Hey guys! Back with another one-shot. This time all the Kennash vibes. I hope you are all safe and well, you are all wonderful and I hope you, your friends and families are healthy and relaxed - no anxiety or stress or constantly watching the news as I've been doing and going through. I'm feeling better that's why the Reign vibes are working, haha. Your reviews are so kind and thoughtful, almost cried but I had to fall asleep. Much love, stay safe - Bex.
I'll probably do a Frary-centric one tomorrow.
Kenna peeks her head from underneath her duvet, her hand reaching out to grab her ringing phone from the nightstand. She pulls it into her little hub and answers it, placing the phone onto her ear.
"Hello, who is this?"
"Is this Kenna de Poitiers?"
Kenna opens her eyes. Maybe. "I... am."
"You don't sound too sure?"
"I am," she says firmly. "You've just woken me up."
"Oh, apologises," the voice replies. "I am a doctor calling from The Royal Hospital of Paris."
She's more alert, sitting up now. "Y-Yes?"
"You are listed on one our patients' contact details," he explains. "Sebastién de Poitiers."
Kenna's heart sinks. "Oh. I'm his... wife. What's happened?"
"You should come as soon as you can."
"I will come right away. Thank you."
"We'll see you soon."
The call ends and Kenna's hands shake as she places her phone back onto the nightstand and gets out of bed. She heads into the bathroom and brushes her teeth, fixing up her hair as she does so.
When she's dressed and ready, she gets her car keys and stops in front of the door.
Why am I going? It's a valid question.
They're separated.
She turns away from the door, replaces her keys and sits down on her sofa, curling up into a ball. She's not ready to see him - he hasn't been in her life since he walked out on her a year ago. He told her that he wouldn't seek a divorce until necessary, she had taken that as hope he'd return but he didn't.
In fact, she was sure he had a new partner and was in the works of announcing their engagement and her and his divorce. Why didn't the doctor call her instead? Why didn't he remove her from his contacts?
She reconsiders her decision not to go.
She won't admit it to him, but she's never stopped loving him.
...
"What happened?" She asks quietly, crossing her arms as she stands in front of the bed with his doctor.
"He was stabbed - in the heart," he tells her. "The operation was touch and go but he will be fine and should recover well."
That's good and then he'll wake up, we will exchange pleasantries and go back to as we were - estranged, she thinks.
"Do you know anything more about who...?" Kenna asks curiously.
The doctor sighs heavily. "I guess it comes with being a police officer? I am sure the investigation into this is going smoothly."
Kenna rolls her eyes. "As always, he's willing to risk his life for other people but..." She blushes. "Sorry. We're... we're estranged."
"I'm guessing he put his job above you?" The doctor asks knowingly.
Amongst others. "Yeah. It's hard being the spouse of a superhero," she says lightly.
"I understand," he mumbles. "My own wife and I separated after twenty years together. No children."
Kenna smiles wryly. "Didn't even last a year." She blinks back tears and sighs, taking a seat. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. It does get better, Madame," the doctor tells her, heading to the door. "If you need anything or he does, just let us know."
"I will," she whispers before he leaves.
Kenna studies Bash. Her fingers trail up his chest and settle on his left cheek. He looks at peace. Like he's finally getting some sleep because she knows he rarely gets a solid six hours be it from his job or just how he is - restlessness. Sleeping just doesn't do it for him, he has to always be active.
It was unexpected - their relationship.
She had been seventeen and he had just turned twenty-one, naturally inviting Mary and her friends to his father-planned birthday party so his brother wouldn't be stuck socialising with all of his friends or their siblings.
It was a breath of fresh air from her boarding school, the one her parents shipped her off to because she begged to remain with Mary who had moved to France when she was thirteen. Then, Lola, Aylee and Greer joined them and they bitched about the French boarding school together.
A moment to herself, she had wanted. The hall was claustrophobic and she remembered how much she hated socialising even though she could talk and hold a conversation for days.
That moment to herself was meant for her to forget her brief boyfriend's words and touches. She hadn't been ready to sleep with him, he'd called her a whore and shook her hard, asking why she'd sleep with all those other guys but him. She had wanted to have something real, not just quickies in the school bathrooms.
Sex destroyed things.
