A/N – Finally getting back to this story, just in time for Thanksgiving! The balance shifts, this time in Fred's favor.

XXX

I don't need you to respect me, I respect me
I don't need you to love me, I love me
But I want you to know you could know me
If you change your mind
~Change Your Mind, Steven Universe

XXX

To Fred's relief, his first guess was right: Lucy was at the water tower. And to his even greater relief, she looked delighted to see him when he pulled up with the buggy. His next guess as to her whereabouts was the streetcar depot, and he would have been rather upset if that were indeed the case. She'd promised never to run away from him like that again.

When Fred dismounted, his wife immediately flew over to him and threw herself into his arms. As he held her, he said nothing as he assessed her state of being. She'd taken the time to don her coat but not a hat or gloves, her curls were disheveled, her cheeks were alarmingly pink, and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.

It was Lucy who finally broke the silence between them. "I'm so embarrassed that I lost my temper like that. Your family probably thinks I'm daft!"

Fred could repress his laughter but not a grin, which he buried in her mussed hair. "You said exactly what needed to be said. I've never heard a more eloquent speech – someone ought to embroider it on a quilt!"

Lucy laughed at that, and he was glad to hear it. "Well, I suppose that's what comes of my last play being the Merry Wives of Windsor. Shakespeare was awfully creative when it came to insults. But even so, I'll always regret the missed opportunity to slap Susan into silence!"

This time, Fred allowed her to witness his mirth. "Well, it might please you to know that my mother slapped her for you, shortly after you left."

Lucy let out a shocked giggle. "She didn't!"

He nodded. "She did. My mother likes you, for all that she's disappointed we'll never be able to give her grandchildren."

Lucy's shoulders slumped. "You had to tell them, didn't you?"

Fred nodded, this time much more gravely. "They weren't going to let me go after you until I'd explained things, so I decided I might as well get it over with right then and there."

Lucy hid her face in the lapels of his coat. "Oh, I knew I shouldn't have let myself go like that! Even worse – I abandoned you, and I promised I'd never do that again. So I don't suppose I can blame you for throwing me under the train."

"Say, now," he gently admonished. "I didn't throw you under the train. All my family knows is what they'd already guessed: we can't have children. I told them no details about your past. But I made it very clear that it didn't matter to me because I love you more than anything in the world."

Lucy squeezed him even tighter. "Oh, Fred! I really don't deserve you."

"Yes, you do," he said firmly. "Granted, it wasn't the most ideal way for them to find out, but at least my mother's incessant hints about grandchildren will finally stop."

"Sure," she said glumly. "Now she'll just treat me like I'm a fragile flower, or worse – as if I'm damaged goods because I failed her hopes." He felt her hands ball into fists as she continued to cling to him. "I can't believe I let your sister get to me like that! She's too much like my mother – she knows exactly how to sniff out a person's weakness and go for the kill."

"You don't ever have to see her again," he promised. "I can arrange for us to stay in the guest house and we'll leave first thing tomorrow morning."

With the poise and pride of a Shakespearean queen, Lucy lifted her head high and shook it vehemently. "I may be a coward, but I'm not that spineless! We'll stay until Saturday, as we originally planned."

"You owe my sister nothing," he insisted. "If anything, she owes you an apology – a big one."

"I know," she said. "But I refuse to give that witless worm the satisfaction of thinking I'm afraid of her – because I'm most certainly not! If I'm going to shoot my mouth off like that, I can't slink out of town afterward or it'll look like I don't have the courage of my convictions. We'll stay until Saturday." She gave him a wan smile. "Besides, your family isn't entirely intolerable. Fanny's very kind, Anna's not too bad, and Bess was lovely. I can see why you had such a difficult time letting her go."

Fred looked her steadily in the eyes. "I have never loved Bess the way I love you. I hope you know that."

"I do," Lucy confirmed. "I could tell by the way you looked at her, like she's a sister to you."

Fred pulled her into another hug. As his wife let out a contented sigh and nestled into his arms, he angrily reflected that she should never have had to come by her certainty this way. No matter how gracious his former fiancée was, and no matter how platonic their feelings for each other were, his mother never should have thrown them all together like that. But he supposed that if their marriage could survive his tactless and overbearing family until Saturday rolled around, it could survive anything.

