired and her eyes were puffy, but she did have the smallest of smiles on her face. She felt her shoulders relax, still finding some comfort that maybe this would be OK after all.
"Thank you, sweetheart." Lena whispered, the exhaustion in her voice apparent but also the genuine gratitude. Mariana felt here eyes swelling up again and she began to chew a little on her lip.
"Uhm..." She croaked as Lena's head cocked with patience. "Can I get in with you?"
Lena now felt her own tears coming back, but not out of the grief or pain that had so recently dominated the causes of their appearance. Without the words to answer, she simply shuffled along, lifting the corner of her sheet as Mariana climbed in, letting her Mom squeeze her in tightly in a blanket of mutual comfort. Lena could feel Mariana's heart beating but also felt her own increase a little, finding the security that the little girl was giving her. The pain she had been through had been unimaginable to her, but at the same time, the pain of imagining no longer being here to experience a moment like this was an even greater one - and the thought of what that would do to her loved ones around her was one she couldn't even broach. Pushing the thoughts aside she squeezed even tighter, losing a solitary tear in her daughter's hair.
"I'm sorry you had to go through this, Mom." Mariana whispered as Lena closed her eyes again, working the bulge in her throat into her own words and using it to plug too many tears from escaping.
"I'm sorry we did too, babe." She kissed her gently, proving Stef's advice as they both knew confidently that no more words were needed. They held each other close, the warmth and silence not erasing, but easing, the pain. It would never replace the little hole that had been left in their hearts but it was a reminder that there would still be moments that kept those hearts from beating alone.
OK - I hope this was alright and I would love a review if you would be so kind! If not, thanks for reading!