Just a little oneshot I decided to throw together. I was inspired by the way a whole house can be in a terrible mood at the same time, for whatever reason. Anyways, I hope you like it!
And know that I am working on my actual stories. I lost the inspiration for Wind but I think I've found it again, and I'm going to try to wrap it up soon. The next chapter is well underway. And Story, well, I'm slowly making my way through the movie. The next chapter is ready, but I'm going to wait until I've got the next bit written to post it.
I, as always, own nothing.
From the moment she wakes up, Mary Poppins knows it is not going to be a good day.
It all starts with a bang. Well, to call it a bang would be like calling a wolf a dog. It technically is a bang, but quickly outgrows that description as it crescendos into the sort of general clatter of someone who is trying to be quiet and knows they are failing miserably. Then comes the loud shushing of the guilty and finally the screamed argument over whose fault all of this noise is.
Usually the twins manage to sort this kind of spat out in no time and Mary can leave them to their own devices, but today is not a good day. Today is the sort of day that grudges are revealed and renewed and didn't Cordelia remember that she had taken Lydia's hairbrush last Thursday but she had never returned it and now Lydia's hair is a mess of tangles and it's all her fault! That was why Lydia was rummaging around in the nursery and that was why all of the precariously stacked toys had come crashing down and that was why all of the noise was Cordy's fault, not Lydia's.
"Would you be quiet?" Cordelia snaps. "You're going to wake Mary Poppins!"
"Oh, I should think you've both managed that quite nicely already," Mary says imperiously from the doorway.
Lydia starts in on a frantic rant about how this is Not Her Fault, But Cordy's.
Cordelia starts denying this charge vehemently, insisting that Lydia was the one who should get the blame for being Disobedient and Out of Bed.
Mary holds up a hand to silence them. "I suppose next you'll be expecting me to assign blame to the table for not balancing properly. I don't think so. But since you're both up so early, you can help me tidy up."
Cordelia sends a withering glare her twin's way—why did she have to get out of bed so early and incur the wrath of Mary Poppins?
Lydia turns up her nose, of the opinion that she and her sister are distinctly Not Talking.
"Well then, spit spot!" Mary exclaims. The girls lethargically begin to pick up their toys, but ignore each other.
By the time the nursery is clean, the other children have woken up, in no better moods than their oldest sisters.
"Ow!" Carrie cries as she runs into the room, Edward hot on her tail. "Mary Poppins, Edward is pulling my hair!"
`"I am not!"
"Are too!"
"You're stupid!"
"You're stupider!"
Mary sighs and separates them.
"Leave me alone!" Cordelia screams at her twin. The problem with Not Talking to someone is that they need to be aware that they are Not Being Talked To, and so Lydia has taken to shoving into her sister every time the opportunity presents itself.
"Mary Poppins," Mrs. March says as she comes up the stairs and into the nursery, carrying little Samantha. "It would be greatly appreciated if you could keep the children quiet. Mr. March has a headache and the noise grates on his nerves so."
"Yes, ma'am," she sighs. Her employer is unaware that she's just asked a rather herculean feat of the nanny as she places the toddler on the floor and drifts out of the room.
Breakfast is horrible, of course. Cordelia and Lydia are still Not Talking, pointedly ignoring each other and communicating through the indirect and annoying means of "Carrie, will you please tell…" and "Oh, did somebody say something? I didn't hear anything, but if I did, I'd say…" Edward chooses to take the opportunity to remind everyone at the top of his lungs that he fed the dog yesterday, which means it is out of his hands, which, of course, sets all three of the older girls quarreling to figure out whose responsibility it is today. Even Samantha, usually a very happy baby, squalls and refuses to sit still, trying to squirm out of Mary's arms.
By lunchtime, Mary is beginning to grow weary of this state of affairs. She has tried nearly everything she can think of; bits of magic, bits of psychology, anything that might get the four older March children talking again, or, at the very least, not arguing.
She bundles all five children into their coats and they set out. Mary refuses to tell them where they're going, mostly because of the whining that accompanies the question.
The walk is too long, it's too cold, Edward keeps pulling Carrie's braids, and Lydia keeps stepping on the back of Cordelia's shoes.
Mary ignores every one of their complaints and keeps walking. There's nothing for them to do but follow and sulk.
There's a slight shiver of anticipation when they reach the park—the children know that magic things tend to happen there.
"Well, 'ello there, Mary Poppins!"
