Crash! Boom! Lightning, midnight, organ music! Week 38 has gone all Gothic Horror! At least for the first part. So yes, I was rereading the original manuscript of The Woman in Black and yes I am easily influenced. Well, I couldn't resist tipping my hat to it a little. Besides, who doesn't love them some horror tropes? Not what you were expecting after Week 37? I do enjoy trying to be unpredictable As ever I apologise for the delay in posting. My immune system must be screwed because I'm sick again. I meant to finish this three days ago, I'm so sorry guys. It literally needed the last 500 words adding and it would have been ready. Forgive me?
So as y'all may have noticed I am now working on other projects! I have a few shorts upcoming as well as Desperate Measures, and I was planning a small sequel to this story set about five years after the end called Now We Are Five. So much fluff planned for that, because five year old twins. But I am not done with this ship yet, not by a long shot! Watch this space. There are gonna be spies and planes and rockets and snowdogs and physics and so much more, oh myyy! But as ever, drop a review or a PM or something, let me know how I'm doing, I will love you forever I promise.
Content Warning: Gothic Horror tropes, traumatic memories, not too graphic surgical descriptions which have been edited to take out some of the grossness. You're welcome.
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind almost like nature itself had a sense of dramatic irony. The occasional rumble of thunder and howling wind shaking the windows had woken them all more than once and nobody was at their best. Marcy was functioning purely on hormones; they were all that were getting her through the first week with Ingrid at home especially since she was struggling to move around with the Caesarean wound on her abdomen. Bonnie was functioning purely on caffeine and that wasn't nearly as effective. Even still, beyond the haze of zombie-like exhaustion that went deeper than the redhead had ever known before she was increasingly worried about her partner. If she'd stopped to analyse it further then she would probably have come to the conclusion that it was more about herself and her lingering guilt over not having fully disclosed the traumatic birth details than anything Marcy had or hadn't done. But in her confused, sleep deprived state Bonnie wasn't really thinking straight either. Any other time she would have realised she was projecting her own worries and something textbook psychological was happening. But at four in the morning when Ingrid was screaming yet again and Marcy was exhaustedly trying to change and feed her and muttering to herself Bonnie's only half awake brain immediately interpreted that as something Very Not Good.
Eventually Marcy took the baby through to the bathroom and the sounds of running water coupled with another peal of thunder and flash of lightning brought Bonnie more fully awake. Why was Marcy running the bath taps? Why had she taken Ingrid with her? Muttering to herself was generally a bad sign, wasn't it? Postnatal depression was a thing, it was definitely a thing. Or even postnatal psychosis, that was rare but it could happen. She remembered hearing stories as a junior doctor, about women who'd drowned their children in a psychotic trance when sleep deprivation and birth hormones mixed in the wrong way. Bonnie sat bolt upright in bed in a sudden panic, disorientated and terrified and not completely certain why but convinced that Marcy wasn't in her right mind and something terrible was about to happen to their week-old daughter. The redhead lurched out of bed and down the dark hall. The slight breeze from the open window stirred the flimsy Chantilly lace curtains that huge their large stained glass window and as she passed them a cold gust caught the redhead's exposed skin as though ghostly hands were reaching out through the darkness to her; Bonnie should probably have realised then that her imagination was getting a little out of hand and it wasn't her partner who was suffering the worst from the lack of sleep. She stumbled away from the window and into the bathroom as quickly as she could, blinking and squinting through the bright light. What she saw when her eyes focussed made her blood run cold.
There was Marcy, standing pale and ethereal in front of the bathroom mirror like some sort of beautiful and deadly fallen angel with Ingrid fussing on one shoulder. And she was holding the very sharp barber's scissors that Bonnie used to trim her fringe between haircuts from time to time. For a split second it was like she was standing frozen with terror as King lifted the knife up towards her face again.
"Sweetie, what are you doing? Just, give me the scissors, it's ok." she soothed in as calm a voice as possible. Marceline whipped around to stare at her.