Yet, the next thing she knew, she was in another bathroom but making out with the birthday boy before the clothes came off and things went too far. It was awkward and they avoided each other every time Mary, she and the girls came over to spend time with Francis and his new best friend, Leith.
Mary had excused herself to use the toilet and Kenna had also excused herself to grab a drink. Francis's house was their house and they should feel free to raid the fridge, not that they were ever willing to, the respectful ladies they were.
The sight she walked in on made her eyes widen and heart stop.
Mary and Francis weren't a couple then but she knew how much the blonde pined for the girl who was kissing his half-brother.
They sprung apart and Kenna backed away from the situation.
"Don't tell-"
"You do you, Mary," she had said softly. "This is none of my business."
She returned to the living room where the others were engaged in a Heads Up game and she saw Mary enter soon after, sitting right beside Francis where his hand shifted onto hers.
Kenna looked away.
A couple of weeks after that, Mary and Francis made things official after an explosive fight between the brothers and Bash sought comfort in her arms again. He'd texted her, asking if he could see her and she had snuck out of the boarding house where he picked her up and took her to a restaurant.
"My dad kicked me out," he'd confessed. "I'm going to Spain. My mother's expecting me."
"Why am I here?" She had asked him.
"The kiss between Mary and me-"
"I don't care. Why should I? You love her, she's your brother's girlfriend and now... you've brought me here for what reason?"
His face had fallen. "I... I have no one to talk to."
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes on his admission, she had leaned back in her seat and nodded. "Right. Well, I'm all ears as long as you take me back to the house by 12."
"I didn't mean to have a one-night stand with you," he later continued. "You're a smart girl, you don't need to get mixed up with the drama I bring."
"I..." She hadn't known what to say. "Forgive me if this is weird or even too forward. I felt something. I don't know what but you made me safe and comfortable and... the way you held my gaze as we... Forget it-"
"You felt it too?"
"I'm sorry?"
He had laughed softly. "I thought I was going crazy. It was sex but I had never had sex like that before. How did you learn how to...? I probably shouldn't ask."
Kenna had blushed furiously. "I've been taught a few things."
"Want to... repeat them?"
"One last rodeo before you leave?"
An amused smile had played on his lips, his green eyes sparkling as he sipped his drink and eyed his car. "Have you ever done it in a car before?"
"Don't think I have," she had replied. "How comfortable is your Land Rover?"
"Very," he had said quietly.
Her eyes had darkened with lust. "Let's go."
She had assured him that it was okay, that she was on the pill when he couldn't find his emergency supply but then they later found out over secret phone calls and her lack of appetite and constant throwing up.
Stomach bug?
No.
Pregnancy?
Yes.
He had called his father and his father had raged and complained and berated and acted more like a father than he ever had in his twenty-one years since he first became a dad. He'd been ordered, for God's sake, ordered to come home to France and face his mistakes.
But he didn't need to even though he arrived in France with the mindset that he'd be a father to a schoolgirl's kid.
She miscarried.
It was a relief, she didn't have to confess her sins to her parents and the only ones who knew where her, him, her doctor and his dad who was so adamant that he put a ring on it and be done with it.
As punishment for tainting the family name, even though no one else knew, he was sent to the Police Academy and ended up enjoying it. It was freeing and gruelling but he got through it, being a better person as a whole.
A few years down the line, they would try again, properly and non-scandalous. Their romance would last for four months before they elope and buy a house in the suburbs.
And everything would change.
She'd meet his distant cousin at his father's 55th birthday party and the man would shamelessly flirt with her. Her husband would drink to forget about the suspect who had died in front of him the previous evening.
They would go home to an argument that she was leading Antoine on and he'd call her a whore, bringing up her past sexual encounters. She'd retort why he was so closed off, why he even decided to be with her in the first place.
A project, she 'was'.
And good sex.
It was said at the moment and quickly taken back. He was drunk and apologetic and tried to make it better with sex but she stopped him right in his tracks and kicked him to the guest bedroom.
She would later find out that he arrested his other cousin, Antoine's older brother and the man had died in prison after being stabbed for committing such a heinous crime.
Bash wouldn't blame himself, but he would feel guilty for sending him down in the first place. There was no loyalty in family, the Bourbons had spat at him which made his father happy to keep the drift between the two families going.
