Title: Cotton Wool
Author: Neoxphile
Spoilers: seasons 1-9, IWTB, "Ghost Lights"
Keywords: invasion, post-col
Timeframe: very post-IWTB
Summary: After the invasion began in 2012 disease and destruction led to a massive die off amongst humans. For the people who survived both life was upended, but for the young most of all.
Author's Notes:
a. this story takes place both before and after the short fic "Ghost Lights." To follow this story, you'll need to read that one first - it's here on ffnet
b. there will be a lot of flashbacks, so I promise to date stamp those to cut down on confusion
November 28, 2030
In an unremarkable house on an equally unremarkable road, three people were home at mid-morning. This was an unusual occurrence, but not one that made the inhabitants particularly happy.
"Shh, shh." In a room painted yellow a dark-haired young man swayed, hoping that the child he held in his arms would settle down. This wasn't how he'd hoped to spend his rare afternoon off. It might have been nice to sit and think for once, given he didn't have much time for that where he worked.
His small daughter reared back, seeming determined to squirm out of his arms, even if it meant being dropped on her head. People still occasional spoke of the terrible twos, but Corrine was only sixteen months old and already becoming willful. It worried Will Van De Kamp more than he was willing to admit, because he'd seen often enough what happened to headstrong people. Even children at times. Older than Corrine, it was true, but not so much older that imagining her being dragged away one day didn't have a grim edge of reality to it.
"I wish you could tell me what's wrong," her father muttered. Corrine wasn't hungry, wet, or feverish, or so he'd surmised after checking each of these things in order. She just seemed angry to be expected to nap. Will was trying to figure out how to get her in a better mood when his wife entered the room.
When he looked over at her, Madison wasn't smiling. Before he could ask her what was wrong, she pointed at the crib and said "put her down."
Will looked down at the flailing, tear-stained toddler in his arms. "But-" he started to protest. They'd discussed having the kids cry it out long ago, and he thought they both still agreed that it was a bad idea.
"Put her down," Madison repeated flatly. "If she cries, she cries. Eventually she'll get bored and fall asleep: we want that anyway."
"Madison," Will started, uncertain. They'd talked a lot about not wanting to leave any of their babies in a crib to cry him or herself to sleep, and he was worried about why that might have changed now, a decade into their parenting careers.
"We need to talk." Her tone offered no room for argument. That wasn't like her.
"Okay..." Will said doubtfully as he tried to lower their daughter into her crib. Corrine arched her back and screamed, but he eventually he got her into it. Madison firmly shut the door behind them, muffling the sounds of their daughter's fury.
As they entered their living room Will reflexively looked out the windows, and was mildly relieved not to see any of the SensorShips that had been around a lot the past few weeks. Despite his earlier, morbid imagining, allowances were made for babies…but he wasn't alone in being on high alert lately. The unusually visible presence of the Helpers in the city had a lot of people worried.
"Will," Madison complained, her tone sharp and demanding. Whatever she was thinking about, it was a big deal to her and she obviously didn't like his lack of attention.
Tearing his eyes from the windows, Will tried to focus his attention on his wife. "What's on your mind?" he asked carefully, hoping not to set off an argument carried out in whispers. Maybe he should have listened to Max at Halloween and bought her flowers. He hadn't and now mildly regretted that. When it came to Madison, he had more regrets than he cared to think about, mostly things he'd done or said. Or hadn't done or hadn't said…
The two of them got along as well as you could expect a couple to when all marriages after 2012 were arranged and divorce wasn't allowed. But still, even though neither would ever risk a noisy, attention-drawing fight, their fear of punishment didn't preclude quiet friction. He assumed that he was about to get an earful about something he'd done to spark her ire lately.
"This came today," she said, picking up something as soon as they wandered towards the couch. Staring at him, she held out a creamy envelope to him to take. Her hand was trembling.
Will took it from her and sat, heart sinking as soon as he saw the Helpers' seal. The envelope had obviously been opened, so she knew what the letter said. No wonder Madison was on edge: getting an official notice from their overlords was never a cause for celebration.
He glanced up at her questioningly, and she hissed "just read it.'"
So he did. "What? No..." he complained after he absorbed the first paragraph. "They said three. The rule has always been three."
''Apparently they changed their minds," she said bitterly from the center of the couch.
Once upon a time people used to say that changing her mind was a woman's prerogative. Now a days everyone knew that had been fanciful: it was really Their prerogative to change their minds in the most abrupt and disturbing ways. And everyone had to live with the changes.
Will's eyes continued to scan down the body of the message. "Five?" he squeaked when he found the meat of the announcement. Five. His head swam at the thought. Three had been a harsh enough requirement.
Madison shook her head, earning a sharp look from him. "Keep reading. At least five. It could be more if you're unlucky."
