Seven Years Shattered

by signelchan

Whether or not luck and superstition are real, one thing's for certain: a broken mirror is never a good thing. What a shame that the person responsible for it breaking is firmly in the "they aren't real" camp, because those seven years of bad luck are about to change her life. [Modern AU]

11. Friday The Thirteenth

Maribelle was making miracles happen without meaning to, something she'd always known she had the capabilities of but hadn't really done too much of while acknowledging it. She'd always considered getting a child out of an abusive situation to just be part of the job, even though it was oftentimes more miraculous than anything else she'd experienced. To finally see a case that had ran her through the wringer come to a positive conclusion, a months-old baby girl getting to go home with the parents who'd loved her and fought so hard for her, it was easily the biggest miracle she'd had a hand in creating.

But just because she'd made a miracle happen in their lives didn't mean there wasn't any sort of cost to it, and her cost wasn't quite the financial one that it had turned into for everyone else involved. Hers was social, emotional, and physical—she'd neglected her relationships and her well-being in the last few months of the case, spending most of her time focusing on how to finish it rather than how to be a good friend, a good wife, and a good person. After the court costs were taken care of and the family that had fought so hard was reunited (it was actually their first time all together, which brought tears to Maribelle's eyes to see happen), she had to go back and fix everything she'd broken by focusing so hard on the case.

At least, that would have been the appropriate course of action, but she was completely unsure how she'd go about fixing some of the things. By the time the case had wrapped up, she'd been living on the couch in Lissa's house for weeks, the place she knew she'd inevitably end up after walking out of Panne's house in broad daylight, and while her friendships with both women hadn't been damaged in her focus on the case, those might have been the only relationships she'd managed to keep maintaining, and there was exactly one reason why that had happened: children.

It would have been nothing but a lie if she said she didn't choose to go crash at Lissa's house because Owain was there, and she needed the presence of a bubbly little boy in her life when things felt hopeless. And she'd kept in touch with Panne after the first few days of leaving her home, because she wanted to be in the know about everything relating back to her baby, to the point that she went back to that house several times a week just to check on the expectant mother. Those visits were never without awkwardness and the potential for drama, especially when she'd get there and see a familiar work truck parked outside, but she wasn't there to talk to her husband, she was there to talk to her friend.

If there was any way to get around having to even see Vaike, she would have loved to find it, because her neglect of him had gotten to the point that she just didn't want to try fixing anything until she had a way to do so. He was clearly still living at that house and hadn't yet found somewhere else, which meant that he hadn't accepted what she'd wanted them to have in their new home, and that meant that she still wasn't going to get anywhere with him if she spoke to him, so what was even the point of causing herself that headache? It certainly would make visits over to that house less awkward, but Maribelle wasn't one for doing things for the better of everyone, she did things for herself if she wasn't obligated to include others, and she could live with being separated from her husband until he could get everything related back to her sorted out for the both of them.

The only time she actively reached out to him was for his birthday, meeting him in person and wishing him a good day as well as reminding him that she loved him more than anything else. His response to that was nothing more than a thank you and a "love you too", and she felt content in getting that interaction out of the way. They could clearly be civil with one another, the reason they were living in separate houses was because she wanted to be living with a child she could play with, and where he was living there just wasn't one of those yet. Yet was the key word there, as it was increasingly obvious with every visit that the time for there to be one was approaching, but until that baby was born alive and well she wasn't going to really want to go back to living there.

Until there was no reason for her to do that, which happened one day not long after the turn of the year, when she arrived at the house after work to see that the makeshift addition to the family name banner on the wall had been removed. "What's up with that?" she asked, gesturing to the lack of taped-on paper adding their names alongside the actual residents' names. "Did you decide that we weren't worth it anymore?"

"You haven't lived here in a while, so it only stayed up because Vaike was still here, but now that he's found somewhere new to live there's no need for your inclusion anymore." Looking at where Maribelle's hand was pointing and feeling relieved that there wasn't a tacky eyesore on his carefully-selected wall decoration anymore, Lon'qu let his gaze track along her arm until he was looking at her face instead, which had become contorted into a look of confusion. "Did he not let you know that he'd gotten a new home for you both?"

"I must have missed that information, or maybe he didn't bother telling me at all." As much as she wanted to shrug off that news, Maribelle knew that doing so would make it look like she didn't care about whatever it was Vaike was up to, but she wasn't going to lie and say that she did particularly care. "I might have ignored his calls or messages or whatever about it, I don't really spend my time seeking out talking to him."

"That isn't any way to treat him," Lon'qu told her, taking on a scolding-like tone as he spoke. "He cares enough about you despite you pushing him away to move back out on his own, the least you can do is consider his feelings and reach out to him. He was rather proud of the home he picked out, even if you had no say in it, because he made sure to take what you'd said before into consideration."

"I'd believe it if I ever saw it, but I don't think I'll be seeing it any time soon. Living with him means living on his schedule, and right now I'm not exactly keen on early mornings and late nights." That was true, since she'd wrapped up her bigger cases she'd been doing better about sleeping earlier in the evening and waking up only right before she needed to leave for work, which meant fewer nights spent reading or working. "Maybe someday I'll get back to him, but he knows I care about him even if I'm not living with him. We're still married, you know, that's got to mean something."

Pausing for a second to let what she'd said really sink in, Lon'qu gave a quick nod at her words. "If the one who deals with legal matters hasn't taken the step to dissolve a marriage, I suppose there's nothing to be too concerned about. I guess I'm just, I don't know, starting to get into this whole protective mindset over things that I don't need to be worrying with. Must be a consequence of getting ready to be a father."

"Believe me when I say that you don't need to be getting protective about Vaike of all people, he's a grown man who can protect himself. You just worry about protecting your wife and your unborn baby, okay?" Her eyes were looking at the banner on the wall again, having begun to ignore the emptiness that she'd noticed when she'd entered the house. "What are you going to do about that once there's another actual member of your family, if you don't mind me asking? You going to get an updated one?"

"Do we have to worry with that right this moment? What we decide to do will come in the future, right now I don't have the slightest of clues what we're going to do. We're worrying about getting the room set up and making this house as safe as possible for a small child, we don't have time for things like that." There was the usual standoffish voice that Lon'qu spoke with, and when he started walking away from the spot he'd been standing in the whole time, Maribelle recognized the conversation as being over and wasn't going to ask him anything else about what they'd been talking about.

Based on how they'd had that whole talk without any interruption, it seemed like she'd gotten there while Lon'qu was the only person home, and he'd let her inside and talked with her as if she'd belonged all along. Taking a seat in the chair she'd used to sleep in every night, she found herself absentmindedly going through her phone as she waited for the person she was actually there to see to make her presence known; this ended up being a mistake as she stumbled upon the list of blocked calls and messages from her husband that she'd been trying to hide from herself. That was why she hadn't know about the new house, she'd been intentionally keeping anything he said far away from her eyes, the last exchange she'd allowed being a verbal one there at the very house she was currently sitting in. How he'd been so happy to hear her tell him she still loved him, to the point that he'd gotten tongue-tied and could barely form his response, yet she didn't feel comfortable in letting herself get close to him once more.

She knew what would happen if she stopped separating herself from him, if she went back to his side and resumed being his loyal wife through hardship and good times. They wouldn't agree on how to approach certain things she wanted in life that he seemed to be vehemently against, they'd fight over what they were going to do with their private lives and the time spent together, and they'd fall apart because they'd begin to hate each other. The way things were now, they still loved each other even though they were apart, and when the time was right they could get back together as if nothing had ever happened between them.

Or at least, that was how she had intended for things to end up, but she knew better than anyone that sometimes things just didn't work out how anyone wanted them to. But she knew she'd unblock his number someday, and that she'd make an effort to return his calls and get back to where they had been before, it just wasn't time for it yet. When that time was going to be, she wasn't really sure, but there would come a day where she wanted to spend all her time with him again, and maybe by then he'd have come to his senses about how to treat her and give her what else she wanted from him. If he hadn't, then she'd make sure that it was one of the first things he did do for her, if he really wanted her to stick around and for their relationship to last.

"Maribelle, are you going to say hi or what?" Lissa's voice asked, coming out of nowhere and surprising Maribelle to hear. This wasn't her house, this wasn't where she should have been, why was she the one speaking to her? "Jeez, if I'd known you were going to come over here, I would've asked you if you wanted to come out with us after you got off work!"

"I'm sorry, you were out somewhere?" After blinking a couple times to assure herself that yes, Lissa was standing there in the living room of Panne's house, without either person who actually lived there currently in sight, Maribelle put her phone down in her lap and looked at her friend with a confused expression. "That's news to me, where were you at? What were you doing? Would I have loved to be there?"

"All we did was go to the mall and walk around for a little bit, Panne wanted to take Owain shopping because she hadn't ever done that before and he was excited to spend time with someone else for a change." Laughing, Lissa looked back over her shoulder at the still-open front door and raised a hand to her mouth, using it to whistle as loud as she possibly could at whoever was still outside. "That boy, I swear, it might've been a really bad idea to have him go out with just me and her, he's a huge handful and I ended up running all over the building chasing him down just so that she didn't have to."

