Aurora's energy fades again, as she moves through the last weeks of her pregnancy. She finds it difficult to sleep, difficult to move, and her frustration at her own limitations mounts in step with her discomfort.
As November begins and the weather turns foul, she catches not only Neil but Alfred as well watching her when they think she's not looking. Neil gives up his escape outside the flat, and he and Alfred both spend their free time closer to home, closer to her. The family closing around her like a fist. Taking their duty of watching her back seriously, though she's not sure either of them realizes they're doing it.
Aurora finds it equal parts smothering and comforting, no longer able even to pretend that she can look out for herself, let alone anyone else. It scares her in a way she hoped she had put behind her to know that she is incapable of running, even if her life depended on it. If Mags' did. If Alfred's did. And it's reassuring to have them within reach, to know they're safe.
Aurora finally completes her writing project in the second week of November, and before she can think too hard about it, she sends a copy of the first article along with a letter to one of her old contacts in Paris.
They had discussed the project briefly when they reconnected over the summer. Aurora hadn't had anything in a state worth showing at the time, but she promised to get in touch again when the articles were readable. She is no longer conversant enough in current markets and papers even to begin to know where to pursue publication herself, and she's hoping her friend might be able to offer some advice.
It's a relief to have the work complete, and a boost to her confidence to know that her skills are still intact, that she accomplished what she set out to do. And she's proud, to have captured this personal, human experience of the war, to have preserved stories that might otherwise have been lost in the greater narrative of struggle and victory.
But it's a loss, too. This project has occupied so much of her attention for so many months, now, that she isn't sure what to do with herself now that it's done. Or how to fill up the morning hours she now has free. There are, of course, always endless chores to be done, but nothing that promises to engage her mind in the way her writing did. Her morning's work on the articles had always percolated through her brain as she dealt with other tasks during the rest of the day, and she feels lost now without that anchor for her focus.
And so she ends up launching herself almost immediately into a translation of the completed articles. It was something she had always considered doing, but it was a project, she had assumed, for much further down the road. Living in London, though, it makes sense to pursue publication in this market as well, but she has never written anything beyond personal letters in English, and she isn't entirely sure her command of the language is up to the challenge. A conversation is one thing, but crafting a well-reasoned argument or a passionate diatribe is something else entirely.
Having the template to follow from the French is a start though. And for the moment, she intends to focus only on the first article, to see what she can accomplish. Then, perhaps Alfred or Alice could read it for her and offer their opinions on whether it's worth her pursuing the work herself, or whether she should look into engaging a professional translator.
The new project helps to distract her from her ever-increasing discomfort, her impatience to finally be done with this pregnancy, and she begins to work longer into the afternoons just to keep her mind engaged. And that compromise gets her through the last awkward weeks.
It's late on a Thursday afternoon, near the end of November, when Aurora realizes she's in the early stages of labour. Possibly has been for some time. When Mags comes in from playing before dinner, Aurora sends her to fetch May Rossiter, just so there's someone present who knows what to expect, but otherwise holds on to her calm with an iron grip. Tries not to remember that what she knows about managing pain comes from training in how to withstand torture.
When Alfred and Neil arrive home soon after, she forbids any kind of fuss, any kind of panic under threat of banishment from the house until it's all over. Neil leaves again almost immediately. Alfred stays.
It's nearly midnight before the contractions take hold in earnest and Alfred summons the midwife.
Their daughter arrives with the dawn.
The war taught Aurora well – falling in love means cutting off a piece of her heart and allowing it to exist outside of herself, with only another's fragile human body to protect it. She had resisted admitting her feelings for Alfred long past the point where they were obvious to everyone else, because if René hadn't been strong enough to keep his piece of her heart safe, how could Alfred with all his frailties possibly accomplish it? She hadn't yet understood Alfred was the strongest person she'd ever known.
