Moments later, Sully returned to the bedroom carrying Michaela's medical bag and a shivering Katie. Before Sully could ask anything further of his wife about her injuries, Katie squeaked, "Mama," and ran straight for her, either not hearing or heeding Sully's plea that she be careful with her mama. Katie slammed into Michaela with all the force her six year-old body could muster. She looked as though she were trying to burrow a hole in Michaela's chest, and the pain of this loving assault was too much for Michaela to bear.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Michaela screamed with all the force that her injured vocal cords could muster. The scream sounded as though she were dying, and both Sully and Katie stood frozen at the sound of it. Katie knew she had done something wrong, but couldn't quite figure out what. However, as she removed her head from the center of her mother's chest she realized that Mama had fallen on her belly and that she had most likely hit several of her mama's owies in her attempt to make sure that Michaela was alright.
"I'm sorry, Mama," the little girl said sobbing contritely, trying to shout over her mother's scream, which had continued on far past any scream of pain Sully had ever heard before. This one was worse than even Michaela's screams of labor and he wondered what internal damage such a small body could do. He was just about to go to the door and yell for Brian to fetch Andrew when the screaming stopped.
Afraid her mother would yell at her, Katie quickly slid off the bed and ran to her room, shutting the door quietly behind her. Sully had seen the look in his little girl's eyes before she left. Katie was afraid that her mother wouldn't forgive her this time, especially after such a terrifying scream and Sully knew that later he, Katie, and Michaela would have to have yet another talk in order to restore the tenuous piece that had just been broken by the painful, yet sincere display of fear and love by his daughter. But he couldn't worry about Katie now, he had to tend to Michaela.
Quickly he approached her as she lay on the bed panting, obviously still in pain from such a blunt trauma to her already weakened body. Without thinking, Sully took her hand and kissed it, hoping that subconsciously his actions would help ease the pain and comfort Michaela as she attempted to let her body handle what their daughter had done.
Slowly his wife's breathing calmed, and as he saw this, he also saw her slide her hand away from his, although not as violently as he might have expected. "Sully," she squeaked out, "My chest hurts. I don't know if I can nurse like this. What are we going to do?"
Sully saw the worry in his wife's eyes and realized he had to act quickly if he wanted to show Michaela that he would be there for her. "Do you want me to go fetch Andrew? He can help ya."
"But Sully, I…I…I…don't want him to see…that part of me. He's our son-in-law now," Michaela remembered with a slight blush that she had been aware of the awkwardness between her and Andrew, as he treated her after her gunshot wound and after the miscarriage. She couldn't bear for him to see more of her than he already had, especially now that he was Colleen's husband. It just wouldn't do."
"Well," Sully said, "I could…um…give you somethin' from your medical bag to take the pain away, although you'd have to tell me how much to give ya."
"Oh yes, of course. I hadn't thought of that, but I need to see the extent of the damage first, and the babies are hungry and I can't take a chance on some of the medicine infiltrating my milk. Even if I did chance something, there's no possible way that the medicine could take effect before they would need to be fed. I'm going to need help holding them and I'm going to need to stop often, even the shortest amount of time the twins will need to nurse will be very painful for me if I'm as bruised as I think I am…in that…place."
"Do ya want me to go fetch Colleen for ya then? I'm sure she wouldn't mind me wakin' her, she'd understand and she's said that if ya needed anything, you could just call her." Sully thought about his statement for a moment. Colleen had been quite helpful to Michaela that night, doting on her new siblings and learning their names and the circumstances of their birth, but she had spoken no words to him since she ordered him to bring her mother and the babies inside. Of his children, Colleen was the most withdrawn and Sully worried that he and Matthew might in their own ways keep themselves from ever getting hurt again by shutting him out of their hearts forever.
"No, no, Sully. Colleen doesn't deserve to be woken at this hour. She and Andrew have had plenty enough to handle today, and I won't ask them for anymore help than I have to." As she said this Michaela glared at him, staring deeply into his eyes and pouring all of her fear, anger, hurt, and loneliness into his soul.
Sully nearly choked on the pain he felt radiating from her, but he didn't know what else to do for his wife. Who could help her with nursing when she was in such a fragile state? When they'd been a happy couple, he would've volunteered himself first, but he thought better of it now. She would never want him to see such intimate parts of herself now that she thought he didn't love her.
At this thought, a realization struck him. How could he have been so foolish to ever think that Michaela had slept with someone else? Did he really ever think it at all? He doubted it, he had known—no, knew his wife too well. She would never have given herself up to anyone but him and not even him now. It had taken her so long to get used to the idea of being with him that he once thought perhaps she didn't want to be. Later he'd discovered she was only afraid of her own emotion and the intensity of her feelings for him. He had known deep in his heart of hearts that she could never have slept with someone without love and that she had never, ever been in love with anyone else, as long as he had been in her life. With shock, he also realized that most of the letter he had found in that drawer the night before he left was begging for love from him, an emotion that didn't match the last of her words. Again, he wondered if he was missing something, and guilt filled him anew as he realized that he hadn't taken the whole contents of the letter into account. What did they mean? What could they have meant for his relationship between him and his wife if he had confronted her about them? And what did they mean for them now? Michaela's present words brought him out of this revelry and startled him to his very core.
