"Tell us the story, mama."
"What story is that, my loves?" Jemma asks, looking up from adjusting the blanket over her sleeping infant to the pleading eyes of her oldest. He's tall for five years old, the remnants of chub over what she's sure are going to be are cheekbones as sharp as his father's.
"The seal 'un," her only daughter says solemnly.
"Oh, Nicola, my lamb, don't you want a different one?" Jemma shifts uncomfortably.
The little girl shakes her head. "Pease?"
"Please, mama," her son adds. "'S'our fav'rite."
"Alright," she concedes, as she always does. "But not in the nursery. We don't want to wake Gareth."
She lets John Douglas take one hand and Nicola the other as they lead her into the living room. She flips her baby monitor on and lowers herself onto the loveseat. Her daughter crawls into her lap, and she wonders idly how much longer until Nicola will no longer be able to do so. John Douglas passes her the book then tucks himself into her side.
"Long ago, in a land far away and a sea long lost to us, lived a fisherman," Jemma begins. "The tides had been good to him and brought him much wealth, and he was a handsome fellow. Despite this, he remained unmarried. Many local girls had their hearts set on being his bride, but he wanted none of them."
"Because they weren't special 'nough, right, Mama?" John Douglas asks. "He had to have the best one."
"I suppose," Jemma demurs.
"Read more, Mama," Nicola rests her head against Jemma's collarbone, nuzzling closer. Jemma's heart clenches almost painfully as she soothes a hand down her daughter's back, then returns to the story.
"One day, as the fisherman pulled his boat into the shore, he saw a number of selkie folk, in their human-like form. These otherworldly seal creatures were breathtaking in their beauty as they sunned themselves and leapt in the waves, careless and alluring in ways no ordinary human could hope to be. The fisherman had seen them before, had watched from afar, longing to touch. But they always eluded him.
"But today, their enchanted seal-skins were left, careless, as well, there on the sand within his grasp. He crept closer to the rock where some were basking and, before they could spot him, ran to capture a discarded skin, his eye on the one prize that beckoned to him more than the others."
"'Cause he watched in secret, right, Mama? They never spected right?"
"Suspected," Jemma corrects softly. "No, my darling, they were completely fooled."
The silence stretches out a long moment before John Douglas pokes at the pages of the book and Jemma resumes her reading.
"With a cry of dismay, the selkie people grabbed for their skins and transformed into their true forms, escaping into the waves. All but one."
"The special one, right, Mama?" Nicola says, her voice sleepy.
"That's right," Jemma's voice catches in her throat. "The fisherman was a clever man, and he'd managed to seize the skin he'd wanted most preciously. Alone on the shore was the beautiful selkie woman, hearing the mournful cries of her fey family, but without her skin, she could not transform. The waves were lost to her without it."
"Cause the fisherman loved her, Nicola," John Douglas provides helpfully. He shifts loser into her side. "So he gots to keep her."
Jemma carries on reading. "The fisherman clutched the skin beneath his arm tightly and began his journey home. The beautiful selkie could not venture far from her enchanted pelt, so, as he knew she would, she came with him. She begged pitifully for him to return her skin, to let her go free. He could not, he assured her. She's captured his heart, and so, too, then must she be captive to him."
"See? I told you," John Douglas says smugly, his tone an echo of his father's in higher pitch.
"I already knowed," Nicola returns.
"Shhh, ducklings," Jemma quiets. "The fisherman hid the skin, knowing she could not return to the sea. And so she would remain as his bride. He told her she would grow to love him, and with the ocean beyond her reach, he did come to anchor himself in her heart. She bore him seven children, more beautiful than all the children in all the corners of the earth, and she loved them dearly, too."
"Almost much as you love us, Mama?" Nicola asks, as she always does.
"Almost," Jemma presses a kiss to her daughter's head. "And all the while, they seemed content. But each day, she would gaze upon the sea with longing, for all the love in the world could not take the salt from her blood. One summer's day, the fisherman went out on his boat, and though she'd lost hope of finding it years ago, the selkie wife set to looking for her skin. It was as despair set in and she began to weep that her youngest child returned from playing in the garden. 'Oh, mother!' she cried. "Why are you crying?'
"The selkie wife explained that her heart still beat in time with the waves hitting the shore, and that tore her soul apart because he skin was hidden from her. 'But Mother, I know where it is!' her daughter said. "I saw it while you were in the garden and father thought I was sleeping. And there the young girl pulled the skin from where it was hidden in the chimney."
