Author's Note: Back to normal storyline, by the way. And sorry for the delay in updating; I've been having some writer's block lately and I really want to make these chapters as good as possible before publishing! This story is still super close to my heart. Enjoy!
Just apply pressure to his chest. It'll be fine. It has to be fine. This kind of thing doesn't actually happen to us, to me.
He has a person he's not allowed to leave, a little person. Our little person.
He has to know. This baby needs him. I need him.
"You can't leave, Vincent, b-because you're going to be a father."
"I-I love our baby, and I love you too. I don't-don't want to leave you."
Cam's eyes fluttered opened, eyelashes clinging with tears while her hazy mind pondered her latest dream. It was the most familiar, most crushing recount of when she, Brennan, and Booth had tried to save Vincent. Everytime she would relieve the strain of holding his life in their hands, and then having to watch it fade away. All of the withholding actions she was hiding behind that day had come back to crush her, leaving her pregnant, heartbroken, and alone.
Sometimes, Cam's brain would conjure up scenarios of things happening diffrerently: if she had the strength to tell him she was pregnant, what his reaction would've been, how he would've proposed to her, what their wedding could've been like, or how he would've felt on Aida's fateful birthday. The series of hypotheticals only managed to push her to complete emotional and physical strain, rehashing the intense fear, regret, and sorrow that defined that day.
The whole thing hadn't felt fair or right, but she of course was aware that the world didn't operate in that way. It would take whatever it felt like, regardless of the circumstances. She had dealt with these tragedies hundreds of times at work, but each time they had been removed from her either through time or personal distance.
These various thoughts and nightmares had plagued her when she had been pregnant, but they were much more intense and vivid now due to her freshened grief and lack of sleep. Nowadays, all her body really had the energy for was sleeping. Physically, it certainly needed the rest, but mentally she longed to be removed from the feelings of her numb heart. When not sleeping, she was also desperate for the distractions of work. Away from home, her mind would become easily cluttered by their caseload and would be too stuffed to consider her shortcomings as a mother to a newborn. But of course, having a two-month-old baby certainly complicated both of those desires.
Sitting up with the fresh ache in her chest, Cam tried to mentally calculate how many hours of sleep she had managed, but she couldn't really be certain since she woke up so many times a night. As Angela forebode, Aida would usually wake up several times a night with Cam and Michelle taking turns on who would attempt to soothe her. Cam, however, always ended up being the most inept at doing so.
With perfect timing, Cam heard the familiar sound of Aida fussing from the nursery which woke Michelle in the process.
Michelle, who had been sleeping next to Cam, groggily sat up and rubbed her eyes. Even though there was a daybed in Aida's nursery for Michelle to sleep on, she had grown more accustomed to sleeping in Cam's bed over these past few months. When she started, she told her mother that it was simply for convenience-sake and that the daybed was uncomfortable, but Cam could suspect that it was more than that.
"Don't worry, Michelle, I'll get her." Cam offered, placing a gentle hand on Michelle's shoulder. Cam ventured out into the hallway and wearily entered the nursery. Though it used to be Michelle's old room, she had excitedly offered to give it to Aida. She painted it a soft lavender color, and had also picked out all of the furniture-save for the odds and ends Cam had saved from Vincent's apartment. Cam was very grateful that Michelle had stepped up to decorate since Cam surely didn't have the wherewithal to do so. Though, she had managed to curate the most important detail of the room which was the space above Aida's crib.
Reaching down for the fussing baby, Cam nearly lost herself in the display as she had done so quite often. In a neat frame, there was Vincent's marriage proposal that he had hurriedly scribbled on a piece of notebook paper; an attempt to organize his thoughts of what he was going to say when he proposed to Cam. It had been found in his pocket along with the engagement ring during his autopsy. There was his picture from his file with his proud, beaming smile that she had pocketed the night he died. Last but not least, there hung the only picture she had of the two of them together. It had been taken on a Founding Father's date where Vincent had drunkenly asked the bartender to take it. He kissed her cheek, holding her hand, while she smiled brightly underneath the glow of the bar lights. That carefree period of her life felt so distant now.
Thrown back into reality, she lightly rocked and burped Aida, but the intense crying persisted. She held her, arms outstretched in frustration, as if Aida was a suspect that Cam was trying to interrogate. "I just don't know what you want from me!" She said with a frustrated, hopeless tone that she had most certainly used hundreds of times. Babies were frustrating by nature, but Aida's temperament seemed to surpass normalcy. It was almost as if she knew what a tense, bitter world she had been born into.