Antoine would flirt some more and she'd humour him because her husband was too busy to spend time with her, saying that the streets of France needed a good clean up from all of those bad guys.
Kenna then realised that Antoine was playing her, set it up quite nicely. He was married, his wife tucked up nicely in Spain after going through chemotherapy for her breast cancer.
A horrible argument it had been. Words said, never able to take them back at the moment they said them. She thinks it got physical on her part, she had started jabbing his chest, bemoaning that he never truly loved her in the first place and brought up their other recent argument.
"Good sex."
"Stop-"
"I bet if it was Mary in my place, everything would be so different!"
"You're the one who kissed Antoine-"
"No! He kissed me!" She had screamed, angrily thinking about his denial to believe her. "If it was Mary, you'd believe her. You never gave me a chance, gave us a chance."
He had sat down, covered his face and shook his head. "I'm tired. I'm tired of this, of us."
She was tired too.
"Where do we go from here?" She had whispered brokenly, already knowing the answer.
"I'll move out."
"Bash, please-"
"We're done."
A few hours after such a destructive argument, they'd somewhat made up. Sex was such a poisonous friend.
In the middle of the night, he left and never came back.
Two months later, she had learned from his brother that he had moved on in a certain way. Stringless one-night stands.
So she moved on. An older guy with a son who was a lawyer in the city. They'd split up after a month and he'd be killed in a car accident.
A regular doctor's check-up would reveal that she was four months pregnant after she told her that she was experiencing some back pain but overall was feeling great.
She'd try and make things right with Bash but a new woman was in his life and it seemed like she was here to stay. She quickly backed off and decided that she would raise her child alone.
But then she'd suffer a stillbirth. She would go through it alone before sending him a gentle text with some evidence in case he didn't believe her. She'd see that he had read them but not once did she get a reply.
Kenna would mellow in her sorrow and loneliness, avoid Mary and Francis in their happy bubble, distance herself from everyone and get on with her life. She wasn't sure if she even loved Bash in the first place.
But she does, she admits mentally.
And now she watches his eyes flutter open and land on her.
...
Her hand is off his cheek in a flash and she adopts a steely glare.
"Look what you've done to yourself," she says. "The police want a word. Want to know who'd hurt one of their own."
He doesn't say anything, merely looks away from her as if she's the last person he wants to see.
"I'll call your fiancée," she says bitterly, looking down at the ring she's never taken off her finger. She takes it off now and places it on the bedside table. "You can give her that." She gets up. "Now I know that you're okay, I'm going to go."
She heads to the door but his voice stops her. It's quiet and croaky but it's clear in her ears.
"The baby."
"I told you about the baby but you didn't care," she whispers, shrugging as she turns to face him. "It's fine. It's just like the first time, you've got off scot-free."
She tries the handle as she turns to the door.
"Don't..."
She turns again. "What?"
"Kenna, I-"
The door is pushed open and Kenna narrowly avoids being slammed by it. A mop of straight blonde hair enters along with curly blonde hair right behind her. The new woman and Francis.
They're all over him, concerned and it takes a while to notice her.
"Kenna," Francis breathes out in shock. "Been a while."
Kenna smiles wryly. "It has," she mumbles. "Good luck, Bash. I hope you get better. Francis, say 'hi' to Mary and the kids for me and uh, it's nice to meet you...?"
"Delphine," the woman says softly. "You're the wife."
Kenna meets Bash's eyes. "No. I'm not. Never was." Not truly. A project he had called me. Good sex.
Then she leaves, feeling more empty than she's ever felt in her entire life.
Her phone beeps and it reads something simple when she opens it.
'I'm sorry. B x'
She deletes the texts and the whole number overall.
She is too.
...
"He's getting married in the morning."
"And I care because?" Kenna asks her best friend as she lists a bunch of furniture she has to order for her new home.
He's decided to keep the house after all.
The divorce wasn't messy per se, they never even saw each other and communicated through their lawyers. Simple job, quick job.
Mary sighs, taking a break from breastfeeding when her baby falls asleep. "He doesn't love her, not like he loves you."
Kenna laughs incredulously. "Oh, Mary, no. He didn't love me. He could never get you out of his heart. I just warmed it until the next best thing came along."
She moves along to the kitchen, rearranging her wine glasses. She's bought fifty. She doesn't know why as she'll never host fifty guests at one time but they're there.