It didn't take him long to find the clarification she meant: a couple must produce five children in total, but now they also must have at least two children of each gender. Will and Madison had two older sons in addition to their daughter, so at least one of their next two children would have to be a girl or they'd have to continue to have babies until they got another girl.
His thoughts went briefly to one of his coworkers. James and his wife had just had their fourth baby, their fourth son, eight months ago. At the time that he learned that they had decided to have another baby Will thought they were insane for voluntarily giving the Helpers another life to have control over, but now… He just felt bad that they were going to have to have at least two more children.
Of course, so were he and Madison. "Damn it," Will muttered. He and Madison loved their children, probably more than each other, but that didn't mean they wanted more. Not when their children would all grow up as he and Madison had, under the watchful, oppressive eye of the alien beings who had invaded when Will was eleven and never left.
"How long can we put it off? Corrine's only a little over a year old," he said, hoping that the age of their little girl would earn them a bit of a reprieve.
Madison sighed and slumped against the back of the couch, all but answering his question before she even opened her mouth. "Everyone who is currently under age forty has a year-" Under forty. Will tried not to shiver when he thought about the Helpers' feelings about genetic defects, and why older couples would be exempt from the new rule. "-unless the family's youngest child is less than six months old. So, we can't wait long."
He knew without asking that his wife meant a year to conceive their next child not to give birth to it, because that policy, at least, remained the same. People who failed to conceive by next November would wish they had: with the Helpers' technology infertility was a thing of the past, but they applied ruthless, and often brutal methods to ensure that there would be more children. More than one reluctant woman had spent close to a year imprisoned and restrained after "accidentally" failing to get pregnant voluntarily. Even couples who had decided to compile feared miscarriage because miscarriages were all considered to be the fault of the parents and drastic measures were employed to ensure the next pregnancy would succeed.
"I guess it could be worse," Will said quietly, giving her a meaningful look. She stiffened, obviously catching his drift.
Neither of them dared say anything in their own home, not when they knew better than anyone that the homes of humans were bugged, but they'd both heard rumors that the Helpers were concerned about the genetic diversity of the tatters of humanity and were poised to "do something" to increase it. Opinions about what that something would be varied, but most thought that spouses would be redistributed, or that the Helpers would raid the old pre-enlightening fertility clinics for gametes or frozen embryos that had been created and cold stored by men and women who were now mostly dead.
Privately, Will found the second possibility less horrifying than the first, though he'd never said as much to anyone. If he'd been able to choose his own life partner he might not have picked Madison, nor her him, but they mostly worked as a couple. It was easier, especially for someone like him who had been aware of his own adoption from an early age, to accept the idea of raising a stranger's biological child than to imagine having more children with someone else. He knew that if Madison died young a new spouse would be assigned to him, but that would be very different than having their family unit broken up by external forces.
Although it was true that for most couples two more children would undoubtedly be an added hardship, at least it was better than the fruition of either rumor being what was announced instead. The thought that the Helpers might welcome the spread of the rumors for just that reason did cross Will's mind. He really wouldn't put the possibility that they'd planted the rumor in order to seem benevolent in comparison to how they might have chosen to act past them. There were enough of them who could look human to cozy up to the discontented and encourage them to take the rumors at face value. Then there were the people who actually liked their alien overlords…
"Right," Madison said shortly, snapping him back to the present. It was clear to him that if she'd made the same mental comparisons as he had, she didn't take much comfort from it. "We'll have to move, you know."
This had him sitting up straighter. "I hadn't given much thought to that," he admitted.
Once upon a time the occasional addition had been placed on a home to accommodate three children, but now it was seen as wasteful given that methods of cleansing existing structures whose old residents had died in had been devised. These days a family that outgrew their homes - something that happened more often than Will had predicted when he was young - was reassigned a new one. No care was taken to relocate the family where they might keep the same job or keep their children in the same school. Or rather, keep the husband in the same job: it was extremely rare for women to be allowed to work outside the home while her children were still under the age of eighteen. She'd have to have unusual skills, and a husband suited to staying home with their children instead: all children were required to have a parent who did not work because the Helpers felt that it's damaging to be cared for by strangers.
"Who knows where they'll put us," Madison said dejectedly. "It could be anywhere."
"If everyone has to have five kids, maybe they'll go back to allowing additions to be built."
"And waste all that labor when they could have people doing other things?" she asked. "I doubt it. There are plenty of houses for families that size just sitting around empty. No, they'll move us, I know it."
"Well," Will said uncomfortably, bothered by the thought of why those houses were empty. "That won't happen for a while yet." Not until they had another baby went without saying.
Madison stood. "Speaking of which, should we get this over with?"
He took her hand and tried not to grimace; he hadn't liked the romances his mother watched back when there had still been a film industry, but he hadn't known then that he'd grow up in a world where children were created out of duty far more often than because their parents loved one another and wanted them.
Of course, it was only their parents' duty to have them because the Helpers had inadvertently killed off more than half the world's population within three months of their arrival.