Disclaimer: I still don't own these characters. They belong to Shonda, I'm just playing with them and will return them accordingly.
Author's Note: Chapter One was edited and changed due to recent revelations on the show, please read before reading this one.
Winter came to New York that year almost too quickly. The country still lay in shock over the death of their fallen leader, still held their breaths in fear over Cuba and the Soviet Union. But still, the seasons changed well before the psyche of the nation, and Carolyn started to believe that perhaps, just perhaps, college may have been better than the cold home she and her husband shared on Long Island. She had discovered it was a gift from his parents, not at all something within their price range, and Carolyn tried to keep her thoughts to herself whenever Mrs. Shepherd made comments.
Still, she was young. As her friends came home for the holidays, Carolyn wanted nothing more than to grab her skates and enjoy a cold day in Central Park, sipping hot cocoa with her old schoolmates. But those days were long gone, and she no longer ran to window shop in the city, or to giggle over the boys who threw snowballs at each other, or shoved ice down their backs. A year earlier, Carolyn had been Carolyn Maloney, seventeen years old and still so wildly in love with her life. Now, she was Carolyn Shepherd, eighteen years old and alone in her cold home.
She wasn't unhappy. She tried her hardest to remind herself of that fact when she cooked a supper that would be put into the refrigerator hours after it had sat in the oven, waiting for Michael to come home. She tried to remember that she loved Michael when he came home from the store at nearly midnight and threw his clothes on the floor before crawling into bed with her, exhausted and not at all interested in conversation. She tried to remember that this had been what she wanted when she had agreed to marry him. Instead, she often found herself sitting on the icy doorstep, tapping her foot angrily at the thought of being left alone.
But Carolyn knew well enough not to mention any of this to Michael. The few times she had called her mother in tears had led to Kathleen insisting that she grow up and be Michael's wife. She had never thought to ask her mother if she were ever lonely, and she wasn't sure her mother would answer truthfully. Her mother was a wife and mother. Carolyn had often heard the fights between her parents, the words "hard work" falling out of her mother's mouth like hard, sharp gravel. But Carolyn was a wife. And sometimes, the only thing that felt like hard work was being alone in their home well after dark and waiting for Michael to come through the door.
It was a cold Sunday morning in January when Carolyn found herself angrier than usual. She attended church with her parents and sisters, fuming all during Mass. Her mother and father then invited her to Sunday dinner, and instead of insisting, as she had for nearly three months now, that she had to be home for Sunday dinner with her husband, she went to her mother's house and curled up in her old bedroom, anger and exhaustion searing through her.
Michael was working, of course. He seemed to only work, and while she understood why, she didn't very much like that her husband, her attentive, loving husband never seemed to be home. So she fumed. All during dinner, she fumed, silently contemplating staying home with her parents, and then going ice skating in Central Park, or window shopping at Macy's. She contemplated running off to Europe, or Hollywood, and changing her persona completely. The contemplating and the anger left her queasy, and her mother and father watched her worriedly when she left the house with an empty stomach.
This was 1964. Women had careers, women could vote and go to school, and they didn't have to get married anymore. She had read the books, she could quote by heart The Feminine Mystique and other texts about women's freedom to behave as they wanted. And yet, here Carolyn Shepherd was, a housewife without a husband in her home. A woman who spent her days alone while her husband worked at a store and then came home to talk about his dreams and aspirations. Never once did he ask how her day was, never once did he ask her how the laundry had gone. And she knew she shouldn't be angry with him, she knew that, but on January 19, 1964, Carolyn was angry.
She came home to find him sitting in his usual spot, his dark curly head bent over books on the table as he read. "There's my girl," he grinned, looking up quickly. "Did you spend Sunday with your parents?"
"Yes," she nodded, her stomach doing twists and turns as she stood before him.
"Good. It's high time you spent some time with your mother and sisters," he nodded, reaching for her. She quickly took a step back, trying to ignore the sudden dizziness that overtook her. "Carolyn?"
"I don't like this," she pouted. "I don't like…the house. The house is cold. And empty. But most of all, it's cold all the time and it smells awful. And I hate when your mother comes in the middle of the day, to check on me. I know how to take care of a home. I know how to clean and cook and take care of a home. I know how to do all of that, and yet, she's always here. She's here more than you are. And this is supposed to be our home. Our first home."
