Shigeo didn't seem like his crib very much at all.
"It's ok, Shigeo, you're ok." Said Mob as she rubbed Shigeo's stomach. This was bedtime. She had brought him home today and she knew that it must have been a big change for him since he'd spent his life in the recovery room, but he'd been crying since he got home and…and this was bedtime. The lady at the hospital had said that establishing a routine was important when you had a baby and….and that was what she was doing. After he ate he went to sleep. This was bedtime. He'd drank his formula and now it was time to sleep…
So why wouldn't he sleep?
"Please…please stop crying…." Said Mob. She wanted to cover her ears and go outside. He had been crying all day. His crying had scared Serizawa away. He was in their room now. His mom had helped them get a bigger apartment, one big enough for three, plus her when she visited. She had offered to let them stay with her in Baked Goods City but Mob hadn't wanted to leave her family…to leave Seasoning City…
Shigeo wasn't the only one going through big changes.
Mob should have been used to this by now, not the crying baby but all the other changes in her life. It felt like just yesterday she had been in middle school, her biggest concerns had been making friends and making the most of her life, helping out Master Reigen back when there had been a Spirits and Such to help out in, passing math….now she had to worry about bills and rent and a baby and Serizawa. He loved Shigeo but he had run away, too, which…sometimes you had to run away….but it wasn't fair. Mob didn't get to run away. Mob had to stay here, with Shigeo, while he cried….
She had no idea why he was crying.
She could have picked him up, she should have picked him up, but if she picked Shigeo up then he never would have stopped crying. Or maybe she would have started crying. This was bedtime and she had to teach him a routine because if she didn't teach him a routine then... then everything would just be crazy. He would just be crying all the time and eating all the time and needing to be changed all the time and... and... and... And all the other things babies needed! They needed so much, things Mob hadn't even thought of, like-like special formula so they didn't throw up and so many tiny clothes and special detergent and all kinds of other things, too, that were very expensive and ran out really fast and... and... and...
And that she had to get him. That was her responsibility. She was his mom.
"Shush, it's OK mommy's here." Said Mob. she picked him up. Even though she knew that it would disrupt his schedule she picked him up. She held him close and rocked him but he kept on crying. She didn't know why. She had fed him and changed him and put him in new pajamas, too, because he spat upon himself... And also he spat up on himself! So even the spinning up was done! So then-then-then he should have been fined!
But he wasn't fine. He was still crying.
"Shigeo, What do you want? Why are you crying? Please just tell me what you want!" shouted Mob. The walls shook, one of Serizawa's plastic models fell down…one of the ones he'd made for her. That was tiny her as a EVA pilot…but she was no EVA pilot. If she had been an EVA pilot then she would have been better than this…smarter. She wouldn't have messed up…not that she didn't love Shigeo! She loved her son and she hated herself for thinking otherwise even for a minute. This was her little baby, someone she had chosen to have, someone who loved her unconditionally….someone who she loved unconditionally. When she looked at her son she felt nothing but love…a sort of love that she had never felt before in her life. Not even for Ritsu. She would have hurt someone for Shigeo, she would have even used her powers against someone for Shigeo, Anne she would have done the same for Ritsu...
But for Shigeo it was…different…more…stronger.
She loved Shigeo so much and….and she was mad at herself. He needed something and she didn't know what. He was looking up at her with his big, blue eyes…he trusted her. He trusted her to make him feel better and…and she had no idea how! Another model fell…then another….and then another. She heard something break…Serizawa was going to be so upset…
Him and his mom.
"Give him to me." Said Yuzu as she reached around and took her grandson into her arms. That poor girl had looked like she was drowning…well it took time to get it together after you'd had a baby. She knew, she'd been in her shoes once before. A son you never planned on having, a husband who wasn't entirely up to the task of raising him…not that she was angry with Katsuya or anything. No, she could never have been angry with her son….she only had herself to be angry with. She had brought him into this world and now she had to deal with him…
…care for him. She had to care for him.
"I can hold him. I mean I know that he's supposed to be asleep because I just fed him but he was crying, I mean he hasn't stopped crying since we brought him home, and I don't know what to-" said Mob as Yuzu took her son out of her arms. She felt light and cold…much too light and much too cold. She reached for him back but Yuzu was already holding him….
And he'd stopped crying.
"He's alright, he just needed to be bounced a little." Said Yuzu as she bounced in place. This baby needed to burp. Shigeko often forgot to burp him after she fed him…but that was alright. This was her first go around and she was only sixteen…soon it would all be second nature to her and by the time she and Katsuya had their second born-
-a thought.