Maribelle was looking towards the door to see who was going to come inside, but that didn't prevent her from replying right away. "I can see why that would be an issue, you probably should have considered inviting me in that case."

"I didn't know when you'd be off work, and Panne wanted to go as soon as possible, so I guess I'm sorry about that? But you probably should take up your hurt feelings with her, not me, it's not like anyone but the pregnant one gets to call the shots when you're doing something." She was laughing again, almost ready to give a second whistle, when her brown-haired, knee-high son came barreling into the house, grabbing his mom's legs and swinging around on them while he excitedly blabbered about how much fun he was having running around in the front yard.

"He attempted to run out into the street and I had to remind him that a passing car could and would squish him if given the chance." Sounding tired as she spoke, her words coming out in a rather breathy voice, Panne entered the house with her eyes locked straight on Owain, not caring that there was someone there to visit her in the room. "If he were my child I would have scheduled a walkthrough at the hospital to show him what happens to naughty children who get hit by cars, but that's your decision to make, not mine."

"Don't you think that's kind of excessive? I think that'd be like taking a misbehaving kid to the jail to show them real criminals," Lissa said, before realizing that she'd just told that to a woman married to someone who worked in a jail, and she sighed when she figured out that she might have just given Panne an idea. "Please don't actually do that to your poor baby, I don't think it'll have the effect you're looking for."

"It wouldn't be me taking them to the jail, so it isn't my call on that one." Turning her attention up to Lissa, Panne managed to see where Maribelle was sitting in her usual sleeping place and gave her a small wave, although she didn't seem like she was about to address her. "You and I both know, though, that the hospital option is valid for either one of us, and either one of these children."

"Yeah, but…I don't think we really need to take Owain over there, he's probably going to know that place inside and out by the time he's an adult. All those bumps and bruises from falling down all the time are gonna become bigger injuries as he grows and I know it." As she ruffled her son's hair, Lissa saw that Panne was quickly losing interest in her and what they were discussing, and to aid the process she stepped aside and motioned a shoulder towards Maribelle. "Talk to her now, she's here and I didn't even know she would be, so I doubt you knew it either."

Smiling sheepishly at her friend as she walked towards her, Maribelle wanted to explain the reason for her surprise appearance but it seemed that Panne already had a fairly solid idea for it in mind. "Let me guess, you wanted to check up on me and see if you could get to spend any time with the baby, but you were caught off-guard by me not being here?"

"Something close to that, sure," she replied, standing up (and letting her phone fall to the ground, not that she needed it for anything) so that she could meet Panne face-to-face, only for her to have a hand forcibly grabbed and held onto tightly. "Aw, do you need someone to hold your hand for you? I'm sure Owain would do it in a heartbeat if you wanted."

"No, I need you to hold my hand so you don't start trying to touch me once I've told you what news I have to share with you." Her face beginning to light up now that she had Maribelle exactly where she needed her, Panne asked Lissa to go find Lon'qu and bring him into the conversation before she turned her attention back to the confused woman who wasn't entirely sure why her hand was being held still. "I've been trying to come up with a good way to break this news to you, and I suppose that it's about time I just get it over with before someone lets it slip accidentally."

"It's not that the baby's dead, is it?" The thought wasn't one that Maribelle wanted to voice, but given her friend's history with children it was a valid thing to be concerned about. The stern shake of the head she received in return was comforting, but it wasn't enough to make her fully believe that she wasn't being lied to. "Okay, but you're going to have to let me feel to make sure, I'll only accept movement under my hand as an answer."

"And that would be why I'm holding onto you," Panne reminded her, taking Maribelle's other hand into her own the moment she tried to make a move with it. "I would prefer it if you don't touch up on me without my permission, which I am not giving to you right now."

"You getting defensive about this isn't doing anything good in regards to me thinking the baby's dead." She was hoping that her building worry was unfounded and this was just her friend not wanting her to make physical contact with her at the moment, rather than something negative, but the way Panne's grip on her hands was tightening every time she attempted to pull away was making her worry grow faster. "Just let me feel them for myself, it's been ages since I got to do that with someone and I think it's simply an amazing feeling to experience under my palms!"

"Wait until Lon'qu is here, once we tell you what's going on you'll be even more eager to get a feel for yourself." That was a bit more reassuring, but it still wasn't enough to keep Maribelle's mind from focusing solely on all negative possibilities there in that moment, until Lissa (and Owain, still clinging to her legs like she was a playground) came back into the room, Lon'qu following behind her looking completely unamused. "Ah yes, dear husband, wouldn't you say there's something we need to tell Maribelle?"

Without even glancing in her direction to see if she was giving him any physical cues for him to play off of, Lon'qu rolled his eyes and brought his arms across his chest, sighing as he realized he'd been put on the spot. "If it's what I think it is, then yes, but if it's anything but that then I don't know what to tell you. Why are you so certain no one's told her already?"

"I have my ways of knowing she remains unaware," Panne replied, giving a genuine smile at Maribelle as she tried pulling herself away further. "She may be able to guess at this point but she wouldn't have confirmation until—"

"Oh gods, is this you two telling me what the baby is?"

"—she asks that question." It was almost as if that was what Panne had been expecting her to do, and that was when she let go of Maribelle's hands, them immediately attaching themselves to the noticeably round and swollen curve of her stomach, complete with fingers tapping to try and create any kind of reaction. "Please, you couldn't restrain yourself for five seconds while we told you what was going on? This is exactly why I was holding onto you, you're just as bad as the man you married when it comes to being impatient!"

"As the…you already told Vaike whatever it is you're telling me?" Her finger-tapping slowing to a stop, Maribelle looked at the seriousness in Panne's face and wished that she hadn't been so eager to get a crack at feeling her friend's baby moving. "Why would you do that? Why does he deserve to get to know anything about this little one before I do?"

"He was still living here when we were discussing this particular thing, he may have overheard us and gotten involved then. It isn't like he knows the gender of the baby, that's not anything that we're disclosing with anyone right now, so don't think that he's been let in on a secret of that magnitude." Pausing as she watched the light fade from Maribelle's eyes, that being the thing she figured she was going to be told there, Panne chuckled and added, "Don't worry, we specifically wanted to frame this in this way to make you think that's what you were going to be told, only to take that from you."

While she still wasn't happy that she knew her husband knew this before she did, Maribelle wasn't too upset that it wasn't something super groundbreaking that was being shared. "I guess that's a sneaky thing to do, props to you both for considering doing it. But, uh, wouldn't you possibly know what the baby is already? From what I read about the process of assisted conception methods, it seems to be possible that the parents can pick what the embryos that are implanted are beforehand."

"Yes, that's certainly a possibility, but we just want a child to love, we couldn't afford to choose to be particular. And that's why we're staying far away from knowing until after birth, we want to go into this loving our child regardless of what they are." Panne could feel Maribelle's fingers start rapidly tapping again, as she accepted what she was hearing and going along with it. "Of course, this doesn't mean that we don't have a preference, but what if they're not what we prefer? If we don't know, we can't make any judgments beforehand."

"That's such a good way to go about things," Lissa chimed in, sounding rather happy as she spoke. "I mean, I couldn't imagine not knowing until you're holding your baby in your arms, I had to know right away because not knowing would've killed me, but I'm so happy that you guys are committed to this idea!"

"You mean that she's committed to the idea, I'm only along for the ride." Leaning up against the wall, Lon'qu tried to act as casual as he could in the moment, but when his wife looked back at him with a firm smile he cracked and couldn't maintain his composure. "She's only doing this because she knows that she can love the child no matter what, but I will take some getting used to them if they're…not what I'm hoping for."

Maribelle was confused for a moment, trying to make sense of how keeping the baby's gender a surprise from both parents would be a positive if that was how Lon'qu was going to be approaching the situation, but Panne quickly made it clear how it was going to work. "If we both get what we want, we'll both be happy, but if he doesn't get what he wants then he'll have a second to decide if it's worth staying around or not to raise a daughter when he's not exactly fond of ladies in general."

"The answer will be yes, I can assure you of that, but let's hope that we don't have to face that possibility." Lon'qu seemed to be so composed while having this discussion, and it was strange that they'd even gotten to this point if there was the chance of him walking out just because the child could possibly be female. Maribelle wanted to ask about it, but she didn't want to seem rude, yet she knew she was the only person there who realistically could ask anything on the matter—Lissa clearly knew more than she did already, and there was no doubt that he and Panne had talked about this very concern many times in all of their years trying to have a child.

But something was stopping her from asking about it, that being her need to act at least somewhat decent to her friends when in their house. She wasn't going to be rude and press an issue that wasn't actively a problem, not when it seemed there was already a fairly solid plan to handle it in place. Even still, it was clear that she had something on her mind, and Panne could tell it just looking at her. "You're curious about something here, aren't you?" she asked, trying not to sound like she thought there was an issue or anything of the sort. "Please, by all means, feel free to voice what you're thinking about, chances are we have some kind of an answer for you."

