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I didn't like it at all. Talking about whether my loves me. Lords forbid. I mean-do you think I want to sit around and think about that? I know how that sounds on the surface. Most people didn't have to sit around and wonder and be creeped out about it. Most people wouldn't be all upset about that. Most people would just accept and be happy if their mother loved them.

Not me though.

I had issues.

I don't know.

It was a little upsetting to think about my Mom loving me at all. And I didn't want to love her back but I probably did. I probably loved her a little. Which was a hard sell for me to accept. Hard to believe.

I served up dinner to my family. The toddlers could eat solid food. I sat down at the table after serving up soup. My eldest son dropped his spoon but I caught it and placed it back in his hand.

"Thank you daddy," he murmured.

I scruffed his hair. My little white haired boy.

"No problem little man," I mumbled back. "My precious son."

"Why do you talk to yourself? Daddy?" He asked up at me before I could sit.

And how the hell was I supposed to answer that? I took my seat and sighed heavily. "Sometimes I talk with my Mom or with myself just in general."

"With your momma?" My eldest daughter asked.

"With my momma," I agreed. "She has the power to talk to me despite the distance between us."

"Cloud…" Ruby warned.

"I'm trying," I shot back.

"Why haven't we met your mommy?" Garnet wondered. "We've met granddad Taiyang."

"My Mom… I have serious problems with her," I clarified. "We don't get along very well."

"Why not?" Nebel asked.

"We just don't. It's a touch complicated," I mumbled. "I have to kill her."

"Huh…" Nebel trailed.

"Why?" Garnet demanded in that curious way children have.

"Because she's evil. She's demented and evil and she's really powerful. It makes her dangerous."

"Cloud?" Weiss threatened.

"What?" I wondered.

"Careful. Don't… don't go too far," Weiss hesitated.

"What? What is it?" Nebel caught on.

"My Mom is a real problem for all of us. She's dangerous and powerful and she has people willing to do work for her. I have to live under her in a lot of ways. That's why you haven't met her. She made me do some pretty terrible stuff to some good people."

"Like what?" Garnet wondered. Ruby fed some mix into Citrone and bobbed at his bottom lip when food dribbled out.

"She made me kill my friends. She has power over me that's a little hard to explain. In a lot of ways we're the same person. Me and my Mom."

"She made you…?" Garnet asked.

"She made me," I agreed.

"How are you the same person?" Nebel wondered.

"That's a little bit of a tough one. We flow together. Like rivers on the same delta. I resist her."

"Could she do it again?" Cherry phrased.

"Maybe…" I hesitated. I glanced over at Weiss. She gave me a little headshake. "That's enough about her. My Mom. I'll explain it to you better when you're older."

"I hate things like that," Nebel slumped.

"But sometimes it's fair and your mothers don't really think you should know about it. So you probably shouldn't. You'll have a happier life with my Mother in it within any capacity."

"That should be my choice," Nebel grumbled.

I sighed. I was inclined to agree with him but he was literally two. So… no. You can't always get what you want and the truth hurts.

"He gets that from you, you know," I leveled my spoon at Weiss. She rolled her eyes at me and gave a little curtsey of a huff. Weiss spooned baby food into Pearl's little face and she rocked excitedly in the chair as she ate noisily.

"Does he though?" Weiss asked.

"Yes. He does," Ruby agreed with me. She reached up with her spoon and fed Cherry. Cherry didn't rock her chair or make baby noises as she ate. She just took it.

"Don't take his side!" Weiss sputtered.

"But it's true. It's a total Weiss move," Ruby countered.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting the truth. Just not when you're still a baby," Weiss reached over and cupped Nebel's cheek. He shook her off.

"I'm not a baby," he denied. "Citrone, Cherry, and Pearle are babies. I'm not a baby."

"You'll always be my baby," Ruby murmured down at him. "Always."

"Well!" He three his arms up. "Then what's the point? If I never grow up!"

"You shouldn't want to be a grown up. Being a grown up is miserable," I informed him.

"So you're miserable all the time?" Nebel demanded.

"Not all the time…" I trailed. This conversation had been enlightening so far. I was really getting a good picture of myself.

"Cloud," Ruby was shaking her head at me.

"I mean I have your mothers," I told Nebel. 'That's pretty great. But growing up comes with responsibilities and things you're not ready for. Having you was like that."

"But you're sad?" Cherry wondered.

"I wouldn't call me sad. I have you guys. I have my family. It's a lot," I denied. "But that swings both ways. It's a lot both ways. It's a whole lot of responsibility and work and I wouldn't trade it for the world and all I want is more of it. But it's still a lot."

"Are you glad you had us?" Nebel demanded. I bent and kissed his forehead.

"So glad. You're my son. Of course I'm glad I had you. You're my whole little world. You all are. I don't know what I'd be doing without you. I'd probably not be doing well."

"But it's hard," Garnet affirmed.

"The hardest," I agreed.