Not a good one. A frightening one, one that almost stopped her right then and there. Another grandchild should have been a blessing, but to Yuzu another grandchild was... A blessing. A blessing and a trial all rolled into one. She loved her son, she loved her grandson, she was starting to love her granddaughter in law, but she was not loving this situation. Neither her son nor his wife were in any way equipped to raise a baby. Her granddaughter in law had more education than her son but that was it much considering the fact that her son had dropped out in middle school. Her granddaughter in law was also slightly better adjusted, socially, but she was still just a child. She was a child with the child. Her son... was also a child with the child
Yuzu was the only real adult in this apartment... Not the best start in life for her grandson.
"I-I already tried rocking him but it didn't work." Said Mob
"Did you try burping him?" asked Yuzu
"No, I forgot….but he spat up." Said Mob
"That just means that he especially needs to be burped. You can't forget to burp the baby, Shigeko, especially with how gassy he gets after his formula." Said Yuzu. Breast milk, of course, would have been better but Shigeko wanted to bottle feed this one because when he latched on it was painful. Yuzu knew fully well that it was painful, her son had been born with teeth after all, but really there was no excuse for... no she had to stop thinking like this. She had to make the best of the situation. She had to accentuate the positives.
When it came to Katsuya you always had to accentuate the positives.
"I….I know. I'm sorry." said Mob. She felt like she was being lectured by her own mother…well, no, actually Mom would have been a lot louder. She'd done a lot of yelling already, though, so maybe she was out. She'd have to ask Ritsu later, her information on Mom was kind of dated. Dad too. She hadn't been home in so long…
This was her home now.
She was Serizawa Shigeko, now, and she lived here. She lived here with her husband, son, and mother in law. She lived here because…because of he choices she'd made. She'd made so many bad ones…but Shigeo wasn't one of them. She couldn't see his little aura as he was bounced…he really did need that. He had needed that and Mob hadn't had any idea at all….
She was bad at this…it had only been a week and she was already bad at this.
"See? There we go, good as new." Said Yuzu as Shigeo burped. She rubbed his back just to get the last of it out. He was thin for a baby, scrawny even…well the doctor had said that it was normal since Shigeko herself was so small…she needed to fatten this baby up more. At least he ate well. Katsuya had eaten like a bird for the first three months and her supply hadn't been great….well she'd been working, too, and Katsuya's father had been no help…at Shigeko had help….
Help that Yuzu was happy to give.
"He burped….he needed to burp." Said Mob
"Yes, just like I said. Now why don't I put him down for his nap while you go and spend some time with Katsuya? I don't like him isolating himself like that. We both know what happens when he locks himself away like that." Said Yuzu. The signs were there, if she knew where to look. The upheaval to his life, the uncertainty…Katsuya had never been a brave boy but now he was really going to have to try. He had a little boy of his own after all, now, and that little boy was going to need his father….both of his parents. Shigeko wasn't going to spend years tending to Katsuya…she was never going to let her son put anyone in that position ever again….
She loved her son more than anyone or anything else on Earth but fifteen years….it had been a long fifteen years.
"I know…and ok, I'll just…go then." Said Mob. She wanted to take baby Shigeo with her but she knew that he would have just started crying again if she picked him up. He didn't want her. She had no idea what she was doing, he must have known, and he knew that he wasn't safe with her. That had been a big worry, losing control around him, and she almost had…just because it had been frustrating trying to figure out how to take care of her own son.
Taking care of people was hard.
It was hard trying to figure out what someone needed before they told you, how to get someone what they needed fast enough, and wat they would need next. When you cared about someone they always took up space in your head and…and it could be a lot but it was also a good thing. If you had someone taking up space in your head then you could stop thinking about…about the things you shouldn't have been thinking about. About love and….and people you'd loved and…and where those people might have gone to…
Spirits and Such had been closed for a while now.
The sign was gone, the locks had been changed, and the inside was dusty and empty. Master Reigen had taken everything with him. Her desk, his desk, the tables, the couch….the couch where it had happened. The couch where she had made the biggest mistake of her life…the second biggest. The first biggest mistake that she had ever made in her life was confessing to Master Reigen in the first place.
Maybe she would have made a good EVA pilot after all.
EVA pilots were brave but also dumb. Shinji was dumb about not seeing all the love that was around him. Rei was dumb about not seeing that, despite being a clone of an Angel and Shinji's mom, she was a person just like everyone else with feelings and wants and stuff. Asuka was stupid about not seeing how her own bad attitude pushed people away. Mob was dumb about not seeing how she made bad choices and pushed everyone away…how she ruined her own life….no, not ruined. She'd just made it more difficult.
She didn't need Master Reigen.