"I, uh, don't know how I want to word what I want to ask," Maribelle replied, knowing that it might have been fairly obvious that she was lying through her teeth. She couldn't throw Lon'qu under the bus like that, not when she didn't know what else had been said on the matter where she wasn't listening, and the last thing she wanted was to anger someone and get herself removed from the scene. Thinking quickly about what to do, she came up with the first coherent idea she could and said it, just to get Panne off her back about her having something to say: "What are you going to do about the child's name, if you don't know what they're going to be? Are you going to wait on that or what?"

"If this is about that joke I made one time, please don't think I was being serious when I suggested that. I only said it to irritate a certain someone, and when we were discussing this with him I had to promise that what I said that night was never actually an option." Closing her eyes and giving a small laugh as she thought back to that conversation in question, Panne grabbed one of her long braids and began wrapping it around her hand as she continued to explain herself. "However, there's no need to worry about names, we've discussed those as well and although we won't know for certain which one we're using until the time comes, we have several options to work with."

"All of which are names from her family, might I add," Lon'qu said, to which Panne nodded in agreement. "There isn't a single one coming from any source but someone that she was related to, just to stop any further suspicion about what they might be. We are not going to get super creative with this."

That left an opening for Maribelle to ask what the names might be, if they weren't the one she'd ever hear get thrown around, but without even looking at her to see that she was going to say something Panne was there to shoot her down. "We are not going tell you any of the possible names, just in case you ended up getting attached to one that we didn't end up choosing. We're doing this for our own sanity, keeping all of this information private, and maybe someday you'll understand why that is."

"That would require her wanting a child of her own, and having someone willing to give her one, and while I think half of that's possible I kinda doubt the other part." The way Lissa sounded so sure of the two parts of the problem made Maribelle realize how the chosen separation between herself and her husband was coming across to the person she was living with, and she decided right then that explaining what was going on to Lissa to get her in the know was a top priority once they were back at her house. But they ended up spending more time with Panne and Lon'qu than expected, and it was already past everyone's bedtime by the time they left, meaning a very late dinner and no time for conversation was there for them that night.

And of course, by the next morning Maribelle had no interest in talking about the matter anymore, her restless night of sleep and her having to wake up for another day of work making her not want to touch that topic unless absolutely necessary. Dealing with the child clients at work was enough to get her mind off of everything related back to her husband, to the point that when she got off work she couldn't be bothered to care about him and was fine with returning to the place where she was sleeping on a couch just to stay away from him. What good had he been for her when she was working on stressful cases in the past? None at all, that was how she felt, and it was fine that she wasn't living with him while she was deep in abuse cases and trying to arrange new living arrangements for children who deserved better than what they had.

Her typical go-to place, the shelter that Miriel and Libra ran, wasn't typically an option anymore after they'd taken in that abandoned child from nearly a year beforehand. On occasion they had room for another, older child to come stay with them until a new home was procured, but anyone younger than the age of two was difficult to place there; they'd taken one look at that baby and decided that they were going to raise him permanently, give him the love and attention that they felt he deserved after being abandoned, and it wasn't right for Maribelle to expect them to take away time from their adopted son to help her with other young children in need. There were other options in town, but none of them were as good as sending the children somewhere that they would be genuinely cared for while waiting for new homes, but no matter how bad she felt about kids being shuffled into the foster system Maribelle knew that it was so that someone she knew could work on being the best mother she could possibly be.

Like every year, right after the holidays were over and lives were returning to normal there was an uptick in cases to handle, kids going back to school and being able to voice their home-life issues with teachers and authorities, which meant that Maribelle was busier than she typically was, sifting through cases to know which ones she needed to be part of and which ones would be settled outside of court. Children were always so insistent that their parents were being abusive just because they didn't get them the proper gifts, or because they didn't let them spend their break from school doing something they wanted to, and it was part of her job to tear apart the legitimate concerns from those kids who felt they weren't being spoiled enough.

By the time the rush had finally died down and she was back to her normal workflow, it was the middle of February and she realized she'd been so busy with all the extra work that she hadn't even noticed that Valentine's Day had been a few days before. To try and make up for her ignorance, she unblocked her husband's number and tried calling him, only to get the message that his phone was no longer in service. With that line of contact unavailable, she had to go through a chain of friends and acquaintances to get the message over to him that she still loved him and that she wished they could've spent the romantic holiday together, and despite everyone saying they passed the word on she never got anything back in return.

She didn't know where he lived now, no one had even given her the address for the new house, and she couldn't call him to ask him where he was at any time. Showing up unannounced at the main office of his job wasn't appropriate under any condition whatsoever, and she wasn't going to harass someone to get any news about him (although that was actually Lissa's suggestion, and she even threw out names of people who'd be good to use for that idea). On the other hand, he knew where she was living and could have easily made some attempt to contact her in a way that wasn't through her phone, since that wasn't going to work for him if he no longer had a phone of his own.

"I'm at a loss as to what I should be doing here," she admitted one morning before work, looking at herself in the mirror in Lissa's bathroom, with her friend standing right next to her with her hands flying through her hair to clip in her extensions as fast as possible. "I've given him all the time in the world to reach back out to me, to rebuild what we have and restart our lives together, but it seems that he doesn't have any interest in doing so. Am I in the wrong for feeling hurt by him not allowing for me to get through to him?"

"I wouldn't say you're in the wrong, but you definitely weren't in the right when you blocked him and cut him off completely for so long. Knowing him, he probably thinks you hate him and that he shouldn't waste his time trying to talk to you again!" Snorting as she laughed at what she'd said, Lissa followed up her statement by suggesting once more that Maribelle go pressure one of their friends into being a direct line of contact between them, something she was tempted to do but knew better than to entertain.

While they were still in there, getting Maribelle's hair properly done for the day, the bathroom door came open, a small hand wedging its way through the crack before the door was pushed open fully. "Mama, Ma'belle, time for go!" Owain's proud little voice called out, him stomping his feet as he came up behind the women and grabbed them both, making his mother nearly mess up in what she was doing as Maribelle turned her head to see who was touching her legs. "Time for go now!"

"Where're we going, Owain? Must be somewhere important if you're awake and bossing us around to go somewhere." Working hard to finish up with Maribelle's hair, Lissa couldn't exactly look down to see what her son wanted from them, but she figured that he was just having harmless fun. It took a moment for something about the situation to dawn on her, and it was then that she pulled her hands out from the hair and grabbed her phone off the counter, checking the time on it. "Wait, why are you awake at seven in the morning? Back off to bed with you, mister!"

"I happened to wake him up when I was getting ready to leave for myself, and I've been trying to get him to sleep for over an hour now." Poking his head in and only looking at Lissa because he wasn't solid on how fully clothed the other woman present was, Frederick reached out to try and grab Owain, but the moment the boy realized his father was present he nestled himself closer into the two pairs of legs he was with. "If you're going to ask why he thinks we're going somewhere, I made the mistake of telling him it was time for me to leave and he wants to go as well."

"Time for go," the boy repeated, his voice muffled as he spoke directly into the bottom of the skirt Maribelle was wearing. She was glad it was a darker color and that any drool or spit he managed to get on it wouldn't be visible, but at the same time she wished it was acceptable to tell the kid to get off of her legs and hang around solely on his mother's.

Lissa had set her phone back down and had resumed work on Maribelle's hair, now in the process of making sure the extensions fit in nicely with her natural hair, but just because she was mentally focused on her beauty task didn't mean she wasn't aware of what was going on. "That sounds like you made a mistake and want to push it on me to fix, and I'm not sure I'm okay with that. Why can't you be late to work for once and get him back to sleep, so that I'm not making Maribelle late by not being able to finish her hair?"

"Is her hair really more important than being punctual to a job?" Frederick asked in reply, sounding slightly irritated that things had come to that point. "I understand that her appearance is a large part of who she is, and I respect it, but I could lose my position if I show up late more than once a quarter. Even with using Owain as an excuse, I doubt I could get away with tardiness today after having already been late once this week."

"Are you going to blame me for you choosing to talk on the phone with my brother for half an hour before clocking in, when you weren't even talking about me? Blame him, and don't punish me for what you did!" Even though she was getting heated, it was clear that Lissa didn't mind having to step in and fix what Frederick had done wrong too much. "I guess I can get Owain back to sleep if you getting to work on time matters so much to you, just don't wake him up so early again next time!"

"Would have been easier if you two hadn't already been in here getting her ready when I needed to ready myself. How about next time you both consider that there are others in the house who need to get themselves to work in the mornings?" After he fully stepped inside and kissed his wife and son both goodbye, and wished Maribelle a happy day at work, he left the room and they assumed he was on his way to work, which meant that they were free to finish up in there without any further distractions from anyone aside from the little boy still attached to their legs, talking away in sentence fragments only he could understand.