Mary joins her, her baby a permanent fixture on her shoulder as she rubs the baby's back. "When Bash and I kissed all of those years ago, he said that he had someone else on his mind. That he wished he was kissing her and that Francis loved me."
Kenna pauses, her hand holding the stem of one glass tightly. "What you say contradicts what he says. I don't care who's right, he's moved on and so have I."
"Kenna-"
"Can we stop talking about him? Like I didn't come back into your life to talk about my failed marriage," Kenna snaps angrily, breaking the glass in two. She curses, feeling the blood start to seep through the large cut on her palm.
Mary winces and promises to return babyless and with a First Aid Kit in hand.
After Mary and the baby have gone and she's in peace, she indulges in wine and watches some French soap opera. She has the subtitles on in English since she isn't all that much listening.
Her doorbell rings and her eyes cast over to the baby bottle on the coffee table that Mary forgot.
Just in case it's her, Kenna takes it along and answers the door to green eyes.
It's been a full year since she's seen him, just like when she saw him in the hospital after being stabbed. He looks better, healthier. His hair is a different style, his stubble is mostly shaved and he looks shy, a small smirk playing on his lips.
"Hey."
"Hi," she whispers.
"I hope that isn't for me."
She looks down at the baby bottle. "Mary was here earlier. She forgot it here."
Bash nods. "Can I come in?"
"Uh, yeah," she whispers, letting him inside and closing the door. She'll just wash the bottle properly for Mary.
Kenna leads him into the living room and he looks around the house approvingly. She offers him a drink and he settles on wine. As she gets a glass from the cupboard, the subject of her palm is brought up and she admits she broke a glass by accident.
"You should be careful," he says softly.
"You care because?" She retorts, pouring him a glass as she returns to the sofa and sits beside him.
"Kenna, don't be like that."
"Like what?"
"Like-"
"Upset?" She asks, frowning. "I'm not. I'm at peace. I understand what happened and why it happened. We weren't a good couple, we were toxic. The only reason we thought there was something was that we were young and stupid and got pregnant and lost it and feelings got mixed up. We should never have continued what we had."
He lowers his gaze. "I didn't know you thought that."
"I didn't. But I realised that. Bash, you loved another and I was just a replacement," she tells him softly. "I'm not mad. I'm happy that you've found someone else now. Just hope for a less dramatic marriage this time, eh?"
"I ended things with Delphine."
Kenna raises her eyebrows. "I'm so sorry. Are you alright?"
"Surprisingly, I am."
"That's... good." She smiles a little. "I'm glad you are."
They settle in comfortable silence, the TV still running in the background and a little part of Kenna thinks that this is familiar. The good days of their relationship where a bottle of wine and a dramatic soap opera would be on the TV.
After the second bottle is finished, Bash gets up to leave. "I'd like to do this again sometime. If you don't mind?"
Kenna is surprised but she nods a little. "Yeah. Sure."
There and then, she doesn't know that they'll eventually end up together again after he invites her on a trip to Spain to see his dying mother. She'll comfort him and see him through his grief as well as his promotion at work where she'll wait in his home with a congratulatory bottle of champagne.
She'll attend therapy with him, even unboxing their marriage woes.
She'll wait three months until they become intimate and have sex for the first time in a long time.
She'll wait another two months before they elope again.
They'll keep their marriage a secret until that Christmas his half-brother finds out following opening a gift meant for him of her naked portrait she'd hired a specific artist to paint for her. He'll confess that he's married again to her and show off his ring to his not-so-surprised family before inviting her to visit them for the New Year's after she's seen her own family.
The September after, they'll welcome a daughter after moving in together in March when they found out about their pregnancy even though they were a married couple.
Oh, and a son.
Twins.
She'll worry that they won't be able to cope but then he will kiss all her worries away and assure her with his green eyes and knowing smirk. Especially as his new position at work enables him to work less hours with more pay.
Then everything comes easy and they give their children a little brother to play with and a dog in the mix.
But right now as her eyes meet Bash's own, she doesn't know that.
"I'll show you out," she says softly and she even stands by the door as he drives away.
She looks down and smiles softly. Her heart never stopped beating quickly whenever he was near.
Maybe, she thinks. Maybe.