"It's not ok, though. I'm sick of this, Bon. I can't keep doing this. I know you won't forgive me any time soon but I gotta. Ok? I gotta do this. I'm sorry."
"NO!"
Too late, she'd raised the scissors and as Bonnie watched in paralysed horror lifted them to her own head and-
Sliced off her ponytail. The long sheet of waist length hair fell to the floor around her feet as Ingrid began wailing once again from the sudden yelling.
"I'm so sick of having to wash baby sick and poop out of it, Bon. Like, four times today. Even if I tie it back, it flops over my shoulder. I'm sorry, babe, I know you like it long but I feel like I'm just constantly washing crap out of it. I should've listened to Lady and cut it before they were born."
Bonnie sagged in relief and stepped forward to wrap shaky arms around her partner, wondering what the hell was wrong with her for thinking anything else could be happening.
"I don't care if you cut your hair, love. I just... I got a fright." she muttered against the shoulder her face was pressed into.
"Did silly Mama get a fright, huh? She's a big silly, yes she is. Ingrid thinks you're a silly." Marcy informed her with a tired smile. Bonnie just let out a sharp sigh and hugged tighter.
"She's right. I am definitely a silly. I was scared you were gonna hurt the baby. I don't know why, I guess just because working in healthcare you hear horror stories and stuff, and- and then I saw you holding the scissors and-"
Marcy hugged her back one armed while Bonnie tried to repress a sob. She should have expected something like this, she reflected. Bonnie was wonderful, so focussed and an amazing doctor and very specialised in her field, but also once she got past a certain level of stress she went straight through practical and sensible into full-on mental without really going through any middle ground.
"Is it because of all that stuff with King?" Marcy asked carefully as she guided the redhead back to the bedroom and laid Ingrid down between them on the mattress.
"I don't know. Maybe? I suppose that's still in my head too, I have got a lot of worries about blades and sharp objects now. But. I, uh, oh hell I suppose I should just tell you. You were unconscious in the hospital so you don't remember and the medical staff didn't seem too concerned with filling you in at the time but, love, you lost so much blood." Bonnie sighed, avoiding her eyes.
"I know. I had a transfusion, you said. I figured that was normal with a c-section though, right? I mean, they had to slice my stomach open, it'd be weird if I didn't bleed." Marcy frowned.
"You didn't just bleed from the incision. You had a placental abruption; part of Philip's placenta ripped from the wall of your uterus and you were bleeding internally for hours before anyone caught it. You were out of it with the meds so I guess you don't remember how bad it got. But when your waters broke it was almost all blood. I don't know how you even managed to have that much blood loss and still be conscious. Love, you nearly bled to death. And, um, I got scared, I yelled at the surgeons and I got thrown out of the delivery room before the babies were born. I thought I was gonna lose you and I didn't think they were trying hard enough to save you. I'm sorry." Bonnie admitted in a small voice.
Marceline didn't reply for a long time. Her eyes were on Ingrid lying between them in the bed, kicking her legs and wiggling a little in the fuzzy bumblebee onesie she'd been put down to sleep in. She was indescribably precious, Marcy thought distantly. So tiny and so fragile and so completely and utterly dependent on her parents for everything. And maybe, just maybe, that was a little like how Bonnie saw her, too. She was aware that the redhead had something of a God complex, tended to see other people as less competent and capable or just less of an adult than she was. And the shameful part of Marcy often liked that Bonnie looked after her and sorted all the bills and made all the important stuff happen so she could focus on her music and her nerdy pursuits; it made her feel secure and security was something that Marceline had put a premium on since her own messed up childhood. It was completely in character for Bonnie to have kept something like her partner's near-death to herself until it grew so heavy on her subconscious that it exploded out in a sudden burst of bizarre behaviour like irrationally worrying that her girlfriend was going to drown or stab the baby.