Cherry started crying and it was accompanied by an odor which didn't belong at the dinner table. Ruby started to get up but I beat her to it and waved her off.

"I got her."

Ruby sat back down. "Thank you," she said.

"No problem." I took her to the changing station in her room on the other side of the house and I changed her. Make no mistake, changing diapers was a gross and messy affair. It certainly had the power to kill an appetite. Mine was pretty much gone by the time I wiped her clean. I threw away the wipes and put her into a fresh diaper and she gurgled up at me. I picked her back up and made my way back to the dinning room on the far side of the kitchen.

I set her back in her high chair and resumed my own seat.

Nebel and Garnet were already gone. Leaving just the wives and babies and me. The babies were mostly fed but Cherry had some catching up to do. Ruby scooped up some baby food and passed it into her mouth with plane noises. She made weird faces at the baby as she did which I thought was adorable and Weiss hid a giggle behind her hand. She failed to really hide it though. I thought it was darling when she did that. When she tried and failed to hide her smile.

"Ooh. Yummy! I know!" Ruby purred in Cherry's face. "I know it's so yummy. Om-nom-noms."

"And you want another one…" I shook my head at her and looked down at my soup.

"Yes. What's wrong with that?"

"You're so baby crazy. I just wonder when it will end," I mumbled.

"Just one more. Just one. That's all I want," Ruby hummed.

"On top of the twins," Weiss chimed in.

"You're always like 'don't take his side.' Now look at you. You're taking his side," Ruby protested.

"It's just so many babies. You can see that it's a lot of babies. Can't you?" Weiss asked.

"I always wanted arms full of babies though…"

"So you've always been baby crazy. Is that a point in your favor?" I wondered.

"You guys…" Ruby whined. "Weiss had more babies than she always thought she would."

"Yeah. She's baby crazy too," I agreed.

Weiss squawked. "Are you seriously comparing the two of us?"

"A little," Ruby decided. She made herself seem small. She hunched in on herself with the baby's spoon close to her chest.

"A little," I agreed.

"What about you?" Weiss accused. "You're toddler nuts."

"I'm not toddler nuts," I denied.

"You're just stroking Nebel's hair and murmuring 'my precious son' to him all the time," Weiss disagreed.

I flinched.

"What? What is it?" Ruby picked up on my change in mood. From affection to horror.

"I don't really call him that, do I?" I wondered.

"Sometimes. Why?" Weiss asked.

"That's what Salem calls me," I whispered. I chewed on the side of my thumb hard.

"So?" Ruby asked after a beat of silence. "He is your precious son."

"Yeah but what if that's not why I call him that. I need to be careful of what slips through the cracks in my psyche. This is the exact kind of thing that could be something bigger. That's how calling Salem Mother started in the first place."

"Is it?" Ruby pleaded.

"Yeah. I sorta started and just couldn't stop. I still can't completely," I mumbled.

"But he is your precious son."

"And she is my Mother." I let my head drop into my hands. What else was I slipping up on. I had no idea. And it could be nothing. It could be absolutely nothing. Or it could be massive. I just couldn't tell from my position. Stuck in the flypaper as it were; my perspective was bad. "Aw man. That's so… messed up. I'm just passing that along to him. What else do I do?"

"I don't…" Ruby shot a glance at Weiss.

Weiss reached across the table and took my hand. "You don't do anything overtly awful. I didn't even think twice about you calling him that. It's harmless."

"It so is not. You two haven't noticed anything else? Nothing else like that? What do I call Garnet?"

"Sweet girl. Sweetums," Ruby listed.

I sighed in relief. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was nothing at all and I was just freaking out over something I shouldn't lose sleep over.

"It seems pretty innocuous," Weiss cut in on my thoughts.

"So you'd be alright with me continuing to call him that? Even knowing what you know now?" I wondered.

"Well…" Weiss trailed. She looked away.

"Yes," Ruby answered. "She doesn't own those sort of affectionate names.

"It does seem harmless," Weiss seemed inclined to agree.

"I'm counting on you two to let me know if I'm slipping," I murmured.

"We know that. We know. Don't fly. We know that," Ruby pleaded. "But this isn't anything to get concerned over. I catch myself doing things my mom did. There's bound to be things like that. And there's no reason to get upset over it. Right Weiss?"

"Of course not. And it's different because I was raised by servants but I sometimes catch myself doing things they did as well. I think that's normal."

"Salem didn't raise me though."

"Didn't she?" Ruby cut in.

I hesitated. I was unsure. It certainly didn't feel like it counted but I had all those fake memories of her. Did I do any of that stuff for my kids. That stuff was all warm and pleasant. They were good memories even though they were fake. Did I imitate that reflection of my Mother from the dreams of my distant past? And would it be a bad thing? Those memories were good. It wasn't all nightmares and thunderstorms. There were plenty of days of baked cookies by the fireplace. Would it really be so wrong to bring some of that to my parenting? Wasn't I already doing just that? "I don't know. I don't like it. I think it's suspicious," I decided at length.