"Uh oh," John Douglas said. "That little girl shouldna done that. Her daddy hided it for a reason."
"Hid it, my love. Not hided."
"Johnnie! Stop ruining it! Let Mama finish!"
"Hush, my lamb, we're almost done," Jemma soothes. "'Oh, my darling," the selkie cried, tucking her skin to her body with joy on her face. With an inhuman sound, she ran to the seam and she wrapped her skin around her shoulders. As she slipped into her true form, the form denied her so long, she leapt into the water. And, as her husband's boat returned to shore, he cried in dismay at the loss of her. But one last time, she slipped the skin to show her ethereal face to call farewell, for her first love was the ocean and the life and the family she'd been stolen from there. And so she plunged into the waves, to be seen by her human family no more."
"The Selkie story again?"
The wry amusement in the voice doesn't stop her heart from stuttering, and she glances up, startled.
"Daddy!"
Her children leap from the couch to take to his arms, and she takes the second to compose herself. She rests a hand on the curve of her belly and pushed herself to standing. She took a hesitant step forward, wringing her hands together.
Grant sets the children down and reaches an arm out to her. Exhaling the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding in, Jemma crossed the room and lets him pull her in for a kiss. His fingers knead the back of her neck. He leans his forehead against hers when he pulls away.
"The selkie story?" he prompts, his fingers tightening on the back of her neck, just shy of painful. She's spared from answering a moment as her oldest son makes to leap to hang on her arm, knocking into her knees in the process.
"Careful," Grant cautions, steadying her even as he swings John Douglas up. She leans gratefully into his other side.
"Can you read it again, Mama?"
"Yes, pease, Mama?" Nicola chimes in, tugging at Jemma's shirt until she bends to pick her up.
"It's the only thing they've wanted to hear all month." Grant runs a sympathetic hand up her back, his arm wrapping around to stroke her waist, or what little is left of it these days.
"You like that one, huh?" Grant says thoughtfully. Both children nod.
"Can you read it, Mama? Can you?"
Jemma worries at her lip, turning questioning eyes up at her husband. He drops a quick kiss to her lips and another to her temple.
"Your Mama looks tired," he says, taking Nicola from her arms. They feel empty, now. "I think she should go lay down in our bedroom and I'll read it once more before putting you seal pups to bed. Now give her a kiss and say goodnight."
Jemma leans to kiss her children, running her hands fondly through Nicola's curls and smoothing down a cowlick over John Douglas' forehead.
"Mama?" Nicola asks, and Jemma stills at the tremor in her voice.
"Yes, my lamb?"
"You 'on't go away like the selkie Mama, will you?"
"Of course not, sweetheart," Grant cuts in smoothly, and though his voice doesn't change from the comforting tone, Jemma can hear the steel edge beneath it. "Could you?"
"No," Jemma breathes out. "Oh my lambs, no. I could never, ever leave you."
If Grant grins victorious, she doesn't see it, as she is already pressing another kiss to each of her children's faces, eyes downcast, heart in her throat. Then her husband is settling the kids back on the couch and, so dismissed, she makes her way to the bedroom.
She's just finished her nighttime washing up and has just changed into her peignoir when Grant steps into the dimly lit room, coming behind her as she looks out at the lights of the city below, glowing through the thick panes of bullet proof glass she knows lines the tower. She can feel his chest warm through the thin silk at her back. He wraps his arms around her growing middle and she leans back into him. She tilts her head back a little, though she can't actually see him from this angle. Perhaps that makes it easier.
"The… The mission went well?" she asks. "You're home earlier than… you're home early."
"Mmm," he hums and she can feel the vibrations course through her. He bends to nip at her earlobe. "Easier to kill them than I thought."
"Oh," she says numbly. She'd turn her head, but there's nowhere to look. Instead, she cups the curve of her belly, feels the child move beneath her skin, fragile as butterfly wings.
His hands move to her shoulders to slip the robe off, and it makes a whisper of sound as it drops to the floor. Then he's sliding them gently up her sides, and her heart beats thickly in her chest.
"The fisherman was stupid." He drops a kiss to the back of her neck, then another to the chilled skin of her shoulder. "He should have hunted them down, everyone. If he truly loved her, he'd have boiled the ocean and burned the skin. Made it so she had nothing to go back to, so she could never leave him."
His fingers glide beneath the thin straps of her nightdress, moving them down until it, too, is pooled at her feet. She can only nod and let him turn her into his embrace, draw her down on the bed, cling to him like he's the last thing she has left.