Chapter 5

Mel

Mel was well and truly in the final stages of her pregnancy and spending time working at the clinic was becoming harder and harder for her. That she was still working at all was down to her own stubbornness rather than any direction from Doctor Cosgrove. Still she was careful not to overexert herself and she knew her limits. She'd started having Braxton Hicks contractions, the first of which caught her by surprise and gave her a hell of a fright. She was physically uncomfortable to say the least.

The flip side was that in those final few days, she'd been able to enjoy a space that was her own and had been beavering away rearranging everything, haphazardly trying to make it a bit more homely. She'd also been spending more and more time with Jesse who seemed to have a knack for acquiring stuff and always bore some item of furniture or decoration whenever he appeared. She was still coming to grips with the way Jackson's economy worked, but she guessed people owed Jesse favors, not surprising really given how pathologically helpful he was. Still, she did harbor a certain degree of guilt that he was redeeming those favors for her.

When she mentioned this to him, he just laughed and told her not to worry. He liked her, that was clear, and she liked him a lot. She was still conflicted and experienced flashes of guilt, particularly when thinking about Owen. She still loved him and always would, but she was finding that affection wasn't some finite commodity and feelings could be complex.

She had grown up approaching feelings in a somewhat abstract and often quite analytical way. In retrospect it was probably a sort of survival mechanism, a way of abstracting herself from the horrors around her. That wasn't to say she was a robot though, more that she had kept what she was feeling close to her chest for a long time. That had changed after Owens' death. That grief had opened a door and years of repressed feelings had started seeping out, bit by painful bit. She felt she was losing control, but in reality what she probably needed was to open that door wider. Her feelings for Jesse were helping that process immensely. She felt safe around him. He wanted to listen and never made her feel like a burden.

Jesse never pushed her out of her comfort zone and, perhaps recognizing that so much of what had been happening in her life for the last few months had been completely out of her control, was largely content to let her take the lead, particularly when it came to physical affection. For her part Mel was inclined to take that side of their blossoming relationship slowly. She was however starting to get over her desire for them to keep their feelings for each other strictly between themselves.

Still, that didn't make the idea of being stuck in a room with Jesse, Dina and Ellie for a two hour movie any less stressful. Particularly the Ellie part. Their relationship had warmed a fraction as they started to understand each other more and she no longer felt quite as uneasy around the quiet green eyed girl, but Mel didn't think they'd ever be friends. Mel wasn't terrified of her anymore, but she did fear coming between Jesse and Ellie's obviously close friendship. That said, Jesse didn't ask much of her, so she put on a brave face and tried not to be obviously awkward.

This would also be her first time at Jesse's place. He lived with his parents, but in a well equipped and self-contained sleepout. It was actually pretty cool. Jesse was something of a budding engineer and had rigged up solar panels on the roof connecting to a motley assortment of car batteries. This kept the various LED lights going as well as his prized television and other gadgets. It was busy, but everything had its place. It was very Jesse.

It was pretty cramped and as they all crowded in, Mel's attempt to avoid being too awkward lasted all of about five minutes, as she found herself wedged between Jesse and Ellie on a couch with Dina opting to sit on the floor in front of her partner. She always found it a little weird watching movies, artifacts from a past they'd probably never get back, full of people who were probably now dead. The movie in question was Alien, the one Ellie had mentioned, and although she wasn't really a fan of horrors, she was actually kind of enjoying it. She didn't really appreciate the chestburster baby comparison though.

"Guess you've seen grosser?" Jesse asked.

"Well I guess it's kind of like a C-section and I've done a couple of those. Less explodey though" Mel replied quietly, not wanting to be one of those people who talk loudly through a film.

"What's the grossest thing you've ever done?" Dina asked, making no such efforts.

"Ummm, never really looked at it that way… I guess a colonoscopy might gross you out? Sticking a tiny camera up someone's butt?"

"Yeah… That'd do it"

The crew of the good ship Nostromo weren't doing too well, but then it seemed they were determined to make it as easy for the Alien to pick them off one by one as possible. To her left, Ellie was idly playing with Dina's hair. Jesse ran his hand down her forearm, across the constellation of small scars adorning it.

"Our arms are fucked up in the same place" Ellie abruptly said.

Mel hadn't seen her watching them, too engrossed in the movie.

"Yeah… I guess so. How'd you get the burn?" Mel replied.

"Chemicals. Gave it to myself. To hide my bite"

"Oh wow... Not many people here know I guess?" Mel wasn't terribly surprised at that. The only other person with the same sort of immunity Mel had encountered or even heard of, was just as secretive about their peculiarity.

