I'm so young, she thinks, crying and holding onto the bed railing. I'm too young. There is no way for her to describe the physical pain she is going through right now, though most women in history have been through the same thing. Skye wonders if her mother was like this – screaming at the world in her head as she had her. Did she make the decision to give her away when Skye was in her belly? Did she even hold her?
Jeff is with her, at least. Jeff is the one wiping her forehead of sweat, is the one reaching between Skye and the hospital pillows to press against her aching spine. They barely know one another, even though there's a piece of paper waiting with their signatures for a new name to be written in.
There comes a point where Skye gives up and then, of course, like some Hallmark movie, Jeff encourages her – says some few, meaningful words that help her get through the last moments of labour.
"It's a boy," one of the nurses says and that's all Skye needs to know. Tears pool in her eyes – fresh tears, a new type of tear, even as she gets through the afterbirth and all the other horrors of childbirth. Her son – her son– is laid in her arms.
"You wanted to name him Matt," Jeff reminds her later, after she's slept and their son is clean and wrapped up in his pale blue newborn baby-suit. He has a tuft of brown hair – he has so much hair – and a large forehead, like Jeff's. "Still want to?"
"Have you got a better idea?" Skye asks him in little more than a mumble.
Jeff shrugs. "He's getting my last name – we agreed on that. I'm not going to take any more from you."
Something about that stings, but Skye doesn't know what. She cradles her baby close, knowing after today, she's not going to see him again. Skye is going to leave this hospital alone and the next day after, Jeff is going to take her baby back to his home, back to his life and that will be the end of it. Jeff and her baby. Jeff and her baby – without her. Jeff and the baby.
"Matthew," Skye says, croaking it out. "Matthew- Matthew Rory." It's the closest of a homage she can give him. She may hate the name she grew up with, but Mary-Sue at least was a person – not like Skye is now, Skye who is going to delete every online archive of her identity the moment she's well enough to read tiny computer script without getting distracted.
Jeff smiles a little. "Matthew Rory. I like it." He reaches out, hesitantly running a finger down Matthew's nose. "Are you sure you don't want to stick around?"
"I'm sure," Skye says, even though her heart is breaking and her face feels wet. Jeff moves to sit with them, then, but his hug is only for her.
But of course-
"Hi," Daisy says. Jeffrey Mace sits in the common room, all alone as he looks through movies. His shirt buttons are undone and he looks the same as ever – if maybe a little larger than life. Directorship does that to a person, Daisy thinks. She remembers years previous, when he was shy and awkward and kind. He still is that – but now, someone pulls his strings.
"…hi," he says, looking at her with unblinking, decidedly nervous eyes. Daisy wants that nervousness gone – wants the normality they had when she was a pregnant nobody he knocked up. Daisy shuffles closer, before plonking down beside him, curling her knees up and stealing the remove, their legs and shoulders touching. He feels like a livewire. "Are…are you just going to get on with life?"
"It's what everyone has to do," Daisy says, picking out Titanic. "Would you rather I rehash the past?"
"I'd rather get to know your boundaries," he says, the same Jeff as ever. "Do you want to talk about him? Know about him?"
Daisy's silent for a time, because she had come over to get to know Jeff again – not the six year-old boy her son is now. But he's asked her a question, a valid one.
"I wouldn't say no to seeing a picture," she says, voice unusually soft as the wreck of the Titanic appears on-screen. Jeff steals the remote back, handing her his unlocked phone. Daisy orientates herself, eyes flickering from icon to icon before finding his images. The albums are simple – food, inspirational quote wallpapers and Matthew Mace.
"I told him what you told me," Jeff says as she stares at the smiling face of a young boy with her hair and her eyes, ice-cream all over his face as he beams, the setting sun over a carnival behind him. It's almost enough to distract her from the reflection of May on the television screen. Her mentor stands in the doorway, frozen. "That you weren't ready to be a mother – that you thought he'd grow up better without you. He likes looking at the baby album we made when you were pregnant."
"How many people know we have a kid?" Daisy questions him, murmuring, "Because May's right behind us."
Jeff stiffens, before looking back to where May indeed stands. Daisy ignores their silence, skipping sideways to other photos – Jeff's phone is full of them. Without thinking about Jeff's opinion, she clicks on dozens of them to send to herself, doing so as Jeff shifts, so as to speak to May.
"I realise this may seem…strange."
"Yeah," May says stiffly.
"Daisy and I knew each other, before- just, before." Jeff flounders and Daisy elbows him lightly.
"Where is he, right now?"
Jeff glances at her, "With my sister. Why? Do you want to meet him?"
"No," Daisy says immediately. "Definite no, on that. Ask me again next week when I have my head on straight. May, come over and see my kid. He's adorable."
Miraculously, May does as Daisy says, standing close behind the sofa, leaning to see. Her hair brushes Daisy's face and shoulder, but she doesn't care. May is someone she cares for – her family.
"Matthew Rory Mace," she introduces and she smiles because that's her son.