"One of these days you're gonna have to start trusting me to make adult decisions for myself, babe. If I almost die I kinda need to know." she finally sighed.
"I wanted to tell you but there didn't seem like a good time. And you were so worried about Philip and I wanted you to bond with them both. I'm sorry, love. Are you mad at me?" the redhead whispered. Marceline shook her head, no she wasn't mad.
"I think I'm too tired to be mad at you. But come on, I thought we'd talked about not keeping stuff from each other? "
"We did. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I just didn't want to worry you."
"But I want to be worried by stuff like this, babe. I need you to trust me to deal with stuff the same as you, I don't want you to be a single mother of three. Yeah? We're a team, and now we're a team raising a pair of tiny people who need us to present a united front. And Ina's asleep again, oh look at her she's so beautiful."
"She's just like her mother. The most beautiful girl in the world."
"Talking about yourself, Bon?"
"Don't make me come over there and kiss you for being cute, I swear I'll do it."
"You'll fall asleep mid-kiss. Lie down and close your eyes, babe. You look beat. I'm gonna take this little lady downstairs for a while since I'm weirdly awake now. I'll come get you when it's time to head in for Philip's visit."
"Mm. Love you."
Marcy pressed a quick kiss to her partner's forehead, gathered Ingrid into her arms and cast a glace around the room to check she hadn't forgotten anything. Her gaze landed on the battered paperback on Bonnie's nightstand; The Woman In Black. Good thing Marcy didn't make any noise when she rolled her eyes since the redhead was already snoring quietly. How many times now had Marcy told her that her Gothic Horror obsession would come back bite her in the ass? Reading crap like that before bed was just asking for trouble.
Bonnie was deeply asleep before Marceline had even made it back out of the room and for the first time since they'd taken their wiggly little girl home from hospital she slept deeply and peacefully without interruption or any more nightmares about creepy dark haired girls, lesbian vampires, demonic apparitions or any other trashy Gothic Horror tropes.
...
In the light of day it was pretty easy to see how dumb Bonnie's night terrors really were. Almost, but not quite, as dumb as Marceline's DIY haircut.
"Sit still or you're gonna end up even more lopsided." the redhead sighed. Marcy wriggled around on the dining room chair just to spite her, laughing when her partner sighed in frustration.
"I could give less of a crap how my hair looks, babe. All I care is that it no longer falls over my face when I'm trying to change our babies." Marcy replied with a tired smile. She really didn't want to sit and let Bonnie neaten up the trim but her girlfriend had insisted she look at least passably presentable before they went to see Philip.
"Well I think that's about as even as I can get it for now. It's... you look very nineties. You just need a stake and a crop top and you're rocking the whole Buffy The Vampire Slayer look." Bonnie said after a couple of minutes of silent trimming.
"Yeah cause I'll totally be showing my midriff in public like, ever again, babe." Marceline grumbled as she got up with a wince.
The wound on her stomach ached constantly and the stitches pulled every time she moved despite constantly dosing herself with the painkillers she'd been given when she was discharged from the hospital. A week later and the wound itself looked worse than ever; bruised and scabbed over, swollen and covered in stitches that still needed to be removed. It was to be expected from a week old surgical wound and Bonnie insisted it was healing as well as could be hope but she looked more like Frankenstein's monster than ever, Marcy thought sourly. Still as she cradled her daughter and carefully secured her in the back of the car she was more than aware of how completely worth it the caesarean had been, she'd have let the doctors cover her entire body in badly healed surgical scars if it was for the safety of her children. And from what Bonnie had said in the early hours of the morning it seemed as thought she'd been in more danger than she'd realised. But death in childbirth was incredibly rare in most developed countries; Marcy was still quite sceptical that it wasn't just Bonnie being under the effect of a few glasses of champagne, adrenaline and her usual tendency to assume the worst. As exhausted as she'd been she hadn't forgotten the expression on Bonnie's face when she'd noticed the scissors and unlike her partner Marceline had no problem connecting that with what had happened with King.