"Apart from all of us here, just Maria and Tommy. What about yours? You said it was shrapnel?"

"Yeah it's little bits of bullet and ceramic."

"How'd it happen?"

"I got shot here" Mel gestured to just below her ribs "I was wearing a plate carrier, body armor basically. Bullet broke apart and some bits flew into my arm, along with some of the armor. It's pretty common… called bullet splash"

"Who shot you?" This time it was Dina asking.

"Come on guys…" Jesse interjected, casting an uncharacteristically venomous look at his friends and pausing the film.

Mel sighed inwardly. It wasn't something she liked revisiting, one of the worst days of her life. She had ended lives for the first time and she had failed her duty of care catastrophically. The panic attacks had started soon afterwards alongside the nightmares, waking up in a cold sweat with the coppery taste of blood not her own in her mouth. But Doctor Cosgrove was probably right, locking things behind doors hadn't really helped her to this point.

"It's fine… kind of a long and shit story though…"

No one seemed to raise any objections. Fine. They could hear the whole thing.

"It was a Seraphite ambush, the cultish guys in Seattle"

"Yeah I remember them" Ellie acknowledged.

"They'd laid one of our guys out as bait, bleeding out in the middle of the road. We thought we were hot-shit, Abby, Owen, Manny and me, and that we'd be able to rescue him, but they were everywhere. That's when I got shot, but I was okay. We got our guy, he was really young, probably my age, and Abby and I tried to drag him to cover, but a sniper got him. He died because of me…"

"You didn't shoot him" Jesse interrupted.

"No, but I still killed him. When I was with the Fireflies I was training to be a surgeon, but when we signed up with the WLF I became a medic. It's different. My instructor there called what I used to do 'micro-medicine', focusing on the tiny details. T triple C, Tactical Combat Casualty Care, he called 'macro-medicine' ; it's about looking at a wider picture. If you're trying to save someone while you're under fire, the best medicine is firing back and when we dragged him away, that only left two guns pointing at the scars.. I didn't want to kill them. I thought if we could get him to safety we could just leave and it got him killed"

"Sounds like you all fucked up" Ellie commented matter-of-factly.

"Jesus Christ Ellie" Jesse said with evident exasperation.

"Yeah, but I was the medic, so it was my responsibility to do it right"

"Sounds like you just didn't want to murder people" Dina added.

"Still my responsibility. We killed even more when we stormed where they were holed up. Took two prisoners, a mum and her son, the sniper. He must have been fourteen or fifteen. He'd been hit in the femoral artery and I thought if I saved him it'd make it all magically better. I clamped the bleed and was about to repair it properly when our commander turned up. He was a real piece of shit. He just shot the mom in the head and forced Abby to smother the kid to death with a pillow. I'd kind of thought we were the good guys until then…"

No one said anything. It was only then that Mel felt the tears running down her face and Jesse's arm wrapped around her shoulders.

"Sorry for the unsolicited angst" Mel said wiping her eyes "lots of weird hormonal stuff happening and Maria and the doctor keep telling me to talk about stuff"

"Maria's been trying that on with me" Ellie smiled slightly.

"Can we finish watching this movie… if I haven't killed the mood"

"You sure you're okay to?" Jesse asked with obvious concern.

"I'm fine" and she just about was.

They finished the movie without any more depressing interruptions. The ending was pretty dramatic with the heroine, Ripley, dispatching the Alien with the rocket exhaust of her escape pod. Apparently there were a whole lot more of these films and Jesse assured her the sequel was the best of them, which set off a lighthearted argument with Ellie who was convinced the first was best. It was interesting catching a glimpse of the warmer, more relaxed Ellie hidden under that quiet brooding exterior.

Soon, everyone was saying their farewells and heading home.

"Come on, I'll walk you home" Jesse said smiling.

"That'd be nice" It was pretty dark and she didn't exactly remember the route.

Dina shoved Ellie slightly and gestured at Mel with her eyes.

"Hey, I've got something you should have" Ellie said, withdrawing a stained, brown envelope from her jacket pocket and handing it to Mel "I should have given it to you ages ago. Don't know why I didn't"

Mel opened it and her stomach dropped as she pulled out Leah's polaroids. Anger flashed through her mind for the briefest of moments before it was quickly quenched by the waters of sadness.

"I didn't… She was already gone when I found her... I think it was Scars" Ellie managed.

