A/N: You are getting to read the reveal chapter early, mostly because I could not wait to write it (even though I am still posting late, sorry!) and the next chapter will be pretty heavy with a dark situation. I hope you enjoy this chapter as always, I do not own HP. (Just the OCs)
Chapter 36
Eileen laid a gentle hand on her bulging stomach, on her growing baby. When she told Tobias last night over their dinner of split pea soup with smoked ham he nearly choked on a piece of the honey-cured delicacy, his eyes grew wide in shock and horror.
"A-Another child? Eileen, we can't afford another freak offspring!" He stood up so abruptly that the chair toppled over, his face was beginning to turn red. "With these medical bills…" he knocked over his bowl of soup as its contents were splashed on to the floor, and the soup bowl shattered into a million pieces. The father of Severus and the unborn child found himself bracing the table to keep himself upright.
Fear became lodged in his throat, and the jealousy and anger began to cloud his vision. What would be wrong with a non-magical child? What was the word that Eileen's mother had used, when she came to visit her grandson…Muggle? Was it such an awful thing for Tobias to be? And with all the medical bills coming back in a crisp white envelope with letters all in capitals, and soaked in red dry, the same word over and over: Overdue. The health insurance that Tobias received from work barely covered the bills that were consuming their meager earnings like monsters. Eileen was already nearly four months along…and even if he told her to get rid of the child through adoption or other methods, he know that she would not listen, instead she would raise the child with or without him.
The world still swam in front of him as if he was deep under the water and losing oxygen while he saw the sun floating above him. Agonizing, choking, and hacking coughs that left him struggling to draw air into his lungs, the coughing turned into blood spatter, as he struggled to keep himself upright. Before he could stop her, Eileen was out of her chair and wiping Tobias's face with a wet cloth that she must have grabbed from where it had been hanging halfway out of the sink.
The Muggle man was not pleased with the fact that his wife had to dote on him as if he was another child she was trying to raise. The chemo treatments were painful and left him feeling decrepit and as if his insides were trying to find their way out of his body by mouth, via puking all over the floor and sometimes unable to reach the empty trash bin that had been left beside the bed. Even with cancer eating him like a seven course meal, he still went to work and exhausted himself to the bone, making sure that his paycheck was enough to split for weekly necessary items (food, clothing, shelter) and to put some aside to transfer into his and Eileen joint savings account, even though his wife now had a place of employment as well, it was better to be safe than sorry.
It took nearly a month of chemotherapy treatments before Tobias started to lose his hair, and not just on his head, he began losing his eyebrow hair and his eye lashes, his weight diminished rabidly, he felt like a skeleton trying to wear somebody else's clothes and body, and when he looked at himself in the mirror, he struggled not to let his waves of emotion drowned him. He was so thin and so tired all the time, he just new one night he could go to bed and probably never wake again. One of his coworkers asked him once over a lunch break, which was worse drowning or being burned alive? It was supposed to be a joke, a brain teaser, a very morbid one at that. Tobias Snape looked at the younger man straight in his eyes and stated, "I would rather die while I was asleep…I heard that is the most peaceful way to go…"
He was a dying man practically stepping on to the welcome mat of Death's door. The feeling was so close he could practically feel the Grim Reaper's scythe against the flesh of his neck, digging ever so slowly.
"Tobias…" Eileen's voice came out in a terrified whisper as she helped him get to bed.
His weak bone-thinned hand shook violently as he rested it on Eileen's baby bump. He could not tell if the queasy ache in his stomach from the fear of having a second child or from the treatments. He knew that when this child was born, he would never get to meet him or her. He would simply be someone that the child would have no memories of, only see him in photographs that were in the photo album Eileen kept in the compartment drawer of their coffee table. The names such as Father, Dad, and Daddy would be nothing but a series of empty words. Ones that his second son or maybe his first daughter would never have to say or use.
And that was painful, that what was almost as the agonizing feeling of being burned with the chemicals and other medications that were trying to steal him away from his family. Was this what Karma was? Was he being punished for his jealousy and his rage? Was he being sentenced without a trial or jury? If this was Karma, it was kicking him to the curb like a garbage bin, and there was a sickening knot in his stomach, he knew he deserved this.
During his chemotherapy treatment, Eileen made her way to the obstetrics and gynecology department. Tobias wanted to make sure that his wife and unborn child were healthy. Eileen would have rather have gone to Saint Mungo's for a check-in with her familiar and local Medi-Witches, but Tobias did not want to even listen to her when it came to the magical world or how Magic could actually be better than the contraptions and the pills that Muggles used.