XXX

When Fred entered the vestibule of the Gallup homestead, he did so alone. Harold had intercepted the two of them in the barn upon their return, and cannily offered refuge in the guest house if they weren't quite ready to rejoin the party yet. Upon reflection, Lucy chose to take him up on this generous proposal, while Fred decided to face the music on his own. It was actually much better this way, as he had a plan to give her a delightful reprieve, and he'd accomplish it a lot more expediently if she wasn't in the vicinity. In fact, her absence would only bolster his argument that she needed such a nicety.

Indeed, as soon as he stepped foot in the house, his mother and sisters swooped over to him.

"Where's Lucy?" Mrs. Gallup demanded to know. "Did you find her?"

"Lucy's just fine," he assured them, heartened to see Fanny's and Anna's relieved expressions and pleased to see Susan's chastened one. "She's fatigued from being outside in the cold and recovering in the guest house. If it wouldn't be too much trouble, may we have a tub of hot water brought to our room? A bath always puts her in a much better frame of mind."

"Of course," his mother magnanimously granted. "I'll also brew a pot of chamomile tea – we mustn't allow her to take ill!"

"Yes, tea would help tremendously," he said, concealing his surprise that she'd not only agreed to his request so readily, but made additional concessions to enhance her daughter-in-law's comfort. Given all the work that baths took to procure in this household, she was never this generous about preparing them. But clearly, the lady of the manor was eager to make amends, lest her reputation for being a hospitable hostess be forever tarnished.

Looking self-satisfied once more, Mrs. Gallup turned to her daughters and barked at them to hop to it. When she turned back to Fred, he spoke promptly, lest he lose the upper hand. "Thank you for being so accommodating. I'll be attending to my wife in the guest house until her bath is ready."

XXX

When Fred and Lucy finally reached their room, not only was there a warm bath and steaming pot of chamomile tea waiting for them, there were also two heaping slices of blueberry pie. This was a lovely treat indeed, as they'd completely missed dessert.

After ravenously downing their pie, husband and wife disrobed and climbed into the bath together. Thankfully, the tub was large enough to accommodate them both, though it was a snugger fit than they were used to. That didn't stop them from making love – Lucy's mouth found his for a delicious, blueberry-tinged kiss that soon turned heated as she straddled his lap and took him into her. It was wonderful to finally have some privacy – unlike when they coupled on the blasted mattress, which broadcast their every single twitch, no one could hear the water sloshing around in the tub as they moved together. And so they luxuriated in their embrace for as long, slow, and sweet as Fred could draw it out before he finally had to come.

"Do you know this is my favorite thing to do with you?" he said as they lay curled together in the sudsy water afterward. While the actress had eagerly welcomed him in her bed shortly after they'd met, it had taken her a lot longer to invite him into her bath. Although they'd often shared tubs together once she did, it was an intimacy that Fred never took for granted.

Lucy laughed – not acerbically, but that sweet, delighted, carefree laugh she always gave him whenever she was well-pleased. "This was wonderful – just what I needed to face the world again." She scooped a mound of suds into her palms and coquettishly blew bubbles at him. "Perhaps it's not such a bad thing to be treated like a fragile flower by your family, if it allows us to be together like this during visits!"

XXX

After passing one of the most blissfully insensate nights that he could ever remember spending in his boyhood bedroom, Fred blearily opened an eye to see Lucy regarding him with an impish beam.

"I have a plan for how to handle your family," she told him.

Fred was immediately intrigued. Opening both eyes, he fixed them intently on hers. "Do tell."

Her smile widened into a full-fledged grin. "Unfortunately, I can't tell you everything. But what I can divulge is that I'm going to break down at breakfast and confess the truth about my past. And it will be the truth, but presented in a way that your mother will sympathize with, rather than condemn."

His brow quirked. "Are you sure that's wise? I learned early on that my mother can't be trusted with such damaging information."

"All good theater has to have an element of honesty to which the audience can connect," Lucy said staunchly. "Which is why you can't know the details of what I'm going to say in advance – your reactions have to be as natural as possible for this plan to succeed. And I must remain center stage. Your role in this scene is to be the silent, supportive husband – follow my lead and don't say anything unless prompted. Can you do that?"

Fred nodded. For her, he could do anything.