That day wasn't the eventful one, but the morning had been spent getting ready because the following day was when it was going to be necessary. Maribelle loved looking her best whenever she could, and she'd only recently started to feel comfortable and regain her confidence in how she looked so making a big deal of her hair to get it looking like it had when she was younger felt important to her. Even living on couches and chairs with very few of her belongings hadn't been able to completely destroy her quest for feeling good in her skin, and thanks to Lissa being willing to help her try new things every now and then she could say that she felt even better about herself than she had before she'd lost everything she owned.

But that wasn't why they'd woken up early that day to do her hair, it was merely an added bonus to the whole thing. The following day happened to be Lissa's birthday, and they had made plans to do like they had when they were younger and go out somewhere fancy, just the two of them; she didn't want to look like a disaster by being expected to place her new clip-in extensions in her hair for the first time on her own, but she also didn't want to burden Lissa with putting them in for her on her birthday. That meant that she got to go to work two days in a row looking much more put-together than she had in a long time, earning compliments and questions of who she was working to impress. "Oh, not impressing anyone, just going to be going out with my best friend," she repeatedly answered, dodging whenever someone would follow up with questions about how her husband was taking her renewed care for her appearance.

If he could see her, he'd probably have been all over it and might have tried taking her to bed with him, but that required his presence and their paths crossing for the first time since she'd moved out of Lon'qu and Panne's house back before the holiday season had even started. The questions should have been easily brushed off, she should have been able to move past and ignore them entirely, but the idea of Vaike seeing her and having any kind of reaction lingered in her mind long after the last person brought him up. Because of that, she spent most of the dinner she and Lissa had talking about him, asking how she thought he'd take her new brand of ringlets she was wearing, how much he'd like the way she carried herself now that she was more confident in who she was.

"I know the best way to get these answers," Lissa told her, as they sat at a candlelit table waiting for their food to be delivered to them, "but you've told me no over and over again about it. We've just got to get someone we know still talks to him to go talk to him for you, easy as that!"

"And then what? They come back and tell me he's not interested in continuing conversation with me? That only leads to heartache and I'm fairly certain that he's been trying to avoid that for a long while." Sighing, Maribelle knew that there wasn't much that she could do in her current position aside from let him disappear from her life completely or do as Lissa was suggesting, but the idea of sending someone to speak with him on her behalf was completely insane to her. "I need to talk to him on my own, and I feel that asking someone who knows where he lives may be the only option I have."

"If you want to talk to him yourself, that totally works too! Just make sure that someone's there with you when you go, in case things get ugly, I'd hate for him to fight you and you not have anyone there to back you up." Reaching a hand across the table to grab Maribelle's and give it a tight squeeze, Lissa grinned at her friend and waited until she got a smile back in return. "Now can we please talk about something else, I don't want to spend my whole birthday dinner talking about boy problems, we're not high schoolers anymore!"

"That implies that we talked about this sort of thing when we'd get together while in school, but I suppose I see your point." Maribelle could feel her fingers starting to go numb while in Lissa's grasp, but she was too polite to cause a scene about the force she was using there. "I just don't know what else there is for us to talk about, unless we wanted to focus on you for a change, rather than me."

The gasp that came from Lissa's mouth sounded like she'd just been told she was receiving a million dollars out of thin air, not that she could talk about herself. "I would be honored to get to have things be about me on my birthday," she said, letting go of Maribelle's hand (and ignoring as her friend had to shake it out to try and restore feeling in it). "You're always talk-talk-talking about yourself and what's going on with you that you never even let me say a word about what's going on with me! Now where to start, hm…"

By the time their food had come to the table, Lissa had ran through several topics at breakneck speed and it didn't seem like she'd even come close to exhausting everything she could possibly talk about, which was fine by Maribelle as giving little nods and noises of affirmation while eating was a lot easier than holding a full conversation. She could listen to her best friend talking about her adventures out at parks and in public places with her son all night if she needed to, and honestly it was a lovely change of pace to not have to be active in what was being discussed.

That did come to an abrupt end when Lissa realized that she was singlehandedly dominating their discussion, doing what she'd just chided her friend for doing all the time, and she left off on a point that Maribelle was going to have to reply to. "I know that we came out and did this just the two of us because this was our thing, going to fancy restaurants looking like royalty and dining like queens, but I kinda wish we had someone else here with us. I didn't invite her because I didn't think she'd be interested in coming, but I think we'd be having so much more fun if Panne was here, don't you think so too?"

"I'm not so sure, she never seems to be one for social gatherings like this." It was an honest response, but Maribelle was sure that it was something that Lissa had considered before choosing not to invite her. That was also the case with the other thought that crossed her mind, but that second thought felt more important than the one she'd already shared. "Plus, I don't exactly think she would want to come out with us now anyway. Have you tried getting her to go anywhere with you lately? I invited her to go get her nails done the other day, just to spoil her a bit, and she told me she'd rather not leave the house unless necessary."

"Oh yeah, I might've been the last person to get her to leave for something fun, actually." Seeing that Maribelle looked suspicious of what she'd just said, Lissa had to clarify what she meant by that. "I told her that she needed to do one last sweep of the stores to see if there was anything she needed before the baby gets here, since she refused to let us throw her a baby shower to get it all taken care of, and so we went out and did that together. The only time I know she's gone somewhere since then was when she went to make sure the birthing room is still booked for her when she needs it, and I bet she's had appointments she's gone to as well, but since I know she's not wanting to leave I wasn't gonna bother her about coming out with us for my birthday."

"I can't believe you just referred to shopping for essentials as 'fun', but I suppose impending parenthood does have its own qualities that I wouldn't understand." Hoping she didn't sound bitter or jealous with that statement, Maribelle looked around the dining room to make sure their server wasn't coming near to check on them, just to lean across the table and whisper as loudly as she could, "I hope she doesn't get upset with either of us when she finds out we came here without her, just because she didn't get invited."

Lissa pursed her lips together in serious thought as Maribelle retreated back properly in her chair, before shrugging. "I don't think she'll get upset that we came without her, she might be sad we didn't go spend tonight sitting at her house helping her fold all those clothes they've stockpiled, but I don't think her being upset will happen."

That was a true point that she'd just made, and Maribelle was going to speak in agreement to it but she found part of it that felt impossible to her. "Wait, did you say clothes? How in Naga's name do they have enough clothes for the child when they don't even know what they are? And not only that, but she's folding them now? She's been staying at home for over a month now, she's had all the time in the world to get this done!"

"They didn't care what color anything was as long as it was appropriate for a boy or a girl, so we might have given them a bunch of Owain's old stuff on top of everything they bought brand new. Plus I know a bunch of the ladies at the hospital shared things as well, me and Cordy talked for a long time about how she was saving up all of Severa's clothes to give to someone who needed them, so I think they're set no matter what." Lissa's eyes quickly darted down to her plate in front of her, which had barely been picked from, and she laughed as she looked back up towards Maribelle, who was reaching for the bottle of free wine in the middle of the table that she'd been restraining herself from opening. "Now we just have to hope they save up everything they were given, for whoever we know next who has a baby!"

"Don't look at me like that, it's not going to be me." To drive her point home, as if talking about how she was estranged from her husband hadn't been reason enough, she popped the cork out of the bottle and poured herself a glass, before offering to do the same for Lissa, who refused. "Come on, it's your birthday and you know that you want to get a little tipsy with me, just drink some."

"I'm driving us home, I can't. Besides I never liked the wine this place served for free, you're the one who enjoys it, you drink as much as you want." Even when Maribelle tried pouring the wine into her glass anyway, Lissa tried putting a stop to it, but all that ended up happening was wine being spilled on the tablecloth and both glasses being filled to the top. "You know you're going to have to drink that for me, don't you? Frederick will have my head if he finds out I drank anything and then drove after!"

Without an ounce of regret, Maribelle scooted her glass right to the edge of the table so she could sip from it, until it was depleted enough for her to be able to lift it without spilling. "I don't see any issues with calling him to ask him to drive us back, he'd prefer us being safe and responsible over dead any night, wouldn't he?"

"Yeah, but him having to come get us means him having to get Owain in the car and that's a nightmare for anyone who isn't me to do. I'm not drinking and that's the end of that, now drink what you've poured and don't try to give me more!" Her laughter at the end of her assertion showed that she wasn't being too serious about what she was saying, even though her refusal of the wine was genuine. As they continued sitting there, she began to properly eat what she'd ordered, while Maribelle worked through the wine she'd decided she was going to drink, ending up finishing off both glasses at about the same time Lissa was finished eating. From there they continued talking, one quite obviously more coherently than the other, and by the time the check had been paid and the table cleared they'd exhausted all topics of conversation minus one they'd already approached before.

Even though she didn't want to have to go home and return to normal life, Lissa didn't exactly want to get Maribelle drunkenly started on talking about her husband and their complicated relationship. She'd been trying to come up with good ways for them to fix it—mostly so Maribelle wouldn't keep sleeping in her living room with books scattered all around her—but everything she'd suggested had been shot down, and her current suggestion of forcing contact wasn't being accepted either. There was the chance that drunk Maribelle would listen to that and go through with it, but it wasn't worth the risk of starting her on a tirade about how much she hated being married and hated being attached to someone and that she was happier being on her own.