Mel didn't reply to that. She didn't really want to know how her friends died. She just wanted to remember them, their laughs, their smiles, the love they'd all shared. She flipped her way through the photos. Nora and Nick, Leah and Jordan, Manny, Abby and Owen and then her and Owen. He wasn't even looking at the camera. He just looked awkward and so did she. The waves of melancholy swept over her, but she was glad she now had photographic evidence of their existence. Her friends didn't have to fade into nothingness and her baby girl would be able to see what her papa looked like.

"Thank you"

"No worries" Ellie smiled awkwardly, turned and left. Walking off at speed, with Dina rushing after her.

"Ummm see ya" she called back.

"Sorry for ruining your movie night" Mel said as she walked with Jesse at her side.

"You didn't ruin my dumb movie night" He laughed "Usually it's Ellie with the horrific stories"

"But she's such a bundle of smiles" She replied wryly.

"Believe it or not she used to be. She's getting there though. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. It's fine"

"Kind of an intense thing to share…"

"One of the worst days of life. In the top five at least"

"You've got a top five?"

"I make a lot of lists" She shrugged "Sorry for making it all about me"

"Have you met my friends?" He smirked "It's usually about someone. Why not you?"

"Ever about you?"

"You'll be surprised to hear that sometimes it is"

"Can't imagine it sorry" she smiled, grabbing his hand.

Without much in the way of light pollution and the moon waning, the stars were bright and the milky way dominated the night sky above. As she took in the spectacular vista, Mel wondered how many people were left alive and sentient to gaze up at what she saw. Too few she thought to herself. She was here though and it was nice to have someone to share it with and soon she'd be able to share it with one more.

Mel gave birth a week later. It didn't go exactly as planned. Her waters broke at three in the morning and she had an uncomfortable walk to her midwife's, Jo's, house. Then it was about another ten minute walk to the clinic as contractions came and went, still with quite a gap between them. Despite Jo's repeated assurances that the baby was engaged and that it'd be a quick birth, what followed was ten hours of labor, including two of quite active pushing. She regretted screaming at Jo to go fuck herself, but then again, Jo had told her she was 'pushing like a pansy', amongst other things, so she kind of deserved it as far as Mel was concerned. The grizzled old midwife didn't seem to take offense anyway.

Mel spent much of that time in excruciating pain until she was able to receive an epidural, but in the end, the baby was starting to get distressed as Mel became more and more exhausted, so Doctor Cosgrove brought out the Ventouse. The Ventouse was basically a large suction cup that he attached to the baby's head and pulled on in time with her pushing. With this in place, she finally delivered her baby at around one in the afternoon. Her little one was small, six pounds five ounces and eighteen inches long, but she was out and she was healthy. She also had a surprisingly full head of dark brown hair, but apparently this was pretty normal and it'd usually thin out after a few weeks. Mel wasn't so sure, there was one big reason she kept her hair short: it got out of control fast if she didn't.

As Jo coached her on the basics of breastfeeding and helped her establish a good latch, Mel ran through the list of names Owen and her had written down. The vast majority were written in her neat and tidy handwriting but as she looked down on the little dark mass of hair on her chest and held a tiny little hand, she picked out one in his almost incomprehensible scrawl. Fern.

Jesse had been checking on her daily as her due date approached and when she wasn't home, he put two and two together and made his way to the clinic. When one of the nurses had told her he was there in the waiting room she just about bit the poor woman's head off. She categorically forbade him from getting any closer than the waiting room, not that he'd asked otherwise. In the weeks they'd been kind of dating, they'd barely gone further than holding hands, there was no way she wanted him to see her popping out a baby.

So he waited patiently and once she got herself together and worked her way through Fern's first feed, she let him in. Despite the Doctor's recommendation that she stay overnight, Mel knew that where they needed to be was home. So Jesse had once again walked her home, but this time with the tiny form of her daughter swaddled up warmly in her arms, fast asleep.

"I can stay the night if you need me to, you've got a spare room" Jesse suggested.

"No" Mel replied fiercely, she was sleep-deprived and exhausted, but she immediately regretted being so short with him when he was just trying to be helpful. "Sorry, I think it's best if I do this by myself, at least the first night"

"You don't have to though, really, it's not a big deal"

"I said no. It's not about you Jesse. I just need to know that I can look after her by myself" She sighed "She's not your kid"

For a split second, hurt flashed across his face and she once again felt immediately guilty.

"I don't mean it like that… I just mean that you've got a baby on the way as well. Dina's going to need you"

"And I'll be there for her and so will Ellie, but that's ages away. I get it though, about tonight"

"Thanks. You can cook me dinner if you want though" Mel smiled at him hopefully.

