You sit down on the sofa, your legs folding with the naturalness of solitude and shock. Your hands pat over the seats next to you and rearrange the cushions as they need something to do. Looking around the beautiful living room of your beautiful island home, you eventually fix on the habitual task of making a drink. You'll fall asleep if you lie down. Standing up in the kitchen unfogs your head a little. You need to get your bearings.
She ran away upstairs. The small fires of temper and wilfulness that you ignite in her will have burned out by now and she's probably in the middle of an embarrassed sulk. She isn't supposed to act like this. Your wife, your soulmate, the only other being in your world: your life together is happy now she understands giving and taking. Standing up from where you laid her on the sofa, declaring that she was naming them after her parents and then walking quickly upstairs before you could speak is out of bounds. Her room will be out of bounds too once you get her out of it. If she thinks being pregnant is an excuse for breaking your rules – promises that she made and that you'll hold her to – you can be equally difficult. You can feel it now, the slow wave of power in your limbs telling you to go up and ask your wife how dare she walk away from you, the simmering anger that directs your thoughts and tunnels your vision and burns inside until you can act on it. But, with your lips at the ripped-off corner of a carton of orange juice, you don't. You're not going to chase after her; she can come to you.
You glance around. Is there anything you can do before she comes down? You might have minutes. You might have hours. Or she might appear with apologies and a happy acquiescence to name your children anything you want. You dither on beheading the flowers as it's not something you can undo easily without another trip to the mainland and eventually take to confiscating her watercolours. If she keeps this mood up after you've tried reasonable discussion, her paintings can go, her books can go, her access to the beach and the areas out of eyeshot of the house can go. How dare she completely disregard your feelings?
And the funny thing is: you really don't mind that much what she calls your children. You can't think of them as human beings yet, as people to add to your domestic bliss, possibly because people as a concept would disrupt the beautiful pair you and Abby make and children won't do that. So they will be things for the first year or two and what you call them doesn't matter too much. Carton in hand, you stand at the window and watch as your imagined future morphs from what it looked like a few hours ago to what it looks like now. Before you had yourself, Abby and a young son sitting in a little fishing boat, his name and age unknown but a knife in his hand as he takes it to today's catch and pride bubbling within both of you as you know you raised him right. And now: a sister for the boy? The word is painful in your mind. A girl to complete your family. She'll be company the boy's own age. He'll need someone to play with. You can see the image in your mind: sitting in the grass with Abby, watching the children charge around after each other.
Taking her to Vancouver, to a doctor, was one hell of an operation but definitely worth it now. You hated having to tranquilise her for both trips, seeing the brief look of betrayal in her eyes before the lights went out, if only temporarily. And you could kill Murphy for what he did to your wife. Only you get to see her like that, touch her like that. You suspect Abby wasn't too happy about it either. But you're no expert in this and he is. You'd have paid him twice as much cash from your slush fund for the information you left with: twins, probably a boy and a girl, apparently healthy.
Isn't Abby brilliant?
Sarah and Charlie. You put the carton down on the windowsill and look out at the rising late-January sun. Charlie you don't mind. You had nothing particular against Abby's father when you and your father slated him for removal. Yes, he sent Abby away but she came back when you asked. Yes, he imprisoned your father but John is dead now too and you don't pretend to care about his grievances anymore. And he was the only parent involved who didn't deceive you. But the desire to name your daughter after her mother is the stupidest thing you've heard since she suggested having your own fireworks on the island for New Year's Eve. You'd rather pick a random name of out of one of her books.
You turn back and she's there. She appears like a ghost; it's a talent you've no idea how she picked up. She smiles at you, with her big eyes and her hands around the ever-growing bump, as if nothing has happened. Rage and lust mingle at your fingertips as she greets you softly.
Hi. Do you want some breakfast? Or we could just go to bed. You must be tired.
The power burns, pushing you towards her, your strides automatic. It's like so many murders, except this time there's no knife in your hand and you'll never hurt Abby. And then you see her swallow and breathe deeply as she always does when she's getting ready to speak. She is shaking slightly.
I'm sorry for walking away. I'm sorry I was rude to you. And thank you for what you did for me. I –
Charlie and Sarah?
Henry, I loved my parents. And I miss them.
You're so close you want to kiss her throat until she can't speak anymore.
You won't name our daughter Sarah.
She was a good mother to me.
Your mother was a whore!
Then so was yours!
Her words are a bucket of ice-water over you. She hasn't spoken to you like that since… you hit her the last time she spoke like that to you. The last two times. But she's your wife now and you won't hit her again. You don't break eye contact with her as you watch it dawn on her how far over the line she's stepped. Her normally dazed eyes widen with clarity as you step forwards and she steps backwards into the wall. Her arms shoot up into a protective cross over her face for a fraction of a second before moving sharply down across the bump instead as she waits for you to choose your weapon. You select brutal honesty.
You want to name our daughter after our mother? Do you understand that? A reminder every day of how much they all lied to us. A reminder of why they'd never let us be together. You're comfortable with that?
She was a good mother.
She was a terrible mother. What kind of mother throws away her own son? She lied to you and she lied to me. She lied to everyone. How can you tell yourself that what she did was right?
If she'd kept you, we wouldn't be together now. We wouldn't be married now. And there's nothing I like more than that. To be with you. To be your wife and the mother of your children. I love you, Henry.
A good portion of the rage melts away as you kiss her, one hand at her waist and the other at the back of her neck, tangled in her long hair. She kisses you back fiercely; she needs you as much as you need her. Her lips, her tongue taste as sweet as her voice when she cries your name. It's a wonderful moment between the two of you. The four of you. You could hold her this way for hours.
You don't know how long it is until you break away and look down into her wide eyes.
You really think that?
She nods. Yes. Would – would you have preferred to be … family?
No!
Then forgive her. She loved you, Henry.
But – You pause as you see her trying to get something out. One thing you've learned from living with Abby is that it's ridiculously difficult to compel her to do anything she doesn't want and that her mind works on its own speeds, so you wait for her to stop choking on her words.
Henry… I'm scared. I didn't think this would happen and now it's only going to get harder. I'm – I'm not ready for this. No. I don't know. They're with me all the time. They're inside me so they're always with me. You don't know that. I can't forget that they're there. And I love them but I'm afraid of all this. I just want them to be less scary.
Falling asleep beside her later, one arm under the pillow under her head and the other around her middle, her body is all the warmth you need. You lay one hand on the bump, trying to feel any signs of life, and wonder which will start to kick you first.
Another piece dug out from the half-finished folder. Captivity-verse, set in late January about a month after Gifts.
Edited to add: just re-read this and didn't feel it was sufficiently obvious that Abby is lying her face off to keep Henry happy. She doesn't love him. She's scared of him most of the time and only just beginning to find her feet in standing up to him and behaving as his equal. Henry doesn't realise this and thinks she's genuinely in love with him back, which is why the fic reads a bit oddly.