"Now, this may not work," she cautioned. "It all depends on how much your mother truly likes me. I took great care to win her approval for your sake, but now that she knows I can't give her any grandchildren, her feelings about me may have changed. And if they have, at least we'll know where we stand after this." She grimaced. "Christmas will be rather awkward, though."

"Christmas, nothing," Fred said vehemently. "If things go completely south at breakfast and they mistreat you in any way, we'll spend the holidays together just the two of us – or with the Hills if they extend the invitation."

"Really?" Lucy said, looking as if she didn't dare ask for such a pleasant outcome but desperately hoped for it, all the same.

"You're my family now," he reminded her, and pulled her close for a heated kiss.

XXX

The show started as soon as they exited their bedroom. Taking Fred's arm, Lucy adopted a wounded-gazelle expression and tentative gait as they made their way downstairs. The reporter was so impressed with her demeanor he had to work hard to keep his expression solemn – if he hadn't known what she was up to, he would have completely fallen for it.

Unsurprisingly, the atmosphere at the breakfast table was rather strained, and only grew more awkward once the reporter and the actress entered the dining room and took their seats. As Fred tucked into the hearty fare, Lucy picked delicately at her food.

Naturally, Mrs. Gallup noticed. "Are you feeling all right this morning, Lucy?"

Lucy burst into tears and buried her face in her hands.

All of the men except Harold immediately excused themselves and fled to the parlor. The women remained right where they were and regarded the actress with alarmed expressions. As Lucy had directed him to be the silent and supportive husband, Fred decided to pretend he was too frozen with concern to move. When Harold looked questioningly at him, he gave the briefest of winks.

Fortunately, the others were too focused on Lucy's display to note this signal, and Mrs. Gallup was too busy glowering after her daughters' husbands for their cowardice. When she turned to glare at Fred for his inaction, he presented the perfect picture of alarmed masculine incompetence in the face of a woman weeping.

"Men are so useless!" his mother tutted, and bustled over to her daughter-in-law to hand her a handkerchief.

Accepting the handkerchief with a masterfully quavering smile of appreciation, Lucy dabbed her eyes with it. "Forgive me… I just… after everything that happened at dinner yesterday, I couldn't help reliving the loss of my dear son… "

"Oh, you poor thing!" Mrs. Gallup gasped at the revelation. Anna and Fanny likewise made sympathetic clucking noises. Susan looked deeply ashamed of herself, and Fred had to smother a churlish smirk as he reflected that it served her right for being so unkind. Harold and Marian appeared appropriately grave, but the music professor's eyes danced with merriment as he puzzled out the game that was afoot.

Indeed, Lucy welled up again, though she managed to be poignant rather than melodramatic as she tearfully explained, "I was married once before, and carried a boy to term. But he only lived a single day. Bringing him into the world injured me permanently, so I wasn't able to have any more children." She looked penitently at Susan, who squirmed even more uncomfortably. "I apologize for losing my temper yesterday. But it's been such a heavy cross to bear… " She buried her face in the handkerchief, and her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

"Not only does Susan accept your apology, she'll be choosing her words a lot more carefully in the future," Mrs. Gallup assured her daughter-in-law. "Whenever I had a miscarriage – and I've had my share – my mother told me that the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. But as much as I trust in the Lord, I will never understand why He would deny the gift of motherhood to any woman. You mustn't blame yourself for what happened. The Lord has simply decided, for reasons we cannot ever know, that motherhood was not to be your path."

Fred was stunned – those were the most compassionate and understanding words he'd ever heard from his mother in his entire life. So when Lucy lowered her handkerchief and gaped at her mother-in-law as if she was overcome with gratitude, perhaps some of it was genuine. "You're too kind. When my husband cruelly abandoned me for another woman, I didn't think I'd ever find a man who'd want me. But then I met Fred." She looked at the reporter with glistening eyes, as if he was her savior.

Taking her hand in his, Fred did his best to look reassuring without overdoing it. It was difficult not to smile, as she'd never made such an obsequious display of reverence to him in all the time he'd known her.

Fortunately, he didn't need to vocalize his support, as his mother did it for him. "Yes, my Freddie has always been a champion of the downtrodden," Mrs. Gallup said proudly. "You poor dear! What was your son's name?"