Or, as ended up happening on the ride home, she would start crying about how much she loved her husband and how she wished she could just talk to him and tell him that she loved him, so that they could get back together and have their lives perfectly in order. "I just want him to tell me where he lives so I can sleep with him again like we used to," she said, words garbled but her thought shining through clearly. "I want him to remember he loves me too, and let me into his bed, and sleep with me so that we can have all the cute babies we could ever want."

"Gods, Maribelle, you drank half the bottle of wine and you're this drunk? What's happened to you, you used to take down a whole bottle and just be a little wobbly." Smiling as she let her friend do her own thing in the passenger's seat of the car, Lissa hadn't intended on getting more involved than that until Maribelle reached over and grabbed her arm, shaking it intensely. "Ouch, what do you want? Can't you use your adult words to ask, instead of digging your nails into me?"

"I just started thinking about babies, that's all." Even though she'd just been scolded about the grabbing thing, Maribelle didn't bother letting her grip loosen on Lissa's arm, even as she started rambling on. "I've really wanted a baby for a long time now, I told you about wanting one, I think, but I never told you that I almost had one once. Or twice. Was it twice? I think it was twice."

"Sure it was, now please let go of me before you scratch me and Frederick thinks Owain did it. Do you really want him getting in trouble because you wanted to be clingy and tore me up?" To try and deter Maribelle from continuing, Lissa started shaking her arm, but all that caused was for her to dig her nails in deeper. "Okay, fine, you're not going to let go at all, that's cool. You're drunk and I'm not going to listen to you tell me stories that might not be true, just for you to forget you told me anything."

If that was supposed to make her want to stop, it did the exact opposite, and Maribelle would have started climbing out of her seat and into her friend's if they weren't in a moving vehicle. "No, I'm serious, I was going to have a baby once or twice, I'm pretty sure twice, and everything went wrong fast. I didn't want anyone to know except the people who were there for any of it. I think we might've been on a break when this happened? Maybe? No, wait, you called me after the second time, I could've told you about that one."

"Maribelle, please, I don't like that you're making up these stories. This is a happy day, it's my birthday, I don't need you telling me sad things to ruin the night." Even with her being honest like that, it wasn't going to stop Maribelle from droning on and on about how she'd lost two children, even if the details about everything weren't coming to her clearly. The rambling lasted the whole time it took for them to get from the restaurant's parking lot back to the house, and by the time they were walking towards the front door Lissa had heard enough of what Maribelle was trying to tell her. With tears in her eyes from being overwhelmed by how much pain and loss her friend was claiming she'd experienced, she grabbed her into a hug while standing outside the house, burying her face into Maribelle's neck. "I don't know if you're telling the truth or not, but I can't stand hearing about mommies who lost their babies! It makes me feel really lucky to have never had that happen to me!"

"Yeah, yeah, you and your perfect little son," Maribelle said, sounding unhappy to be being hugged, but also just incoherent enough that it was clear her unhappiness was due to not being the one controlling the conversation anymore. "I'm glad that Panne never talks to me like she pities me, she's lost so many more than—"

"You think I'm pitying you? That's not it at all! Ugh, but I don't know how I can prove this to you without, like, going inside and getting something but I'm not pitying you one bit, I'm just saying that I'm lucky to not have lost a baby yet!" Pushing Maribelle out of the hug so she could grab her shoulders and stare her straight in the face, Lissa had tears trickling out of the corners of her eyes as she tried to hold eye contact with her friend. "Your day will come sometime soon, I can feel it, and I mean really soon. Maybe after we get you talking to Vaike again some kind of magic will happen and you will…you'll get your happy ending!"
Blinking slowly as she tried processing why Lissa was crying right at the moment, Maribelle realized that she'd stopped paying attention somewhere in the middle of what had just been said. "Did you tell me I'm going to see my husband again, after he cut me off and wanted nothing to do with me?"

"That's the part of that you caught on to? Please, I was really hoping you would, I don't know, notice that I said something particular and call me out on it, but you're so drunk I don't think you know what's going on at all." Sniffling after speaking, Lissa nodded towards the front door to the house. "Come on, let's go inside and get you to bed, we can just keep talking about this in the morning if you remember any of it."

The plan hinged entirely on Maribelle remembering a word of what she'd said that night, and that idea was completely shot when she woke up in the morning with a massive headache and only vague memories of everything that had happened in the time after opening the wine bottle. But just because she wasn't fully aware of what she'd said didn't mean that Lissa didn't remember, and before the end of the day she was approached for elaboration about what she had said. Tears were shed once more, but best friends finally had erased all time of non-communication that had cropped up between them in the past and were both fully aware of everything that had happened to the other in the last nearly seven years of their lives.

Those tears were sad when it came to what Maribelle had needed to say, and much happier when it came to Lissa's side of events, and they ended up running the whole spectrum of emotions by the time they were done catching each other up.

---

One of the things they kept going back to was Lissa's idea of using force and a middleman to get Maribelle talking to her husband once more, and after deciding on who would be easiest to rope into helping her out the ladies then came up with a way to convince them to assist. It meant showing up at the front door of Lon'qu and Panne's house without any kind of forewarning, coming at a time that they knew he'd be around so that they could talk to him (and her as well, but as she was at the point where she could go into labor at any time they didn't want her to get too worked up about what they were planning). True to their assumptions he was the one to open the front door after they'd knocked, looking between them with a raised eyebrow before stepping aside and letting them in.

"I assume you've been called over because Panne requested company," he said, not giving them a second glance once they were inside the house. "She's been miserable for most of the day, complaining about every little muscle movement that she's felt. I suppose I cannot say anything rude about her, as I don't know what she's going through, but she's become overdramatic about everything and I'm tired of hearing it."

"That sounds like it's getting close to time for her to get checked in," Lissa remarked, giving Maribelle a side-eye as she tried to figure out how to say what they were really there for. "Maybe I can check on her to make sure being here's still a good idea, while Maribelle talks to you about what we really came over for."

As she walked past him without even asking where his wife was, Lon'qu let his eyes follow her until she was out of sight, then he was back to ignoring Maribelle's physical presence. "You both aren't here to speak with Panne? How odd, that's usually why you come over at this house. Then again, when you've done that in the past it has been because she'd predictably be at work until now."

"I'm really sorry, but no, I'm not here because of Panne at all, even though I'll be staying because of her once I'm done with you. I need a favor from you, one that can be done easily and quickly depending on how you want to go about it." Every word she was saying felt heavy, as if she was trying to spit out something that really did not want to budge. "I promise it's not illegal, and it's definitely not impossible, and it's something that you can do that I just…can't, actually."

"How interesting and unexpected," he said, going from ignoring that she was there to watching her, due to how hesitant she seemed to be to properly approach her topic. "On with it, I suppose. There's nothing else for me to do right now, aside from accompany Lissa with what she's doing."

Since his mind was clearly elsewhere as they were speaking, Maribelle knew she had one shot to get this through to him and she needed to make it count, but as she opened her mouth to make her simple request she mentally talked herself out of it. "N-never mind, it isn't nearly as important as making sure Panne's okay, I don't know why I would consider saying this now, of all times."

"If it's so important to you that you came over just to ask about it, you'll come back to it at some point. Don't forget whatever it is, I was willing to hear it now and I may be willing to hear it later." Lon'qu continued watching her, seeing how she had tensed up in those last moments before bailing from her attempt and how she was slowly returning back to her usual posture. "Now are you going to come see the woman of the house or are you going to hang around here until your friend is ready to leave?"

He was starting to shuffle towards the hallway, and Maribelle didn't want to hold him up but she also didn't want to be in too close of quarters with him while what she'd wanted to ask him still weighed heavily on her mind. "I guess I'll come with you, do you think she'll be okay with all three of us in the room, though? If she's so bent on complaining about everything, won't she just complain when the two of us walk in with Lissa already there?"

"That is a risk I'm willing to take right now, as much as she's begun to get on my nerves today. I cannot hold anything she says against her right now, not when she…" He fell silent as he stopped shuffling and began properly walking towards the bedroom, Maribelle looking around in confusion at what had made him stop talking and get to moving before she followed him down the hall. The bedroom had been rearranged at some point, so that the bed wasn't in the middle of everything to make room for all of the baby-related items they'd acquired, but the change in décor wasn't what caught Maribelle's eye when she walked in.

Instead it was how, in the seconds between Lon'qu coming into the room and her making it there herself, he had gotten right onto the floor to Panne's side, as she was laying on top of a large exercise ball, her face contorted in pain. "I think I get why she's been complaining all day," Lissa remarked, from where she was sitting on the edge of the bed with her legs dangling down. "She's totally almost ready to pop, I just don't get how she hasn't demanded she be taken elsewhere yet."