Mary sighs and turns to face her best friend. "Hello, Bert."
Samantha instantly starts squalling unhappily, twisting and turning so Mary can hardly keep a hold on her.
"'ere, let me 'elp," Bert says, taking her before Mary can respond. He rocks her a little and, miracle of miracles, Samantha calms down. "You look a little flustered, Mary. Everything alright?"
"Fine," she replies. "We've just had a bit of a rough morning."
He surveys the brood—now Cordelia is antagonizing Lydia and Edward continues to tug on Carrie's braids while Carrie yells. "Looks like a right true case of The Grumps if I ever saw one," he comments.
"I'd thought of that," she admits. "But I've tried everything I can think of."
"You just be careful you don't go catching it, Mary Poppins; it's contagious, you know."
"I'm never cross," she insists.
"I know that, but even so… be careful. I don't want you catching it."
It touches her that he'd be so worried, even if his worry is so misplaced. Mary Poppins becoming grumpy; the very thought!
She refuses to reward the children's behavior with magic, so the park is uneventful. The outing ends when Edward whacks Cordelia with a stick and Lydia begins taunting Carrie with her advantage of height. Even Samantha starts crying, so Mary marches the March children back to their house for an early bedtime. Of course, that earns more sulking, but at least they're quieter in their solidarity of anger.
When they reach the familiar house, Mrs. March rushes out to meet them, having worked herself up into a tizzy. Surely so much fresh air and sunshine can't be good for the children. And taking them to an unknown park several blocks away? When they might be learning to sit quietly and mind their manners? Why, it was enough to make any mother see red! And now Mr. March is saying the house is unnaturally quiet!
The problem with the Marches, Mary thinks uncharitably, is that they are very good at having children and not very good at all at raising them.
She catches herself in surprise; she almost never thinks anything unkind of her employers. After all, there is a reason she's there and it usually is something she could think something unkind about. Only then she wouldn't be Mary Poppins.
She nods her recognition of the dressing down and shuffles the children upstairs. They, of course, squabble the entire way. Samantha is the only one who seems to be in a relatively good mood and is put down to sleep almost immediately. The rest refuse to eat their dinners and they refuse to take their baths. And then the insults begin again.
It's too much—the day has been incredibly long and she can't take another minute of it.
"Quiet!" she snaps and sends a wave of power out behind it. The four children suddenly find that though their mouths may open, their voices will simply not come out and they begin to panic. Mary surveys them with a cool eye. "Children who can't say anything nice shan't say anything at all," she informs them. "I haven't gotten a moment's peace since this day began and I shall have it now."
She sits down with her knitting and lets them stew for a few minutes. They try to argue about whose fault this is, but that task proves difficult without voices and they give up quickly. "You may find the ability to speak again if you sit down, eat your suppers and wash up," she announces.
They rush to do so and Mary closes her eyes, sighing in frustration. She gives it just one more minute then releases the bind she's placed on their voices. They discover it almost immediately and take all of five minutes to start arguing about whose fault Mary Poppins' anger is, though admittedly in a much softer whisper.
"To bed, all of you," she orders. They all hesitate, thinking about resisting. "You may all put yourselves to bed, or I can put you there," she says, her eyes hinting at the slightly terrifying ways this might be done. "The choice is yours."
Finally, Cordelia heaves a sigh and shuffles off to bed. Lydia flounces after her and Edward and Carrie follow almost immediately.
In the now quiet of the nursery, Mary realizes what she's done. She's just used her magic against her charges—something she had sworn to herself she would never do.
But the children were unruly and she had just been so… so… so tired. She doesn't get tired!
That is no excuse.
There's a quiet whistle outside her window and she opens it to find Bert perched there.
"Just wanted to check in," he says, by way of explanation. "Did you manage to get the monsters off to bed?"
She sighs. "They're not monsters, Bert," she defends them, though she had considered this definition several times earlier in the day. "They're just… willful."
"Mary Poppins, only you could spend the 'ole day fighting an up'ill battle then spend the night nursing your opponent."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That you're a better woman than most."
Oh, why should that possibly create tears? It shouldn't! And yet it does.
"'Ere, Mary, don't cry," he says awkwardly, coming in off the ledge. "That was a compliment!"
"I'm sorry, Bert. Really. It's just… it's been such a long day and I-" She catches herself rambling and stops herself short. "Well, it's done now and I'm fine."