"Sure! Wouldn't want you to poison yourself with your cooking"

"Wow. Rude. Just for that I'm going to teach you how to change a nappy"

Their first night together was hard for both mother and child. No matter what she did, Mel couldn't convince Fern to sleep in her cot any longer than a few minutes. She'd fall asleep in her arms or feeding and Mel would, with great care, transition her to her cot where she would promptly wake up crying. Mel would then pick her up and begin the process all over again. She was feeding well, had a clean nappy and was warm, she just wanted to be held. Mom needed to sleep though, so after a few hours of this, Mel was getting more and more stressed and exhausted.

Everything she had read and everything she had been told by the Doctor and midwife Jo had drilled into her that newborns were safest sleeping in their cots. What if your baby just refuses to?! Mel asked herself. Looking down at her daughter with her still squished, wrinkly little face, eyes barely open, kind of looking like a tiny old lady, Mel sighed.

"You just want your Mama don't you?"

As if to confirm this, Fern had stopped crying and was once again dozing off.

"You're the boss I guess…"

As well as maintaining that babies sleep in cots, Jo had also said to take the babies lead, a bit of a contradiction really. At least she'd be following some of that advice. Mel lay the baby down in her cot one last time and endured her crying while she tried to make her bed as safe as possible for the little one. She cleared the sheets from one side to prevent her bubba from getting tangled up and laid down a wall of pillows to hopefully prevent her from rolling off that side of the bed.

Mel lay the tiny form of her daughter down on the bed on her back, checked that she was swaddled properly and then joined her, running a hand through her soft downy hair. She was still crying.

"Baby girl…"

She started stroking Fern's tiny little forehead and her thoughts turned to Owen. He was conflicted about the pregnancy, that much was obvious, but she knew he would have been beyond excited to meet his little girl. He would have loved her and she'd have loved him. She just sighed, too exhausted to cry, and remembered singing Bob Marley's Three Little Bird's with him at a Karaoke night back at the Stadium. They were terrible at the time, so she probably was now, but maybe her little girl wouldn't know any better. So she started singing softly.

"Don't worry about a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be all right

Don't worry about a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"

The newborn stopped crying and Mel took one of her tiny hands, continuing to sing.

"Rise up this mornin'

Smile with the risin' sun

Three little birds

Pitch by my doorstep

Singin' sweet songs

Of melodies pure and true"

She was now fast asleep. Mel smiled to herself, shuffled closer and gently kissed her little girl on the forehead.

"Guess we're co-sleeping now" She whispered.

Exhausted, she finally managed to close her eyes, quickly joining her daughter in sleep, still holding her little hand gently.

Jesse

As the days passed, Mel seemed to look less and less exhausted as she got used to being a mother. She was a natural, always gentle, never frustrated and infinitely patient. She'd completely given up on trying to get Fern to sleep in her cot, so at night, the newborn just slept beside her and during the day she slept on Mel's chest, wrapped in a complex looking swaddle that allowed her mom to use her hands. Jesse thought she was unreasonably productive for a single mother with an infant only a few days old.

That said, she'd also started letting go of her characteristic stubbornness, and relentless self-reliance, and was starting to accept assistance. He'd been helping her out quite a bit, cooking, cleaning cloth nappies and anything else he could convince her to let him help with. Dina, relentlessly clucky, had been popping over quite a bit as well, jumping on any opportunity to help out, particularly if it meant holding the baby. It was pretty cute. She'd be a great mom. Even Ellie had visited a couple of times with her, though she was far too anxious about dropping the tiny person to risk a cuddle. He was a bit worried about how Mel would react to Ellie in that context, given what happened at the aquarium, but if it did plague her mind, she gave no indication of it. For his part, he was getting more and more excited about being a dad as he practiced changing nappies and burping the little one.

Towards the end of that first week, Mel decided she wanted to do something with the placenta and asked the midwife on one of her visits what people normally did. Once she'd finished berating Mel for co-sleeping, the gruff older woman told her the traditional thing to do in Jackson.

So the next morning, Jesse led Mel out through Jackson's front gate for the first time since she had arrived, the small form of Fern swaddled on her chest and a Colorado Fir sapling in his arms. It wasn't a long walk to the little glade that was springing up where families buried the placentas of their newborns and planted Fir's on top of them. It was kind of the opposite to a graveyard, with new life, trees of all different heights, springing up in little family plots. With the worn old communal shovel that had been left there, Jesse started digging a shallow whole while Mel sat down under one of the taller trees to feed her girl.

"Thanks for doing this, it's nice being out here"

"Yeah it is, you should come out more often, maybe when she's bigger"

"That'd be nice"

"Can you ride?"

"A horse?"