Lucy paused for a split second. "Methuselah."

Fred bit his tongue so he wouldn't burst into laughter. The inclination had been massing for quite some time as he watched Lucy's cunning display, but when she assigned that particular name to her child, he nearly couldn't hold it in. Fortunately, no one else noticed his barely repressed mirth, though he witnessed out of the corner of his eye that Harold and Marian likewise smothering smiles. His sisters continued to regard Lucy with sympathy, though it was clear from the scandalized frown on Susan's face that she had some decided opinions on such an ironic appellation. Thankfully, she kept her mouth shut and didn't air any of them.

Lucy determinedly avoided looking at them all. "I know Methuselah must sound absolutely ghastly, but it was a cherished family namesake."

If Mrs. Gallup had any misgivings about this explanation, she didn't show them. "Nonsense! Methuselah is a fine, strong name for a boy… even if it is such a terrible pity he didn't have the gumption to live up to his namesake. But dear little Methuselah will be waiting for his mother in heaven until she joins him. Now, let's dry those tears and finish up your breakfast. You can't afford not to eat – you're skin and bones as it is!"

After dutifully complying with Mrs. Gallup's mother-henning, Lucy announced that she needed to lie down. Fred quickly leaped up to join her. As they made their way to the stairs, he whispered to Harold that Marian should play something on the piano straightaway. Shortly afterward, just as the reporter and actress reached the second-floor landing, the librarian started in on a rousing, galloping Rachmaninoff piece with a great deal of showy arpeggios.

Once their bedroom door was safely closed behind them, Lucy burst into exuberant laughter and elbowed Fred. "You bastard – you almost ruined the whole thing!"

Fred couldn't help laughing along with her. "I know, I'm sorry. But – Methuselah?"

"Well, they can't all be brilliant!" Lucy tutted. "It was the first biblical name I could think of on the fly. When I was racking my brains for one, all I could hear in my head was the blasted phrase 'old as Methuselah' even though it would have been the cruelest of names to give to a child! But I had to say something, because as long as she lives, your mother is going to be commiserating with me over my loss. I couldn't bear hearing my son's true name coming from her mouth, so she doesn't get to know it. And this way, whenever she starts going on about how tragic it was that 'dear little Methuselah' was taken so swiftly, I can pretend she's talking about someone else entirely!"

"You are so damn brilliant," he said admiringly.

"Yes… but it's a pity I had to make Susan into the black sheep to pull this plan off," she mused. "She won't live her blunder down for quite a while!"

"Susan deserves exactly what she gets," Fred averred. "She didn't have to say those nasty things. We all had the same mother, but Fanny's been nothing but decent and even Anna wouldn't stoop that low. So Susan has no excuse for her bad behavior."

Lucy laughed. "I know there's no love lost between the two of you and that she's a loathsome little worm, but she's not the true villain in this tale – if your mother hadn't been so preachy about children in the first place, your sister wouldn't have felt she could say such horrid things with impunity. It just goes to show that people never realize the full effect of their detestable prejudices on their own offspring. And quite honestly, I'm not so sure I wouldn't be doing similar damage if I was to have children of my own."

Although the subject of parenting was merely academic for them, Fred hated to hear her running herself down like that. "With that level of insight, you'd be a much better mother than you credit yourself."

Lucy smiled wistfully. "Well, we'll never know. And I love the life we've built together as tumbleweeds, blowing from place to place together, too much to ever give it up."

"So do I," Fred agreed, smiling just as wistfully at her in return. Though neither of them was inclined to parenthood, he would have welcomed any children they had as a natural consequence of their passion, should that have been a possibility. He suspected a kid or two might just find a home with them someday – not through childbirth, but through fostering, for there was bound to be a few nephews and nieces who were longing to escape a farmer's fate in Charleston when they got a little older. And who better for them to turn to than the devoted uncle and aunt who forged the path to freedom?

But for now, such possibilities were distant, and their only responsibility was to each other. So Fred pulled Lucy to lie down with him and they made love, confident that no one could hear the creaks of the bed or the intensity of their moans over the loud piano music suffusing the house.

XXX

Lucy's unvarnished past, her son's true name, and her complicated feelings about motherhood were previously explored in chapters five and six of Triumph of the Early Bird.