Unfortunately, this dynamic between Cam and her daughter hadn't changed since her birth. Dr. Amber assured her that once she had Aida at home and out of the sterile ethos of the hospital, things were bound to improve. Of course it hadn't; it wasn't just Aida's strong resemblance to Vincent, but of all of the expectations she brought that Cam couldn't meet. Cam knew she had to be the strong, affectionate mother, but she couldn't even be strong for herself. She couldn't bear everyone else knowing the true extent of her weakness and lack of love for her baby, though. Her brave demeanor was the last thing she had that she could actually control.
With Aida's head resting on Cam's shoulder, she went into the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of milk from the fridge. As Cam poured out the milk into a saucepan on the stove, Michelle came out of Cam's bedroom.
"Are you sure you don't want to try breastfeeding again? I feel like we shouldn't be giving up so easily." She asked, tentatively, while sitting down at the kitchen island.
Cam tried to contain the look of exasperation off of her face while still trying to bounce Aida on her shoulder. "Trying for a whole month isn't giving up easily, Michelle, and pumping works fine."
Michelle gave a tight sigh. She could understand her mother's pain and she wanted to be considerate of it, but the dynamic was getting depressing.
Cam was responsible and mature, or at least had been, but with Aida's birth it had been replaced by a more damaged sense of self. The weight gain, pains, and hormones had been difficult, but the compounding guilt, grief, and general exhaustion was a more complicated aspect to deal with. Typically, Michelle who was full of pure love for baby sister would be left to pick up the pieces.
"Shouldn't it just be, like, in their nature though? I just feel like it would be really good for you guys if she was able to do, you know bonding-wise…"
Cam's eyes rolled upwards at this, as if she hadn't heard this talk before through several doctors and books. "The bottles work just fine, and that's all I'm going to say about." She tried to focus her attention on the warming milk, trying to divert her emotions away from yet another failure of motherhood.
Sensing the coldness in the air, Michelle stood up. "You sit down; I've got it." She turned off the stove and poured the milk in the bottle. Taking Aida in her arms, she absently realized that most girls her age were not as skilled or knowledgeable about all the chaos of postnatal hood as she had become. They were off at college having fun, not watching your mother mope around while you burp and bottle feed an infant night after night. She would have bitter periods where she resented having to do so much beyond her years, but she was not the only one dealt unfair sacrifices in this scenario.
"Any plans today?" Michelle asked, hopeful, as Cam sat down at the island.
"Brennan and Angela wanted to take me out to breakfast at the diner, actually." Cam responded with a tone of deflation.
"That's great!"
Cam nodded tightly while keeping her eyes away from Michelle. "It's just...tricky. I hate keeping up the charade."
As Aida quited, Michelle's expression grew somber. "Cam, you know you don't have to keep anything up. They're your friends; they don't want to see you beating yourself up like this. I don't want to see you beat yourself up like this."
Cam rested her face in her hands in frustration. "It's not that simple." She took a sharp intake of breath. "I'm not going to go out of my way to make them feel sorry for me. I know that they were really sympathetic after my delivery and all, but it was just too much on top of everything else. After what I did to Vincent, I'm not really sure I deserve it anyway."
"Deserve it? What on earth do you mean?" Michelle's voice was rising and it shocked both of them.
"Look, I'm tired of discussing this. I did the grief counseling before Aida was born like Sweets asked, and I'm done talking about it." Cam's voice was rising too, but in more frustration. Of course these feelings of contrition made her upset, but talking about it certainly didn't alleviate them.
"If you're saying that you deserved this happening to you, then clearly you do need to discuss it." Michelle retorted. Most of the time, she would retreat at this point in the argument considering how delicate it all was, but she felt like she had reached her breaking point. "Just because you didn't tell him about the baby sooner doesn't mean that you deserve any of this." She pressed.
Cam wasn't one to buy into the whole karma thing, but in this case it seemed to make sense to her. She didn't fully give herself to Vincent, and now this baby wouldn't give herself to Cam. "It's just not supposed to be this hard, Michelle!" Her voice was breaking now, and it threw all three of them. "And no matter how hard they try they're never going to understand that."
Michelle turned to Aida, bundled in her arms. Her previously clinched face had softened, allowing one to admire her captivating features. "I want you to at least take Aida with you to breakfast."
"Michelle, no-"
"Just do this for me, please? The two of us staying inside almost all day, everyday is depressing enough, but how do you think she feels?" Michelle almost added if she ever thought about how Aida ever felt, but she held back the comment.
Cam looked into Michelle's eyes, sensing the urgency and pleading. Her own fatigue and anxiety was evident in her daughter's face. Her drained emotions were clearly pulling other people down, but could a note of "get well soon" encouragement really did that deep? Could anyone or anything?