"Carolyn," he sighed, running his hands through his hair.
"I know I'm supposed to be a good housewife," she murmured. "I know that, Michael, but I don't like this. I'm…I'm bored. And alone. And you're at work, and when you come home, it's as if you don't want to see me. I hate this."
"Am I neglecting you, pretty girl?" Michael smiled softly as he stood. "Is that why you would barely look at me this morning? Am I neglecting my wife?"
"I didn't say that."
"Of course not," he murmured. "I'll take tomorrow from the store, fix the heater, and we can spend some time together."
"I don't want you to take a day from the store," she groaned. "I want…I don't know what I want."
"Oh, Carolyn," he breathed, shaking his head slightly. "It will be better when I have my own store. All of this will be better when I work for myself, and you can come work for me whenever you want." He grabbed her by the waist and brought her close to him, and she shook her head, turning away from him as he tried to kiss her. "Oh you are mad," he laughed softly.
"I can't stand you."
"You love me. Even if I am a horrible, neglectful husband who leaves his wife to freeze."
"I want to go ice skating!" she blurted suddenly as her stomach suddenly contorted. "I want to go to Macy's and then go ice skating with my friends. I want to do something, Michael."
"Then do something," he smiled widely. "Go shopping. Go ice skating. Have a hot chocolate."
"You'd…you'd let me?"
"Let you?" Michael laughed. "I wasn't aware I was allowed to let you do anything. My Carolyn would have laughed in my face and then run off to the skating rink. I'm not trying to hold you prisoner in this godforsaken house, Carolyn."
"But you're never home."
"Then please feel free to never be at home neither," Michael smiled. "We'll meet at the end of the day and discuss our adventures."
"I hate this house," she breathed, not meeting his eyes, though already she was itching to join her friends.
"We'll get a new one," he promised. "Both of us will look in a few years for a new house."
"All right," she breathed, suddenly exhausted. Her mouth was dry and her head was spinning and Michael seemed to watch her closely, concern etched onto his features.
"Carolyn?" he sighed, his hand finding its way to her back.
"I don't feel well," she admitted as the anger drained from her, replaced by the exhaustion she had felt at her childhood home, and the gnawing uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"No, and you don't look well at all," he murmured, lifting her effortlessly. He carried her carefully up the stairs and then put her gently underneath the blankets before crawling in next to her. His strong arms pulled her up to him and she breathed in deeply, trying to calm her stomach. He rubbed her back until she fell asleep, managing to stay asleep until nearly two thirty when she suddenly jumped out of the warm bed she shared with the man she loved and emptied the contents of her stomach.
On July 18, 1964, Carolyn woke in immense pain to see her husband leaning over her bed, a large smile on his lips. "I'm sorry," she breathed.
"Sorry?" he raised an eyebrow.
"It's not a boy," she told him softly, looking around the room for her baby, her darling little girl she had yet to hold.
"Yes, I know that," Michael laughed, running his hand over her hair. "I never wanted a boy."
"You did!" she gasped.
"Perhaps," he shrugged and then leaned to kiss her. "She's incredible, Carolyn."
"And she's all right? Where is she?"
"In the nursery with the other babies. And the prettiest girl out of the bunch. She looks exactly like you."
She drifted off then and woke again, hours later, this time to the sound of an infant's soft cry and her husband's voice , with a slight panic to it. "Give her to me," Carolyn ordered her husband.
"She's perfectly fine with her daddy," Michael shrugged. "We were just discussing our plans to get her a baby brother. She agrees wholeheartedly we should start working on that as soon as you feel better."
"I'm sure she does," she rolled her eyes, watching her husband hold their tiny daughter. "She doesn't have a name."
"Doesn't she?" he smirked.
"What?"
"I suppose I have an introduction to make," he sat down on the edge of her bed, moving the blanket off the small baby's cheek. "Carolyn, I'd like you to meet Kathleen Amelia Shepherd."
"After my mother?" Carolyn breathed.
"And my grandmother."
"All right," she murmured, resting her finger against the chubby cheek. "Shouldn't you be at the store?"
"Later," Michael breathed, placing the baby in her arms before kissing her softly. She looked up at him and then looked down at her baby, at Kathleen Amelia Shepherd, and realized she no longer felt alone, at all.