"That would be because I'm fully aware that if we go, we'll be sent back home until we're at a closer point. I've done my research, I've worked with enough new mothers and their sickly children, I've heard all the stories I possibly can at this point." Every few words were followed by a pause as Panne bit down on her tongue, trying to keep herself calm given the circumstances. "When it is time to leave I will know it, but until then I'll keep with what I'm currently doing."

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Lissa told her in a sing-song voice, which had everyone in the room looking at her for her seemingly unserious behavior in the moment. "I mean, haven't you heard of the moms who wait too long and end up having their babies in cars and at restaurants and while shopping? Do you really want to give birth here in your bedroom, because you didn't want to leave until it was too late?"

"There is absolutely no chance of this child coming out naturally, so your point is invalid." Immediately going back to having her eyes closed to try and block out some of what was bothering her, Panne heard the loud "what?" that Lissa gave in response to her. "You weren't aware of that fact, were you? They're not positioned properly, haven't been at any point, and unless a miracle has happened there's no way that's changed. Hence why I can say I know when it's time to leave, because it is ultimately my call on when they are to be born."

In surprise at what she'd just heard, Lissa got off of the bed and dropped to her knees at Panne's side, locking eyes with Lon'qu on the other side. "I still don't think that's a good idea, but I don't think me saying that's going to be enough to convince you of that, is it?" she asked, immediately mouthing something afterwards that was meant to be seen by the person she was staring down and no one else.

"Maybe you should leave her alone about this, she's the mother here," Maribelle said, a feeling of not wanting to be present for what was happening starting to fill her heart. As much as she loved these people that were there, the whole idea of them arguing about what the expectant mother should be doing in regards to her own child was rubbing her the wrong way. "I mean, did you have someone telling you that you should've been doing something differently before you had Owain?"

"Yeah, actually, Sumia was there coaching me through a lot of everything because she'd been through it before, twice!" Holding up two fingers as if they proved her point, Lissa didn't even bat an eyelash in Maribelle's direction, instead taking the time to mouth something else towards Lon'qu, who was starting to go pale at whatever she was telling him. "We need to think about this in terms of what's best for everyone, mother, baby, and all of the rest of us!"

"I've gone this long without having to deal with…certain pieces of this puzzle, I would prefer to keep things that way," Lon'qu finally said in regards to Lissa's mouthed words, rising back to his feet and thrusting a hand down towards Panne to try and get her to get to her feet as well. "Come on, we're leaving and getting you into proper care so I don't have to potentially deal with anything that might happen if we stay here too long."

"The only way you're getting me to leave is if there's an actual reason for it, and as I'm just uncomfortable because of how the child's currently positioned, there is zero reason at all to leave." To drive her point home, Panne rolled further back onto the ball, dodging the hand that was being held in front of her without ever seeing it there. "Why don't the three of you let me take control of this situation and call the shots, rather than you try to force me into what you think is best?"

When Lon'qu started to reply in the same forceful tone that they needed to go before he had to deal with anything, Maribelle decided that she'd heard enough of what was going on and left the room, going back out to the living room before turning into the kitchen. If she was going to be there for a while, and she didn't know how long it'd be since she and Lissa rode over together, she could at least try and be a little helpful and do some kind of meal preparation or something for her friends. But she found the kitchen to be mostly empty, with only frozen meals to be found, and there weren't any little housekeeping duties that seemed to need to be taken care of. For the first time in a long time, she'd actually felt like keeping house, and she was being denied the chance without anyone telling her anything.

She still wanted to do something helpful but her options were rather limited given where she was, so instead of trying to find something else to do she hopped up onto the countertop and sat there as if she belonged, looking around at the completely spotless kitchen she was in. If this was her old house, there'd have been at least one bottle of wine or something for her to tap into while she waited around, but she was in the house of people strongly against alcohol so it was no surprise she didn't see anything of the sort. There weren't any dishes in sight, and all the cabinets were closed tightly but she knew that everything inside of them was perfectly in place. "It's been so long since I had my own house that I kind of honestly miss having my own kitchen," she remarked, thinking about some of the fun times she'd had in her kitchen before she'd lost it.

That had happened almost a year ago, she realized, and so much in her life and the lives of the people around her had changed since then. Yet even after all those changes, all she wanted to do right then was clean someone's kitchen—which was completely unlike her, she'd never grown fond of being a housewife and she was proud of that. "Why are you on the counter?" Lon'qu asked, catching Maribelle by surprise as she hadn't heard him enter, but when he opened the fridge and got a chilled bottle of water out she figured he'd come in to get a drink and collect himself. "Last I recall, no one gave you permission to do that."

"Sorry, I guess I just started thinking and needed a higher place to do it." She climbed down and bowed her head in apology, while he shook it all off and started to head back to the bedroom with his water in hand. "Why'd you come get that, why didn't you just yell for me to get it for you? I'm sure you knew I hadn't left, I could've done it."

"Perhaps I wanted to take a moment to step away from what I've been dealing with all day? Especially after what Lissa had the nerve to tell me, I needed a bit of a breather." It was then that Maribelle noticed he was still looking pale, almost as if something had shaken him to his core. "But now I'll be fine and I can resume what I was doing."

"Can you really though?" The answer she was given was him walking off, leaving her in the kitchen alone once more. "Yeah, something tells me you're going to be back out here soon enough if something Lissa said is enough to make you get all squeamish. Do you think this whole process is clean and easy?"

She wasn't given an answer, and she hadn't expected to get one, but as an act of rebellion against what had just happened she jumped back up onto the counter, this time not to look around but rather to browse through her phone. Without thinking about what it was she was doing, she ended up in her photos, scrolling through all sorts of different memories that she'd saved over the past few years, almost all of which were selfies that she'd taken with various people in the background. While she did linger on some longer than others, all of the ones she went past without dwelling on had one person in common in the image, and she couldn't stomach seeing his face right then. She loved her husband, she really did, but getting lost in looking at him while she couldn't bring herself to get someone to help her talk to him wasn't going to benefit her one bit.

Somehow she'd moved from pictures to videos, and from there she went to looking through all of the music she'd collected in the time since she'd gotten that phone, and it was while she was considering starting to play songs on shuffle that Lon'qu came back into the kitchen, not even displeased that she'd gotten back onto the counter. As she was getting back down he was talking to her as if she hadn't been disobeying what he'd already told her: "Maribelle, would you be interested in assisting with something, right now? It's an urgent matter, if you need any further prompting."

"You sound pretty shaken, I suppose I could help out." She was hopeful his next words wouldn't be along the lines of telling her not to get on the counter again, but she wasn't expecting him to not reply to her at all, instead turning to leave the kitchen once more with speed in his step. Without any solid idea what he was going on about, she felt obligated to follow him, and found that they were going right back down towards the bedroom. It hadn't been that long since she'd initially left to go chill by herself in the kitchen, so she didn't think too much about what she might be being led in to see, but when she heard Lissa begging for cooperation in the sternest voice she could muster, Maribelle knew that something major had happened since she'd left.

The exercise ball that Panne had been laying on was nowhere in sight, the woman now laying on her back on the floor with no intentions of moving anywhere, despite Lissa standing over her trying to get her up. "I was thinking we could all work together to bring her to her feet and get her out of here," Lon'qu explained, acknowledging that Maribelle had followed him back into the bedroom. "With everything I hear either one of them say I grow more wary of us still being here, yet Panne refuses to leave."

"That's because there is no reason for me to go anywhere yet," she replied, not so much as cracking an eye open to see where the person she was talking to was standing. "You have to trust in me and my understanding of my body, I know that you are all jumping to major conclusions but I see or feel no reason to leave."

"You're missing the entire point of why he's worried about this!" Her hands gripping the sides of her head as she stared down at the woman she was standing over, legs straddling her sides, Lissa glanced towards Lon'qu for a second before going right back to staring at Panne's face. "He doesn't want to have your blood on his hands if something goes wrong, which obviously it's going to if you're so certain that baby's not turned around right!"

Once again, Maribelle wanted to remind them that they should be listening to what Panne was saying, because she was the one who knew the situation best, but she could feel the pure panic that had taken hold in the other two and she was aware that they wouldn't be calm until something happened. "Hold on now, I'm not an expert on babies and I'll never pretend to be one, but isn't a woman supposed to wait for her water to break before she heads to wherever she's planning on giving birth? Or wait for contractions to start?"

"Well, yeah, you don't want to go too early, but obviously we don't want her to endanger her life or her baby's life by staying here!" For a moment, Lissa sounded surprised that Maribelle had been the one to throw out those two situations, but she let that surprise fade from her mind as she kept talking. "Besides, I happen to know for a fact that at least one of those two things has happened, or it's about to happen, Panne won't say either way."

"If she hasn't said, how do you—"

"Maribelle, it would do you better to not question that too much." Cutting her off without even giving her a chance to rush finishing her statement, Lon'qu gestured towards where his wife was laying on the floor with a pointed finger, specifically at her lower half. "You work on holding her legs down until we have her seated, then all three of us can work together to get her standing. We aren't staying here a minute longer."