"There's no one else, Sully. You have to help me nurse. I know it must be awkward for you, but I need this favor from you, not for me, but for the children. They're hungry Sully, and I can't do it without you."
"Michaela, are you sure that's what you want? I mean I don't wanna disrespect ya." He realized how hollow his words sounded to his own ears and registered just how meaningless they must've seemed to Michaela.
"It's not what I want, Sully. It has to be done," Michaela stated firmly, trying to avoid infusing the situation with any emotion.
"I'll turn my back while ya feed 'em, I promise," Sully stated gently, hoping to allow Michaela to retain some dignity in what he knew was a painful situation for her.
"You can't, I need your help holding them and positioning them as well. You have to look, Sully. I know that this is not what you want, considering what a gentleman you've always been to me. I know you didn't even visit Hank's Saloon before we were married, and so I knew that even whores don't appeal to you, but try to understand I'm only doing this for our children. I don't want to be improper," she said in a whisper, trying to assuage the empty feeling that coursed through her soul.
There was that word again, he thought, 'whore,' Why did Michaela keep using it in connection to herself? He had never thought of her that way. He'd even begged her to understand that he did not see her loving behavior as improper, that he enjoyed her enthusiasm, and he had thought in all their years of marriage that he had finally gotten through to her, but there was this word, sticking out like a sharp knife in Michaela's hand at once pointing toward him and to herself. It was as if Juliet's happy dagger had become double-edged and was slowly killing them both. Unsure of what to do with his thoughts, Sully chose not to respond to his wife's repeated insinuation and instead, he removed the twins from the cradle at the end of the bed and brought them to Michaela. Amazingly, neither had woken when their mother fell to the floor, but both had been awakened by Michaela's scream and now the infants were themselves screaming in hunger, fear, and frustration. Sully brought both children to his wife and laid them where she requested, holding them against her as they nursed, while trying to avert his eyes as much as was safely possible for the twins.
Silence shrouded them entire process, neither party spoke and the tension between them made even the thought of words impossible to comprehend. When the twins were almost finished, Michaela suddenly turned towards Sully, looked down at her exposed breasts, and stared to him with a blank, almost soulless expression. The stare frightened Sully to his core because he realized now just how empty his wife was. He knew that she was retreating to that dark place she had gone to after Washita and yet something was different, the place she was retreating to now was not a rational place, but rather one of insanity and he almost screamed at the fear he felt for her, for their children, and for their marriage.
As for Michaela, she was thinking darker thoughts than she'd ever felt before. Some part of her knew that they weren't rational, but she couldn't help them. She was a whore…a WHORE…a husbandless whore. Perhaps she was a husbandless whore because she was too forward. Perhaps she was one because she couldn't satisfy him in bed, in the kitchen, with her mothering skills. Perhaps she repulsed him with her intellect and outspoken nature. She had thought that when they were courting, he couldn't possible love a woman like her. But over the years, she had convinced herself otherwise. Now she knew her gut instinct had been right. She had driven him away by forgetting a wife's place. At that thought, she knew immediately that he had to get out. It wasn't proper for him to see her in her current state of undress, and she was only further trapping him a disgusting situation by insisting that he help her with something she was supposed to be able to do on her own. If it was her last act as his wife, she had to protect him from her immoral ways, thoughts, and feelings. With this resolve she opened her mouth to speak.
Her next words propelled Sully to a place beyond fear, beyond reason, beyond thinking,
She said it quietly, almost in a whisper and yet there was something eerily off balance about it, as though her biting words were more for self-inflicting wounds than for asking him a question. "He was right; I'm a whore. You don't love me because you think I'm forward and dirty. I was never what a wife should've been. I was always improper and outspoken. You don't deserve that embarrassment. Please Sully, get out."
Sully was shocked. He couldn't think of anything to say. She had suddenly gone from rational to irrational in a split second and he didn't know what to do. Quickly he moved to take the twins from her and was surprised when she let them go without a fight. After placing them in their cradle, he moved toward the door as her unbalanced words became shouts.
"GET OUT. GET OUT. I won't let you stay with a whore, "I…" the next word was inaudible to Sully, because Michaela deserted it with sobs, but he caught the three words that followed, "you too much!"
Sully was speechless. "Who was "he" and what had "he" done to HIS heartsong?"
This is my first fan fiction and I would appreciate any and all feedback, so please feel free to review the chapter and any subsequent chapters if you think they are of interest either here or be orginal and comment on the "Stand By Me" thread of the fanfiction section of the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman forum The link to the thread is: http/forum.drquinn.us/viewtopic.php?t3949
Thanks, Corinna
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