There had been a time that she had needed him like she had needed air. A time when she had been completely dependent on him to make her feel like….like she was more than her powers. More than the monster living under her skin. That she was someone who…someone who could be a good person. Someone who could be a normal person. Someone who could live a normal, a good, life. Someone who…he had made her feel like someone for so long but then he'd turned around and made her feel like no one. He had told her that he didn't love her, that he could never love her the way she loved him, and then when she had started getting over him he had…they had…
They had made the second biggest mistake of her life.
The sex part, not the…not the Shigeo part. Shigeo eyes still hadn't turned brown. People said that babies just had blue eyes when they were born for no reason, that they'd get darker, that you just had to give it time…but Mob knew. Something inside of her just knew, whenever she looked at him, where he had come from….but she tried to ignore that part of herself. After all these were just feelings. You couldn't always trust your feelings.
Trusting her feelings was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place.
"Katsuya, can I come in? Your mom said that you weren't feeling good." Said Mob. A year together and she still wasn't totally used to calling him by his given name. She'd get used to it later, maybe, if she used it enough….however much enough was. They had hardly talked since Shigeo was born. He'd spent as much time with her in the recovery room as he could before he went home. Now that they were all here together he was locking himself in their room…not good. She would have to fix this…
All the while she took care of Shigeo.
The door swung opened. He'd used his powers. She stepped through quietly. This was her room too and she had ever right to be here but the last thing he wanted to do was startle him. He lost control more often than she did and her control had never been the best. The last thing Shigeo needed was to watch his parents lose control. He could have gotten hurt…or at the very least thought that it was ok to lose control like that.
He was an esper, too, she knew it.
He had a little baby aura and he felt like an esper…of course he was. He'd had two esper parents after all. He was an esper and he was looking to her and Serizawa not only to show him how to be a good person but also how to control his powers…and Mob wasn't even sure about either of those things. She already wasn't much of a mom.
Or a wife.
She had been a good girlfriend…until the cheating part. She got the feeling that he wasn't all the way better from that. She didn't blame him, she didn't know what she would have done if he had done the same to her. Well he didn't have to worry, Master Reigen was long gone, it was just him and her. if that was even something that he was worried about, of course. It was hard to tell with him sometimes. It could have been something immediate that had set him off, like Shigeo's crying, or it could have been something that had happened last week….or the week before that….or maybe one of the big things that they never talked about….
She didn't know and she didn't know how to ask.
So she just climbed into bed next to him. He was laying down and playing with his DS under the covers, she could see the glow. She pulled up the blanket and crawled in next to him. He closed his DS before she could see what game it was…maybe it was something that they could have played together, even, if that was what he had wanted….
She had no idea what he wanted.
"Are you…do you need anything?" asked Mob as she curled up next to Serizawa. He tensed for a second before reaching an arm around her. A stiff one. He had been afraid of her after Shigeo had been born, afraid that he would end up breaking her on accident. Well she was the one who'd saved the world, saved him, he knew better than anyone else that she didn't break apart so easily.
"No. I'm….I guess I just need to be alone for a little bit. I mean I'll get up and help put Shigeo down in a minute-" said Serizawa. He was being a bad dad. He didn't know how to be a good one. The books, and there had ben a lot of books, gave all kinds of advice and some of it contradicted the other stuff….and he'd never even had a Dad to show him any of this stuff. Shigeo was so sad all the time and he needed so much…so much more than Serizawa knew how to give….
Maybe the best gift he could give his son was staying here and…and keeping him safe.
"Your mom has him." said Mob
"Oh…did he ever stop crying?" asked Serizawa
"Your mom got him to stop…she knows how to take care of him better than I do." Said Mob
"That makes sense, she took care of me for my entire life." Said Serizawa
"I know but…but I should be the one taking care of Shigeo. Me, I'm his mom…I'm not good at it but I'm his mom…" said Mob
"Don't say that! You're a good mom, you really are. I'm the one who's…..who's bad at this. I couldn't even pick him up when he was crying." Said Serizawa
"That's ok, we're even. I couldn't get him to stop crying when I picked him up. I forgot to burp him…that was the problem…" said Mob
"You're still better at this than I am. I just…the books didn't say what it would feel like to see him crying like that…the books didn't say anything about how anything would feel and…and I don't know what to do. I never had a dad…I don't know what to do…" said Serizawa
"I have a mom and a dad but I don't know what to do…but that's ok. Your mom is here and she can help us. We just have to…to get used to it….and I know that we will. I know that we're going to figure this out and when we do we're going to be the best parents ever." Said Mob. She hated lying like this but she had to. Serizawa could get really depressed really fast and that was the last thing that she needed. She wanted him to be happy and…and maybe it was true….maybe the would learn what they needed to learn and be good parents…
They could at least try their hardest.