"No a goat" He laughed as she flipped him off "Yes a horse"

"Never tried. We had these things called trucks. Like a big horse with wheels instead of legs" She said sarcastically.

"Wow, sounds crazy" He replied with deliberate flatness.

"Horses sound interesting, might need a ladder though"

"Or a tiny horse"

"Yes! A Shetland Pony"

"I have no idea what that is"

"Oh you're missing out. You need to go to the library sometime"

"Okay nerd" He joked as he finished digging the hole "I can teach you if you want"

"I'd like that" She smiled warmly.

She got up and gently passed her daughter over to him. The infant peered up at him through bleary eyes. She still looked quite squished, but she was changing fast and was now looking a bit more like a person, rather than Voldemort from Harry Potter. She had the same brown eyes as her mother.

"What do you think of all this" He asked her as Mel took the placenta, wrapped in a plastic sheet, from his backpack, unwrapping it carefully. Fern just looked at him and blinked.

Mel carefully lowered the gory, grayish, almost spherical object into the hole and layered soil on top of it.

"Should I be saying something? Like a prayer?"

"I didn't know you were religious"

"I'm not"

"Then maybe just say 'Smell ya later'" He suggested.

"Jesse!"

"Mel, it smells like shit"

"I guess" she shrugged, lowering the sapling over top, layering yet more soil around it, patting it down and then standing, dusting her hands off "Smell ya later"

"Dad life is going to suit you" Dina told him later that day as he sat in her and Ellie's living room with a beer. Mel had gently indicated that he should go and do his own thing. She wanted her own space.

"I'm thinking there's a bit more to it than knowing how to change a nappy" He replied

"Probably, but it's good practice, not sure how many nappies Ellie is going to be changing"

"Zero, zilch, nada" Ellie piped up.

"Really? All the baby stuff isn't making your ovaries hurt or whatever they say?"

"No and I don't want to hear you say the word ovaries ever again Jesse"

"You're full of shit Ellie. We've all seen you look at that baby" Dina said pointedly.

"What? Like this?" Ellie pulled her most convincing look of disgust "They're little goblins. All they do is cry, vomit, fart and shit"

"So what you're saying is that you're a baby?" Jesse laughed.

"I hardly ever vomit"

"You just fucking wait Ellie, there's no way you're getting away with sitting on the couch drinking beers while I have to deal with a screaming baby"

"Ugh, you're making me wish I was dating fucking Mel. She doesn't make Jesse do shit"

"Yeah because she doesn't need to, he's a good boy. Will you take me back Jesse?" Dina jested.

"No can do sorry darling"

"One nappy a day" Ellie asserted.

"Three and you have to take your turns settling them" Dina bargained.

"Three? How many nappies does this kid go through?!"

"It'll be ten a day at least" Jesse informed them.

"Fucking hell"

"And you've got to clean them afterwards as well" He added.

"Quit the drama Ellie, we'll be fine" Dina laughed putting her arm around Ellie's shoulder and pulling her in.

"I know" She smiled "Jesse's going to be an expert by then anyway"

"Not so sure about that. I don't think Mel wants me hanging around all that much"

"Trouble in paradise?" Dina asked seriously.

"No, we're good, I'm not stressed. Probably projecting. She's just a bit hard to read sometimes. Not sure where she's at if that makes sense"

"I think where she's at is in a new place, with a new baby, having to see the person who shot her baby's dad all the time" Ellie interrupted.

"You can't blame yourself for that" He assured her.

"I can, but that's not the point. The point is, I don't think it's you"

"Ellie's right. Don't stress about it. Do you remember how sketchy she was when she got here?" Dina said "She was a fucking wreck. Look at her now. You've only been dating for a few weeks, give her some room to breath"

"Yeah I guess, everything just feels really serious as soon a baby's involved"

"Yeah but you're not her dad and Mel probably doesn't want to make you feel like you are. Have you even gotten any further than first base?"

"Hey none of your business!" He objected, laughing "Barely even that if I'm being honest"

"Exactly, just chill out. She likes you and you like her, that's all that matters"

"Okay, okay" He said raising his hands "chill Jesse it is"

They were right about Mel. He wanted to help take some of that pressure off her, but that was putting a different kind of pressure on her instead. And Mel was right about Dina needing him. She was starting to show more and more every week, it wouldn't be too long before they went in for a scan and they'd be able to take a look at the life growing within her. Mom life was going to suit her, and actually, despite her protestations otherwise, he thought it'd suit Ellie as well. As much as she tried to conceal it, she had a tender and creative side that would serve her well.

Life was complicated and it'd changed so much for all of them over the last few months, but there was plenty more of that to come.