Although she was curious about what had happened in her absence that made Lissa so sure of what she'd said, that also had Lon'qu acting more worried than before, Maribelle wasn't going to press the issue and hold up any further progress. It wasn't until she was in place, sitting with her knees on Panne's feet so that she didn't raise them and the other two could get her sitting up, that she realized that there was something off about part of her friend's clothing. From her angle, it looked like someone had tried pulling her pants off of her, leaving them partially bunched up in places while not even properly adjusted for her body, and that was concerning to see. Her mouth open to ask out loud about it, Lissa happened to look towards her and give a firm shake of her head, causing her to snap her mouth right back to being closed.

"You should know that, as an ex-nurse, I know a thing or two about checking out patients to make sure they're fine," Lissa explained once she knew Maribelle wasn't going to say anything. "So that's exactly what I did here, I used my limited experience with women coming in while in labor without realizing it and gave our dear friend a checkup that she's refusing to believe me about."

"I'm refusing to believe you because all you're doing is concerning my husband and making him want to force me into doing something I'm not yet ready for." Even with two people trying to pull her off the floor, Panne was doing a rather good job keeping her flat position, but they all knew it was only a matter of time before she gave up completely. "While I do appreciate that you did the work of the doctors for them, you merely gave it your best guess and possibly scarred Lon'qu for life with it."

"It isn't my fault he looked when I told him not to!" Her retort came in conjunction with Lon'qu asserting that he wasn't scarred at all, but if Maribelle had to pick one of them as telling the truth it wasn't going to be him. "I'm still amazed that I didn't strip you down and see, like, the top of the baby's head or something, so I guess you might be telling the truth about them being flipped around wrong."

That led to the two of them having a back-and-forth about that aspect of the whole situation, and it was somewhere in the middle of their arguing that they were able to get her off the floor, getting her to stand on her own two feet rather quickly once she wasn't laying down any longer. From there, after Maribelle adjusted her pants properly for her for modesty's sake, they were able to convince her that perhaps listening to Lissa was the best idea, since she had some experience with that particular sort of thing, but getting from the house to the hospital wasn't exactly smooth sailing.

Namely, someone decided that she was going to stop cooperating unless they took her to get something to eat before they checked her in. "I know that once I'm in the room, they won't let me eat, so just in case that's the outcome I'd prefer to go in having already been fed," she explained, despite Lon'qu just wanting to get to the hospital and neither of the other women knowing whether or not it was smart to fulfill that request. But the driver got to make the decision, and as that was Maribelle through a chain of "please don't make me drive" complaints that the other two had, she wasn't going to deny her friend what she wanted before forcing her into something that she had no interest in doing.

Nearly an hour later they were finally where they'd intended to go, with everyone feeling almost identically to how they'd felt when they'd left the house. That all changed once they were inside the hospital's doors and being directed up to the birthing rooms after checking in, nurses and doctors who saw them all stopping to speak with the people there they recognized. Not wanting the extra attention surrounding them, a lot of yelling and demanding to be given some privacy was done, so that once she was settled into her room (the staff was already fully aware of the situation that she was in and were prepared to handle things as soon as they felt it was critical), the only people coming in to check on Panne were people that neither she nor Lissa were familiar with.

Since they'd all ridden over together, Maribelle knew that at some point she and someone else would have to leave to get a second car, so that all four of them weren't trapped there overnight or weren't abandoning people without a way to get home, but she didn't want to suggest it in case everyone else really wanted to stay. Her mind was wandering even as she sat in that room, waiting for updates on what they were going to do about the turned-around baby and their stubborn mother who didn't want much in the way of help, and she must have really spaced out to the point that someone was touching her to get her attention. "Your phone's going off," Lissa kindly said to her, sounding embarrassed for her friend as she knew the rules about having phones on in the upper floors of the hospital like the back of her hand. "I didn't answer it, but it's a number you don't have saved so there's that."

Without really orienting herself back in reality, Maribelle grabbed her phone off of the arm of the chair she was in, where Lissa had put it after checking it herself, and answered it without looking. The voice on the other end sounded concerned, almost as if they'd tracked her to being in the hospital but weren't aware she wasn't there for herself, but when they said that someone she cared about was there and that she was their emergency contact on file she had to pause before saying, "I'm…sorry? I don't think there's anyone who'd have me as their contact aside from the people I'm here with right now."

The person she was speaking to didn't even show an ounce of hesitation as they explained who, exactly, it was that they were calling on behalf of, and the moment his name left their lips she felt her blood run cold. Without waiting for any kind of elaboration as to what the meaning behind the call was, she hung up and headed for the exit of the room, explaining to the others that she'd be back soon enough, that she had some business to take care of somewhere else in the building.

It wasn't until she was riding the elevator down to the main floor that she realized it looked like she was putting work before her friend having a baby, but she knew she'd have a chance to explain herself once she was back in the room. This wasn't work that she was dealing with, though, and they'd know that soon enough—for now, she was going to have to accept that she'd gotten called out of an important event to play the role of emergency contact for someone she hadn't spoken to in months. Thanks to having identification on her that labeled her as legally having the same last name as the man she was supposed to be seeing, she was able to get directed to a different room on a much lower floor of the building, where she came out of the elevator to see nurses she'd crossed paths with before when coming to do visits with Lissa.

The room she was looking for this time was right by the nurses' station, which meant it was close to being able to get off the floor and back to what she had been doing as soon as possible. The door was already slightly ajar when she got to it, and upon pushing it open she saw a familiar redheaded woman on the other side, smiling when she saw that it was Maribelle standing there. "Why, what a surprise to see you, Mari!" Cordelia said, her eyes crinkling closed as she smiled at the person who was trying to come in. "I had no idea that you'd be so slow in getting here, Vaike's still a bit out of it from what they just did to him so you missed getting to see him completely delirious from pain, thank everything."

"What do you mean, I was slow getting here? They just called me, I've been here for a little while now with someone else and I got here literally as fast as I could." Trying to see around her but being prevented with every duck and weave, Maribelle knew that she wasn't going to be able to get away from Cordelia super easily. "And what's even going on with him, I had no idea I was his emergency contact still after everything that's happened, and whoever called me to tell me he was here didn't say a word about why!"

"Oh, that's tragic, he's been here for a couple hours and was asking for you the whole time until they put him under to be able to set the break." Her eyes weren't focusing on anything, as she was trying to dodge Maribelle's gaze the whole time, but eventually Cordelia turned around and stepped up against the wall to let her pass her by. "I was specifically asked to be in charge of him, since if it wasn't for my daughter this wouldn't have happened and my husband feels entirely responsible for this."

"So was he working at your house?" Cordelia gave a soft uh-huh as her response, which made Maribelle want to run past her and look at the man in the room before he could realize she was there. "Neat, I hope that he gets all the money he needs out of you for this."

"He just happened to get sent to our home after we placed a work request, don't think that we specifically hired him. Now go in there and be at his side like a good wife, I'll be back in a bit once he should be awake to check on him then." Giving Maribelle the okay to do as she pleased, Cordelia waited until she'd gone further into the room before she stepped out, closing the door behind her to give them some privacy for whatever was going to happen.

That was the thing, Maribelle realized, as she found herself as the only person awake and aware in the room: she didn't know what was going to happen. The last time she'd spoken to him had been at his birthday, and she'd done her best to try and contact him once she'd noticed that she'd been neglecting him, only for him to have cut her off at that point. What were they going to talk about once he was awake, the fact that this was their first conversation in a while? Were they going to discuss what had happened to him to get him in this position? There were so many possibilities that she didn't know what to prepare for.

Settling up against the wall, not even wanting to sit down and get comfortable as she waited, she positioned herself to where she'd see any kind of movement he'd make as he woke up. From her vantage point she was able to get a solid look at what had happened to him, his entire leg wrapped up in bandages and held in a sling that must've been keeping it elevated to prevent too much swelling. If this were really a work accident, he must have fallen or had something dropped on him to cause him to break a leg, and as Cordelia had said it was her daughter's fault she was leaning more towards the former option. That was going to prevent him from getting any work done for a long while, which meant that money was going to become a lot tighter for him than it had been before, but why did she care what his finances looked like? It wasn't like he'd been paying for anything of hers at any point recently, all of her belongings were paid for from her account, not his.

A pang of sadness took hold in her heart as she watched him, knowing that he wasn't dead but rather that he just wasn't fully awake; even though she knew he was alive she couldn't talk to him as he was, and as they needed to discuss so much her spending her time there waiting for him was dragging on. The temptation was there to leave, to go back up to the higher floor to check on what was going on there before deciding what to do next, but she didn't want to get wrapped up in something else and never remember to come back to him. If she was going to do this, she needed to stay right where she was until they were able to have a proper conversation, and then after that she could leave as she pleased.

However long it was that she was standing there waiting, it was long enough that Cordelia had come back into the room, standing at the edge of the bed and shaking her head at what she saw. "For goodness sake, you're a horrible faker when it comes to pretending to be asleep," she chided, flicking a finger against the clipboard in her hands, which made the person in the bed flinch to hear. "What, did you see that your wife was in here and hope she'd leave before you had to really be awake?"