Bonnie was quiet on the drive to the hospital but she seemed at least better rested than she had been for the first week. Marcy had ended up napping on the sofa for a few hours with Ina asleep in her carry cot on the floor next to her; she'd woken to find Cinnamon purring quietly with his head resting lovingly across the baby's legs. Peppermint had barely been home since the first time he'd heart Ingrid cry but Marcy was confident he'd get used to it once he got over not having all of Bonnie's attention all the time. She'd noticed him skulking around the garden when she'd been fixing a quick breakfast so she knew he was still about the place, glaring at them like they were the worst kind of traitors.
They pulled up at the hospital and Marcy waited in the car for Bonnie to fetch her a wheelchair from inside; she still wasn't up to walking through the labyrinth of corridors to Philip's incubator. He was doing better though, his lungs were stronger every day and he was drinking his way through bottles like they were going out of style. Marcy was sore and tired from how much she was having to express for him, it was difficult enough breastfeeding one baby without having to constantly have a weird suction machine strapped to her chest to feed the other one. But he hadn't been breastfed since birth with having to be in the incubator so he'd never really developed the ability; it would be difficult now to restart. Before the birth Marcy would have felt like a failure if she couldn't feed both her babies in a completely natural way but now she was just glad they were both doing fine and were getting all the milk they needed by any means.
There was a familiar voice lilting over familiar words as they approached the ward doors; Marcy was grinning before she even caught sight of her foster mother's face.
"She did not shut it properly because she knew that it is very silly to shut oneself into a wardrobe, even if it is not a magic one. Oh hello darling, we've been expecting you." Betty finished, looking up when she caught sight of them and laying Marceline's much loved copy of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to one side. "And there's my favourite granddaughter too, hello Ina!"
"Are you gonna wake up for Grandma?" Marcy asked Ingrid, stroking her cheek and smiling when her daughter opened her eyes.
"You know, I still get this burst of warm pride in my chest when I hear that. 'Grandma'. I never thought I'd ever get to be anyone's grandmother, it's every bit as wonderful as I'd heard. How are you, darling?" Betty asked, leaning forward to kiss Marceline on the cheek before taking Ingrid in the arm she wasn't cradling Philip in.
"Sore, tired, wouldn't change it for the world. How's my little man doing today?" Marcy cooed to Philip who waved his arms at the sound of her voice. "Come here then my little prince, I've missed you so much!"
Betty handed the baby over and Marceline immediately snuggled him into a close hug, taking a moment to breathe in his wonderful scent and just bask in the fierce bloom of love that reverberated through her chest when she held her son. Then she frowned, noticing something different about his little face.
"Why isn't he getting his oxygen? Where's his tube?" she asked, not quite registering what that must mean.
"Because he's strong enough to breathe on his own now, aren't you little darling? The nurse said they were just waiting for the consultant to sign his discharge paperwork and then we were going to call you and bring him home. Simon's fetching some coffee while we wait." Betty beamed. As though he'd been waiting for his cue Simon stepped around the door with two paper mugs of coffee in his hands and his face split into a massive grin when he saw them.
"Ah, the whole family's here! Little fella's ready to come home with his mummies and get made a fuss of!" Simon announced proudly. He handed one coffee to Betty and another to Marceline before nodding in Bonnie's direction and marching straight back out the door again in search of more coffee with a happy smile still making his beard twitch. While Betty and Bonnie caught up and chatted about the babies Marcy snuggled Philip closer to her, holding him against her chest so he could feel her heartbeat.
"You're coming home with us today, little darling. We're finally all going to be together, it's going to be so wonderful. Me and your Mama, we love you two so damn much. You're the most loved babies in the whole world."
...