And her connection with Alfred is so singular, it doesn't occur to her at first that he isn't the only one holding a piece of her. Neil has one, and Mags. And her daughter in the womb, it turns out, has been knitted together out of all the pieces that remain. Holding her in those first few hours is the strangest sense of cradling her own heart, her own soul in her arms, birthed from her body by accident instead of a child.
And Aurora can't help marveling at that. She had been so afraid, early on, that at the end of these nine months she would be handed a stranger to love, another new person, and one completely dependent on her. Getting to know Mags, to love her, had been such a long process. What if, she had worried, it takes her just as long to learn to love this new child?
But it turns out that this particular thorny path, travelled once already, is far easier to navigate the second time. And that she's been walking it for months and months already. It's a relief, almost euphoric in its intensity, to realize she knows her daughter at first sight. This little girl has been a part of her from her very first butterfly flutterings. And though she's now out in the world, in the tiniest and frailest of bodies, their connection remains unchanged. She couldn't possibly be a stranger.
Alfred sends a message to work that he won't be coming in, and spends the day in bed beside Aurora. Despite his sleepless night, he sits up against the headboard, cradling the baby in his arms, with Aurora curled against his hip in exhausted sleep. His one hand keeps drifting down to rest against her skin, to ground himself in the feel of her beside him.
Because the room is saturated in blue. And he's still learning the music of the baby's weight in his arms, the sound of her warmth against his skin, the flavour in the small sounds she makes when she's sleeping. He had expected her to feel more like Aurora, but she has a signature entirely her own. Even now, only hours old.
When the baby begins to fuss and squirm, he wakes Aurora with a gentle hand through her hair.
She rouses enough to nurse, and he helps her to sit up against his shoulder. Watches her face as she watches the baby, and there are no words for the music that suffuses that expression. He will never need any other memory. So long as he has this one, there is no darkness that can touch him.
Alfred realizes, as he's fighting to keep his eyes open, that he's actually a little reluctant to go to sleep. As silly as it seems, he has been present for his daughter's entire life thus far, he can remember her entire life, and he doesn't want to give that up. Doesn't want to miss a minute of it.
But despite his best efforts, his body overrules him, so eventually he shifts position to lie down beside Aurora with the baby tucked safely against his chest and dozes as well.
Neither of them gets to sleep for very long, but between the intervals of feeding and changing, they manage a few hours.
At one point, late in the morning, Aurora wakes to the sound of the baby fussing beside her, happens to catch Alfred's eye just as he struggles awake himself, the baby still tucked against his chest. He manages, somehow, to look both bleary and elated, and she can't help the smile that takes over her face.
She shifts gingerly on the bed, trying to sit up, to find any kind of comfortable position. Her body feels like she's been dragged behind stampeding horses, and the ache of tortured muscles is only growing worse as the hours pass. Alfred does his best to assist her one-handed, waits until she settles before he hands her the baby, and Aurora murmurs quietly to her as she cradles her close and begins to nurse.
"Do you want me to speak French to her as well?" Alfred asks, after a moment.
Aurora blinks at him for a second, only just registering what language she's been speaking. And then smiles, a little embarrassed.
"I don't know how to speak to babies in English," she admits. And it occurs to her suddenly that this may be why she has always felt so awkward with Edith's little boy, Teddy. "But you should speak to her in whatever language is comfortable for you. My parents spoke to me in two different languages. She'll understand just fine."
He falls silent again, watching the baby, but the joy that has been radiating from him all morning is muted now, and small furrows of concern collect around his eyes.
"What's wrong?"
He hesitates for a long moment before he finally gets the words out. "What if she's like me?"
Aurora takes a breath. She's been waiting for this. He hasn't brought it up again since they first spoke about the possibility of children last June, but his fear ran even deeper than her own. And she's glad he's willing to talk about it, at least.
"What if she is?" she says gently. "Do we ask the stork to take her back?"
But Alfred clearly isn't ready to be teased out of his fear. Aurora reaches out to take his hand.
"If she is, she has you. She'll never be alone with it the way you were. And you won't be alone with it anymore either."