She was glad that it was finally warm enough for her to be able to wear her summer maternity dresses, she had picked out a simple amaranth pink with an unbuttoned white as snow light sweater. She had left her husband to get his body pumped with cytotoxic and other drugs, and with one of his favorite novels to keep him occupied, My Name is Asher Lev. She had even found the time during her secretarial duties to crochet him a beanie to keep his smooth and slightly bony head warm. She had also made sure to bring a blanket from home, because he thought the ones that the hospital provided were scratchy and thin. Any little things she could do make Tobias as comfortable as possible, it made her feel awful that she could not just use Magic to fix him, but he wanted to fight this battle with his own strength, so Eileen decided to stick by him, true to him until the very end.
This illness that had taken control of her husband's life had somehow damped his need to fight change or unfamiliar things. He no longer hit her or became dangerously and deadly violent. His temper still had a very short fuse but the chemotherapy made him so tired, that he no longer had the strength to scream at her very much anymore. Perhaps this form of lung cancer had been a blessing instead of a curse?
She sat down among other waiting expecting mothers. The room was washed white, almost too clean, nearly a blinding white. The chairs were black with white poppies decorating them, very comfortable, it allowed Eileen to almost drop her guard and relax. Almost, she quickly grabbed her beaten and worn soft leather purse, it had a beaded bone made out of pearl-like beads and a gentle green for the wand, and they were crossed like an X. It had been a birthday present from one of her Hogwarts-day friends way back when they were both young teenage Witches.
Her wand was tucked away in an opened seam that could be snapped closed, she kept it close at all times. It made her feel safe to have the magic channeling object so near, because if she didn't, she would feel terribly lost.
She also felt old, her experience as a mother was so far fifteen years and counting, was she too old to be doing this one more time? Late night feedings, barely getting a wink or a blink of sleep for months, struggling to pretend that decaffeinated coffee could actually keep her awake long enough to get through work and household chores. Her heart ached a little at the thought of her second child growing up without a father, only having the nightmarish memories that Severus could conjure in second. Eileen did not want her second child to know what a monster Tobias had been. The fact that he would never see the baby after it was born, brought tears welling up to her eyes.
She grabbed at the travel tissues she had stuffed into her purse before their neighbor from across the street, Frederick, had given them a ride to the hospital and said that to be would come back once their appointments were over, even though Eileen had tried to tell him that they would simply take the bus home, but the older gentlemen, father of four, with twin grandchildren on the way, would not hear of it. "A mother-to-be and a dying man…' That was how the silver haired man look at them, it was clear in his eyes that he pitied them. And that pity made Eileen angry, she did not need pity, what her and Tobias needed right now the most was support, a system of people that could help them through this.
Eileen wanted to tell Severus so badly that he was going to be a big brother, but telling him in a letter felt too impersonal. She hated that she had to tell her son everything that was going on in ink on parchment, he would reply, but the words that he wrote, she was not sure if that was actually how he felt or if he was lying just to make her feel better. She looked down at her fingernails that were either going to be painted later either blue or pink with little yellow duckies.
One of the other secretaries from the Ministry had offered to do it for her, saying that just because Eileen was going to be a mother again, did not mean that she had to give up everything, she could afford to go out to coffee with her friends until the baby came. They usually all met in the lounge area for tea and biscuits, it felt wonderful to have friends to talk to or to laugh with over absurd or just the ways of everyday life.
When it came to clearing out one of the unused rooms upstairs, it had taken Eileen a good four hours to clean it up and make it proper enough for a new baby. The floors and walls were washed, the curtains that had so many holes in them they looked like Swiss cheese were thrown away immediately, and she replaced them with white curtains that had mantis green vines of ivy decorated upon them. The walls were painted a light lavender, the crib that had once been used by Severus was reassembled with Tobias's handy work and put into the spare room, which now would be where their second child would sleep and grow. He had even fixed up the old rocking chair that Eileen had used while holding Severus to gentle sooth him into sleep with lullabies or stories about dragons and other mythical creatures.
Sometimes Eileen swore that Tobias left for work smiling just a little, at least it had shown in his dark eyes, a spark was being brought back to life. The sound of her name being called aroused Eileen from day dreaming as she followed the nurse wearing blue scrubs to the room for an ultrasound. Today she would get find out if her child was going to be either another son or perhaps it would be their very first daughter.
After she had rubbed the gooey jell off her stomach with a rough towel, Eileen tucked the ultrasound picture into her purse and trying desperately to hide her joy made her way back to her Muggle husband. When she returned to the cancer ward, she found Tobias dozing on the bed with the book he had been reading turned upside down and tent-like, so he would not lose his place, he was snoring but it was a soft snore, as if his body was begging him to find some sort of comfort while he was getting chemicals poured into him via IV.
Eileen gently took Tobais' hand in her own and waited until his eyes were open and alert and his face was less sleepy looking. "Tobias, we're going to be having a little girl…"
Tobias frowned, deep in thought before he said, "Don't give her my surname, and instead give her your maiden one…"
Eileen looked at him with stunned silence, she squeezed his hand gently, "Are you sure?"
"I want our daughter to have a good life…" he whispered as tears welled up in his eyes, either from the pain or from guilt, Eileen could not tell.