Their first visit from the community midwife went off with only the small hitch of Cinnamon trying to climb into her handbag and it was only a routine check up to confirm that everything was going to plan with the twins being home anyway. After she left and the babies had finally gone down for a nap Marcy was left feeling weirdly awake, probably because she was finally allowed to drink coffee again and had been easing herself back into it to avoid a caffeine crash. She was probably going to be exhausted soon enough anyway but just for a while it was nice to feel like her eyelids weren't desperately trying to force themselves shut.
"Why was she so concerned anyway? I mean, we have all the stuff, she got to see you handle a nappy change – well done on that, by the way. We're definitely rocking this new parents thing." Marceline concluded with a nod.
"Because I think a lot of new parents come home with this whole 'oh God I have a baby and I don't have anyone to tell me how to look after them' attitude after the midwives and nurses help so much in hospital. But I think with Philip needing to stay behind we've maybe missed that. And they seem to well behaved, I think we might have been lucky." Bonnie replied with a tired smile. She hadn't taken an almost nine month break from caffeine and it wasn't having such a strong effect on her, she was still exhausted.
"Don't say that, babe. You'll jinx it-"
As if on cue the baby monitor flared to life with first one high pitched wail and then another. Bonnie closed her eyes and rested her head back on the sofa with a frown.
"Nope. Not going. I fixed the worst poop yet, I can still feel it burning my nostrils. Besides you seem very energetic. Go, Batwoman. Gotham needs you." she muttered.
"I'm Wonder Woman, bad fake nerd. Sure, just give me a minute to get upstairs. I've almost forgotten what being able to walk normally is." Marceline sighed before she winced in anticipated pain and bit her lip against the flare of agony from her abdomen when she stood. Probably Philip was hungry again, he seemed to like having small but regular feeds whereas Ingrid would just keep drinking for hours then go into a deep sleep for hours more.
By the time she'd gotten Ingrid to settle from being disturbed by her brother's crying it seemed easier to just take Philip back downstairs with her anyway which was why he was squirming in her arms when the knock at the door made her look up in surprise. It was Finn and Phoebe with yet more flowers; they had mentioned they might drop by but Marcy had forgotten because her beautiful little babies had been so much more important. She waved them in since the door was unlocked and they all trooped through to the lounge, starling Bonnie out of her doze on the sofa.
"Oh, hey guys. I thought you were gonna call ahead?" she asked, standing to greet them.
"We did. Your phone still on silent?" Finn asked as he flung himself down next to her.
"Oh. Probably, sorry. That would explain it."
"And how's my littlest man? Are you liking it at home?" Finn cooed to Philip.
"He's hungry, I think. I'm still trying to get him to feed. You don't mind if I feed him now, right?" Marcy asked, not even stopping to think about it.
"Sure, go for it. I mean, little guy's gotta eat- uh... Oh... I, um, I thought you meant..."
"I'm trying to get him to take to breastfeeding, it's easier and better for him." Marcy replied distractedly as she unbuttoned her shirt. The complete lack of reply made her look up after a minute. Finn was staring at his shoes and his face had gone bright red while Phoebe looked like she was going to explode into laughter at any second.
"What is wrong with Madigan boys? I'm using my anatomy for its totally normal, natural purpose. The baby's hungry and I'm feeding him, on the sofa in my own home. Stop making it something weird or sexual, it's just baby food." Marcy sighed with an eye roll.
"You should have seen him at the hospital, he was so scared I'd be mad at him for accidentally seeing when the midwife lifted your skirt. Because mid-labour and in agony is exactly how all men fantasize about seeing naked lesbians." Bonnie added with a fond smile for their mortified friend.
"Didn't want you to call me distasteful again." Finn muttered, still blushing for all he was worth.
"Is Uncle Finn distasteful, my little snuggle bear? Yes he is. Are you a hungry tiny man? Come on, you latched earlier, don't tell me you forgot how to do it." Marcy sighed with a wince as Philip completely failed to do anything but gum and wiggle.