Aurora has to squash down a sudden surge of absurd jealousy, at the bond they will have that can't possibly include her. But Alfred's lips compress, still not comfortable with the thought.
"I don't want that for her."
"I know."
"Do you." Aurora hesitates, feeling guilty that the question hasn't ever occurred to her before. "Can you remember that too? Being this young?" Does he remember his birth? The womb? How far back does his perfect memory go? Aurora isn't sure she wants to know the answer to that.
Alfred nods, but slowly. "I try not to. Those memories are... they're different. There's no..." He shrugs, uncomfortable. "Context. No sense of time. They can be disorienting."
Aurora gazes down at the tiny girl in her arms and tries to imagine, suspects she's barely scratching the surface. Can't quite stop herself from cradling the baby closer. If her daughter will remember these moments forever, the least Aurora can do is make them moments of safety and comfort.
Mags has stuck her head in the door periodically through the day, and late in the afternoon Alfred finally waves her in. He and Aurora are both awake and almost functional. Aurora pats the bed beside her and Mags hops up to sit against her hip. Gazes down at the tiny, bundled form in Aurora's arms.
"What's her name?"
Aurora smiles. "Éliane."
Alfred and Aurora both wanted her to have a name that is her own, that doesn't carry memories or baggage for either of them. Aurora had hoped for a French name, but worried there might not be many they hadn't encountered in some form during the war. Worried for his sake, he thinks, more than her own. Alfred had been the one to suggest the name they finally agree on, one that is both French and new to them. More, though, since she will carry his surname, he found a given name to tie the baby indelibly to Aurora. Éliane, daughter of the sun.
Already, though, the name carries a complex emotional weight for him, in the same way Aurora's does. Anticipation of the baby's arrival, the intensity of her birth, his joy, his fear, pride, love, all colour and flavour the sound of her name already. And he's honestly afraid of being completely unable to speak his own daughter's name in the course of casual conversation.
But Mags considers for a moment, clearly fitting the name against the tiny person in Aurora's arms, and nods. "Lily," she says. "For short."
And Alfred shifts on the bed, so he can reach across to tug Mags closer for a hug. For the gift of a name he can use. Éliane will be who she is, but Lily is something he can call her.
Mags squawks in surprise at the embrace, but clambers over Aurora's legs to hug him properly.
"Can I hold her?" Mags asks, still resting against Alfred's shoulder.
"Of course you can."
Aurora leans forward, trying to smother a grimace of pain, and transfers the baby gently into Mags' arms.
Mags stares down at the baby, strokes her tiny hands with a fingertip. "We're kind of like sisters, aren't we?" she asks, her voice suddenly small and hesitant. "Or cousins?"
Aurora reaches out to brush a caress over Mags' hair. "Closer than most cousins, I think, since you're going to grow up in the same house." She takes a breath. "Do you want to be a sister to her? I'd like it if you did," she adds gently.
"You would?"
And when Mags looks up, there's a doubt, a fear in her eyes that breaks Alfred's heart. As though they might not need her, now that the baby is here. Aurora can only nod, and Alfred's own throat aches in empathy.
"Me too," Mags says finally.
"It's settled, then," Alfred manages.
And, looking from one to the other of them, Mags' face suddenly crumples as she starts to cry, overwhelmed by a release of emotion she clearly doesn't fully understand. Alfred leans in a lifts the baby – lifts Lily – carefully from Mags' grasp, and Aurora reaches out to draw Mags closer.
Mags crawls into Aurora's arms, buries her face in Aurora's chest, and Aurora enfolds her, bows her head over Mags', rocks her, murmuring gentle nonsense in quiet French. Alfred lays his free hand on Mags' back and struggles against tears of his own. Understanding that the circle of their family is now properly complete. Knowing what that kind of love would have meant to him, orphaned and alone at Mags' age.
For the first three days of her life, Lily is never put down, knows nothing but the smell and the sound and the touch of her family. If she does remember these days forever, they will be days of love and security. Alfred clings to that thought when his fear threatens to become overwhelming.