"Mary Poppins, if you were fine, you wouldn't say you were fine," he points out. "What's 'appened?"
The concern in his voice destroys any floodgates she might have and she begins to cry in earnest. This time there's not a second of hesitation before he pulls her to sit on the window seat and cry into his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she sniffs again. "I… I lost my temper, Bert. With the children. I… How could I do that? They're only children!"
"Mary Poppins, they might be only kids, but they know right from wrong and they knew they were being nuisances the entire day! It couldn't 'ave been that bad."
"But it was," she insists and relates the story of their forced silence.
He looks a little like he wants to laugh—she supposes the story might be funny in some way, just not one she can understand—but he suppresses it. "So you lost your temper. Mary, everybody 'as bad days. Yours wasn't even all that bad. I told you their bad mood was catching."
"I'm not cross!" she insists.
"No, you're not," he agrees. "You've gone and turned it all inside out, so instead of being cross, you're sad."
She sighs but doesn't deny it.
"Come on," he suddenly says, pulling her up. "Let's go."
"Go? Where?"
"You need some cheering up, Mary Poppins, and I intend to make it 'appen!"
"I need nothing of the sort."
"You're only proving my point," he points out. "Now, come on."
He leads her up onto the roof—for such a horrible day, the night is beautiful. "You 'ave to swear something," he says.
"What?"
"You 'ave to swear you're not going to sit 'ere an' sulk. I can't cheer you up if you won't let me. Go on, swear on something important."
"I don't have anything to swear on! My mother is living happily in a town outside of London. And I won't swear on the children."
"Well, it's got to be important; otherwise what's the point of swearing?"
She thinks for a moment. Then shyly she says, "You."
"What?"
"You're important to me. I swear on you that I'll allow you to try to cheer me up."
There's a moment that might be awkward, but he grins and starts off over the rooftops instead of letting that happen.
He tries everything that has worked to make her smile in the past; he calls the sweeps for Step in Time, and it's their best, funniest version yet, but she watches with a closed-mouth, polite smile. Even "Mary Poppins, Step in Time," something that has never before failed to make her grin, only gives her a small smile that fades almost immediately.
In her defense, she's trying. She really is. But she just can't seem to pull herself out of this bad mood to let him know how much she appreciates his efforts.
As the sweeps go home, he gets an idea and pulls her up from her seat on the brick around a chimney. There's no chant of "Mary Poppins, step in time!" this time, but he leads her in a quiet waltz, much like the one they did in his chalk drawing while she was at the Banks'.
"You are trying to be happy, Mary, aren't you?"
"Of course!" she exclaims, trying to keep the annoyed edge out of her voice. "I'm trying, Bert. I'm just not doing very well."
He's got a new idea and he can't tell if it's a good one, but he supposes that either way she could possibly react would knock her out of this horrible sort of sadness. And she did swear on him.
"Really, I don't know what's come over me," she says. "I can't seem to find what's making me unhappy. I'm quite tired of it."
"Maybe… maybe we just 'aven't found what'll make you 'appy," he responds and she swears he sounds just a little nervous.
"It feels as if we've tried everything."
"Not everything," he points out. They've stopped dancing and she looks so sad it hurts him. With that, he leans down and kisses her.
Her eyes widen in surprise at first and she freezes. A hundred million different thoughts run through her head until it feels like it might explode. After all, this is Bert. Her best friend, her confidante, her everything except that which might make it alright for him to be kissing her. She should pull away, apologize for leading him on, and go home. Except… except now her eyes are sliding closed and her arms are sliding around his neck and it feels so right that her heart hurts. She had always thought that she didn't feel that way about him because she just didn't, but now, she thinks maybe she just hadn't let herself feel anything.
Oxygen becomes a necessity, so they pull away. She's flushed and out of breath and grinning like a fool. He knows his own smile isn't any dimmer.
"Well, then," she says, but apparently even Mary Poppins can be rendered speechless, for she doesn't continue.
He grins and she laughs. "There!" he exclaims. "I knew I could do it! I got you to smile."
"I didn't doubt you," she informs him.
He pushes a piece of hair out of her face. "Funny thing is you look just as beautiful with a frown as you do with a smile."
Well, she has to kiss him after a statement like that, doesn't she?
And the next morning, when the children all slink in to apologize for being such brats the day before, they find Mary Poppins tidying the nursery and whistling, a cryptic smile on her face.
I hope you enjoyed it!
-Juli-