"Marcy, can I ask you something?" Finn asked after a couple of awkward seconds.
"Sure. I already know it's gonna be something personal, you've got that tone of voice going. Why not? It's not like you could just google it."
"Does it hurt to, y'know, do that?"
"To breastfeed? A bit, yeah. Imagine jamming one of the most sensitive parts of your body into the tiny, gummy mouths of greedy little milks monsters ever few hours day and night until you're sore and the skin is a little cracked and half the time they feel like they're practising chewing instead of drinking. It hurts. But the expressions on their faces when they feed, oh man I wish I could take photos that wouldn't be ninety percent boob. And it's a good feeling to know we're bonding like that. The only reason people are weird about it is because we fetishize breasts in this society, breastfeeding was literally the only way to feed a new baby for hundreds of thousands of years. There's nothing unnatural or dirty about it so-"
"Love, I think he gets the point." Bonnie interrupted gently.
"I spent the last two years reading every website, magazine and book I could find about early years parenting. He got the condensed version." Marcy sulked.
They were chatting about what had happened at the wedding reception after Marcy, Bonnie and Finn left for a good chunk of the afternoon. With hindsight it seemed obvious that with Lydia's obsessive thirst for built blonde men and natural attraction to sass that someone should have been keeping her as far away from Tiffany as possible but at least for Phoebe the night had ended with a very drunken receptionist bawling her eyes out in the bathrooms because he was just too perfect to be allowed to be gay. Once the alcohol had worn off and Lyds had recovered from the hangover she'd gone on a marathon shopping spree with him and they were now apparently best friends. She was planning on heading out to his hotel during the summer to help choose fabrics for the champagne room and meet the hot straight brothers of some of Tiff's exes. Ingrid woke up and started crying too so by the time the story ended both twins were being cuddled on the sofa.
"Hey, can I use your bathroom?" Phoebe asked politely, before being guided down the hall by Bonnie while Finn slid closer to Marcy on the sofa.
"You're planning on getting her to stay in the country by showing what a great father you'd make with the twins, aren't you?" she hissed the minute their respective girlfriends were out of earshot.
"I'm crafty like that." he replied with a covert wink.
"It was Jake's idea. Wasn't it? Come on, dude, this plan has Jake written all over it. Did you talk more about her moving away and how you would or wouldn't do long distance?"
"Not completely. She said she's still weighing her options. I just wanted her to see me being a good uncle with these guys first, so she knows I'm down for a family of our own."
"You're not exactly being subtle, man. But I saw the way she was smiling when you handed Philip to her. It's not the worst plan ever. Just, don't rush into anything, ok?"
"Jake got Lady pregnant literally the first night they met." Finn replied with a slight sulk.
"And if you think for one second that I didn't threaten to castrate him for it then you're dead wrong. But Jake and Lady are weirdly perfect for each other in the sort of way mere mortals like you and I can only dream of ever understanding. They are the literal definition of 'made for each other'. Do not get Phoebe pregnant unless she expressly tells you she wants a family with you. Understand?" Marceline asked, fixing him with a serious expression.
"So now that you're a Mum you get to treat everyone else like they're a child? Ow!"
"What happened?" Bonnie asked, coming back into the room a split second too late to catch Marcy one-inch punch Finn's shoulder.
"Just Uncle Finn being a silly. Yes he's a big silly poo, isn't he, Ina?" Marcy cooed to their daughter while Finn massaged his bicep and scowled at her.
Clearly she wasn't too mature to give him one of her signature thumps when he said something a little too offensive. Marceline had promised him, back when he was fifteen and she was sixteen and she'd first bruised his shoulder for his own good, that one day he'd thank her for it. Given the number of times Finn had opened his mouth to make a smart comment only for his inner Marcy to punch him in the arm he grudgingly accepted that she was probably right. By the time Phoebe came back too he was cradling his nephew and too caught up in pulling silly faces to notice the tender look his girlfriend was giving him.