"Why? I think it's normal. And from what you told us those fake memories aren't bad at all. Salem… did a good job with that," Ruby stumbled over her words a little but she got there.

"I just…" I trailed off.

"What? What is it? You're guarded again."

I let my frightened aura out a little more so Ruby could get a bead on me. Just a taste.

"I think… you should try to stop anything overtly awful. But I think that you're psyching yourself out. You're often a little too paranoid for your own good. That's a part of your mental illness," Weiss cut her way back in.

"But how paranoid is too paranoid with something like this?" I genuinely wondered. Is this all I had now. I was left searching and fumbling in the dark for a sign that I was on the right track but there was no lighthouse for me here. I was completely blind.

There was nothing for me here but blindness.

And sure all parents were operating blind. But I thought this was rather exceptional to even that rule. I had to doubt even mine and my own memories.

I could vaguely recall…

My mother in a pale dress with the golden bracelets and necklace. She was delicately bandaging my knee where I fell off my bike.

"I'm sorry. I didn't see the rock until it was too late," I apologized meaninglessly and she hummed in thought absently as she wrapped me.

"Your sisters saw you fall. They saw the rock. Let this be a lesson in paying attention to your surroundings."

I shuffled a little under her attention. It was so direct like the sun.

"You're not mad?" I wondered at her. I looked directly at my Mother.

"No darling. You had enough of a punishment when you fell. What use would my anger be? I think you learned your lesson, my precious son."

I wasn't sure that I had. I was hurt yes but it wasn't enough to just be told to pay attention even better. That was hard.

I chuckled a little. I wasn't sure that I had learned that little lesson. It was a fake memory but it was a good one and loathe as I was to admit it Salem had been a good Mother to me in it. I… didn't quite cherish it but it was something that I held onto. It helped carry me through the night. If Salem could do a halfway decent job at making me think she was a good Mother then surely I could do a decent job at raising my kids. Right?

And why not? Why shouldn't I take a lesson from Salem? She was very wise. Even if she was an alien mind. She would be better at raising kids than me if she really put her mind to it. It was just impossible for her for her to let things go like that. She showed me how to raise a kid but only in an attempt to work her way into my mind in that foreign fashion of hers.

So maybe I should do things I'd 'seen' her do to me in my memories. She'd been a fine parent in those glimmering shards after all. I could take a lesson and it was best taught by sight and sound and feel. Was this a sign I was growing soft on her? Was it a weakness? I couldn't be sure one way or the other. Instead of a lighthouse I had a black hole. I followed the lack of light into the darkness.

"And you're sure?" I asked Ruby and Weiss. "You're sure you don't mind even knowing where that pet name comes from?"

"He is your precious son. You love him. What's wrong with that?" Ruby wondered.

"I don't have a problem with it. I'd like it if you took note of it and decided whether it comes from Salem's influence or not. But that's about all I can hope for. Like I mentioned it's pretty harmless. It's not like you're insulting him or something. You're not doing anything wrong so there's no need to be upset," Weiss finished.

"Huh. I'll think about it. But it probably does come from her. I was just thinking in my head about this time I fell of my bike and she called me that. A fake memory but one that she gave me. And honestly… Salem was a pretty good parent in it. Maybe I should take note."

I shrugged.

"You think that's a good idea?" Weiss wondered.

"Mother is very wise," I murmured. "She would know how to raise children if she were capable of setting her mind to it. It's never been her decision making that's been in question. She certainly made me believe she did alright by me."

"Okay. I guess I hear that…" Ruby trailed off. Weiss looked at her. "What? Okay out of context that would sound pretty bad."

"In context is when it sounds bad," Weiss corrected.

"Hey. She made me think she did alright by me. For like years. That counts. She knows what she's doing. Maybe I should take notes," I defended.

"Don't take notes from your mother. You. Are you listening? Good. I used to think my parents did alright by me too."

"Yeah but that's a little different than my fake memories, Weiss," I carried on. "I don't know what to tell you. She was a genuinely good parent in those."

"While she was mind raping you?" Weiss demanded.

"Babies! 'R' word." Ruby protested.

"Okay okay. So I won't take notes on that. But the little nice things she did for me. Like a hug after a long day. Like bandaging up my knee when I fell off my bike. That stuff. That's stuff I'm supposed to do for my children. Right?"

"Well… okay I see your point. Just… don't take it too far. Salem should not be a role model for you."

"You got it," I agreed. "Not a role model. She just… she had some good ideas. That's all I'm saying."

"Okay. But didn't she engineer situations she knew she'd be able to handle. Parenting isn't like that. Life comes at you fast," Weiss continued. "So isn't it obvious she'd be able to do a good job? Or make it look like she was doing a good job?"

"Confusing…" Ruby muttered.

I shrugged.

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-WG