"That ain't it at all, didn't even know she was here," Vaike's drowsy-sounding voice replied, making Maribelle stiffen up to hear. "How'd ya manage t'get her here, of all the people in all the places?"

"I was your emergency contact, moron." Snapping without realizing she had, Maribelle pushed herself off the wall and went to stand at Cordelia's side, all feelings of sadness or worry leaving her body as she got to see her husband's eyes staring at her, him clearly dazed but rather coherent. "Which, by the way, you can go ahead and change that to someone you actually want to talk to."

It took him a few moments to know what she'd said, and a couple more after that to understand the meaning behind her words. "Who said I didn't wanna talk t'ya? You're the one who cut off talkin' t'me, I just—"

"Don't give me your excuses, I know that you changed your number to keep me from being able to reach out to you, because I tried! I really tried!" Even with Cordelia standing there, asking her in her usual voice to quiet down and not sound so aggressive, it was hard for Maribelle to restrain herself now that she was finally getting to face down who she'd been wanting to speak with for so long. "I tried to go back to you to be your loving wife, but the only one who stopped me from it was you!"

"Can you please put this discussion on hold so that I don't get false vital readings?" Cordelia cut in, holding an arm out in front of Maribelle to show that she wasn't allowed to get any closer to the man in the bed. "The last thing we want is to have to medicate someone without a real need for it, which could result from those numbers coming back incorrect. He's here because he fell from a ladder and snapped his leg after it got caught, we shouldn't be needing to start him on some other medicinal program unrelated to the accident."

Only because she didn't want to cause any issues for the hardworking staff of the hospital, Maribelle took a couple steps back towards the wall and distracted herself while the routine check happened, Cordelia speaking the whole time about the incident that had landed him in his position and how sorry she felt for being partially responsible for it. Her distraction came in the form of the friendly whiteboard on the wall that said all the important information the patient would need to know, including the nurse's name, and seeing that Cordelia had put her full first name on the board, not the diminutive nickname she'd used every other time she'd been in a room where she was the nurse, it gave her an idea for what to do once the room was open for discussion.

But when Cordelia stepped back out and promised to return at least once more before her shift was over (said to Maribelle more than anything, oddly enough), the floor had been opened up for both of them to speak and yet neither did. Maribelle was still working on her idea, debating whether or not it was worth her time and energy to go for it, and Vaike was just staring at her, almost in disbelief that she was actually there in the flesh. "I tried callin' ya for a long time, 'bout once a week," he recalled, his eyes locked firmly on the back of her head as she hadn't turned around from looking at the board. "But it always went t'voicemail, which I never left 'cause I knew ya wouldn't check it. All my other messages never showed that ya read 'em, even though we swore we wouldn't turn that setting off, so I kinda knew ya were blockin' me outta your life for some reason."

"Doesn't excuse you doing the same to me, you knew that I separated myself from you while I was doing a lot of stressful work things, to keep you from having to deal with them." Her heartbeat was picking up as she began to consider turning back around to properly face him, but she didn't feel quite ready to get everything over with. "I was thinking about work, what's your reason for blocking me?"

"I don't have a phone anymore, that's my excuse. You're the only one I ever called on it, you or work, so I just went t'havin' a cheap phone at the house that work could call me on. Not like ya wanted me callin' ya, so I didn't see the issue." Pausing as he found himself lost in staring at Maribelle's face as she finally turned around, disgust apparent in her glare and sneered expression, Vaike tried forcing a smile to get her to change her feelings but couldn't manage more than a tiny one. "I still love ya, Maribelle, ain't anythin' changed about that."

"I understand that nothing's changed about how you feel about me, or about how I feel about you, but…" Inhaling deeply as she thought about the lasting impact what she was about to say was going to have, Maribelle let her chest rise and fall with several subsequent deep breaths before she came out with what was on her mind. "It's obvious that what's best for the two of us isn't what we've been trying to make happen for so long."

"What're ya sayin', huh?" Confined to the bed and unable to even sit up thanks to how his leg was positioned, all Vaike could do was turn his head slightly against the pillow propping it up, his jaw dropping at Maribelle's honesty about how she felt. "Are ya tellin' me that all of this hasn't been worth it? I've been workin' so hard to make our house perfect, like the old one was, that's how I got into this mess today anyway, tryin' t'make the money I need t'make our house feel right!"

She wanted to remind him that she'd never seen the house that he was speaking of, but that would inevitably rub salt into the wounds she was creating. "That's a lovely gesture, but it's beyond clear that I'm not meant to be living in that home with you, seeing as you refused to hear me when I wanted to come back, nearly a month ago."

"Ya must've tried contactin' me right after I shut my phone off then, 'cause it was still workin' through Valentine's Day, and ya didn't make any effort t'call me!" He was trying to reach out towards her with his one available arm, but she was just out of his grasp. "Please, Mari, I know I'm not a perfect guy but y'know I love ya more than anythin'!"

"I know you do, but sometimes people who love each other just don't work out." She could tell that she was breaking his heart with what she was saying, and as much as it felt good to get these bottled-up thoughts out of her mind it hurt all the same. "I'm not saying I hate you, because I don't, I've always loved you and I always will, but I think that it's for the best if we go our separate ways from here. You've started to take me out of your life, now let's go through with finishing the process."

The sheer power of what she'd just said hit Vaike like a train, making him yell out with zero regard of the situation he was in. "Are ya thinkin' about what you're sayin' t'me? I'm not gonna lose ya just because ya think I was ignorin' ya, I had my reasons for it! And you…and you were the one who left without tellin' me a word, blockin' my number and pretendin' like you were in the right! It shouldn't be you sayin' that we're done, it should be me, since I'm the one who got left out 'a everythin'!"

"What I did was best for everyone, I was sleeping on the couch anyway so why not move somewhere that I could do that without disturbing anyone? And I kept myself away until I wasn't going to be burdening you with everything about my job, so…yeah, I'm done here." Without a smile, a wave, even a reassurance that she did still love him, she headed for the door, making an attempt to leave the room to the sound of him calling for her by her full name—something that made her stop and turn on her heels to face him over. "I've professionally been going by my maiden name for years now, it'd do you a world of good to start referring to me in such a manner," she told him, before making her exit.

Whatever state she'd left him in wasn't her problem any longer, and she was hoping that this wasn't a huge mistake to handle everything like she just had, but what was done couldn't be taken back and now she needed to make sure it stayed that way. Cordelia happened to be at the nurses' station when she came out of the room, and as she was the nurse on duty for that particular room there was something she needed to know before she re-entered. "Based on how you look like you're about to cry, I'm going to guess that didn't go over too well," Cordelia said once Maribelle was right there with her. "Do you need to talk about it with someone, Mari? I'm all ears if you do."

"No, I'll go up and talk to Lissa about it," she replied, wiping a couple tears from the corners of her eyes. "She's probably worried sick about where I am right now, I didn't bother explaining that I was on 'searching for my deadbeat ex' duty."

Cordelia mouthed the emphasized words to herself, before shaking her head. "I'm afraid I don't understand, all he's done is talk about you like you're still married, where did this all come from? He told Donnel and myself that he was willing to drive out to our home for the job because he needed the money for you, and since I know you matter so much to him I was more than happy to give him work."

"It's a new development, nothing he saw coming even though it's his fault." Rolling her eyes once she was certain she'd gotten all the tears out of them, Maribelle looked directly at Cordelia and made sure that she got something clear as day between the two of them: "If he asks for me to see him, tell him I have no interest in doing so. I'm focusing on someone who matters here today, and that isn't him. He'll understand soon enough that I don't take him cutting me out of his life lightly."

"I'll just try to avoid talking about you with him, easy as that! I've got your back, no need to worry, now go back to seeing Meli and tell her that she needs to stop being a stranger if she's around here." Cordelia had already distracted herself with something that was on her side of the counter, and Maribelle took that as her cue to get on with her day, but as she was standing there waiting for the elevator door to open, she heard a distinct laugh come from the person she'd just been speaking with. "I'm never going to get over the fact that he broke his leg falling off a ladder on the unluckiest day of the year. Add in…whatever that was, and it's obvious that Friday the thirteenth is just not his day at all."

It hadn't once crossed Maribelle's mind that it was an unlucky day before she'd heard Cordelia say something about it, and rather than think about her own luck on her way back to the floor with the birthing suites, all she could think about was the luck of her friend they were all there with. Luck wasn't real, she stood firmly by this fact, but if anyone was going to end up being an embodiment of bad luck, a child born on that day would be a top contender.

But maybe it was a sign of good luck that he ended up being born minutes after midnight?

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A/N: okay! so there are two chapters left, and I will not be posting the first one until the last one's complete or very close to it, just so I don't leave y'all on too much of a cliffhanger between 'em. thank you to everyone who's been reading this far, and I'll see y'all again once I've got the fic finished~~